Get Well Soon...

I longed and I waited for something with teeth…
- CURSED

When I step out onto the porch to light my cigarette and feel the small, light flakes fall cold on my neck something occurs to me--that this can all end very badly. Not just in broken bones and torn flesh, but in ways neither of us can predict.
Maybe this is just the spectre of doubt looming in the shadowy parts of my life, as I have always allowed him to do. Or maybe experience has left me raw and I flinch a little easier than I let on. Or maybe I’m just acknowledging that I won’t be satisfied with mere disappointment anymore. Maybe I’m trying to tell you that I’ve got the gasoline and you’ve got the spark and if we’re going to do this we better burn the whole damn thing right down to ash and black dirt. Because enough of the structure of my life has been seared and singed and no fucking way am I replacing these beams again.
I told you: I got this thing for fire.
What Im saying is, you might want to get yourself nice and wet before this thing goes up.

I’m not trying to scare you away.
Or maybe I am.
You see, my whole life I’ve waited for something that could open up new wounds and make me bleed again. Maybe that’s why I’m so eager to expose myself to you. Because the pool of blood I’ve stood in for years now has gone dry and sticky and rancid and it’s doing nothing for me anymore.
And I feel like these abrasions are starting to get serious. These welts you’ve raised--the ones I told you about--they’re starting to cause me some serious discomfort. And you should know better than anyone that, to a writer, this isn’t the worst thing that could happen.
Your stories, dear, cut me. Tear into me with teeth so well concealed I’m surprised at the sudden pain. But I know it‘s happening.
I know it’s happening because it’s leaking slowly out. Onto the page. Every day a few more words. A few more sentences. A paragraph. A verse/chorus/verse. I long to lose myself in the deluge. To bleed out and to hell with the consequences.

And if this was just about fire and blood, maybe I wouldn’t feel the need to say all these things. If this was just Dave being dark and ugly like Dave always does, I’d let it go without recording it.
But it’s not all dark. And it’s not all ugly.
I have these images…
Of an armchair arranged suggestively near a bed in a room designed for sin. Of flimsy red fabric crawling all over you--of you crawling all over a canopy bed. Of red lipstick, second-hand boots and quilts with poppies on them. Of words on a screen in a darkened room that won’t let me close my eyes, that drill into my chest and make a permanent home there.
Of you, walking backwards against cool, Northern California winds. Of wild daisies in the field adjacent. Of unopened packages of men’s briefs. Of how you look when you write. Of how your hand looks holding a cell phone. Of how your lips move when you talk.
Of how scared of me you might be if there weren’t miles between us to protect you from a man who can go on and on like this--about blood and fire and beautiful images he can’t seem to shake from his head.
Of confetti on the bathroom floor…
I see these things like someone has lit a roman fucking candle in my head and I can‘t help but smile as I search out the culprit. And since you were the one with the spark at the outset of this…

Have I scared you? I hope not.
I’ll never ask for anything more of you than what I think you can give.
And maybe I’m just trying to find out if you’ve got the stomach for this--if you’ve got the guts to burn me up and bleed me dry. And maybe, just maybe, burn and bleed with me for a while.

Entirely Human

I am one of the walking wounded who lights his way through this absurd void with a perpetually burning heart.

There’s a point when you run, a point when your body finds its rhythm--your meat is contacting, your tendons are pulling and your bones are obeying. Your breath comes deep and even. All your hot blood is pumping and the whole machine is working marvellously. You feel strong, you feel righteous, you feel animal and unstoppable and utterly alive.
And if you’re anything like me, this is about the time all the bullshit drops away. All the crap we built up over the centuries. All the people who’ve convinced us that they’re our betters and the towers we’ve erected for them to rule us from come crumbling down. The clock stops, the bills fade away, order and religion and anything inorganic or unnatural just don’t exist anymore.
The whole fucking edifice of modern life just topples.
And if you know me, then you can understand how appealing this is.

And so it’s as I reach this point--this sublime, primitive moment--that some things begin to occur to me.
Like to simultaneously curse and praise all the walls that came down when the wires went up. And where that lead me. How good and bad things happen when you can connect with a person you’ve never met.
To love and disdain the human element of the edifice I only moments ago watched fall away. Because for all the time I spend lamenting an urban sky obscured by telephone wires; they brought me to someone that, no matter how it plays out, reached through this blighted webscape, pushed through the digital abyss, and made me feel something totally and completely human.
At precisely the point when I wanted to stop feeling anything.

My sneakers scrape gravel and my lungs fight for every breath. Blood rushes through me, my heart is audible to everyone in a one mile radius--I’m sure of it. The sweat lashes off of me, my calves turn to rubber. My eyes stare straight ahead, watching the road cut a swath between frozen, snowy fields.
I grunt, I groan, I let out a short sharp bellow and force myself forward. My body, my mind, will not get the better of me. There’s no quit in me. I’ve never felt this before. My heart burns for a dozen reasons and still I go. I suck cold air through gritted teeth, I taste wood smoke on the air.
And still I go.

