Christmas Comes Early

Photography by Ulysses Pabuna

The night of December 3 was one full of surprises, the first of which was that I made it to downtown Toronto in record time: 40 minutes. That’s in rush hour, avoiding the Gardiner. Lakeshore was my friend.

The second surprise was dinner at Chipotle—that is, I’m surprised I didn’t spill more of my tacos on my sweater. They’re messy, but good.

The third and by far the biggest surprise was how much I enjoyed the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO). I walked into the ACC that night barely knowing anything about them, only that “they’re awesome,” according to my friend Tom. He’s the fan, he scored the tickets, and he promised me it would be a great time.

He was right.

Now I love me a good concert, and, if you’ve read any of my other reviews, I tend to like my music loud and boisterous, to put it euphemistically. TSO can bring the volume, but there were also many quiet, delicate moments—not that that’s a bad thing. As far as I can tell, TSO tends to tour in winter, or at least they always seem to end up in Toronto in December, so there’s a lot in the way of winter themes both visually and musically. Their albums are often concept albums or rock operas. And they really, really love Christmas. They have three albums that form their “Christmas trilogy”: Christmas Eve and Other Stories, The Christmas Attic, and The Lost Christmas Eve.

This show was, in essence, a Christmas show. In the first half of the concert, they played through The Christmas Attic—this tour represents the first time that they’ve played that album live. Its story, in a nutshell, is this: a little girl explores the attic of her home on Christmas Eve, finds an old chest full of letters including those of a long-lost couple, reads said letters and ultimately reunites said long-lost couple. Aww.

It broke down like this: a huge chest was placed in the centre of the stage, and it opened up to reveal most of the band within it. Then, one vocalist would do spoken-word pieces between the songs, talking about the letters the little girl was reading, and then the band would launch into a song that illustrated the letter in question.

Step one: place chest on stage.

Step two: slowly open chest…

…to reveal band.

Step three: add spoken word.

Step four: fire.

There’s more to the story of The Christmas Attic, and there are strong Christian overtones to it, too. If you want to read the whole thing, it’s here. To be honest, I could’ve done without the religious stuff, as I find it irksome (to put it politely), but I ignored that and enjoyed the show nonetheless.

TSO is a progressive rock band with parts of an orchestra: there are two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer, an electric violinist, two keyboardists, a string section and about 10 vocalists, either singing lead or as part of a choir. And that string section—they’re from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. So TSO was playing with TSO. We all had a chuckle at that when they mentioned it.

As the show progressed, I noticed quite a bit of ’80s-style guitar wankery, which made me wonder what these musicians had done before TSO. Turns out some of them were in Savatage, a prog-metal/power-metal band that was prominent in the ’80s and early ’90s. I’ve heard of Savatage, but can’t say that I’ve listened to them. But, wankery aside, I do love hearing call-and-response between singer and guitarist and I love guitar harmonies, and at one point they did both simultaneously. That was pretty cool.

The second half of the show was comprised of TSO’s classics. There was still a Christmas theme happening, but it wasn’t too strong. At times, the guitarists and violinist ran out into the crowd, going up the stairs on the 100 level and interacting with fans. There were a few points during the show where they would strap themselves into some raised platforms that would go out high above the crowd and rotate.

One set of raised, rotating platforms.

Lasers!

They also did some pieces of classical music (e.g., Beethoven, Liszt; some of that took the form of a keyboardist duel) and other carols, or really, their heavier versions of carols, e.g., “Carol of the Bells”—they ended the show with that one.

The show was full of video and smoke and fire and sparkles and lights and lasers, plus they did a brief cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir,” and they topped it all off with fireworks at the end! For two and a half hours, it was pure rock-and-roll spectacle.

And now, a sample of TSO’s music. If you were on the Internet in 2005, you’ve probably seen this video. This is “Wizards in Winter”:

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca.)

The Sword

The day started off with my great-aunt’s 90^th birthday party. I know: so metal.

My cousin and I were going to see The Sword later on; they were due to hit the stage at Lee’s Palace at 11:50, so we had plenty of time to do both events (said great-aunt is his grandmother, you see). The snow had started up earlier in the evening, and though I detest driving in snow, I’d missed The Sword the last three or four times they were here, and I’d be damned if I’d miss them again.

I’ve been into this band since their first release, Age of Winters, back in 2006. There are many labels you can affix to them, if you wish—doom metal, stoner metal, sludge metal—and each of them would be in its own way, correct. But in a nutshell, they’re a metal band that owes the majority of its sound to Black Sabbath. There’s no way I could talk about this band without bringing up Sabbath, with their big, catchy riffs, occult/fantasy themes, and a singer who even sounds a bit like Ozzy. They even had an Orange stack—these guys are serious.

