I listened to a podcast where one pro wrestler I like interviewed another pro wrestler I like.
The one mentioned he contributed to a song by Kimya Dawson, so I read the Wikipedia entry on her.
The article said she was friends with Paul Baribeau.
Thought about how my friends listened to him a lot in university.
Asked a friend where to start with his music.
Watched a video of him playing on a couch.
Put on his record and tried to start looking for jobs.
Ended up staring into the air and listening instead.
Thought about you and the tough times you've gone through. Thought about the night we had like in the song.
I've seen you since then and I think it was better for you.
Know that you're a little better now, but I still worry a lot.
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Monday, May 20, 2019
Never Say Goodbye
Something about I, Musical Genius that is interesting to me is that I'm able to interact with past versions of myself by looking at what I was writing on the internet. In addition to the many awful posts that exist in the archive, there's also a pile of drafts that sit in the platform and haven't materialized into anything. As much as there's many swings and misses from when I was trying to process breakups online, most of these drafts didn't even make that cut.
One of the things that comes up a bunch in the drafts, that I may have mentioned on IMU in the past, was a series called Under the Radar in which I would talk about bands I thought were underappreciated. How did I not name that name was corny and hackneyed as fuck?! The drafts are all from September 2013, so my only excuse is that I was wired on coffee in my office at Guelph and trying to come up with ideas to write about to get my chops back up as I entered academia again. Folks, it was a moment of weakness and I will never use a title that bad ever again, promise!
Pretty much all of the bands that I chose for the project were ska bands where I was the only listener I knew of among my friends.* I guess some people would say "Wow, glad you dodged that bullet!", but TBH, I still like all of the bands I chose, even if I don't listen and relate to some of them as much as I used to. Anyways, one of the bands was The Impossibles, and all of this was the intro for the following.
*Turns out I ended up finishing one, on The Stereo, in October 2013. Funny that the only one I did was on the only non-ska band, right?!
The Impossibles are now more of a signpost for true power pop heads to me than anything else. There will be times when the discography still appeals to me, but for the most part I find that I don't turn to ska-punk music from the late-90s as readily. I still love all of it, but it's so nostalgic for me and the more I age, the less I want to indulge nostalgic feelings. They can be a bit of a trap that keeps you living in the past and not moving on from things. There's proper ways to go about it, of course, but having all your main interests be nostalgic is a little poisonous, is what I'm saying.
That all being said, whenever I hear someone from a band mention that they love The Impossibles (and loving The Stereo often goes along with that), my ears perk up and I become way more interested. In fact, what kind of inspired me to come back to this post was Barry Johnson from Joyce Manor mentioning in an interview that he loves the Impossibles and that was why he got Rory Phillips to produce Million Dollars to Kill Me.* They never ascended to the top of the genre in the way that a Mighty Mighty BossTones or Reel Big Fish did, so they occupy this interesting space for me, as an invested ska fan in 2019, of having been around and put out lots of material and having toured, but not being a band that most punks know, in my experience.
*Bud, there's a huge fucking Rory stink (especially Three Hundred by the Stereo) all over that album. I love it.
I guess, what I'm interested in is why does the discography hold weight with people nearly 20 years later? Why does this album still kick around and allow the band to do reunion shows, while pretty much all of their contemporaries from the late-90s don't get the same treatment? People aren't exactly knocking down the door to demand Animal Chin and Hippos reunions.
My theory is that it's because the Impossibles' music (and especially the contributions from Rory Phillips, who went on do similar work in the Stereo) is indebted to a certain tradition of pop-rock songwriting that gives their music more staying power than some others. Most of the verses on Anthology are fairly standard fast ska-punk, but they build around that with huge chorus hooks and distorted intros that elevate the songs from being just "genre". There's nuance in the way the songs' parts flow into each other that for me recalls power-pop of the early 80's or album-oriented rock. Knowingly copping the tricks of hook-centric rock bands is an easy way to beef up your music, and the Impossibles were smart to do it in a genre where most other bands didn't focus on song-writing. This was further emphasized on their farewell album Return, which was entirely power-pop with no ska.
I think one of the first bands to really pastiche that late-70s and early-80s style of writing rock songs was Weezer, who did it perfectly on Blue and also managed to work the idea of bringing back that music into their lyrics (especially "Buddy Holly" and "In the Garage"). So much so, that now a band trying to put big overdriven riffs, catchy chorus melodies and guitar solos in their songs is now just referred to as "Weezer influence". That type of thing has gotten fairly common today, but I think that the Impossibles were one of the first to start doing it and the fact that they did so in a genre with pretty narrow sonic parameters, ska, is commendable.
