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Noise of the world
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I’m sitting with Montreal’s noisy neighbours AIDS Wolf at Miami, the sleaziest dive on the Main—actually, scratch that, because that would be the Midway on lower St-Laurent but it’s too early in the day for even a barfly like me to try to stomach it. A pairing of faux brick and gaudy hot pink fills the walls as the smell of raw sewage seeps out from the bathroom. Please excuse my cheap journalistic metaphor here, but AIDS Wolf’s sonic assault is even uglier, more vile, more negative and way more fucked up on the senses than even our weird environs can inflict. Their third full-length, Cities of Glass, is being launched this week, and it hits like a ton of bricks. To the uninitiated, AIDS Wolf’s music can come across as a bunch of noise, but the twin guitars sound as if they’re just about to careen off of the rails, the pounding drums keep things in check while contributing a form to their blast, and the possessed banshee wail of Chloe Lum strikes death from above. Their upcoming show is bittersweet as longtime guitarist Andre Guerette will be leaving the band within a couple of weeks, on the cusp of the band releasing their crowning achievement. Although Guerette will stay with the band in a managerial capacity, his increased involvement with local promoters Blue Skies Turn Black has made being in a touring band simply impossible. In the wings is guitarist Alex Moskos, of Goa and the Unireverse, currently being put through boot camp, trying to find the order in the complex, chaotic and unbridled guitars. “We actually have been filming all of the guitar parts and then burning them on DVD, and then Alex learns them that way,” says Guerette. “I’ve always liked the band a lot,” says new recruit Moskos, “and I’ve really wanted to start playing guitar again. I’ve known Chloe for years and it’s a great opportunity to be able to tour as much as these guys do.” Harangued in the Holy LandTouring has always been a big part of the band, with numerous tours paying off for AIDS Wolf by breaking ground and creating a fanbase of likeminded people worldwide who dig their misanthropic rock—er, weird punk. Having already clocked quite a few miles in the U.S. and Europe, the band recently found themselves with a week of shows in the unlikely locale of Israel. “All of the cities were about an hour from each other,” says Lum, “so we were able to spend a lot of time on the beach and swim all day while just staring at these hot-looking people. The shows were pretty well-received because half the people were knowledgeable about the scene that we’re in, and the other half just showed up because we were a Western rock band.” “We did one show at an art school in Jerusalem that was pretty cool,” says Guerette. “When we finished playing our last song, we could hear this woman screaming in Hebrew out her window across the street from the place we played. We later found out at an interview at the radio station from the DJ who was at the show that she was screaming ‘Die, die, die’ over and over again at us.” CD LAUNCH WITH GUESTS INDIAN
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