So we get there around 11:20, after a surprisingly easy but slow drive… only to find that The Sword has already started their set, and were mid-way through “Cloak of Feathers”! What the hell happened to the 11:50 start time, as posted on the Collective Concerts and Lee’s Palace websites?  Thankfully that was probably their opening number, so we really didn’t miss anything. In we went.

The place was rammed; there was no way we were going to be able to push our way through towards the front to get a better view, especially with our bulky coats and my completely fogged-over glasses. We stuck to the back and managed to mostly see the band, despite EVERY TALL PERSON IN TORONTO being in front of us. Ugh. I don’t ask for much. Just a few more inches in height would really help. Science, where are we on this?!

The Sword, to me, presents an interesting paradox: they violate my most sacred rule of music, the one that often determines whether or not I get into a band: the vocals. I need a solid vocalist, or I lose interest. It’s not that their singer, J.D. Cronise, is bad—he’s not off-key or anything—but his vocals tend to come off as thin. And in metal, you often want a strong, soaring vocalist, to match the intensity of the music. The worst part is that his vocals are always buried in the mix, both in the studio and live. I was hoping that it was just a studio thing, but nope, he’s always drowned out by the instruments, and maybe that has more to do with it than his actual singing voice. In any case, dude, I want to hear you!

So then, if they violate my most sacred rule, why do I love this band so much?

I’ll tell you why: riffs. Meaty, bludgeon-you-over-the-head-with-a-tree-trunk riffs. Riffs that say they worship at the altar of Iommi—as do I, and as any metalhead worth their salt should. I’ve never had a band win me over with just their riffs, but as the show went on and they kept playing awesome song after awesome song, the complaints I had about vocals and vocal levels eventually melted away, along with my face, in a frenzy of headbanging.

It was a short-ish set, about an hour and twenty, and though they played a lot of material from their 2012 (and most recent) album, Apocryphon, it didn’t dominate—they mixed it up with songs from each of their four albums (Age of Winters, Gods of the Earth, and Warp Riders). Everything they played made me happy to be a metalhead.

The Sword is part of what some people have been calling the “retro-metal” movement, which, as far as I can tell, is a group of bands attempting to recapture the sound of ’70s and ’80s metal bands. This has also been called “heritage metal” and (more mockingly?) “vest metal.” In other words, this is what I’ve been waiting for! I’m so tired of the unintelligible death grunts and the blazing-fast brutal guitar work in modern metal. Not that I have anything against it, but if that’s all that’s happening… zzz. So yay for The Sword and other bands like them. It’s about time.

I can’t wait for them to come back.

And now, some bonus photos:

The shirt I wore (L), and the shirt I bought (C). Because the uniform is important. (R) Breakfast the next morning: chicken and waffles from The Stockyards. Because I’d be crazy not to.

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca.)

Abandon Your Building! Also: Poutine!

Hello, wonderful MississaugaLife readers! I’d like to tell you about a great event that happened at Celebration Square today: Abandon Your Building. It was a battle of the bands featuring office workers from downtown Mississauga; that is, musically inclined employees from participating office buildings got together and formed their own bands, which, as far as this writer is concerned, is a super-cool idea. Who needs TPS reports when you’ve got a Marshall stack?

To go along with these aural treats were treats of the gastronomic variety: the Smoke’s Poutinerie food truck! I’ve been loving food trucks lately and I get very excited when one comes around these parts, to both the delight and chagrin of my belly. But… poutine! Isn’t it my duty as a Canadian to consume poutine whenever possible? Yeah… that’s how I’ll justify it.

Anyway, the food was spectacular. My big beef with poutine is when the fries go soggy—it’s just gross. But if they stand up to the gravy and stay crispy-ish, we’re gonna be pals. Smoke’s delivers on all counts: the cheese curds were squeaky, the gravy was rich, and I had it with double-smoked bacon, crispy and thick, because who needs to live, right?

And the bands were rockin’, too, from what little I was able to hear. They only got 10-minute sets, so I found it a bit little difficult to get a feel for them. I did hear some great harmonies, though. We’ve got a lot of talent in this city. Live music and great food? Not a bad way to spend your lunch hour, eh?

So here are some photos, and you can see a lineup of the bands here. Hey, maybe next year you’ll see a MississaugaLife band!

Check out that lineup!

Mmm… bacon poutine. I can feel it in my che—  >urk<

Traditional poutine

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca.)

