I listened to a podcast where one pro wrestler I like interviewed another pro wrestler I like.
The one mentioned he contributed to a song by Kimya Dawson, so I read the Wikipedia entry on her.
The article said she was friends with Paul Baribeau.
Thought about how my friends listened to him a lot in university.
Asked a friend where to start with his music.
Watched a video of him playing on a couch.
Put on his record and tried to start looking for jobs.
Ended up staring into the air and listening instead.
Thought about you and the tough times you've gone through. Thought about the night we had like in the song.
I've seen you since then and I think it was better for you.
Know that you're a little better now, but I still worry a lot.
Tuesday, May 28, 2019
Monday, May 20, 2019
Never Say Goodbye
Something about I, Musical Genius that is interesting to me is that I'm able to interact with past versions of myself by looking at what I was writing on the internet. In addition to the many awful posts that exist in the archive, there's also a pile of drafts that sit in the platform and haven't materialized into anything. As much as there's many swings and misses from when I was trying to process breakups online, most of these drafts didn't even make that cut.
One of the things that comes up a bunch in the drafts, that I may have mentioned on IMU in the past, was a series called Under the Radar in which I would talk about bands I thought were underappreciated. How did I not name that name was corny and hackneyed as fuck?! The drafts are all from September 2013, so my only excuse is that I was wired on coffee in my office at Guelph and trying to come up with ideas to write about to get my chops back up as I entered academia again. Folks, it was a moment of weakness and I will never use a title that bad ever again, promise!
Pretty much all of the bands that I chose for the project were ska bands where I was the only listener I knew of among my friends.* I guess some people would say "Wow, glad you dodged that bullet!", but TBH, I still like all of the bands I chose, even if I don't listen and relate to some of them as much as I used to. Anyways, one of the bands was The Impossibles, and all of this was the intro for the following.
*Turns out I ended up finishing one, on The Stereo, in October 2013. Funny that the only one I did was on the only non-ska band, right?!
The Impossibles are now more of a signpost for true power pop heads to me than anything else. There will be times when the discography still appeals to me, but for the most part I find that I don't turn to ska-punk music from the late-90s as readily. I still love all of it, but it's so nostalgic for me and the more I age, the less I want to indulge nostalgic feelings. They can be a bit of a trap that keeps you living in the past and not moving on from things. There's proper ways to go about it, of course, but having all your main interests be nostalgic is a little poisonous, is what I'm saying.
That all being said, whenever I hear someone from a band mention that they love The Impossibles (and loving The Stereo often goes along with that), my ears perk up and I become way more interested. In fact, what kind of inspired me to come back to this post was Barry Johnson from Joyce Manor mentioning in an interview that he loves the Impossibles and that was why he got Rory Phillips to produce Million Dollars to Kill Me.* They never ascended to the top of the genre in the way that a Mighty Mighty BossTones or Reel Big Fish did, so they occupy this interesting space for me, as an invested ska fan in 2019, of having been around and put out lots of material and having toured, but not being a band that most punks know, in my experience.
*Bud, there's a huge fucking Rory stink (especially Three Hundred by the Stereo) all over that album. I love it.
I guess, what I'm interested in is why does the discography hold weight with people nearly 20 years later? Why does this album still kick around and allow the band to do reunion shows, while pretty much all of their contemporaries from the late-90s don't get the same treatment? People aren't exactly knocking down the door to demand Animal Chin and Hippos reunions.
My theory is that it's because the Impossibles' music (and especially the contributions from Rory Phillips, who went on do similar work in the Stereo) is indebted to a certain tradition of pop-rock songwriting that gives their music more staying power than some others. Most of the verses on Anthology are fairly standard fast ska-punk, but they build around that with huge chorus hooks and distorted intros that elevate the songs from being just "genre". There's nuance in the way the songs' parts flow into each other that for me recalls power-pop of the early 80's or album-oriented rock. Knowingly copping the tricks of hook-centric rock bands is an easy way to beef up your music, and the Impossibles were smart to do it in a genre where most other bands didn't focus on song-writing. This was further emphasized on their farewell album Return, which was entirely power-pop with no ska.
I think one of the first bands to really pastiche that late-70s and early-80s style of writing rock songs was Weezer, who did it perfectly on Blue and also managed to work the idea of bringing back that music into their lyrics (especially "Buddy Holly" and "In the Garage"). So much so, that now a band trying to put big overdriven riffs, catchy chorus melodies and guitar solos in their songs is now just referred to as "Weezer influence". That type of thing has gotten fairly common today, but I think that the Impossibles were one of the first to start doing it and the fact that they did so in a genre with pretty narrow sonic parameters, ska, is commendable.
As a musician, it's hard to stretch ska out and make it work in a variety of ways. A band like Reel Big Fish, who for better or for worse are a mainstay of the genre, hasn't changed its sound at all since its formation. The same can even be said of better ska bands, like the Slackers, who stick to a 1st-wave/reggae formula because it works and they can live in the subtleties and nuance.
When ska-punk bands are more song-writing focused than, for lack of a better term, "playing ska-focused", they inevitably move towards albums that downplay upstokes and dance-y parts in favour of better songs as a whole. Less Than Jake did this on Borders and Boundaries and Bomb the Music Industry! did this on Get Warmer. It's a jump that you need to make if you are part of the weird niche of loving ska, but also loving song songs. I guess that I just wish more people respected the Impossibles for making that jump.
One of the things that comes up a bunch in the drafts, that I may have mentioned on IMU in the past, was a series called Under the Radar in which I would talk about bands I thought were underappreciated. How did I not name that name was corny and hackneyed as fuck?! The drafts are all from September 2013, so my only excuse is that I was wired on coffee in my office at Guelph and trying to come up with ideas to write about to get my chops back up as I entered academia again. Folks, it was a moment of weakness and I will never use a title that bad ever again, promise!
Pretty much all of the bands that I chose for the project were ska bands where I was the only listener I knew of among my friends.* I guess some people would say "Wow, glad you dodged that bullet!", but TBH, I still like all of the bands I chose, even if I don't listen and relate to some of them as much as I used to. Anyways, one of the bands was The Impossibles, and all of this was the intro for the following.
