I Don't Want to Barge in on Your Secrecy

 Weird fact of the day:

In high school, I was obsessed with the bands Catch-22 and Streetlight Manifesto, as every teenaged ska fan was. In particular, I was absorbed by the bass playing on Keasbey Nights and Everything Goes Numb and spent hours upon hours practicing the songs to try and get up to the actual speed they were played at (I mostly accomplished that).*

*While I was in my first high school ska band, our trumpet player was weirdly obsessed with playing bass and trying to prove he was better than me. One time, we were talking about Streetlight and I mentioned how hard the bassline to "Everything Went Numb" was (it is very hard and crazy). He shrugged it off and was like "I dunno I just played along to it first try." I didn't really know what to say. No you didn't? It's clearly fast shredding for like four minutes? You definitely don't know how to play that song?

Those two albums featured significant overlap in players and one of them was Josh Ansley playing bass. He offered two drastically different styles on them, fretless sliding on one and frenetic 5-string walking on the other, and he consumed my imagination as a teen. His playing was the gold standard in my mind and accomplishing something similar was my primary goal. For a little bit, meaning until I bought Destruction by Definition, he also definitely got the "idol" label from me.

For more comments on early Streetlight, and a little bit on bass playing, consult my story on seeing Streetlight play the Kathedral in 2005, a revised version of which is in my 2018 zine on ska. ($5! Cheap!)

I tell you this because today I found out that he is now a new age spiritual bro vlogger:

I guess you either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain, eh? I realize that the odds of someone else reading this and being as shocked as I am are in the thousandths of a percent range, but this discovery had to get somewhere, right?

Jeeze Tim, you write a post about hating how lean on nostalgia and then churn this shit out.

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<) )╯I
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Okay, now back to reading and listening to Animal Liberation Front hardcore.

Golden Love

I found myself thinking about earnesty in the shower yesterday.

I worry about being too earnest a lot. Whenever I try to do creative writing, I find that I inevitably return to super earnest nostalgia. On some level, I guess that is fine, because earnest narrative non-fiction is what I do and it's what I'm best at. It's good to be good at something, right?

On the other hand, I wish I could do more than that. Every time that I've tried to branch out into different types of writing, it doesn't really work out well. There's even been times where I try really hard to do something new, move into fiction, and it still just ends up being a mess of earnest nostalgia. I want to be more than that, you know? I want to be able to write an actual story out of nothing, rather than just churning out whiteboy feelings.

I think that earnesty is slippery slope for white guys. When you start with it, people applaud you for communicating your feelings, which requires bravery to some degree. That's important, I guess, and I suppose that talking about your feelings works against the shittier parts of masculinity to some degree, but the problem is that if you are earnestly talking about your feelings constantly, and people are constantly praising you for it, you start to believe that your feelings are the most important and you start to take up a lot of space. I don't ever want to be that person.

To illustrate what I'm saying, I don't think there's a better example than whiney pop-punk.

Like, it's not stupid for me to say that's too earnest, right?

Okay, here is a whole mess of mixed up metaphors: There is definitely is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Sugar is great and amazing and helps things taste good and adds to the other flavours when you're cooking, but something being too sweet fuckin' sucks. Earnesty is like that. Maybe that's why people always refer to pop-punk as "sugary".

This all being said, I fucking hate when art kids are ironic to the point of not meaning anything they say, so the other end of the spectrum fuckin' sucks too. It's hard to know what the right amount of earnesty for something is, and I think that depends on the circumstance too. Being earnest about things that have affected you? Seems to be mostly good, from my experience. Being earnest exclusively about how hurt you are by your ex-girlfriend? Mostly dumb.

I, Musical Genius 2020 Music Revue

It feels like I barely got into anything this year, but when I actually stacked all of the stuff I liked together, I was surprised at how quickly I ran out of spots on the list. Is it me actually losing touch, or am I just getting crushed over the complete availability of cool records on the internet? I have no idea. As always, this list is unordered. That shit doesn't matter

Nothing - The Great Dismal

TBH, out of all bands here, I think that Nothing is the one where I'm most sure their record will make the list before hearing it. At this point, I'm not expecting them to change lanes out of melodic shoegaze that's as indebted to power pop as it is grunge, but I pleasantly surprised by this release and enjoyed it more than Dance on the Blacktop. "Catch a Fade" is one of their best songs and seems like a 2020 anthem to me, though I'm not sure why.

Nudie Mag - Our Milk

It's impossible to not check a band called Nudie Mag, right? This band is a Twitching Tongues side project, who I've never listened to. Really great pared-down and synthy power pop that is probably closest to the Rentals. Short and sweet.

field medic - Floral Prince

I actually wasn't aware that field medic, whose fade into the dawn I loved in 2019, was working on a new record, so I was pleased to get this in the summer, even if it is mostly leftovers from that record. This continues with the lofi folk by way of fourth wave emo aesthetic that the earlier stuff has had and I eat it up.

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We're going to take an aside here to talk about the person who did the most in 2020 by a wide margin, Daniel Romano. Already an insanely prolific musician who was putting out between one and three releases per year, Romano went insane during quarantine and released ELEVEN records between March and November. ELEVEN. 11 different records that were all distinct from each over sonically. Most bands can't do that in an entire career. It felt weird to start this list with him, as I don't think any of his records were the A-1 first thing I thought of this year, but he did dominate my listening for all of the summer and keeping track of and checking out what the new shit was was by far the most fun I had listening to music this year. I spent some time thinking on how to incorporate his work into my list and settled on giving him his own sub section. 

