Trying Hard Not to Smile

A friend of Rebecca's recently sent them a video of a Youtube Guy (and I mean "Youtube Guy") doing a blink-182ified* version of "One Week" by the Barenaked Ladies. I found the guy's voice and demeanor irritating and had to then admit to myself that I just really like the song "One Week".

*You eve notice that the "What if blink-182 wrote _____" videos on Youtube always just sound like All Time Low?

"One Week" is one of those songs tied to a specific memory for me. In January 2009, Brian, Pat, and I drove to Toronto from Geulph so we could see Streetlight Manifesto, A Wilhelm Scream, The Swellers, and The Stich Up play at the Sound Academy. We had recently gotten Brian into Streetlight and were excited for him to see them with us. I also loved taking from friends from Guelph back to Toronto. Everyone at school was from the 519 area and loved to shit on Toronto, so I felt smug that usually anything sick happening required us to go back to my hometown.

In hindsight, I think this show was also a turning point for me in my music taste. This was the last time that I was excited to see Streetlight and I never sought out chances to see them after this. I was just starting to get into, for lack of a better term, "Fest music" and couldn't wait to see both Wilhelm and the Swellers. About 95% of the crowd didn't know those two bands and were pretty indifferent when they played,* so it felt cool and like I was part of a secret club who knew how good those bands were. When we walked in, The Stich Up were covering "Deeper" from Dan Potthast's other band Mu330, and that was an early point in my obsession with that band too. I had been looking forward to the chance to pick up the Swellers' My Everest at the show, and it turned out to be everything I expected.

*Streetlight Manifesto kind of have "Slayer Fan (or NoFX fan or Dropkick Murphys fan) syndrome where they draw a crowd that only cares about the headlining band and are openly hostile to openers. No one cares that you know all the words to "Would You Be Impressed" bro. They're a huge band.

Pat drove us in Brian minivan, Mama Link, to the show because Brian was tired and wanted to just be high in the backseat instead. Whenever we did roadtrips like this night, I would make a playlist on my iPod that we could listen to on the drive into the city. I took making the playlist super seriously and was trying to prove how fuckin' sick my musical taste was, thinking that I would get a "yo, this sounds good" compliment each time a song they hadn't heard came on.

Obviously, that didn't happen. It's not like they disliked the music I put on, but mostly they were indifferent while we drove. The traffic into the city was bad and I was starting to get stressed about getting to the show on time, so that I could see all of those opening bands. The playlist ended as we got off the 401 near Scarborough Town Center and we debated about what to put on next. I turned around and looked at Brian, high as hell behind me and deadpanning, with the glow of his laptop screen light up his face:

"Iiiiittt's beeen"

Every time that I mention this song, I'm also required to mention the last line of the lyrics "Birchmount Stadium, Home of the Robbie" said instead of "It'll still be two days until we say we're sorry". BNL are from my neighborhood in Scarborough, and names and imagery from there are featured in a lot of their music. Shout out to the Real McCoy being in the "Lovers in a Dangerous Time" video. Birchmount is a high school/sports complex near my parents' house. I played house league baseball for the Birchmout Bulldogs and my first lifeguarding job was at Birchmount Pool. Each year, an big invitational soccer tournament is held at Birchmount Stadium called the Robbie. You always see this sign as you drive by on Kingston Road:

I Don't Want to Barge in on Your Secrecy

 Weird fact of the day:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Moments from Toronto Ska 2004-2010: Streetlight Manifesto at The Kathedral

When I discovered the bands Catch-22 and Streetlight Manifesto in grade 10, it was an illuminating experience. I was diving head-first into ska music and it seemed like every band I found was even better than the last one. These two bands, who I group together because they shared a substantial amount of members, maybe stood out the most at that time and both Keasbey Nights and Everything Goes Numb didn't leave my walkman too much.

