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.