The beginning of the 2000s was high school for me, which for a lot of people is the time their music taste freezes in time. For me it was more of my first experimentation phase. At first I bought a lot of music still on CD. Everything from The Offspring’s Americana to Michelle Branch’s Hotel Paper. Michelle Branch I’ll still listen to. Offspring not so much.

Fumbling Towards Forty: Prologue
Fumbling Towards Forty: The Internet
Fumbling Towards Forty: Camping
Fumbling Towards Forty: Drugs
Fumbling Towards Forty: Videogames
Fumbling Towards Forty: Music Part I

I was beginning to find more music online, and was definitely on Napster. I also got kicked off by Metallica. I had MP3’s of King Nothing and Bleeding Me. I was back in a half hour. I remember paying $10 for a copy of KoRn’s Issues from a kid in grade 9 math and it was a burned copy of the CD. Soon after my dad got us our own CD burner and I went wild.

I burned a lot of CDs that were essentially mixtapes, no different to what I do now on Spotify with The Sweatdown. It’s part of why I love to do it. I’m sure a Gen Xer is going to ask me and yes, I have made a real mixtape before. I actually own a stereo in my office specifically for the purpose of ever making a mixtape. Why would I make a mixtape in 2024? I don’t know. I’m sure some girl would appreciate it. Might have to find a WalkMan too so she can listen to it. I didn’t think this out well.

Anyway.

High school was when I started getting further into industrial music due to my love of Nine Inch Nails, everyone from KMFDM (When I went to The Dungeon in New Orleans in 2018 I got the DJ to play Juke Joint Jezebel) to Ministry to Pig to Meat Beat Manifesto and more. I first started out a fan of A Perfect Circle, but a classmate Ali convinced me to listen to Tool. So I got really into Tool.

I don’t listen to Tool much anymore. It’s kind of odd but I just… lost my taste for them. There’s still songs I love but I don’t feel like I’m a fan of the band anymore. They were supposed to be my first concert. In Detroit. September 13, 2001. My dad refused to cross the border. I kinda held it against him for years because he was worried about crossing and not being able to come back but I knew some guys at the music store who said they crossed fine. I think my mom still has the tickets in her curio cabinet.

Electric Circus

I also secretly got into dance music. Secretly. I liked dance music, all the way back to dancing to “Talking in your sleep” by The Romantics. But in the 90s? Dancing was gay music according to my oldest sister. My dad talked all the time about how cool the disco riot was and my parents both talked about hating disco. Dance music was gay and in the 90s being gay meant being made fun of. I wasn’t gay, I had no problem with homosexuality, but I didn’t want people calling me something I wasn’t. So I kept quiet. And I watched dance music… privately. Especially when MuchMusic in Canada showed Electric Circus. I would wait for my parents to go to bed and watch it early in the morning.

In my small town of Chatham, 45,000 people, Electric Circus felt like a secret world I couldn’t admit to people I wanted to be part of. The leather pants. The slicked short hair. The beats. THE BEATS! Everyone looked like they were having a great time. It wasn’t a gay thing but it was a place gay people looked like they were safe and comfortable to be. It wasn’t a straight thing but straight people fit right in so long as they danced. Later when I moved to Windsor, Ontario it was talking about my memories of Electric Circus with my friends Katie and Ryan as we went to dance clubs that made me feel like I was finally being honest with myself.

It’s so weird to say now. I don’t want to compare it to “coming out” because it’s just some bro afraid to say he liked to dance until he was in his early 20s. But it was honestly a shedding of my old skin to get to dance like I was on Electric Circus at a club. Years later I would find out that my dad never hated Disco. He also felt pressure to say he hated disco. He had no problem with the music. He just felt the same dumb pressure to say you hate it to look cool in front of the rock and rollers.

In 2016 I actually got to go to an Electric Circus party in Toronto, not at the original CHUM building but at a dance club with original Electric Circus DJ’s spinning on vinyl. I wore leather pants and a crushed velvet shirt. It got so hot in there I almost fainted.

End of High School

Anyway, back to high school.

I eventually dropped rap rock and any pretending to love it. I remember buying SPIN Magazine and trying to find new bands and download them on P2P services. I distinctly recall SPIN Magazine convincing me to check out Basement Jaxx. They really loved Basement Jaxx.

I listened to Nine Inch Nails more than anyone, but I also listened to Michelle Branch, Fiona Apple, Sarah McLachlan, Matthew Good Band, Kyuss, gODHEAD, Goo Goo Dolls, Econoline Crush, Deftones, and TRUSTcompany. I had a Pink Floyd phase, a Pantera phase, a Guns N Roses phase, and a hating emo/hardcore phase.

To highlight songs I remember from high school that people have probably forgotten today:

J. Englishman – More
He also had a song called Abused but More had a cooler guitar riff and quality chorus.

Sunna – Power Struggle
Some people know this from the Stir of Echoes soundtrack but for whatever reason they are not on Spotify so I’m sure they are a bit forgotten at this point.

Flybanger – Outlived
I remember seeing this on The Wedge on MuchMusic one night and I had to find the MP3.

8STOPS7 – Satisfied
I still think this is one of the best rock songs of the early 2000s but the band just didn’t catch on I guess. It’s always been a “Sweatdown” classic in the gym for me. I can play this fucker on repeat a dozen times and feel good the whole time.

Professional Murder Music – Slow
This was on the End of Days soundtrack, one of my favourite movie soundtracks.

Karaoke

2004 was when I finished high school. I did a fifth year, got my diploma, and went to work at Wal-Mart. When I started working in receiving, the guys there would jump in a truck together on a Wednesday and hit this bar called The Golden Tap for karaoke night. I knew about karaoke from Lost in Translation (a very important film for me as an 18-year-old) but I never even thought up to that point if I could sing, let alone sing in front of people.

