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Bad Flirt

Bad Flirt

I’ve seen Bad Flirt in many forms. I first saw them when it was just Jasamine and her lightning strap guitar strumming nervously to a house-party with 30 people in it, then I saw them play a noisy bar two years later, where no one was listening but I was delighted with their progress. Then I saw them most recently play a quiet underground pub in New York, us both happening to have visited from Montreal in late spring of this year. They played a pink and calm set, and they had just begun this summer’s tour, and word has it that they sang and played their hearts out down the eastern US. I spoke with Evan Dubinsky (keyboards) earlier this week about the new album.

Bad Flirt

He described the album rather mysteriously, as it’s still months away from being finished, but alluded to a “dichotomy of styles”, a mash of indie aesthetics (the ones who listen to Panda Bear in the tour van) and hardcore kids (the Megadeth, Battles, Queens of the Stone Age fans). I can’t speculate as to how that would sound, but if “Heart of Darkness” is any indication (and it ought to be, it’s the only track released so far), the dichotomy is more harmonious than conflicting. In fact, part of me is kind of rooting for the hardcore kids to win a bit more on the rest of the album.

Bad Flirt

Now, I’m not the only one who has spoken with Bad Flirt about this album, I’m in the company of Mary-Kate and Ashley.com and that brings me to the most sentimental reason for liking this band. A friend of mine joined Bad Flirt just this year, and has been a fan of the Olsen Twins her entire life. And I use fan in its original and expanded sense: fanatic. Like, owns every straight-to-video, every calendar, every roll of Bubble Tape with their face on it. And about 3 weeks after she joined the band, Mary-Kate and Ashley “picked” Bad Flirt as their “new favourite band”. They put a song on their official “mixtape” which I think you can get in Wal-Marts or something, and have their pictures and interviews all over their site. And this coincidence, to see the pure joy and unadulterated closed-eye contentment on my friend’s face after this, makes the music better (like “yeah, this IS the Olsen Twins’ favourite, of course!”) makes the Twins a bit better, makes life a little bit better. So, M-K and Ash, if you’re reading, just take the band out to dinner, you can retire after that.

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