And the Worms Ate into His Brain

This past Saturday, I witnessed one of the greatest rock and roll spectacles I’ve ever seen: Roger Waters performing The Wall. The whole thing, start to finish. I’ve seen quite a few concerts with theatrical elements to them (for example, Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, and Ghost), but Waters trumps them all. Not necessarily in content, as I prefer the more gruesome offerings of the aforementioned artists, but in presentation. He’s in a class by himself.

The wall, half-built.

The Wall was, for me, one of those albums that I always half-knew, but didn’t really understand in-depth. I never gave it the same intense listening as I did The Dark Side of the Moon. And though we bought tickets to this show about eight months in advance, I didn’t bother deeply listening to The Wall until a week before the show.

And… wow. I don’t need to review an album that’s been discussed for 30-plus years or so (I might as well review Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and comment on its innovation and influence), but let’s just say that I connected to it a lot more than I ever expected to. It is brilliantly crafted.

So, the show itself. It was at the Rogers Centre, and our seats were clear across the stadium from the stage, to the right. If the stage was north on a compass, we were southeast. Normally, I’d want closer seating (or no seating), but as it turned out, sitting further away meant we actually had the best seats in the house.

“Goodbye, Cruel World”

When we got there, we were greeted by a massive stage with a partially constructed 35-foot-high wall. More bricks in the wall appeared as the songs progressed and the story was told (i.e., the character suffered more mental trauma), and by the end of the first act, the wall was complete. After the intermission, a few songs were played from behind the wall, and then the rest in front until it eventually came down at the end.

“Comfortably Numb”

“We don’t need no thought control.”

The clever thing about building a giant white wall on a stage that stretched across a quarter of the venue is that it acts as a screen, and Waters took full advantage of it. The video presentation was like nothing I’d ever seen. There were close-ups of Waters, but it was never just “here’s a camera on the performer”; the close-ups were blended into the rest of whatever else happened to be displayed at the time. The effects were so good that I sometimes forgot that I was looking at a flat surface. Add to that some heavy-handed political imagery, a local choir of kids (who sang part of “Another Brick in the Wall, part 2”), tons of people waving goosestepping hammer flags, and some distorted giant marionettes from the film adaptation of The Wall, and you’ve got one hell of a show.

In the Flesh

First he sang…

…and then he shot us.

And the sound! I’ve never heard such crisp and clear sound in a huge venue before. It was staggeringly loud, but it never once hurt my ears—the volume made the experience immersive, not exclusive.

Some specific highlights:

• “Mother,” originally about the character’s overprotective mother, but now also sporting a strong don’t-trust-the-government message, among other things. Big Mother is watching, after all. Clever.
• “Comfortably Numb” has now become a favourite song of mine, especially the latter half of David Gilmour’s second chorus—those boys can write lyrics that cut right to the core. The video on the wall was stunning for this one.
• “In the Flesh,” with the character gone mad and hallucinating, imagining himself as a dictator. This is the part with the hammers.

While the show was loaded in flash and thunder, it’s the emotional resonance of the lyrics that counts for more. Here are the last lines of the album, and the show (emphasis is mine):

“All alone, or in twos
The ones who really love you
Walk up and down outside the wall
Some hand-in-hand
Some gathered together in bands
The bleeding hearts and the artists
Make their stand
And when they’ve given you their all
Some stagger and fall, after all, it’s not easy
Banging your heart against some mad bugger’s wall.”

It’s powerful stuff. The music and the story told within it have to a degree shown me where my own walls have been built; some I didn’t even realize I was building, and others were brought into sharp relief. For a time, the wall works. It’s comforting. There’s almost a kind of happiness in hating everything, in throwing a middle finger to the world. But the wall’s got to come down sometime. Thanks, Roger.

The wall, torn down.

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca. All photos by ocad123.)

Gogol Bordello Is the Greatest Band in the Universe

The night started off with me wondering where in the world was I going to find mustache wax at 7:00 p.m. on a Sunday. I’d spent the entire day being almost embarrassingly lazy, and then at the last minute I realized that I had nothing with which to curl the ’stache. I was going to see Gogol Bordello and I wanted to look the part, just a bit.

Admit it—this is awesome.

