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.