Since the last Erase Errata post on Canada Day, I found out the band had lost their guitarist and gained a new album. Nightlife represents a break of sorts from their earlier work; it’s no longer quite so willfully obtuse and caustic, and far fewer people will be inclined to label them “pure noise” on first listen. For those of you in love with Erase Errata for their spastic, off-kilter ways, Nightlife may not be the sort of evolution you want to hear. Upon first listen, I thought Erase Errata had lost the plot they’d perfected on At Crystal Palace. “Owls” was Erase Errata at its apex: loud, aggressive and menacing.

Well, as it turns out, Nightlife has some menace in it as well, if you look for it. “Tax Dollar” is the catchiest song Erase Errata has ever done, its sonic acrobatics oddly tuneful, almost—dare I say it?—hummable? And yet there’s no mistaking Jenny Hoyston’s intent: “Murder with your tax dollars!” isn’t exactly an invitation to a Sunday afternoon tea party. It’s not quite the Erase Errata you used to know, but they still pack a punch.

Okay, so here’s how it all works out. Nous Non Plus are a self-described faux French band—”French” in that the lyrics French and play a quasi-retro power-pop sound that’s vaguely reminiscent of French garage, and “faux” in that they all live in New York, affect fake French accents occasionally, and have delightfully cheesy French stage names like Jean-Luc Retard and Celine Dijon. That’s a lot of faux in there. And to make things even weirder, Nous Non Plus used to be Les Sans Culottes. The story of their dissolution is told in a Slate article written by Monsieur Retard, but to make a long story short: the band decided to kick their leader, Clermont Ferrand, out; leader retaliated with lawsuit over rights to the band name; presiding judge experiences mixture of bewilderment and frustration as the aggrieved bandleader makes his case. When it becomes clear to the rest of the band that their estranged singer will cost them far more in legal fees than the name is worth, they decide that in order to stay true to their fake French roots, they must surrender. The name, that is.

The heady days of revolution and courtroom drama behind them, Nous Non Plus have settled down and left the old regime behind, content to tell the tale of the Ferrand affair every once in a while like an old war story. Which is fine, because honestly, you tell that story one too many times and it starts to sound canned—you know, like when your best buddy tells you that story again of how they totally got drunk that one night and crashed a shopping cart through the window of the 24-hour drug store, or when music journalists run out of good ledes and resort to stealing stuff from the band’s bio and webpages to fill space. Yeah, like that.

Anyways, who needs stories when you have faux-French garage pop? Seriously, you could run the world on this stuff, it’s that potent. Rot the teeth of every five-year-old in the nation, it’s that sweet. And oh so cute to boot? I surrender!

So, YouTube. Man, did that come out of nowhere. As an internet phenomenon, it ranks right up there with Blogger and Napster. Metafilter is full of YouTube links now, and suddenly people are watching video in greater quantities than before. And perhaps the biggest sign of YouTube’s importance? In hindsight, YouTube’s development and popularity seems inevitable. When you consider how people watched internet video before—messing with codecs, upgrading Quicktime and Windows Media, loading their computers with spyware-infested codec packs, dealing with different forms of streaming and saving files to disk and the list goes on—it’s amazing that we put up with that for so long when we could’ve had neat little Flash applets to do the job instead. Not long ago I wouldn’t have trusted Flash to do video at all, having struggled to put together a proper UI for a class project involving Flash-encapsulated video. But here we are.

And now that people don’t have to think about how to upload video, or what codecs they need to play video, we’ve reached the point where people just watch video on the internet without a second thought. Case in point: both Pitchfork and Stylus put up their top 100 music videos list, an article that would’ve been woefully inadequate two years ago but makes perfect sense today, now that it’s easy to embed videos straight into the page. Yes, snarky commentary and the video in real-time—what a wonderful world we live in. But the real benefit for music videos isn’t that Pitchfork can now tear them apart with vigor; it’s that bands who would never have gotten coverage on MuchMusic or MTV can now be video stars as well.

Today’s example: the Pipettes, a trio from Britain backed by a mysterious four-piece band called the Cassettes.

The album is currently available only as an import, but it’s in the running as my favourite album of the year. And all because of a little video someone put on YouTube. (Which was promptly found by Pitchfork, I won’t lie.)

The blog departed for hiatus with a breakup post… and now returns with another breakup post.

Looks like my slim hopes of ever seeing Cadeaux live have been dashed for good; with the departure of the band’s drummer, Cadeaux are officially no more. Said drummer has joined up with far more successful You Say Party! We Say Die!, a band I actually have seen in concert (an all-ages show with Pretty Girls Make Graves at Mesa Luna—bad news, that venue), and Dani Vachon’s already their manager, so I guess the pseudo-merging of personnel isn’t that surprising.

Following the careers of the various Operation Makeout alumni has given me a bit of insight into their particular facet of the Vancouver scene, and so I know all these broken bands and one-off albums are like fertile compost for the next band, the one to launch everyone into superstardom—or at least a bigger tour van and a cross-country tour where the audiences at least know your songs. I look forward to the next volley from the fine folks of Cadeaux and Operation Makeout.

P.S. Hi guys! I have returned from the dead!