Gogol Bordello is a gypsy punk band—that is, they play a blend of gypsy music and punk rock, but they also incorporate splashes of reggae, various Latin influences, and just about any other style you care to mention. The idea behind Gogol is that they’re something of a conglomeration of globe-spanning music styles, ideas and shared cultures. Their music expresses a great joie de vivre. Here’s a look at their current line-up:

• Eugene Hütz – lead vocals, guitar – Ukrainian, Russian, Romani
• Sergey Ryabtsev – violin, backing vocals – Russian
• Yuri Lemeshev – accordion, backing vocals – Russian, Ukrainian, Jewish, Polish
• Thomas Gobena – bass, backing vocals – Ethiopian
• Oren Kaplan – guitar, backing vocals – Spanish, Latvian
• Oliver Charles – drums, backing vocals – Italian, Swedish, Trinidadian
• Elizabeth Sun – percussion, backing vocals – Chinese
• Pedro Erazo – MC, percussion – Ecuadorian

Normally I wouldn’t bring up the ethnicities of the performers, but in Gogol Bordello, it’s central to the music. Languages flow freely from one to the next, often within the same song (Ukrainian, Russian, Italian, Romani, English).

When we arrived, the second opening band was finishing up their set. It was Mariachi El Bronx, the alter-ego of punk band The Bronx, and they were excellent. A mariachi band makes a perfect opener for a Gogol show.

NOITU-LOVE-R

The backdrop came down for Gogol, and that’s about the time that everyone else had the same idea we did: to move up to the front. The venue—Sound Academy—was sold out, and it felt like it. You’re shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone there, and while I usually don’t like that, at this show it just felt right. It might suck that there are so many people there, but it’s also great that there are so many people there. It’s one big sweaty party, and who cares? That’s the point.

Gogol will play their hearts out for you every time. These are people who love making and playing music; they never phone it in. I don’t doubt their sincerity for a second, and the broken English and somewhat rough vocals add to the charm. Part of their music sounds like something my grandparents would like, right before the song kicks into high gear with a punk riff. The controlled chaos of all those musicians on stage at once and all those styles fusing together… it’s really quite spectacular.

They started with some older material (“Ultimate,” “Sally,” “Not a Crime,” “Immigrant Punk”) and then focused on newer stuff (“My Companjera,” “Pala Tute,” “Immigraniada (We Comin’ Rougher).” The energy from the band was incredible, and the audience felt it, jumping in unison, dancing, and drinking. You never got a sense of separation between artist and audience: it’s more about getting together and loving the moment. The band feeds off the energy of the crowd, and the crowd feeds off the energy of the band. I dare you to find another audience with that much joy in it.

Throughout the show, I was hoping they’d play “Think Locally, F*ck Globally,” because the live performance of that song has been a favourite Gogol moment in past shows for me. I got my wish.

Towards the end of the show, there were two great moments: the stripped-down “Alcohol,” in which several people linked arms side-by-side and swayed together; and “Start Wearing Purple,” where the entire crowd sang the last line of the song and held a rather lengthy note in unison. Voices raised, arms outstretched.

Every show should end with wine and bass drum.

Though I’ve linked you, dear reader, to several audio and video clips, Gogol is best experienced as a live act—you have to see the show to really understand the power of the performance and the empathy in the crowd. The next time they come around, do yourself a favour join this global party. You won’t regret it.

Lastly, here’s a tip: bring an extra shirt and a towel. For a Gogol show, you’ll need it.

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca.)

Opeth, Mastodon and Ghost Melt Faces at the Sony Centre

Most of the time when I go to a concert, I’m at a small venue: the Phoenix, the Kool Haus, the Sound Academy, the Opera House, that kind of thing. The shows are fairly intense, crammed affairs, full of loud guitars in the form of metal or punk, and I’m usually standing the minimum distance I need to be from the stage to avoid getting sucked into the pit.

So it’s really quite strange that I found myself at the Sony Centre for the Performing Arts to catch some of the heaviest metal around: Opeth and Mastodon, on their double-headlining Heritage Hunter tour. Our seats were third row centre; we were no further than 10 feet from the stage. For once, my view wasn’t obstructed—I could clearly watch blistering guitar solos as they were being played.

While Mastodon was good and Opeth was great, it was the opening band, Ghost, that stole the show. Now I’ve been to a lot of shows in my time, and there are many more to follow. But I’ve never seen anything like Ghost.

When the show started, we heard low chanting and eerie organs, and then the curtain was raised, revealing this:

Words don’t do it justice. I witnessed what looked like a black mass. Take the Blue Öyster Cult, add a healthy dose of Black Sabbath and make most of your songs about Satan. That’s Ghost.

None of the band members go by their real names. There is Papa Emeritus, the singer, and the others are all simply called Nameless Ghouls. Papa Emeritus was dressed as you see in the photos here, and the rest of the band were all wearing hooded robes. Aside from their eyes and their hands, they were completely covered in black. There wasn’t much in the way of banter, but when he did speak, it was in low and creepy tone. He sounded like Dracula.

A face only the devil could love.

