I AVOIDED Tegan and Sara for the longest time—their artsy electropop was just a little too precious for me—but they won me over last year for two reasons. First, their album Sainthood was the best thing I’ve heard them do. Songs like “Sentimental Tune,” “Someday” and “Arrow” combined their flair for smart and earnest lyrics with a real emotional punch. It was one of my favorite records of 2009, for sure. Second, when NOFX released their hilarious, self-deprecating single “Creeping Out Sara” (in which NOFX leader Fat Mike recalls the true story of meeting her at a festival and asking a bunch of idiotic, non-PC questions about drugs and sex), the sisters seemed to actually get the joke. Some self-righteous T&S fans certainly didn’t. Typical was Mia Jones posting on the site afterellen.com: “The boys that form the band NOFX have done the unthinkable and attacked our community at its very core—they made a song dissing Tegan and Sara.” Really? Come on now. The sisters and Fat Mike apparently discussed at length how the song’s non-dis had been twisted into a dis by fans and the media, but publicly, Tegan just put out a single tweet that referenced the song’s suggestion that she might be the cooler one of the duo: “nofx + t/s = lots of email/texts/blogs/phone calls. i think punk in drublic is a great record. we r lesbians. sara was creeped. i AM cooler.” Brilliant.
Streetlight Records
Friday, 2pm (free), before opening for PARAMORE at HP Pavilion
