The 2021 IMU Musical Revue

 I feel like the last six or seven years have been really good for punk and hardcore and when you combine that with the constant creative push forward that is always happening in rap, it's been an especially great time for music. Maybe I'm just too enthusiastic and that's boring, but damn homie you're the one here reading!

Angel Du$t - YAK: A Collection of Truck Songs

Something I found interesting this year was that both Angel Du$t and Turnstile released EPs ahead of their full-lengths and that every song on both ended up on the albums. A new style of marketing in the streaming age? A quirk of the Trapped Under Ice family tree? I think that AD's full-length ended up a lot better and is by far the best articulation of their sound. A great slow song featuring Tim Armstrong! Probably my album of the year.

Turnstile - Turnstile Love Connection

Like I said, I think the EP format worked out a lot better for Turnstile. Glow On is still a great record with cool songs, but this shorter release is more cohesive. This blew me away and maybe my expectations were too high. In any case, the feature music video for the entire EP is one of my favourite videos ever and one of the coolest things to ever come out of hardcore.

Tyler the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST

Was never much of an OFWGKTA guy, but really enjoyed Tyler's last two records and how he's developed and changed as a rapper and producer as he gets further into his career. This album is my favourite yet and probably my favourite rap album of the year. Such an amazing vibe here that feels like you're touring Europe while listening to DatPiff.

Mach-Hommy - Pray for Haiti

Griselda Records and everyone associated with them has been pretty much bulletproof for the last couple of years and I've returned to this record more than any other. It has the same chill and mumbly/extremely hard contrast that Westside Gunn and Benny the Butcher have, but this record is super focused and the world-building is great.

Militarie Gun - All Roads Lead to the Gun I

For a while this year, I thought that this release might be my favourite release, but it felt like picking an EP felt like a copout. Feels like Dinosaur Jr. and the Lemonheads filtered through extreme hardcore and it's done basically as well as it can be. Would love to see what this band could do with a full-length, but am just as happy to see them continue putting out 4-songers.

Webbed Wing - What's So Fucking Funny?

Webbed Wing's first record Bike Rides Across the Moon was intriguing sonically but definitely unfinished in a few spots. This is a fuller version of their college rock from a punk background and is one of my favourites this year. Sometimes it's just fun to rock.

Mo Troper - Dilettante

Mo Troper was one of my biggest finds this year and I gave Beloved a tonne of spins ahead of the release of Dilettante. While this isn't as focused as the former, I really like them leaning into the Guided By Voices vibe of a 28-song record where most songs are under 1:30. 

Just Friends - JFC Crew Vol. I &II

Nothing but Love was in constant rotation during 2020 and even though I'm sure Just Friends' mix of pop-punk/funk/pop/rap is not for everyone, I find it super refreshing to see a band be so focused on not sounding like anyone else in punk. Seeing them also try new stuff here, doing remixes of songs, singles that sound like nothing else they've done, and a SONG FEATURING LIL B, was even better.

Anna Fox Rochinski - Cherry

I don't remember how I found this record, as I had no frame of reference for AFR or her old band Quilt, but this was one of the more original-sounding things I heard this year. A little shoegazey, but never slow, poppy, but off-kilter, firmly post-punk but definitely dancy. "Party Lines" and "Epilogue/Overture" are two of the best songs of the year.

ALLBLACK - TY4FWM

I had high hopes for this one after NO SHAME 3 and even if it didn't live up to that, this was still a tight full-length that has everything that makes ALLBLACK one of the best rappers alive. It makes me want to yell "Thank you for fucking with me!" all the time.

2nd Grade - Wish You Were Here Tour Revisited

2nd Grade has dominated my listening over the last two or so years and though I'm jonesing for a new full-length, this re-release of their first record, with new full-band versions of 7 of the songs from the original is a great replacement. "Favourite Song" has, predictably, been my favourite song of the last few years, so hearing a new cut of that was particularly great. The band is so jubilant that you can't help but love it.

9 Times Out of Ten I'll Be Thinking of You

 Was having a supremely hard day working through my thesis yesterday. Both now and in my MA I've found that the further you get into a self-directed research project like this, the more of a toll that it takes on your mental health. It sucks.

During this I started listening to the tracks that Bad Time Records has released from the forthcoming compilation The Shape of Ska-Punk to Come Vol. II. Included on this was a new Jeff Rosenstock song that made me start to tear up while listening and these are the reasons I can think of:

1. Rosenstock returning to ska and making a song that sounds like the early days of Bomb the Music Industry! that I love and connect to so much.

2. Rosenstock caring about ska as a genre enough that he still makes ska songs and wanted to contribute to this comp by an emerging label to give new bands the rub.

3. Me getting emotional while struggling with school reminding me of the bad old days of my undergraduate degree when it felt like Jeff Rosenstock was the only person in the world who understood me.

My Energy's There but Wasted

A pleasant part of the recent... renewal... of interest... in ska? (trying my hardest to not say revival) is that a lot of new media about ska has accompanied it. I was a message board rat during the 2000s, which I would say was the height of that culture, and during that time it felt like there was a lot of cool internet stuff and communities focused on ska that were both fun to read and helped really expand my understanding of the genre. As the 00s moved into the 10s, it felt like there was a lot less of that, though I guess I could also chalk that up to me becoming more focused on exploring other genres of music for a little while.

On one hand, I agree with the current view that saying ska died from like 2007-2019 unfairly glosses over the contributions of bands like the Fad, We Are the Union, and labels like Community Records.* On the other hand though, I think the generalization that the vast majority of ska shows were either headlined by Less Than Jake (still making good records then!), Reel Big Fish (vomit emoji, especially in 2010), or Streetlight Manifesto (opinion changes daily), or featured bands trying to be them, was correct. As sad as it is to say, I think that it's also fair to add the Johnstones to that list, specifically in Canada. I kept trying to find new bands, and I never got tired of listening to the genre, but shit did get pretty dark there for a bit and there was slim pickings.

*An interesting wrinkle is that this is also when Bomb the Music Industry's popularity began to really take off, but also when they began to feature less and less ska on their records, which I don't think is unrelated.

This is all to say that I am once again writing about happy I am with the current generation of new ska bands, all creating interesting music and none dressing like a caricature of a 90s cartoon character the way white kids from the suburbs did in 2012. Along with these new bands have come a bunch of new internet stuff  around that, and I'm thinking of the In Defense of Ska podcast in particular. It's not always great, but I really appreciate that it always focuses on the bands and how important they are, which is not something that often happens with ska. More so than any genre of music I can think, ska bands seem to be subservient to the genre norms.

 A recent episode of In Defense of Ska featured Dave McWane from Big D and the Kids Table, who were one of the most influential bands on me during my adolescence and legitimately played a gigantic role in shaping both me as a person and my outlook on the world. I've written about them and their effect on me before on here and I was about to say that I won't do that again, even though that's exactly what I'm about to do.

I haven't actually read that many interviews with Dave, who seems to be the main creative force in the band and is (I think) the only remaining original member, so I found his take on the history of the band interesting. In particular, McWane mentioned antagonism as a key part of the early days of the band, which was something I was always trying to name, but never really could. He mentioned that they never really enjoyed headlining shows because that generally meant that the audience was already on their side and was there to see them, whereas when they opened for other bands, whether that was the Dropkick Murphys or even bigger, but less punk ska bands, their was more of a friction with the crowd that the band thrived off of.

 

That sense of antagonism was palpable and was also a huge part of what drew me into the band. As much as they were still a ska band, they really did push back against other bands, labels, and trends in a way that, in my eyes, legitimated them as a punk band too. It felt like everyone in the band were actually punks, so that when they played fast parts or hardcore parts, it seemed completely natural, as opposed to the hackneyed "clean verse, kick on distortion pedal for the chorus" model that all bad ska-punk followed. A big part of that was me being young and impressionable and this being the first time I had heard the "fuck everyone else" message given in such an emphatic way. But even though I was a naïve teen who was inspired to take on the world from this record, that still matters.

