welcome to the city that shoves you back

here are a couple photos i took in philly while attending 'this is hardcore'.


that was hardcore.


blacklisted.


grey area.


kid dynamite.


beemer.


mike ski.

bad scene(fest), everyone's fault.

i caught a ride with my bro's cancer bats to st catherines to attend the annual 'SCENE festival'







one of my highlights of the day was seeing my friend peter and his new band teenage kicks! you should check out their blog or head over to juicebox.com to download their new 7" for free!

this is birthday

i celebrated my twenty-sixth birthday in philadelphia at 'this is hardcore'.
if you missed it, feel free to live vicariously through this video.

some of them are just like us, and some of them are dicks

Frank Turner came to Toronto a few weeks ago to play a handful of solo gigs around the city. I managed to catch him twice; at his free appearance at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, and again the next night at the Dakota Tavern (pictured above). Both shows ruled, and it was rad to see Frank play again, and hear a few different songs from the last time I saw him.

I also snagged this video of Frank playing "The Ballad of Me and My Friends" and uploaded it to vimeo today.
You can hear me singing along and I don't sing well, oops!



Here's another photo I grabbed of the stage at the Dakota before Frank went on. I thought it was pretty!

I AIN'T GOT NO HOME

Andrew & Tonka Kevin performing "Ain't Got No Home" at Very Noodle Family Christmas.

apathetic apologies (aka "sorry for slacking")

happy new year!
i've really fallen behind on this whole "end of year" blogging business.
i really promise that i will have a few year and decade end lists to post before the end of the month.

for now, here are a couple random photos from when shane and i drove down to detroit to see frank turner open for the gaslight anthem at saint andrews hall.
definitely one of the top ten shows i attended in 2009 (complete list coming soon).

spencer's house show

spencer had a little end of summer house show/party and titan, lost cities, arietta and i am committing a sin played.

arietta kept the lights on when they played, and i couldn't really get any good photos of them, but i took some super punk looking photos of the rest of the bands.

this one of paul marc is my favourite, but if you click on it you can see the rest

so many shows!

So hey, I'm home until the end of the month, and fortunately for me, a bunch of my favourite bands are coming to town!



also not pictured:
EVERY TIME I DIE / BRING ME THE HORIZON (jona hangs) - TONIGHT! @ Kool Haus
THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM - Tuesday October 13th @ Kool Haus
LUCERO - Tuesday October 20th @ Lees Palace
MASTODON / DETHKLOK w/ CONVERGE - Friday October 23rd @ Sound Academy (i might not go to this)

I still need to find a date for Wilco.
Who's it gonna be?

they say "i'll see you at the top, boy"

Earlier this summer I took a spontaneous last minute bus trip to New York City. I decided at about 7pm one Friday evening, on my way to see the Blue Jays lose, that I'd take the red eye bus over night to the big apple. My only real plans or intentions were to see Paint It Black play a couple shows, but I hadn't really given myself time to plan anything. I took a ton of photos, and have been neglecting to post them on account of the fact I started writing an up to the minute diary of how the weekend went. This was first spoiled when I got to the first show and forgot to write about things as they happened, so I did my best to recount them the next day on the train. The whole thing got blown when I got to providence and hung out with my friend Karl and some of the dudes from Soul Control. Jim talked me into getting this great program called "Quick Pull", and when I tried it out, I forgot to save the notes I had typed on the bus that day, sooooo I lost everything since I had saved last. Anyways, here's the most of it. oh, and don't forget to look at the photos >>>HERE<<<


11:48pm
- Driving out of toronto past the skydome. The jays blew it tonight the second that I left the game to get home and pack.
- just ate an urb herb sweet potato muffin
- working away at my 2L tropicana orange juice (lots of pulp). Already starting to get warm and sick of OJ
- listening to silversun pickups new record "swoon"
- texting and bbming away
- stoked on the power outlet, my phone was dying when I got on the bus

12:35am
- in oakville I think
- using my flannel and jacket as a pillow against the window
- listening to camera obscura - my maudlin career

2:35am
- slept a bit so far, already feeling cramped
- arriving at the border
- threw out the OJ

3:00 am
- leaving border
- listening to attack in black - years
- when I got back on the bus, a woman was in my seat. (I assumed that everyone would sit back in their same seats) and now my new seat seems to wobble a bit and sitting behind a dude with an overwhelming aftershave smell- hate that

3:13 am
- buffalo terminal
- switched over to my US sim card
- smelly dude moved forward one seat, and so did I. no more wobbles, and this seat has an outlet

8:27 am
- just woke up, the bus is stopped at some sort of highway side services for a courtesy stop
- I see a sign for burger king and contemplate 'waking up with the king' but refrain

