Weeks later, I’m posting this here instead of where it was going to show up. “I don’t know what I just read or attempted to edit.”

I walk into Whale Tooth’s press-kit-clear pub rock at the Horseshoe on Thursday, December 1. They’re stomping with seductive force; any cougars reduce themselves to torn hosiery and running mascara. The “we’ve-heard-of-punk” pop rock is tight, but drips with a naive, “we’re a real, hard-working rock n roll band” ardor that’s more deluded than gritty. It’s telling when singer Elise Legrow complains that the mall has Christina Aguilera on repeat. Are you the teen tearing into obvious targets, as if Britney’s decades of airplay are the last obstacle between you and your Joan Jett fantasy?

Do you have any other boring opinions? What gets Whale Tooth off? Facebook says: the Beatles, Bob Marley, Mother Mother, Tegan and Sara, Dylan, Pink Floyd—all the sophistication of supplementing your dad’s CDs with the smoother side of college radio circa 2005.

Am I out of touch or is everyone in those crowd photos tasteless? Whale Tooth is recommended for your friend’s mom who casually repeatedly mentions that she saw Heart when she was eighteen.

Crystal Stilts lurch onstage, Stooge decrepit, and blanket “Sycamore Tree” and “Through the Floor” in all the records’ somnolent reverb, but somehow even more exploding plastic inevitable. The friendly psychedelic backdrop doesn’t shake the feeling.

The set leans on the songs they’ve rehashed since 2008. Crystal Stilts have a mood and sound bred by balding men haunting the boutique record shop where you found that White Light / White Heat import. The low, bored vocals are drawn out through standing still impressions of her losing control. They have synth figured out. The swirling screeches marry phantom feedback and tape disintegration on the rhythm section’s loose leash. Are they the last refugees of ‘80s Velvet imitation chic, surfacing a quarter century late? Re: the lights: “They’re never supposed to see you sweat.”

“Love is a Wave” comes 11th, a playful pick me up after ten cuts of copacetic lethargy. Notes fade and everyone leaves the stage, amps left on.

The crowd that chanted for an encore from Whale Shit assembles scattered mumbles into enough noise for Crystal Stilts to “OK, we’ll play some more. Someone had a great compliment for us: ‘I checked you out. Some of your songs are really short.’ We’re going to play the CCR version of ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’.” Instead, the bass starts blending the building, and everyone starts swaying and nodding, pace, direction and intensity uncoordinated. It’s the appropriate, polite response, until the second song’s grinning misanthropic climax hits, the guitar juts out, synth fucks in circles, and feedback disrupts the comatose junk vibe. Nothing as conceptual as walking with Jesus, just guys listening to good records.

Crystal Stilts, Whale Tooth, and Doledrums at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, December 1, 2011

Total Abuse Prison Sweat
Post Present Medium 2011

“Ignoring ambitions to grow as musicians, Total Abuse spend their third LP revelling in the mess they’ve thrown across the room, scolding listeners with a squall of faulty wiring and feedback stripped of hardcore’s please-the-kids sentiment….” My review at FFWD

The stage bulged at the Horseshoe. Smash a guitar and pawn the keyboard, then flip a coin to decide if you’ll keep the sax or an extra guitar. A lot of people had fun during Young Guv, and a disproportionate number were holding instruments. The song-writing exists, but the polished pop rock is inefficient, bleaching away any power pop jags in the bloated ensemble. The saxophone added a droning persistence but the keyboard and three guitars only underscored that Young Guv is as inclusive as Toronto is eager to embrace an unspectacular live set from an artist known for solo singles.

Where I stood, The Men were physically painful to listen to. A Confusion is Sex shirt held the bass against an amp until The Men burst into a set of noise screaming in every direction away from hardcore. There might be parameters to their sound but they’re broad enough to sound hardcore playing a catchy song with vibrato arm-manipulated feedback, then dive into a proto-Birthday Party cover. My ears buzzed all Saturday, but I’ll endure it again in a heartbeat.

Release a couple widely-deemed-acceptable records every year for half a decade and see where you are. Thee Oh Sees find themselves in desperate need of an editor. The guy-girl vocals and delayed whoops don’t sound bad, but they aren’t fresh either. Classic garage riffs and Ramones progressions fucked up and affected are pleasant, but when they sprawl outwards six minutes each and the dance floor is balding in front of you maybe playing fast isn’t enough to be exciting. Adjustments begin with expelling the second drummer.

Thee Oh Sees, The Men, and Young Guv at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, October 21, 2011.

39% of the 61% who voted chose the Conservative Party. Maybe I’m a sore loser, but I have a hard time with a 24% right to rule. Maybe other people feel like this.

24% Majority
one-sided C90
compiled May 2011 by Stephen Jersak

1. The Monks Monk Time 1966
2. The Stooges TV Eye 1970
3. Bad Brains Big Take Over 1982
4. Fugazi Cashout 2001
5. Leonard Cohen First We Take Manhatten 1988
6. Dead Kennedys California Über Alles 1980
7. Dr. Dre The Day the Niggaz Took Over 1992
8. Flipper Sex Bomb 1982
9. Joy Division Failures 1977
10. The Jesus and Mary Chain Surfin’ USA 1988
11. Nomos Dale Nixon 2010

Download

Previous Tapes
Twee as Fuck / cute stuff / April 2011
Retail / hate your job / February 2011

The Canadiens are out, but Vancouver finally beat Chicago. En route to their OT game 7 disappointment, they won game 2 between White Wires and Vivian Girls. Watching the win on the Phoenix’s balcony was the highlight of the night.