A memory that sticks with me that kind of sums this sense of connection up is something that happened to my friend Pat in high school, who was just as into Big D as I was. It was definitely not cool to like ska at the height of third wave emo and Pat was wearing a Big D hoodie to school that had a checkerboard pattern across the front. In the halls, a guy we knew who was a hardcore kid, without even acknowledging or speaking to Pat, just said "ska sucks" under his breath. It felt like all the people who were into punk, in whatever way, hated ska, but Big D made it feel cool to say "Fuck them anyways."

Because Big D were "My Band" for a stretch of like three years, Good Luck, The Gypsy Hill EP, and How It Goes were all in my walkman on the way to and from school, something that seemed like a gigantic deal to me in like 2007 was the band starting to get a little bigger and also changing their sound slightly. From my perspective, on the band's new album Strictly Rude, which was released on the comparatively bigger punk label Side One Dummy, it felt like the antagonism was now clearly gone, though others didn't find the change as jarring as I did. 

My take on the changes in the band's sound were that it was partly due to member changes. The liner notes to How It Goes featured notes from the members about the writing process of each of the songs (the best) and something I noticed was that saxophonist Dave Bush, who left the band between How It Goes and Strictly Rude, had lots of notes and seemed to figure into the writing process in a major way. When the band left their harsher ska-core sound for something that sounded a lot closer to regular ska-punk on Strictly Rude, my take was that Bush's absence was the reason for less interesting music. I've never heard anyone else mention this, but it's one of those takes that I'll probably carry for the rest of my life.*

*Another note on member changes: Guitarist Sean P. Rogen, who is maybe my favourite ska-punk guitarist, left the band somewhere after Strictly Rude. I think he was similarly integral to the band making good music and I feel like his absence is glaringly obvious on later stuff.

I had never heard the band, or I guess more accurately McWane, talk about this period of the band, aside from the usual puff pieces in music publications that always come out during an album promotion cycle, so when he started discussing the writing period of Strictly Rude, my ears perked up and I was eager to hear about it. He actually did echo what I thought about the songs, saying that they're happier or more positive compared to their earlier stuff, but he attributed that to the fact that it was a generally happy time in the band's existence. They were signing to a bigger label, touring all the time, and were still young enough to just bask in the fun of being a band and fucking around. When he phrased it that way, it made a lot of sense to me and softened the record a bit to me.

In hindsight, they didn't really sell out in the way I thought they did, but I also think it's fair to say that they did a little. There was a tone of political hope on the record, as I guess they were now done being morose about the Bush administration, but even then (and more so now) that type of political outlook didn't jive with me. Getting the band's perspective on the record made the context of the record a little more in focus, but I still think that 17-year-old me picked up on something real, so I've got to commend myself for that.

First We Run, then We Laugh til We Cry

 I recently saw somebody on Twitter mention the "third year of COVID" and that knocked me on my ass a bit. As much as it's possible to mark out the things that I've accomplished and remember events that show how long it's been, it also feels like no time has passed at all. Pierre has turned into an old dog during this pandemic, but I don't feel like I've aged at all (I have, dramatically).

One of the ways that I'm able to recognize the passage of time has been the TV shows that Rebecca and I have watched. In general, we've erred on the side of caution with COVID, which has resulted in a lot of TV watching. It goes through cycles, where sometimes I feel couped up and stircrazy and another night on the couch makes me feel like a personal failure, and sometimes watching TV is the only thing that feels normal. Behold the TV COVID calendar:

True Detective: The first week of the pandemic, when staying inside felt good

The Wire: Rebecca working support in people's homes and COVID weighing the heaviest it ever did

The Mandalorian: Rebecca working overnights and me being home alone on Saturdays

Sex Education: Vaccines being handed out and things starting to feel normal

There's many others that I'm missing, but this was all just a prelude for me to mention that Becks and I's current watch is Game of Thrones, which I'm coming to well after it was one of the biggest phenomena in TV history. We're now halfway through the show (shoutout to the Free People and Brotherhood without Banners) and I have some thoughts on the progression of the show.

Mostly, I've been thinking about the balance of adapting a series of novels while still bowing to the conventions of Peak TV. Game of Thrones moves fast and has already killed off a bunch of characters who I thought would be around for the long haul, so the natural reaction is to guess what the next major plot event will be. The show is pretty conventional and straight forward, so often conjecture is pretty easy, because a character will have said exactly what they were thinking and going to do on episode prior.

However, what I find interesting is that the events of the show have to follow the book. For example, when Tyrion was sentenced to death, I would have normally said that there was no way he could possibly die because Peter Dinklage was the breakout star of the show and was one of its most-loved character. Normally, killing off a character like that would be the absolute biggest move that a show could do (Stringer Bell), but what about if the character Tyrion died in the second book of the series? Must suck to be the writers have to say goodbye to the guy who's carrying the show, right? An added wrinkle to this is that the series started after the first bunch of books were published, but then ended before the last book came out. The production of the two entities are braided in an interesting way.

I guess that in this case, it's to my benefit that I haven't read the books, because the surprises are still fun. This will be the one time that I support TV over the book, due to fantasy books being very much not for me.

The Boogieman is Real, I Saw Him Outside

Even though I don't post selfies of me in costumes at home in my apartment, I love Halloween about as much as anyone. It's my favourite holiday by a wide margin and even though it's corny, I will cop to getting warm feelings once the decorations come out and you start seeing people in costumes. Similarly to how I went through all the times I went to Warped Tour, I figured I would do a quick shot of all of my Halloween:

First Halloween out with my class. We all met in Andrew's basement and there were girls there too, which was exciting, but I was obviously so nervous about that. I had my worst costume ever, which was "Scream the Thug" wearing a ghostface mask with a toque over it.

Smoked a joint in the ravine while all of us were dressed up as Magnum PI. We didn't have a plan and mostly just roamed around the neighborhoud, eventually starting to stop on the way to get candy because we were high. An old lady got mad at us and told us that we were too old to trick or treat and didn't even have costumes. We told her we were Magnum P.I., but she just said that we had vandalized her lawn. (We didn't)

Dressed up as the MC Bat Commander, with a homemade mask and belt over my dad's windsurfing wetsuit. Went to hang out with Erik in East York. Some guy talked shit to us and said he was from the Dawes Road Crips before eventually jacking our candy. 

Blacktop Manhattan played a Halloween show and I dressed up as a hair metal guy. For some reason, I wore a sweat band under my wig and lost it that night.

In first year university, I re-did my hair metal costume with Brian joining me in it. Because I was now free to drink as much as I wanted and had unlimited booze available to me, I carried around a bottle of Jack Daniels all night and drank it straight. I got way too drunk, was hungover for three days, and had trouble swallowing food. Shortly after this night, I converted to skinny jeans full-time.

I made a Skeletor costume out of a hoodie I bought at Value Village and did my own makeup. It looked super shitty, but I liked it. Smoked a joint in a very fancy SUV.

Started to think of my costumes early in the year. Pat, Brian, and I went as B4-4 at Logan Street. Everyone still asks me to send this photo to them.

Started to watch old WWF Coliseum Home Video tapes and went as the early 90s WWF as a group. I was Macho, with Hulk, the Ultimate Warrior, Roddy Piper, and Bret Hart. Brian and I won a game of beer pong on the last shot and Brian ripped his shirt open as he sank the winning shot. I threw a necklace in celebration and it hit a girl in the face.

Went as Finn the Human while in the deepest part of my Adventure Time obsession, which I've already talked about here. Pat as Darth Vader in a fedora is the best costume that ever has or will exist. The two of us were the only high ones at the party and that was very funny to us.

