Musings of an Existential Introvert

Transcending distance

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:17:43 -0400

Kazoo! Fest—a celebratory showcase of Canadian talent. It boasts unfailingly brilliant artists from all over, including those right here in our own backyard. There are as many styles as there are musicians, ranging from tenderfoot and promising Alanna Gurr to seasoned Canadian staple Bry Webb. But the one thing they have in common? Their true grit Canadian-ness. This is a theme that Edmonton-born singer-songwriter Eamon McGrath explores in his latest record, Young Canadians.

McGrath is no stranger to the Canadian music scene; he dove head first into playing in punk bands in his early teens. Now at the age of 23 he is on the crest of a wave with the release of over a couple dozen records along with several Canadian and European tours under his belt. He’s one of those few artists whose sound cannot be pigeonholed. His sultry, raspy voice leads us from folksier, poetic odes to tunes that hold a more hardened, raw punk vibe.

This scattergun approach also comes through in the way he makes his music. With this latest record, McGrath attempts to liberate himself from the more focused artistic process that went into Peace Maker to concentrate on a more in-the-moment documentation of a particular feeling in time. “Thirteen Songs (of Whiskey and Light) was a cross section of years worth of music. It’s a scattered, schizophrenic record, whereas Peace Maker was supposed to be focused—one sound, one feeling. Young Canadians was an attempt to return to that kind of schizophrenic element; a more diverse and eclectic sound that incorporates more themes all at once.”

And he delivers. McGrath does a stellar job at paralleling the cohesion of a record despite its array of varying sounds with the unity of Canada despite its geographic barriers. Young Canadians acts as a gritty philosophical exploration of what it means to be a part of this country and what role music plays in building our national identity.

What led McGrath to delve into the depths of Canadiana? Touring. In taking to the open road, marvelling in the vast openness of Canada’s terrain, one can’t help but be reminded of our unity amongst the diversity of geography. “We have moments in time that define our past and will continue to define our future. These points in time have managed to bring people from as far away as Vancouver or St. John’s close together. That doesn’t happen in Europe or somewhere where you have an entire country in one time zone. We are the only country that seems to transcends distance, and I think that’s kind of a unique thing.”

This consciousness is what brought McGrath to put pen to paper, fingers to strings, harmonica to mouth, and really dig into concepts of national identity. “Being on the road writing a lot makes you reflect on what it is that makes you Canadian. So I decided to make a record that makes an exploration of Canadian identity and what that meant to me as a young person discovering the country for what continues to be the first time.”

He also uses this record as a sort of call-to-arms for younger Canadian musicians, or those who find themselves in their artistic adolescence, to start their own band and take to touring. “That’s what comes to document us. I have the art that documented the time of my upbringing, and hopefully I’ll document someone else’s, and they’ll have the responsibility as an artist to provide the soundtrack for some other punk kid growing up somewhere.” Just as the Constantines and SNFU served as quintessential artists to his musical upbringing, McGrath hopes to foster an element of Canadian artistry in his successors that reaches to and unites our three coasts.

As for the future of Eamon McGrath, he’s ever-so-fittingly flying by the seat of his pants, taking to the open road before even thinking about releasing his next record. His current western Canada tour in support of the release of Young Canadians is scheduled to finish in Sault St. Marie on May 10, after which he hopes to head east toward Halifax for the first time. His brief stop at Guelph’s Van Gogh’s Ear for a show co-presented by Kazoo! and Fortnight Music this past Saturday was met with the enthusiasm and energetic bad-assery that only Canadian punk can bring. Be sure to keep a look out for this guy; he’s definitely got the potential to be one of our next great Canadian staples.

I feel like I'm cheating on the Keys with this one...but it's oh so good.

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 20:39:00 -0400

I feel like I'm cheating on the Keys with this one...but it's oh so good.

Photo

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:32:35 -0400

ruiterphotography: “Twenty years from now you will be more...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:52:27 -0400

ruiterphotography:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain

housingworksbookstore: Design Crush » Charles Wamke via...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:33:16 -0400

housingworksbookstore:

Design Crush » Charles Wamke via sous-blogger The Hils

JMW Turner. What dreams are made of.

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:55:00 -0400

Dido Building Carthage

Rain, Steam, and Speed

Snow Storm

The Fighting Temeraire

JMW Turner. What dreams are made of.

