I, Musical Genius: Soon We'll Have Nothing Left To Show

I find that traveling really is the best time for listening to music. If I'm going anywhere in Toronto I always have my headphones in because I don't want to deal with the people that are on our public transit and I'm generally leaving the east end alone to meet people downtown. Obviously if I'm going somewhere outside of the city I also listen to music because it is a somewhat lengthy trip no matter where you're going.

But yea, traveling is totally the best time to listen to music because listening to music is pretty much the only thing you are doing other than remembering to get off at the right subway stop. It isn't putting on an album while you surf Facebook, or half-listening to something while you watch Shawn Camp give up six earned runs in the third inning. At least in my experience, it's listening to music and that's it. You give an album you full attention and pick up on every little part of the recording and take the entire thing in. I like music a lot, so traveling also becomes one of my favourite times.

A good example of this recently was on my way to Pouzza Fest. We listened to Fucked Up's David Comes To Life on the drive up. The scenario was ideal because Fucked Up is a band that puts a crazy amount of effort into their songs and also just a crazy amount of different parts to each song. Like fucking 4 different vocal tracks, I can't even count how many guitar tracks on each song. But when you're driving up the 401 to Quebec, you're able to notice these things and fully appreciate them.

That rules.

Also, go buy that Fucked Up record. It's fucking crazy and genius. I can't imagine how they actually put these incredibly complex songs together.

But I was kind of thinking this today because I took the TTC (Toronto public transit, for the 1 random person that doesn't know me personally reading this who may not know what I'm talking about.) to and from a game of pick-up baseball and really fucking liked the albums I was listening to. It was also really hot today, which also added to that enjoyment.

TIMMY'S 2011 SUMMER JAMS.

4 SONGS FROM ALBUMS THAT I LISTENED TO ON THE BUS TODAY.

I put Hostage Calm on because I like playing the intro track to Lens "In So Many Words..." on acoustic guitar. Now I really, really like the direction that Hostage Calm has taken recently (I won't really go into it now, I sort of touched on it here.), but I realized after I got to about the 3rd track today that Lens is probably one of my top 5 favourite hardcore records ever. It was one that I listened to a ton when I was really big into the genre and I hadn't given it a good listen in a while. Turn up your speakers as loud as they can go and try to tell me that you don't want to be in a pile on yelling "TUNED OUT!". The album is really just front to back bangers and never lets up in its intensity.

I knew at some point today I was going to have to listen to African Elephants by Dead To Me because of how nice the weather was. I got that album right at the start of last summer and immediately thought that it was the perfect music for the season. Not even just the island-influenced songs like "X" or "California Sun" but also every song on it (Save for the atrocious closer "Blue" which I skip every listen.) is perfect for warm weather and sunshine. I'm seriously starting to think that it might be the best summer music around.

I was also wearing my Set Your Goals shirt today and was reminded by it that Mutiny! is also a great summer record. I've gotten really turned off by the band recently and pretty much couldn't care less about their future output, but their debut EP and first full-length are fucking incredible and hit the bullseye in terms of mixing hardcore and pop-punk. So many terrible bands have formed trying to do what this record does, but it doesn't change that it fucking rules. This will always be my favourite Set Your Goals song. MAWSH.