On the Wednesday I saw the last of Modern Superstitions set at Parts and Labour. That was terrible, but Davila 666 played an inoffensive, leave-early set with lots of reverb and too many guitars that you couldn’t hear anyways.

You also couldn’t hear the CD changer at the Phoenix. After hearing Molested Youth’s grit made crisp at Wrong Bar it was lame to find myself in an expensive acoustic shit hole, and then the bands came on.

Vivian Girls were just punk enough for Lake House and Never See Me Again, but Wild Eyes and I’ll Tell the World were barely discernible from their bland new songs. Black Lips at least played Buried Alive but the weed and Molson atmosphere was still dismal. Welcome to life that sounds like sun tan lotion and mayonnaise commercials. Borrow some recklessness from Amy Winehouse when you give Mark Ronson back.

I’ve slid through to the other side. I made the jump, now I don’t just hate Indian Wars et al, I can’t listen to any of this. Not even Let it Bloom. Bye garage, enjoy the shitty vibes.

Davila 666 and Modern Superstitions at the Shop under Parts and Labour, April 13, 2011.
Black Lips, Vivian Girls, and White Wires at the Phoenix, April 16, 2011.

I feel like an alcoholic at a bar at 7:30. What should make me feel like an alcoholic was buying beer on the way to the show and drinking it alone in an alley.

How much salt goes with the “just can’t hate enough to keep being a band 04-08-11” scribbled on Molested Youth records? I don’t see any all ages kids while they set up. Their set is fast and animated, bisected by amp problems. Most of the songs aren’t memorable but they’ve nailed the snotty under a minute sound and they’re finished by 8.

Straight edge should follow Jonathan Richman’s She Cracked example. Stop eating garbage, stop eating shit, you’re already not getting stoned, now improve your diet! You’ve lost your edge over us free-loving black-lunged substance abusers if you’re on the verge of cardiac arrest. Some people are naturally heavier, but I doubt you were born to flirt with obesity. Whatever excess or deficit is causing these health issues is a lot more hazardous than the beer I drank at this show.

Thirty seconds into Rhinoceros guys are punching each other in the face. So this is the pointless spectacle that the hardcore scene is today? I’m saying more about what Rhinoceros represents than what they sound like, because they’re unremarkable. The singer sounds like he’s throwing up, but not in the demented Fag Cop way I would love.

Part way through the front man says, “straight edge, pot head, it doesn’t matter, have a drink, have a smoke, fuck a pussy, suck an ass, do what you have to do, have some fun.” From the circle pit two crusty girls start screaming “Two girls are gonna kick your fucking asses,” and storm out. The comment could be construed misogynistic, but the intention was clearly pro-tolerance. The girls keep trying to start shit all night and I see one of them later on holding a cold beer up to a fat lip. I shudder at how that could’ve happened.

Nomos’ drummer had to work, his flight was delayed, but now he’s in the air between Chicago and YYZ, so they’re skipped over for now.

Mother of Mercy reminds me of New World on Fire. There’s the same posturing, showing off, trying to look tough, checking off their list of hardcore moves, except the members of Mothers of Mercy are probably ten years older than New World on Fire were when I was getting threatening emails from kids in Chilliwack for not liking them.

Nomos’ drummer is stuck at the airport, so they’re not playing, but I paid $15 for this ticket, so I stay for several seconds of Sheer Terror. They formed in 1984, which tells me pretty much everything. On the walk home I realize it’s not even 11 yet.

Sheer Terror, Mother of Mercy, Rhinoceros, and Molested Youth, but not Nomos at Wrong Bar, April 8, 2011.

The crowd at White Lung had dreads and goatees and no eyebrows and ear spacers and studied the guitar parts and knew all the words.

White Lung at the Shop under Parts and Labour, April 1, 2011.

It doesn’t matter when I get to work on Saturday, or most days, so Friday I found a Feargal Sharkey cassette and rocketed to Kensington.

Upstairs, Gack lumbered over a table and applied careful weight and quick punches to pedals like a 1970’s sci-fi technician. The careful few minutes of static and delay are in touch with Red Desert’s alienating blend of electronics and machinery, and centre on a hypnotic throb. Against the projections of forests and caves, the dread compounds, and I wanna watch the first Evil Dead, where Ash is earnest and doesn’t have a chainsaw hand. [I liked it a lot]

No change to the looping direction, Beard Closet turns the white room from a horror set into a nature documentary on forgotten virtual realities, and then drifts unnoticed towards violence. I’m interested to see what he learns to do with two amps. I was hoping for Pissed Jeans-style massive sounds, but it was hard to pick out the discrepancies between the twin tones. [I liked the best bits of his Gladstone set better, but this one was better throughout]

Oh, Satin Warship, I laughed. Remorse creeps up and then my memory chokes it down. The delay on the Squier’s directionless rattles maintained thirty seconds of maybe it’s a joke. The androgoblues could work by accident under specific situations maybe? It would need a lot more don’t care to overcome how bad everything was. I laughed, and then I left. [I’m glad I was there]

Satin Warship, Beard Closet, and Gack at the White House, April 1, 2011.

Nobunny at the Railway Club in Vancouver, February 3, 2011.

I was in Vancouver last month and won’t mention the friends I saw or fun I had, because I’m scared I’ll forget someone, but I did see Nobunny’s usual schtick. All the Love Visions hits, none of the Raw Romance gold that I don’t think they can pull off live, and only the Velvet Underground and Crystals rip offs from First Blood. No Sneaky Pinks, deal with it. I paid for Jakob Knudsen (just realized his tumblr changed! Fix the links, quick!) and his girlfriend to get in, and then I thrust a disposable camera into his hands. I intercepted him while he was working the next day and got a All For The Best tape from him, and I scanned these at work this morning. Sh!