As a musician, it's hard to stretch ska out and make it work in a variety of ways. A band like Reel Big Fish, who for better or for worse are a mainstay of the genre, hasn't changed its sound at all since its formation. The same can even be said of better ska bands, like the Slackers, who stick to a 1st-wave/reggae formula because it works and they can live in the subtleties and nuance.
When ska-punk bands are more song-writing focused than, for lack of a better term, "playing ska-focused", they inevitably move towards albums that downplay upstokes and dance-y parts in favour of better songs as a whole. Less Than Jake did this on Borders and Boundaries and Bomb the Music Industry! did this on Get Warmer. It's a jump that you need to make if you are part of the weird niche of loving ska, but also loving song songs. I guess that I just wish more people respected the Impossibles for making that jump.
One of the things that comes up a bunch in the drafts, that I may have mentioned on IMU in the past, was a series called Under the Radar in which I would talk about bands I thought were underappreciated. How did I not name that name was corny and hackneyed as fuck?! The drafts are all from September 2013, so my only excuse is that I was wired on coffee in my office at Guelph and trying to come up with ideas to write about to get my chops back up as I entered academia again. Folks, it was a moment of weakness and I will never use a title that bad ever again, promise!
Pretty much all of the bands that I chose for the project were ska bands where I was the only listener I knew of among my friends.* I guess some people would say "Wow, glad you dodged that bullet!", but TBH, I still like all of the bands I chose, even if I don't listen and relate to some of them as much as I used to. Anyways, one of the bands was The Impossibles, and all of this was the intro for the following.
*Turns out I ended up finishing one, on The Stereo, in October 2013. Funny that the only one I did was on the only non-ska band, right?!
The Impossibles are now more of a signpost for true power pop heads to me than anything else. There will be times when the discography still appeals to me, but for the most part I find that I don't turn to ska-punk music from the late-90s as readily. I still love all of it, but it's so nostalgic for me and the more I age, the less I want to indulge nostalgic feelings. They can be a bit of a trap that keeps you living in the past and not moving on from things. There's proper ways to go about it, of course, but having all your main interests be nostalgic is a little poisonous, is what I'm saying.
That all being said, whenever I hear someone from a band mention that they love The Impossibles (and loving The Stereo often goes along with that), my ears perk up and I become way more interested. In fact, what kind of inspired me to come back to this post was Barry Johnson from Joyce Manor mentioning in an interview that he loves the Impossibles and that was why he got Rory Phillips to produce Million Dollars to Kill Me.* They never ascended to the top of the genre in the way that a Mighty Mighty BossTones or Reel Big Fish did, so they occupy this interesting space for me, as an invested ska fan in 2019, of having been around and put out lots of material and having toured, but not being a band that most punks know, in my experience.
*Bud, there's a huge fucking Rory stink (especially Three Hundred by the Stereo) all over that album. I love it.
I guess, what I'm interested in is why does the discography hold weight with people nearly 20 years later? Why does this album still kick around and allow the band to do reunion shows, while pretty much all of their contemporaries from the late-90s don't get the same treatment? People aren't exactly knocking down the door to demand Animal Chin and Hippos reunions.
My theory is that it's because the Impossibles' music (and especially the contributions from Rory Phillips, who went on do similar work in the Stereo) is indebted to a certain tradition of pop-rock songwriting that gives their music more staying power than some others. Most of the verses on Anthology are fairly standard fast ska-punk, but they build around that with huge chorus hooks and distorted intros that elevate the songs from being just "genre". There's nuance in the way the songs' parts flow into each other that for me recalls power-pop of the early 80's or album-oriented rock. Knowingly copping the tricks of hook-centric rock bands is an easy way to beef up your music, and the Impossibles were smart to do it in a genre where most other bands didn't focus on song-writing. This was further emphasized on their farewell album Return, which was entirely power-pop with no ska.
I think one of the first bands to really pastiche that late-70s and early-80s style of writing rock songs was Weezer, who did it perfectly on Blue and also managed to work the idea of bringing back that music into their lyrics (especially "Buddy Holly" and "In the Garage"). So much so, that now a band trying to put big overdriven riffs, catchy chorus melodies and guitar solos in their songs is now just referred to as "Weezer influence". That type of thing has gotten fairly common today, but I think that the Impossibles were one of the first to start doing it and the fact that they did so in a genre with pretty narrow sonic parameters, ska, is commendable.
