Hello friends, foes, and love interests,
August, much like the Taylor Swift song of the same name, slipped away into a moment in time.
Personally, I have been spending a lot of time ruminating, writing, and rotting in bed at my parents’ house. I hope your August was swell.
Thank you to everyone who reached out to me with their thoughts on Tender Is The Flesh. I continuously joke that no one reads the "literary section" of my newsletter and that I write it for an audience of one (myself), so it means a lot to know people are actually engaging with it.
This month I have the exciting privilege of walking you through my experience at the Neon Ghosthouse music video shoot, as well as reviewing their brand-new single Expectations. I also waffle on about small-town live music, Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and my newest muse.
Clout-Chasing
Picture this: soy as far as you can see. Not like the fields of Saskatchewan, where you can watch your dog run away for three days, but in the familiarity of rolling Ontario farms. If you turn from the soy, you will see a massive backyard stage and an alarming number of men with long hair. Soon the encroaching darkness will fill these fields with fireflies.
This is the set for Neon Ghosthouse's first music video for their single, Expectations. In a desperate bid to kick-start my IMDB profile, I drove an hour to the middle of nowhere to attend.
I saw my first Neon Ghosthouse show on a whim. At the time, they had no music out and I knew none of the members, let alone what type of music they played. All I knew was that they had been featured on bills with some amazing bands. On a warm Sunday in June, my friends and I sat in the back of Live! On Elgin with no expectations, let alone the intention of writing about the show. We left the venue in genuine shock - my obsession was only in its infancy at this point.
Neon Ghosthouse is a full five-piece band whose (at the time) lack of discography had not hindered them in developing a fan base. The band now has thousands of streams and over three hundred monthly listeners on Spotify alone. Describing themselves as “your mom’s favourite boyband,” the alt-rock group leans a bit heavier, being known to play basement punk shows and tearing up the stage at Ottawa’s PunkFest this past May.
For a genre in which so many men can get away with less than impressive vocals, it is entirely refreshing to watch a band play live and be immediately struck with vocal proficiency, let alone the real talent that their lead singer Scott possesses. After seeing the band play for the second time, I was so adamant to tell the already departed Scott how impressed I was with his performance, that I convinced the band’s rhythm guitarist Jack to call him, allowing me to deliver my verdict. I am nothing if not persistent.
Now, back to the shoot:
This was many fans first time seeing drummer Logan on stage with the group, as he has been out east on a brief hiatus, allowing for guest drummer and rat-tail aficionado Naevyne to fill his spot for the past few months.
The set itself was phenomenal. I feel like I say this about every show, but wow did I feel alive. The band upped the ante from using regular beach balls to bounce around the crowd, instead releasing two massive pool floaties to terrorize and delight us. The amount of planning and organization that went into putting the show together was clear. The band even procured a porta potty in an attempt to dissuade some unnecessary bad behaviours. Me and many of the other crowd members were deeply relieved to not have to wade into the bushes after two beers.
The crowd was exhilarated by the freedom of an outdoor show, taking it upon themselves to get rowdy and commit to a few failed stage dives. A far more elegant stage dive was taken by bassist Aiden, who ended up surviving a crowd surf with his bass intact.
After working up a sweat and giving us the encore we practically had to beg for, Neon Ghosthouse packed up and joined their fellow revellers in some additional partying and fireworks. Whether or not the cops ever showed up is still up for debate, but me and my ACAB shirt didn’t see a single flashing light.
Due to the location of the shoot, everyone had to drive in, leaving people to get creative with their sleeping arrangements. I personally decided to opt out of the Tent City that had erected itself in the shade of some nearby maple trees. Instead, I woke up in my car feeling like a rotisserie chicken at 7:23 am. The heat must have baked the sent of the night before into my pores, as I am now writing this in my driveway, smelling like cigarettes I didn't smoke and sweat built up from the night before. I look pretty dashing - if I do say so myself.
The Actual Music Video
Less than a month after writing the previous section, Neon Ghosthouse dropped the music video in question.
The video opens with a film shot of my car, in all her orange glory, parked end to end in a line of vehicles that stretches down the road. You can get a sense of the remoteness of the location with the few shots of the surrounding fields. The band enters seconds later, backed by the setting sun, all five members sprinting down the road in an effort to make it on stage in time.
Night falls and the show begins. Friend of the band Jaz hops on stage to introduce the band as the camera switches to digital. Don’t worry, film shots are interspersed throughout the whole video adding to the chaotic “I am actually at this concert” feel the music video gives off.
Close-ups of all the minute details that go into a show are present in the video. From a straggler running up to join the crowd just before the set starts, to cigarettes stuffed between guitar strings, the music video invites you in to experience a Neon Ghosthouse show in its entirety. Rife with edit-worthy clips for your stan accounts, the video is as fast-paced and high-energy as the band itself.
The song itself feels a lot more secretive than its up-close and personal music video. Expectations talks about the monotony of life and how cyclical things feel. The narrator understands and acknowledges their own problems but is unable to articulate them, whether for lack of words or a fear of voicing certain thoughts out loud. They are aware of the consequences of not making necessary changes, “I gotta make a change, or end up here on my own,” but proceed to tell us they can’t bring themselves to do what they need.
The chorus cuts off mid-sentence, with Scott singing about the search for “Something that could finally . . .”, leaving the listener with the impression the narrator doesn’t know exactly what they want, yet. Before the breakdown, the narrator finishes the last phrase in the chorus with “Something that could finally end this phase.”
