aeolianblues

The Canadian music scene is so small that members of the Beaches can comment on the part where the first name is “Brett from Blame Brett”, a lot of other Canadian artists mentioned here are in the replies, and so are CBC Gem, even while we note that this openly says “Win Butler livestreamed from Court”. I do appreciate that egos are far smaller in the Canadian scene and people can laugh at themselves. (And if you actually know what more than half of those mean, my friend, welcome to the ‘Canadian indie music scene brainrot’ club)

Btw, this anonymous account, Canadian music memes, is one of the best-loved and most followed-by-high-profile Canadian music folks account in the country. They’re reach is insane, everyone follows them

—Barry Taylor, drummer for K-Tels (later Young Canadians), on the early punk rock scene in British Columbia

On Chris Barry, the 222s, Montreal’s punk riot at McGill and the birth of the short-lived 364 St. Paul Street W.

Editing a live session for tomorrow morning right now, I'm having a very strange, helpless, ephemeral feeling. How do I describe it. I'm editing these songs together that are really good: good exploration of sentiments, chord choices and choruses that really underline and capture nostalgia, carefree youth, whatnot; all these wonderful songs that I'd love to tell you all about, shout from the rooftops and tell you all to listen to.

I can't. I can't tell you to listen to them. I can't link a public Spotify or Bandcamp or YouTube. You can't share in these experiences, as much as I want you to. They don't exist.

It's surreal to me. I'm walking around with the demos no one else will hear, the EPs that aren't yet released, the songs that haven't been recorded yet because the bands in question are so young in their careers that they haven't considered studio time yet. The beautiful songs that no one will hear because the band will scrap them on deciding they have better songs and won't waste their studio time on something they aren't 100% happy with, no matter that five people out there like it. The songs that will change before they make it onto the record. The songs no one will hear because one member graduated and the band fell apart. All these little, local things that will have a profound effect on me for a week, for a year, but will only exist in my own cultural worldview.

I suppose what I'm trying to say, a little ashamedly, is that it's so different being in a music scene from the creative standpoint rather than a consumptive one. Where things are in your hands. Where things will exist for posterity if your friends decide they want to make a proper recording. Where things are so DIY that I can't send you a YouTube or Spotify link to add to your Faves playlist. Where things are so DIY that I've got to get a band in for a radio session, record and mix them myself if I want to hear their work again.

And regardless, I'm a bit sad and frustrated that no one else might get the chance to know these bands, to share these cultural touchpoints with me, because a band may not last long enough for anyone outside a uni scene, a city, a province, to know about them.

The ephemerality strikes me. DIY, so good, yet so lonely! I suppose I could at some point just get into old school uploading mp3s, though I do also give myself away on the internet with how niche some of these things are.... I wish I could show you all my cool local bands without falling into the ridiculed trope of 'local band you've never and will never hear of' person. Just let me enthuse over a golden era of local music I seem to have walked myself into.

My twitter timeline is full of quote replies to this dude who was a promoter bitching about a band's rider request from four years ago (4) and it is ceaseless I'm actually kinda enjoying this

For context, this band of 6 requested 3 rooms in a hotel. The promoter refused, saying that as a DIY gig at a 200 cap venue they wouldn't be able to accommodate that (fair enough, the band went and booked themselves a hotel anyway). This is not an unreasonable request. Dude was trying to shit on them for not accepting his offer to let them sleep on his floor.

1) It's not unreasonable for 6 people to want 3 rooms, what do you want them to do, all share your one bed??

2) Safety. Safety. Safety!!! People in music especially like to think that any form of safety is an afterthought at best and a luxury at worst. Girl so help me, and what if a band does not in fact want to sleep in a stranger's house? What then. They got themselves a hotel and made nothing more of it, why are you so mad they didn't sleep in your house. Shifty vibes.