*Turns out I ended up finishing one, on The Stereo, in October 2013. Funny that the only one I did was on the only non-ska band, right?!
The Impossibles are now more of a signpost for true power pop heads to me than anything else. There will be times when the discography still appeals to me, but for the most part I find that I don't turn to ska-punk music from the late-90s as readily. I still love all of it, but it's so nostalgic for me and the more I age, the less I want to indulge nostalgic feelings. They can be a bit of a trap that keeps you living in the past and not moving on from things. There's proper ways to go about it, of course, but having all your main interests be nostalgic is a little poisonous, is what I'm saying.
That all being said, whenever I hear someone from a band mention that they love The Impossibles (and loving The Stereo often goes along with that), my ears perk up and I become way more interested. In fact, what kind of inspired me to come back to this post was Barry Johnson from Joyce Manor mentioning in an interview that he loves the Impossibles and that was why he got Rory Phillips to produce Million Dollars to Kill Me.* They never ascended to the top of the genre in the way that a Mighty Mighty BossTones or Reel Big Fish did, so they occupy this interesting space for me, as an invested ska fan in 2019, of having been around and put out lots of material and having toured, but not being a band that most punks know, in my experience.
*Bud, there's a huge fucking Rory stink (especially Three Hundred by the Stereo) all over that album. I love it.
I guess, what I'm interested in is why does the discography hold weight with people nearly 20 years later? Why does this album still kick around and allow the band to do reunion shows, while pretty much all of their contemporaries from the late-90s don't get the same treatment? People aren't exactly knocking down the door to demand Animal Chin and Hippos reunions.
My theory is that it's because the Impossibles' music (and especially the contributions from Rory Phillips, who went on do similar work in the Stereo) is indebted to a certain tradition of pop-rock songwriting that gives their music more staying power than some others. Most of the verses on Anthology are fairly standard fast ska-punk, but they build around that with huge chorus hooks and distorted intros that elevate the songs from being just "genre". There's nuance in the way the songs' parts flow into each other that for me recalls power-pop of the early 80's or album-oriented rock. Knowingly copping the tricks of hook-centric rock bands is an easy way to beef up your music, and the Impossibles were smart to do it in a genre where most other bands didn't focus on song-writing. This was further emphasized on their farewell album Return, which was entirely power-pop with no ska.
I think one of the first bands to really pastiche that late-70s and early-80s style of writing rock songs was Weezer, who did it perfectly on Blue and also managed to work the idea of bringing back that music into their lyrics (especially "Buddy Holly" and "In the Garage"). So much so, that now a band trying to put big overdriven riffs, catchy chorus melodies and guitar solos in their songs is now just referred to as "Weezer influence". That type of thing has gotten fairly common today, but I think that the Impossibles were one of the first to start doing it and the fact that they did so in a genre with pretty narrow sonic parameters, ska, is commendable.
As a musician, it's hard to stretch ska out and make it work in a variety of ways. A band like Reel Big Fish, who for better or for worse are a mainstay of the genre, hasn't changed its sound at all since its formation. The same can even be said of better ska bands, like the Slackers, who stick to a 1st-wave/reggae formula because it works and they can live in the subtleties and nuance.
When ska-punk bands are more song-writing focused than, for lack of a better term, "playing ska-focused", they inevitably move towards albums that downplay upstokes and dance-y parts in favour of better songs as a whole. Less Than Jake did this on Borders and Boundaries and Bomb the Music Industry! did this on Get Warmer. It's a jump that you need to make if you are part of the weird niche of loving ska, but also loving song songs. I guess that I just wish more people respected the Impossibles for making that jump.
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
It's Hard to See in Those Murky Waters
Winter exhibitions are over and now I have a three-week break before our fundraising gala, after which I'll have another three-week break until our next exhibitions open. That's a wrap on Toronto. With so much time off, I'll be busy packing for the move, culling things we don't need anymore and packing the things we do. Times of transition are rarely ever as well-defined as this one, so it seems a little strange, but I think it's also a good thing. More so than ever before, the break will have to be busy and productive, but I don't foresee that being a problem this time around. Here's some things that I'm currently enjoying during this time of transition.
Barry is currently my favourite show on TV. It's a dark dramedy created by and starring Bill Hader about an Iraq war vet who is now a hitman but also trying to make it as an actor. As ridiculous as that description sounds, the show gets real as fuck. The supporting cast is wonderful, but it's really the Hader show as he shows off an intensity I don't think many people expected from him. The second season did that impossible thing of making a big jump but staying good. Amazing stuff.
I wouldn't classify myself as a "gamer", but there a couple of video games that have stuck with me and made an impression on me throughout my life. One of those games is the Dynasty Warriors series, in which you fight as Han-era Chinese warlords. The game is based on the Chinese novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of China's "Four Classical Novels". The mythology surrounding the story, which toes the line between history and fiction, has always fascinated me and drawn me into the story and this year I decided to read it. It was a very fulfilling experience.
I saw Big Nothing while they toured their debut 7" during the summer of 2017. The band made a huge impression on me at the show, so I've been anticipating further material since then. They recently put out a full-length and it's great stuff. A little fuzzy and dreamy in a 90s alt sort of way, but everything still building towards big poppy choruses. I also really love the songs where Liz Parsons sings lead. It would be wonderful if every pop-punk band was this good instead of being derivative horse shit.
I've seen Fury one time, when the opened for Power Trip and Sheer Mag in May 2018 (fuckin' huge gig bud). While tuning between songs, the singer spoke about how big of impression the music of Gord Downie (recently deceased at the time) had made on him. A couple of songs later, he recited a poem of Downie's as stage banter and I don't think many people in the crowd realized what it was. This obviously turned me into an instant fan, in addition to them play the exact type of vaguely-Youth Crew-ish, vaguely Snapcase-ish hardcore that I crave. They put out a new album this May and it fucking rocks ass.