11:06 am
- still driving, somewhere in the new jersey outskirts of NYC
- listening to Frank Turner
- really could use a bathroom right about now

3:51 pm
- sitting in the subway station at houston and 2nd ave with claire
- went to curly's for brunch on the recomendation of andy pib
- had tofu scram, pancakes, curly fries and fried marinated tofu
- walked through street market towards houston
- stopped at joe strummer mural
- went to supreme and bought pat a hat
- watched a basketball game in the park

4:40 pm
- just leaving penn station on the LIRR to lindenhurst
- claire parted ways and headed home to the bronx
- eating red bamboo crispy soul chicken nuggets
- listening to polar bear club

6:56 pm
- standing in line out front of the moose lodge hall in lindenhurst (long island) new york
- got off the train and found a super market to use the atm and bathroom
- bought a bottle of water, naked smoothie, and 2 bags of peanut chews
- took a cab to the venue and chatted with the eclectic female driver who really liked talking about her 71 bonneville

Notable events from the show and the rest of saturday night
- the show was being run by over precautious suburban long island mom & pop security, who gave me a hard time about my bag and couldn't understand my canadian license or passport
- spent most of the show hanging with andy and some of his friends at the merch table
- sold merch for paint it black for a while after andy almost punched a security dad who told him he couldn't eat pizza in the venue, which he ordered on account of the fact the food provided by the venue was all meat oriented.
Quote:
"You gotta get that out of here, no outside food or drink!" - SD
"Our whole band is vegetarian and we can't eat any of the food here so ordering pizza was our only option" - andy
"I don't care what you are, get that outta here!" - SD
*me holding andy back from hitting the dude*
Many speeches, insults, jokes and song dedications followed both on and off stage
- talked to dan while he wrote setlists and tried not to fan out on him too hard
- met fellow canadians ally and claire (from st catherines) who know my pal andrea, who told me they'd be at the show as well. I tried to talk them into coming to providence and driving me home and they seemed to be somewhat down
- saw this girl named heather, friend of my dear friend stacy smallwood, who's couch I slept on when I flew to nyc for the first hwm reunion show weekend, but didn't know if it was her with drastically blonde hair. Luckily it was her, I said hi, she's a babe.
- ceremony played and kids lost their shit, which led to security turning the lights on and emerging into the pit. The singer encouraged kids to get up front and sing along and the show went on
- paint it black ripped, great crowd reaction
- I caught a falling PA speaker at one point
- crime in stereo were awesome too, glad I got to see them on long island. Kids went nuts and security got pissed a few times
- chatted with a photographer after the show, hoping she's got some good photos from this show that I can post here after
- saw LIHC vet, PMA enthusiast anthony race and chatted a bit
- randomly saw my old friend cameron, who has been living in england since quitting the sleeping, just happened to be home visiting family in long island
- chatted with the crime in stereo bassist after the show about numerous failed attempts to tour together and hopeful future opportunities
- got a ride to brooklyn with canadian girls for secret late night paint it black show in a punk loft
- arrived in brooklyn before the bands did, so decided to head over to foodswing for bbq drumsticks and "punk fries" (fries with vegan cheese and bacon bits, ranch dressing to dip)
- randomly ran into canetti at foodswings, who was working some brand new radio session recording around the corner

1am
- got back to the punk loft just as PIB started. Most punk show I've probably ever experienced. Took pics and video.
- andy introduced me to this dude ian, who seems to be the nyc "punk boss" who runs all the diy shows and this loft living community
2:30 am
- took a shuttle bus to the L train subway back to manhatan to meet up with katiebrown and sleep on her couch

Sunday morning notable events
- woke up around 1030
- decided to book a train from boston to nyc monday morning, and a porter airlines flight from newark to toronto island tuesday morning, which meant an extra day in nyc, seeing aileen, and 4 hours on a plush train and an hour and a half flight instead of 16 hours on a bus, at only about $50 more cost.
- walked over to kate's cafe for brunch with katie/perry
- had french toast with caramelized apples, coffee and oj
- walked over to the subway and headed uptown to port authority to take a bus to providence
- decided to pay $10 more for the direct bus trip that left later and arrived earlier
- walked over to times square to take photos
- got a jamba juice back at port authority before getting on my bus

3:54 pm
- on the bus to providence
- listening to jets to brazil - perfecting loneliness
- just read "pretty mouth and green my eyes" from salinger's 'nine stories'
- loving peanut chews

5:02 pm
- just got a call from stacy
- listening to wilco (the album)
- reading "little things" by jeffrey brown

