The Accidental Loving of Something Well Known Somewhere Else

I'm not hipster (ok I do have a few pairs of neon nylons and a collection of fake Raybans but really, who doesn't?) but I'm not the biggest fan of popular music. Sure I like Lady Gaga (again, who doesn't?), but most of the bands I absolutely love are either too small/local to be well known or were big decades ago (some decades before I was born...). I could go on for years and years about the fantastic amazingness of Elliot Brood, The Decemberists, Old Man Leudecke, CCR, Queen, or Zeus, but nine times out of ten the person I'm talking to has either never heard of them, or has the vague sense that their 'dad used to listen to that band when he was a teenager.' This doesn't bother me, in fact I kind of enjoy having these bands kind of to myself (though I much more enjoy introducing someone to one of them and having it become one of their favourite bands...!) but I even more enjoy having the experience of finding out that one of my bands is actually a favourite of millions of other people- just not the people I'm usually around!

I had two such experiences this week:

I am currently working on a show that has all Canadian music playing right up until it starts. Its not the same music every day, and I am quite the fan of Canadian music, so I tend to be able to sing along with most of the songs. The other day one came on that I loved right from the first or second bar. It took many 'yes reeeeeally's from my friend to convince me that, not only had he also no idea at all who it was, but that they were in fact singing in French. There are a few french/Quebecquois band I like (Couer de Pirate  not least amongst them!) but this band sounded like an anglophone indie band, one I not only liked, but liked enough that I was completely confused as to why I did not already own all of their music.

With some help from the fancy iphone app of another friend we were able to ascertain that this band was in fact Karkwa... who won the Polaris Prize last year. Who are one of the top indie bands in Quebec. Who played in Paris with the Arcade Fire and out-reviewed them... even though none of the three of us had ever heard them, there were thousands of people out there in the world who already adored them. I love it when that happens! When you happen upon a new band and find that they're only unknown where you are, that somewhere else they're huge, or at least well enough known and respected to win the biggest music prize in Canada... I got their album online. I am listening to it right now. For the fourth straight time in a row. So new favourite band, check.

The second such experience was having the chance to see John Fogerty perform live. I was talking to a co-worker just as he got started and she actually said 'yeah, I don't know who that is... I mean maybe I would recognize some of the songs if I heard them..." !?! for serious? ok, ok, I've spent most of my life trying to explain to people my age why CCR is so incredibly awesome, and how I wouldn't even be very sad to miss other music if they were the only band I could ever listen to for the rest of my life... but it still floors me when someone doesn't know that they wrote 'Proud Mary' (The first time I heard the Tina Turner version I literally cringed. I mean visibly. I shuddered. I've gotten used to it- kinda- over time, but I still hear Fogerty singing over Tina every time...) or Suzie Q. Who doesn't know Suzie Q? And Born on the Bayou? Apparently lots of people don't. But none of them were rockin' out at bluesfest yesterday.

I didn't get to see too much of the show (though I got to hear all of it!) but the part I did spend out in the crowd was amazing. As a kid listening to CCR I never thought that I would actually get to see them (well one of them anyways) perform live. Like Queen or ABBA I just always kind of assumed that they were long dead and gone just like the rest of my growing-up bands (though having said that I did get to watch an hour long Paul McCartney sound check a few years back and had a similar 'this is soooo weird' feeling). So getting to, not only watch and listen to Fogerty perform, but be surrounded by truckloads of people who were just as into it, just as excited about it, just as 'Oh my god, Its John Fogerty!!!' as I was was pretty 'effin awesome.

Sometimes its nice to feel like you like bands that are just yours... but sometimes its nice to really feel like you're tapping into something that's already there, sharing the awesomeness of the music with an already existing community of like-minded and like-excited folk. This week I've been diggin' that second kind of sometimes.

New Year, New Music, New Blog

I've recently been re-organizing my life. I moved back home (well, not back home as in "into my parents' house," actually not even in the same city as them, but when you've lived three provinces away for the last ten years, living only five hours from where you grew up feels an awful lot like home!). I changed jobs. I started painting again. And I decided to re-aquaint myself with music.

Unlike many music lovers, I was not born into it. I didn't sit in my crib listening to obscure Ramones tracks, or buy my first single at eleven... I grew up on The Monkees, Simon and Garfunkel, Abba, CCR, and Queen. I'm pretty sure the first CD I ever bought was the Lion King soundtrack, and I didn't have a boom box (yes, that's what they were called back then) until I was in ninth grade. But when I fell in love with music, I  fell in love with music.

I still remember the first time I was the only one who knew all the lyrics to a song (Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind), the first time I got a speeding ticket because I was driving to the music (Open Road Song by Eve6), the first festival I went to (Edgefest), the first time I fell in love with banjo (The Oaf by Big Wreck)... [Don't be too harsh on me, it was the 90s, and I was very much an Alternative kind o' gal when it came to music- I mean what else was I gonna listen to-The Backstreet Boys? shudder...]. I remember how good it felt having a song to go along with everything... and I remember discovering how crappy it felt when I let my music-listening fall by the wayside.

So no more of that. New Town, New Concerts. I hereby vow to never again let a band I like play within three hours of my house without going to see them. My life may be filled with Kraft dinner, but it will also be filled with awesome.

Welcome to A Mountain of Song

The road divides ahead
Just wide awake in bed
Unaware of suspicious feelings happening again

His love went south, and he'll go west
A mountain of song couldn't fill that hole in his chest
That she left when she said that he was like the rest

So get up and get out
What're you down about?
Put it back on the shelf
Just have to go without again

So get up and get out
What're you down about?
Put it back on the shelf
Just have to go without again

The road divides ahead
Just wide awake in bed
Put it back on the shelf
Just have to go without again