birthdays, beers and black math.
Fun ass weekend times.
I've had a pretty stacked week.
Wednesday night Biff and I drove to Toronto to see the Dead Weather @ Kool Haus. Pretty fun trip, we blasted Redd Kross all the way there, and had a parking lot drinking competition once we got to the venue. We saw Holly and Ashley (who came from London together) inside so we hung out with them for the duration of the night. Drank a bunch of Silver Bullets, watched the opening band (The Screaming Females, they were excellent), discussed what a strange mix of people there were at the show (the Kool Haus seems to be like that every time I'm there... there were death rock chicks, jocks, indie nerds, leathers, collegiate types, etc.). The Dead Weather were absolutely fantastic, the sound could not have been better. We had a pretty shitty spot (don't get me started about how much I hate NOT seeing a band at a small club) but the quality of the band and their performance pretty much made up for the fact that I could only see the stage 25% of the time, if that. What I could see, during "Will There Be Enough Water?" was Jack and Alison really creating sparks together at the front of the stage, singing into each others' faces and slinking all over each other... good god, it was sexy, and really, really inspiring.
After the show Biff and I hopped in the car and headed back to Hamilton. I cracked open another 700mL bottle of Woody's grapefruit-whatever-crap for the ride home, which was rainy and full of heavy traffic. We just went with it though, and enjoyed each other's company, had good conversation and I probably drunkenly slid around in my seat a lot, ha ha. At one point we stopped on the side of the highway for a dual pee break, which was fun to do on a wet, slippery grassy hill. I almost fell on my bare ass.
Thursday night I worked the Cynics/Ugly Beats/Squids show at This Ain't Hollywood. I was really looking forward to that show, and it definitely didn't disappoint. Tony and Linda both came down (separately) from London, and I ended up staying out until 4 am with them.
The Cynics were awesome, and their singer Michael recognized me from our online back-and-forths and was hanging out with Nat and I for a bit, taking silly pictures of us and stuff. He was really electric on stage. Probably from cocaine. Ha ha.
The Ugly Beats were really great too, it was my first time hearing them and I was impressed! What would I do without garage rock? Sigh.
Friday night at work was some shitty band called Porcelain Youth who sounded like Nickelback/Thornley/those lame types of bands, but the whole night itself ended up being an absolute blast. Think I already posted a drunken entry about it. I got pretty tipsy that night, and saucy.
Saturday Jordy and Matt came down from London for the night. I had to work at the bar for the Fog of Leprosy show but those guys + Biff ended up coming a little before 11pm, plus Chris was in town for the show, and of course all the Fog dudes and a few other friends of ours were there, plus all of my regular friends from work.
I was under the impression that we were gonna stay at the bar and party all night, but not long after I was done my shift Jordy, Matt, Dave and those guys wanted to go wandering to find some private basketball court they came across earlier in the night. So after we gooshed a few beers and did a couple of shots, we all went up James street and found the basketball court and there was a ball so everyone started playing basketball. After about five/ten minutes, though, some broad and her lame boyfriend came out of a house and asked us to leave because we were "trespassing" yadda yadda yadda... at least they weren't jerks about it, they asked nicely. So we were bummed but we left and walked over the Harvest Burger and drank more beers and ate late-night greasy diner food, and hung out on the patio for a bit. Jordy and Matt slept over and left us a thank-you note scribbled on a beer carrier, haha.
