So Edgefest was Saturday. I didn’t take any pictures of the bands because by the time Alexisonfire came on the crowd was so packed I couldn’t move let alone pull my camera out of the bottom of my back pack. You can look at a picture of my muddy shoes though.
We rolled in just as The Stills were finishing their set on the second stage. I like The Stills but frankly they haven’t put out an album I’ve been interested in since Logic Will Break Your Heart. Without Feathers just really wasn’t my thing, and Oceans Will Rise is no different. They just strike me as a kind of bland, prototypical, indie-rock band. Like a cuter Canadian Coldplay with more cred since they wear plaid and are on Arts & Crafts. If they come on the radio I’m certainly not going to turn it off, I might even bob my head around a bit, but there’s no way I’m going to go “Yeah! The fucking Stills!” or even know what the song is. I mean COME ON, can you tell the difference between “Being Here” and “I’m With You,” because I sure as hell can’t.
I just watched Punks Not Dead to try to cheer me up on this gloomy motherfucker of a day, as rock documentaries are usually the type of thing to leave me feeling empowered, but now I’m just pissed off.
It was basically an hour and a half of elitist punks, young and old, railing against pop-punk and corporate America. They threw in a couple interviews from people like Kevin Lyman in an attempt to make it seem a little more balanced, but in the end it was really just 90 minutes of vitriol.
Nothing pisses me off more than seeing the guys from the Subhumanz and U.K. Subs shit on a bunch of kids for what they’re wearing. Complaining that they hate these kids who dye their hair green because they aren’t really punk. Its just pathetic, these forty or fifty year old men attacking a bunch of high schoolers. If you ask me its pure bitterness over the fact that punk is bigger than anyone or any band right now, and they’re no longer the poster kids.
I don’t understand why people won’t just accept the fact that time passes and things change. Rancid and Green Day grew up listening to The Adicts and Flipper, and now a whole new group of kids is growing up listening to Rancid and Green Day. The idea this “pure” strain of punk must either be maintained, or the genre must be abandoned altogether is fucking ridiculous. Its like people trying to maintain a pure race.
What’s worse is they’re bashing the very people that support them. They interviewed Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 about the pop punk label, and he said “people shy away from it just to avoid their heroes making fun of them.” He just sounded so fucking sad about it. And why shouldn’t he be? I remember them getting shit on by The Buzzcocks a few years back, and asking myself, why the fuck do the Buzzcocks need to go after Sum 41? Do they really need to engage them in a “who’s more punk rock” fight? In hindsight it was clearly an attempt to prove they’re still relevant.
But they’re not. I can assure you when that article came out I was 14 or 15 and that was the first time I had ever heard of the Buzzcocks. That’s not saying the Buzzcocks are not a great band (they are) or that some kid isn’t going to pick up “The Buzzcocks Are Coming” ten years from now and have their outlook on music changed forever, but they’re not actively changing anything.
Unemployment’s proving interesting. I’ve pretty much given up all hope of finding a job. I’m going to volunteer at CIUT more because its good experience and I like it there but thats only 2 hours a day, leaving me a fuckload of time to do jack shit. I’m really trying to be productive because I’m like a shark, you know, how they have to keep swimming or they die. As long as I keep doing shit I won’t go insane, but if I get lazy and start going on Myspace 12 hours a day, I’m going to be in an inescapable internet-related stupor for the rest of the summer.
Basically I need to keep as far away from this computer as possible.
I am limited in my methods of defense. I have no money so I can’t go shopping, we don’t have a kitchen so I can’t cook, I left my knitting needles at home… mostly I’ve been reading a shitload and watching a lot of Sex and the City. For whatever reason I’m also on this Benjamin Franklin-esque quest for knowledge that has mostly just led me to watch a ton of archived episodes of The Hour.