Thought of going as Riff-Raff on the day of a Halloween cover show. Drew the cornrows onto a bald cap and did the tattoos with a sharpie. The Decay as the Misfits, Congratulations as Taking Back Sunday, Teen Violence as the Ramones, and Mighty Atom as the Stooges. Rebecca went as Lil' Debbie in our only ever couples costume. 

Couldn't think of a costume all day. Vanja taught his class as a monk, and Coni hers as Andy Warhol. I held up a piece of paper that said I was "too po-mo for a costume" which is actually maybe my worst costume. Almost went to Abstract that night and was scrambling at the last second. JK suggested I wear a Jays jersey over a Raps jersey over a Leafs jersey and go as the Toronto kid. I ended up wearing a satin jacket that said "Alberta" over a lifeguard pinnie as "Chad the Lifeguard from Alberta", which was good for the last second, I think.

We hosted a party at our apartment and I dressed up as Pierre, while he dressed up as me. It was cute, though there was probably a better way to do the face makeup.

First Halloween in Montreal and I decided to just make a basic skeleton costume my go-to moving forward. Went to a concert at a goth bar and it was fun. A guy drank a bottle of beer through a straw, under an open umbrella indoors. 

Anecdotes! Anecdotes! Part 2007

The latest in the torrential downpour of bad news over the last two years? Club Super Sexe burned down!

I kid. 1. It's been more than 10 years since I've been to a titty bar and I've never gone to Super Sexe and 2. The club has been closed for ages (I don't care enough to look up how long).

Still, Club Super Sexe is a hilarious integral part of Montreal history and the city's weird-ass identity. I remember driving by the club on a coach bus while coming into the city for New Year's Eve in grade 12 and just thinking "What the fuck is this place?" When I heard the news about the club, I was reminded of the story that Super Sexe always reminds me of, so I guess that warrants an A! A! post.

That same New Year's Eve trip I just mentioned was organized by the high school that all of my friends went to. It almost felt like a class trip, except that we were all out on our own and, being 17, were looking to drink constantly.* Having this amount of freedom was so new and exciting to us. After seeing the façade of the club on the way in, the idea of actually going there became a topic of conversation for the rest of the weekend, even though none of the people I was hanging out with had fake IDs to get in.

*This trip was the first time that I got too drunk.

However, a room of jocks from the school that we were hanging out with did have fakes and decided to go there the first night of the trip. At the time I felt so insecure because it seemed crazy to me that they were going to a strip club at our age, but in hindsight they were definitely such an awkward group of tiny boys in there.

The next day we were all hungover and everyone did a circuit through the hotel to visit everyone's rooms and talk about what they had done the night before. Chris and I went to go see Damien, who was staying with these bros and while we were there they filled us in about what it was like going to Super Sexe. One of the guys, Tom, had this very low, monotone voice that made most things he said sound funny.* His recap of the night was"

"Man, I was sitting there and the girl's pussy was right in my face. It was awesome."

His voicing of that will stick in my head forever and it still makes me laugh

*I got to know Tom a little better later because we both worked at Ontario Place, albeit in different departments. A fantastic dude.

Watched Dune last weekend and it rocked. I don't really have the eternal bond to the book that most fans do, but it is a great piece of sci-fi and does have the "it" factor that makes books stick with you. My dad has mentioned that when he was younger and both sci-fi and fantasy were still decades away from being mainstream cool, that Dune and Lord of the Rings were the two books that were these word-of-mouth interesting things you would hear about and have to read. For whatever reason, I really like that and it informs my enjoyment of both books a lot. Anyways, the movie rocked.

The other day, I was linked to the short Nicole through the Humourism newsletter. It's super funny and hits this exact sweet spot of great comedians making shorts as they emerge. Hard to describe why I like that so much, but I do. Please enjoy this very funny short film.

Nicole from edy modica on Vimeo.

Anecdotes! Anecdotes! Part 4: The Final Chapter

 With Halloween, my favourite holiday of the year, approaching and the word "undertaker" being mentioned on a podcast today, I was reminded of a story from when I younger.

One Halloween, my sister, two boys from my neighbourhood Chris and Vito, and I were playing in our street's park before we would go back to our houses to get our costumes ready. I'm not sure how old I was, but I do know that I was old enough to go trick or treating by myself that night, and to hopefully to fulfill my obligation as a suburban preteen boy by causing light mayhem*, but also still young enough that I was in my neighbourhood park.

*My friends and I always acted like we were crazy, but the only thing we ever egged was a moving GoTrain.

My sister would be trick or treating with my dad, but the rest of us were trying to plan out our night. Vito's house would be hosting a haunted house in their garage, which we knew would be fun, but we also wanted to make sure we got out and walked around, both to see and be seen and to get candy, which I guess was also a mark of how young I still was, as I was definitely looking forward to eating candy constantly for the next week. We were especially excited by the fact that Vito had bought a replica Freddy Krueger glove, which seemed like the coolest costume prop in the world, even though none of us had seen any of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.

As we were hanging out, this random kid walked down the street and approached us. He had long hair covered by a David Foster Wallace bandana, a plain black t-shirt with the word "undertaker" spelled out in cut-out white paper and taped on, and talked like Dooley from King of the Hill. We talked for a little bit and then he tried to get us to guess what his costume. I assumed that dressing up as the wrestler the Undertaker by wearing a shirt that just had that word taped onto it was too impossibly stupid so we tried other things. After a few minutes, he said "I'll make this a little more obvious" and took out a pair of aviator sunglasses and put them on Caruso style, which didn't help us at all. I eventually asked "Are you the Undertaker?" and couldn't believe that I was right.

This has to be the worst costume I have even seen. A bandana, a pair of sunglasses, and a t-shirt with the person's named taped to it. Unbelievable. For this reason though, it also just the best. I feel like I love shitty Halloween costumes, and in my opinion any homemade costumes trumps every store-bought one. Probably my favourite Halloween costume of all-time is the time my friend Pat wore a cheap sequined silver fedora on top of a Darth Vader mask and went as "Darth Vader in a fedora".* Maybe this guy is where that interest started?

*We were high both when we thought of this and when he wore it. No one else thought it was funny. At this party, I made my own Finn the Human costume and before we got there everyone said another guy had dressed up as him as well. When we got there, his was some fancy one he had bought at a store and mine was made out of a bathroom towel. It ruined his night and made me laugh so much.

When I got home that night, my sister told me that she had seen this guy again that night when she stopped by the haunted house at Vito. The guy just held out the glove and said "Freddy Krueger." He loves naming characters!

Benadryl Submarine

This past weekend, Becks and I went drove to their parents' cottage for the Thanksgiving long weekend. While seeing them, the house music is always one of our priorities as they will play a combination of generic classical, CBC news, and choir music continuously when left to their own devices, and that drives us up the wall. They are amenable to our music choices when we put them on, but seem averse to any sort of pop music otherwise. Weird right? 

 We went through our usual choices for them, like 60s folk and soul music, but eventually ran out of choices and just searched for a "Family Thanksgiving" playlist on Spotify. Unsurprisingly, a few came up right away and were basically exactly what we were looking for, giving a mix of gentle 70s and 80 pop and soul stuff that is more or less amenable to everyone. White middle class people are nothing if not predictable. 

 One of the songs that was deep in the playlist, past when everyone was paying attention to what was being played, was a cover of the Foo Fighters' "Everlong" by Mac DeMarco, which I enjoyed and made me reflect on the song. I loved the Foos when I was just getting into rock music as a preteen, but mostly fell out with them as I got more streamlined in my punk taste. I kind of hate their current status as the last big rock band and the more gimmicky stuff they do (like Dave Grohl playing on a throne) doesn't do anything for me. Really, I guess this dislike is also around Grohl being worshipped as this rock god by their fans. It's weird? 

 Anyways, amidst all this I've still really liked "Everlong". It's basically a perfect rock song. It's got a bit of a second-wave emo vibe to it and I think it's the only song of theirs that reflects the fact that two of the members came from Sunny Day Real Estate. My friends and I were introduced to the band through their "All My Life" video being in rotation on muchmusic, so "Everlong" was this really cool older song that was fun to discover after the fact. And the video! It's probably one of my favourite music videos and is the perfect compliment to the song, even if I don't really know why. 

