Sometimes you have to take a break from reading 700 pages of academic literature a week and marking undergraduate papers. Sometimes that break looks like its a lot more exhausting than the work itself. My left big toenail is partially crushed, but man do I always have a great time seeing/shooting Dead Tired.
If the Canadian habitus had a sonic template it would undoubtedly be scored by the unmistakable songs of The Tragically Hip.
Everybody has a story about The Hip. I remember being only nine-years-old when I was watching MuchMusic one day, back when it still was a channel dedicated to music (and Canadian content) and I heard the tight drumbeat of what I came to learn was “Poets” by The Tragically Hip. It was 1998 and I was blown away. But this was 1998, so I had to wait for Much to play the video again a few hours later… so I could record it via VCR onto my music videos tape (this story makes me feel old).
The same thing happened when I heard “Fireworks” on the fantastically alliterated Mix 99.9 Top 9 at 9: I had to wait until the next day to record it onto a cassette via my boombox (If I remember correctly the number one song was a Chantal Kreviazuk cover of “Leaving on a Jet Plane”).
I was nine, I thought I had uncovered some new brilliant band. The world of music discovery when you are young indeed feels huge. It was completely unbeknownst to me that they were one of the biggest bands in Canada.
Music at Work was one of the first albums I ever bought (Matthew Good Band’s Beautiful Midnight and whatever that Eiffel 65 album was were the other two out of the three, so 66% is a pretty good hit rate for a kid). I was allowed to buy it at Music World (RIP) because my great aunt told my grandmother “oh it’s fine, Kurt Browning [the figure skater] uses their music all the time!” I soldiered through this new information and thank god I did.
Over the years I grew to focus on other music and genres. My teenage years twisted in and out of pop-punk, hardcore, indie rock, electronic, classic rock, etc., but The Hip were always there in the background, blasting out of car radios, Gord flailing around on Much, and selling out arena tours. Yer Favourites is one of my most played albums over the last 10 years. They are as crucial to my music taste as Black Flag, Bright Eyes, Bruce Springsteen, or Broken Social Scene.
When it came to music photography, The Hip were one of the first big arena bands I ever shot and the experience still isn’t lost on me. I’ve shot so many bands I could only dream of shooting when I was younger, but getting to shoot Gord maniacally moving around the stage was a privilege (and yes, he is hands down the best frontman to shoot, no argument). But I skipped their last two major Toronto shows because I had already shot them a few times. I always assumed I would be able to shoot them next time they were in town.
And that’s the thing. People my age don’t know what a world without the Hip sounds like. So many of us have simply taken them for granted due to their ubiquity and cultural pervasiveness. You were shaped by this band even if you don’t realize it. This is the band that connects the bros to mothers of four, your lame dad to you and your university friends, Toronto and Saskatoon. They are the closest thing that has ever come to completing this project we call Confederation. Even though the geography of their lyrics tend to focus on Ontario, they are not explicitly regional in the sense that they are Ontario at the expense of the rest of Canada. Their lyrical and instrumental roots permeate and draw from Canadian spaces and culture.
Politicians, academics, newspaper columnists, and countless others have long pondered on attempting to define what it is to be Canadian. Ironically, it seems as if The Hip have just stumbled upon it through their unabashed celebration of this country. They have been chosen democratically by Canadian popular culture to define at least a portion of this evasive and diverse collection of interests. And it was this organic foothold they created that casts legitimacy on the claims of so many of the talking heads celebrating The Hip’s effect on the world around us.
I went through my archives so I could post some photos of Gord and the boys from the few times I shot them and discovered that there were many I had never even edited. It blew my mind that I those photos sat dormant. But that's what happens when you shoot a performer as giving as Gord Downie: you will always be spoiled for choice.
These photos span secret shows in Kensington Market, an ACC show in 2013, Canada Day in Niagara-on-the-Lake in 2012, and Gord fronting his supergroup with the Sadies.
P.S. Nautical Disaster is the best Hip song.
As a sort of project that combines my love of photography and good beer, I have been spending some time taking some photos of fantastic beers by fantastic Ontario craft brewers for social media. I thought I would sort them all out into a gallery on my blog so they are accessible all at once (and, to be honest, so I can keep track of them).
Haven't posted any shows in a while, so here are some shots from the Black Lungs and Anti-Flag show at the Velvet Underground in Toronto this past weekend. I have shot quite a few variations of Black Lungs in the last almost-decade, but they only played a few shows as their full on hardcore form back in 2011 (I shot one of those great shows as well). Included are some shots from Anti Flag's acoustic set at Kops Records.
It's that time of year again! In 2015 I actually shot the least amount of shows I have in probably five or six years. I still got some cool pictures along the way though.
I can't believe it's been 10 years since Protest the Hero put out the seminal album, Kezia. I thought I'd throw up some photos of them from back in the day (mostly 2007) from shows I attended and the day I spent following them around for the now defunct Chart Magazine, including covering their set at the also now defunct Much on Demand, haha.
As for the watermarks and one or two being not top notch resolution, some of these are so old that the originals got lost in an unfortunate hard drive crash.
I was recently hired by the folks at Converse to shoot their Converse Rubber Tracks Live series when it hit The Opera House in Toronto. Got to work with some great people and it is always awesome when you get to have this much fun while on the job. Here are some photos from that night featuring The Orwells and King Creep. My shots should be surfacing in a variety of formats for Converse in the coming months.
While I did not vote Liberal in this past election (I never have), I'd like to take a moment to post some photos of Justin Trudeau that I was commissioned to take of him by his campaign during the Liberal Party Leadership race. My politics are not consistent with a lot of his, but alas, photography is an entirely separate entity from my politics.
That being said, I threw in some Jack Layton photos at the end to feel better, haha
I recently co-founded and launched a Toronto-based progressive public policy think tank called Cities First. In addition to using my academic and research background to run the organization (as well as do a portion of the primary research), I of course designed the logo, the website, and contributed all of the photographic (and written) content that compose the website.
If you are interested in Toronto, city public policy, the constitutionality of intergovernmental relationships (a bit of a mouthful), or other political issues, check out www.citiesfirst.ca
Here are a few of the photos and logos that are utilized on the site:
Ghost played Toronto the other night and it reminded me of how absolutely fantastic their live show is. So here are a bunch of photos I shot of them in May of 2013 for the National Post. I still find it hilarious that I convinced one of Canada's largest daily newspapers to cover an ironic Satanic-themed metal band.