From this point, I met up with Karl at the bar that sells strawberry beer, and then met up with Andy a couple other dudes for dinner. The show in Providence ruled, and I ran into Joe Sauce. After the show we went to Nice Slice and ate the shit out of a vegan pizza, then I headed to boston with Karl to stay for the night. The next morning I took a train from Boston back to New York, had a sweet nap, got not-dating dumped, hung out with Katie/Perry some more, and went to see Aileen and the T's at Irving Plaza. I flew home to Toronto Island the next morning on my new favourite airline, Porter.

eating glass.

here are some photos of eating glass, from what seems to have possibly been their last show before jason & jose decided to quit the band. tension was peaked through this set, and it was actually pretty imminent that the end was near for these guys, which actually made for a good set. i guess when a band that's supposed to sound pissed off are actually pissed off at eachother, that anger transmits and the music benefits. this show was at siesta nouveaux, opening up for the endless blockade.

oh, you gotta.

my two pauls talked me into seeing this dirty projectors band tonight, and i remembered hearing that they put out a record covering most of the classic black flag record "damaged".

which do you like better?

UP THE PUNX

PAINT IT BLACK @ 538 Johnson Loft in Brooklyn
Look for my Blue Jays hat at the end!

woah! sorry!

it's been a minute since i wrote here, so i'm going to try to bang out a few entries tonight. the past couple weeks have been pretty great, and the year is off to a hopefully excellent start.

i first wanted to take a minute to thank brooks reynolds and everyone who came out to his photo show back in the last days of december.

for those of you who missed this spectacular event, i got up there and sang and played some cover songs with my guitar, for the first time ever.
my setlist of covers included:
PEDRO THE LION: secret of the easy yolk
LUCERO: joining the army
THE HOLD STEADY: constructive summer
CHUCK RAGAN: the boat
JAWBREAKER: do you still hate me?
MISFITS: hybrid moments
THE NEW AMSTERDAMS: every double life
SAVES THE DAY: take our cars now!

someone was kind enough to catch a video of the jawbreaker tune, which you can see on facebook if you so desire.

here's a photo i took of brooks holding his photo of mike kinsella, which i acquired at the show.


brooks is off in a few weeks on an adventurous trip, where he plans to see america, meet some friendly friends, and take tons of photos. if you live in or near Buffalo, Asheville, Nashville, New Orleans, Austin, Colorado, Grand Canyon, San Diego, LA, San Francisco, Portland or Seattle and would like to hang out and show him around, that would be rad. drop him an email and make some plans!

don't look back in anger, i heard you say

consider this the first of many blog posts to come from being stuck in bed, possibly with mono. my advanced apologies for rambling.

last monday scott and i ventured to london to see OASIS and RYAN ADAMS & THE CARDINALS play at the john labatt arena. after a 3+ hour traffic and accident filled drive, we arrived in london and headed to our fairly decent seats just as opener MATT COSTA was finishing up.


ryan and the cards were up next, and this would be my second time seeing the group, as i caught (most of) their headlining set towards the end of last year at massy hall. when discussing ryan adams, i am very upfront about the fact that i prefer his older solo stuff to the newer records with the cardinals, and seeing how this was a support slot set, i wasn't sure what to expect. antonella explains it best in her review at muchmusic.com, but the set was basically horse shit, and entirely boring. aside from "crossed out name", my favourite track off their new disc "cardinoloy", the set was pretty awful. i mean, i can dig songs like "goodnight rose" and "off broadway", but only when they are performed in the 3-4 minute length that they are on the record. stretching these songs into 8 minutes a piece ruins the song, and puts me to sleep. especially in "goodnight rose" when they repeated that line about 800 times, and decided to sing it all choppy and staccato.

i decided that, aside from "crossed out name", ryan didn't even come close to touching any of my top 20 of his songs, and again, i'm aware that i like the solo stuff more than the cardinals jams, but here's the list of the 19 other songs i would have rather heard (in alphabetical order):

afraid not scared.
anybody wanna take me home?
blue sky blues.
call me on your way back home.
come pick me up.
do miss america.
i see monsters.
love is hell.
luminol.
my winding wheel.
new york, new york.
night birds.
please do not let me go.
rock 'n' roll.
so alive.
strawberry wine.
this house is not for sale.
to be young (is to be sad, is to be high).
wish you were here.