 Since I apparently have this long relationship with "Everlong" by the Foo Fighters, here are three episodes in that story:

 

One of the highlights of my teenage years was Cardinal Newman High School's yearly Talent Night, when pretty much every person I knew would group themselves into bands so that they could play two or three covers at the show. One of the most fun bands every year was (Party) Pat, one of my very best friends, playing with Nick, Dave, and James.* This group covered "Everlong" at the show, with Nick singing, and it kind of became his thing, so much so that when we were at a Supernova show to see our friends and saw one of the other bands cover the song, we were all like "You guys are biting Nick's style!"

*I think their band name was Captain Destruction and the Bunsen Burners? If not, that pretty close.

I met my friend Brian during my first week at Guelph and we instantly bonded over our interest in music. The vast majority of our nights in residence involved the two of us hanging out in his room listening to and sharing music and those are memories that I really value. His favourite band at the time (maybe still) was the Foo Fighters and he was on a quest all year to track down every song, b-side, and rarity that he could on blogs. "Everlong" was his favourite song and whenever anyone had a guitar at a party, he would immediately say "Play 'Everlong'." The Foo Fighters toured Canada during the spring we were at school and a group of guys all went to Brian's hometown of London to watch them play and stay at his house.

During the summer of 2017, one of Rebecca's friends got married in Italy, so we organized a trip to Europe for the two of us around the wedding. Surprisingly, probably the most fun part of the trip was spending time in the small-er Italian city the wedding was taking place in, Pescara, and seeing a very non-touristy part of the country. One night, we discovered a punk bar called POST and had a great time hanging out there. It felt comforting to spend time somewhere that equally reminded you of the parts of home you're familiar with, but also is different enough to be a new experience.

The bartender, who I assume was also one of the owners, was playing music that night by putting on Youtube videos on the bar's TVs and one of them was a 1997 live performance of "Everlong" on Letterman. When the owner overheard me doing my white male duty and talking about how the original Foo rhythm section came from Sunny Day Real Estate, he came over and gave us a free round of shots. Never underestimate the value of obscure emo knowledge. I think about this night all the time, especially because after "Everlong" he pivoted to a full-album video of Sixteen Stone by Bush (Bush X if you're nasty) and when I saw a METZ sticker on the bar and tried to engage with him about how they were from Toronto, he said their new album sucked. Basically everything I could ask for from a European exprience.

Man, it's pretty crazy how good of a performance that is, eh? The drumming! The back-up vocals! Them not being a stadium rock band!

Somehow Don't Seem to Matter Much Anymore

You ever think about how weird it is that I've consistently written here, even though people saying anything back to me about it happens like once every two years? I feel like it's fair to quantify 10+ years of me blogging here as yelling into the void, but is it? I don't think that I treat this like a diary though, where it's just me ejecting my feelings and emotions out into the internet, which is I guess the purpose of writing into the void? In my mind that seems like the purpose of a diary blog, but that's also open to interpretation too. I don't necessarily advertise this place, but I don't hide it either. So it's somewhere between a diary and a public website? I thought of this as being a short nothing post, as they used to make up a huge portion of the entries here. Almost no text and no substance. Mission accomplished!

But Here I Am

 Feasting on music seems to come and go. Some weeks, it feels like all I do is listen to podcasts as I finish work or do chores and this, for some reason, makes me feel extremely guilty? If I'm such a huge music fan, then why am I not constantly consuming new records? I have lots of time to listen while I work from home and Spotify now puts basically all of the history of music at my disposal, so by my logic it is a gigantic failure of mine and a glaring sign of hypocrisy and weakness that I am not more of an expert.

Fortunately, I'm in a feast phase now and all of those feelings are gone until next week. We're riding high baby!

Mo Troper recently released a single from his forthcoming album and the story about it made me go back and check out some of his older material, both because of the namechecking of Guided by Voices, an IMU fav, and the Expendables reference.* Turns out it rocks! The aesthetic is pretty perfect, both visually and sonically and the songs really hit this need I have to hear a jangly major key chorus about people being stupid that I have at all times. The discography has been a joy to get into so far, so rather than the new tune, here is a fav from the old stuff:

*Look, we're not getting into here, but the Expendables might be the most underrated film franchise in history.

It turns out that when I read music blogs, I often end up finding things that I really like!

Pop-punk is something that I feel very conflicted about liking. It was such a huge part of me finding my own musical identity as a young boy and then I loved the first wave of easycore bands so much (in hindsight, sigh). That being said, the pop-punk revival during the last decade really didn't click with me at all and a lot of the bands I liked in 2009, I really started to hate in 2015. Also, like 90% of the bands who played pop-punk were fucking shitty creeps. Could we have just traded in 2014-18 for another Fireworks record?

That all being said, sometimes a pop-punk song hits me in a way that I just can't get anywhere else. I know most of the genre truly sucks, but the highs satisfy this crazy hunger I have for the genre and it drives me to just pump a song on repeat, which I almost never do. Cue this Heart Attack Man song. I had been meaning to check out their 2015 record Fake Blood for a minute, but I think this is what I really want from them. The video also makes me so hype on the song and I can't think of why. Maybe it's the Sugar shirt? 

Lastly, one of my favourite bands from my Southern Ontario heyday was Windsor's Shared Arms. Probably the most skatepunk of all of them, and the most shreddy, but they were so melodic and fun. Shoutout to Kyle's welcome home show in Guelph with them, Junior Battles, the Decay, and Wayfarer. A superbill if there ever was one. Their guitarist Jesse now makes solo guitar pop like Supercrush or Young Guv. It rocks!

Shouldn't Let This Get to Me

 Duff came through big rec in our music exchange this week, giving Crash of Rhinos' second album Knots.

We've recently been focusing on emo, which started a few weeks ago when Duff remarked that he had re-visited Braid's Frame and Canvas for the first time in a while and was pleased to see it hold up as well as it did.* Emo is one of our biggest overlaps in music and in a genre that is hard to define sonically and has so many different parts and eras, we tend to agree more than we disagree, being picky about 2nd wave, missing the 3rd wave, and gravitating towards the fourth wave. I think it's also important that this overlap in emo taste was a huge contributing factor to the way that we wrote songs together in Beat Noir. We had the same vocabulary when it came to putting parts together, especially on Sovereignties.

*Duh

This all being said, we've both drifted away from the genre recently, as I don't think either of would say that any emo releases from the last five years have really stuck with us. The last one I really liked was probably Oliver Houston's Whatever Works? I feel like emo, pop-punk, and orgcore have slowly merged into one genre that kept some of the fans of those genres, but in my opinion lost everything that appealed to me from each of them. I also just grew out it too. I still love emo music and will check out new stuff, but I'm also too old for the GothBoiClique stuff and pretending I'm into it would just be posing. I don't want to be a 35-year-old who still deeply relates to American Football, but at the same time, a lot of emo music was super important to me for a long time and I can respect that.

Anyways, Crash of Rhinos was great, if a little long. IMO, if your punk album is over 35 minutes, it better be extremely ambitious and have a lot of stuff holding it together. BUT, the main thing that I thought about while listening to it was that since the 4th wave of emo is now over, I feel like I can say with hindsight that it was absolutely the best iteration of the genre. From my perspective, it took all the best parts of older emo, the DIY hardcore ethos of the first wave, the open-tuning guitar riffs of the second, and the hooks of the third, while (mostly) doing away with the over-the-top corniness that plagues the genre.

As always, the ending is the ending.

Anecdotes! Anecdotes! Part 48

Original beginning to this post:

As I said in my last post, I've been reflecting on Ontario Place a lot lately.

