Busting the 20 degree celsius mark over a holiday weekend in the middle of a Canadian October is about as strange as finding imagery of change on a Caribbean beach where the temperature and sun beams flirt within a very tight and predictable margin. Two weeks away with Mar alongside the still turquoise waters & white sands gives a seemingly infinite set of moments to feel connected in some way. It's a side of me that isn't unlocked very often in this northern climate, and emerges when I drift closer towards the humid sun of my birthplace, Trinidad. 
First off, the highly acclaimed online indie music & film magazine, "No Ripcord", has featured You Are My Symphonic in their monthly "Your New Favorite Band" feature where they profile two under-the-radar acts. That in itself was highly rewarding for me, but, it turns out this is also a competition! The artist whose profile article receives the most 'Tweets' and Facebook 'Likes' will win the title of No Ripcord Readers New Artist of the Month along with one month's worth of free banner advertising and a coveted spot on our monthly podcast, The No RipCast. So, check out the link below! I hope you enjoy the article & please vote!
I wanted a window seat but learned that they pushed the sales until they were sold out, so I had to take an aisle. My grumbling faded quickly when I stretched out on the seats and with a walk around the cars by going through an Apollo style automatic airlock. My seat mate for this dusk to dawn cycle was a gentle old man buttoned up in red flannel. Packing has always been a rush and following that trend of normalcy, I had only my cellphone with one of the lowest megapixel counts. I cocked my arm up against the seat and attempted to stretch the tiny lens to capture the scenes speeding by. I caught his face in fifteen photos looking over the Quebec countryside warmed by the sun, in the the dying light, covered by a blanket in the late hours, at morning alongside a river and a pine forest and squinting to see through the foggy salt water bay and her towns. In the last five minutes before I was to step off at the station in Miramichi he told me that he had lived in St. Catharines, Ontario, for 40 years, the small city where I spent my high school years, and he never could call it his home. It wasn't until I pulled on the strap to my shoulder bag resting on a luggage cart that I realized those photographs I took of his perspective were actually of mine.
The next morning brought Ro's Birthday and she put me to work by building two barbecues and a patio table. In the late afternoon we stepped into Jubilee Chinese Buffet which had a strong likeness to a converted hockey arena. Out of mind was the ad-laden paper placements and our focus shifted to the chasoo pork. We drove in the fading light into Saint John to pick up with Amy on our way to Churchill's to have a few beers and spinach dip with pita chips. The constant level of bar chatter and laughter carried me upstairs to the bathroom hallway where I found old browned photographs of train yards. We slept at Leah's place, where Amy was squatting, which in turn made us second level squatters. I curled up on the long couch of the living room which housed a fireplace and joked about ghosts, but half expected them to appear when called for by the creaky floors when I woke up to go to the bathroom.
We picked up Kel & Cath in the morning and toured around uptown Saint John. Duke street corner buildings with a view down the hill to the harbour, a mansion listed at $750000 ready-to-buy, Germainia and to the market for soaps & picnic items. Descending from the Hollywood sign hill to cross the harbour bridge with 50 cents, pushing on the lower shore towards the Maine border and St. Andrews. The tide pulled out to let us walk out on the sea bed with the unseen rocks that rest on the bottom. Kelly nicknamed Catherine after her boots, but she was the only one dry and comfortable. She later acknowledged her strong packing decisions by wearing all the shoes she carried for the trip. We put our feet in the water with the same personalities of our younger selves, touch-tank starfish and sea cucumbers.
Feet running along the river trail towards the lighthouse of safety. Unpacked the supplies & found ourselves staring at a mirror reflecting our parents - I manned the BBQ & Roshini was posted to the kitchen & Kel woke up just in time. Pictures in the garden backyard brought flashes of kelly and I on a patio, with a boy she can't control, running out to see cool uncle Vish. Ro cracked an old 2006 Vintage that she stored in her apartment cellar and we toasted with Auntie Diane's choir practice tape, full of scales. Clocks turned and the garden party evolved from day to midnight, "Stealing Tomorrow" by breezes carrying that long weekend feeling.