As a musician, it's hard to stretch ska out and make it work in a variety of ways. A band like Reel Big Fish, who for better or for worse are a mainstay of the genre, hasn't changed its sound at all since its formation. The same can even be said of better ska bands, like the Slackers, who stick to a 1st-wave/reggae formula because it works and they can live in the subtleties and nuance.
When ska-punk bands are more song-writing focused than, for lack of a better term, "playing ska-focused", they inevitably move towards albums that downplay upstokes and dance-y parts in favour of better songs as a whole. Less Than Jake did this on Borders and Boundaries and Bomb the Music Industry! did this on Get Warmer. It's a jump that you need to make if you are part of the weird niche of loving ska, but also loving song songs. I guess that I just wish more people respected the Impossibles for making that jump.
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
It's Hard to See in Those Murky Waters
Winter exhibitions are over and now I have a three-week break before our fundraising gala, after which I'll have another three-week break until our next exhibitions open. That's a wrap on Toronto. With so much time off, I'll be busy packing for the move, culling things we don't need anymore and packing the things we do. Times of transition are rarely ever as well-defined as this one, so it seems a little strange, but I think it's also a good thing. More so than ever before, the break will have to be busy and productive, but I don't foresee that being a problem this time around. Here's some things that I'm currently enjoying during this time of transition.
Barry is currently my favourite show on TV. It's a dark dramedy created by and starring Bill Hader about an Iraq war vet who is now a hitman but also trying to make it as an actor. As ridiculous as that description sounds, the show gets real as fuck. The supporting cast is wonderful, but it's really the Hader show as he shows off an intensity I don't think many people expected from him. The second season did that impossible thing of making a big jump but staying good. Amazing stuff.
I wouldn't classify myself as a "gamer", but there a couple of video games that have stuck with me and made an impression on me throughout my life. One of those games is the Dynasty Warriors series, in which you fight as Han-era Chinese warlords. The game is based on the Chinese novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of China's "Four Classical Novels". The mythology surrounding the story, which toes the line between history and fiction, has always fascinated me and drawn me into the story and this year I decided to read it. It was a very fulfilling experience.
I saw Big Nothing while they toured their debut 7" during the summer of 2017. The band made a huge impression on me at the show, so I've been anticipating further material since then. They recently put out a full-length and it's great stuff. A little fuzzy and dreamy in a 90s alt sort of way, but everything still building towards big poppy choruses. I also really love the songs where Liz Parsons sings lead. It would be wonderful if every pop-punk band was this good instead of being derivative horse shit.
I've seen Fury one time, when the opened for Power Trip and Sheer Mag in May 2018 (fuckin' huge gig bud). While tuning between songs, the singer spoke about how big of impression the music of Gord Downie (recently deceased at the time) had made on him. A couple of songs later, he recited a poem of Downie's as stage banter and I don't think many people in the crowd realized what it was. This obviously turned me into an instant fan, in addition to them play the exact type of vaguely-Youth Crew-ish, vaguely Snapcase-ish hardcore that I crave. They put out a new album this May and it fucking rocks ass.
Do you ever mean to check out a band for ages because you know that you'll like the band based on their name and album name? And then the guitarist appears on your favourite podcast and you realize he's a similar personality to you and that reminds you that you still need to check out his band because you'll almost definitely like it? And then you do and you realize you like Wild Side?
Lastly, I have a secret album that will be released by an Ontario band later this year. They've been playing songs off it for the last year-ish and I've been patiently waiting for what was sure to be another release that is heads and shoulders above everything else everyone is putting out in this province. It's absolutely wonderful and already shot right up to the top of my 2019 releases. It's crazy to think of what your friends are capable of.
Barry is currently my favourite show on TV. It's a dark dramedy created by and starring Bill Hader about an Iraq war vet who is now a hitman but also trying to make it as an actor. As ridiculous as that description sounds, the show gets real as fuck. The supporting cast is wonderful, but it's really the Hader show as he shows off an intensity I don't think many people expected from him. The second season did that impossible thing of making a big jump but staying good. Amazing stuff.
I wouldn't classify myself as a "gamer", but there a couple of video games that have stuck with me and made an impression on me throughout my life. One of those games is the Dynasty Warriors series, in which you fight as Han-era Chinese warlords. The game is based on the Chinese novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of China's "Four Classical Novels". The mythology surrounding the story, which toes the line between history and fiction, has always fascinated me and drawn me into the story and this year I decided to read it. It was a very fulfilling experience.
