Local songs, A Special Education

(I believe you can download all of this stuff from the Calgary Cassette Preservation Society in one form or another.)

With music playing such a pivotal role in my writing process, it should be no surprise that A Special Education is awash in it. In fact, one of the very first interviews has a character reference his fear of getting beaten up by punks on his way to and from school, a fear that many kids on my block had, largely because of the influence of bands like Beyond Possession.

I love this gritty video of them performing in the neighbourhood of Pembroke, not far from where I (and Isabel) grew up. It's also just north of where Jack and Isabel's classmate Chris was from, a place called Forest Lawn, the same community I saw my first concert in the park, featuring three of Calgary's pre-eminent bands of the early 1990s, Wagbeard, Field Day, and Primrods. It's a similar version of this concert (except at the more genteel location of Prince's Island Park) that Jack, Isabel, and Chris first meet each other, although they don't really know it. 

Here's an imaginary set list for that concert:

Piece of trivia: Isabel's math class on her first day of high school is drawn almost entirely from my own, with one little exception. Whereas the character of Chris arrives wearing a D.E.D. Souls t-shirt (from which Wagbeard emerged but not until a few years after A Special Education begins so that reference might change), I believe my friend on whom I based Chris in this scene (and who later went on to develop guidance systems for missiles, or so I'm told) wore an AC/DC "Raising Hell" t-shirt on the first day, and a D.O.A. shirt on the second. The D.E.D. Souls came third.

Bonus: A Special Education ends with a line stolen from a split Wagbeard/Primrods 10" from this era.

(Again, I believe you can download all of this stuff from the Calgary Cassette Preservation Society in one form or another.)

Primrods, Live at the Legion

Down with dreams!

The Primrods, One Night Only

Yes! The Primrods! Legends! One night only! At the Legion. Secret show. I should be there. I want to be there. Check me in five minutes and I'll be there. Half of my radio friends are already there! It'll be like old times. Lemme just bust out this old Chixdiggit shirt.

I'm not going.

I want to be there. I even knew about the show a week or so ago, but I'm at home auditioning for the role of Father of the Year. Tomorrow is my daughter's First Communion and something like sixty members of my family are coming over to celebrate. It's an early morning affair, sure to bring with it lots of photographs, aunts, cousins, nieces, nephews, the whole army of Italian relatives. Once upon a time I might have been a scenester and sometimes I still get to pretend I'm a music journalist, but tomorrow I need to be an Italian-Canadian dad and I want that more.

So, instead of heading out to rock n' roll into the wee hours, I'm at home, writing - which is kinda fitting, since that's really how it mostly happened all those years ago anyways.