Tegan and Sara/Apple Store/Oct. 16, 2004

You know you've seen Tegan and Sara more than your fair share when you can start telling them apart. Tegan's face is just a tad more crisp and angular. Sara's got just a smidgen more softness. I don't know if I can tell their voices apart, though. They trade off singing lead and harmonies. Sometimes their whine sounds like Tom Petty's, all, awawawawawaw, she's an American geh-rrrlll. Othertimes it's just like throwing darts at cotton balls, Stevie Nicks-style.

While I have deep respect for all sorts of complicated machinery oriented musicians, I hold a special place in my heart for the rough and tumble types who could just easily play their show on a street corner. Tegan and Sara are like that. Even though Tegan joked, "We play a lot of boardrooms," and they probably do (they were playing some weird closed-to-the-public CMJ thing that night), they have been those kids on the corner spitting shit in their sisterhood cypher. And they could do it again in a second.

Speaking of sisterhood and cypherhood, T&S could seriously have a second career as comedians. They have some of the consistently best stage banter of any performers I know, and I don't mean that hyperbolically. They have this twin power activate comic timing and they just riff off of each other. I've seen them many times and I've never heard the same story or joke twice. I truly think they are winging it. They could own the Borscht Belt. Or at least the Hummus Belt. Jabs during the Apple showcase included bits on how Sara is passive aggressive when she doesn't like something, and wouldn't come right out and tell Tegan that she didn't like her "early 90s jeans." It really doesn't sound that funny when I write it. But it was, trust me.

They added a new member to their cozy crew. A guy named Ted. Don't really understand his purpose as of yet. All three were playing guitar. He picked up an egg and shook it around a few times. In their real show maybe he does more?

I haven't picked up T&S's latest record "So Jealous" yet, but they played a bunch of new songs from it. My favorite is the one called "Walking with the Ghost," which has this nice jagged guitar line and is very 80s, very Tubes.

Their site has lots of great Mp3 downloads. Go forth and prosper. And Tegan and Sara? Cuter than...let's make that 20 pounds of fuck kitten in a ten-pound bag. Just might entice Amy Phillips to hitch up with the Michigan's Womyn's Festival this summer. Or not.