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Rahul Gupta

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AIDS Wolf, Coathangers, festivals (5), Matt & Kim, music (50), NXNE (6), Sneaky Dee's (2), Whippersnapper Gallery

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At eight pm, a live music venue is usually deserted.

Not so for Matt & Kim’s eagerly-awaited set at Whippersnapper Gallery.

For 35 minutes, the Brooklyn duo, keyboardist Matt Johnson and drummer Kim Schifino, offered up tasty nuggests of indie dance rock to approximately 75 lucky souls who squeezed into the undersized venue.

The band made good on their promise to have a “Friday night Toronto dance party” despite Kim being under the weather (read: explosive diarrhea) after bad Thai food. Hot and sweaty good fun.

Next stop was Sneaky Dee’s for a rowdy, rollicking set from inked-up Atlanta quartet The Coathangers. The grrls made an impression with their Clash-meets-Bikini Kill dancefloor stomps, proving that angry music always goes down a little easier with a little sweetness. And bunny ears.

With a name like AIDS Wolf, you know you’re not getting anything middle-of-the-road. The Montreal noise-rock experimentalists have deservedly earned their reputation as one of Canada’s most notorious live acts. They did not disappoint. Frontwoman Chloe a.k.a Special Deluxe strangled herself with her microphone cord as her band mates pummeled their instruments with the ferocity of cavemen.

Clad in a Black Flag t-shirt, she took after Henry Rollins by provoking and confronting unsuspecting spectators, while using the assembled photogs as props to lean on while she fellated her microphone.

As she waded further into the crowd, she infected spectators with the slam-dance virus. Meanwhile her bandmates churned out sounds approximating a 747 taking off five feet away. Ear-blistering awesomeness.