SO this is why we dont wake up at noon.

I was finally written up for my lateness at work.

I mean, damn not like I can appeal it, I'm a lazy ADHD motherfucker!

Lesson learned on that front. Over and over and over again.

ANYWAY. Halloween is coming up, and with Halloween comes the stress that follows with cosplay.

WOAH WHAT?!

WHAT?!

JOEY... DO... JOEY U DO THE COSPLAY?!

Yeaaah son!

I got into it full force in the summer for this years Otafest, and then later I did a group cosplay at Animethon, all of this a la the AMAZINGLY TALENTED Dorothy Thicket!


Otafest was an amazing experience for me, opening me up to convention culture in a very fun way. For a while the whole anime thing scared me. Until I was surrounded by people who were so passionate and intense about it, but just so ready to be friendly and whole-heartedly accepting, that it was just... It was a beautiful weekend of feel good feels and rad rad times. And then the dance on the Saturday night brought me back to a very special time of my life. Oh yeah I am talking about Vic Lewis. Back when it happened every year, I really took that festival for granted. (Also I was surrounded by high school kids... sue me for being bitter) But anyway yeah, festival for granted. Why? Because the experience of dancing with no strings attatched is a very rare occurrence when you grow up. You go to a club at age eighteen and you expect good natured fun with glowsticks and kids shuffling and breakdancing in circles and you get thirty year old meatcakes in cowboy hats grinding all up on each other and spilling a 10$ pint of beer on you. So this dance at the end of the night was... literally perfect. It was just that cloudy pipe dream i explained. it was just a bunch of anime nerds, going hard on the paint to some sick trancey hardstyle beats, and just getting INTO it. This is a beautiful memory for me. It was the defning deciding factor from which I base all of my judgement of anime culture on. Super sweet dance parties.

So naturally, after having THAT good of a time, I feel it imperative to make a hobby out of it, right?

And with this hobby comes a HELL OF A LOT OF STRESS.
And yet, it is INCREDIBLY worth it, since im putting all of this stress on my self and just working through it. going absolutely mad on the hobby and coming out with something Daedric Princess Dorothy Thicket will look at and later tell you "I'm proud of you"

You gotta own it, work hard, and enjoy it. Realize that the stress and problems you are having are evidence of a good time to come regardless of how everything works out.

Bands.

this is a subject so just... big thats its almost bigger than I am.

Almost.


Anyway, I guess for a large part of my life (like, from consciousness to now) I've always been insanely into music, but for the longest time the interest was kind of irrelevant and useless until about high school, that was when I started putting social skills and musical skills together to make... i dunno bunch of really creative messes.

"SO in case you guys haven't caught on yet, I am quite a musical person.

and with my... enjoyment and adoration for all things that make a sound, I have a very staccato history of my experiences with music.

There was this one time when I was in fifth grade and I saw a Beatles tribute band with my parents and I cried it was so good

and then there was that one time I was in like, two bands at once and then I spread myself way too thin creatively, didn't agree with the people involved and that plan ended as quickly as it began

which leads us to now. I sort of put music on hold. I returned my guitar to the music store, and I freed up space in my mind to focus on other things... But we all know how that turns out.


So anyway that space I freed up in my brain became occupied by nothing. I just kind of drifted along life being all bummed out and not knowing why. Until it struck me!

I NEED TO GET ANOTHER BAND GOING!

So I drifted along simply existing, until my friend Tizzy got a hold of me and tried to get people together to start some kind of group. but then school started and she had to go play bass for the motherland jazz combo, so I was all on my own. No big deal though, I can play bass just fine on my own (Been playing for over six years now! GO ME!) So we finally just got together in our drummers basement and jammed. We went over some songs we knew (or knew some or most of) and we turned two of them into jams. Our first jam was The Ramones' oh so cult classic "Blitzkrieg Bop" which turned into a game of "Pass the solo around till we feel like ending the song"

Practising with these guys was really fun, and I think we decided to consider ourselves a band today. we use "nine-pound lemon" as kind of a working title.

Last year, I was in two bands. They both functioned quite differently. One of them of course was Gumby's Stubble,which only had 2 permanent members, myself and Coleman. That band did not do so well, considering I was in charge of it, it was very unorgainzed and sounded shitty because it sucked and I had very little time for it.

The other band was a ska band with people in it that I don't think are very fond of me anymore. The practices weren't practices so much as hanging out playing videogames I'm not a fan of, and smacking instruments occasionally. They kicked me out, changed their name, and that was that. I still support them though, they aren't bad guys, and their sound is amazing. I think they have what it takes to go somewhere.

This new band I am in though. It is great, it is very unlike any band I have been in. Everyone is very relaxed and we agree with each other."

I wrote this in late 2012 and didn't publish it, I guess for whatever reason. Oh man, I am seeing so many errors...

But yeah, I was in Gumby's Stubble, Welcome to the Neighborhood, and then after both of those spun out of control (well, for me at least. Neighborhood became Lo fi eventually), i spent grade twelve jamming with my friend Ethan Hamshaw in a band called The Legislative Assembly (previously Nine Pound Lemon). This kid is destined to be the next Gordon Freeman but in real life. The most organized, talented, and technical guitarists ive ever heard, and it also shows in other aspects of his personality as well. Thanks to him, we were a band that went out and played shows. He cared just as much if not moreso than I did, and I REALLY respect that. We eventually all had to part ways with him, he eventually realized he didnt agree with the original members. Which was fine, i mean everyone needs to live their own lives, but man, I REALLY REALLY REAAAALLY admired this guy. He's off doing school stuff now, much too busy to be a musician...