I do however have a camera. That’s basically the only reason I can think of to leave the building. I don’t do aimless walks, but taking pictures of shit seems to suffice as a justification. Yesterday I wandered up University to take pictures of the protesters, only to find they started building the stage for the MMVAs, which (I’m an asshole I know) was frankly a lot more interesting to me. I started taking pictures of that disco bullshit only to have my film break off inside my camera. Damn you replicated 1980s Hong Kong analog technology. Anyways, I went back there today with my digital camera after I picked up my Edgefest ticket from Sunrise and sucessfully resisted the urge to press my face against the Edge window and start pleading for them to give me a job. I was really depressed because part of me really hoped someone would pop out of the CTV building and go “Hey Kate, those shoes you’re wearing are fucking amazing, here’s a job at Much.” No dice.
I am pretty stoked about my new shoes though.
Look I can kick myself in the face.
I’m pretty stoked about my Lil Wayne shirt too.
Lil Wayne holding a slice of cake.
How can they reject me when I dress like the female Mark Spicoluk.
I’m listening to Alan Cross on the Edge right now. I don’t know why I didn’t start streaming it online before because my sweet motherfucking JBL speakers are so much better than a clock radio. Also Alan Cross’s voice induces a zen-like state for me.
Fuck it was so ~*lovely*~ out on Friday, Jessica and I determined it was imperative we find a way to enjoy the weather while eating for maximum joyousness. So we went to Victory Cafe since neither of us had ever been there, and our food bible BlogTO always writes favorably about it.
We walked past this “mural” on Harbord. Children make shitty artists. I support the tiny Wu Tang fan in his/her quest to reach their full thug potential, but the crazy mouse man beast (is its Afro shaped into ears, or is it a black Mickey Mouse?) was fucking disturbing.
Anyways, we got a prime patio spot at Victory, and promptly ordered foooood.
I got a cheeseburger and Jessica got chili-cheese fries. I don’t know if its just because now, left to my own devices, I am starving, but I swear to God it was the best fucking burger I have ever had. And it came with this tiny container of ranch-like sauce that I kept dipping my fries in because though not visibly obese, I am so fucking fat on the inside.
Janice came by but we were already done eating so we moved on to Green Room so that she could get food and continue the patio adventure.
But not before being intimidated by Honest Ed’s.
Yay Green Room.
So we sat on the patio that no one knew existed until recently, and Janice ordered a sandwich and we got a few drinks. I do not trust the food at Green Room. Just because a place serves food does not mean you should eat it. They have sweet massive plates of $2 fries, and “quesadillas” (really just cheese in a tortilla) that I’m obsessed with, but I’m not venturing beyond that. Its a student pub, they can pull a tap or mix simple drinks and maybe bring you a plate of nachos, but I refuse to anything masquerading as a real meal.
It got pretty fucking gloomy out so we went inside. Our preemptive strike against mother nature allowed us to claim the couches, usually impossible because under normal circumstances no one ever leaves the building before midnight, but the experience was kind of wasted on the fact that there were like, 3 of us. Geoff and Paul came down, then we headed to Lab for $3 Jack night. Evidently $3 gets you a lot of Jack at Lab. Even Geoff, who shortly after I met him, was drinking whiskey and milk or some other abhorrent combination, thought the drinks were fucking strong.
Then Jessica, Geoff and Paul left to go see The Miles play at The Boat, but I was so fucking tired even my love of infectious dance music could not keep me awake.
Man I should have liveblogged this episode of Disband haha. It would have been so epic, a perfect demonstration of the phenomena where something is so fail it becomes win.
Seeing the Universal offices made me want to shit my pants with glee. Its like looking into a secret world that I want to be in.
My only complaint was WHY THE FUCK WAS GENE SIMMONS THERE. Does he have some secret fabulous A&R career that I was unaware of? Was MuchMusic trying to add a little extra star power? Honestly, if you were a musician would you really want Gene Simmons’ name attached to you? Its not like its in his KISS heyday where he was banging a ton of pussy everynight and on coke. He’s a washed up reality star with the face of Flabber from Big Bad Beetle Borgs.
Every time I see him I just think of the episode of Family Jewels where he and his wife get couples plastic surgery and when they come home their kids start crying at the sight of them.
More importantly, Stereos target-audience has zero KISS reference point. Teenage girls do not give a shit about KISS. This is a fact. The only people under 25 who care about KISS are teenage boys in their “I’m not listening to any band formed before 1975” phase (I swear to God they all have it.)