My sweet introduction to the world of art

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 16:29:00 -0400

My sweet introduction to the world of art

Liberation through ownership.

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 15:41:12 -0400

You’re a product of choices.

Your life is not predetermined by some governing force that plays you like a pawn in the world’s largest game of chess. It is in your very nature to choose how to respond to the things around you at every moment, whether in a way that engulfs you into a world of despair, or in a way that breeds new opportunities and opens your mind.

Without embracing this—without ownership of behaviour—you allow the negative events of the world to swell with undeserved clout. Without ownership you subscribe to a passive approach to living, one deeply rooted in fear and self pity.

If you want to experience the fruits of liberating yourself, take responsibility for your actions. With every moment that demands your reaction, you are drudging a path that is exclusively—and ever so beautifully—yours. You have an untouchable gift that allows you to create, recreate, even deviate, if that’s your will. To build an identity for which you may hold your head high simply because YOU. CHOSE. IT.

If that’s not the most powerful thing in existence, I don’t know what is.

Limbo

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 07:05:00 -0400

Limbo. The most frustrating, ego-squashing, confusing place to be.

It causes you to question your entire existence. To replay the events of your past as though in search of some fork in the road of which you took the wrong tine; in search of a defining moment that led you to this place of utter contempt.

It acts as a leech, suctioning itself to your mind and squeezing to the forefront all of the uncertainties, fears, and misguided assumptions you’ve ever had. It’s relentless. Unbearably strong. It yanks the stability from beneath you with the vigour of malicious satire, just to see how long you can remain standing on your own. It never is long, though, is it? Limbo knows that.

And then, as if you weren’t already shred to mere naked strips of yourself, it tortures you further by casting your future with the darkest and most dense shadows. The smallest glimpse of a viable path for you, a source from which you can derive hope, is ever so cruelly masked, hidden by the molasses-like arms of its dark silhouette.

And limbo just laughs. The razor edges of its teeth glistening in its salivating mouth, all too eager to stake its claim as voyeur to your untimely demise.

Reconnect

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 21:33:00 -0500

The disconnect. The very thing that sucks the soul from within and leaves you without will—a pawn. It is the ruin of imagination, creativity, forward thinking, open mindedness.

The only salvation lies in the reconnect, of both self and mind. In breathing new life into your lungs. Being reminded of what it is to feel real, full of purpose and ability. It is here where opportunities reveal themselves. Where you remember what beauty is, happiness, love, passion, and all the other things that were once buried.

The reconnect is essential for the survival of the active mind. But, of course, it would mean nothing without its antithesis, the very thing that makes the reward of the reconnect so sweet.

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:37:57 -0500

“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”

- George Orwell

I wonder...

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 21:16:00 -0500

I sympathize with absurdism and yet I cannot seize to inquire about meaning.

My mind swims with questions that cannot be answered, ideas that cannot find solidity.

As of late I have spent more time questioning societal constructions than anything else. The things we blindly accept as natural when there is really nothing natural about them.

I’ve often considered what it would mean to escape such things. Is it even possible? Is there any way to live outside of one’s culture—consumerism, materialism, bureaucracy, politics? Won’t these things always exist, even if at a base level? I often concern myself with the loss of identity and individuality that consequently stems from being an active participant in this world.

Will these sorts of societal pressures ever be eradicated? Can these systems ever be undone? Can humanity progress if we unlearn these things? Or are they building blocks to everything that we have and without them we have nothing?

If humanity could start all over from the very beginning, would we continue along the same path, make the same choices? The same poor decisions?

I wonder if in this structure of competitiveness and self-satisfaction we could live comfortably without harming each other? Rid ourselves of rich and poor, aristocrats and proletariats. Can we exist peacefully together in this form? If so, would it last?

Photo

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:07:23 -0500

If my soul were meant to be anywhere, it would be here.

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:36:00 -0500

If my soul were meant to be anywhere, it would be here.

Beirut performing in the streets of Paris

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:20:49 -0500

Beirut performing in the streets of Paris

"In a word, man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering..."

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:11:21 -0500

“In a word, man must create his own essence: it is in throwing himself into the world, suffering there, struggling there, that he gradually defines himself.”

- Jean-Paul Sartre, A propos de l’existentialisme: Mise au Point (Action, 29 December 1944)

There are certain events...

