by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“We skipped over Montreal last time, and that sucks,” says Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi, recalling the omission on their 2003 tour itinerary. “It’s a good town. The city of Montreal deserves us.”

Our fair city first got its due back in the fall of 2001, when Strokes hype was peaking. Their show at Cabaret was way sold out (as is this weekend’s gig), and nothing if not hella fun. Sure, the band was a little smug, but I was more taken aback by singer Julian Casablancas’ creepy baby face. “He’s a child!” I practically shrieked. Turns out that not only is he the same age as me, but he’s the oldest member of the band.

I also remember being awe-struck by Albert Hammond Jr.’s rock ’n’ roll guitar work, which resonated with an intricacy and power beyond their record. And that’s saying a lot, because Is This It was a genuinely great piece of work. Call it derivative, but a revival of that New York City sound, following in the footsteps of the Velvet Underground and Television, was an oasis during rock ’n’ roll’s turn-of-the-millennium dry spell.

But things have changed. The little renaissance that the Strokes helped to launch never quite nailed the mainstream the way alt-rock did in the ’90s, but it facilitated the ascension of some great bands, and other mediocre imitators. The Strokes hype diminished, but the music mags and U.K. tabloids faithfully relight the flame with every album, celebrity girlfriend or drunken escapade. But the quality of their music, on 2003’s Room on Fire and this year’s First Impressions of Earth, has steadily fizzled.

The recent replacement of producer Gordon Raphael with David Kahne, whose credits include Sugar Ray, Sublime and Cher, may have something to do with this.

“He was a lot more technical in the studio than our previous producer, more of a perfectionist,” says Valensi. “He wanted it to sound really professional, and so did we, in a way. We definitely wanted to make a bigger record.”

Hopefully the Strokes still have a better record in them. Valensi says the band is writing on the road, something they haven’t done before.

“We all travel with our acoustic guitars and we inevitably end up playing late at night in the back lounge of the tour bus,” he says, but don’t hold your breath for that new material—really, you’ll suffocate. “Taking a song from two acoustic guitars at five in the morning to stage-ready, that’s a long way away.”

This should at least assuage fans who may have questioned the band’s future after reading Spin’s review of First Impressions, in which Jon Dolan predicted it would be their last album.

“Yeah, well, I would assume they’re wrong,” says an annoyed Valensi, who repeats the prediction to drummer Fab Moretti.

“That was Spin’s last issue, wasn’t it? You know, Fab, everybody at Spin magazine got fired and they hired a whole new staff of writers and editors. [This is true—the magazine was bought by Hartle Media in February.] I think that issue was one of their last ones. So who’s laughin’ now, bitches?”

Time will tell.

With guests at CEPSUM on Sunday, May 7, 8 p.m., all ages, sold out

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