The thing I realized last night, though, is that I'm not really a fan of mixing groups of friends all that much. My friends are all so different from one another. I've got my (mostly a bit older) art-y, super smart, "film-"watching, book-reading friends (who are extremely fun, don't get me wrong... those guys like to party still) like Jeremy, Holly & Ryan, Michelle, Jeff, etc.; my highschool/party friends like Jen and Chris and the Fog dudes and everyone, who are total awesome shitbags but are in their late 20s and are somewhat responsible a lot of the time (well, most of them); my London dudes/mine and Dave's mutual friend group (Jordy, Ryan, Matt, Matty, Burlton, Luddy); my newer Hamilton friends who are for the most part a couple of years younger than me (minus Biff, Johnny, and a few others), which is another crowd Dave and I hang with as a couple; and my quite-a-bit older Hamilton/work friends from the bar and that whole old Hamilton punk crowd, like Lasha & Jimmy, Scotty, Lou, Darlene, Bryan, Mickey, Ric, Kerry, etc. Sometimes it gets weird mixing those groups because mostly they are toootally different from one another and it's just strange. I don't know. I just like keeping my friends separate from one another. It's easier on me. Each of my friend groups kind of represent a piece of myself, and sometimes those pieces are very different from one another, so I tend to act slightly different with certain people than I do with others. For example, with my book-smarty friends I can have intelligent, in-depth conversations about art and books and stuff, and we usually drink cocktails and have dinner parties and go dancing once in awhile, stuff like that. Very conversation-intensive. And then you have the London bros and we just guzzle beers and smoke weed and look for trouble and go to shows and nerd-out about hardcore and stuff.
I like to compartmentalize, and it carries over into my social life.
Dave, Biff and I walked over to Casbah for a bit tonight to check out the Sloppy Sabbath night Dave O'Connor djs, and we watched a band called Sound Asleep who were pretty good for their age. Just young dudes, really young... probably had to be an average age of 18 or so. Really slow, heavy, loud, sludgey stuff. The type of stuff Dave whacks off to. I liked them but I was getting a little bored by the end. Their drummer was great though, I kind of want to steal him, haha. The vocals were pretty blah too. Good sound though; great guitar tones.
Brodie bought the lot of us a bunch of Jack Daniels shots, and we stuck around for a couple of drinks (it's Dave's birthday today so Brodie open up a little drink tab for him) but Dave and I deeked out early before VCM even played. We're both just shot from the weekend. Just weren't feeling it tonight.
cynics @ this ain't hollywood.
me and dave on jordy's shitty camera phone.
matt and dave.
darlene.
natty.
me and the birthday boy.
drew, jordy and biff.
terra and johnny.
chris and a classic chris face.
nat and me.
biff and nick.
only picture i got of the basketball game before we got shut down.
birthday poutine.
nat and biff.
iou: one handy
sound asleep @ cashbah lounge.
***
I can't remember if I already talked about this in here or not, but whatever:
Black Math has been put on hold for now. Or at least, what Black Math was supposed to be. Which was fast, loud punk-metal. Biff and I are both feeling more inspired by sexy garage-y blues bands like the Kills, Dead Weather, White Stripes, Raveonettes, Boss Hog, JSBX, etc.
So it looks like we're going to be focusing on this project right now instead of Black Math. Dave's on board, so that's good. I think he'll probably be doing bass and keyboards, and duets with me.
I'm really excited to focus on my singing, this will be a first for me and I can't wait to experiment with some vocals styles I've been trying on. Plus I'll get to use my harmonica and my tambourine, finally, haha. Yeah!
Biff's just tired of playing heavy stuff right now, he's been in heavy bands constantly for the past 20 years. Which works for me, because I'm really not feeling inspired by heavier stuff right now; I'm feeling more in-tuned with the kind of stuff I was mentioning before. I think Dave's slightly bummed but also into it at the same time. I know he was looking forward to just singing for a loud, fast band instead of playing an instrument, but we'll do that stuff eventually. Heck, maybe he'll even find other dudes to do that kind of stuff with. But I know he's always fooled around with wanting to do slower, blues-inspired stuff, and he's already written one song that sounds pretty cool, so yeah.
I'm really stoked on this. I have a feeling it's going to be good. And it will be WAY easier to find a drummer who can play this kind of stuff, than one who is super good at fast, complicated beats.
It's funny because since Biff and Dave are both well-known in our local punk/metal community for being in these crazy awesome loud-as-fuck, heavy-as-shit bands, everyone has been asking us when the new band was going to be starting shows and recording etc. There's hype around what those guys do, musically, and here we are doing something totally unexpected instead, which I think is really rad.
