I am so out of touch with current music. I am never more aware of this than when I am at work or when I watch The Voice. At work, my cubicle mate is a real singer. I’m a hobby, shower singer. So we sing a lot. Or silent disco (we sync our playlists and put on our wireless headphones and give’r). Whenever we pick music I ask that it be at least 10 years old or else I won’t know it. Legit. When I am watching The Voice I realize I haven’t listened to new music in years. But when I hear these amazing up and coming singers sing them, I am glad I don’t know the songs. Am I old and turning the corner into curmudgeon? Yes. I just listened to my first Demi Lovato, Ed Sheeran and Jessie J song and they were an epic level of shit. Am I deluded and old and don’t understand the next generation? Quite possibly. I listened to Drake the other day for maybe the third time in my life and I wanted to abort my eardrums before they had ever been birthed into actual eardrums. Like wtf is that garbage? It’s gross, shite song writing with shite beats – no? Someone tell me I am crazy. Also, while watching The Voice, they called Taylor Swift one of the greater songwriters of our time. Is this my time? Because I am going to not associate myself with this “time” if this is the case. The maybe 2-3 songs I have heard from Taylor Swift are repetitive and shallow. If Taylor is the voice of the next generation I am saddened by this. Maybe I am still and forever will be a rocker at heart and pop still is foreign to me. Who knows. But more often than not, I am ether listening things that could be played on Chez 106. I understand I am nostalgic and secretly 100 years old, but man, new music to me is totally cringe worthy. Legit don’t get me started on Kanye. 

I was reminiscing with my friend I was known since grade 3. She is super into figure skating and in grade 4, we all were. I was trying to name off the figure skaters we use to pretend to be during recess. Remember us reenacting Isabelle and Lloyd Eisler, Michelle Kwan or Monica Lewinsky? My friend stopped me and asked if I mean Tara Lipinski. Yep that’s the one. Unless Monica did a dance singles in a stained blue dress about the dramatic events? Yes. I probably meant Tara Lipinksi. 

I love that onesies or rompers are a style trend right now. (Like I think, wtf do I know about fashion). But let me tell you something. Anyone with hips, a tummy or an ass have a hard time wearing those rompers and I for one am amply blessed in all three of those categories. I have tried so many on and they are never, ever ok to ever be worn in public. They fall in all the wrong places, hug all the places that I am trying to hide and do not adorably drape over any part of my body. So I adore that they are in fashion, but I unfortunately cannot comfortably participate. 

Back to music – I went to a Moist concert last week. Yes Moist! The word that everyone hates! Moist was most definitely my favourite band growing up. So much so (and I know I have written about this story before) but when the internet was just being invented (yup, that old) my screen name was Moistgal. To pay homage to my band and love of my life at the time, lead man, David Usher. How sweetly naive to think that this couldn’t possibly be misconstrued! Obviously it means I am a gothy, alt rocker, full of angst, wearing too much eyeliner and mod robes. Not a porn star. At one point my Aunt was so offended by my screen name that she spoke to my Mom about it. Which was hilarious because her screen name was Herb lady, which to me sounded like a full on drug dealer. Anyhoo, so my friend Rob and I went to see Moist at my least favourite place in all of Ottawa, The Bronson Centre. How sad are we as a city when all the best acts, in my opinion, get banned to a glorified school gymnasium!? The last band I saw there, I was horrified at how terrible the sound was that I think I left early. The same thing happened to the opening band at this concert. Everything was all wrong. The guitar was too loud, the vocals were too low, there was feedback yada yada. Last concert I vowed never to return to this hall of musical sadness. But when a string of 90s bands all announced concerts here, I knew I had to suck it up. When Rob and I got to the show, we were told not to use the main entrance as that was for the meetings and they ushered us into a side doors that went right onto stairs of death that were covered in water and slush. Also what meetings were so important that they trumped the several hundred people going to a concert? At the bottom of death stairs we entered a smaller high school gymnasium with a massive line, coat check and a make shift bar. I looked around and was really taken aback by the crowd. I have seen Moist probably 6-7 times and usually the crowd looks like, you know, people like me. But this crowd was very different. A very different vibe. I was trying to put my finger on it and then someone did a shout out for HAWKESBURY and half the crowd cheered and I was like ohhhhh well this makes sense. Apparently this concert doubled as all of Hawkesbury’s night out. In lovingly typical Rob fashion he took our coats to the coat check and returned empty handed. I was unaware of this until 10 minutes later, when I watched him casually walk over to the coat check table and take 2 tickets that had been sitting there the whole time. Yay we will be able to get our jackets back! We grabbed a drink and then went as close to the front as we could. Because when I go to concerts I am a flailing, dancing, crazy person that likes to be right in the thick of things. When the band got on stage and I started my interpretive dance entitled, “moves I could do when I was 19 but will now result in pain and an emergency massage appointment and an ice pack.” Partially into the show I got a whiff of the most hideous, digestion crisis gas I have ever smelled. I immediately had the urge to tell the person in front of me he may not be able to digest cruciferous vegetables because all I could smell was a field of rotten broccoli that had anally exited a body. I looked at Rob who was casually dry heaving while he also bopped to the music. The dancing must have loosened something up in the person in front of me because once about every song we were sprayed with the most foul, evil scent I have possibly ever encountered. I told Rob after the show that it was a lot for me to take in. Me, gazing lovingly at the man who had been my first love, the music that defined my youth and brought me to a place of nostalgic bliss, all while chewing on someone else’s farts. It was an overload for my senses. We did power through and I was thankful that for once I was not the one with the worst digestive tract in the room. Little victories!