At the airport, the four of us stood for photos that would be tucked away into nostalgic boxes, awaiting to be discovered. A Westjet employee attempted to guilt us into thinking we would make the plane late. We squeezed a said goodbye and watched the plane take off on the far side of the field. The road to St. Martins descended to an expansive salt marsh, the turns sharpening, left then right, following the trail past an inlet cove harbour and across a covered bridge towards the rock beach with both awarded-winning chowder and the world's best chowder. We settled on award-winning but surprisingly the fries tasted like they were pinched from KFC. The distant shoreline mountains were touched by fog and I put my feet in the Fundy Bay waters and froze to death while Ro struggled to find the capture button on my cell camera.
The salt ocean retreated from battering the caves, opening a view of the land that used to be tropical sea beds, it's layers giving us a surfaced insight at ten stories high but still hiding thousand more ancient secrets in between it's pages. Newfoundland's 'Black Rock' came crashing down under harsh Atlantic currents. New Brunswick's sandy rocks are carefully pulled away by the gentle hand of the tides. I tasted the brackish water, half-salt half-fresh. Kids on holidays came towards us slowly, zombie-like, spread apart & stumbling on the rock beach. Reversing our turns through the windy road, we found the harbour cove dry, fishing boats rested on stilts on the muddy floor. If you took a day off, the bay would steal your boat or leave it to die.
We drove the Fiddle Head route, around the peninsula to Grand Bay, marsh land coves, connected by the river crossing ferries that the people fought hard to keep. My sister was confident with her hands on the wheel, flowing down, up & around the shorelines, only one season after her crash on the icy main highway. We talked for hours and agreed to knock down some trees in this valley to build her a home on the hilly farm lands kept rich from the river marshes.
"Yellow Days" greeted us when we entered LaRonde on the island dreamed from the documentary stock footage that came to life with the passing of the covered monorail that toured the amusement park. We rode the plot driven named rides like how we must have in our younger years. Le Monstre was the fastest wooden rollercoaster I think I've ever let take control of my life. In line at the haunted house rollercoaster that was intended for children mostly, but not advised for pregnant women, we enjoyed chats about birth's from women who didnt' even know they were pregnant. We screamed a few laughs when the operator put us through the ride twice in a row and we left when the sun was peaking through the July skies. Beneath the LaRonde tower, The Pirate, swung back and forth until at the top you felt your seat fall from under you slightly and you could have sworn for a second, you had flown. I got the courage to wait until the cusp to turn to my left and towards the Montreal skyline underlined by my growing chest that Montreal was where I belonged. The night brought a fireworks display carefully choreographed with the background vocals exploding minature powder flashes in the sky.
At work that week, we had gotten an email with the dashboard of the Delorean from "Back to the Future" with the date Jul 6 2010 on the time circuit. This was dubbed the year when Marty McFly arrived into the future of hover cars and pizzas that grow from the size of a dollar to an extra large in 30 seconds of microwave time. A co-worker promptly told the email chain that this date was lifted from another scene and, in fact, it was 2015. So, we survived meeting up with the future for another five years. The magic of moments in the summer with great imagination can put too much promise and importance into the future. We'll never stop romanticizing it and hoping for the best, and in some way, we always end up living it.
I took a flight for Newfoundland that Wednesday morning and the seatbelt sign illuminated but our view was obscured in the immense fog. I felt that familiar turn over Signal Hill towards the airstrip at St. John's when the ceiling hung low and the rock appeared at almost the same instant that our feet touched the ground. Jennifer met me and we drove down the Trans-Canada and she slid her into neutral to coast down to the firehouse in Holyrood on the way to Betti's wake.
Funerals are unbearably final but wake's breathe light and provide a celebration that is desperately needed. I got to see all the usual family and friendly characters from past visits and the overwhelming presence of the community that spread across the entire bay and over the four wakes dotted by old photos, flowers, laugher and genuine eyes. A remembrance vigil that ended in her best friends singing at the casket and the girls hitting the demo button on the keyboard to play along with pre-programmed classics. Heaven isn't up in the white clouds but it begins when all of you walk in through those doors to share where she awakes. Sara kept it inside with a single band-aid over her heart.
He later told me that the grey clouds broke away for a few minutes as they descended into Avondale. We didn't see that blue sky again until Sunday. We woke up and the entire house started making brunch together with Mom's kitchen radio set to Newfoundland traditional and all the leftovers from the fridge that had been packed by the town's cooked hams and countless salads. The family left for the funeral home and I stayed behind to play with the kids. I transformed from a cat to a dog and then finally to a rabbit who got his paws bitten off as we ran around the lawn and took a drink from the sprinkler.