New, updated beginning to this post:

Two weeks ago, I was thinking about Ontario Place a lot and the draft for this post was still here!

Really though, I think this anecdote is really about the school year starting and new students doing their orientation, so maybe it's actually more relevant now than the time when I wrote down a few notes.

At Ontario Place we would have a wide variety of groups that would have their "days" at the park. Caribbean groups would come through during Caribana. Muslim groups would come through for, I think, Eid. Etc. Etc. In hindsight, there were actually few days during the summer that didn't have a special theme or group coming. I think that it might have been because the park was run so badly, and management was scrambling to get as many people into the park as possible. Did Canada's Wonderland have themed days every summer? Were they successful enough not to?

One that I happened to remember and that gave me a full body cringe when I did was when the University of Toronto's Engineering School (*deeply sighs* I hate that I know about Skule) came to do its Frosh activities at the park. I was standing at the back of the splashpad when a group of like eight new students led by a senior walked by and decided to use the area to do one of their challenges. 

Having lived with an engineer at Guelph for two years and being close friends with another at UofT during my youth, I feel like I have a deep knowledge of what most engineers are like, which is to say that I know why they suck and are annoying. There's this strange duality instilled in them by those older than them that engineers are not only smarter than everyone at the university (they're not), which makes them the most important people at the school, but they also party very hard (they don't). On one hand, they believe they are these crucial people that make everything that matters in the world happen, but on the other they truly see themselves as the same as the bros and jocks at the school. They believe that everyone wants to know them and be them, but in my experience no one wants to do either. So, even though they're dorks, they believe that everyone sees them as the cool bros at the school, because they have no self-awareness. 

On this day, the challenge that they had to do was, I think, take a video of them singing in public. Wow! Isn't that crazy! Can you believe how cool engineers are? The senior gave the camera to a younger student, got up on a bench with water jets on it near me on the splashpad, and then sang a rendition of "I Want It that Way" by the Backstreet Boys.* At the time, the song was having this moment of being an ironic thing with bros. They would sing it because they totally weren't gay bro. And being sensitive is also gay bro. It was super obnoxious 

*This is the first I've listened to this song what's gotta be ten years. Is it good? The chorus is undeniably cheesy, but the rest kind of fucks. I legit can't tell how I feel about it. Also who is the coolest one? Like, AJ is obvi the "cool one", but can any other member challenge him for the title? I don't think so.

What was weird though was that it was obvious that to some degree this senior didn't even want to do this. He was clearly doing it because he knew that's how cool loud bros acted and not because he actually thought that him doing an overly sincere version of "I Want It That Way" was funny. Masculinity, it's a hell of a drug.

Onto to good music. For some weird reason, I've associated these bands with each other even though, from what I can tell, they have nothing to do with one another (aside from both being on Run for Cover Records). Pairing two bands like this is something that I've done in the past, so I guess I'm just continuing that trend here. Both are post-hardcore, I guess, though two very different permutations of it. One a lot closer to hardcore like Turning Point, the other more Revolution Summer, but sounding contemporary. Excited for both of these records.

Our House Had All the Summer Shade

Does writing out a blog here get my creative juices flowing and make it easier to write the annotations that I need to today? Hard to know if there's any correlation there, but let's believe that it's true today.

I'm not sure why, but Ontario Place has been on my mind a bunch lately. Maybe because it's August and it's making me remember the dog days of the summer working there and waiting for the school year to start (I guess I have always really liked school). Maybe the current heat wave in Montreal is making me think of the days at OP where the humidex would go up to 50 beside the lake. Maybe it's because I still use my OP windbreaker as a light jacket and I've recently worn it in the rain. In any case, the park has been circling back in mind over the last two weeks or so and smaller stories and memories that I haven't thought about in years are returning as a result.

Something you only noticed about Ontario Place if you were there every day for three months was that they just played a single Sirius Satellite Radio station for the entire summer. One summer it was Sirius 70s, one it was 80s, one was a weird PG Top 40. Though I assume the DJs who made the playlist thought they had made a huge mix of songs, I feel like I had heard the entire run of them in about three days. You quickly got used to this station being the background noise of this summer and not long after that started to hate every song because you had heard it so many times. 

That being said, there were always a few songs each summer that would cut through the haze and boredom and remain awesome, no matter how many times you heard them. On a long hot workday, these would be a welcome relief and boost to your mood.

 The Official List of Good Songs that Played at Ontario Place:

Thin Lizzy - The Boys Are Back in Town

I think that this might have been where my appreciation for Thin Lizzy started? So many losers made a big show of listening to classic rock while I was in high school that it was hard to not associate it with them and it took me a while to come around to the good parts of the genre. I legit perked up every time this song started and started to love it before long. There was so much boring 70s arena rock on the playlist, but the guitar harmonies and thumpy bass made me realize that Thin Lizzy was head and shoulders above them all.

Orleans - Still the One

Speaking of boring arena rock! I truly can't explain why this song appealed to me, as it's so fucking corny it hurts. I think I was just so overdosed on love songs by bands like the Ergs! and Descendents that anything in the genre could win me over. What if Grand Funk Railroad and the Eagles combined but left their small amount of songwriting skill behind. You get this band! It does pain me to admit that that's a huge vocal harmony on the chorus.

The Eagles - Lyin' Eyes

Much like the Dude, I just fuckin' hate the Eagles man. They're infinitely worse than all the other California easy rock from that time, having none of the guitar shredding and maliciousness of Fleetwood Mac or the dark moroseness of Jackson Browne. I guess chalk it up to the same reason that Orleans song popped out to me? Forgive me, I was painfully single and lonely.

PS: This song is 6 minutes? What the fuck?

The Miracles - Love Machine

I wasn't alone in getting tired of Ontario Place's music and most of the staff  felt like Bill Murray each time he wakes up in Groundhog Day. One day I was rotating around to my next position in the waterpark took over the spot of this big Chilean guy named Nick. As he left, he said something like "Oh man, that 'Love Machine' was playing." and started doing a little dance and singing "I don't work for nobody but you!" in a falsetto. I think he was high. It brightened up my day.

Kim Mitchell - Patio Lanterns

This one is no surprise as I'm about as a huge a Mitchell fan as there is, so I was stoked that it was part of the 80s playlist. One morning, I was hungover and stoned coming into work and this song was playing as I entered the gate of the park. What a perfect morning.

Miley Cyrus - The Climb

When we converted to a Top 40 playlist, it was weirdly all songs that were like three to four years old. I already thought this song was hilarious because of an inside joke with my friend Jamie, so that made it easy to vibe to it when it started to play at OP. I started to joke with all the 20-year-old biddies that I worked with that this was my favourite song and it often played at the bottom of one slide where I had to do rescues, so the over-the-top anthem about overcoming adversity started to be about me having to jump in and get kids.

Katy Perry - Hot 'n Cold

At the height of poptimism, I was super into Katy Perry's first two albums (if that weird debut doesn't count) and I think that "Hot 'n Cold" playing at Ontario Place was the start of that. I caught myself vibing to the song one day at the park because it's undeniably catchy. Once again, I fell prey to a song about someone fucking you around. I would go home after work and watch the video on Youtube because I loved it, but then also erase the video from my browsing history so that other people wouldn't know I was listening to it. I was punk! Punks can't like Top 40!

PS: While working at Ontario Place, I realized that "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha and "California Gurlz" by Katy Perry have the same melody and are almost the same song. I mentioned this to my co-workers and most didn't believe me, despite the similarities being obvious, or didn't care. Crazy! All of them!

Absolutely Clear, but Don't You Worry

 I wish I could see the dates that I edited this post, but if I had to guess, it has to have been like two weeks ago that I started. The opening paragraph is pretty funny in hindsight, considering it took me so long to finish a nothing post that was even started before the last one. Anyways, it was already most written, so I can't just lean on the backspace now, can I?