Anyway, I guess the burning urge to become someone musical really set itself up for me in fifth grade, like I said. Those rose tinted fantasies of being a big shot rockstar filled me with such hope and fire, it was more than something to ignore. And All bets were off when I met one Aaron Red Smith in grade seven. These fantasies became goals after talking with him. So I guess thats why this isnt something im planning on giving up any time soon. I was given a mission to get there, and by god I will.

After TLA broke up, and I decided to make a big goof of myself playing a bunch of acoustic shows for free beer, I guess (the absolute greatest free thing of all, in my opinion) at the bars downtown, the remaining members and I picked up a new guitarist and decided to go under the name of Lets Bomb Pluto

So yeah we had only ever realeased one song, only ever played one show (and this was POST New Black, by the way, but thats gonna be another post for another time.) but I guess it was a lot of fun. I mean, personally I enjoyed TLA more but thats just because we actually met up and practiced often, and kept everything very organized, but that isnt to say that LEts Bomb Pluto wasn't a fun band to play in. We just didnt do much I mean yeah we wrote a LOT of music, but recorded almost none of it, performing only a little more than that. And when school rolled around and everybody parted ways, it all felt so useless. Oh well, We'll see what happens with Pluto.

I mean I'm constantly surrounded by music nowadays, what with my job, and i never stop playing even at home.

But as it stands now I'm just all alone practicing and writing and never stopping.

To here knows when, I guess.

I remember when I tried to be hella punk rock

I also remember when I wrote often and didnt like eggs unless they were scrambled, had to pretend to care about how late for school I was, and didn't work at a strip club as a daytime DJ for way more than I think I deserve.

Anyway, Joey and the punk "scene"

I write "scene", because like, I mean sure I really liked the music, and aesthetic attatched to punk rock, and still do, I never really looked for the "scene" in my city. Part of being a suburbanite prisoner, I guess. You kinda get spooked at whats out there. Another thing though, I guess all through my more younger years, in that back half of going to school, I was terrified that I wasn't doing punk right at all. It all came from the lack of approval I got from any of my friends and stuff. A few of my peers humored me, but I was pretty sure we all had no idea what I was going for in the first place, and if anyone who did were to see me, there would be some hell in a handbasket waiting for me. And for something I loved so much, I really REALLY didnt want to be ostracized from it. So I never really sought out for the other punk rockers in my city. I kinda made it up as I went along, I guess. Getting a few ideas from the internet and going on hours of hours of sleepless nights, clicking through albums on youtube, and dancning in my basement violently and passionately, wailing on a borrowed drumset and thinking i could go places with this (I dont know why I'm using the past tense here). I wouldnt settle for just "becoming one of them", no I could be the NEW thing! No one ELSE was doing it right! I was! I was going out of my way to have a spot on grainy high pitched punk voice with JUST enough Jello Biafra influence, I was reading the Communist Manifesto and Scott Pilgrim, researching things like Anarchy and New Mexico and Pat the Bunny I was learning guitar, bass, and drums simultaniously, painting my nice jacket my mommy bought me when I was 15, everything!

I guess what ended up happening was, the fear went away. I kinda learned through all of the crazy that I wasnt being "punk" or anything, what I was trying to do all along was be myself, like literally every other kid my age. Difference was I was just kinda more... idk verbal about it. I tried writing down who I was, the evidence is all under here. I mean, of course Im still trying to figure it all out, but I dont know, I guess its just not that big a deal for me anymore. Lifes become less of an adolescent cry for identity, and more of a collective day to day bulletin board, full of mistakes and how to learn from them.

I remember I loved fall out boy in elementary school. Fall Out Boy, Sum 41, The Offspring, Blink 182, Avenged Sevenfold, all bands I'd resent later in life for literally no solid reason. My entire life was just high pitched acidic stress over my shoulders for the longest time. And a lot of it just kinda came from liking music (no. I didnt like music. I just liked to hate it. I liked to bitch about nothing thinking everyone loved it every time I opened my mouth.) and thinking it affected who I was as a person to a crazy degree. I've kept quiet about this for like, ever, because this lesson kinda has gone without say for all eternity and i just... was so late to the party that Nick was already throwing up in the laundry room sink, but yeah, finding out the concepts of subjectivity and keeping your damn mouth shut sometimes (most times) ...(all the time) fixed damn near everything in my life. My passion can really like, explode like it should, things make sense, I'm not overlooking minutiae thinking its conceptual, I'm finally GETTING SHIT DONE, and I'm getting help where I really need it. The kind of help that makes you better off as a person I'd like to think.

Not to mention, I'm working hard, following my passion, and enjoying every minute of it all. The stress, the excitement, the apprehension, the ups and downs, its all so crazy beyond words, but it is all so so relevant to me and inescapable that I can't not live in the moment. Refusing to let my fear guide me, but instead breaking out that super sweet little Jack Sparrow compass and letting my passion take me on a super crazy adventure through time and beyond.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Punk rock? Right.
I dunno, I feel like I started with it, and took it as far as I could. The it sorta branched out for me, made me see the good in a lot of things, and kinda taught me how to be myself, I guess? I dunno why, but it kinda feels like thats a hard thing to do. Ive kinda picked up on this just through chatting with people, the whole concept of solidarity and being yourself is a whole other case to crack, though. Big subjective subject, that one.

I guess what ive taken away from this is like... Punks a lot bigger than what I ever thought it was. And that's a pretty rad thing. Its more of a spirit than an attitude, or an aesthetic, or a music genre. Dave Grohl once said something along the lines of rock being so incredible because youll sing something to 80'000 people, and theyll all sing it back for 80'000 different reasons. I feel like that embodies the whole idea beautifully.

Just be true to yourself, and you're gonna have a rad time with life.