Always sucks when one of your fave bands kinda breaks up and then one goes off and forms another band and you’re all, like, ‘Should I stay with dad or with mum? Who’s got the better bedroom?’

It’s kinda how I feel about the Nervous Wreckords, the new band from Louis XIV’s Brian Karscig.

Louis XIV
I have a huge, squidgy soft spot for 70s alt-rockers Louis XIV, who hail from San Diego, though I’m not really sure why. I met and saw them for the first time back in Feb 2008 when Louis XIV opened up for The Editors here in Vancouver. Fell in love with their cheeky rock, scruffy beards and stylin’ waistcoats. They’re great live, too.

Ended up bumping into guitarist/vocalist Brian at the back by the bar that night. He was hammered and blathering and told me that he’d wanted everything to be perfect but had to apparently tear a strip off singer Jason Hill for some imperceptible on-stage minor blunder…then he asked me out. I declined, (though I do adore him) but I dug his hat. When he grows the beard, Brian Karscig always does rock a mean Hasidic Jew look.

Hill was moping around the back of the Commodore following the show and looked like he needed a hug. He got one. I promised that the next time they were in town we’d sked a proper interview, and we did, last April, when we chatted about their newest album, Slick Dogs and Ponies.

Shagging in the Toilets
The night after the April interview and their headline show at Richards, the band were sick as dogs (Sick Dogs and Ponies?) and had been trading the same virulent strain of tourbus rot for days. Hill invited me to the bus to hang out and drink whiskey. Umm, alcohol kills bacteria right?

Post-gig, tour-bus hanging with a bunch of sick rockers is more civilized than one might expect. (Though I do recall that when one of the bandmembers came back onto the bus after a backstage/bathroom shag – can’t say who because what goes on on the road, stays on the road, but it was the bassist – KIDDING HA HA – he did get a round of applause. Then he complained that the girl’s boyfriend had rung mid-hump. 🙂

Sick Blogs and Ponies
I teased Brian about their crap blog writing on their MySpace page and offered to write them one from the night’s show to illustrate how it was done. So I did.

And it ended up on the LouisXIV MySpace page. Got the most comments, too. See if you spot the wee white lie we inserted in there.

To this day, I still help Brian navigate through the social media minefield. A few weeks ago, Brian, via his @nrvouswreckords Twitter account, said I was his “Obi-Wan” of Twitter. I use my powers for good, oh yes.

The Nervous Wreckords
Fast forward to this year, and Brian’s started his own band, The Nervous Wreckords, which came about as a side project with Anthony Saffery from Cornershop and Mark Stoermer from The Killers, whom Louis had been touring with, and some other former XIVers. Now it’s a band on its own. With other people. And a girl in it. And stuff.

The Music: a kind of 70s Elton John/Bob Dylan/Rolling Stones alt-rock pastiche and one of the songs is called “I Don’t Feel Tardy”, which earns them a medal for the use of the word “Tardy”. “Doin’ it to do it” is a enormously fun little rock song.

The EP: Nailbighter, is now available on the iTunes thing or hispeedsoul.com. Check it out on myspace.com/thenervouswreckords

The Tour: a coupla San Diego shows before Xmas but the newly formed band has been on what seems like a riotous tour, if this text message I got from Brian is anything to go by:

Shit! I’m wasted…in Seattle…this has to be my last martini”

I did a great little phone interview with Brian from the tour van a few weeks back and will link to that when it’s done. Jason Hill is apparently fine and has been gigging and producing.

Like I said, I don’t like it when mum and dad fight. But for now, I think I’m gonna stay with mum. She’s got a better beard. \m/