I remember the guys told me that you have to try it once. But they had a rule. Do not do Guns N Roses. Nobody can do Guns N Roses. Don’t even try to do Guns N Roses. Please for the love of god don’t oh fuck Aaron put in Guns N Roses.

Listen, back then after two Smirnoff Ice’s I was ready to fuckin’ GO and you bet I went up there and I did Guns N Roses. I sucked at it. But I’ve watched the music video for Welcome To The Jungle so many times (it was my sister’s favourite song at one point) I knew every single Axl Rose mannerism. And I did them. I did that Daydream Believer Davey Jones sway that Axl does, I did them all. And I got a standing ovation.

Eventually I would find a GNR song that I could sing which was Patience. I tried a bunch of songs and built up a catalog. White Wedding by Billy Idol. I hate Everything About You by Ugly Kid Joe. Probably my signature song is All These Things I’ve Done by The Killers.

I don’t do much karaoke now but from 2004 to 2014 it was a major part of my life.

By 2004 I remember my music taste sort of stagnating. I was waiting patiently for the next album by Nine Inch Nails. I listened to Avalanche by Matthew Good a lot. Like a lot. I remember being kind of stuck in my ways the way a lot of people get stuck in their ways. I listened to a lot of Pink Floyd. I distinctly remember two songs from Canadian bands that at the time I hated. The first was “Rebellion (Lies)” by Arcade Fire and the second was “No Transitory” by Alexisonfire. Arcade Fire would eventually become one of my favourite bands. And then later Alexisonfire would become the same. It’s funny how you’ll originally reject something then love it later.

Windsor

In 2005 I moved out of my hometown of Chatham and moved to Windsor. That September I would see my first real concert: Nine Inch Nails, Queens of the Stone Age, and Autolux. Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan. It was also my first experience in Detroit by myself.

I spent a lot of time hanging out with guys a couple years older than me, all going to the University of Windsor at the time while I didn’t know what to do with my life. I just knew I wanted out of Chatham. It was here that my music experiences really changed. Gone was a strict top 40 rock diet. Everyone put their music tastes into the bucket and I was able to grab it all.

It was here I was really listening to the music I would sometimes download after reading about in SPIN Magazine. It was here that I really developed a craving for finding new music. At first it was just to keep up with the people who knew more than me. Eventually it was a hunger to know more and more. I listened to the CJAM college radio. I hunted new music online.

Probably the most iconic song for me at that time was Disintegration by Jimmy Eat World. I remember all my friends at the time, the Tyler’s, O’Keefe, Mike, AJ, Mel, Candice, Justin, Jake, there had to be at least one or two sessions on the porch or backyard or somewhere at Delta F or O’Keefe’s place where we listened to it. It was like a religious experience for me at the time. Hello City by Barenaked Ladies and Superman’s Song by Crash Test Dummies wouldn’t be too far behind, but for me it was about Disintegration.

Oh, also! Delta F was next door to a few guys who were in a band called The Jet Trio and they were really good. Here’s Motoro.

College

Once I stopped hanging out with those guys (they all moved out of Windsor essentially) and I found new crowds, my music tastes didn’t have a real change until college. College was 08-09 and 09-10. College is when I discovered my new favourite band. The band that I would love just as much as I have loved Nine Inch Nails for the better part of my life at that time. That would be Innerpartysystem.

I actually remember, I think a classmate Adam introduced me to Innerpartysystem and at first I didn’t care for them. I mentioned them to my friend Ryan who was like, “Dude this band is right up your alley give them another try” and I did. And I did. And I did. And I was hooked.

One of the greatest shames of my life is never getting to see them. They broke up in 2011, right when they were pushing their second EP. At that point I was loving every single song they made really. It was that deep passionate love that could only happen in your mid 20s when something just feels recorded in your wavelength. The heavy songs, the slow songs, the dance beat songs, everything was made for me. And then they broke up.

Recently I went and saw Culture Wars support The Cult play in Windsor at the Casino. I watched them open and left when they finished. I paid $50 to do that. Why? Because I was never going to let a moment pass by again where I could have seen a band I loved and didn’t do it and regretted it forever.

One of the best things about Innerpartysystem were they did these Mixtape’s that were a way to introduce some remixes they did for artists but also for them to mix and match genres and I honestly believe these are the best genre smash mixtapes I’ve ever heard.

Summer Mixtape Vol. 1
Winter Mixtape Vol. 2
Spring Mixtape Vol. 3 Part I
Spring Mixtape Vol. 3 Part II

From 2007 to 2010 the limbs of my musical genres really got stretching. Going to The Loop helped, and you can hear what The Loop played on this Spotify playlist. I did a Sweatdown for September 2018 which covered a lot of my college years from Arkells to Mother Mother to Arcade Fire to MGMT to Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Ladyhawke and more. This was also a time I even did some radio work at CJAM at the University of Windsor late at night. I’m talking 3AM late. I once locked myself out of the studio going to the bathroom.

I graduated high school in 2010 and eventually moved from Windsor to Kingston. The most important song for me that time was Last Parade by Matthew Good. “It feels like time to let it go” felt like me letting go of Windsor to travel outside my comfort zone and try to get a job in journalism. Little would I know it wasn’t the theme song for leaving Windsor but returning to it a year later.

“They’re burning futures in the mountains
All lit up, ya you can count yours
Baby ain’t it good to be back home?
Ain’t it good to be back home?”

The Naked and Famous, Battle Tapes, The Chain Gang of 1974, and the beginning of The Sweatdown in Part III

Photo of me by Pat Ryan