I Swear I'll Hear the Devil Laugh

I now realize that something I took for granted when I lived in Toronto was how well-connected I was to the city's punk scene. Not that I was omnipresent at shows or anything, far from it, but that I always whenever a show was going on and how to find about future ones. Though towards the end of my time in the city I found that some of the newer music wasn't for me and that some of the things I used to listen to no longer rang as true, it was always there if I needed it.

Note: I regularly feel guilty about not having gone to a show in a while and then I scour listings, see a band I sort of like and go to a show that kind of sucks. That happened when I saw the Movielife last year. It was one of the weirder shows I've ever been to and I'll write about it sometime.

I don't have those same connections in Montreal, so it's much harder to find out about where shows happen and how to find out about them. I've made some headway, but I still wonder if there's a whole mass of good punk shows going that I don't know about. Because I don't go to enough shows. Scene guilt, man!

This is all to say that I was very excited when Montreal's Pouzza Fest announced their full 2020 lineup recently. There were a few bigger bands I would be excited to see (Millencolin and the Aggrolites) as well as a host of my favourites from Ontario (Wayfarer, Mockingbird Wish Me Luck, Stuck Out Here, Brutal Youth). Even though I had be spurned by Pouzza in the past, I was caught up in excitement and couldn't wait. It would be great to see Duff and I could show new friends, who are used to going to shows in France, what it's like in North America.

I went through the list of bands, picking out the ones that looked interesting to me, and made a playlist of them all so that I could re-invest in a type of punk music that had once been so important to me. Then, as I was listening, I realized that I thought most of the bands weren't great and that there was a reason I had stopped listening in the first place.

Oh well!

Such is life. There's a reason that I didn't know 90% of the lineup, and it's because that sort of music doesn't really resonate with me anymore. And that's okay! Some of the older "orgcore" bands will always remain in rotation, some others will carry a nostalgic value, where I appreciate what they did for me at the time and how much I liked them, but can't really vibe with them anymore, and some were just actually bad. All sorts! All of life is like that. Some things don't age well and some things aren't fully appreciated at the time and there's nothing we can do to change that.

That all being said, I'm still excited to see Millencolin, all of the Ontario bands I mentioned, and fill in the rest of the schedule with ska.

Some recent enthusiams:

Recently, I've been deep into a Cloakroom phase. Time Well seems to be the perfect music for the winter in Montreal. Shoegaze doesn't always do it for me, damn does it hit when it does. So heavy and morose, but with such great, secretive melodies on top of that.

I've been coming back to a collection of 1970's Bob Dylan bootlegs from the Rolling Thunder Revue as well. The band is so on point and it's so fascinating to hear some of the earlier songs built out with a full band too. There's also a crazy sense of urgency excitement in the performances that can only come from being at a good show with a great audience. Bob Dylan: Still really great.


Baseball is back most days and I've returned to the slow hazy process of watching useless Spring Training. A guy I used to know there. Players I'll never see again. Sunshine that reminds me there's snow on the ground outside. Even though I've been steaming at sport about cheating and the way it's run, to the point that I've gotten really for real angry and upset at the sport, I can't help but feel great while I watch it. That kind of sucks, but it's also nice to have it back.