Last night was the end of something for me. A shift, a transition, to something else. There’ll be those of you who know what I mean, there’ll be those of you who don’t care.
There are a million and one reasons for it. And the best one I can come up with is that it was time. Time for two people who still care very deeply about each other to separate themselves while they still care. Time for two people who’ve been through everything to face what’s ahead on their own.
Time for two people to be two people.

My feet throb, sweat pools in the soles of my cheap sneakers. My chest feels like a tire with a slow leak. I grind my teeth and watch the sweat fall from my brow, soaking my sweater. I’m running on emotion now. There’s nothing in the tank. I left it all out on a country road.
I spent it all.
In the snow and mud of my backyard I collapse. I fall to my knees, pressing them into the cold earth. I raise my torso, point my chest at the sky.
Across the backyard my neighbour sees this all. He sees this--this sweat-drenched, gasping man kneeling in the mud in shorts and what he says is, “Looks like someone had a spiritual experience.”
And I say, “No. Nope. Entirely human.”
And I get up and go inside.

And you--yeah, you; you know who you are--you’ve come into my life at a very strange time. I guess we’ve come into each others lives at a very strange time--and if I believed in things like fate and destiny I’d probably be very afraid.
But I do believe in coincidence, and happy accidents. And now, in very happy accidents.
You’ve helped me realise some things about myself. And I hope you’ll stick around while I sort through these things I’m feeling and experiencing.
I hope I can make it worth your while. I imagine I can. I hope I’ve already demonstrated this to some extent.
It doesn’t feel wrong anymore.

CURSED III: Architects of Troubled Sleep... a review

“Kill the bosses, kill the priests, kill the shepherds--save the sheep.”

I don’t usually write about music in my blog. There’s a few dozen reasons for it but the best I can come up with right now is that a good deal of the people reading it don’t give a fuck how I feel about some basement-dwelling powerviolence band from Iowa who put out one EP and then fell into the void while attempting to fill it with their own jizzum. And really, in that context, I can appreciate and understand the lack of interest most people would have that sort of entry.
But, because I spared you all my insights on the last WORLD BURNS TO DEATH record and my lengthy comparative analysis of the discographies of RECENSION and OXBAKER, I figure I’m within my right to review the third album by Toronto’s metallic hardcore heavyweights. If this isn’t your cup of pee, I suggest you mosey, cowpoke. Because this is as likely to bore you as the actual album is to tear a strip out of you.