I came across Catch-22 first. The first thing I liked was that they played really fast. Even today, the faster it is, the more I like it. If you play in a punk band, don't be a wiener. Up the tempo. I was also still learning bass guitar at this time and I was starting to get a lot better at the instrument, so I really took to anything that had a difficult or interesting bassline in it. Pretty much every Catch song had that and I learned almost every song on Keasbey, passing most of my alone time by playing the album front to back.

I also thought the lyrics were really good. In hindsight, they weren't anything that special, but at the time it certainly seemed like they were just phenomenal.

The first time I heard Streetlight Manifesto, it seemed like everything that I liked about Catch-22 had been amplified in this new band. The songs were longer, but not slower, the songwriting more complex, more intricate hornlines, and better lyrics. The basslines, in my expert opinion, having played both albums all the way through a significant amount of times, are "about the same" in terms of difficulty.

Re-listening now, the musicianship is still pretty astounding. I mean, the intro of "Failing, Flailing"? That's some big time horn work. The songs are also really long, with most hovering five minutes, but they really don't feel like it. Somehow, with 7 members who are all doing a lot on every song, nobody manages to play over each either. It doesn't sound busy. The record is kind of soured by the band's current place in music, but man is there so much good stuff on here. Damien and I used to talk about all the covers we wanted to play in our first band, Chinese Fingertraps, but we knew that we couldn't go near Streetlight. The songs were just light years beyond us. Something we could only dream about one day being able to play.

Streetlight also seemed a lot more interesting to me because they were still a band, whereas Catch-22 had gone through a huge member change, which greatly impacted the sound and dynamic of the band, then put out Alone in a Crowd, which, in my 15 year-old eyes, rendered them dead to me.

For Damien and I, seeing Streetlight Manifesto live immediately became a top priority, but they seemed to skip Canada on every tour. According to my research at the time, they had only been to Canada once before. That is, until they announced a show at The Kathedral (R.I. fuckin' P.) in June of 10th grade. In hindsight, I didn't really wait that long to see them at all, but it seemed like a fucking eternity back then.

There was only one hitch about the show: It was on a weeknight. Since I was 15, my parents still weren't keen on me going out on a school night. Convincing them to let me go to a show on a school night would take some effort on my part. But this was no ordinary schoolday, no. I happened to have an English final the next morning. When I saw the date, my heart sank because I knew the chances of me actually getting to go to this show would be slim.

The show sold out pretty quickly, before I even had an opportunity to get tickets. It took a little sting out of missing Streetlight Manifesto, but it still tore me apart. How was I missing this momentous event? How would I live with it? What if they did the live thing where they play "Keasbey Nights" in the middle of "Point/Counterpoint"? The regret was destroying me.

In a stroke of luck, a batch of new tickets got released for the show. I now knew that this was meant to be. Somehow, I was seeing Streetlight Manifesto. Missing the show was not an option.

I went on the offensive on my parents: I NEED to go to this show. I can't really study that much for this English exam because it's one essay question. I'll study all day when I get home from my previous exam. I already read To Kill a Mockingbird, the book we were covering, in grade 8. This is the most important thing in my life right now.

I managed to win them over and get permission to go the day before the show. I was ecstatic and couldn't believe it.

The next order business was getting some of this new batch of tickets. Damien skipped school for the first part of the day so that he could go to the Sunrise Music at Scarborough Town Centre and get them. This felt really scandalous at the time. Streetlight Manifesto meant so much to us that we would put it before our education! We pictured a huge line of kids and us getting the last pair, narrowly securing our place at the show and, by extension, Toronto ska history.

In reality, Damien was in the store by himself and described the process as "The least required thing ever". But hey, it seemed like a big deal at the time!

This was one of the first shows of the summer and that really excited me. The school year was almost over and that meant that I had a whole summer full of going to shows and having no responsibilities ahead of me. This show felt like the first part of a huge great thing that I was going to do this summer. The scene of looking at Queen Street, the setting sun shining across it, from the south side of the intersection, a line of ska kids in front of me, remains in mind. It also always felt so much better to be standing in the sun in a t-shirt and shorts instead of fighting off the cold outside of a venue.