Do you ever mean to check out a band for ages because you know that you'll like the band based on their name and album name? And then the guitarist appears on your favourite podcast and you realize he's a similar personality to you and that reminds you that you still need to check out his band because you'll almost definitely like it? And then you do and you realize you like Wild Side?
Lastly, I have a secret album that will be released by an Ontario band later this year. They've been playing songs off it for the last year-ish and I've been patiently waiting for what was sure to be another release that is heads and shoulders above everything else everyone is putting out in this province. It's absolutely wonderful and already shot right up to the top of my 2019 releases. It's crazy to think of what your friends are capable of.
Barry is currently my favourite show on TV. It's a dark dramedy created by and starring Bill Hader about an Iraq war vet who is now a hitman but also trying to make it as an actor. As ridiculous as that description sounds, the show gets real as fuck. The supporting cast is wonderful, but it's really the Hader show as he shows off an intensity I don't think many people expected from him. The second season did that impossible thing of making a big jump but staying good. Amazing stuff.
I wouldn't classify myself as a "gamer", but there a couple of video games that have stuck with me and made an impression on me throughout my life. One of those games is the Dynasty Warriors series, in which you fight as Han-era Chinese warlords. The game is based on the Chinese novel The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of China's "Four Classical Novels". The mythology surrounding the story, which toes the line between history and fiction, has always fascinated me and drawn me into the story and this year I decided to read it. It was a very fulfilling experience.
I saw Big Nothing while they toured their debut 7" during the summer of 2017. The band made a huge impression on me at the show, so I've been anticipating further material since then. They recently put out a full-length and it's great stuff. A little fuzzy and dreamy in a 90s alt sort of way, but everything still building towards big poppy choruses. I also really love the songs where Liz Parsons sings lead. It would be wonderful if every pop-punk band was this good instead of being derivative horse shit.
I've seen Fury one time, when the opened for Power Trip and Sheer Mag in May 2018 (fuckin' huge gig bud). While tuning between songs, the singer spoke about how big of impression the music of Gord Downie (recently deceased at the time) had made on him. A couple of songs later, he recited a poem of Downie's as stage banter and I don't think many people in the crowd realized what it was. This obviously turned me into an instant fan, in addition to them play the exact type of vaguely-Youth Crew-ish, vaguely Snapcase-ish hardcore that I crave. They put out a new album this May and it fucking rocks ass.
Do you ever mean to check out a band for ages because you know that you'll like the band based on their name and album name? And then the guitarist appears on your favourite podcast and you realize he's a similar personality to you and that reminds you that you still need to check out his band because you'll almost definitely like it? And then you do and you realize you like Wild Side?
Lastly, I have a secret album that will be released by an Ontario band later this year. They've been playing songs off it for the last year-ish and I've been patiently waiting for what was sure to be another release that is heads and shoulders above everything else everyone is putting out in this province. It's absolutely wonderful and already shot right up to the top of my 2019 releases. It's crazy to think of what your friends are capable of.
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Liberties, Vol 14
A new Liberties? Bud, I'm feelin' crazy and had to build one around the new Fury record, which is wonderful.
Tuesday, May 7, 2019
There's A Lot of Things I Want That I Can't Have, and to be Honest, the Older I Get, the More Pissed Off I Am About it.
This weekend, I will be volunteering at the Toronto Comic Arts Festival, as I've done each of the last four Mother's Day weekends. This means that this coming Friday will be the last shift I work during our current exhibition season, leaving less than ten (the real number is still unknown, but for sure less than ten) shifts at my current job.
Over the last year or so, there's been a lot of false endings at the place, where there was a good chance I would leave, but ultimately ended up staying put. This time, the change is set in stone because of the big move at the end of June. I can't work here while living in Montreal.
Some people would get wistful leaving a place they've worked that long, but I can't say that I am at all. Maybe there was a bit of that once I left the office last year, but certainly not now. Being at the same place and following the same procedures every day has gotten beyond monotonous and I think I've been sleepwalking through the motions for months now.
This type of boredom crept up on me and I was fully snared in its trap before I even realized it. The idea of having a job where you do nothing and have limited responsibilities is appealing, but this type of existence also bleed into the other parts of my life and it feels like I didn't do anything for the last year.
This is, of course, completely untrue, as I spent the better part of that time applying to and finalizing my school for the future, and then organizing all the logistics that come with a shift that big. Still though, I can't shake the feeling in my gut that I need to break away from where I am right now (professionally that is, I will always love you Toronto) to spur myself into news ways of thinking, new experiences, and some much-needed uncertainty.
Two months of hot Toronto weather. A couple of engagements in that time. Packing up a whole life. Let's rock.
Over the last year or so, there's been a lot of false endings at the place, where there was a good chance I would leave, but ultimately ended up staying put. This time, the change is set in stone because of the big move at the end of June. I can't work here while living in Montreal.
Some people would get wistful leaving a place they've worked that long, but I can't say that I am at all. Maybe there was a bit of that once I left the office last year, but certainly not now. Being at the same place and following the same procedures every day has gotten beyond monotonous and I think I've been sleepwalking through the motions for months now.
This type of boredom crept up on me and I was fully snared in its trap before I even realized it. The idea of having a job where you do nothing and have limited responsibilities is appealing, but this type of existence also bleed into the other parts of my life and it feels like I didn't do anything for the last year.
This is, of course, completely untrue, as I spent the better part of that time applying to and finalizing my school for the future, and then organizing all the logistics that come with a shift that big. Still though, I can't shake the feeling in my gut that I need to break away from where I am right now (professionally that is, I will always love you Toronto) to spur myself into news ways of thinking, new experiences, and some much-needed uncertainty.
Two months of hot Toronto weather. A couple of engagements in that time. Packing up a whole life. Let's rock.
Monday, April 8, 2019
Yeah Yo
I promised another post about my future ages ago, didn't I? I've been caught up in a couple of other things and, as usual, the idea of writing an update post on IMU slipped from my mind.