I saw Big Nothing while they toured their debut 7" during the summer of 2017. The band made a huge impression on me at the show, so I've been anticipating further material since then. They recently put out a full-length and it's great stuff. A little fuzzy and dreamy in a 90s alt sort of way, but everything still building towards big poppy choruses. I also really love the songs where Liz Parsons sings lead. It would be wonderful if every pop-punk band was this good instead of being derivative horse shit.
I've seen Fury one time, when the opened for Power Trip and Sheer Mag in May 2018 (fuckin' huge gig bud). While tuning between songs, the singer spoke about how big of impression the music of Gord Downie (recently deceased at the time) had made on him. A couple of songs later, he recited a poem of Downie's as stage banter and I don't think many people in the crowd realized what it was. This obviously turned me into an instant fan, in addition to them play the exact type of vaguely-Youth Crew-ish, vaguely Snapcase-ish hardcore that I crave. They put out a new album this May and it fucking rocks ass.
Do you ever mean to check out a band for ages because you know that you'll like the band based on their name and album name? And then the guitarist appears on your favourite podcast and you realize he's a similar personality to you and that reminds you that you still need to check out his band because you'll almost definitely like it? And then you do and you realize you like Wild Side?
Lastly, I have a secret album that will be released by an Ontario band later this year. They've been playing songs off it for the last year-ish and I've been patiently waiting for what was sure to be another release that is heads and shoulders above everything else everyone is putting out in this province. It's absolutely wonderful and already shot right up to the top of my 2019 releases. It's crazy to think of what your friends are capable of.
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Liberties, Vol 14
A new Liberties? Bud, I'm feelin' crazy and had to build one around the new Fury record, which is wonderful.
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
There's A Lot of Things I Want That I Can't Have, and to be Honest, the Older I Get, the More Pissed Off I Am About it.
This weekend, I will be volunteering at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, as I've done each of the last four Mother's Day weekends. This means that this coming Friday will be the last shift I work during our current exhibition season, leaving less than ten (the real number is still unknown, but for sure less than ten) shifts at my current job.
Over the last year or so, there's been a lot of false endings at the place, where there was a good chance I would leave, but ultimately ended up staying put. This time, the change is set in stone because of the big move at the end of June. I can't work here while living in Montreal.
Some people would get wistful leaving a place they've worked that long, but I can't say that I am at all. Maybe there was a bit of that once I left the office last year, but certainly not now. Being at the same place and following the same procedures every day has gotten beyond monotonous and I think I've been sleepwalking through the motions for months now.
This type of boredom crept up on me and I was fully snared in its trap before I even realized it. The idea of having a job where you do nothing and have limited responsibilities is appealing, but this type of existence also bleed into the other parts of my life and it feels like I didn't do anything for the last year.
This is, of course, completely untrue, as I spent the better part of that time applying to and finalizing my school for the future, and then organizing all the logistics that come with a shift that big. Still though, I can't shake the feeling in my gut that I need to break away from where I am right now (professionally that is, I will always love you Toronto) to spur myself into news ways of thinking, new experiences, and some much-needed uncertainty.
Two months of hot Toronto weather. A couple of engagements in that time. Packing up a whole life. Let's rock.
Over the last year or so, there's been a lot of false endings at the place, where there was a good chance I would leave, but ultimately ended up staying put. This time, the change is set in stone because of the big move at the end of June. I can't work here while living in Montreal.
Some people would get wistful leaving a place they've worked that long, but I can't say that I am at all. Maybe there was a bit of that once I left the office last year, but certainly not now. Being at the same place and following the same procedures every day has gotten beyond monotonous and I think I've been sleepwalking through the motions for months now.
This type of boredom crept up on me and I was fully snared in its trap before I even realized it. The idea of having a job where you do nothing and have limited responsibilities is appealing, but this type of existence also bleed into the other parts of my life and it feels like I didn't do anything for the last year.
This is, of course, completely untrue, as I spent the better part of that time applying to and finalizing my school for the future, and then organizing all the logistics that come with a shift that big. Still though, I can't shake the feeling in my gut that I need to break away from where I am right now (professionally that is, I will always love you Toronto) to spur myself into news ways of thinking, new experiences, and some much-needed uncertainty.
Two months of hot Toronto weather. A couple of engagements in that time. Packing up a whole life. Let's rock.
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