Jai Paul put songs online last night. Check ‘em out and freak out and zone out and anyways, it’s a cool record but enough people are typing no one else needs to. In another corner, not enough people are typing about Open Letters.

I forgot my iPod at work last night, drag, so I went in silence to get it, until I checked the internet on my phone and saw Open Letter’s recordings are finally paid for and liberated. I listened three times in a row.

These guys are sappy and death-fixated, but this New Wave of British Columbian Pop Punk is killing, making guitars not suck by writing catchy, emotional, fast, loud songs. Between Open Letters and Markus Naslund and Wild Kingdom and Jelly Boyz - probably the best band on the planet this second - the Fraser Valley is stupid fertile ground for fun must. Cover Blink-182 and cry on occasion to qualify.

Pay what you can to support the WISH Drop-In Centre Society caring for Vancouver sex workers.

Container
Spectrum Spools 2012

With electronics people make faces when adjustments don’t do what’s expected. Everyone makes them and it’s charming. Sets further mar enhance with unexpected happenings a level past suburban punk, someone’s parents are outta town so use their basement, minus drunk or else straight edge kids smashing through drywall. Ital only had to cope with last call announced over the PA mid-track.

I read You Can’t Win while a laptop sucked in Roman Kov. The first search result: modelmayhem.com. To prepare for William S. Burroughs’ affection the autobiographer spent hours as a kid in prison, fuzz error. He was collecting milk money at a brothel when someone loud made accusations. Sorry I ruined that.

The shows I want to go to, Toronto’s Unpopular Music Scene, there are 20 people and two are Wolfgang and Vic (HVYWTR, Healing Power). A show they’re playing’d be a funny exception. First glance it just seems insular, no one comes cuz it’s just friends, but aren’t the headliners internet famous? Ital, M. Geddes Gengras, Sun Araw, Laurel Halo, LA Vampires, I guess Toronto just doesn’t like stuff.

I emailed Magic Touch a little while ago. He’s not interested in playing North America anymore, Canada, Toronto especially. The shows are never much fun. Daniel (Ital) disagrees: Everyone is coming up for cold Wednesday Thursdays and playing licenced, ill-suited venues. The legality of everything is bizarre, these shows feel, should be DIY and maybe people’d dance on the weekend.

When I was leaving someone said, “that was a good house music show,” and then repeated it as if it was a funny joke his friends didn’t hear the first time. Toronto or I have terrible taste. Container was great.

Request: Petra Glynt Sour Paradise (HVYWTR Dub)

Ital, Container, HVYWTR, Petra Glynt, and Roman Kov at Nocturne, April 4, 2013.

Last couple days I spent uncomfortable in my underwear throwing up. The round trips evacuating different colour sports drink and Joey Jeremiah spending his summer dating Caitlin and fucking Tessa, and don’t forget Neil Hope’s fate*, they got me sarcastic, negative, feeling mean. Tessa got the abortion and never talked to anyone?

Deerhunter tossed “Monomania” to the internet today. It’s loud and noisy but not angry or dance-y. Maybe those’re my cards, are anger and movement all I want? That’d be reductive, my Deerhunter resentment is reactive. I pull back to seeing them just after Microcastle.

Black Lips headlined and their set was human damage, broken glass, torn clothing, mouths full of blood, surreptitious smoking.

“Monomania” seems wilder than “Dirty Hand.” There’s tons of guitar and repetition and fucking around, plus lo-fi button voices. Big Criticism’s descriptors: thorny, venom, genuine malice, a much darker place, digging hard into their punk roots, dragging their sound through the mud, dirty, pulling you by the hair, extreme self-awareness.

Let me sub: They’ve got attitude. They’re edgy, they’re in your face. You’ve heard the expression, “let’s get busy”? Well this is a band who gets biz-zay! Consistently and thoroughly. So they’re proactive? Oh, God yes! We’re talking about a totally outrageous paradigm.

It falls apart when you see Deerhunter. This loud, interesting, catchy music isn’t challenging or thorny or venomous or anything. They’ll play “Monomania” and wimpy boys from the internet’s most obvious strata’ll sway with their dates and nod and drum on their hips.

Bradford Cox and co are interesting, they’ve got great taste, and their records are decent. Hell, they’re inoffensive! That’s why their albums chart and people pay to see them. Pretending this taste of their newest pushes away from that is dishonest. Monomania won’t scare youth groups. It’s glossy noise rock for people who can’t imagine stomaching electric eels. Deerhunter made a difficult listen already: Carve Your Initials Into the Walls of the Night. It’s not so great.

*“Unlike his peers, Neil Hope didn’t leave a paper trail of home purchases, car loans or a specified next of kin. There were just two unresolved GO train infractions totalling $354, a trail of acquaintances whose couches he slept on, and a group of people who loved him but were frustrated he wasn’t taking care of himself.”