The reasons for neglecting that writing is explicitly tied to the writing though. I've been meaning to write about moving to Montreal, but more important than that is tackling the very real tasks related to that move. I need to be in a constant state of passively looking for apartments, taking care of small registration tasks at Concordia, and trying to make plans with my friends before I leave. If can believe it, those are all above "hash out a blog", but just barely.
Now that I'm here typing out, that leaves us with "telling people how you feel about the future" and there's no easy answer to that. Watch, as I work through ideas!
I think it's fair to say that I am primarily excited about beginning a PhD at Concordia University in Montreal. I've loved all the time I've spent in the city and I'm sure that living there won't be a difficult transition. There will still be all the things I need and love (public transit, good food, music, art) and some new things, the most obvious being that everything will be in French. This new setting for my life will be easy enough that I won't die, but also different enough that I'll be forced to change and grow. That's good.
For example: Live Blue Jays Baseball only two times. Man!
Most important, from a personal perspective, is that since I finished my MA, all my work has felt like I've been keeping my brain warm for when I went back to school. Graduate studies and teaching is what I do best, what gives me the most fulfillment, and is where I have the most to offer other people. I am so happy to return to it and also glad that Concordia has so far given me the impression that it is the right place to do this.
I'm also stressed. I hate moving. I know that everyone hates moving, since they've told me so when we speak about me moving, but the point stands. It gives me anxiety and I mostly shut down and get irritable while I'm doing it. The furthest I've moved before is an hour and a half now. Now I'm moving 5 and a half away. It's going to weigh on me. Lord is it ever going to weigh on me.
I'm scared about the move too. Like I said, the furthest I've moved in the past is an hour and a half, from Scarborough to Kitchener. This will be my first time living outside of Ontario and even my first time really out of the Greater Toronto Area. I know that I'll be able to do it, but it is daunting. The scariest thing about not living in Ontario is that I don't know what to expect about a lot of things. I guess I need to live in that uncertainty. Right?
I'm going to end on a music note, since that's what IMU has traditionally done. This year has been relatively light on new music for me, but Masked Intruder put out a new record and I've found it pleasantly surprising. I've never been huge on the band, but the new record sounds much different and hits a sweet spot between early power pop (like the Rubinoos) and late 70s/early 80s album-oriented rock, which is to say that there are hooks upon hooks that occasionally delve into some wonderfully cheesiness. There's a way bigger emphasis on vocal melodies, which is much easier said than done, and I always appreciate bands making that effort. The album isn't world-changing, and I could easily see it being one I forget about in 6 months, but at the moment it's a solid listen and a great surprise to see the band trying to mix it up in what they do.
The reasons for neglecting that writing is explicitly tied to the writing though. I've been meaning to write about moving to Montreal, but more important than that is tackling the very real tasks related to that move. I need to be in a constant state of passively looking for apartments, taking care of small registration tasks at Concordia, and trying to make plans with my friends before I leave. If can believe it, those are all above "hash out a blog", but just barely.
Now that I'm here typing out, that leaves us with "telling people how you feel about the future" and there's no easy answer to that. Watch, as I work through ideas!
I think it's fair to say that I am primarily excited about beginning a PhD at Concordia University in Montreal. I've loved all the time I've spent in the city and I'm sure that living there won't be a difficult transition. There will still be all the things I need and love (public transit, good food, music, art) and some new things, the most obvious being that everything will be in French. This new setting for my life will be easy enough that I won't die, but also different enough that I'll be forced to change and grow. That's good.
For example: Live Blue Jays Baseball only two times. Man!
Most important, from a personal perspective, is that since I finished my MA, all my work has felt like I've been keeping my brain warm for when I went back to school. Graduate studies and teaching is what I do best, what gives me the most fulfillment, and is where I have the most to offer other people. I am so happy to return to it and also glad that Concordia has so far given me the impression that it is the right place to do this.
I'm also stressed. I hate moving. I know that everyone hates moving, since they've told me so when we speak about me moving, but the point stands. It gives me anxiety and I mostly shut down and get irritable while I'm doing it. The furthest I've moved before is an hour and a half now. Now I'm moving 5 and a half away. It's going to weigh on me. Lord is it ever going to weigh on me.
I'm scared about the move too. Like I said, the furthest I've moved in the past is an hour and a half, from Scarborough to Kitchener. This will be my first time living outside of Ontario and even my first time really out of the Greater Toronto Area. I know that I'll be able to do it, but it is daunting. The scariest thing about not living in Ontario is that I don't know what to expect about a lot of things. I guess I need to live in that uncertainty. Right?
I'm going to end on a music note, since that's what IMU has traditionally done. This year has been relatively light on new music for me, but Masked Intruder put out a new record and I've found it pleasantly surprising. I've never been huge on the band, but the new record sounds much different and hits a sweet spot between early power pop (like the Rubinoos) and late 70s/early 80s album-oriented rock, which is to say that there are hooks upon hooks that occasionally delve into some wonderfully cheesiness. There's a way bigger emphasis on vocal melodies, which is much easier said than done, and I always appreciate bands making that effort. The album isn't world-changing, and I could easily see it being one I forget about in 6 months, but at the moment it's a solid listen and a great surprise to see the band trying to mix it up in what they do.
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Blacktop Manhattan Closed Reilly's
I've had this post ready in the chamber for a while, but didn't really know what to do with it. I think it came out way too nostalgic and sappy, when I intended it to be funnier and more self-aware. It started as a small idea with the title, but it turned into something else once I started writing it. Now that I've finished it, I can't say that I have any desire to go back and re-configure it to make it into something, but it's also big enough and took enough time that it doesn't feel right to completely delete it. The nice thing about IMU is that I can take these types of posts and let them live here. Nothing has to be complete and shiny here, it can just be a real-ish representation of my creative process.
Here's a thing about a band my friends were in in high school. Please know that I do not have the emotional investment in this band that the piece makes it sound like, but also know that Blacktop is one of the funniest and best things ever. That's a strange balance, I know.
