Nostalgia

Tinker Toy

Tinker Toy – A Playlist Of Love

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I have a playlist called Tinker Toy; do you remember those?

You could build so much from the hub-and-spoke simplicity of the pieces. You had to be careful though because if you tried to build something too big without first establishing a strong base, your creation would crumple down on top of itself under its own weight.

I thought of the songs that would go on this playlist as the wooden hubs. These were the strongest parts of the structure and they would be represented by the songs I shared with various partners in various relationships over the years.

The spindly wooden pieces connecting the hubs would represent the passage of time and how some hubs were well supported because they had a lot of spindly bits underneath them and other hubs would be hanging way out there, sticking out from the main structure at odd angles, without the benefit that time and experience can give all relationships.

Maybe I put too much thought into a playlist title. Maybe this is all a stretch. But it means something to me and having just celebrated Valentine’s Day with my forever Valentine last night, I wanted to take a stroll down memory lane a bit and, if nothing else, these wooden sticks and wheels can provide the structure for this post. 🙂

Bif Naked – Lucky

I’ve written about this song before when we were doing the CanRock Advent calendar and it takes me back to my first date with a girl I dated for a short while in University.

Shooting pool, eating nachos, flirting hard and this song comes on and we both just kind of sit there and look at each other, knowing that the friendship we had been forming was taking a huge step that night.

We kissed before we got back to the car and this song would be played regularly throughout our relationship. It’s just sexy. And seeing Bif Naked at Call The Office in London perform it live just made it that much more special to us.

Even though we only dated for a few months, that relationship and this song are one of the base pieces of the whole tinker toy tower. I learned a lot from that relationship and as much as it hurt when it ended, it made me a better person for it.

 

Coldplay – The Scientist

Don’t worry, we aren’t getting melodramatic and emo about every song on this list. I’m also not going to detail every one of the 26 songs.

This one is simply fun because it came on one day and I proceeded to just keep living my life and move backwards during the entire song.

It’s become one of those running couple jokes with my Forever Valentine that only the people in the couple think is charming.

 

Death Cab For Cutie – I Will Follow You Into The Dark

This one holds a lot of sentimental value and was on a number of playlists and mix tapes shared by my first wife and I. Not only a very pretty song but we truly believed we’d be together until the very end.

We also traveled to both Bangkok and Calgary together, so that particular lyric was always one that made the song a little special for us.

 

Grandaddy – Jed’s Other Poem

Another early oughts soundtrack staple for me. The lyrics have nothing to do at all with any relationship and my significant other at the time didn’t even particularly like the song very much, but if you are looking for a song to be in your headphones as you walk around a neighbourhood contemplating love and life during trying times, man this is the song for you.

Killer video as well. Such a simple idea executed very well.

 

Billy Bragg – The Fourteenth Of February

The irony of this being our song, is that the song is about a man who wished he had something to help him remember the moment he met his lover while my first wife and I had an actual photograph from pretty close to the moment we met.

At a house party I met her and fell for her instantly. The problem was she was dating someone else at the time.

I drunkenly confessed to a friend how I felt and how I vowed to date her one day and she grabbed my camera and said we are getting a picture of tonight. There we are in the picture, together, on either side of the guy she was dating, roughly two hours after meeting each other for the first time.

It is bittersweet indeed to hear the song now, but life moves on and I am happier than I have ever been with my Forever Valentine.

Some chapters need to be written so that you can understand the characters better later on in the story.

It’s a beautiful song and I can speak from experience that it makes an amazing song choice for a first dance at a wedding. The lyrics and pace are perfect and chances are many of your guests will be hearing it for the first time and will be charmed by it.

Just don’t let the fact that the first marriage didn’t last spoil it for you. 🙂

Empire State Of Mind

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The soundtrack to Empire Records lived in my five-disc CD changer for five years in the second half of the 1990’s. It never left, never got changed out, was always in rotation.

I’m in an empire state of mind today, meaning, to me, that I’m living in the past and not in the now.

This is only a bad thing if I have successive days like this because there is so much in the now and present that needs my attention.

But every few months I think it’s totally fine to go back to 1995 in my mind and just stay there for a little while.

