Fumbling Towards Forty: Music Part IV

I haven’t danced much since 2020.

The pandemic put an end to a lot of things for me. I shouldn’t say end. I guess more like it moved a lot of things from being regular life experiences to rare life experiences. One of them was being able to flirt in public. I used to be alright at it. I used to be able to banter with new people and have no fear about it. Now I’m constantly worried if I’m talking to someone under 25 and preferring to turn into a George Thurogood song.

The other is dancing. I don’t dance much anymore. And I blame the pandemic.

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
Fumbling Towards Forty: Music Part II
Fumbling Towards Forty: Music Part III

At the end of 2019 I saw Madeon in concert. Definitely a show where you dance a bit. It’s a concert so it’s mostly dancing with yourself or next to your friend but it isn’t really going out and dancing. I actually tried during the pandemic, and I know this will sound really sad but… I really tried to keep myself dancing.

Alone.

In my living room.

Turning the WOP into the WAKA pic.twitter.com/nhyu3W4YBu

— PAC-MAN (@officialpacman) November 24, 2023

I’m sure a lot of people did this and would just never dare admit it in public. But I did. I played the hits. I played the songs that got me up and just tried to keep those sea legs limber in case dancing came around the corner. In 2020 it didn’t. In 2021 it finally started to come around, and by that time I was no longer 35. I was no longer in that original key demo of 18-35. I was officially in the 35-49. Society no longer revolves around my limited budget.

I did try to use this new free time on my hands to listen to… Oh, wait, did I say free time?

That’s funny. I remember the week prior to everything getting shut down. My job asked me to be one of the first to set up to work at home. I was told that work was going to be slow. I was told people were getting laid off. They didn’t expect a lot of calls.

It was non stop calls. It was non stop work. To the point of a near nervous breakdown in 2021. Getting COVID was a two week vacation for me.

So the pandemic likely aged me while a lot of other people had plenty of free time to get their shit together. I tried my best to stay in touch with friends and family. Playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons was very therapeutic for me. Honestly K.K. Slider music would be part of the soundtrack of my pandemic.

You know who else helped? Strong Bad! Homestar Runner released three original soundtracks of music from the Flash cartoon. I listened to a lot of it. Kept you happy while someone is calling to ask about their furniture on credit and really they just want to talk to someone because their son won’t call back anymore.

The best album of 2020? Perfectionism by Hotel Mira.

When I look at my December Sweatdown 2K20 I don’t really see any new trends with the music I’m listening to. It does include one of my favourite photos I took of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor. It’s interesting how the list has a distinct lack of hard rock, with focus more on Retrowave, Indie, and Synthpop. There’s even country with Hailey Whitters and Bad Girl Drumma with Wuki and JUVENILE which is still a great song.

And then you get to the end and it’s Murica by Filter which is as hard as you can fucking get without getting into hardcore. It’s like the pandemic was all about me doing everything I could to just keep a good mood and I couldn’t keep it held in anymore. That was reflected going int 2021. I think there was a bitter streak going into some of the music I was getting into in 2021.

2021 at least meant more times seeing friends as the pandemic at least got less dangerous. I say when I got COVID that year. At least it didn’t wreck my lungs like it did to people I know. I got to see friends and family more in 2021 than I did in 2020 which was good for my morale.

I also think it was a great period for music. May Sweatdown 2K21 included Immortal Girlfriend for the first time, as well as bands like almost monday and Sir Sly which would find themselves commonly in my rotation. June Sweatdown 2K21 had Sulene, Losers, and Arbi/Koethe. But July?

The July Sweatdown 2K21 I put myself on the cover with a New Retrowave tank because I felt so good about it. 6’s to 9’s – Day Wave Remix by Big Wild, Rationale, and Day Wave is one of my favourite songs ever. Heart of America by Arbi, Fire For You by Cannons, Beyond the Blue by Immortal Girlfriend? All great songs. One of the best of the Sweatdown mixes.

I got COVID at a farmers market which like I said was the only thing that kept me from having a complete nervous breakdown. That same week I got COVID we were forced to go back into work for a week and I felt awful, like I risked people’s health to go into the office. It led to me quitting my job but returning in the winter. It would be the last time I worked 5 days a week regularly, and the last of me working anywhere but home full time for the foreseeable future.

The winter of 2021 at least meant going back to concerts. I saw Dizzy in London which was great and saw July Talk in London (Ontario, Canada) as well. July Talk put on an incredible performance. It was either 2021 or 2022 that I saw Mt. Joy in Detroit. I had originally saw them in Nashville when I took my trip in 2018 for free so I was happy to pay for a ticket this time.

I ended up getting some public attention in December that year when I posted some photos I had from an old project way back in 2005 when I moved to Windsor that contained old photos of downtown Windsor. It spread like wildfire across Facebook with people talking about it. I eventually posted all of it on my blog and even got interviewed by CBC Windsor. It was a great trip down memory lane for a lot of people. I relate it to music because a lot of those photos are important in what I used to do every weekend dancing my youth away.

Best song of 2021? Better with You (the world’s burning) by Chief.

2022 is oddly a lost year. It’s kind of weird. I can remember a bit of 2020 and 2021. 2022 I’m looking at photos and it’s like… hardly existing in my memory. How old was I? What did I do? What did I listen to? I’m thankful I have the playlists now because otherwise I would just think this was an extension of 2021 or 2023. I know that my favourite song that year This Can’t Be Everything by Phantoms and my favourite album was Otherness by Alexisonfire. But I can’t really say much changed or anything significant happened that year. I do remember seeing The Blue Stones live.

