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Pique'n'yer Interest

The musical maturation of rejects

I wish I could remember the first time I heard music. Presumably, the first beat I encountered was metered by my mother’s heart, which came at me through a nest of prenatal fluids at, say, 85 beats per minute. My own blood bag was probably thumping at about 130, which must’ve made for some jazzy internal mash-ups.

Unfortunately, this is only speculation. My mom doesn’t know the real facts, probably because she was too into her Abba records to measure life’s more important tempos. Sniff, sniffle, but it’s okay. I love her in spite of her piercing selfishness.

The first time I remember really enjoying music was when I was about 10 years old. I lived in France and was into some children’s garbage called Dorothé. She was this blonde woman who sang about putting her skirts in a suitcase and tying up her shoes. Conceptually challenging though it was, I became a big fan.

When I got back to Canada, something came over me. I think it was puberty. First, I started listening to rap music, stuff like Run DMC and MC Hammer.

That sucked, so I got into the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I was all about Blood Sugar Sex Magik , Mother’s Milk and Freaky Stylie . My sister might’ve had something to do with this, not because she cracked my head open when I was three (beware the perils of the Pushing Game), but because she had Blood Sugar in her collection, right next to Debbie Gibson and other unmentionables.

I used to do this thing when I listened to music. I used to lie in my bed, curl up in a ball, and rock back and forth like a seizing retard. My mom and dad called this “rocking,” as in “What’s that horrible sound?” “Oh, it’s just Paulie. He’s rocking in his bed.”

After a while, the Peppers couldn’t fuel my rocking needs. I was just too fast for them. Enter heavy metal in the form of Metallica, Megadeth, Tool, Faith No More, Nine Inch Nails, Anthrax, and an endless argument with my father about growing my hair long (which I won, but only in Grade 9, when the hairmill thing was on its way out).

In Grade 10, I started playing guitar in a band called The Gravy. Basically, we were a Sonic Youth rip-off. That got me hanging out with a bunch of shoegazing wimps who played in local bands and liked Cracker, the Watchmen and other sniveling entries in the indie department. These friendships almost ruined me. I took my metal cassettes, cracked them open as my sister did my skull (on purpose), and tied the loose tape to my bike handlebars. I then pedaled around the bush with Anthrax’s Belly of The Beast streaming behind me, all that wonderful thrash getting caught on branches and in my spokes.

Oh, towering shame.

For years thereafter, music for the most part failed to excite me. It wasn’t until I was in college, when I discovered Mr. Bungle and Tub Ring, that music became interesting again. My best friend, Oliver Jones, had lost his mind in the metal morass, mining all subgenres, and eventually settling on black metal as his preferred poison. And I do mean poison. In case you’re unfamiliar with black metal, all you really need to know is that it gained notoriety in Norway on a crest of church burnings, cannibalism and murder.

Oliver’s okay now. He renounced his allegiance to corpse paint, but not before tainting my own tastes and exposing me to one of my favourite metal albums of all time: Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s Altered States of America . Clocking in at just over 20 minutes, Altered States has 100 songs on it and is recognized as one of the best digital grindcore albums ever. The beats per minute make your heart palpitate. It’s like being abused by an angry god built of soundwaves.

Enjoying music like this can be socially alienating. Imagine: Everyone’s talking about the new Coldplay, and you turn around and say, “Have you guys heard Pig Destroyer’s ‘Sheet Metal Girl’? It’s off a concept album about murdering your ex.” Guess what? You’re a creepy loser.

But so what? There’s a lot to be said for the marginalized. The fringes are where some of the most interesting, creative and satirical things take shape, if only because its occupants figure no one’s paying close enough attention to litigate them — unless, of course, you burn an ancient church and eat your lead singer’s brain after you discover him dead from a self-inflicted shotgun blast. But, if you doubt the principle, go buy Fantomas’ Suspended Animation and tell me you’ve ever heard anything so simultaneously composed and anarchic. If you need something more accessible, grab The Melvins’ Nude with Boots , out in July.

Of course, I like other types of music, too. I’m right into Tom Waits. I know all the lyrics to Del Shannon’s Little Runaway. And I dig Old Crow Medicine Show. But if you see me driving by, odds are I’ll be screaming Mastodon at the top of my lungs.

At the end of the day, there’s room enough for me to rock alone in my bed. And I’m okay with that.

Really.