Fuck(ing) the People

Kills "No Wow"
Originally uploaded by scribecalledsteff.

I'm being a bad little music pirater and am downloading The Kills' No Wow. I'm spinning "Dead Road 7" right now, and this dirty little bassline is burrowing right into me.

The album's in stores Wednesday. I'll be buying it, but have these little groupie fantasies of buying it at the concert and scoring an autograph. With these guys? Never going to happen.

Nonetheless, I have a big ol' mushy soft spot for the Kills. They got me loving music again.

I have no freaking idea how I managed to download their anthemic "Fuck the People," but it somehow invaded my harddrive, and then made the all-important auto-sync jump into my bad little 'POD.

How long it languished there, unheard, is beyond me. But I remember when the languishing ended.

It was a November day: bitter wind, relentless rain. People's faces were as pissy as the weather. It wasn't a day for people. Just for burying them. Funereal.

I don't recall exactly what I'd been thinking. Probably wondering why I'd never seen a "death by umbrella" on the big screen. Maybe wondering if I should begin popularizing the act then and there with my own umbrella and the so-called innocent bystanders.

And then up spun "Fuck the People." Thus began a very happy consort.

I don't know what else to say. I dig the dirty lo-fi sexuality that is the Kills. I don't see a lot of it pulled off so tenaciously in music. I totally think they're posers, as much as I love 'em, with their whole bad-ass, too-cool-for-you vibe, but that's as old as rock'n'roll and when it's done well, man, it's a thing of beauty. For now, they're awesome and fun.

Eventually it'll wear off for me. But they'll probably be dead by then. That's the flipside to the apathetic fuck-you mentality they clasp onto: They might just mean it. If they do, and if they are the raving heroin addicts I suspect they are, I think their use-by date won't last a decade.

And that would suck, but really, what can you do? It is what it is. Just cover the track marks for the concert, and I'll be fine. Bring on the gig.