Tuesday, August 25th/09, The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto ONT

Modern rock is a term commonly used to describe a rock music format found on North American commercial radio. Generally beginning with late 70’s punk but referring especially to rock music since the 80’s, the phrase “modern rock” is used to differentiate the music from “classic rock,” which focuses on music recorded in the 1960’s through the early 80’s. More specifically, the modern rock format consists of commercial radio stations that primarily play alternative rock. As such, the format is also frequently called “alternative radio.” Such a thing has become more familiar to me in the last year, listening to a vast collection of new bands and artists that dominate the air, attempting to figure out “the formula,” but mostly approaching slowly with Acres of Lions, the modern rock radio. We had the pleasure of playing and sharing a stage with a group from Toronto that called themselves “Crash Karma,” and also, made up of members from some of the 90’s greatest super-modern-rock-bands, so much respect, including Mike Turner, former lead-guitarist of Our Lady Peace, Jeff Burrows, former drummer of The Tea Party, and most important of all, Edwin Ghazal, solo artist, extremist and former lead singer of I Mother Earth. I should have known all along he was involved with the band, the name pretty much gave it away. Amazing.

We were nerds for pretty much the whole afternoon, having LAN parties and such, updating websites, drinking coffee, changing strings, hanging out with Jeff “dope as fuck” Ojeda, who then blessed me with his new professional knowledge of the guitar, I was happy about it, learned some new tricks that I hope made me dope as fuck, too. We hit the streets shortly after, got stuck in traffic (welcome to Toronto) and barely made it to Long and McQuade. We loaded in to The Horseshoe Tavern and got pumped for the evening,”New Music Night,” which is every Tuesday’s featured event and is always a good time, always filled with people, often looking to find cool new bands and artists in all the wrong places. We opened, got on stage at 9:15pm, not the best slot, but we thought we did pretty well, and we got to open for Crash Karma, who played directly after us, and if I may mention, an awesome cover(?) of I Mother Earth’s “One More Astronaut,” pretty incredible. We played with lots of energy, a few of our friends and family members there, along with a big crowd who sat and pulled the classic “wait for the opening band to finish and then crowd the stage for the band they’re actually here to see” move. It’s not a problem, I am aware of this always and I just hope people enjoyed their time as much as I did. I love The Horseshoe, it’s always a great place to be and have some beverages, meet people. We hung out for the rest of the night and took in the following and downright awesome acts, drank a few stock ales, explored the downtown area yet again, had a blast.

The night ended with us, again, getting really bad food and going back to my sister’s house, with Jeff. We had a discussion about Toronto, weighing the pros and cons of one day living in the city and being a band, and really, came up with more pros than cons. Sure, it’s expensive and humid and the weather’s not all that appealing, ridiculously enforced to be aesthetically pleasing, always a traffic jam, smog-filled and vast. But, there’s always something happening here, always great shows and you can play more often than not and stay fresh, you could tour for 2 weeks and gain popularity and not have to drive across the country, has a wicked public transit system, bike-lanes are plentiful and safe, recycling is enforced to the maximum degree, and in the words of Dan Ball, “Toronto’s just a good time man! It’s the promise land!” I would tend to agree if he hadn’t already said that about Calgary, and meant it. Silly boy.