Gimmicks aside—and make no mistake, this is one hell of a clever marketing ploy (pun intended) because I seriously doubt they’re actual Satanists—the band was tight and their songs were almost disturbingly catchy. They had great melodies and harmonies, and they weren’t overly heavy. Musically, they have more in common with Mercyful Fate than Dimmu Borgir. I was gleefully singing along to songs about ritual human sacrifice. I mean, you almost feel bad for singing the lyrics that you’re singing, but the songs are so damn catchy you can’t resist.

I wished they had more material—a half-hour just wasn’t enough. When they tour again, I’m there. I can’t wait for their next album; I’ve been playing Opus Eponymous non-stop.

Mastodon came on stage about 20 minutes after Ghost was done. They didn’t banter with the crowd at all, but they plowed through 17 songs in about an hour and 15 minutes. They didn’t have the stage presence that Ghost had, but let’s be honest, it’s kind of hard to top that.

Brent Hinds, lead guitarist and one of the vocalists of Mastodon.

Brent Hinds makes soloing look stupidly easy. His fretting hand effortlessly glided around the neck of his guitar, and those were some complex solos he was pulling off. Troy Sanders, the singer/bassist, moved around a little more than the other band members and got the crowd into it (though in Hinds’ defense, his foot was in a cast). All in all, Mastodon put on a solid performance, but I didn’t find them to be very personable. And that’s cool—if the banter isn’t natural, don’t bother. The audience knows when you’re faking it.

Mastodon is prog-metal, but I find they can be a little inaccessible. However, their newest album, The Hunter, is a lot easier to get into: it’s got catchier songs and cleaner vocals. “Curl of the Burl” is probably their most radio-friendly song.

Opeth closed the show, and that’s when the crowd really got loud. Their singer, Mikael Åkerfeldt, had a much more relaxed and friendly stage presence. He joked with the audience, taunting us by saying that Sweden is the superior hockey nation and that he planned on buying Canada the following day. He also deadpanned about writing all the material for the other bands, ending with “I’m a genius.” He was fun. And that laid-back personality contrasted with his low, shuddering death growl.  He didn’t use it a lot—just at the end, during “The Grand Conjuration” and “Deliverance”—but the lack of those vocals made their impact much greater.

Mikael Åkerfeldt, singer/lead guitarist of Opeth.

Here’s the strange part for me: I found myself craving the harsh vocals. This is very odd since I usually prefer clean singing to unintelligible growling. Yet Åkerfeldt’s growl is easily one of the best I’ve heard. Admittedly, it’s difficult to make out what he’s saying, but the growl has such a great tone to it that I don’t care. Judging by what he’s said in some recent interviews, he’s expanding his vocal repertoire to include much more actual singing (though he’s no stranger to using clean vocals—Opeth has used them extensively on other albums), so maybe the best is yet to come.

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca.)

Cobain and Staley: Two Icons, Two Reflections

(This post has two authors: myself and Mississauga Life contributing editor Chris Carriere.)

Coincidence—meaningless, meaningful coincidence—is the foundation of mythology.

It’s been 10 years to the day since Layne Staley, former frontman of Alice in Chains, is believed to have succumbed to heroin and cocaine addiction in Seattle, Washington. We can only say believed because the singer’s last years were a tragic spiral of isolation and drug abuse; it wasn’t until April 19 that police kicked down his door to find the singer dead, bathed in television light. Rolling Stone ran a cover of the blond-haired Staley, bearing a quote from Canadian folk legend Neil Young: “The Needle and the Damage Done.”

Staley’s fateful day came eight years to the day after the April 5 death of another blonde-haired grunge icon: Kurt Cobain. Also in Seattle, also the result of heroin. Unlike Staley, though, Cobain’s death blindsided the generation that believed in him; if his demise was the shock that killed the grunge juggernaut, then Staley’s was its anticipated echo. Cobain’s suicide note bore another Neil Young quote: “It’s better to burn out than to fade away.”

Young would later dedicate his album, Sleeps with Angels, to Cobain’s memory.

Today, two MississaugaLife writers and devout music fans—myself and assistant editor Leo Graziani—reflect on the passing of two icons whose art ignited the collective imagination of a whole society, but ultimately swallowed their own lives.

Respectively, Leo (35) and I (24) represent Generation X and the Millennial Generation. Our relationship to the music and the men behind it couldn’t be more different; by the time I was old enough to have seen a Nirvana concert, they were already putting out the With the Lights Out box set. Leo’s reflection is an intensely personal account of a massive cultural implosion; mine is the detached recollection of an observer, a historical passenger watching the televised aftershock.

But what we do share is the same thing that a kid born today, who puts on Nevermind in 2026, will share with us: a strange, but very real, emotional attachment to the imprint left by Nirvana and Alice in Chains on the musical landscape.