It seemed like everyone in the line shared our excitement about what was coming. This increased exponentially when we all heard the band sound-checking "A Moment of Violence" from outside the venue.

The venue was really hot. I think the show was sold-out and if it wasn't, then it was certainly close. It was also about 30 degrees outside. A day of extreme heat like, coupled with a capacity crowd, made for a very hot and sweaty show. The only people we knew at the show were a group of girls we used to refer to as the "3-6 Gypsy Crew" because they would wear quasi-gypsy-ish clothes,basically meaning those baggy skirts that were popular for a few years when I was in high school (c. 2004-2007). We thought that this name was HILARIOUS. Like, we considered it one of our greatest inventions. One of them was my first girlfriend, named Klara. I asked her out on MSN messenger, we hung out one time, and then we broke up because I ditched her to play Sega with my friend Vito one time. I used to see her at shows all the time and I would act like it was awkward, but it really wasn't. She was nice. Damien dated one of them too. It was funny to Damien and I that the 36GC were the only people we hung out with at this show though.

In hindsight, that name is... still very funny to me. You just had to be there, I guess. My friends and I are hilarious.

The first band that played was The Knockouts. They were a local Toronto band used to play a lot of ska shows and had a really bad song called "Peanut Buddha". I remember absolutely nothing about their set.

The band Whole Wheat Bread were supposed to play the show, but didn't get over the border. I liked that band in high school, but realize now that they were one of the most embarrassing things I was ever genuinely into.

The second band who played was a pre-mainstream breakout Gym Class Heroes. They were still mainly a hip-hop group with live instruments and were mainly known for their song "Taxi Driver", in which most of the rhymes are emo band names. I will say that they put on a really good live show. There were next to no kids who knew them there and they completely won over the crowd. This is one of the funnier "saw them before they were big" stories that I have for sure.

The anticipation for Streetlight Manifesto killed me. Something that oddly sticks with me from this show is a kid behind me yelling "AW, IT'S THE T-BONE!" as the trombone player was getting his stuff ready.

The band ended up playing pretty much all of Everything Goes Numb, because that was the only release they had at the time, and man, that was all I wanted. They did indeed play "Keasbey Nights" in the middle of "Point/Counterpoint", as well as "9MM and a 3-Piece Suit" in the middle of "Failing, Flailing" (I think) and this seemed like the craziest thing in the world to me. The Kathedral (my favourite venue ever in a landslide victory) got so hot that the mirrors behind the bar fogged up and I had never seen that before. I took that to be a testament to my, and the crowd's, undying love for the band. Nothing, not even the extreme heat and dehydration, would stop us from skanking!

I was in awe of the show after it happened. All of my clothes were soaked through in sweat and it felt like I had just experienced something truly special.

I told my friends at school, my friends at Damien's school, my friends in the scene, anyone who would listen, that they had missed a momentous occasion that would never happen again. No Streetlight show would ever be like this one! It would be recorded and referenced forever and ever. Every ska fan in Toronto would forever be unbelievably jealous that Damien and I had been at this show.

Obviously my teenaged self was prone to hyperbole about ska bands (hey, still am), but I was also right in a lot of ways too. The next time I saw Streetlight, they played the biggest-capacity concert hall in Toronto, the Kool Haus, while opening for Reel Big Fish. They never played a venue as small as the Kathedral again and definitely never will. This was a singular occasion in being a fan of Streetlight Manifesto in Toronto. Though it is a little high-and-mighty of me to say it, it really wasn't the same seeing them again after this. I mean, of course it wasn't. Seeing a band in a small, intimate setting is better than seeing them in a giant cave of a venue every time.

