Dear friends, foes, and love interests,
Like most students, I had a month of epic highs and lows, including - but not limited to - my Mortal Kombat domination and my PAC MAN embarrassment. I also read a lot of anarchist literature this month, while reading very little of my course readings. Ironically, my least favourite course reading was published by the same niche publisher as my book of the month. I believe that is known as “a damn shame,” in most literature circles.
This month I trekked into Kitchener to see Rachel J Hickey and Housewife after winning a set of free tickets in a high-stakes Instagram contest, got an advanced look at Class of 91’s new EP, grovelled for an editor, and read a fascinating book of essays that I had been procrastinating since summer. I also started up the Fan Behaviour Instagram (find it here) and began uploading my post archive - go check it out!
Hairdresser Gossip
The night before, my roommate and I had a truly flopulous (that’s a word for the Binchtopia girlies) night at The Hub in Kitchener. Nonetheless, we elected to return for one of their live music events, especially as our tickets ended up being free through a contest with the venue.
Having missed the first band altogether, we arrived just as Rachel J Hickey and her band joined the stage. Dressed in a slim scarf and docs, looking like she walked off the set of a cool 2000s high school movie, Rachel rocked the stage for her first song. Taking a break to introduce herself and her band before her second song, she passed a camera through the crowd so we could all take pictures of ourselves. Obviously, some people also took pictures of the stage throughout the show, which was met with sporadic shouts of, “She said pictures of YOU!”
I was immediately thrilled to see Rachel on the bill, as I had been trying to see one of her live shows for about a month before this show fell into my lap. A local Kitchener-Waterloo artist, Rachel has been sharing beautifully painful EPs and singles on Spotify for the past two years.
My favourite song from her set was A Long Time Ago. Standing in the crowd, trying to swallow the pain in my chest it made me feel, I was enraptured. Before playing, Rachel told us that this was one of the few songs not written from her point of view. Instead, it is a story gifted to her by her hairdresser. Rachel recounted how although the song is written about a love found at just sixteen, her hairdresser would leave her current husband in an instant if her past lover walked into her life again.
I am obsessed with this song, but nothing can compare to its live version. This blog post is my public grovelling for Rachel to officially record the live “rock” version.
In terms of her live band, I was impressed and surprised. I knew Rachel as an acoustic artist but I was awed to see her perform with a full band. Before their last song, Rachel explained that it was their drummer’s first time performing with the group. Their guitarist had insane showmanship, while their bassist looked shockingly like Sam Reich, CEO of Dropout. The band turned Rachel’s soulful songs into sounds that could shake even the most hesitant crowd to their core. They were all phenomenal.
The Feminine Urge To Be A Housewife
After Rachel departed the stage, the headlining band began to set up.
Hailing from the only city in Canada, Housewife is a Toronto-based band that made the drive to the village of Waterloo in a single sedan, meaning that they brought limited gear. Tuning took up a lot of the spaces between songs, as the band couldn’t bring more than one guitar each. I love the clown car imagery of these lively performers crammed together, sharing seats with amps and kick drums.
Fun Fact: their lead singer cannot drive.
I discovered Housewife when The Hub advertised the group would be making a visit. I liked the poster, so I pulled up Spotify. Immediately, I began to gather people to attend this show with. Their style of indie rock is self-described as beyond genre definition, but I would personally describe it as summertime montage music. Many of their songs pair upbeat tracks with mean or monstrously sad lyrics, making them the perfect soundtrack to your revenge fantasies.
Performing with high energy to a disappointingly sparse crowd (this is Waterloo, after all, I don’t know what I expected), the band had an incredibly tight set. Full of instrument switching and literal screaming, the band transformed the small venue we had been standing in minutes earlier into a whole new space.
Lead singer and guitarist Brighid Fry reminded me of the talented Carrie Blair of Backseat Dragon. You can critique this comparison all you want and tell me that they both simply have iconic red hair, but their impressive vocal talent and constant stage presence (despite both being tied to a microphone) cannot be denied. During their performance, Brighid could also be seen scrunching their face in Carrie’s characteristic way.
My two favourite parts of the set were as follows:
The man in front of me who shouted “I LOVE EMOS” without realizing I was standing directly behind him
The band playing my favourite song of theirs, Patrick Bateman, a song about shitty men, whose introduction was followed by an audience member declaring that this song - or maybe even the whole venue - was not a safe space for men.
Although engaging, the band’s performance was slightly stunted by the pause between the end of songs and the audience’s thorough applause. Maybe we were all feeling odd about the small venue, or maybe the songs were just built to fade in and out of each other, as opposed to expecting applause.
I would like to formally apologize for being on my phone for most of the breaks between songs, and occasionally during songs. I swear on my Substack that every single time I was looking down I was taking a note about the show - a proclivity which my friends find equally charming and ridiculous.
The show finished with the drummer snapping his sticks over his knee and walking off stage.