I could start where most reviewers, interviewers and other writerly sorts start when discussing CURSED. I could perform a run-through of the scene credentials and list the bands these guys have played in before. But if you’ve decided to keep reading then you either already know, or will listen to the album and take great pains to find out how far back the great hardcore goes. (It goes way, way, waayyyyyy the fuck back.)
But where I’d like to start is here:
I’m playing an Epiphone SG that hasn’t been restrung since I moved to BC. Those three year old strings are down-tuned a full step. I play with a Rat distortion pedal through a Crate amp about fifteen years past its prime. This amp has a speaker cone that rattles like Bea Arthur with a lung infection receiving earth-moving oral sex. And my guitar doesn’t sound half as evil, dirty or heavy as Christian McMaster’s.
Not. Even. Fucking. Close.
From the first notes on the eponymous introductory track, through the blast beats of the opening of the album proper right until the final strains of “Gutters” have seared themselves into your battered brain, the guitar never lets up, never sounds weak. In fact, it never sounds like anything but a raging conflagration bent on consuming every available source of fuel.
The guitar overload of the second album isn’t here (suggesting to me that CURSED should always operate as a four-piece) and I figure when you have Dan Dunham of--y’know, that heavy band from Hamilton with the really cool name--playing bass you want his noise as high in the mix as you can get it. Which might have something to do with (what turned out to be) the band’s brilliant move of getting their sound guy, Donny Cooper, to produce. Who knows better what the band is supposed to sound like than the guy that’s been making them sound like them night-in and night-out on tour?
Another boon of the departed guitar overload is the fact that the drums never once get lost in the mix (which, truth be told, is my only real complaint about Two--why have a drummer like Mike Maxymuik if you‘re going to hide his talents behind a wall of feedback? Good drummers are damn hard to come by!). In fact, at times, like at the end of “Friends in the Music Business”, the drums shine in a way they never have on a CURSED record.
And of course, through all of this you have what I’ve come to regard as the razor edge of CURSED’s musical attack--the lyrical and vocal ability of Chris Colohan. I warn you: this might come off as hero-worship with just a touch of homosexual longing--but the dude is a solid word-monger. I remember way-back-when, listening to a 10” by a band that contained three-quarters of CURSED (man, it’s hard to write this without mentioning the bands they were in before) that ended with a spoken-word track by Colohan that thoroughly blew my mind and was responsible, in large part, for my return to writing.
Things are no different on this album. Take, for example, the opening quote of this review, taken from the album’s third track, “Magic Fingers.” Is there any simpler expression of just what punk is about? Probably, but does it rhyme? Probably not. And it probably doesn’t have Colohan’s gravel-throated delivery to back it up.
Or how about on the song "Into the Hive," where Chris, in a rage against Toronto’s condominium-culture, expectorates this little gem: “Show me a man with that much faith in concrete and I'll show you every self-starter that ever put torch to building.”
What amazes me most is that Chris seems to get more and more disgusted and disillusioned with every release. Some three bands ago I figured Chris had peaked as far as total rage went. But here, on CURSED’s third record, he manages to plumb new depths of anger and frustration. If he didn’t come off as such an affable, funny guy in interviews I’d implore his friends to put him on suicide watch (though a homicide watch is not entirely out of the question).
All this ass-kickery comes with a neat little bow on it: this is easily CURSED’s most cohesive record. There were moments on the first two records where I found myself taken out of the flow--for example, listening to Two and asking myself, “Wait, are they covering War Pigs?” and then checking the track listing and realising that it was indeed and original called “Model Home Invasion.”
That’s not to say that there are no surprises on Architects…. In fact, just wait until you get a load of “Unnecessary Person.” Not only is it a huge departure for CURSED, it might just be the finest vocal performance Colohan has turned in since “Nineteen Seventy-Four” (the song, not the year).
But I suppose the big thing people are going to want to know is how III: The Architects of Troubled Sleep stacks up against One and Two.
See, the great thing about One is that these dudes didn’t care if it came off as too metal or too heavy or (G*d forbid--too SABBATH). If you thought that the breaks were too “tough-guy” sounding or the music not tuneless or atonal enough (this, of course, at a time when everyone was doing their damnedest to sound like LÄ RM) then fuck ya. CURSED was doing CURSED.
Two, I’ll admit, I didn’t get right away. I thought the production was muddy and everything seemed muffled to me. I had to listen to it while running to figure out what made it great. The sound of Two is the sound of your heart pounding in your ears; of blood pumping at insane volume through your head. It’s the sound of your body on the brink of total exhaustion.
If One was the dark cloud, and Two was the rolling thunder, then Three is the storm. Three is the total devastation that leaves nothing in its wake but wrecked landscapes, decimated cities, mourning families and utter waste.
I worry, sometimes, that there won’t be a Four. With the turnover rate in underground hardcore being as insanely high as it is, it’s rare to find a band that has staying power. It was easy in the early days, I suppose, when what was “punk” was less rigidly defined. If BLACK FLAG had been forced to release Damaged over and over again instead of being permitted to evolve, well, we might not have gotten a third album from them. Luckily, they were permitted, for the most part, to explore new territory. And while In My Head might have been taking the experiment a little far, at least they had the opportunity to make that record.
I realise that CURSED will likely be vilified in some quarters for the few departures on this album. Hell, look what happened to their fellow Torontonians in FUCKED UP--a band that could do no wrong while they were releasing two-song seven inches. When they released Hidden World a major split occurred amongst fans that the band, thankfully, survived and which helped to rejuvenate their fan base.
Let’s hope the reviews are kind to CURSED. And let’s hope Four comes quickly.

Being a Good Person is a Thankless Job

I have this history with so many people’s fingers getting tangled up in my dreams and “real men” throwing punches at my glass-jawed aspirations. There are so many nights in my memory that reek of stale air, heavy with nicotine and sweat and beer, nights where I didn’t believe I’d wake up the next day and didn’t care if I did. I’ve sought refuge from the disappointments I’ve had to face--that I’ve retreated from--in so many wasteful ways. Laying my tears to rest with so many rotten, wrecked people.

My way is now and always has been to remain the cynic. To be angry and frustrated and let that drive me to success or, more often than I care to admit, retreat. Because for some reason I’ve always found it preferable to failure.
But I’ve learned. And I’ve grown.
I’m not a perfect person. And there are times when I doubt I’m even a good person. My weaknesses have always been so much more apparent to me than my strengths. I don’t think I’ve ever seen myself through eyes unaffected by my own flawed understanding of the world.
But like I said: I’ve learned, and grown.
It’s so easy to take the people who matter for granted, the people who make us better human beings and who push us to, and beyond, our limits. It’s easy to take them for granted because they’re always there. It’s in their nature--they don’t run away.
It’s such a thankless fucking job.
Over time I’ve learned to be confident. And I’m still scared shitless of what lies ahead, and I still doubt my ability to make it through from time to time, and I’m still unsure and cynical and angry.
But I want to fight. I want to try. I want to make decisions and see them through. I want to face failure and know that I’ll live to fail again and not fucking care. And slowly--so painfully slowly--I’m getting there.

I want you to know (and I say it publicly in the hopes that others will see someone in their own lives that needs acknowledging) that I appreciate you for everything you are. That--whatever else happens, or has happened, whatever disappointments we‘ve shared or faced separately--I’ll always be here for you. Because you deserve no less.
You know who you are.
Thank you.
I love you.