*

Leo

I was 18 years old when Kurt Cobain committed suicide. I heard about it when a friend phoned me up and said:

“I’m sorry, dude.”
“Sorry for what?”
“I’m just sorry.”
“For what? What are you talking about?”
“You didn’t hear?”
“No. Heard what?” (I was starting to get a little annoyed with him.)
“You really need to turn on the radio right now.”
“Which station?”
“Doesn’t matter.”

So I went over to the living room where the family stereo was set up, and I turned on 97.7 FM.  And there it was, in sombre tones: Kurt Cobain was found dead in his home from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.

A little background before we proceed: I was—and still am—a huge Nirvana fan. I was 15 years old when the Nevermind bomb dropped, obliterating everything I knew about music until then. It was massive. I was even lucky enough to catch them live at Maple Leaf Gardens in ’93, on the In Utero tour. They’re one of my all-time favourites.

I sat in front of the stereo, just listening. I couldn’t believe it. Kurt’s dead? That’s not fair! He can’t be dead! I didn’t want to move from the stereo, but the yelling of my parents saying to come to dinner—it’s a big deal in an Italian house—eventually overpowered my trance. So I threw in a blank cassette and hit record while we ate. I still have that tape.

The next day, in true melodramatic teenage fashion, I wore a black armband to school. A lot of students misinterpreted it, and I was verbally crucified by a teacher for it too: “Why are you wearing that, son? ’Cause your hero died?” That’s verbatim, folks. And I tried my best to defend myself, but it wasn’t very good. It wasn’t until years later that I understood what I was mourning: not the man, but the music.

I didn’t know Kurt Cobain personally, and no matter how intensely I rocked out to his songs, the obfuscating lyrics only ever allowed you a little peek in his head at best. (For the record, I understand the lyrics now.) I never bought into that messianic image of Cobain, the whole voice-of-a-generation, the-next-John-Lennon thing that all the music media outlets were calling him. I think that’s looking upon the whole thing with too-nostalgic eyes. Despite his importance in rock history, and despite my almost fanatical devotion to the band, I recall feeling that the whole thing was overblown to death (pardon the pun).

No, for me, Nirvana just plain and simply rocked. There was something almost primal about how they sounded that spoke to me in my lizard brain. Nirvana songs were the first songs I learned to play on guitar. And no Kurt meant no more Nirvana. They would never make another record. The magic of that band was gone.

Years later, when they released “You Know You’re Right” from the vault, I felt the void left by the absence of Nirvana. It made me sad and made me remember just how awesome they were. Yet at the same time, I was happy to hear another song. It was bittersweet.

I didn’t know until today—or at least I didn’t make the connection—that Layne Staley of Alice in Chains also died on April 5… but in 2002. I remember hearing about his death (I still have the issues of Rolling Stone that cover both Cobain’s death and Staley’s) and was, of course, upset by the news.

Alice in Chains was another one of my favourite bands—what can I say, I was a grunge kid—and here was another unique voice silenced. I loved their sludgy heaviness, their delicate acoustic sound—especially on Jar of Flies and their Unplugged album—and their amazing harmonies. But Layne’s death didn’t have the impact that Kurt’s did, for me, and that may be because I was 26 instead of 18. Regardless of age, it was terrible news and I miss that band a lot.

I never got to see Alice in Chains in concert, and I don’t know that I want to now. I know they’re still around and I know they’ve got a new singer in William DuVall, and I hear he’s great… but something about it just doesn’t feel right. Simply put, he isn’t Layne, no matter how much he sounds like him.

*

Chris

So it’s April 5, 2012—10 years after the death of Layne Staley and 18 years after the death of Kurt Cobain. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but I plan on cranking up every Nirvana and Alice in Chains album I have, and maybe drinking a tallboy or two in their honour. The music makes me feel 15 again. Maybe that’s the best way to remember Kurt and Layne.

I was born in 1987, so I was seven years old when Kurt Cobain died in ’94. Needless to say, I was more into eating my Crayola than I was into grunge. In fact, it’s one of my very first encoded memories: the image of a teary Courtney Love, reading Kurt’s suicide note to a crowd of thousands, imploring them to repeat after her: “Kurt is an asshole.”

In retrospect, this memory is hued with the red glow of what the music ended up meaning to me. At the time, though, it was a black mass without context, a profoundly strange and surreal ritual of public mourning that seemed important though I couldn’t have said why.

