Review: Weakerthans at the Burt

I've seen the Weakerthans a fuck of a lot of times. I'm not sure how many exactly, but I remember paying a lot less than the 30+ to sit on the balcony Saturday night. Not that I'm complaining. I think they're a great band, and they've only gotten better. I might go as far as to say that the ticket price is fair and reasonable. After Saturday night, I remain convinced that these guys are one of the premier Canadian acts today. They're sound offers something for everyone and features some outstanding lyrics. Modest frontman John Samson is particularly funny, in his shy, unassuming way. They always seem to sincerely enjoy performing, and they always add something to the show, however small. Whether it's just lifting their guitars in unison, playing their classic (and Propagandhi cover [...yes, I know it was Samson's song then too, motherfucker {...I was trying to share some love. Fuck.}]) Anchorless on 5 mini Casio keyboards, or allowing a young Mexican named Ernesto to bring down the house with a fucking bad-ass guitar solo in the middle of Wellington's Wednesdays (the one song I was particularly hoping to hear. Seriously, what the fuck was the story with that solo anyway? Ernesto?) the Weakerthans have developed into consummate professional entertainers. 

We talked a lot before the show about what they might play Saturday, entertaining the possibility that they would offer a larger cross-section of older songs for the local crowd. As I'd expected, and to my disappointment, they didn't. Playing four staples from Left and Leaving, and just two from the under-represented Fallow (both mentioned earlier), the band stuck to material from their latest two albums. I came home quite pleased despite this fact, but intent on giving Fallow a thorough listening to make up for its unfortunate shunning.

To my surprise, listening to Fallow was like hearing it with new ears. Gone--well, maybe not gone, but fading--was the album that I'd listened to so many years ago, with its pronounced but tasteful punk rock influence, its witty lyrics, its pensive charm. Instead, I heard an album crafted by rookies struggling to define themselves. The desire for folk is present, but the shoes don't fit yet. The songs' punk rock roots bleed through too heavily. The song-writing doesn't come near the caliber that it's at now. Samson's singing is pretty lousy, though not without its charm, and his lyrics still lack a great deal of maturity that he demonstrates in his later work. An example, you say? Fuck off! Just read the lyrics from Fallow and compare them to Reconstruction Site. I'm not writing a goddamn poetry essay.

So all this nonsense got me thinking: (and maybe it's kind of obvious, but I think it bears discussing) the process of beginning a new project does not come naturally. Whether making an early effort to blend folk rock with punk rock, or whether starting some crappy blog that no one reads, the beginning will be rough. You can't be witty and clever and creative and thoughtful and unique without hacking through the growing pains. Samson and the Weakerthans certainly grew into their own. Despite the fact that Fallow is one of my favorites, I understand why they don't play much from it these days: it kinda sucks. 

If Brutus and John and I all manage to stick with this horrendous endeavour for any real length of time, we'll look back on these early posts with disgust, distain, and inevitable embarrassment. Fuck, I'm already embarrassed. We're hacks! But fuck it. If we're ever going to get better at this type of thing, we're going to have to plug through this, hopefully learning a thing or two along the way. It's hard to avoid cliches until you've gotten them out of your system (see the first two sentences of the third paragraph...ugh), you know? I mean, cliches exist for a reason: they're popular. They're common. They're kind of reliable. They're easy to slip into. But sooner or later, with enough content, enough effort, maybe we'll figure it out and put out something half-decent. Or not. Either way, whether writing or rambling on at the Toad, it's a great excuse for a beer or ten.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10--for Ernesto? From Mexico?

4:20

Well, it’s 4:20 again. Actually, I didn’t even realize it until I was walking home from The Bay and noticed the distinct aroma of weed in the air. Not thinking anything of it, I turned onto Memorial Boulevard and then it hit me: oh yeah, today’s 4:20! I should probably qualify that last statement by noting that I needed the help of the gaggle of people gathered at the legislative grounds, and the small army of hot dog vendors scattered around the area. Anyway, I put two and two together and decided to take a walk through the crowd of happy stoners and get myself a hotdog. It was a good hotdog, and I enjoyed it, but as I was walking and doing some people watching, I got to thinking about this wonderful, though completely stupid holiday.