My computer broke, and thoughts on Tyvek On Triple Beams (In the Red 2012)

I dropped my laptop and first the screen got unfriendly, then it wouldn’t restart. It made it through reconstructive surgery, and I have backups, but just dumping music back is distasteful.

I was cautious, I rebuilt a couple playlists and added classics and recent favourites*. I leveled up my ID3 fascism: Op. No.s for classical, original release years and art for every track on Prince’s The Hits I & II.

I like Tyvek. I like the idea. I like those Desperate Bicycles outtakes on Fast Metabolism. I liked when they said whatever about Detroit, how being a band is reasonable, versus unemployment. It’s great Down and Out, forever young stuff. They slip into an American decay story so easy.

I went to work with my old music for the last time. On the subway home their newest record came on. It’d been sitting for months unplayed. It’s not different from Nothing Fits or Tyvek or Fast Metabolism or any of their tangled discography. Only difference is it’s seven years since Mary Ellen Claims.

Forget relevancy, I’m concerned for humans. Tyvek is still popular enough to avoid job-hunting. I bet their labels recoup losses, but I doubt they have health insurance. The narrative might be fiction (it’s all unsupported), but hearing Tyvek the same as they were seven years ago is a drag. Knowing they’re seven years older is a drag. Knowing I’m seven years older is a drag. Next time I feel like Tyvek it’ll be Fast Metabolism plus trying not to think about the future.

So sorry, On Triple Beams‘ll be relaxing on an external hard drive with mbv and No Love Deep Web. New Moon might join them.

*Jelly Boyz are both

Year-end best-of’s are always mostly wrong, but I thought of some music I liked…

Ital Boi
Dream On Planet Mu

Ital’s set was the most fun I’ve been to this year. It was already 2:30 and almost everybody had left. He was already wasted hours before and selling off records at financially hazardous price. Then he played the dumbest big beats and fucked around. M. Geddes Gengras and Laurel Halo messed with his gear and everyone left at the show obviously wanted to have fun.

I bought Culture Clubs and got home and didn’t like it, but Dream On is an instant favourite. Despot is synth-pop enough co-workers aren’t too alienated, but Boi has a video.

Ital, Laurel Halo, Magic Touch, and M. Geddes Gengras at the Shop under Parts & Labour, September 28, 2012.

Year-end best-of’s are always mostly wrong, but I thought of some music I liked…

The Men Candy
Open Your Heart Sacred Bones

The Men keep not getting worse, even if they don’t do as much noise stuff. They didn’t play Candy any of the three times I saw them, which is fine if they just wanna be punk.

The Men at the Garrison, June 14 and Wrongbar, June 15 for NXNE, and the Shop under Parts & Labour, November 9 for Not Dead Yet, 2012.

Year-end best-of’s are always mostly wrong, but I thought of some music I liked…

Mord Fustang Welcome to the Future
Welcome to the Future Plasmapool

A co-worker showed my Mord Fustang without know anything about it, and I didn’t bother finding anything out, cuz I like it. Turns out it is an Estonian he my age.

Year-end best-of’s are always mostly wrong, and I’ve never done one, but I did think of ninety minutes of music I liked this year, but I’m not even 100% right about that.

Demdike Stare Ishmael’s Intent
Elemental Part 4: Iris Modern Love

Earlier this year I read Infinite Jest, my biggest accomplishment in a while. I read most of it after midnight, listening to Demdike Stare. I’m not as crazy about the Elemental series as I was about Tryptych but really they’re the same so what am I talking about? Bummer, each are minimum $50 right now so I’ll never own them, unless I’m the last person to get sick of them.

Year-end best-of’s are always mostly wrong, and I’ve never done one, but I did think of ninety minutes of music I liked this year, but I’m not even 100% right about that.

Shoxx Sludge Seed
Demo C6 Recordings

I was standing in line outside Soybomb when Nomos played their surprise last set. If I’d got to the subway five minutes earlier I’d’ve been on a streetcar that hit a bus, so I was only supposed to hear them through a wall, not realizing whose songs I was recognizing.

Earlier the same week I heard Shoxx’s demo and liked it right away then realized a minute later it had ex-Nomos. They jack a lot of riffs, cool, but I’m not holding my breath for another Swell Maps cover.

Career Suicide, School Jerks, Neon Piss, and Nomos at Soybomb, November 10, 2012.

Year-end best-of’s are always mostly wrong, and I’ve never done one, but I did think of ninety minutes of music I liked this year, but I’m not even 100% right about that.

Todd Terje Inspector Norse
It’s the Arps Smalltown Supersound

I lucked onto this at the beginning of the year and it’s been in rotation since. It’s mostly ARP2600, so Terje can stop being called too clean / computery, but it’s also just 400 seconds of spacey 4/4 good times. How can you not like disco?