Unlike the kids who grew up with grunge and could’ve known only dimly the downward-arcing star they were hitching their psyches to, for my Millennial Generation Cobain and the suicide mythology came as a package deal. Nirvana fandom was the already-sacrosanct church of teenage alienation, and Cobain its already-canonized patron saint. There’s no doubt that his posthumous marketing—as an angel of broken glass and cigarettes, held still in the photographic, revisionist perfection that’s only available to artists who die young—was a little sick, but I can’t say I was bothered by it.

That Layne Staley would take the same dismal voyage into rock and roll Valhalla in 2002, then, wasn’t a surprise. This was, in fact, what the whole mythos was about (to us): dying young, biting the hand that fed you and rejecting what was offered.

I guess this is the part where I’m supposed to say that, a decade later, I feel shortchanged by the whole ordeal; that the corporate machinery retailed death to me, the angsty teen, and I ate it right up unquestioningly only to find I’d been given sugar pills or worse.

The funny thing is, I don’t feel that way. Both these artists, and their work, and their stories (bleak, uncompromising, sincere, ironic, and without redemption) are psychological landmarks in my life, designating a certain feeling that lasted a certain number of years. And that’ll be their legacy to subsequent generations of listeners: they will remain signposts, marking the entrance and endpoint of teenage ennui.

To me, there’s nothing wrong with that. That feeling deserves an outlet.

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca.)

Lamb of God Burns Down the Phoenix

Lamb of God: singing songs of peace and love since 1994.

I wake up with my neck complaining. It’s the morning after a concert, and the ol’ headbanger’s whiplash is making its presence felt. The soreness never bothers me, though: I wear it like a badge of honour. As the gears creak and the bones rattle to life, I remember the show from last night.

It’s a reasonably mild late-January night as my cousin and I make our way over to the Phoenix, to join about a thousand other maniacs in seeing Lamb of God. Lamb of God is not, as one might think upon hearing their name, a Christian rock band. They’re one of the leading bands in what’s been called the New Wave of American Metal, and the last time I saw them, they opened for Metallica at the ACC, with its terrible sound from our crappy seats. Not the best venue.

But the Phoenix? I couldn’t believe that I was even getting the chance to see a big-name band like this at a small venue, and its size meant we got the full wallop of Lamb of God’s sound: pummelling and intense. I’m surprised the Phoenix wasn’t reduced to a smoking crater.

We parked, ditched our coats in the car and walked north on Sherbourne to the venue. No lineup, but we get carded (which was nice, as it’s a bit of a rarity for me these days) and frisked… and boy, did we get frisked. If the security lady had been any more thorough, I’d have to buy her dinner.

The blast of heat as we enter the main room confirms our suspicions about ditching our coats. The place is sold out, rammed with my fellow metalheads. Everyone was waiting impatiently for Lamb of God, and waiting with a tense, nervous energy, each of us a coiled serpent. You could feel it bubbling through the crowd, waiting to be unleashed.

We’re chanting the band’s name for the fourth time when the lights go out and they hit the stage. They smashed the set open with “Desolation” and never let up. The singer, Randy Blythe, prowled the stage, barking and screaming with that unbelievable demonic howl of his. His stage presence emanated power—he had command over the audience. He asked us if we were ready to destroy the place. Oh, we were. “Walk with Me in Hell” was easily one of the highlights of the show for me, and when they played “Laid to Rest,” everyone lost their minds.

The pit was an example of madness made physical. There are many reasons why I don’t go into the pit, and that one had all of them on display. Here are a few of the objects I saw flying out of it: a pair of jeans, a bra, a shoe, and someone’s shirt, which got stuck onto the lighting on the ceiling. I haven’t seen a pit that crazy since Slayer. No, thank you.

Towards the end, during “Redneck,” Randy called for a huge circle pit to form, and sure enough, there was a giant whirlpool of human bodies running around. But then, during the last song, “Black Label,” one of their guitarists signalled for the pit formation that I hoped would come: the Wall of Death. And it was the most insane Wall of Death I’d ever seen. The metal barricade separating the 19-plus section from the all-ages section was the only thing keeping the entire floor from turning into total chaos.

Get those horns up!

On the way home, I could already feel my neck stiffening a bit, but I knew it was worth it. During the drive, I wondered what it is that attracts me towards more brutal forms of metal. I never used to like it. I like metal that uses, you know, actual singing. The death growls (harsh vocals) never worked for me. If I can’t connect to the singer and the lyrics, I lose interest. But I can understand Randy, and there’s something about his particular growl that just works.

But it’s deeper than that. As a teenager, I always gravitated towards dark, evil, twisted things, because it was cool to me. And while it’s still cool now, there’s an odd extra layer to the appeal. Being a bit older can bring with it a change in perspective—perhaps the feelings of alienation or despair that I chalked up to angst in my teen years are more of a reality these days. There is something about the self-destructive nihilism in the lyrics that seems to make more sense now.