now as far as OASIS are concerned, i haven't really considered myself a fan, or really listened to any of their records since their 1995 release "[what's the story] morning glory", but like, in 1996 they were probably my second or third favourite band behind nirvana and the smashing pumpkins. seeing as this was my first time seeing oasis, i wasn't really disappointed in the slightest. they played all of my favourite songs (morning glory, don't look back in anger, supersonic, champagne supernova and wonderwall) and the newer songs didn't lose my interest. even though they don't really "rock out" much on stage (or even move around in the slightest), their live show was pretty incredible, most likely thanks to the impeccable sound and lighting, not to mention the spot on vocals and hard hitting, nail on the head drumming. personally i think it would have been extremely magical to see mr. adams join the brothers gallagher on stage for the massive hit "wonderwall", but it's obvious that liam and noel's ego's wouldn't be having that. besides, the majority of the crowd was made up of some of southern ontario's finest hockey/college ripcords, who had no clue who adams was, let alone that he received a grammy nod for his moody cover of the oasis jam (unless of course you bring up the time seth cohen plays the song for summer on the hit tv series "the OC")

secret punk show

photos here.

my SLR works again and i picked up a 1.8 85 prime for it.
stoked.

if she wants to stop on by, tell her that i almost died.

i've had a super busy weekend, and i'm going to try and recount as much of it as possible. don't worry, there will be photos.

i can't find my blackberry, if you've messaged me on bbm and are wondering why i haven't replied, that is why!

i spent the majority of thursday in the hospital, here's a breakdown of what happened. i got into my car around 11am to drive to burlington to set up for preproduction. within the first 5 minutes in the car, my back starts to hurt, like really hurt. i kept trying to get comfortable and put up with it while i drive, with the hopes it either goes away or i make it to burlington. about 15 minutes into the drive, the pain starts to get unbearable, so i decide to exit the highway. i tried to get out of my car and walk/shake it off but it was below freezing outside and that just seemed to decrease my already plummeting level of comfort. so i got back in the car and tried to sit in a few different positions to make the pain go away, i put the seats back, tried to get in the back and passenger side (mind you, my car is tiny). i guess my body just started to freak out, i had ridiculous cold sweats and even threw up at one point. my pain level had gone through the roof and i also started to have trouble breathing. i called my mom and she said to call 911, so i did because she is smarter than i am. ambulance came and picked me up, calmed me down and took me to the hospital, at this point my back still hurt a little and i was shaking profusely. it took a while to get checked in, and my mom ended up coming to meet me. when i finally saw a doctor i had calmed down and the pain had mostly subsided. he seemed to think that it may have been a problem with my kidney, as that was where the pain was coming from. i peed in a cup, and had a CT scan, and 7 hours later they told me i was fine. they said i must've just pulled my back and had an anxiety attack on account of the pain and the circumstances of being trapped uncomfortably in a small car.

the entire time this was going on, i had my small camera in my pocket, and thought about taking photos for this very blog. i even thought about it while i was shaking in the back of the ambulance, because i can't ever remember being in the back of one before. i realize that even thinking about taking photos during times like that is commitment to blog greatness, but it's just straight up weird too, and in the end, i chickened out. i did however manage to snap a shot in my xray gown!


friday night was hoibak's birthday show. i don't have time to get into it here, but erik has played a big part in my upbringing in the world of hardcore, straightedge and veganism, not to mention his outright hilarity, legacy, and storytelling abilities. i definitely was looking forward to celebrating another year of his life with this show, featuring forfeit, no harm done, vicious cycle and fortune teller.

FORTUNE TELLER.


VICIOUS CYCLE.


sweet bass.


i meant to yell "where's your other glove?"

NO HARM DONE.



definitely my favourite band of the night. sick cover of lifetime's turnpike gates!



sidewayshatsingalong.


patparazzi.

MOLESTED YOUTH were added to the show last minute because they're apparently breaking up. they played a bunch of covers, including nervous breakdown. i even got stuck in the pit-y for that one, but quickly went down like a chopped redwood.





the man!

FORFEIT.


so much mosh/bloody noses/dust in the air.


aner bsood #1!


matt "i never claimed edge in the first place" rennick (man of the people).

after the show, pat and i went to dee's, and then headed to a party at cole and ray's place.


deano!


vegan pal ross.


cole looks to be getting unreal, pat is up to no good with that camera of his and anto is hiding out in the corner.


ray gives us a taste of his own sense of unreality.


why boy?


a couple of pals right here, kylecroft (two-name guy) and jamie unrealcottone.


jenni from the (crack) block!


anto and ian!


these two actually felt the need to basically do it on the couch in a crowded room, mannnnnnn.


greg is stuck on the couch, i think those are pat's legs, clearly getting a better camera angle on the opposite couch (*see above photo).

we've spent 9 hours a day all weekend at b-town sound (formerly the music gym) in burlington doing pre-production for our new album. i took a few photos and was going to post them, but brooks came in and took some better ones, so i'm sure you'd rather see those, seeing as he's the best photographer ever.



















thanks brooks! you/these photos rule!