West Coast Wrangler Dreaming
In high school, my friends and I used to joke that we lived on the “West Coast” of Ontario, living on Lake Huron. At the time, I drove a silver Jeep Wrangler that technically belonged to my mother, but felt like my first car. Going through a brief - but mandatory - classic rock phase, the last summer we had that car, I would drive around my slice of the “West Coast,” annoying tourists with my rolled-down windows and overpowered stereo. The first time I listened to Lost Stories, the new EP from Ottawa-based band Class of 91, I was driven right back to my summers in the driver’s seat.
It is beautifully ironic that the first song on the EP, Look How Far We’ve Come, evokes that same sense of déjà vu, filling your ears with lyrics detailing the changing and unchanging landscape of the past 30 years. The whole EP, especially its opening track, is a direct commentary on the state of the world over the past two years - and oh boy did the world give them a lot to talk about.
Class of 91 is an alternative rock band from the capital, but more importantly, they are major Fan Behaviour fans. I went through my records and they were actually the twelfth subscribers in April of 2022, back when I was still calling my publication a “newsletter.” When they reached out to me to covertly slide me a pre-release copy of their EP, I immediately pressed play in my living room, only to tell my roommates goodnight so I could go analyze the album immediately. How could I not?
My favourite song on the EP is track 6, Polaris. The song centers around the mysterious protagonist, Polaris. She acts as a guide for the song’s narrator, a manic pixie dream girl of sorts. With a walking bassline and bold drums, I think the song is a quintessential example of the band - the exact song I would pull up if someone were to ask me, “So who are Class of 91?” Political, nostalgic, and romantic, the song encapsulates everything I love about the band.
The final, much gentler, song of the EP is Simple Human Love Song. Stripped back and honest, the song is less of a magnum opus and more of a personal, almost private, love song. It reminds me of the way my creative writing teacher talks about love poems; to be powerful they do not need to be humungous gestures - just true. A stand-out line to characterize the song is, “What words am I looking for, when it’s all been said before?”
You can catch Class of 91 live and in person at House of TARG in Ottawa on December 8th for their EP release party. Buy tickets here!
What Even Is Anarchism?
At an outdoor punk show this summer I picked up a copy of Queering Anarchism from AK Press. I would proceed to start and stop reading the book approximately five different times before finally giving myself the time to read it this month, and even then - I still barely had the time.
The moment I realized this book would be transformative for me was while at a friend’s cottage, my early-morning insomnia soaking the freshly annotated pages. A book of witty and discontented essays such as Gender Sabotage and Lessons from Queertopia, Queering Anarchism is a mix of personal essays and dense theory. Crafted in a way to bring those inexperienced with Queer or Anarchist theory up to speed, the essays touch on a variety of topics integral to both movements and their intersections.
Radical in nature, the book focuses on the dual importance of theory and praxis, guiding the reader to the realization that Anarchy is more about community than it is about toppling the government. The book makes way for a variety of perspectives and authors, creating the type of found family often a staple of the Queer community. Queering Anarchism is only an introduction to different branches of Queer and Anarchist theory, but it is a powerful book in terms of intersectionality.
Mini Gift Guide
Rayne Fisher-Quan said it best when she said, “a good gift is also a compliment, and to gift someone a subscription to a writer’s substack is to say ‘you are a modern yet timeless twenty-first-century woman! you have subversive tastes yet timeless sensibilities!’” You can subscribe to her Substack here.
The best holiday gift is the gift of me, so get your dearest friend (or the one who won’t shut up about how UnDeRgRoUnD their music taste is) a gift subscription to Fan Behaviour.
If anyone is looking for a good gift idea for me, a Rayne Fisher-Quan subscription is always a good one ;)
New Sexy Editor
I think I exaggerated my begging a bit.
A more accurate representation of what happened would be that my friends ceaselessly messaged me about typos they found within my blog posts until I finally caved and asked one of them to edit my posts before they went up, even though I liked to think of my typos as Easter eggs for the most attentive of fans. But I digress.
My dear friend Maggie has stepped up and made edits to both blog posts that are coming out this month. So this section is both a thank you for her work and a notice to my readers that typos are no longer my fault. Please direct all Fan Behaviour technical enquiries to her, as I will pretend I can’t hear you if you bring them up to me.
Fin.
This month was a lot, academically. I did write some of my best work during it though, both inside and outside of the UWaterloo walls.
I’ve been planning for my transition back to Ottawa (coming soon) and the looming transition into exam season, which my profs and their assignment loads seem blissfully unaware of. I’ve also been planning some secret blog stuff that you will have to wait on the edge of your seat for. In addition to that, the stickers I have been teasing will be in your hands and on your guitar cases very soon. I hope you’re excited.
Make sure to check out the Fan Behaviour playlist on Spotify to snag all the songs I mentioned this month, as well as in my previous posts.
In a couple of days, my second November edition will be released to paid subscribers (you can upgrade your subscription here). There, I’ll talk about Excuse Me., OMBIIGIZI, TUNS, the new The New Hires A/B side release, CxViolet, and more. It is NOT to be missed, as The New Hires and I have beef beyond belief, allowing me to be far too honest with my review. You can sign up for a 7-day free trial of paid content as well, to whet your pallet for all the salacious things I have to say.
I can’t wait to see you there.
With all the raddest vibes,
E