But that’s why I go to metal shows: to get the demons out. To get all the rage, hate, and aggression out in a way that doesn’t harm anyone. To feel connected to my fellow outsiders and throw a huge middle finger to the world. I loved every second of it.

Suggested listening: “Laid to Rest,” “Walk with Me in Hell,” and “Set to Fail.”

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca.)

Chiptunes, Glow Sticks and Hipsters

These guys are committed Furby fans.

It’s a somewhat chilly Saturday night in January as my buddy and I walk down Queen Street West. For this time of night, it’s surprisingly deserted. The familiar sight of smokers huddling outside the bar in a roped-off area is the only indication that we’ve arrived at our destination; if there’s a sign on this place, it’s too dark to see it. We’re at Wrongbar, between Landsdowne and Dufferin, and we’re here to see Anamanaguchi. It’s cold enough outside to warrant a winter coat, but inside the club we’re greeted by a wall of heat. Coat check is a nightmare.

The place is very basic: it’s essentially one big room with two bars—one on the right side, one next to the stage—elevated seating against the walls closer to the stage, and not much else.

The first thing I notice when I walk into Wrongbar is that the place is packed with hipsters—it’s wall-to-wall hipsters. This isn’t my usual crowd of headbangers. But I’m not gonna let a few kids—who don’t really get how ugly the ’80s were and should quit emulating the look because it’s awful—get in the way of enjoying an evening of chiptunes.

What’s a chiptune, you say? It’s music made using the sound chips of vintage personal computers and video game systems. In Anamanaguchi’s case, it’s a hacked NES and Gameboy, but they also use guitar, bass and drums, so they’ve got a fusion of styles in their sound.

Bad mustaches and oversized glasses aside, it was a great show. The band’s brief set (clocking in at a standard 45 minutes) was lively, fast-paced, intense chiptune rock, and this crowd was 100% into it. Within minutes, there were fistfuls of thin glow sticks waving in the air—supplied by the band—and they didn’t stop waving until the end. It was also an early show; I left the place at 10:30. That’s… not right.

Behind the band was a screen displaying a blast of distorted colours—essentially what you would get on your TV when the Nintendo stops working. The band name occasionally flashed across the screen—in the old Nintendo font, which was a nice touch. At various times throughout the show, we were treated to seizure-inducing images of Furbys, clips of anime and other bits of weirdness.

Anamanaguchi’s songs are simple, direct and catchy, but don’t expect much in the way of deep content; there are no lyrics to speak of. One song was announced like this: “This song is about jetpacks and sh*t.” But you know what? It doesn’t matter. It’s great party music and they’re really good at it. There was no moshing, but there was definitely crowd-surfing, and at one point, the bassist was riding the sea of hands, bass and all.

The interesting part of this show took place mostly in my head. This is a pretty young crowd, and I’m… not as young as I used to be. I wonder what connection these 20-somethings feel to music made out of artifacts that these days would be considered technologically primitive? I mean, they didn’t grow up with it—I did. But maybe that doesn’t matter either. I wasn’t even alive when Sabbath and Zeppelin were in their prime, but I love that stuff. Good music is good music, no matter what.

When the show was over, I turned to my buddy and said, “Merch table?” His reply: “Oh, hell yeah.” We squeeze through the horde and make our way over to a tiny table, with posters, vinyl, and T-shirts. If I had a record player I’d grab the vinyl, but instead I ask for a CD. She produces one (a compilation called Frug for Lyfe) from beneath the table and says it’s $4, asking for “those little two coin things,” or words to that effect. “You mean toonies, the two-dollar coin?” “Yeah, that’s it!” Americans are cute.

The low CD price combined with the early show and short set makes me think that perhaps Anamanaguchi isn’t as big as I thought they were. An idea which, if I’m honest about it, I kind of like. It makes them a little more of a secret, and it has that air of indie cred so coveted by the hipster crowd. I remember when that was a bigger deal to me. In a way, it still is.

We walk back into the night and immediately want a change of clothes—cold air and sweat are not a good combination. Queen Street is much busier now, and on the drive back we discuss the show. More than anything, we just wanted to see what these guys would do with those old sounds. For them, it’s discovery; for us, it’s nostalgia. This show was a short time warp back to our childhoods, and whenever Anamanaguchi comes back, we’ll be there to take the trip again.

Suggested listening:  “Fast Turtle,” “Mess,” and “Aurora.”

You can download some of these for free at their site.

(Originally posted on mississaugalife.ca.)