It's also special because I saw the band at a specific point in time too. They put out their second album in 2007 and while it was good, it didn't carry the same "holy fuck, this thing is a masterpiece" feeling that came with Everything Goes Numb being the band's only piece of music. Being a ska fan in the mid-2000's basically meant having your heart and imagination being captured by Streetlight Manifesto's Everything Goes Numb, so for me, this show is my experience in a giant phenomenon that was very special to a lot of people.

Don't get me started on how Streetlight Manifesto aren't a ska band though, that's an argument for another time.

Another way that hyperbole is relevant is that Streetlight Manifesto kind of sucks now. They're now one of those bands who play a "Last Tour Ever!" tour every fucking year, and that makes me really sad. They've put a lot of music since I saw them in 2005; a 2006 re-recording of Keasbey Nights, 2007's Somewhere in the Between, a 2010 collection of covers 99 Songs of the Revolution, Volume 1, 2013's The Hands that Thieve; and while those vary from "still pretty good!" to "meh", none of them meant as much as that debut album. They've gone through a ton of member changes and while all the new guys are just as excellent as the ones they replaced, it's not the same seeing someone play someone else's music. The version of the band I saw playing Everything Goes Numb had this special, ethereal "the best band at this, doing this at the top of their game" quality to it that only comes with discovering music that is truly special to you and getting the experience the way it was originally conceived and performed. It's a special feeling that's hard to describe, but you know when you're experiencing it.

Nothing gold can stay.

With A Golden Heart Comes A Rebel Fist

Earlier this year Streetlight Manifesto put out a record that I am pretty into. I worked a really shitty overnight job at a grocery store for a little bit and as a result I listened to a load of music while I worked there and the newest Streetlight record was always in high rotation. A weird thing happens with Streetlight Manifesto where I barely listen to them anymore and then when they put out new material I'm all like "HOLY! WHY DID I STOP LISTENING TO THIS BAND?!" and to be honest, I have no answer for that. I guess the simple one is that I'm just not as into the band as I originally was. While that statement might be true, the fact of the matter remains that Tomas is still a wonderfully talented lyricist and the band are one of the most musically gifted and interesting outfits around that manages to incorporate many different genres and influences into a loosely punk song structure.

So, while I was working that job and listening to The Hands That Thieve I noticed that Tomas was continuing on one of his most-used lyrical topics and came to the following conclusion: Streetlight Manifesto is one of the most atheist bands in the world.

I first started to keep track of this after I saw Streetlight live and while performing "Down, Down, Down To Mephisto's Cafe", Tomas bluntly said "This song is about the Roman Catholic Church."



While at first I thought that the lyrics of the song were merely a story fabricated by Tomas, as he is wont to do, it made quite a bit more sense after realizing that Mephisto's Cafe was in reality hell. Also, I just made the connection after posting the above video that the album's artwork shows the sky, ground and then fire underneath, making reference to Heaven/God, Earth/Us, Hell/Satan. Once you make that connection about the song it really does become blatantly obvious what the song is about and most would make that connection having just looked at the lyrics plainly. For example:

"Way back when the prophecies began

Do you think they really had a masterplan

Or were they merely writing fabled stories?

I don't know, but it did occur to me

The punishment that they threaten constantly

It's only real if they could just convince me"

Or this one:

"Now everybody's telling taller tales

And I don't know who to believe

Ok, if your father really loves you more

What about the other families?"

This is a really common theme on this album (obviously, given the album artwork) and is referenced in tons of other tracks, such as "The Blond Lead The Blind" with the line "Did you lose faith? Yes, I lost faith in the powers that be, but in doing so I came across the will to disagree".

"Forty Days" is another song off of Somewhere In the Between which deals with Christianity and skepticism regarding it (if you couldn't already tell from the title).

"What a way to begin: we all inherit sin

and nobody's going to quench your thirst when the well runs dry

and nobody's going to hold your hand on the day you die"

Furthermore, a longstanding cover that the band performed live was "Hell" by the jazz/swing revival/everything band Squirrel Nut Zippers, which is song-long wondering about life after death, making specific reference to the Christian idea of hell (Gee, who would've thought with that title!). The song was also included on the band's 2010 cover album 99 Songs of the Revolution: Volume 1 and is a great example that shows both where Tomas draws inspiration for his lyrics and also the type of influences that set Streetlight Manifesto apart from most bands.