I can feel the void inside getting a little bit bigger lately, but it's hard to pinpoint why. Caving under the pressure of thesis work? Dread about not making as much out of my summer as I could? COVID? Missing friends? I feel fairly certain that it is absolutely not from having neglected personal writing, though I have thought a couple of times about how it's funny that I'm just not driven to do that lately. Unfortunately, writing out dumb stream of consciousness blogs is one of the only coping strategies I have for dealing with stress anxiety, so here we go.

Another problem: I have no idea what to write about. Ideas have come and gone quickly lately, so what you'll get here is ideas jotted down as they come to me over multiple days.

Anna Fox Rochinski recently put out an album on Don Giovani Records called Cherry. It's sort of dreampop, sort of shoegaze, in the early 90s Cocteau Twins sense, but still dancey. I've never heard of this artist before and I like her a lot so far.

I just returned to this point for the first time in like three days and instead decided to make this only about music I'm into at the moment. Look at this transparency about the blog! Crazy! So interesting for the fans! Or just lazy!

Angel Du$t

I never really got into Trapped Under Ice during their first run as a band, though I really enjoyed seeing them the few times that I did. I think even the most hardcore of TUI fans wouldn't have predicted the prosperous family tree that resulted from the band though. Initially I was very much Team Turnstile and didn't really get into Angel Du$t that much, but they somehow went in even weirder and more interesting directions musically than their brother band. Really cool EP.

New You

It's simple power pop played by a punk guy that focuses on crunchy guitar leads. That's exactly what I like! It kind of reminds me of TRÜ, another new band I really like. 

Militarie Gun

I think that Regional Justice Center is extremely cool, but power violence is also something with a bit of a ceiling with me. And I also like to watch it live much more than I like to listen to it on record. Fortunately Regional Justice Center also turned into a band that is both hardcore and indie/college rock. I like this EP each time I re-visit it and I think it will probably end up being one of my favourite things this year.

Just Friends

Just Friends were a pandemic find for me and are great as a serotonin boost as the pandemic wears on you. Just always intravenous fun vibes. In lieu of releasing a follow-up album to Nothing But Love, they've focused on putting out short EPs that feature new singles, new versions and remixes of old songs, and, in general, a lot of playing with their sound. Honestly, if they just did this for the rest of their existence as a band, I'd by psyched.

Postscript:

I think I might be starting an Eddy Grant binge? I had always meant to dig more into his music and was inspired to today. I have this dumb vivid memory I tie to him (from well before "Electric Avenue" became a bit of a meme from Pineapple Express*), where he was being discussed on a VH1 "Remember the 80s" thing being aired on muchmoremusic and most people were teasing how retro the video sounded and looked. In the middle there was a cut to Adam Levine from Maroon 5 saying very seriously and earnestly "It's a great fucking song." That made Eddy Grant seem cool? It's great stuff.

*For the record both "Electric Avenue" and Pineapple Express are good, it was just annoying that everyone knew it as the Pineapple Express song and associated with stoners for like 5 years.

Hearts of Gold Can Still Feel Lonely if They Don't Know They're Not the Only Ones

 Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of the release of Bomb the Music Industry's last record Vacation in 2011. Lest you think I was keeping track of that, I only noticed this once friends of mine and bands started posting about it on social media and seeing these posts brought back a lot of memories for me around the record. These days, it's hard for to pick an actual "favourite record" and it varies depending on my mood and how the music is hitting me at that moment, but there are probably 5 or 10 I could narrow it down to that take that spot and Vacation is absolutely among those. Since Vacation is sometimes my favourite record, here are episodes from my relationship with this album.

1. Starting in high school, I began a personal ritual in which I would download the new Bomb the Music Industry! record from QuoteUnquoteRecords.com the day it was released and then read along with the lyrics on the website for my first listen through of the record.* The songs and band were so important to me and, as I've explained ad nauseam on here, it felt like they were my own special thing. These listen throughs reading the lyrics were an important part of that relationship and were for sure a major force in me building it. When Vacation came out though, I had to work in the morning and didn't have time to perform that ritual. Instead, I downloaded it, immediately put it on my iPod, and listened to it on the way to work. As a result, it took me a little bit to warm up to the record, and at first it didn't measure up to BtMI's past material.

*It makes me happy that the website still looks the exact same as it always has. Wish I wasn't always so nostalgic, but maybe I should just accept that this is who I am.

2. I saw Bomb the Music Industry! on their Vacation tour in the summer of 2011 and, like Vacation's place in my list of favourite records, I often think of this as the best show I've ever been to. Opening the show, I got introduced to the Sidekicks, who killed it live and immediately became one of my favourite active bands. BtMI! played a long set that mixed all of their wonderful albums and the show ended by them played "Syke! Life is Awesome!" a personal favourite of mine. I stagedove at the end of the set and screamed the ending refrain that I used to write in the margins of notebooks at eye level with Jeff Rosenstock. It was cathartic.

3. During my winter break from school in 2011/12, I returned to Scarborough for the holidays. One night, while sleeping in my parents' basement, I had a really bad night thinking about my life and my future and got really low. I listened to Vacation from start to finish and decided to then do my read along on the website. It made me feel a lot better and that is when it became my favourite Bomb the Music Industry! record.

4. I had a tough year in 2012 and was a particular low point in mid-February. I was listening to the record constantly at this point, but one particular time sticks out when I was walking home from a friend's house in a snow storm. The line "In truth, December destroyed me, January crushed me, by February I was not myself" in "Felt Just like Vacation", while walking in heavy snow, overwhelmed me.

5. In January of 2014, I traveled with Rebecca to New York to see Bomb the Music Industry!'s last two shows. Both shows were amazing and seemed like the perfect way to send off the band. My friends James and Nick travelled to the shows separately and I met them there. So did Dave and James. Rebecca's friend made them wait with all of our coats during the second show. The Slackers opened the first show and that ruled. Even though the sets were lengthy and amazing, something that has always stuck out to me was the band opening with "Campaign for a Better Next Weekend", the first track on Vacation, each night.

6. In January of 2018, Rebecca and I went to their family's cottage with a few friends. It was a really nice and relaxing time. My friend Pat has described it in the past as a formative weekend for him that convinced him of some moves he had to make in his life. On the first night, we cycling through music and he put on Vacation and said something like "I was listening to this the other and thought it really held up." Part of me was like "Duh, I never stopped listening" but part of me was also like "Man, does it ever."

7. In July of 2021 I put on Vacation to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the record. I was feverish, sore, and tired from receiving my second dose of the COVID vaccine. "Felt Just like Vacation" still made me tear up.

 

Man.

They'll Do You Right Up

 I could never tell you why, but I was inspired to sit down and try to learn a RX Bandits songs on guitar yesterday. I was all the way in on the band between grade 12 and my second year of university, but they haven't really been a go-to of mine since then. Not that I think the band is bad, in fact I think the material that I liked (Progress, The Resignation, and ...And the Battle Begun)* holds up way better than most stuff I liked around that time.

*Is it dumb to title your record where you start experimenting and trying new things Progress? It feels pretty lazy.

Getting into the more experimental and proggy side of the RX Bandits hit me at the intersection of two important parts of growing up. First, I was just starting to be interested in playing guitar, as most of my focus had been on figuring out how to play bass before that. I had a cheap Hamer strat copy that I fooled around on while learning "Dammit" (the Slammer Hamer) and I was just starting to be able to play things beyond basic power chords. Playing RX Bandits songs on guitar was fun because there was lots of stuff going on and it was a nice introduction to that most hallowed role of lead guitar playing.

Second, this was also when I felt like I was starting to diverge from my friends and find things that only I was interested in. Maybe I always sort of did that, but when I look back now, I think of a lot of time in my room reading about and discovering new and different music that was important in shaping what I listen to now. The RX Bandits were an easy transition because they used to be a ska band, so I could cover my tracks if I needed to. Nobody else I knew was interested in them, and after a few initial failed efforts to get my friends into them, I started to like the feeling of having my own things, just for me.

