Blank Page

Manuscript

Tomorrow Is Just A Day Away
by Struan Fraser

“WAAAAAAKE UUUUUUPP!”

A disembodied scream spoils my slumber.  I groan and wonder how anything close to that irritating scream that wakes me up every morning can possibly be considered music.  The techno tempo of the morning radio slowly releases me from the relaxed state that I was enjoying.  I find it hard to get in that state in the first place.  Why does some annoying presenter who seems to have just taken copious amounts of narcotics get the right to cut me off from my dreams?  I’m late for the bus!

I drag the covers off me and change in a reckless, practiced manner.  I drag myself into the bathroom and mindlessly make sure I look at least a little presentable.  My bag stares at me expectantly.  I avoid its gaze guiltily.  Only three minutes until the bus arrives.  I gulp down the cup of tea that appears to come into my possession at some point during the chaos that is Tuesday morning.  I then turn round and face my bag as it still wears the same reproving face as it did last I looked.  I hulk it over my shoulder, feeling the unfinished homework burning behind me, reminding me of the utter bollocking I’m going to receive.  I already start forming excuses in my head knowing that I will be transparent anyway; it’s just become a bit of a formality.  I step out of the door into the beautiful garden, seeing the wilderness that surrounds it.  Again, I catch the bus just in time.

I climb on and see the zombies of the morning, taking my usual seat and becoming just another person being carted off to a massive organisation where my head gets filled with information from people that can’t actually be sure of what they preach… Most of the time.  I get lost in a world of thought as I see the country diminish.  Escapism is all that keeps me sane in the mornings.  I leave the beautiful countryside with birdsong and squirrels and am taken straight out of that haven into a building full of people who are fighting to climb some social ladder that appears to rule everything within the walls of a structure that looks like it’s from Ikea.

I arrive beside a wall which appears to attract tobaccoholics.  Stepping off the bus into a crowd reveals a myriad of twelve year olds finding out what it means to be cool via the miracle of nicotine.  I walk over to my group of select friends that to me appear to have managed to avoid the indoctrination that the school somehow manages to instil.  I get unusual greetings from some friends.  These greetings usually involve a large jumping embrace as I carry a portion of their body weight.  My usual daily rant about some development in the Republican Party that really riles me up followed by what Jon Stewart had been saying the night before makes everyone look at me like I’m an alien.  I come to realise that no one really cares, which I can’t comprehend.  America is the most powerful country in the world, surely we aught to take an interest in how that power is used!

The bell rings and I find out from someone nearby which class I’m going to despite it being halfway through the year.  Learning my timetable has always seemed like a waste of energy to me.  I begin to lug myself across the grounds.  I land in my class and plonk myself on my seat.  I listen to my teacher talk at her class with a lot of nonsensical terminology.  As she talks me into semi-consciousness, I daydream.  I stare at her blankly as I summon a giant duck that simply swallows her in one gulp.  I watch her struggle as the duck tries to push her down its throat.  If only.  No wonder there’s a massive swarm whenever a fight breaks out.  People are driven to it due to the fact that a school is a barren land in terms of excitement.  After some classes and a surprisingly lenient teacher allowing homework to go undone, lunch arrives.

I try to engage in several different conversations as I eat, quickly finding that most conversations are about what happened to Tommy and Fiona, whoever they are.  I sit and think about how it must be to be any one of these other people as I chomp on an interestingly garnished sandwich.  They all have individual, fascinating lives and I can’t comprehend how complicated and special their lives are.  I’d love to understand.  Unfortunately that’s impossibility with my inability to have meaningful personal conversation; I just end up talking about cheese or flying octopi or something else incoherent.

The day leaves me with the dead of the morning bus more animated now.  They make fun of the poor boy at the back of the bus that is simply looking for a friend that will not ridicule him.  Yet there’s little I can do.  I try sticking up for him but to no avail.  I slide off the bus.  I tolerate the constant bickering between the two people I walk home with.  The behaviour of the two is almost like a nature documentary as you see the typical behaviour of the insecure male and the instigatory female.  I slouch home in typical expected teenager style, scuffing the feet and keeping the head down, hoodie up almost as if I’d be letting the moaning demographic down if I didn’t fulfil the stereotype.

