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Music

Postcard from NYC

MOLDY PEACHES opening for
the STROKES at the Horseshoe
(370 Queen West), Tuesday (October 2).
Free. 416-598-4753. Rating: NNNNN


when i picked up the moldyPeaches’ self-titled debut last month, the most striking thing about the whole DIY-style package was the Peaches’ slapdash way of making witty and memorable pop tunes. Kooky cut-ups like Who’s Got The Crack and Downloading Porn With Davo were the obvious standouts. Admittedly, I didn’t take much notice of the album’s second-last track until just recently.

But in one history-altering flash, the New York-based Moldy Peaches’ gripe about their difficulty meeting people in their home city, fatefully titled NYC’s Like A Graveyard, took on a whole new weight.

So what do the Peaches do? Clearly, the song was written and recorded long before the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, but then again, leaving the song on the album could be perceived as insensitive.

Their friends in the Strokes — who are managed by the same 23-year-old whiz kid, Ryan Gentles — have decided to delay the North American release of their Is This It (BMG) album in order to replace the potentially contentious track New York City Cops. But the Peaches don’t feel self-censorship is the right move in their case.

“We’ve been asked by our distributor if we were going to take the song off the record,” allows bunny-eared singer Kimya Dawson, “and I definitely wouldn’t want to remove it.

“To me, it’s fine if people read things into that song and think, “Wow, that’s prophetic’ or whatever,” elaborates guitar-strumming co-founder Adam Green, “but everyone should know the song wasn’t written after all this happened. We definitely don’t want anyone to think we’re making light of a very serious and sad situation.”

Of course, the other decision they’ll need to make is whether to perform the song on the current tour. The anti-folk scenesters concede that it may be too touchy a subject to broach in front of a New York audience while particles of plaster, glass and steel still hang heavy in the air.

“We’re definitely not going to play it at our first few shows,” insists Green.

“There are six people in our band now,” continues Dawson, “and we agreed that if there’s one person who doesn’t feel right about playing it, we won’t.

“We went through it once at rehearsal the other day, and it made me very uncomfortable to sing those words. I know I’d feel awkward doing it in New York, but maybe if we tried it someplace far away people might take it more like a statement about what happened to our home.”

timp@nowtoronto.com

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