My introduction to this sort of thing was a bar night in Toronto called My Friends Over You (sometimes shortened to MFOY and pronounced "em-foy") that started in Toronto during the summer of 2011. I know this because my friends and I went to it all the time that summer and it became almost a ritual for us each Tuesday. As you can probably guess from the name, the night focused mostly on playing pop-punk from the early 2000's to the present. At first, this was great because it took an environment I'm normally extremely uncomfortable in, a bar night/nightclub, and made it comfortable by adding the music and atmosphere of an environment I'm very comfortable in, that being a show. But MFOY got popular pretty rapidly and pretty soon it was impossible to distinguish it from any other bar night. I recall Dave from Careers in Science at one point going to the DJ booth and putting on "Broken Things" by Attack in Black and both of us just sitting around saying "Fuck, this is such a good song." while everyone else used it as an excuse to go order drinks. Though, to be fair, I can understand not wanting to hear a song with "I'd have the strength to face you, day, if not for the broken things in my life" as its chorus while you're out drinking.
I'm not trying to say this is "you had to have been there" or a "it was better in the old days" type of scenario, as it was just a bar night and I don't know why I shouldn't have expected anything different.
At first I thought this night was an exercise in fun nostalgia, but realized halfway through the summer that it definitely wasn't, and there are two specific moments that stick out in my mind communicating that. First, I guess that when you do this night every week, the playlist starts to get a little thin. On one night during the summer the DJ played "Way Away" by Yellowcard, which is objectively a terrible song. I turned around and there was a guy my age standing on a table, just giving it and making terrible "emotional singer" faces while singing to the DJ booth.
My reaction:
Another was a time that Damien, Party Pat and I were leaving the bar to catch the subway home. While Pat was rocking a piss on the side of the bar, a couple was having a loud fight in the doorway of the bar, in front of a sizeable line of people waiting to get in and us. Both seemed like just awful people, a sort of punk "bar star" and when Pat came back to join us, yelled "WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU STARING AT US?" when we were actively trying to avoid the awkwardness of their interaction. The guy threatened to "kick all of our asses", so we just laughed at him, smoked a joint and went to buy cans of Mountain Dew.
My Friends Over You continued to be a pretty popular night out for punk subculture in Toronto for a few years until it stopped and Homesick, which is still going on, started in its place. One thing that I guess is commendable is that Homesick promotes a lot of shows in Toronto.
This past summer, Beat Noir played a show promoted by Homesick. It was us, Camper from St. Catherines and two other locals opening for Dikembe. They put us on the show without any hassle, which was cool, but they did stress that we had to have a backline and that the show had a hard cutoff at 10 PM for the "afterparty" which was a Homesick night. Now, I can understand having a hard cutoff for shows if the bar has other things planned and I can understand having an afterparty for show, but why cut the show short, and run it early when not as many people will attend, for IT'S OWN AFTERPARTY?
That doesn't seem right to me.
At the end of the show, Mark and I were loading our gear out, which can be annoying at Sneak Dee's because the venue is on the second floor of the building and carrying your amps up and down a narrow stair case suckssssssssssss. The show was sparsely attended, but as soon as the bar night started it filled right up. Like, packed. While we were tag-teaming my bass cab, two girls were paying cover and one proclaimed in an unpleasant, high-pitched voice "Oh my god! Are they playing fuckin Fall Out Boy?!" They were completely oblivious of us holding heavy stuff and while it feels really petty to complain, just get the fuck out my way while I carry this heavy and awkward object.
And, like does this girl come from some alternate universe where Fall Out Boy hasn't sold a million billion records and been the most popular rock band of the 2000's? Of course a "pop-punk" bar night is playing Fall Out Boy. Christ.
This brings up one of the biggest thing I've noticed about these nights and current punk music in general, which is that a lot of people grow out of the traditional ways of participating in and supporting scenes, that being going to shows and buying things from bands (I feel dirty typing that), and do this instead. The new way to "be punk" in Toronto is to have tattoos and wear skinny jeans and go to "punk" bar nights. I hope this doesn't sound condescending, because I'm just trying to be observational. Hell, I used to go to one of these nights all the time and I'm sure that for every two people at these nights who just go to Homesick, there is one who goes to tons of shows and supports bands. While I do think it really sucks, I've also tried to accept that this is just the way it is now.
It just seems odd to me that people apparently grow out of what I would consider to necessary aspects of being a music fan, but still try to desperately hold on to that part of their life by getting drunk at a bar and singing along to Fall Out Boy. I don't know, there's so many different thoughts I have about this whole thing and I don't want to complicate this blog post more than I already have.
So, back to Taking Back Tuesday. Apparently this was a much-hyped night, but I did not hear about it until today, its "Boxing Day". I really feel like this night and the reaction to it on its facebook event page sums up all of the things that make me not like these nights, so I will do a first for IMU and do some sort of photo/writing thing.
Slut-shaming is pretty fucking lame. Why you gotta make these girls feel bad and self-conscious about themselves? Especially when you, Jason, were presumably (this is a huge assumption on my part, but probably accurate) there to find a girl to make out with yourself? Wait, you were there "just for the music"? I'm sure. It came up in the comments that the two girls are dating to boot!
A lot of things echoed this sentiment. Hey! Get your current popular music out here and play the 10 year-old popular music I payed $5 to hear!
Though you swear that you are true, I'd still pick a relatively narrow scope of music over you.
A fucking joke I tell you!
Fortunately Deyan was there to open up a discourse.
There was one person above all who was most angry and he let everyone, on every post know it:
Had to include an acquaintance of mine, Jason, roasting Jan like a Portuguese chicken.
Who the fuck is this guy?!
At first, reading all of this stuff, I got kind of mad, mainly because of the ignoramus I posted first, but really all of this is so fucking ridiculous. How can this many people be this mad about a bar night? It's a fucking bar night! This whole thing has convinced me that the popular emo music from the aughts has completely and majestically jumped the shark.
I thought I would end with this:
Man, I know that it sucks to lose that stuff, but why would you have it with you?!
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