I can’t wait for Rex Manning Day. I think I’m going to have watch this again for the umpteenth time this weekend.

 

 

Advent Calendar of 90s CanRock – Day 26 to 30

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Finally we reach the end – thirty days, no artist repeats, celebrating the best of Canadian rock in the 90s.

Let’s close out 2021 now, shall we?

Day 26 – Sarah McLachlan – Ice Cream

She was one of many acts to perform in the night. It was a CFNY event and I can’t remember the name or the venue for the life of me, but she was backlit with blue lights as she sat on a stool, centre stage, with her guitar.

“Sarah McLachlan,” I told a friend of mine who I knew was also into music.

“Who?” he replied?

Hard to remember a time when she was relatively unknown and up and coming, but I developed a huge crush on her after that first performance I saw. Bought the album the next day.

Chose this song in particular because if there is any day on the calendar that embodies ice cream more than Boxing Day, I don’t think I know it.

 

Day 27 – Bass is Base – Funkmobile

No particular memory associated with this song, only that it was hella played on MuchMusic back in the day.

The chorus is still catchy AF.

 

Day 28 – Big Wreck – Blown Wide Open

Sunny days walking around the University Campus, this song seeming to echo from every building. It’s one of those songs with a very specific timestamp in my mind.

 

Day 29 – Alanis Morissette – You Learn

I was ne of the last to get on the Alanis train, I freely admit it. This album represented such a 180 from her pop career that I had a hard time believing she was legit. The songs are great and I admit this album bangs, but at the time I could not see past my belief that she was just trying to cash in on a popular sound. I don’t think I truly appreciated her until she appeared as God in Dogma, that was when I was, like, okay, she might be cool.

One of the biggest and most popular names I posted about this month, but undoubtedly a huge influence across all rock, not just CanRock, in the 90s and very worthy of a spot.

 

Day 30

Here we are, and so many bands left to choose from… Leonard Cohen, Cowboy Junkies, Crash Test Dummies, The Odds, See Spot Run, The Inbreds, Wild Strawberries, By Divine Right, Philosopher Kings, Rheostatics, Barstool Prophets (my favourite band name ever)… hell, I could even post one of the four songs I like from the Hip…

So, who is it going to be?

I saved one of my favourite music memories for the end.

Spirit Of The West – Home For A Rest

While not my favourite song from the band (that would be “Political”, released in ’88, so not applicable for this calendar), there is no denying the impact this song has had and how many Canadians identify with it. I’ve been in Memphis, Thailand, Japan, South Africa and Australia and when this song comes on, Canadians hit the dance floor.

But my favourite memory is this one: I’m 18 and standing outside in line to get into the bar My Apartment on Thursday night. No fake ID and this was before every bar ID’d everyone, so I was trying to get in based on my looks and attitude alone, something I had recently “perfected” at the beer store.

I’d never been into a bar before that was not for an all ages concert.

The bouncer doesn’t even give me a second look and we enter. The door swings open and the first thing I see is a bar and people are dancing on top of it, to this song.

Everyone is happy, people are dancing everywhere, swinging each other around by crooked elbows, beer is spilling and there is laughing, dancing and singing everywhere. My emotion in the moment is perfectly encapsulated in the scene where Bart realizes he is going to be working at a Burlesque House.

Taking it all in, I remember thinking to myself, “So, this is what bars are like.”

And yes, at their very best, it is.

Advent Calendar of 90s CanRock – Day 21 to 25

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It’s the new year and celebrating a different 90s CanRock song every day is SO 2021, but I haven’t finished the recaps yet so still a couple more posts to come.

What I love though is that the exercise inspired me to choose a song of the day every day to reflect on – 21 days to create a habit and that sort of thing. You can catch the songs of the day on my Twitter feed.

Now, let’s get to finishing last year’s project.

Day 21 – Bif Naked – Lucky

Call The Office, sometime around 1998, my then girlfriend and I saw Bif Naked play this song. It was already sort of our song when it played at the pool hall we went to for our first date and we had our first kiss.

This brings me back to all the good times we had in our short relationship.

 

Day 22 – Blue Rodeo – Lost Together

An absolute campfire classic and one that is in heavy rotation for me when the guitar sees any daylight. One of the best CanRock songs of the 90s.