One of the most exciting times of being a teenager was when my friends and I finally got around to starting our own bands in high school. We had logged our requisite hours of learning "Smells Like
Teen Spirit" and "Dammit" on guitar and were now ready to show those around us what we had. The dreams you have of playing in front of an arena when you're young immediately become a little bit realer once you've seen people you know take that crucial first step: Starting a real band that plays its own songs.
One day, you'll look back on this band and laugh at how many silly cliches they performed, like dedicating songs to their 10th grade girlfriends or playing simple guitar solos behind their heads, and the songs will seem hilarious in hindsight, even though you thought they were so cool at the time. 15 years later, no one will think about the band or ever mention it, but 15 years later you can still say that the band was the first one.
It didn't take long for Blacktop Manhattan to occupy a central role in the lives of all of its members and their friends. Funnily enough, I didn't even hear about the band from its members, who were close friends of mine, but from other friends who had been at one of their shows. "Our friends play in a real band now!" Their legend grew from there, I guess. Blacktop's shows were a premier social event. All of your friends would be there and someone would definitely have beer and weed. You would definitely meet at least five new people through mutual friends, including girls. You would immediately get the rub from the band because you knew them. On top of the social benefits, it was also a fun thing to do because you would get to watch your friends' band play and when you are a teenager at a concert, actual quality of performance means next to nothing. Damien is playing a guitar with a Bad Religion sticker onstage? That fucking rules. One person would always do a Nestea plunge off the stage and be carried around by 5 or 6 people. A concert! This is the best! On top of all that, there would also always be at least one other high school band on the show who was so bad that they will stick in your mind until the day you die. Teen Stranger! Broken Home! The Thundernuts!
Blacktop shows were a monthly pilgrimage for teenagers where we gathered at Victoria Park Station to head to the FunHouse or the El Mocambo or Club Rockit or the Opera House as a huge group. More so than house parties or dances, this is what my friends did. For a couple of shows, a friend and I designated ourselves as "merch guys" and sold the band's copyright infringing Pulp Fiction t-shirts and some pins that I had shoddily designed on Microsoft Paint.
I can't tell you how long Blacktop were a band, but it couldn't have been much longer than a year and was definitely less than two. After they broke up, the members formed two new bands, which also broke a begat new bands after that. The family tree began to include more and more members and started to intersect in new ways, but Blacktop Manhattan was definitely the thickest part of the trunk, right near the bottom.
After Blacktop and a post-BM band had broken up, Damien, who had played guitar in both, uploaded the band's songs on the website Newgrounds' audio portal. Since Damien was an active user, another user had found them and included them as playable songs in a online Flash game he had made called Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 2. Online teens are noted for their verbosity, after all. The game was a simplified version of Guitar Hero when the latter was at the height of its cultural influence. Just like getting your song in Guitar Hero could vault you into millions of t-shirt sales at HMV or Spencer's Gift, "Hollywise" being the first song in SCGMD2 immediately vaulted Blacktop Manhattan into an internet legacy that none of the members could ever have expected.
Teens from all over the world began to leave comments on Blacktop's abandoned MySpace page saying "Please come play in Texas!" Teenaged girls would add me on the site simply because I was in Blacktop's "Top 8". Things snowballed from there. One day we found a video on Youtube that was a stationary picture of my friends in 10th grade set to "Hollywise". The video itself was weird enough, but even stranger was that it had 50000 views. We hadn't even made it! We later found even more of these videos, all with the same picture, likely pilfered from MySpace, and all featuring "Hollywise". Then we found a video of a pre-teen boy demonstrating how to play "Hollywise" on acoustic guitar, but not playing any correct notes. Just playing random parts of the guitar along to the song! Before long, we found videos of tiny teen boys covering "Hollywise" in their school's gymnasium. It was so strange and unbelievable that it eventually became the most plausible thing. Of course Blacktop Manhattan had turned into a viral sensation. What else would have happened?
The group of friends in Blacktop Manhattan's orbit separated but didn't split up after high school. Some of us went away to university, some of us stayed in Scarborough, some of us started working.
Near the end of my first year at school, Pat and I got a Facebook invitation to the Blacktop Manhattan reunion show at Reilly's, a venue north of Dundas on Yonge, across from the strip club Zanzibar. The band had a good sense of humour about their status as a viral phenomenon and thought it would be fun to bring everyone together to relish it. This happened in the golden age of Facebook event pages, in which many people would post on the page's "wall" in anticipation of the event taking place. Our friends went crazy and acted as if Guns 'n Roses then-yet-to-be-released album Chinese Democracy was finally coming out. Blacktop purposefully booked the metal band that Teen Stranger had turned into to open. It was perfect.
A big difference between the reunion show and the ones we had gone to high school was that now almost all of us were 19 and getting alcohol was significantly easier. In addition to the usual cast of characters at the show, there was another generation of kids, between a year and four younger than us, who came out because they had heard of Blacktop as the "cool" band when they were starting high school. Much like us when we were attending the real Blacktop shows, this was an elite social event for them. They were all wasted.
The show was a perfect party. The band was super sloppy because they had only rehearsed several times in advance of it. They played every song they had ever performed, even the stupid one-off ones, and indulged in silly things like dualing guitar and slap bass solos in a funk song that they had for some reason. It was a ridiculous and bad show, but that was exactly what everyone wanted. Blacktop Manhattan wasn't a good band by any measure and realistically, the reunion show performance was probably not that far off from how they had sounded in their prime. Everyone was drunk and had a ball.
Blacktop booked and ran the show themselves. Quinn's parents ran the door and security and let everyone in. After the band played, the crowd lingered in the venue and slowly spilled out onto the street. The wave of younger kids, all much drunker than they had probably ever been, wreaked havoc on the venue, wrecking the banister on the staircase and climbing all over things, undoubtedly doing permanent damage to Reilly's.
This briefly turned into a serious scene. The owner of the venue was pissed that this many drunk underage people had been let into the show and done so much damage to everything. Word filtered out, through a drunk and broken telephone, that he had told the band that he would never book another all-ages show at Reilly's ever again. To risk the actual structure of the venue was too big of a gamble.