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:58:00 -0500

It’s 5am somewhere in Northern Quebec. I’m sitting cross-legged on the cold, wet ground. Heavy drops of rain bounce off the brim of my hat. I’ve been instructed to keep my eyes on the ground, so I dare not remove my gaze from a glistening pebble sitting inches before me. I know there are others around me, all in their own secluded spots, but I can hear nothing but the drumming of the rain. As we wait, I try to reflect on the last five weeks of training: how to build a shelter out of sticks and pine boughs; how to set up a snare trap; which berries and leaves to eat and which to avoid. I’ve done all of this—albeit in a group—but still, I’ve done all of this. This is what I remind myself for reassurance. I am as prepared as I will ever be for my solo—the final test of the Royal Canadian Air Cadet League Survival Instructor Course. But the reality is the fear of being in seclusion for five days with nothing but three matches, a dull pocket knife, and the clothes on my back (now sopping wet) is palpable.

My thoughts are interrupted (and I revel in the sweet relief). I stand and am guided to the truck that transports me to the site with which I will become all too familiar. A white pillowcase is promptly, but gingerly, draped over my head. I question the purpose of this. Is it to shield us from the location of our test sites—the lonely stretch of forest that would be our temporary homes—or to add another perverse element of the unknown to our testing? I conclude that it’s both.

Eventually we arrive. The instructors take care to direct us out of the truck and into a line with our hands on the shoulders of the person in front of us. We begin to walk. We are led into what seems to be a maze of aimless direction—to add further disorientation, no doubt. As we move, I hear footsteps trudging off in opposite directions. Then the comforting hands that had been resting on my shoulders slide away. We are being picked off, one by one, and brought to our individual sites. A few more paces and a new, sturdier hand finds my shoulder and leads me away from the line.

I’m brought to the foot of my site and the pillowcase is lifted from my head. I let out a gentle sigh, which, in my heightened sensory state, surprises me. I scan my surroundings wildly. A small clearing enclosed with towering pine trees. I find no berry bush or other more obvious means of sustenance. Whatever sticks lay on the ground are soaked from the rain that has recently fallen. I eye the perimeter for signs of someone nearby—possibly another site—but to no avail. This is it. It’s the trees and me for the next five days.

The first thought that comes to mind: shelter. If the rain is to come back (and I will find that it does) I can’t risk getting soaked again. I scour the site for the largest three logs I can find that will serve as the foundation of my A-frame shelter. Next are sticks and as many pine boughs as the frame will withstand. As my hands work, my mind settles. These familiar tasks bring me organization and purpose—welcomed comforts to a fearful mind.

I continue on with building the trenches, latrine, and rabbit snare. The thought enters my mind to get a fire going before sunset, but it all seems quite futile as I’m surrounded by logs that have sustained hours of rainfall. But then I think this may be my only chance before the skies pour open again. I still haven’t dried out from the morning and the fingertips of Mother Nature’s cold hands are creeping up my spine.

It takes two of my three matches and the short-lived, but much appreciated, flaming of pine boughs to dry out a log long enough to hold the fire. I am careful not to blink for fear that such a momentary lapse where I am not tending to the newborn flames will render my labour fruitless. I have never given anything so much attention. Without heat or light or, more importantly, a means to divert my mind from ruinous wanderings, I feel as though I won’t make it but one night.

But I do. And the rest of the three nights. I focus on feeding the fire, on collecting edible leaves. A short stray from my site on Day Three puts me face-to-face with a small field of blueberries, which, in my progressively ravenous state, seems like a luscious feast.

As the days pass, the effects of my situation begin to wear on me. I spend endless hours huddled in my shelter, shivering. Exhausted. Although I have no watch, I can almost feel the passing of time inch slower and slower. All I can think about is how haunting the accuracy of this simulation is. Somewhere in my mind I’m convinced that I’ve been abandoned, ill equipped, in the middle of nowhere with no end in sight.

My energy levels are so low that I cannot bring myself to take on another task. I begin singing. It’s the one thing that soothes me while I wait. No one can hear me, of course, so I sing all the louder. Just one more night, I tell myself.

As the culmination of my test draws near, as I lay curled up in my shelter, I reflect. There are certain events in life that change you. They attempt to extract your soul, scrub away the stains of life, and return it to you anew. They demand introspection. They give you humbled perspective.

But, most importantly, they forever serve as reminders of what you have done. And what you can do.