Like any good emo song, Expectations is best enjoyed at 11:23 pm, laying on the beach in your hometown, having a main character moment. The line "it's all I've ever known" really hits different here, in both the sense of the location and the loneliness. The title, Expectations, hints at the feeling of apprehension that something about your situation has to change, it will change, and there is no way you can live like this forever. However, the reality of the song is more true to life, showing how a reliance on the same, occasionally comforting, patterns quite often results in identical outcomes.
My Newest Irrational Fear
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is a collection of beautifully constructed essays about ecology, Indigeneity, and connecting with the natural world. The book gained major popularity amongst many young environmentalists in the summer of 2021, with many of my friends carrying around worn copies of their own.
I'll be honest; I was scared of this book. I feared that the pages would be dense, the writing would drag, and the only thing motivating me to finish would be the importance of the book itself. I am ready to admit that this time, I was wrong.
Although the font is small and the pages thin, Braiding Sweetgrass is not a dense book. Kimmerer doesn't use flowery language, although her imagery blooms from the page. She alternates the themes of her storytelling through ecology, history, her personal life, and cultural teachings in such a fluid manner that the reader is often unaware of the shift. Kimmerer highlights her own struggles in ecology, how she too is learning how to integrate her culture, language, and the world of science. She not only explains but demonstrates the difficulty and value of doing so.
My copy has a cracked spine, water-damaged corners, and a few squished bugs slipped between the pages. The book’s state is not to say I was careless with it. With each maiming, I became more and more distraught until I realized that the beaten cover was simply a symptom of reading the book the way it was meant to be read: outside.
Over the past year, I have neglected my environmentalism in favour of my job. I didn’t notice how separate I had become from the Earth until my contract ran out and I was spending most of my days in one room instead of two. Kimmerer does an amazing job highlighting not only how separate one can become from the environment, but how integrated into the Earth’s systems you can be.
On page 208, the concept of “species loneliness” is introduced. The phrase describes the isolation of the human species and the sadness that emerges “from the loss of relationship.” I feel this loss often, sometimes even when I am outside; I may be in the forest, but I am not always a part of it.
Kimmerer spends much of the book breaking down the hierarchy of species, explaining how humans are not separate from nature, but part of it. Much of nature writing describes the natural world as some form of “untouched wild,” when, in reality, humans have been coexisting with and participating in natural cycles for millennia. An ecosystem without humans may be just as unnatural as a skyscraper.
If you have read Braiding Sweetgrass, or if you decide to read it because of this newsletter, send me a DM or leave a comment. I would love to hear what you have to say.
Small Town Music Scenes
In a town smaller than my own, I still managed to scope out the Friday night live music set up. Next to the harbour, a local seven-piece group played to a crowd that was camped out for the night, most having brought blankets and settled in on the steps of the Korean war monument for the evening. The band had people of all ages in it, from someone who must have still been in elementary school, to some old-school rock types, and everyone in between. The crowd wasn’t exactly what I'm used to either, with most being either decades older or younger than I.
I soon moved away from the bandstand but kept well within earshot, so I could use some of the last dregs of wifi I managed to uncover. As I sat outside the marina office, desperately trying to download three more albums for the week of "off the grid" I was about to be subjected to, I felt very at home. Although not my type of music or crowd, the folk-rock elements of the band and the relaxed local atmosphere were very reminiscent of home for me. I have many memories of dinners by the marina listening to a packed band-stand, or showing up to a restaurant to hear a stranger sing covers that all somehow sound the same.
I have waited my whole life to go to punk shows, but there will always be something deeply familiar about cowboy hats and acoustic guitars.
My Muse, Miles Teller
This month two of my poems were published: one in print and one in digital.
The print poem was published in flo, an Ottawa-based magazine. Available in print only, this edition of flo focuses on the topic of change, evolution, and becoming, all of which are summed up in its title Bloom. You can order a copy of the magazine here.
The composition of the magazine is superb, with art and writing from many Ottawa locals. I have been slowly working through my copy and loving every second of it.
My featured poem is (embarrassingly) about moving on from someone who is at a very different stage of life than you are. I like the poem, it meant a lot to me when I wrote it, but I do cringe at the thought of people I know reading it and realizing I felt that way. Vulnerability is hard.
Within Tensions was the second magazine to publish my work, in their Noise issue. As part of a writing exercise, I was going to write about the themes in a movie as I watched it - which is quite the feat for a notorious movie hater such as myself. However, I came up with a piece I was really happy with. You can read it here, under the title Whiplash (starring Miles Teller), after the movie it was inspired by.
In the coming months, I have a couple more music-related poems that were picked up by Syncopation Literary Journal, a poem in a publication I am not yet allowed to reveal the name of, and a not-so-secret mixed media project I have been working on with my dear friend Hannah May. Stay tuned!
Final Thoughts
Because I seem to love being sentimental - a trait almost unheard of in poets - I am going to treat myself and end on a sappy note. I started writing this newsletter on an absolute whim, mostly because I couldn’t find anywhere else to write about local music. Since then, I have gotten the chance to meet so many cool people, attend some amazing shows, and write about unforgettable nights in the crowd. I appreciate the community and the love I receive every time I post. Whether it be from a musician I featured, someone who just bought the book I mentioned, or a friend reaching out saying how nice it is to catch up with me through this newsletter, I am floored by the response every time.
I’d also like to take this opportunity to point you towards some other local artists, while I have your attention. This month at the Ottawa Art Gallery you can visit their Queer youth art showcase, Power in Pride, which features the art of my two very talented friends Gen and Hannah (@genevieveelizabethh and @sadfaceheart). Although personally unable to attend, I implore you to visit the showcase in the OAG Skylounge before it closes on September 19th, 2022.
With all the raddest vibes,
E.