Something to Write Home About

Chapter 1. A Long Introduction in as few proper sentences as possible.

So as I'm coming up to my first gallery show at Awkward Stage in Barrie On. Looking at what I've been creating, nostalgic technology and child like pleasures, in a childish style. I got thinking to what is going to happen exactly 3 days and 1 hour later after this show that I have titled "I Was Never Young" as an homage to Kevin Barnes / of Montreal.

... back to the origin of that last run-on sentence. In 3 days and 1 hour after my first solo art offering to the world I will be seeing The Get Up Kids. For the first time. I first heard The Get Up Kids at the tender age of 13. Something to Write Home I heard Christmas of '99 at my cousins house. I instantly fell in love with "Valentine," "Ten Minutes" and "Out of Reach." There was a whole rash of emo bands that sprung up after TGUK that were terribly fashionable, pretty, and most importantly knew how terrible it felt to be in love.

Now The Get Up Kids might not be "cool" these days, but they are, so deal with it. There were a whole bunch of late 90's emo that rocked before eyeliner and screaming became the status quo. Bands like Braid, Cap'n Jazz, Promise Ring and Jimmy Eat World. Now all of these bands excluding Cap'n Jazz have had poor albums released that were less than cool, and some quite embarrassing. (I'm looking at you post Bleed American Jimmy Eat World). Now due to circumstances I missed a TGUK show in high school, as well as their farewell tour because of this or that and also finding a way to the city. Then they reunite and well I had no one to go with and then I waited too long and found it sold out. So now they release a new album and I have tickets for the new tour so I will see a band for the first time that I have listened to for 12 years.


End of Chapter 1.

Chapter 2. The Meat and Potatoes of This Runaway Tale

I listen to A LOT of music, all different kinds, new, old, I need to know what is out there and absorb as much of it as possible. Now upon watching late night television I saw that Jimmy Eat World was on Conan. So I figured maybe I will watch, not expecting much considering the 2 post Bleed American albums... wow. So I watch a band that I had originally heard in the soundtrack to Never Been Kissed a decade or so before rock out not aged looking, nor dated sounding, making music that made me feel excited about music again. Now I wouldn't say the song is mind blowing or the album is the greatest thing ever. A solid awesome effort for a band hasn't gotten stuck in a rut and continues to write quality material. What got me so excited was at nearly 25 years old, I remembered when all of this music meant somehow more than it means to me now. It was the sounds that forged me. It gets your heart racing and a stupid smile of enamoring splendor that everything is alright and that you're alive.

I immediately dove back in time and imported old JEW cd's into itunes. All the while I continued to listen to TGUK and other said bands, but now with renewed passion and feeling. The excitement I felt seeing Joey Cape of Lagwagon play solo at the ElMo, or Pavement reunite at the island show was again back. For the few minutes these songs would play I feel like I could explode, why haven't I felt like this in so long?

I think that the music that we listen to in high school is somehow responsible for who we are in some bullshit John Hughes neatly wrapped package kind of a revelation. I can often place myself in memory where I can recall hearing a song, and it really becomes ingrained in the perception of my memories. Like hearing Wilco for the first time on Much Music when I was like 8? "Outtamind, Outtasite." was an awesome video and I rarely ever saw it, but I remember in the backroom at my Nan's having a Coke and some cookies watching this band jump out of a plane and were catchy as hell. Now being 8, pre-internet, small town, and no job because I'm 8, I would have to reunite with Wilco in grade 10 with Elliott Smith.

But it's shit like this that I remember more than anything else. Bleed American, I don't even have the cd anymore, just the jewel case because I left it in somebody's car one summer. There was an actual summer that Siobhan and Alison had a copy of it on cassette and literally listened to that album back to back.

And I would have to say that The Get Up Kids' Something to Write Home About is probably tied with Broken Social Scene's You Forgot It In People for an album that I most made out with girls to. As well as listened to after they got sick of me. It as full circle therapy.


Anyways that's probably enough blathering. I just need to figure out that joy and excitement. I feel it's what my music is lacking. I can't seem to capture the excitement in my songs or the heart strung connections, or raw lack of sense that makes things magical.

I need to find the magic. I should call Rivers Cuomo, I heard he knows something.


M.HAsk!