4:20 has always been a special sort of day for me, which probably comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me. For years, it was a ritual of sorts to get together with a dank quarter and some good friends and smoke ourselves stupid until we passed out. Of course, there were usually many ‘adventures’ throughout the night: trips to 7-11/Macs, trips to other people’s houses to smoke more, maybe a game of ‘let’s get lost’ (a game where you drive to a neighborhood and see if you can get yourself lost. But this is whole separate post….), trips to Taco Bell, and maybe a beer run, but the general point of the day was always clearly in focus for the first half hour. Though the one thing I never did was go to the legislative building. I never understood it. I think there’s some sort of political ‘legalize it’ thrust to it, but I was always skeptical about that. After all, to the average dope smoker, there is a sort of bent appeal to the idea of getting out of your head right in front of the police and not getting arrested for it. Throw in the fact that you’re doing it on the doorstep of the provincial government, and you have yourself a nice little “fuck the Man” statement. This is all well and good, but as a political statement, it’s pretty pointless. Is the point to show how well behaved weed smokers are? A show of numbers? I don’t know. But as a social event, it’s a hell of a thing. For some reason that I’ll never fully understand, pot brings people together in a way like few other things can. There were all sorts of different kinds of people lounging around and smoking bowls, and being generally into the whole thing. It was nice to see.

4:20 as a holiday though, is pretty dumb when you really get to thinking about it. It’s a day to celebrate something that most of the people there already celebrated on a daily basis. I guess it’s nice to have a day to get wrecked, but why couldn’t you just pick Saturday? All it takes is a little bit of schedule co-ordination and, voila, 4:20 anytime! While you can’t go to the legislative grounds and get baked with a thousand other people, you can go to a park and just get stoned with your friends. Not a bad trade off. This is a realization that I came to when I was in Amsterdam on 4:20 a few years ago. I was all excited, but I was pretty much the only one. There was nothing different on 4:20 as there had been on 4:17. That didn’t stop me from paying my proper observance in my own ‘proper’ sort of way, but ever since then I haven’t really cared as much. I still make a point of smoking a nice spliff, but the day just isn’t the same grand thing it used to be. I think my general lifestyle might have something to do with this, although maybe it just means I’m getting old.

8.9/10

John E. Ryall.

Deadliest Warrior

So, as I was sprawled out on the couch, recovering from last night, I happened to come across what might be my new favorite television show. It’s on Spike TV and it’s called ‘Deadliest Warrior.’ This is the sort of show that appeals to the inner child in all of us, pitting different sorts of historical warriors in a quasi-scientific death battle. If you’ve ever thought Gladiators, Ninjas, Samurai, or Vikings were cool, then this show is for you.

The Premise is pretty simple. Each episode pits one sort of warrior against another to see who would win in a theoretical fight. In order to figure this out, these two scientist type guys record data from tests to see which warrior’s weapons kill better. The two 'scientists' don’t actually use the weapons though; they always bring in 'expersts' who actually know what they’re doing, which makes it even more sweet. So anyway, they hack the shit out of dummies made of ballistics gel, and then enter the data into this computer program, which then simulates 1000 fights between the two warriors, and whoever wins more fights is apparently the Most Deadliest Warrior in the World. It’s kind of like Mythbusters but with battle axes and ninja swords. To top it all off, they always end the show by showing what such a battle might look like. It’s bad acting, but it’s bad acting in all its gory splendor. For example, today I watched an Apache warrior whup a gladiator, continue to stab him about seven more times after he was clearly dead, and then lick the blood off his knife; in the next episode, the Samurai managed to defeat the Viking by stabbing him in the neck with his kitana (to the hilt), resulting in a super-soaker style geyser of blood.

As I said, this show totally appeals to me on a nostalgic level. When I was a kid, I always wondered if an army of ninjas would beat an army of robots. Of course, we’ll likely never know the answer to that question (or will we….?), but ‘Deadliest Warrior’ offers the same sort of absurd appeal. So watch it for the gore or the science (smashing a human skull with a club is science right?), either way, it’s worth a watch.

Rating: 8.0/10.

John E. Ryall

Fucked Up at the Albert

Ugh. I'm hungover as hell after last night's show. We saw Fucked Up. Apparently they're kind of a big deal. Fucked Up, I mean. They're a hardcore band out of Toronto. They played the Albert, opening for the way-too-old-and-irrelevant-to-be-playing-anymore-but-i-shouldn't-talk-because-i-went-to-see-Agent-Orange-last-month-who-are-equally-too-old-and-irrelevant-and-thought-they-were-awesome U.K. Subs. We also caught another opening band, the Brixton Robbers, who were also pretty good in a we-sound-a-lot-like-the-Flatliners kind of way (I promise I'll stop doing that). Fucked up blends hardcore punk with some different and very melodic sounds. They definitely disrupt what you might expect from a typical hardcore punk band.

In true Barstool Review fashion, several beverages were consumed before the show to lubricate the experience, so the extendo-long weekend (government gig means holiday Monday too! Fuck yeah!) kicked itself off to a good start.

Anyway, the show was good, but it got me thinking a bit this morning--between trips to the can, I mean. Last night's beverage of choice is exiting my body through any orifice it can find. It's nice to see a band--even as unfortunately named as this one--that can still make punk rock interesting. These days it seems like the only good thing we can dig out of the slagging punk rock scene are bands that either play a certain sound really well, living up to some strange sense of manufactured scene authenticity, or bands with a gimmick, a la Gogol Bordello or Gaslight Anthem. Look at us! Our music drips with nostaglia for a fifties rebel image that died out 30 years before we were born! 

