Last night I headed over to the Mike's Place to see the band of ex-Solstice Coiler Aaron Lieber, Behind the Sun, perform after a very long time. (side note: BTS are currently working an album, which is produced by our own Shai Yallin, so stay tuned for that.) Now, don't get confused by the title - Behind the Sun are a really cool band, and I went to see them expecting to have a good time. Little did I know of the horror that was about to be bestowed upon me.

 When I arrived, I had a quick chat with some BTS members who informed me that there was actually another band scheduled to play before them. "They're called the Corridors," I was told by Nir, the guy in charge of this new line (contact him if you're a band looking for somewhere to perform), "they sound sort of like Placebo." Now, I'm no big fan of Placebo, but when I learned that Hezi Abrass, an excellent bass player from the solid alternative rock band Deadwood was also the bass player of this band, it calmed my concerns a bit.

That's when I was introduced to Adi Mosko's nasally, annoyingly monotonic out-of-pitch voice. Sometimes bad singers can hide behind a good arrangement, but Mosko decided, for some reason, to avoid this clever tactic and instead engaged in an isolated flu-induced whine-fest, with only his guitar to support him. It was at that moment that I started getting flashbacks from Vietnam. Now, I've never been to Vietnam, let alone participated in the Vietnam War, as I was born seven years after it had ended, so you can understand how intense my pain was.

 The band kicked in, but it was already too late. Being a trio, The Corridors failed to provide Mosko's disgusting voice with any kind of sufficient cover fire. Mosko's guitar playing is not nearly as bad as his singing, but it is bland and devoid of any vividness. The drummer sounded like a standard drum machine (you know, without the keeping the beat steady part), and he played the same drum fills over and over again, which were particularly audible due to the band's poor balance. Abrass's playing was professional, though quite imaginative, and I expected much more from him.

 Charlie on your six!  Charlie on your six! Johnson, get the hell out of there! I'm not leaving you behind, damn it! I can't let it happe...

 Whoops. Sorry. Another one of those flashback thingies. Anyway, I think you get the point. The concert was about 50 minutes long, but it felt 50 years long. Every time I thought they were finished, there came another dull, uninspired melody-vacuumed song. Eventually I came to realize that they don't sound anything like Placebo. It's a lot worse: they sound like the Smashing Pumpkins. Although, as much as I detest Billy Corgan's Power-Rangers-Villain-esque voice, at least he knows how to perform. Mosko's terrible Israeli accent stood out throughout the concert, but it was particularly embarrassing when he failed to pronounce his own band's name, labellng them as "The Curidurs". He did that, btw, when introducing the band on the tenth song, saying that "If you hadn't realize this by now, we're The Curidurs." Were we supposed to recognize you, or something? Is your name implied by your horrible playlist and bad performance? Well, it is from now on, at in my book.

By the time they had finished, I was so completely tapped out, I couldn't really listen to any more music. In fact, I started associating music with horrible things like the Vietnam War and baby seals being run over by monster trucks (much like Malcolm McDowell's experience in A Clockwork Orange, only far worse), so I only stayed for a few songs by Behind the Sun. Sorry guys! Catch you next time. Hopefully, next time I would read the final print before making the mistake and arriving on time.

 Now, to be fair - while writing this amazingly constructive, brutally honest and completely unprejudiced (if I don't say so myself) review, I listend to The Cooraders' recordings on MySpace. It does sound much better than it sounded live. The recording is clear, the instruments are played well and the arrangements are pretty solid. Mosko is even masked as a relatively okay nasal-based singer by the production. But it's still utter and completely unimaginative standardized stale crap.

 On a lighter note, in hopes that it will bring me out of my post traumatic syndrome, here is a sketch of the comics by Quarkcat. We do love her so.