Sunday, October 19, 2014

I'd Be Sure Not To Change At All

Last night I went to go see Less Than Jake on their current Canadian tour. Given their recent full-length See the Light, which I wasn't impressed with, I went into the show with a few reservations. It had been a long time since I had been to a ska show, let alone one in Toronto (the last ones I can remember going to were some lackluster Big D and the Kids Table and Streetlight Manifesto ones), so I was really unsure about how the show would be.

The Interrupters were the first opening band and the extent of my knowledge of them was that they recently signed to Hellcat. As soon as they started the entire crowd rushed down and immediately started skanking then didn't stop for the entire set, which really warmed my heart. The band was super tight and all great at their instruments, but they did leave a little to be desired. And their lyrics were super bad. But seeing all of the kids go nuts for them immediately brought me back to when I was that kid and dancing for the entire set.

The rest of the bands were amazing and the energy in the building was fucking stupid (Big D played "Myself", "Checklist" and "LAX" all in a row!) (I crossed three more songs off of my "Songs I Need To See Less Than Jake Play Live" checklist! Including "Anchor"!), but what really got to me was being back in the Toronto ska scene and thinking about the effect that it's had on my life.

In  Kitchener the music scene is directed much more towards hardcore, in all of its forms, than anything else and the only ska band in the area is The Bosswich. As a result, there isn't much of a ska scene there at all and no bigger bands ever tour through the town (Not that bigger bands of any genre ever really tour through the area to begin with). Because of this, I've felt like an anomaly and a bit of an outsider in the town, being the only ska fan there. It's not like I'm the only person there who listens to ska bands, lots of people listen to a select few (You really gonna front that Operation Ivy isn't one of the best bands of all-time? What do you think about The Clash's ska songs?), but I'm certainly the only person whose main identifier is "ska fan".

Because of this, I've noticed certain differences between hardcore and ska scenes and also those who grew up participating in each. Something I've certainly noticed is that there is an innate sense of elitism in hardcore. Everybody listens to something better than you, more obscure than you and everybody looks down on you for something, whatever it may be. Case in point is everyone in Kitchener looking down their nose at me for listening to ska . Sure, I know that they are mostly doing it in jest and I know that it's not at all a sign of them not liking me, but it certainly is based in a very real feeling of how much the music I like sucks.

This is something that I never encountered in ska. Sure, last night I saw a guy in a fedora and a bow tie, but for the most part it's just people like me and they have always proved to be much more accepting than other music scene I've been a part of.

For example, last night I wore my mu330 shirt that I purchased during their run of shows in Canada for the first time in while in 2013.  My thinking was having a rarer shirt from a more obscure band at the show would prompt people to compliment me on it, or at least notice it. You know how many people did? 0. Nobody gave a fuck what I was wearing.

Because of this, I think that the ska scene was really instrumental in me becoming the person I am and also my outlook on life. Earlier yesterday, my dad was talking about how he and his friends used to go downtown on weekends to roam around Yonge St, similar to what my friends and I did, with his mom worrying loads about him. I'm sure the same thing happened with my mom, actually definitely happened with my mom. But while she probably thought I was getting drunk at shows and staying out late, in reality I was in a very safe environment and had something really productive to go and do. Also, it directly led to me playing bass more and playing in bands, which has been a huge creative outlet in my life.

Mostly, I find that everyone who gives ska a bad rap are people who have never been exposed or involved in a scene in any way.

And fuck that. It's been real important to me.

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