Quick hits on my favourites:

Dandelion: His best work this year, but only the true heads know that. Beautiful and personal and among his best work.

How Ill Thy World is Ordered: The biggest studio effort of all is great and a fitting cap on the year of music from him.

Super Pollen: No Ancient Shapes this year, but similar work with Mike and Jonah from Fucked Up is an A-OK replacement.

Content to Point the Way: His friends asked him for a new county record and it rocks.

(What Could Have Been) Infidels by Bob Dylan & the Plugz: In a year where I was in my deepest Dylan phase ever, getting this was a welcome addition.

Visions of the Higher Dream: Modern Pressure 2: 2 Modern 2 Pressure

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Supercrush - SODO Pop

Honestly, I wasn't expecting a full-length from Supercrush (was Never Let You Drift Away an LP? I've heard both opinions?) to engage me much, but this would up being a lot more catchy and interesting than I thought. A million bands are playing boring 90s Britpop and Supercrush aren't one.

Mil-Spec - World House

I really loved the Background-era Lifetime vibe on Mil-Spec's EPs before this record and they combined that with the Snapcase-ish melodic stuff that Fury has been doing here. Friggin' awesome yo.

Blooming Season - Living Feeling

I discovered Blooming Season at the last show I saw before COVID hit this year. They were tight and super energetic and provided the insane rush of when you see a band live and realize that you love them during their set.

Mundy's Bay - Lonesome Valley

In keeping with bands I discovered at shows in Montreal, I saw Mundy's Bay open for Supercrush in summer '19 and realizing how much more vibrant and different the punk scene was here is directly tied to them. This record captures how great they are live 

blink-155 - Been Here For Too Long

I already wrote about my feelings on the pod here, so I won't rehash that. This comp was made to commemorate the end of blink-155 and features a bunch of people who guested covering "Dammit" by the boys. It ranges from well-known entities (Antartico Vespucci) to my friends (Claire) and it all rocks.

Kill Lincoln - Can't Complain

If I'm being honest, I was a little let down by this release, but it's not fair for me to hold my unreasonable expectations for it against it's actual quality. I've never been shy about banging my "ska is good and all who hate pose" drum and was happy that in the last couple of years (especially those on Kill Lincoln's own Bad Time Records) a new crop of bands has popped up to prove my point. Kill Lincoln is the best of the bunch and this is a great poppy ska-punk release.

Jeff Rosenstock - 2020 Dump

I found that this sort of EP/sort of growing collection of songs vastly better than the Rosenstock full-length No Dream. I love that it's all over the place sonically (as any JR release should be), I love that you need to download it via .zip on QuoteUnquote, and I love that he's finding a new way to work against the music industry and that it is almost somehow the old way he did it.

Classics of Love - World of Burning Hate

I find it hard to be objective about music by Jesse Michaels because all of his bands have been so instrumental to my development as a person. Is it as good as Op Ivy or the Classics of Love full-length? I guess not? I don't care man, I could listen to this for the rest of my life. What a force.

boy pablo - Wachito Rico

boy pablo is one of my favourite discoveries of the last couple of years (in a very 10's world, found through the YoTube algorithm), but their sophomore release really let me down, for no reason at all. They worked past those non-existent criticisms on this first full-length and put out a record that leans more toward songwriting than their past stuff (good!), while still maintaining their weird Norwegian sense of humour.

People Are All the Same

 A comprehensive list of all that have held the "Best Bar in the World" World Title Championship Belt.

Sneaky Dee's

The Toronto youth's first favourite bar. You hear about it from people just older than you and understand that you need to try the nachos. The tables covered in graffiti (latrinaria?) immediately look like something you've seen a million times in movies. You realize that drinking bottled beer in a bar is good. It's the first bar you go to regularly that isn't a Fox and the Fiddle or Firkin and that makes it feel like it's your friends' "place" even though it is everyone's friends' "place".

Jimmy Jazz

Guelph is big enough to have a population of weirdos, punks, hipsters, and art kids (are all of those the same thing?), but small enough that they all convene at the same place. Every person you've seen on campus that seems cool will one day have a conversation with you here. You graduate from bottles of PBR to bottles of Labbatt 50. A bench runs around the perimeter of a backyard patio that is where everyone hangs. The patio is so good that space heaters are installed overhead so that everyone can hangout outside during the winter, which they do.

Abstract

A goth dive bar that simultaneously feels like the intro scene to The Matrix, the Foot Clan hideout in Ninja Turtles, and a small-town watering hole that no one knows about. You discover yet another brand of bottled beer that makes you feel cool to drink in Molson Stock Ale. People watching will never, ever be better in your life. The first time you go, it's ironic, but you truly love it after that. 

Bar Stella

Tiny and dark with two picnic tables outside during the summer. A small menu of Indian food that is surprisingly authentic and hot considering the bar it's served in. Cheap bottles of 50, PBR, and Old Style. A DJ that plays Drake all the time. Never too busy. If you can name a more perfect Toronto bar, then you need to head to the bathroom because you're full of shit. RIP.

Dundas Video

We can all admit that "barcades" are still fun despite the fact that they are little played out. This one sent itself into the stratosphere by playing Raptors games on a projection screen during the playoff run and by accompanying that screen with tall cans of Wellington on special for $5. For a bar that brought people in to watch sports, it somehow had an asshole filter at the door and everyone there was fun and knowledgeable. There has never been a better place to watch basketball than Dundas Video in the spring of 2019.