I get home, get lost in an eclectic selection of music that takes me to the four corners of the Earth and back.  I browse the internet and absorb an array of bizarre, fascinating and hilarious information that informs me on the happenings of the past, the present and the future.  The news fills me with hope but at the same time scares me to my core.  The world is so beautifully diverse that we are sure to receive every side of an argument and that’s definitely how it should be.  Discussion is the key to success.  I just hope tomorrow provides an argument that helps a few more people see through the day because it’s important to remember just how lucky I am.  I have education, I have a home, I have wealth and tomorrow I hope to show how grateful I am for that.

Score: fun.

Aim And Ignite
by Kevin Norris

When the sweet indie pop affair known as The Format disbanded in 2007 many believed that the indie pop scene had died. Luckily enough, Format lead singer Nate Ruess has picked up where he left off with his new band, Fun. Recruiting members from Steel Train and Anathallo, Ruess and company have crafted a debut album full of accessible and organically charming, Beach Boy’s flavored pop songs. While “Aim and Ignite” at times still possesses the same kind of pop sensibilities that The Format had perfected, there are occurrences when the album lyrically dives deeper than prior songs about Ruess’s most recent breakup. On “Barlights” Ruess sings “And for the first time/ In a long time/ I feel fine,” proving that he lyrically has found the bright side to finally coincide with the campy, sonic warmth of the albums wide range of instrumentations, melodies, tones, and occasionally, full on orchestrations. Songs like the whimsical  “At Least I’m Not as Sad (As I Used To Be)” and the epic, tribal sounding closer “Taking Your Time (Coming Home)” showcase Fun’s ability to use horn sections, pianos, handclaps, and various other instruments to paint a carnival-esque atmosphere without ever seeming bogged down by the weight of ambition.

“Aim and Ignite” has avoided the cliché cheesiness that usually plagues pop albums by being both entertaining and smart. It’s nearly impossibly to avoid the catchiness and pure fun of this album, easily making it one of the best of 09.

**** ½ out of 5

Key Tracks: All the Pretty Girls, At Least I’m Not as Sad (As I Use To Be), Barlights

Manuscript

by Karl Power
I was never exactly music-lover until I was fifteen. I guess you could say that I am a late-bloomer in that aspect. I mean, music has always been a part of my life. I have been playing piano since I was maybe four years old, I often listened to my walkman, and I listened to the radio more. I very much enjoyed music, but it was never something that really meant a whole lot to me. I was just into the music that everyone else was into; what was cool. I never realized that there was something more to music, something beautiful. I never realized that music was art.

Late one night, in March of 2005, I was building a 3D puzzle, it was a castle. This is what I did when the computer crashed, as it would often do. The radio was on, as usual, tuned to the Fox (a Vancouver radio station), and a song I had heard multiple times before was playing. I had always enjoyed this song, and for some reason I decided that this time I would take initiative; that this time I would get the title of the song and band/artist responsible. So I ripped a piece of paper off of an envelope, grabbed the closest writing utensil, which was a multi-coloured, cyan/magenta pencil crayon, and sat by the radio, waiting for the DJ to inform me of what I had just been listening to. I was not sure if he had said “Come Back, Baby” or “Combat Baby”, so I wrote both down. However, I was quite positive that he had said “Metric”.

The next day I googled these, and found a spiffy little website, ilovemetric.com. The site is quite a bit different now. Back then, it had these wonderful little clips of all the songs off their debut LP, Old World Underground, Where Are You Now. I would go to that website every day, and listen to each clip a thousand times. Eventually I did more googling, and found a site that had, oh my god, two-minute clips of every song! I was in heaven. See, I was too cheap to buy this CD for myself, and also it frightened me. What if, in the end, I did not like the album. Damn! I would have wasted $15, which meant a lot to me, seeing as my weekly allowance was, I think, $15! But after maybe a month of listening to the clips every day, I decided that I probably liked the album enough to buy it. And I did! It was magnificent. It was a completely new experience. For the first time I was actually, completely, listening to the music. It sucked me in.

Suddenly I was addicted. The next week I bought two more CDs. Then more. I got onto the Metric forum and met new people who were interested in music that I had never heard before. I started to use the internet to find music for myself. Then in October I went to my first concert, which was Metric, of course, and I met someone who forever changed my life. I then fell in love with Björk, which opened a whole new part of music for me. I also started listening to my dad’s CDs and cassettes, and re-finding all the old cassettes I had listened to when I was younger. It was an exciting time; a time of change. Really, this was the beginning who I am.