I'm feeling so musical.
I've had a pretty stacked week.
Wednesday night Biff and I drove to Toronto to see the Dead Weather @ Kool Haus. Pretty fun trip, we blasted Redd Kross all the way there, and had a parking lot drinking competition once we got to the venue. We saw Holly and Ashley (who came from London together) inside so we hung out with them for the duration of the night. Drank a bunch of Silver Bullets, watched the opening band (The Screaming Females, they were excellent), discussed what a strange mix of people there were at the show (the Kool Haus seems to be like that every time I'm there... there were death rock chicks, jocks, indie nerds, leathers, collegiate types, etc.). The Dead Weather were absolutely fantastic, the sound could not have been better. We had a pretty shitty spot (don't get me started about how much I hate NOT seeing a band at a small club) but the quality of the band and their performance pretty much made up for the fact that I could only see the stage 25% of the time, if that. What I could see, during "Will There Be Enough Water?" was Jack and Alison really creating sparks together at the front of the stage, singing into each others' faces and slinking all over each other... good god, it was sexy, and really, really inspiring.
After the show Biff and I hopped in the car and headed back to Hamilton. I cracked open another 700mL bottle of Woody's grapefruit-whatever-crap for the ride home, which was rainy and full of heavy traffic. We just went with it though, and enjoyed each other's company, had good conversation and I probably drunkenly slid around in my seat a lot, ha ha. At one point we stopped on the side of the highway for a dual pee break, which was fun to do on a wet, slippery grassy hill. I almost fell on my bare ass.
Thursday night I worked the Cynics/Ugly Beats/Squids show at This Ain't Hollywood. I was really looking forward to that show, and it definitely didn't disappoint. Tony and Linda both came down (separately) from London, and I ended up staying out until 4 am with them.
The Cynics were awesome, and their singer Michael recognized me from our online back-and-forths and was hanging out with Nat and I for a bit, taking silly pictures of us and stuff. He was really electric on stage. Probably from cocaine. Ha ha.
The Ugly Beats were really great too, it was my first time hearing them and I was impressed! What would I do without garage rock? Sigh.
Friday night at work was some shitty band called Porcelain Youth who sounded like Nickelback/Thornley/those lame types of bands, but the whole night itself ended up being an absolute blast. Think I already posted a drunken entry about it. I got pretty tipsy that night, and saucy.
Saturday Jordy and Matt came down from London for the night. I had to work at the bar for the Fog of Leprosy show but those guys + Biff ended up coming a little before 11pm, plus Chris was in town for the show, and of course all the Fog dudes and a few other friends of ours were there, plus all of my regular friends from work.
I was under the impression that we were gonna stay at the bar and party all night, but not long after I was done my shift Jordy, Matt, Dave and those guys wanted to go wandering to find some private basketball court they came across earlier in the night. So after we gooshed a few beers and did a couple of shots, we all went up James street and found the basketball court and there was a ball so everyone started playing basketball. After about five/ten minutes, though, some broad and her lame boyfriend came out of a house and asked us to leave because we were "trespassing" yadda yadda yadda... at least they weren't jerks about it, they asked nicely. So we were bummed but we left and walked over the Harvest Burger and drank more beers and ate late-night greasy diner food, and hung out on the patio for a bit. Jordy and Matt slept over and left us a thank-you note scribbled on a beer carrier, haha.