So, once you sit down and actually examine all of Tomas' writing it becomes very clear that life, mortality and the morality of Christianity, especially the Roman-Catholic Church, is something that he thinks about a whole lot. I guess that I get pretty defensive sometimes about how people look down on me for listening to ska and how easily people just write off the entire genre as being joke bands who don't take songwriting seriously, and that this is me trying to show that there's a lot more to it than that (I would also point to the Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution/Streetlight song "Here's To Life", in which Tomas eulogizes his favourite writers and artists who have committed suicide and also ponders about how similar he is to them). Perhaps it's a little problematic for me to use Streetlight as an example to counter those arguments, as they really aren't much of a ska band at all and I personally don't think of them as one, but everyone seems to, with the only apparent reason being that they have a horn section and they are an easy touchstone for those who aren't well-versed in the genre. Believe me, I'd love to go on ad nauseam about how The Skatalites' drumming and horn arrangements put essentially every other band that has ever existed's musical skill to shame, but I figure this would be easier for everyone to put in perspective.

To be honest, a lot of the time I get an idea for a blog post and I'm all like "Yeah! That is a great idea for a post!", but find that when I'm writing it it doesn't come together as cohesively as I thought it would and have trouble finishing it. Then I continue to write the post, despite not having ideas about how to tie it together, because I've already started and written most of it and I know that I will at least get a mild sense of relief and accomplishment once the post is finally done and up on the blog. This entry is an example of one of those posts.

Albums 51-40

51. Sum 41- All Killer No Filler

Originally the list was going to be “50 Albums That Changed My Life” but I decided to give this one a sentimental spot at 51. Yes this album is incredibly generic, sometimes the lyrics are pretty embarrassing and the only reason this band got so big was that they were essentially a Canadian version of blink-182. This does not mean that the album is bad. It is super catchy. It’s a perfect example of pop-punk circa 2001, which was the type of music that got me into to music in the first place. Plus “Pain for Pleasure” makes me happy because I’ve always had a soft spot for hair metal. The main reason this album is on here is that it is the first CD I went out and bought by myself. Through this CD I discovered a plethora of other music by reading the thank you list (one of the reasons I love buying CDs still). Without this CD who knows how I would have ended up.

50. Iron Maiden- Somewhere Back In Time

Like I just mentioned, I have a soft spot for 80’s metal/hair metal/glam metal whatever you want to call it. Usually this consists of putting on Poison at a party because it’s funny while you’re drunk. But I legitimately really like Iron Maiden a lot. I mean yea, sometimes their lyrics can be a little lame/stereotypical of progressive bands, BUT DUDE, they pretty much created that stereotype! Main reason for liking Maiden: they fucking shred. Every member in the band just kills their instrument. Steve Harris is one of my favourite bass players and definitely one of the all time greats. This is a “Greatest Hits” collection and I’ll admit that I’m not a big enough fan to throw a regular album up on here. But it doesn’t change the fact that I love every song on this CD.

49. Streetlight Manifesto- Somewhere In The Between

I was absolutely huge on Streetlight when I was 15 or 16. Then after a while I just listen to them because I had played out “Everything Goes Numb” so much. I kind of wrote them off because I couldn’t really listen to that album anymore. Then this thing came out about four years later. All I really needed was some new songs by the band. Granted they don’t really break any new ground on this album every song sounds like a “Streetlight song” but that don’t means it’s bad. The new addition of Pete McCullough on bass was incredible, his bass-lines are often the focal point of the songs whether people realize it or not. As always Tomas Kalnoky has a lyrical orgasm all over this album. It’s another chapter the storyline of very good albums that kind of blur the line between ska, punk, classical and countless other types of music.