I've always had time for music that had weird parts just for the sake of having weird parts and also stuff that sometimes favoured technicality over melody (though that has reversed since), but liking The Resignation raised some important identity-defining questions:

1. If RX Bandits were known for extensive live jams during their sets, did that mean I liked jam bands? (Still don't like the Grateful Dead, but liked them even less then.)

2. If RX Bandits had hippie-ish tendencies, did that mean I had hippie tendencies myself? (I will always land firmly on the "punk" side of the punk/hippie dichotomy.)

3. Is it okay to like non-punk, non-ska music?

Obvious the last question was an obvious yes, but I never got all the way there on the other two. RXB ultimately turned out to be the limit in how far I would get into both of those styles. I can get down with jamming (remember, Fugazi is bold-underlined GOOD), but it has to be firmly rooted in punk and rock. 

As always, I went into this post with no ending and then nothing came to me while I was writing it out, which is the only I know how to write conclusions, so I'll end with this song, which I had fun re-learning on guitar yesterday. It's funny to see this song starting with a really basic power chord progression, because it's almost like seeing the band's progression in real time. Homeboy's lyrics are always a little on the nose and sometimes play as a naïve, but I tend to agree with the base statement in them, which saves them.

Pick Up that Guitar and, uh, TAWK TA ME

Earlier this month, Rebecca and I went away to cabin in southern Quebec for our birthdays so that we could relax for a weekend. I had started reading Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome during the week before the trip, but the novel hadn't really grabbed by that point and I wanted something more light fun that I breeze through while sitting in the woods. For whatever reason,* Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman jumped off my bookshelf at me as the perfect choice and I decided to bring it with me, even though I've read it twice before.

*I've been reading the Number Ones column on Stereogum a lot recently, so maybe their discussions of "Love Bites" by Def Leppard, "Bad Medicine" by Bon Jovi, and "Every Rose Has Its Thorn" by Poison were the impetus?

Though it's kind of embarrassing to admit now, I have to admit that the writing of Chuck Klosterman had a huge effect on me as a young man. I hadn't ever read pop culture criticism, so the idea of someone writing a whole book that very seriously examined something as dumb as hair metal (which, due to hours of watching muchmoremusic, I deeply loved) was paradigm-shifting to me. I devoured the book and I think that it immediately affected how I looked at music and pop culture.

After Fargo Rock City, I picked up a bunch of others and enjoyed them to varying degrees,* but also started to realize that his books appealed to me a lot when I was 19 and a lot less when I was 24. He seemed like a one-trick pony and I liked that pony a lot more when it was running on a hair metal race track than when it was just free to run anywhere. However, despite the (in my opinion) dwindling returns on his writing, I still thought that Fargo Rock City was not just his best, but also a good book, because it was so focused and the central idea was something that nobody else had thought of. Hair metal was undeniably popular, but undeniably dumb and critically bad, so why look at the space in between?

I was interested to see what my opinion of the book would be on this read through, as it had been more than 10 years since I had looked at it. I guess what I found was exactly what I expected. There were parts that were absolutely razor sharp and were up with the best pop culture writing I had ever read. There were parts that were absolutely hilarious. This was nice because it meant that I hadn't been a total idiot while I was younger. There were also parts that dragged and didn't really have anything to say. There were parts that, while not necessarily bad or hateful, aged terribly and wouldn't be included today. There was some pretty dumb language about women, even for a book about hair metal. About equal amounts of bad and good.

Having said all this, I think I also need to acknowledge that Klosterman, and this book in particular, are probably the main influence on how I write. Certainly, a lot of IMU is basically crafted in the image of Fargo Rock City. It's something I'm a little embarrassed about, as I would love to have cooler influences that make my writing sound cooler, but this is who I am now and what am I going to do? Remake my narrative voice at age 32?

While reading the book, I thought about trying to write a post that would forward my interest in hair metal as a sort of tribute. I came up with trying to compare Blue Jays players to hair metal guitarists, but only ended up getting as far as Rafael Dolis being C.C. Deville and gave up.

Let us count the similarities:

1. Both pretty much suck.
2. Both have one pretty below average skill (throwing a fastball in Dolis' case, playing hair metal guitar in Deville's) and get by by dressing it up with theatrics and making it seem better than it is (waiting up to a minute in between pitches for Dolis, just throwing a bunch of neon 80s guitar around for Deville).
3. Both play a supporting role in their group.
4. Both have last names that start with D.
5. Both beat out better people suited for their job (any Major League pitcher for Dolis, Slash for Deville).
6. Both somehow charmed me into caring about them more than their peers.

Could you imagine how bad a full column of that would have been?

Tastes Like Fire

 This week Greyhound announced that they would be withdrawing all of their bus service lines from Canada. Pretty crazy to think of! I can't say that I ever thought of Greyhound buses as the sort of private business that would be taken away as the result of COVID-19, but here we are. As a Toronto kid how never learned how to drive* and who went to school outside of the city, I spent a huge amount of time on Greyhounds as a yute.

*Is my huge volume of Greyhound rides a character flaw? Perfectly normal to ride it so much while you're 19/20, but should I have moved on and gotten a car at 25?

As a dedicated Greyhound rider, here are my top stories from da bus:

This is always the first one that I think of. In the spring of 2012, Andrew W.K. announced that he would be doing a full-band tour to celebrate the 10th anniversary of I Get Wet. I had never gotten the full AWK live experience, having only seen him play to a backing track. (Party) Pat and I were ecstatic at the thought of seeing our party god play live and bought tickets immediately. When the date came, we got on a Greyhound in Guelph to head to Toronto and brought beers to get ready for the show. We heard a guy a few seats in front of us open a beer and laughed that we weren't the only ones drinking on the trip. When we tried to nonchalantly open ours a few minutes later, the guy turned around and said "Are you guys going to see Andrew W.K. too?"

Despite the fact that I took the bus to Toronto from Guelph constantly, I was always nervous that I had gotten on the wrong route from the University of Guelph bus loop. That never happened, but one time the driver started to take a strange route after stopping at Aberfoyle, before eventually stopping and asking over the PA if someone could look up directions for him.

I admit that I can be particular while I'm traveling and get easily annoyed. Usually I avoid this by either listening to music for the entire ride or watching a movie, but there were a few times this was unavoidable. Don't be the guy who loudly talks to a person he doesn't know about DJing for an hour, or the guy loudly going over his Keeping Up with the Kardashians re-watch, or the guy asking me phone his friend in Guelph while he is currently getting off the bus. Just try to be quiet.

I've already told the story of the time that I worked a long and strange night at Nest in Toronto, so I don't need to re-tell that again, but the ride into Toronto that started the night was one of the most memorable (and chill) parts of that night. I rushed to get to the Charles Street Terminal in Kitchener, and then started to listen to How Did This Get Made? for the first time. The first snowfall in Ontario started during the ride and as a result, traffic moved crazy slow for the entire ride. It took about three hours to get to Toronto and I tried to relax and just let the trip happen. Though I'm not one for winter, I will admit that looking out the bus window and seeing roads and hills only slightly covered in snow was relaxing.

It's Book Review and Face the Nation Time

This morning I found out that there was a tribute to Adam Schlesinger last night, featuring both big names, Courtney Love and Chris Carrabba, and personal favourites like Ben Kweller, Justin Pierre, and Matt Caws. I was surprised that I hadn't heard about this, but I don't know that I would have paid for a livestream anyways. This reminded me how bummed I was to hear that he had died early in the pandemic and led to reflect on the year and a bit that we've been living through COVID. 

Schlesinger's death was a weird one for me. I think it's totally normal for you to feel sad when a person you respect and admire dies, but it almost felt like I made too much of a big deal about it to myself, compulsively reading stories about him and the experiences of those close to him. I think that was probably the result of the stress and fear of COVID coming out of me in strange ways. I never really reacted strongly to any of the horror stories around public health or long-term care in Quebec, but then latched onto Schlesinger's death like crazy. In hindsight, those two things are probably related, right?

