2:59

I very distinctly remember this period before I left for university when I had my computer holed away on this old steel desk in the corner of an unfinished room in my parent’s basement. I think it was here that I really became immersed in punk / indie music and really committed myself to making my volunteer work on Punknews.org a long-time thing. I remember hearing two songs for the very first time here: Tiger Army’s ‘Incorporeal’ and ‘Johnny Appleseed’ by Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros. Not that either song represents some lofty plateau of musical greatness, but any time I hear either of them I’m instantly taken back to that summer.

I remember heading out to pick up the new Tiger Army CD and, upon not finding it in the Niagara Square record store (not really a surprise), I settled for Strummer’s ‘Global A Go Go’ instead. Now at this point I was firmly a ska/punk teen. I really liked the few songs I had heard from the Mescaleros (the aforementioned ‘Appleseed’ and ‘Tony Adams’) but the whole folk / funk / tribal-African vibe that album had was foreign to me. I remember listening to it for the first time on an extremely hot day driving from that record store out to my girlfriend’s in Welland and then to her family’s cottage on Lake Ontario. I also distinctly remember thinking the title track was brilliant while she thought it was annoying. Oh well. You can’t win `em all.

What prompted this sudden blast of nostalgic pap? The magic algorithm my iPod uses to shuffle songs decided to play ‘Johnny Appleseed’ at an incredibly perfect moment today on my commute home from Waterloo. Now that I think about it, there are a lot of albums that I’ve attached to a certain event or period in my life.

Jimmy Cliff’s ‘The Harder They Come’ is hot summer nights in 2002 when I was doing a semester of difficult math and programming. It’s the sound of unwinding at about 10:30 pm (my benchmark to stop coding or risk ruining the program). The Frenetic’s ‘These mistakes took years of practice’ is the soundtrack of driving up to Guelph in a rainstorm. I could bring you to the parking spot in St. Catharines where I first put ‘Hello Rockview’ into the CD player of my dad’s Blazer. I know the gradual slope we were driving up when Schmid first played ‘Life Won’t Wait’ for Chris and I. Want to know where on St. Paul Street we were when Bad Religion’s “The Answer” first played and my friend asked “is this a religious band?”

This is probably why I can’t remember birthdays.

Spinning:
The Suicide Machines ‘ a match and some gasoline
Hot Hot Heat ‘ Knock Knock Knock
Ted Leo / Pharmacists ‘ Hearts of Oak