Looking at photos, 2022 is one of the last time one of my friend groups wasn’t fractured. It’s now in complete pieces. One friend I don’t talk to anymore and we were close in seeing music shows and talking about music. The other two don’t talk anymore so I always see them separately. The group chat used to be a common place to talk new music and it’s just not there anymore. Maybe that’s why it feels a little less lively than other years. Funny that one of my favourite bands coming out of 2022 would be called… Fickle Friends. That’s mean. They weren’t fickle. Sometimes friendships don’t last forever and that’s okay.

2023 was the year of George Clanton. I really got into George Clanton. “I Been Young” was absolutely my anthem of that year and was a really good encapsulation of how I had been feeling at age 38. It was the first year that felt completely outside of the pandemic (it still existed but not as intrusive) and I felt good doing all the stuff I used to like going to concerts in Detroit. I was happy to see George Clanton live even if it didn’t really hold up to the recordings.

Pain of Truth absolutely crushing at their SOLD OUT show last night pic.twitter.com/JqLdHtVcdl

— sanctuary detroit (@sanctuarydet) November 8, 2023

In November I started the month off agreeing to go see a hardcore show at the Sanctuary with my friend Joel. I always told him I would go once and here was my shot. I’m almost 40 and there’s only so many opportunities you’ll get to really experience a hardcore show properly. I ended up getting a Savio Vega leg lariat to the face at the last song. Not just the last song, the last CHUGGA of the last song. The show ended right after I got kicked. It bled a bit when it happened and I regret not taking a photo of myself face covered in blood at the show. The next day I had a fantastic shiner.

After a few weeks of healing it was off to the next show, which was seeing The 1975 live. It was rough for me since I had been told my babcia had stopped eating and could pass away any day. Before I went to London, Ontario I gave her a kiss on the forehead. It was the last time I felt her be warm. The concert was great. It was one of the best shows I’ve been to just based on the set, the way it at times felt like a stage show without interfering with the music, and the amount of time they spent videotaping the show for the live audience. The next morning my babcia passed away.

I’m glad I went to the concert, because if I had been thinking about the inevitable all day it would have tore me up inside. I’m glad I had something to entertain me. I miss my babcia every day.

In 2024 I would see Hotel Mira, who had become my new favourite Canadian band after Arkells slipped out of the spot. I Am Not Myself was my favourite album of 2023, meaning in this decade Hotel Mira can claim two of the best albums for me. I think I also owe bassist Mike Noble a tall boy. Or he owes me. Whatever we owe each other.

Also on the show was Fake Shark, who I didn’t know well but actually liked their cover of Your Woman back in 2020. They did a really great live show and I got into their album Afterglow which released this year after it. I don’t think their record production has caught up to their live sound yet, and when it does? I think they will do their best work.

I don’t know when I first heard “Lies” by Culture Wars. It was on my August Sweatdown 2K18 so I either heard it a year after it came out or I was still listening to it non stop then, but it quickly became one of my favourite rock songs. Culture Wars had an EP out around then (which they’ve tried to erase off the internet apparently) but in 2021 they released another EP in teche. The songs “Faith”, “Lose Money”, and “teche” are some of my favourite songs of the year, and in rock period. This year they released “Heaven” as well as several other songs, and I knew I absolutely had to see them. I once almost took a bus to Columbus just to try and catch them, but luck would have it as they joined The Cult on their trip to my town of Windsor at the casino as an opener.

I paid the ticket just to see them. They played five or six songs and then I left. I don’t mind The Cult but I was there just for Culture Wars and they held up my belief they are one of the best rock bands out there today.

That finally brings us to today.

I think it was important to do multiple parts on music. For as much time I spend writing about pro wrestling or talking about hockey and videogames? Music really ties everything in life for me together. There’s emotions I can’t express without music. Moments I can’t recall without music. Memories that I don’t just see. I have to hear them. And I can hear the songs playing.

Sometimes it’s “I’m Sexy and You Know it” and sometimes it’s something I mentioned. Either way it’s good.

Friend of mine from high school once asked me why I never picked up an instrument. Why I never played. Why I didn’t become an artist. I thought about it. We had an acoustic guitar in the house and I tried it once and my right hand just couldn’t really do music right. I remember my friend Matt and neighbour Shawn once tried to form a band. Going to the music store with them once I realized that holding an instrument was never going to be in my future. I failed music class on the xylophone. Maybe my teacher just hated me but when I thought the sound was right he always said it was wrong.

I did try writing lyrics and I’ve done it a few times. Maybe I could have been the guy who helps people formulate songs without being musical themselves. As much as I love karaoke I don’t know if I could have survived the band life. I’ve watched bands like Arkells go from a couple college students in Hamilton to one of the biggest bands in Canada. I remember how they looked when I saw them at the Chubby Pickle and how much they’ve aged, just like I’ve aged. I’m sure they had a great time. It was never in the books for me.

In less than 90 days I’ll finally be 40. There’s a lot of things I don’t feel accomplished about. Don’t feel like I’ve done enough. Don’t feel like I’ve lived enough. Music might be the one thing I feel pretty close to accomplished on. I feel like I’ve done it right. I didn’t just stick to Top 40 radio. I didn’t become a slave to the music I liked in high school. I saw my favourite band multiple times live, and I’ve seen smaller bands multiple times live to support them. I don’t feel like I took music for granted.

Still wish I got to see Innerpartysystem before they broke up. Would have been nice.

Photo from the shiner after the hardcore show