Reilly's did indeed stop having all-ages show. Not long after that, the venue closed permanently. By my logic, the success and health of the venue depended on the fact that they regularly hosted all-ages show featuring local bands, so it followed that Blacktop Manhattan's reunion show was the reason it closed. I have no idea if that's actually why, and Reilly's' online footprint is scarce, so I will never know for sure and will instead continue believing in the myth of the first real band that my friends ever formed and is much more famous than anything I have or ever will do.
Here's a thing about a band my friends were in in high school. Please know that I do not have the emotional investment in this band that the piece makes it sound like, but also know that Blacktop is one of the funniest and best things ever. That's a strange balance, I know.
***
One of the most exciting times of being a teenager was when my friends and I finally got around to starting our own bands in high school. We had logged our requisite hours of learning "Smells Like
Teen Spirit" and "Dammit" on guitar and were now ready to show those around us what we had. The dreams you have of playing in front of an arena when you're young immediately become a little bit realer once you've seen people you know take that crucial first step: Starting a real band that plays its own songs.
One day, you'll look back on this band and laugh at how many silly cliches they performed, like dedicating songs to their 10th grade girlfriends or playing simple guitar solos behind their heads, and the songs will seem hilarious in hindsight, even though you thought they were so cool at the time. 15 years later, no one will think about the band or ever mention it, but 15 years later you can still say that the band was the first one.
It didn't take long for Blacktop Manhattan to occupy a central role in the lives of all of its members and their friends. Funnily enough, I didn't even hear about the band from its members, who were close friends of mine, but from other friends who had been at one of their shows. "Our friends play in a real band now!" Their legend grew from there, I guess. Blacktop's shows were a premier social event. All of your friends would be there and someone would definitely have beer and weed. You would definitely meet at least five new people through mutual friends, including girls. You would immediately get the rub from the band because you knew them. On top of the social benefits, it was also a fun thing to do because you would get to watch your friends' band play and when you are a teenager at a concert, actual quality of performance means next to nothing. Damien is playing a guitar with a Bad Religion sticker onstage? That fucking rules. One person would always do a Nestea plunge off the stage and be carried around by 5 or 6 people. A concert! This is the best! On top of all that, there would also always be at least one other high school band on the show who was so bad that they will stick in your mind until the day you die. Teen Stranger! Broken Home! The Thundernuts!
Blacktop shows were a monthly pilgrimage for teenagers where we gathered at Victoria Park Station to head to the FunHouse or the El Mocambo or Club Rockit or the Opera House as a huge group. More so than house parties or dances, this is what my friends did. For a couple of shows, a friend and I designated ourselves as "merch guys" and sold the band's copyright infringing Pulp Fiction t-shirts and some pins that I had shoddily designed on Microsoft Paint.
I can't tell you how long Blacktop were a band, but it couldn't have been much longer than a year and was definitely less than two. After they broke up, the members formed two new bands, which also broke a begat new bands after that. The family tree began to include more and more members and started to intersect in new ways, but Blacktop Manhattan was definitely the thickest part of the trunk, right near the bottom.
After Blacktop and a post-BM band had broken up, Damien, who had played guitar in both, uploaded the band's songs on the website Newgrounds' audio portal. Since Damien was an active user, another user had found them and included them as playable songs in a online Flash game he had made called Super Crazy Guitar Maniac Deluxe 2. Online teens are noted for their verbosity, after all. The game was a simplified version of Guitar Hero when the latter was at the height of its cultural influence. Just like getting your song in Guitar Hero could vault you into millions of t-shirt sales at HMV or Spencer's Gift, "Hollywise" being the first song in SCGMD2 immediately vaulted Blacktop Manhattan into an internet legacy that none of the members could ever have expected.
Teens from all over the world began to leave comments on Blacktop's abandoned MySpace page saying "Please come play in Texas!" Teenaged girls would add me on the site simply because I was in Blacktop's "Top 8". Things snowballed from there. One day we found a video on Youtube that was a stationary picture of my friends in 10th grade set to "Hollywise". The video itself was weird enough, but even stranger was that it had 50000 views. We hadn't even made it! We later found even more of these videos, all with the same picture, likely pilfered from MySpace, and all featuring "Hollywise". Then we found a video of a pre-teen boy demonstrating how to play "Hollywise" on acoustic guitar, but not playing any correct notes. Just playing random parts of the guitar along to the song! Before long, we found videos of tiny teen boys covering "Hollywise" in their school's gymnasium. It was so strange and unbelievable that it eventually became the most plausible thing. Of course Blacktop Manhattan had turned into a viral sensation. What else would have happened?
The group of friends in Blacktop Manhattan's orbit separated but didn't split up after high school. Some of us went away to university, some of us stayed in Scarborough, some of us started working.
Near the end of my first year at school, Pat and I got a Facebook invitation to the Blacktop Manhattan reunion show at Reilly's, a venue north of Dundas on Yonge, across from the strip club Zanzibar. The band had a good sense of humour about their status as a viral phenomenon and thought it would be fun to bring everyone together to relish it. This happened in the golden age of Facebook event pages, in which many people would post on the page's "wall" in anticipation of the event taking place. Our friends went crazy and acted as if Guns 'n Roses then-yet-to-be-released album Chinese Democracy was finally coming out. Blacktop purposefully booked the metal band that Teen Stranger had turned into to open. It was perfect.
A big difference between the reunion show and the ones we had gone to high school was that now almost all of us were 19 and getting alcohol was significantly easier. In addition to the usual cast of characters at the show, there was another generation of kids, between a year and four younger than us, who came out because they had heard of Blacktop as the "cool" band when they were starting high school. Much like us when we were attending the real Blacktop shows, this was an elite social event for them. They were all wasted.
The show was a perfect party. The band was super sloppy because they had only rehearsed several times in advance of it. They played every song they had ever performed, even the stupid one-off ones, and indulged in silly things like dualing guitar and slap bass solos in a funk song that they had for some reason. It was a ridiculous and bad show, but that was exactly what everyone wanted. Blacktop Manhattan wasn't a good band by any measure and realistically, the reunion show performance was probably not that far off from how they had sounded in their prime. Everyone was drunk and had a ball.