48. H2O- Nothing To Prove

For some reason I always confused H2O with Madball. I guess it might have been because they’re really tight and both out of the same scene. But anyways I had no idea that H2O had such a melodic sound until I heard “1995” while they were hyping this album before it came out. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised. It took me awhile to come around to Toby Morse’s style of delivery but you once you “get” what the band is going for (may sound juvenile for an NYHC band, but give me a break) they’re a whole lot of fun. Some people would look at the lyrics as simple or crude but I would call them honest, dude is just saying what’s on his mind, in the best way he can. I find that unless you’re in the right mood, H2O’s other albums can drag on. Not this one. Ten tracks. All of them rip.

47. The Police- Greatest Hits

I think it was the rumours that The Police were getting back together that made me get around to checking more of their stuff out. Once you realize that there is more to the band than “Roxanne” and “Message in a Bottle” they’re pretty cool. The coolest thing about the band for me is how they brought reggae into the mainstream, where it hadn’t really been outside of Jamaica and The UK before. Granted it was a British-affluent-Caucasian version of reggae, but hey, who’s complaining. Stuart Copeland is a great drummer, Andy Summers does neat things with the guitar and Sting sings over some filthy bass-lines. Plus they have some good songs about girls, which I’m always a sucker for.

46. Goldfinger- Hang Ups

There is only one reason that I own this album. That reason is that “Superman” is a track on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. It was in grade 5 and I was incredibly impressionable. I kind of wrote the album off and pretty much only listened to the first track. In high-school I got heavy into ska music, so after hearing this album again it sounded a lot better than it did in grade 5. The album got another life when I really looked into it further and noticed how good the lyrics are. Relationship songs always seem cliché when you’re younger, but then some stuff happens to you and then those songs become your favourite. John Feldman is a good pop songwriter, but in an older tradition. He owes more to pop song writers of the 60’s than anyone else. The albums got some fast songs, some mid tempo pop songs and some ska songs. Sometimes all mixed into one. Goldfinger also has this way of everyone’s voices in the band harmonizing together for background vocals that I love and don’t really see any bands use. They don’t use it so much anymore, but it’s all over this record. Always a fun listen and one of the best summer albums.

45. Daggermouth- Stallone

I first heard of Daggermouth when I was going to see them open for Set Your Goals. I first passed them off as an SYG rip-off but that was only after a half-assed listen and seeing them live. But their live performance definitely impressed me. Plus they covered a Descendents song and you don’t really have to do much more than that to get me in your good books. But anyways, I got some free mp3s off the internet and really enjoyed them but forgot about them. At a Living with Lions show they played this album as the house music and I loved it. I eventually picked up my own copy and adored it. This is a pop-punk/hardcore band in the truest sense of the word. They could easily tour with New Found Glory but at the same time be perfectly in place at a show with Bane. Their vocalist Nick Leadly has his hardcore shout down pact but at the same time can carry a tune for a big chorus. One of my favourite parts of this record is guitarist Stu McKillop’s playing. He definitely goes beyond the usual pop-punk guitar licks to add catchy riffs that stay in your head as much and the lyrics do. I also relate to the lyrics heavily. The band eventually went on hiatus because Leadly has to be checked into a hospital for major depressive disorder. Obviously his struggles with it come out in the lyrics and I was having a bit of a rough time when I bought this record, so it grabbed me. This band really needs to get back together. Oh and “Sing It Again Rookie Biatch” has the best breakdown that this genre of music has ever seen. Best way to end the record.