Sidenote: I can't remember if I said this during my in memoriam post, but there was one time that Duff and I were talking about our pie-in-the-sky producer picks for Beat Noir. I said Schlesinger and Duff reacted like that was the worst choice possible and didn't fit all. Him working on Sovereignties is a laughably weird fit, but I still stand by it? 

Anyways, a year later I'm still sad that he died as a result of this pandemic, especially as someone who was relatively young and still producing great music. When I think about him and Fountains of Wayne, I find myself still in awe of his talent as a songwriter. He was the first person related to my interests who died during the last year, and that sits as a strange post in my COVID experience. It having been a year since he died is a reminder of how long this has been going on and it's sad to think how bad things still are. Maybe it's nice to think about vaccines being readily available Canada now. I don't know. That's nice, but I also can't say I'm confident about things going back to normal like everyone else is. I still never really know how to feel about the pandemic and now the music and death of Adam Schlesinger is weirdly tied up in that. Strange feeling.

Okay, two things related to this:

One is that as part of the tribute, a reformed Tinted Windows performed. Tinted Windows was a super-group featuring Schlesinger on bass and as the principle songwriter (awesome), Bun. E. Carlos from Cheap Trick on drums (IMO the coolest CT member, also awesome), James Iha on guitar (not a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan, but he's undoubtedly the coolest member), and Taylor Hanson from... Hanson on vocals*. I was so excited to learn about this band because it was this joining of forces around this specific type of pop-rock that I absolutely love, but isn't for everyone. Sadly, the album didn't really stick with me, even though I REALLY wanted to like it. Apparently the band had discussed making another record, which I still would have absolutely listened to. It's sad that never happened.

*I can't say I'm a fan of Hanson's music, but I do have respect for them continuing to put out records this far into their career and being committed to pop-rock. Lifers.

I found it touching that this band reformed as a bass-less three-piece to perform for this night.

Second, I discovered that a tribute album to Schlesinger came out and I listened to that immediately. I think it really speaks to his preternatural talent to pair vocal harmonies with words and chords to hear the songs in so many ways. Maybe this is a nice thing I need.

Postscript: I just found that this compilation was released on my birthday last year. What a coincidence.

Bad Operation in My Mind

 Well, I had a plan to write a blog every day this week, but then I promptly let that plan fall apart last night, since I hurt my back skateboarding and ended up lying down and watching TV for the whole night. Does it still count if I blog seven times in one week? Am I fee to change the rules, or are they set in stone once I make them?

I've gotta admit that I'm pretty bummed I've hurt myself skateboarding yet again. Though I was pretty indestructible as a teenager, that's really not the case anymore. The first injury came in 2016 and since then I've consistently hurt myself almost once a year:

1. 2016: Partially torn ligament in my left ankle.
2. 2019: Partially torn ligament in my right ankle after getting hit by a car.
3. 2020: Pulled a muscle in my lower back.
4. 2020: Re-aggravated that same muscle.
5. 2021: Re-aggravated that same muscle.

The first two were accidents that weren't fully my fault, but the last three have been the result of me getting older and not keeping my body in good shape, which sucks. I was skateboarding to the market near my house and all of a sudden my back tightened up and started to hurt. I was kicking around trying ollies in a parking lot and one landing made my back do the same. I then end up having to spend a few days lying in bed to rest my back, which shoots my productivity into the ground. It sucks.

This most recent injury has made me think about if I'll be able to keep skateboarding, because even aimless fucking around seems to have a high risk for me. I guess I can commit to regular stretching and exercise, and maybe that will help, but it also sort of feels like skating is legit something I won't be able to do anymore.

To be honest, that scares me, because skateboarding is something that I consider integral to my identity. I don't want to turn into a "guy that used to skate" and my first reaction to any of the injuries is that I'll just keep dealing with them because I'm willing to keep getting hurt if I can keep skateboarding. I can't say I really feel the same as I'm bedridden now, but the thought is still in the back of my mind.

I don't know. Getting old is a trip and it really sneaks up on you. I don't want to act like I've already resigned to giving up on how I was as a young person, but what do you do when the proof starts piling up?

In the Morning We'll be Fine

There's been a slew of great music releases of the last couple of weeks, which to me signals that the most blessed time of the year has started: The point in spring and summer when the Actual Good Records start coming out.

There's a been a few things that I've enjoyed so far this year, but to me the sign that 2021 in Music had started in earnest was the release of Origami Angel's Gami Gang last Friday. I'm not sure exactly what it is about the release, but it stands out more than the other good stuff I've heard this year, like Another Michael and Glitterer. It could be the warm weather creeping in around its release and letting me know that all the good stuff is about to come. It could be people I know getting excited about it. It could be a lot of things. I feel like one of these releases that reinvigorates my desire to jump into new music has to come every year and this is it.

That being said, it is good, but not perfect by any means. In terms of 4th (are we on 5th?) wave emo revival, it hits all my spots, but is too polished by half. I need it to feel a little more like everything is about to fall apart and it's a miracle that the band is staying together in the song. I also need a lot more off-key screaming. I'm also not one for video game references and there are a lot here. 

It also weird in that it's sometimes almost too honed in on my interests. The promo pictures feature the members in a Bane hoodie and a throwback college basketball jersey, which is about as close to a perfect summation of my aesthetic in two articles of clothing as you can get. On top of that, it's a shreddy emo album with a lot of breakdowns and basketball references. How did I get so directly in this band's crosshairs? Is that my fault or theirs?

Anyway, Gami Gang is good and Counter Intuitive Records kicks ass. Sure is weird that I always feel the need to describe things I don't like about things I like, right?

Got a Photograph Picture Of

 It's funny that I mentioned how happy I was with New Tone ska in my last post, because last week a major thing in that genre happened when We Are the Union's singer Reade Wolcott came out as a trans woman. I've been a fan of We Are the Union for a long time, and even considered them my "favourite band" for a bit, so I was glad to see Reade feel comfortable enough to come out and live more comfortably as herself. My listening of the band has risen and dipped over the years, and I definitely prefer the old stuff, but I still listen to everything that comes out and will for sure always rep the band. The band always claimed ska through years when it was extremely uncool to do so in punk music* and will always have my utmost respect for that. Seeing them be a cornerstone of the new generation of ska bands warms my heart.

*They toured with A LOT of notable easycore/pop-punk bands who benefitted from their draw early on and then didn't return the favour later on. Jabronis, all of them.

The first single from their forthcoming album Ordinary Life, which will detail Reade's experience coming out, has been released and I've been listening to it a lot. Also, the moment when Jeremy reaches out and touches Reade's arm was very touching in an unexpected way?

I've been reading a lot of Stereogum this week and my favourite piece was this entry from their Number Ones series, which chronologically deep dives on #1 singles, on Billy Ocean's "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car". I love this song, mostly because of funny memories of it being the theme song to Matt, Brian, and I smoking weed in university, so it was fun to read about the creation process and context of it's release. Craziest of all is that it was produced by Mutt Lange, an arena rock producer most famous for AC ⚡ DC's Highway to Hell and Back in Black, as well as all of Def Leppard's big 80s records. That makes a lot of sense when you listen to the song, but it still doesn't make sense why a mix of 80s pop, arena rock, and New Jack Swing goes this hard. You never know!

Anyways, I will honour Lange by posting this song, which is and will always be an insanely sick jam

1. Pyromania is vastly better than Hysteria. Is it bad to say that bands was better when the drummer had both arms?
2. How high is Joe Elliot's union jack sleeveless shirt on the ranking of All-Time Rock Outfits?
3. Everyone associates the headset microphone with Britney Spears and *N'Sync, but I feel Def Leppard were the pioneers? They somehow had two members rocking them in the 80s. Two members who could have easily used mic stands!