Blacktop booked and ran the show themselves. Quinn's parents ran the door and security and let everyone in. After the band played, the crowd lingered in the venue and slowly spilled out onto the street. The wave of younger kids, all much drunker than they had probably ever been, wreaked havoc on the venue, wrecking the banister on the staircase and climbing all over things, undoubtedly doing permanent damage to Reilly's.
This briefly turned into a serious scene. The owner of the venue was pissed that this many drunk underage people had been let into the show and done so much damage to everything. Word filtered out, through a drunk and broken telephone, that he had told the band that he would never book another all-ages show at Reilly's ever again. To risk the actual structure of the venue was too big of a gamble.
Reilly's did indeed stop having all-ages show. Not long after that, the venue closed permanently. By my logic, the success and health of the venue depended on the fact that they regularly hosted all-ages show featuring local bands, so it followed that Blacktop Manhattan's reunion show was the reason it closed. I have no idea if that's actually why, and Reilly's' online footprint is scarce, so I will never know for sure and will instead continue believing in the myth of the first real band that my friends ever formed and is much more famous than anything I have or ever will do.
Thursday, March 21, 2019
And She's Got One of the Best All-Time Laughs in the History of All-Time Laughs, She Laughs with Her Entire Body
Since I consider IMU to be the definitive document of my life, I feel it's important to write about important things that happen to me and the big changes I go through. I've accepted an offer to begin a PhD at Concordia in September! I think I should access my emo side (as if I have another side) and write a full post about that, but now I want to revive an old IMU classic and document this time in my life in a series of High Fidelity Top 5s.
Top 5 Things I Will Miss About The Annex
5. Wiener's Home Hardware.
4. Living by Bathurst (the 'Thurst) Station.
3. Korean food.
2. Christie Pits
1. Being able to see the CN Tower from Borden Street.
Top 5 2019 Records I Can't Wait For
5. Whatever Daniel Romano's 2 new records will be.
4. Vince Staples
3. Crying?????
2. Baggage
1. Oso Oso
Top 5 Post-1992 Steven Segal Movies
5. Fire Down Below
4. Half Past Dead
3. Under Siege 2
2. On Deadly Ground
1. Exit Wounds
Top 5 Bench Players on the 2019 Raptors
5. Patrick McCaw
4. Norm Powell
3. Chris Boucher
2. Fred Van Vleet
1. OG Anunoby
Top 5 Things That Will Happen During the 2019 Baseball Season
5. Clay Bucholz getting traded for a A piece that won't turn into anything.
4. Bryce Harper hitting 50 bombs in Philly.
3. Mike Trout leading the Angels to the playoffs and winning a series.
2. Yasiel Puig and Joey Votto becoming best friends.
1. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. getting called up and winning American League Rookie of the Year.
Top 5 Things I Can't Wait to do in Montreal
5. Eat a smoked meat sandwich every day and get high cholesterol.
4. Learn.
3. Become a better French speaker.
2. Go to see the Jays each year at Olympic Stadium.
1. Start a nice new life with Rebecca and our two bobos.
Top 5 Things I Will Miss About The Annex
5. Wiener's Home Hardware.
4. Living by Bathurst (the 'Thurst) Station.
3. Korean food.
2. Christie Pits
1. Being able to see the CN Tower from Borden Street.
Top 5 2019 Records I Can't Wait For
5. Whatever Daniel Romano's 2 new records will be.
4. Vince Staples
3. Crying?????
2. Baggage
1. Oso Oso
Top 5 Post-1992 Steven Segal Movies
5. Fire Down Below
4. Half Past Dead
3. Under Siege 2
2. On Deadly Ground
1. Exit Wounds
Top 5 Bench Players on the 2019 Raptors
5. Patrick McCaw
4. Norm Powell
3. Chris Boucher
2. Fred Van Vleet
1. OG Anunoby
Top 5 Things That Will Happen During the 2019 Baseball Season
5. Clay Bucholz getting traded for a A piece that won't turn into anything.
4. Bryce Harper hitting 50 bombs in Philly.
3. Mike Trout leading the Angels to the playoffs and winning a series.
2. Yasiel Puig and Joey Votto becoming best friends.
1. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. getting called up and winning American League Rookie of the Year.
Top 5 Things I Can't Wait to do in Montreal
5. Eat a smoked meat sandwich every day and get high cholesterol.
4. Learn.
3. Become a better French speaker.
2. Go to see the Jays each year at Olympic Stadium.
1. Start a nice new life with Rebecca and our two bobos.
Friday, March 8, 2019
The Things That Set Us Apart
A big part of what keeps me so invested in music (in my case punk music specifically) is that seeing live performances can seem magical. The performer and their equipment mix together and during that time, they are more than what either contributes. The feeling that I get from watching a performer truly kill it is my equivalent of a religious experience. For that brief time, the world makes sense and I understand why we exist. You could say that this fleeting nature is frustrating, but for me it's part of the appeal. I have to be present because I know it will be done soon. It's special.
Equally special as that type of performance is when you see a band who you've never listened to and they blow you away. The feeling of their music taking you in and you realizing that you've found something new you love is hard to describe. It's joy, but you feel it physically.
I can think of a couple examples of this happening to me. Videos from the actual shows I was at are scarce, but I can find stuff from those eras. Sounds like a good IMU feature, right? Let's rock.
The first example I always think of of being won over is when I saw The Sidekicks open for Bomb the Music Industry! in 2011. I had been at a friend's going-away party the night before and was in a little bit of a rush back into the city on a GO bus so that I could make to the show on time. It wound up being one of the best, if the the best, shows I've seen. I had heard the Sidekicks mentioned on then-venerable punk music site Punknews.org, but their live show was a better introduction than anything else I could have done. They were touring on Weight of Air and were so tight and dance-y and their soul-influenced power-pop was way different than all the 'org stuff from that time and has aged way better than all of it as a result. I've never stopped listening to the band since and have loved all their material (well, Runners in the Nerved World is just okay) since.
