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My Bloody Valentine's Day

Just as the band’s 1988 debut, Isn’t Anything (Creation), kick-started the shoegazer movement, My Bloody Valentine’s 1991 watershed second album, the long-labored Loveless (Sire/Creation), all but reinvented guitar rock. The band’s music represented an equilibrium-challenging assault of crushingly loud feedback and distortion that, against the odds, eschewed cacophony for the ethereal. Creation Records’ founder and chief, Alan McGee, sunk everything he had into the band and, when he failed to recoup the investment, nearly bankrupted the label and sent the band into a tailspin in the process. Rumors of what happened next to MBV maestro Kevin Shields run the typical gamut of rock-lore. It’s been tipped that Shields has recorded a few albums’ worth of material though none up to snuff for the sonic perfectionist. Regardless of the rumors, there’s still no follow-up to Loveless some 15 years after its release (though My Bloody Valentine has never officially disbanded). This week some of Buffalo’s finest bands, from the shoegazey-inspired sounds of La Cacahouette (pictured) to the electronic dance pastiche of Sleeping Kings of Iona, get together to pay tribute to Shields and company. Besnyo and Otis and the Rufis round out the bill for a show on (when else?) Valentine’s Day at the Mohawk Place.

Tuesday, February 14 at 9pm. Mohawk Place, 47 E. Mohawk St. (855-3931). $5