Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Gnawsome (adj):
Something that is both gnarly and awesome.

Re: Pop Music that Doesn't Suck

One of the best bands in Southern Ontario right now:


Monday, November 14, 2011

Frozen Over, First In Line

Does anyone else have a favourite T-shirt? I do.

Mine is my Descendents "All" shirt. I've had it for a few years now and it's pretty worn in. There a few pretty bad bleach stains and the logo is peeling pretty bad in some places, but I still wear it all the time anyways. I (obviously) associate it with how much I love the band and putting it on always gives me a nice "homey" feeling. People always ask me if All is my favourite Descendents album when I wear and it's definitely not (Everything Sucks, c'mon people). The main reason I bought it is because it was the only brightly coloured shirt they had in their store at the time (I don't wear black very much, I like to stick out). I also like it because All was the first LP I ever bought and have since become a "record collector" (In that I buy records when I have money, but still have a pretty modest collection).

Anyways, I figured it wouldn't be completely uncommon for people to have a favourite article of clothing. I'm going to throw up some of my favourite memories I've in this shirt because this is the most self-interested blog on the face of the earth. Also, maybe people can relate to it a little bit if they have favourite shit as well.

I'm pretty sure this was the first time I ever wore the shirt, but it was around 3 years ago so my memory is a little hazy. The girl I was seeing at the time came to visit me for a night in Guelph. She had friends in town who were having a party that night so we figured we would swing by quickly. We showed up and were immediately out of place. The theme for the party was "dress classy" so everybody was in suits and pretty fancy dresses. We, in contrast, were in a Descendents t-shirt and a tank top. It was pretty adorable.

I wore the shirt to the second of blink-182's two shows in Toronto during their reunion tour. I knew everyone in the band were huge Descendents fans (you can't listen to Dude Ranch and not think "Side 2 of I Don't Want To Grow Up") so I figured I might get a few compliments from old blink fans. Man, I'm a idiot. I did have a dream that Mark saw me in the crowd and complimented me on it after the show though.

I also wore the shirt when I went to go see The Bouncing Souls and Off With Their Heads in Guelph two years ago. That was a really fun show and the start to a really fun and extremely drunk weekend. Cool beans man.

Two summers ago The Suicide Machines played a reunion show in Detroit. Though they've played a bunch since then, at the time we weren't sure if it was ever going to happen again. My friend Party Pat and I got our tickets and drive down, just the two of us. At the time it was the most lengthy road trip we had taken for a show. Now, to understand why this is important this is to me, you need to understand how much I love road trips. They are among my favourite things on earth. This is probably because I don't know how to drive, so I'm usually sitting shot-gun. This one was absolutely great. I also happened to be wearing my good ol' Descendents T-shirt to the show, so I had it on for the entire road trip.

I was wearing it at a Polar Bear Club show earlier this year. I was wearing it under a green plaid shirt and the singer of one of the bands on the bill wearing an All shirt under a green shirt. He came up, made note of the situation and then we geeked out about how cool it was that Chad Price is doing guest vocals on his record.

So I guess all my memories of the shirt were just times I wore it to shows? Whatever, that's pretty much my life in a nutshell anyways.