We drove up to Assumption cemetery and crossed the gate to the overgrown old section that hid headstones among the trees. I put my feet in the water at Black cove and I tried counting to ten.
We returned to find that everyone had decided to take an afternoon nap and we decided to follow. Karen and I went into the front meadow and she layed on a blanket while I stretched out on a chair beside her pointed towards the afternoon sun. I played through 3:03 and as I reached the back end, my nose was tickled by my allergies and realized if I continued to stifle my body, I would stop my breath. Marie was on the hammock behind me trying to sleep and I was facing the sun trying to breathe. I let out a giant sneeze at the end of that very track and woke her. I used the long pauses in between the guitar riffs on "Asynchrony of Lives" to calm down that late afternoon and sealed it as my favorite song of the year. I closed out "Imperfect Diarchies" at the edge of the front meadow looking past the clothes line towards the Blue Hills.
Sitting in the airplane on the tarmac full of rain and fog, I overheard a father asking his daugher one row in front of me what she thought we would see when we took off. I could see his excitement in telling her that once we break through the clouds the sun and her blue sky would be there waiting for us.
On another December, we were driving on the highway towards Montreal. The weak electronics of my Swedish car let my speakers down and left us with nothing for the 5 hour night-time ride. Luckily, Vas had the last minute idea to take advantage of a suburban big box store's return policy by renting the largest iPod dock they had on the shelves with the intention of dropping it off at the end of our trip with the explanation that it wasn't to our taste - full refund.
The freezing rain fell over the dark road to be churned up in the wheels of transport truck and were split into fractions arranged shoulder to shoulder creating a blanket of mist. Vas told me that he's at his most comfortable when his driver is confident, so I put the pedal down and the iHome with it's eventual busted Balance 005 speaker played us through the tense moments without knowing where we were pointed and if our exit would make us cry or scream but it always made us laugh with excitement.
Davy, Vas and I crossed to Parc Jean-Drapeau on the islands for Piknic Electronik that Labour Day Saturday evening. The sun began setting over the last moments of the summer and James Holden opened with that unmistakable MFA track. The four-corner speakers pointed towards the centre of the metallic assembly that was the Place De L'Homme bound together by giant rivets and lap joints. We stood watching and felt the swells rise and fall.
Vas and I were under the scattered spotlights that shone towards the dance floor spires just outside the sandy area where smokers and hoola-hoopers mingled. We related those landmarks to Davy by text message so that he could try to locate us and our glances caught a hoola-hoop that spun off her hands, flew upwards and fell perfectly around the shape of a lady standing by who was refreshingly excited that this plastic ring accidently fell from the sky. Davy texted back that he was down the wooden staircase near the water's edge.
Below the path at the rocks that touched the water, two bridges acted as bookends to the view of the city with the waves wiping left to right with a swift current. We joked that we lived at the centre of the Earth and decided to come out for the Labour Day festivities. We climbed up on rocks, roots, soil and grass to the surface. Davy looked up at the giant structure and told me that his mother came here during Expo '67 and it triggered her excitement to visit the world. I wondered if the passport that had to be presented and stamped each time she would enter a country's Expo display was tucked away to be found later.
Loving Labour Day is hard and sometimes it can feel like we're waiting it out. The strong feeling of being able to see through your eyes of younger years, to catch the crisp smell of the fall and to soak in the light of August is where Labour Day resides, spot in the middle, to single handedly set the clock for your next story.
That Labour Day Sunday we cracked open the bottles of champagne with a side of vodka and smokes and Balance 005 blasted in my living room. Davy flicked the lights and picked up the microphone and sang the lines to "Do What You Want" and Vas, Mar and I cheered on and danced like he was on stage.
SCQ just revealed a year-end feature designed to celebrate this year's diverse line-up of artists. I was equally thrilled and surprised when SCQ contacted me with interest for my contribution. You can read my answers to his email interview and those of the other artists, producers and label-heads that were placed together across five days of musical stories
The slightly out of sync "s"'s from the congregation that were pronounced at the Catholic churches of both Arima, Trinidad and Newfoundland, Canada cascaded from the alter to the back pews with the same speed and sincerity. Their backdrops included a wedding with distant steel pan echoes soaked in tropical breeze and an entire town's overflowing heart that would follow the hearse slowly down the road.