44. The Flatliners- The Great Awake

The Flatliners have been a very important part of my life. The Toronto ska scene during high-school was who I was and The Flatliners were really the band at the center of that. It was at show where they were the second band on that I really realized they were something special. The first band had really sucked, but The Flats came out and really put on a great set. I realized that I had never seen them put on a bad set in all the times I had seen them. They gradually grew and grew, culminating in a signing with Fat Wreck Chords. I anticipated this album probably more than any other that I can remember. At first I was put off because it marked such a departure in their sound, ditching the Suicide Machines that had marked their first album and adopting a sound that fit in well with the second generation of bands on Fat now. But the album really grew on me. The song writing is hands down much better on this album. I eventually started to discover more “real” pop-punk bands that I had heard a lot of talk about but never really come around to. These bands are definitely the type of bands that influenced the writing of this record, so it was a part of that. I’ll never be able to hate on The Flats. For one they put out nothing but great music and they’ve been as big a part of my life as anything else. I’ve seen them 23 times and counting and they’re still great.

43. Bayside- Bayside

For some reason I always confused this band with the band Blindside, who really suck. But I saw that Bayside were going to be opening for New Found Glory at the date I was attending so I checked them out. I was pleasantly surprised at the sort of macabre pop-punk that I found. “Shudder” became an album that I really enjoyed. At the time, I was really bummed out and in a bad place, so the depressing nature of their lyrics really hit home and grabbed me. Eventually that situation got a lot worse and I got their self-titled CD because of the track “Don’t Call Me Peanut” that I had heard off it. The lyrics on this album were even more depressing and it really stuck with me. Some of the songs might come off as over the top to a new listener, but sometimes that is the only type of thing you can listen to because it really sums up how you feel. While their newer work is a lot closer to the tradition of Chicago emotional pop-punk their older had a different style to it that, I guess, could be described as closer to the more mainstream “emo” that got popular a few years ago. But seriously, this band is just so much better than all those bands that got big. Anthony Ranieri is an absolute dynamite song writer and all the lyrics on this record are just winners. Guitarist Jack O’Shea just rips. Most of the songs on this album have absolutely killer guitar solos on them and he throws a lot of stuff into the verses as well. In short, good lyrics+face melters=awesome.

42. Blink 182- The Mark, Tom and Travis Show.

Yes, this live album is probably over-dubbed in a lot of places. But between Blink’s banter (which is definitely my type of humour) and the finest cuts off my two favourite Blink records (minus Peggy Sue and Carousel from Cheshire Cat) who’s complaining? I always feel that Mark’s song writing gets lost in the grandeur of Blink- 182. Dude is seriously really good at writing songs about girls and has definitely written some of my favourite love songs. It kind of represents the high-point of Mark-Tom chemistry and has a very high nostalgia factor for me. Blink was one of the first bands I got into and this record lets me celebrate the good part of their catalogue (not hating on TOYPAJ though) and laugh my ass off at the same time.

41. Andrew W.K.- I Get Wet

Much more than just a “party album”. It puts you into a good mood every time you listen to it, no matter how bummed out you are. Even when I was super down in the dumps last year (seems to be a trend), every time I heard the guitar riff at the beginning of “It’s Time To Party” I had to smile. This record is just a tour de force of positive energy. It definitely has a unique sound. The guitars, bass and guitar are for sure heavy and a metal influence is there, but at the time the major chords give a poppy sound. Andrew definitely yells and screams more than he sings and somewhere in all of this is a lot of 50’s rock and roll style piano playing. It really works though. Like really well. It’s like a self help album in some weird big loud piano heavy rock sort of way. Come on, you just can’t hate this music.

40. Jimmy Eat World- Bleed American

I’ll say without embarrassment that “The Middle” was the song that got me into music. Before that it was whatever was on, I don’t really care. But when I heard “The Middle” it inspired me to start liking bands and I realized that music was a powerful thing and something that I really enjoyed. The other singles didn’t hit me the way that “The Middle” did and they definitely are different in style, so I kind of forgot about them. Then as my musical tastes expanded and I heard people talk about Jimmy Eat World as an important force in 90’s emo I bought “Bleed American”. It took a little while for the album to hit me in the right way, but man it’s awesome. Again, there are pretty good songs about girls on it and I still think the guitar solo on “The Middle” is the best one I’ve ever heard. Who knows what I’d be like if that song hadn’t directed me to music.