 

Day 23 – Tristan Psionic – 25 Cents

I’m in a bar in downtown Toronto. I can’t remember which one, but we had to go downstairs to get here. There are a bunch of bands performing and one of them is Tristan Psionic. I honestly can’t remember if they played this song that night, but hearing it again after so long brought me right back, so at the very least it captures the mood and vibe of what was an awesome night out, being underage, in places you shouldn’t be.

 

Day 24 – Barenaked Ladies – God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (with Sarah McLachlan)

This was a natural choice for Christmas Eve and I still remember sitting there, on the floor of the Horseshoe Tavern, for CFNY’s Acoustic Christmas where they performed this. I still can’t believe they got us all to sit on the floor. I can still feel the sticky on my hands, but it was such a great series of performers and such an intimate feeling… one of the best live shows I saw in the 90s.

 

Day 25 – Rymes With Orange – She Forgot To Laugh

Absolutely no date significance when I posted this on Boxing Day, I simply forgot this song existed as it never made the transition to digital for me and so has not been on any playlists, until now.

It embodies the whole spirit of both the hashtag challenge and this blog, rediscovering the music that has kept the beat to my life.

 

 

Day 26 to 30 will be posted later this week and we close out this chapter of the blog and move onto the sounds of the past and of 2022.

Advent Calendar of 90s CanRock – Day 16 to 20

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The world changed again, almost overnight, during this stretch, but we’ve made it through the holidays and still taking a stroll down nostalgia lane and the music that made me back in the 90s.

Day 16 – The Lowest Of The Low – The Taming Of Carolyn

30 years this album has been around, and I am happy that we caught one of the Low shows this month at Lee’s Palace before everything went to heck again. Wednesday the 15th… cases were creeping up but the show was still on, and it was their most socially distant show they had planned. Seats filled the main floor at Lee’s and we got there early enough to catch a table on the side – as distant as we could be in the environment and my first live show since the pandemic began.

Still processing the night out and the week since… it was an amazing evening and fantastic show where they played the album start to finish, my first time seeing them do so. Then things just… turned so quickly… we were 24 hours outside of not even considering going out to a show again.

I’m glad our crew have all tested negative and we weren’t exposed that night, despite later hearing about people who were at the show having tested positive. I’m honestly just sick of covid pressing muting everything that is supposed to be good. It’s the constant asterisk on everything, with the footnote providing context to every moment, signaling that we are still amidst this global health crisis.

I’m just writing what I’m feeling right now but maybe it’s best to just focus on the music.

The music that night was incredible. My favourite song on this album has always been The Taming Of Carolyn and the band did not disappoint.

 

Day 17 – Sandbox – Curious

This was a huge hit and the tune still bangs. I also think the video still holds up.

No specific memories attached to this song; it just seemed to be a constant in the background and definitely belongs on the 90s CanRock life soundtrack.

 

Day 18 – Tegan & Sara – Just Me

Listening to this song again after so much time brings me right back to the Embassy in London where we saw them play. Trish was on my right, Liza on my left and some dude with a light brown leather jacket standing in front of me. I remember the smell of the jacket and of cigarette smoke, because you could smoke at shows back then and I remember the whole crowd just sitting in silent awe as these two performed this song perfectly imperfect.

 

Day 19 – The Super Friendz – 10 lbs

There’s just something about that 90’s Halifax sound. I hadn’t heard this song in years and rediscovered it this month while letting Siri just run with her algorithm during a long car ride. I love the stripped down feel, the clear as hell vocals… this sits right in the middle between Sloan and Hardship Post and is so 90s CanRock it should be on the soundtrack to any movie made that takes place during that time. It automatically creates a sense of place and time that needs no visuals to support it.

 

Day 20 – Scratching Post – BloodFlame

It’s been at least 15 years since I’ve heard this song and still sung along to every word the first time I listened to it this month. Saw Scratching Post a number of times during my University days. The age that came after the need for “all ages” was filled with awesome local live music, great friends and nights you wished would never end.

 

Lower count on the memories with the post today. Like I said, still trying to process the last week. I didn’t want to get too far behind on the list though and besides, it’s always a great distraction to keep adding to that great mixtape that is soundtrack to your life.