Day 2
Ontario is a liminal space.
It is the second day of our tour across eastern Canada.
First off, I have never in my life been able to shake this feeling of anxiety and dread that comes up every single time I release music. I get so caught up in how it’s perceived. Is it getting enough spins? I think so? Is it targeting the right audience verticals to increase our exposure? I have no idea. Does it have a dick on the album art? Yes, this I can be sure of.
I think it’s been said already but Instagram really fucked me and pretty much everyone else in our generation up and now we all hunger for the number. I can’t even enjoy the music for the first day or two of release because I’m just praying we get the good digits. Whatever that means.
Anyway, in my traditional fashion, it’s been about two days since that anxiety spike, and last night we really got back into the swing of things. (see image above)
Yesterday, we walked the streets that Elon Musk once walked. I wondered if the richest man in the world had ever listened to CFRC, the college radio station at Queens, where we filmed a live session in the late afternoon (shoutout Rue). Later in the evening, as I scoured the streets of downtown Kingston for anywhere, any place at all that would sell me cigarettes, I wondered if Elon had ever done something as human as go to a bar and watch a band play. Would he have become the man he is today if he had spent more time at the Toucan? I don’t know, probably. It’s one thing to go to a place and do a thing, and it’s another thing entirely to have that thing affect you.
Maybe, though, if he had an IPA.
Maybe something about the overpowering hoppiness, the you need to like it to like it flavour that, to me, for some reason, very often tastes like dish soap, would have triggered a spiritual experience in him as he caught an early Sloan set at the Toucan.
Maybe he would drop his major and start his own microbrewery. And PayPal would have never been invented. And the state of e-commerce would be forever changed, and maybe we wouldn’t be able to buy 100 CD jewel cases with same-day delivery as a joke, but it would be a worthwhile trade because the richest person in the world would be some other guy who was slightly less problematic.
And also maybe the beer he made was decent too, and we drank it often without knowing that in another life, the person who made it was an evil billionaire.
It’s funny to think about alternate realities like that. It’s also exhausting and redundant. Maybe in another life, I’m the president. Yeah, so what?
The Toucan is a bar in Kingston. Outside, we encountered a man in a sailor’s hat who had been banned from the bar since 2013. Yet, there he stood, a foot from the door, drinking beer he brought from home.
He pointed at my cigarette, and I offered him his own, but he made it very clear he wanted a drag of mine. He took a smoke anyway, and eventually his equally charming friend came out of the bar and Seb and I used a lull in their conversation about being “instigators” to get the fuck back inside.
The show was great, great crowd in a great bar that really seemed interested in the music. In so far as they were up and dancing and singing along. But, in a move that I’ve never experienced before, at least not from a seemingly active audience, almost nobody would clap after a song.
People sang our lyrics. A guy with a glass of red wine who the band after us referred to as “wine guy” was front and center, swaying to our relaxingly angular sound, unfazed by the potentially disastrous stain situation he was imposing on those around him, of whom their were a decent amount, and they were excited too, they looked like they were fucking into it. But as the songs would come to an end, and the movement of the crowd would regress to a tableau of twigs in windless winter snow, the room would fall silent. A smattering of palm on palm and a whimper of a “woo” would cut through the otherwise softened air.
I have a few theories for why this was but the easiest thing to do is chalk it up to we need to rock even fucking harder. So I think that’s what we’ll do.
All in all, great show.
As we got into the van this morning to drive to Montreal, Elliott presented us each with a fortune cookie. This was what was in mine.
And I think I’ll leave you with that! Talk to you tomorrow <3
Insane that there was no clapping. Not a you problem imo.