On a Saturday in the fall, some friends and I hiked to the top of a mountain an hour away from Montreal to see the autumn colours. Every few minutes we'd turn around to take a break from the climb and be surprised by the new hills, lakes, trees and homes that would reveal themselves. At the summit, my girlfriend told me she might be starting to understand me. Onward with love, death and life.
I must have passed by the open field that divides the provinces of Ontario and Quebec a thousand times. This Thanksgiving was no different when I looke out the passenger window towards the edge of the field where the tree line begins. My mind could probably play a slideshow of all the ways I've seen that highway-side in full bloom or with blowing snow. I later asked friends what they would call the small patch of trees or miniature woods that you would find stranded in the middle of a countryside field. I'm still in search for that perfect word.
My discovery of Summer Rain Recordings was purely accidental but turned out to be one of the most unexpected and refreshing finds by googling some key words that I thought would be appropriate for an album's first listen. "Summer", "Rain" and "Records" gave me a link to the diversely moody electronic/experimental label and who's artists each donate a percentage of their revenues to NextAid or a charity of their choice. My documentary-travelling had recently shifted to the South Pacific's "Last Nomads" and coincidentally I stumbled upon Farr who hails from Jakarta.
At 11pm Saturday night, we stepped out of my apartment to go to the corner store and as she turned to me I could feel that I would have answered no when she asked if I had brought my keys. We spent the next hour calling the landlord and trying to break-in through my back door without the neighbours calling the cops - which they didn't and it has me worried now. We had to spend the night on a futon at my friend's place and it wasn't until 6pm on Sunday when my landlord called me back. We whipped open the blinds, cranked "Helen Of Troy" and became excited to plan the rest of what that weekend had to offer.
I was nearly sticking my head out my window with my laptop trying to hold on to a unknowing neighbor's WIFI connection so that we could check the message board calendar to find a show for the night. Skimming through their myspace's, we stopped on this artist who's name we still don't know how to properly pronounce. Blessa was the best fit for this summer night but the calendar lied and apparently he had played the night before. Fast forward to early November and Toro Y Moi was returning to Montreal. After a load of confusion, it seemed he must have had troubles preventing him from crossing the border. As I was disappointingly handing in my coat check ticket to leave, my friend Vas shouted out in the nick of time from the staircase: "Vish! He's Here!". The first couple of songs were shaky with the soundcheck being adjusted as we went but it smoothed out within those 25 minutes he stood on stage. When I met Chaz and his good buddy whom I recognized as the LP lover from his blog, I was shocked to hear that the last song he played filled with countless vocal layers and swimmingly nostalgic beats was actually an improv session after he had car troubles and his appearance was in severely in doubt. February is circled for Toro Y Moi's full length release...
Mathieu asked me for some help moving some old furniture one weekday evening at the old family cottage he bought midway through this year. We shared laughs and drove nearly to the end of the province before we took the exit for St. Zotique. Years before, this was a seasonal town where all the homes were limited to one floor and had canals for lane ways that served as a gateway to the fleuve. We stopped the car at the only cottage from that time - squeezed in between the neighbor's aspirations for a mega-lot.
The front door led us into darkness which revealed itself as a spare bedroom at our feet. The tight hallway shared a wall with his Uncle's room that still held a mirror on the wall with fishing photos tucked under it's frame. A catamaran mast connected the far corners of the living room and a white bench at the kitchen counter where the young cousins would sit to play cards and eat breakfast before rushing out the door to jump into the water. He rummaged for an old baseball board game and found it in its usual spot. The faded paper scorecard was still inside which showed that the initials M&M had won 14-10. He told me how the docks carried them like a giant sidewalk along the edge of the shallow bay to a small island which they'd visit by paddle boat. Now we stood overlooking the fleuve under a blanket of stars and to that island where a house now sits and we wondered how they got to work everyday.
The smell of those Last Days were soaked into the walls, shag carpets, and the wooden cupboards with all the glasses you'd expect to see. I caught a photo of him washed in the kitchen light coming out of the back screen door. We moved in a couch and a coffee table which are the first items to stay in that stubborn old house in preparation of the next generation's visit next summer.