The thing I realized last night, though, is that I'm not really a fan of mixing groups of friends all that much. My friends are all so different from one another. I've got my (mostly a bit older) art-y, super smart, "film-"watching, book-reading friends (who are extremely fun, don't get me wrong... those guys like to party still) like Jeremy, Holly & Ryan, Michelle, Jeff, etc.; my highschool/party friends like Jen and Chris and the Fog dudes and everyone, who are total awesome shitbags but are in their late 20s and are somewhat responsible a lot of the time (well, most of them); my London dudes/mine and Dave's mutual friend group (Jordy, Ryan, Matt, Matty, Burlton, Luddy); my newer Hamilton friends who are for the most part a couple of years younger than me (minus Biff, Johnny, and a few others), which is another crowd Dave and I hang with as a couple; and my quite-a-bit older Hamilton/work friends from the bar and that whole old Hamilton punk crowd, like Lasha & Jimmy, Scotty, Lou, Darlene, Bryan, Mickey, Ric, Kerry, etc. Sometimes it gets weird mixing those groups because mostly they are toootally different from one another and it's just strange. I don't know. I just like keeping my friends separate from one another. It's easier on me. Each of my friend groups kind of represent a piece of myself, and sometimes those pieces are very different from one another, so I tend to act slightly different with certain people than I do with others. For example, with my book-smarty friends I can have intelligent, in-depth conversations about art and books and stuff, and we usually drink cocktails and have dinner parties and go dancing once in awhile, stuff like that. Very conversation-intensive. And then you have the London bros and we just guzzle beers and smoke weed and look for trouble and go to shows and nerd-out about hardcore and stuff.
I like to compartmentalize, and it carries over into my social life.
Dave, Biff and I walked over to Casbah for a bit tonight to check out the Sloppy Sabbath night Dave O'Connor djs, and we watched a band called Sound Asleep who were pretty good for their age. Just young dudes, really young... probably had to be an average age of 18 or so. Really slow, heavy, loud, sludgey stuff. The type of stuff Dave whacks off to. I liked them but I was getting a little bored by the end. Their drummer was great though, I kind of want to steal him, haha. The vocals were pretty blah too. Good sound though; great guitar tones.
Brodie bought the lot of us a bunch of Jack Daniels shots, and we stuck around for a couple of drinks (it's Dave's birthday today so Brodie open up a little drink tab for him) but Dave and I deeked out early before VCM even played. We're both just shot from the weekend. Just weren't feeling it tonight.
cynics @ this ain't hollywood.
me and dave on jordy's shitty camera phone.
matt and dave.
darlene.
natty.
me and the birthday boy.
drew, jordy and biff.
terra and johnny.
chris and a classic chris face.
nat and me.
biff and nick.
only picture i got of the basketball game before we got shut down.
birthday poutine.
nat and biff.
iou: one handy
sound asleep @ cashbah lounge.
***
I can't remember if I already talked about this in here or not, but whatever:
Black Math has been put on hold for now. Or at least, what Black Math was supposed to be. Which was fast, loud punk-metal. Biff and I are both feeling more inspired by sexy garage-y blues bands like the Kills, Dead Weather, White Stripes, Raveonettes, Boss Hog, JSBX, etc.
So it looks like we're going to be focusing on this project right now instead of Black Math. Dave's on board, so that's good. I think he'll probably be doing bass and keyboards, and duets with me.
I'm really excited to focus on my singing, this will be a first for me and I can't wait to experiment with some vocals styles I've been trying on. Plus I'll get to use my harmonica and my tambourine, finally, haha. Yeah!
Biff's just tired of playing heavy stuff right now, he's been in heavy bands constantly for the past 20 years. Which works for me, because I'm really not feeling inspired by heavier stuff right now; I'm feeling more in-tuned with the kind of stuff I was mentioning before. I think Dave's slightly bummed but also into it at the same time. I know he was looking forward to just singing for a loud, fast band instead of playing an instrument, but we'll do that stuff eventually. Heck, maybe he'll even find other dudes to do that kind of stuff with. But I know he's always fooled around with wanting to do slower, blues-inspired stuff, and he's already written one song that sounds pretty cool, so yeah.
I'm really stoked on this. I have a feeling it's going to be good. And it will be WAY easier to find a drummer who can play this kind of stuff, than one who is super good at fast, complicated beats.
It's funny because since Biff and Dave are both well-known in our local punk/metal community for being in these crazy awesome loud-as-fuck, heavy-as-shit bands, everyone has been asking us when the new band was going to be starting shows and recording etc. There's hype around what those guys do, musically, and here we are doing something totally unexpected instead, which I think is really rad.
I'm feeling so musical.