Once I went away to university, I almost immediately become interested in hardcore music, which I formerly scorned in the name of my love of ska. The aggression and heaviness of the genre started to make a lot more sense to me and I waded into the genre, as many other Canadians did, by listening to Comeback Kid's Wake the Dead. Comeback Kid then announced a big Canadian tour package with five other bands and I decided that this would be my first hardcore show. Would I throw down? Stagedive? Would there be a fight? I didn't know what to expect. Rather than Comeback Kid though, it Bane who awed me that night. They were hyped and charismatic and exactly what I hoped a live hardcore show would be like. I bought a classic plain shirt from the Bane t-shirt factory after and couldn't have been happier about it.
I was really excited to see The Aquabats in 2006. I had just finished my final exams for the year and the show was the day before my birthday. The Aquabats were amazing and exciting and everything I hoped they would be. A different type of exciting was seeing the Aggrolites play material from their first two records. Before seeing the Aggrolites, I had never seen a good reggae band before. I loved listening to the genre, but my exposure to it in a live setting had been subpar local bands. The Aggrolites showed how dynamic, energetic, and heavy reggae could be. Their Beatles cover was one of the craziest things I've seen.
Just like the Sidekicks, I heard a lot about the Menzingers before I saw them tour on Chamberlain Waits with the Flatliners and Fake Problems in 2010. I expected a lot from the show, since all three bands had recent albums and were on an upward trajectory, and it was a great night. As soon as the band started, I could tell that they would occupy a lot of my listening for the foreseeable future. A lot of my friends kept mentioning that "Time Tables" was their favourite song they had heard in ages and I was convinced of the same when I saw it live. I've fallen off the band recently and haven't been a huge fan of their last two records, but they were such an exciting band in the early teens and it felt special to have all of my friends be captivated by them.
I've been working on a longer feature for the Wordpress on Oso Oso and that is what got me thinking about this specific thing happening. I was introduced to Oso Oso when I saw them open for the Hotelier in the fall of 2015. As the band set up, I asked a friend what they were like and he said "Super poppy. Like Third Eye Blind." It felt like under a minute later the band was into "Track 1, Side 1" and I was all the way in. They were really tight, with a big-time drummer, and I felt like I lived an entire life during song. That performance and Real Stories of True People Who Kind of Looked Like Monsters made them one of my favourite active bands and me seeing them the next fall and the yunahon mixtape convinced me that they are the best band in the world.
Equally special as that type of performance is when you see a band who you've never listened to and they blow you away. The feeling of their music taking you in and you realizing that you've found something new you love is hard to describe. It's joy, but you feel it physically.
I can think of a couple examples of this happening to me. Videos from the actual shows I was at are scarce, but I can find stuff from those eras. Sounds like a good IMU feature, right? Let's rock.
The first example I always think of of being won over is when I saw The Sidekicks open for Bomb the Music Industry! in 2011. I had been at a friend's going-away party the night before and was in a little bit of a rush back into the city on a GO bus so that I could make to the show on time. It wound up being one of the best, if the the best, shows I've seen. I had heard the Sidekicks mentioned on then-venerable punk music site Punknews.org, but their live show was a better introduction than anything else I could have done. They were touring on Weight of Air and were so tight and dance-y and their soul-influenced power-pop was way different than all the 'org stuff from that time and has aged way better than all of it as a result. I've never stopped listening to the band since and have loved all their material (well, Runners in the Nerved World is just okay) since.
Once I went away to university, I almost immediately become interested in hardcore music, which I formerly scorned in the name of my love of ska. The aggression and heaviness of the genre started to make a lot more sense to me and I waded into the genre, as many other Canadians did, by listening to Comeback Kid's Wake the Dead. Comeback Kid then announced a big Canadian tour package with five other bands and I decided that this would be my first hardcore show. Would I throw down? Stagedive? Would there be a fight? I didn't know what to expect. Rather than Comeback Kid though, it Bane who awed me that night. They were hyped and charismatic and exactly what I hoped a live hardcore show would be like. I bought a classic plain shirt from the Bane t-shirt factory after and couldn't have been happier about it.
I was really excited to see The Aquabats in 2006. I had just finished my final exams for the year and the show was the day before my birthday. The Aquabats were amazing and exciting and everything I hoped they would be. A different type of exciting was seeing the Aggrolites play material from their first two records. Before seeing the Aggrolites, I had never seen a good reggae band before. I loved listening to the genre, but my exposure to it in a live setting had been subpar local bands. The Aggrolites showed how dynamic, energetic, and heavy reggae could be. Their Beatles cover was one of the craziest things I've seen.
Just like the Sidekicks, I heard a lot about the Menzingers before I saw them tour on Chamberlain Waits with the Flatliners and Fake Problems in 2010. I expected a lot from the show, since all three bands had recent albums and were on an upward trajectory, and it was a great night. As soon as the band started, I could tell that they would occupy a lot of my listening for the foreseeable future. A lot of my friends kept mentioning that "Time Tables" was their favourite song they had heard in ages and I was convinced of the same when I saw it live. I've fallen off the band recently and haven't been a huge fan of their last two records, but they were such an exciting band in the early teens and it felt special to have all of my friends be captivated by them.
I've been working on a longer feature for the Wordpress on Oso Oso and that is what got me thinking about this specific thing happening. I was introduced to Oso Oso when I saw them open for the Hotelier in the fall of 2015. As the band set up, I asked a friend what they were like and he said "Super poppy. Like Third Eye Blind." It felt like under a minute later the band was into "Track 1, Side 1" and I was all the way in. They were really tight, with a big-time drummer, and I felt like I lived an entire life during song. That performance and Real Stories of True People Who Kind of Looked Like Monsters made them one of my favourite active bands and me seeing them the next fall and the yunahon mixtape convinced me that they are the best band in the world.
Monday, March 4, 2019
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