Sure, there's been the punk-folk-country fusion that's been going on, with all these front men from successful bands in the 90s doing acoustic solo records. And yeah, I like it. In my old age, sometimes I like to hear something that isn't loud and louder, fast and faster. But seriously, I doubt the trend has much more to offer than it already has. How long can all these urban punk rockers imitate lonesome country singers before we call them out on it? Sure, I've always thought there were a ton of similarities between country and punk rock. And some of these guys pull it off better than others--generally the ones who try to create their own brand of urban folk. Others try hard to achieve an authentic country sound, with mixed results. One way or another, punk rock continues its negotiation with notions of true authenticity, both embracing it, romanticizing it, and rejecting it, all at once. And yet, rejecting stereotypes is one of the pillars of punk mentality. If that's still the case, it kind of makes this search for authenticity seem a bit misguided, no?

That's all just to say that Fucked Up was pretty good. I'm no music aficionado. I just know what I like, and I know good punk rock when I hear it, and it's great to see a band that's clearly trying to create their own sound/image. While they might not make it high on my playlist (I'm all about re/discovering 90s hip hop these days) they get mad props for keepin' it real. Yo.

Rating: 4 out of 10 for this hangover. It started out strong, but I fought it back with a greasy breakfast and it hasn't mustered much since.

Review: trough at the Toad

It pains me to say anything negative about the Toad in the Hole.  I've been a fan of the pub for years. Even through the extensive changes it has undergone, the renovation of the basement (I miss the dank pit that it was), the expansion of the upstairs, the new arcades and giant flat screen TV (Ok, I admit I love the TV), and even with sudden surge of overdressed suburbanite douchebags that descend upon the village every Friday and Saturday night and pack into the cherished Osborne Village jewel because they can't get into the Hifi nightclub, I have stood by my watering hole. But suddenly, things have gone too far.

Last night, after some standard bantering over 3-4 pints, my bladder was at the tipping point. Breaking the seal was an inevitable reality, so I climbed from my slouch and made my way to the lesser known washrooms by the kitchens. The Toad has long had an unwritten policy where washrooms may be labeled as separate for men and women, but in reality they are unisex (--shouldn't that mean just one of the sexes? I never understood that). Men and women use each other's commodes freely. But on this particular evening, there was a sign on the door. In bold, underlined lettering, the sign read WOMEN'S WASHROOM ONLY. I was a bit shocked, but not overly surprised until I notice the same sign on what used to be the men's washroom next to it. Both women's washrooms? WTF?

Suddenly I became aware of suspicious eyes upon me. I looked over to where a young woman was clearly eyeing me up to see if I was a sexual predator, or just a pervert trying to get a peak at the newly-christened women's washroom cabal. 

"You can't pee here" she says to me sharply.

"Uhh, I can't?" tipsy and desperate to pee, my mind still hadn't caught up to the situation.

"You have to use the men's washroom--at the back of the bar."

"What?"

"The men's washroom is there now. You can't pee here anymore."

"How did women suddenly get a monopoly on these washrooms?" I asked.

"We have smaller bladders" she snapped back.

"But we drink more!" I protested.

"No you don't." Not wanting to get into a pissing contest (zing!), and concerned more with relieving myself, I figured I was better off going to see what the hell she was talking about.

I made my way over to where the other bathrooms were. Following a sign directing right to the back of the pub, I discovered a new men's washroom. What I found on the other side of the door deeply troubled me.

A fucking trough!! A goddamn, demeaning-as-fuck trough to pee in! Are these things not fucking outlawed yet?! Can we not find a more humane way to allow men to pee at a pub? I mean, it's not like Bomber stadium, where 30,000 fucking people have to share the washrooms, and even there it's fucking disgusting.

As if the trough itself wasn't bad enough, the discrepancy between the now women-exclusive, single stall washrooms and the male equivalent of a back alley is seriously demeaning. I may be a sloppy drunken pig on most saturday nights, but give me some fucking credit. And having to be told to pee in a trough by some small-bladdered psuedo-feminist only made the experience that much more detestable.

I've heard a rumour that the new facilities are temporary while they renovate their other washrooms. I certainly hope that's the case. While the Toad still sits at the top of my list of places to drink away my youth, this new development has left a sour taste in my mouth. It may take a standoff a la Rosa Parks to change the minds of the oppressors. We won't be demeaned like this! We want to pee at the front of the bus, er, bar like everyone else. We refuse to be treated as second-class citizens. 

Ugh. I hope I don't have to start going to the Academy.

Rating: 2 out of 10--for the small bladder argument.