Performing to play versus performing to prove
Identity is everything in the Toronto Junction-, the neighbourhood where Dundas St. and Keele St. meet would not be The Junction without its brief stint as the independent City of West Toronto in 1908.
Junction residents take immense pride in their history as it provides an extra layer to their identity as Torontonians.
Curating a concrete image like this allows something to stand, conquer, prevail, maybe crumble and fall but most importantly, to last beyond its era.
At the beginning of January, five alternative artists were set to perform on day one of the two-day Deep Cut event at the Junction Underground in Toronto’s West end. Each band can be unified under the alternative genre yet they usher to the stage a distinct identity, sound and performance through the coalescence of talents into a single act.
It’s a relief to finally step inside the venue and catch a break of Southern Ontario’s fashionably late frigid weather. To my surprise the Junction Underground is, unsurprisingly when you think about it, underground.
After a moment of standing around pretending like I have serious, super-important business to conduct, my serious, super-important business shows their faces and I am half-reunited and half-reintroduced to Druidess.
Druidess is a Montreal shoegaze band that combines the dense-homophonic ethereal layered guitars and vocals of shoegaze with heavy overtones and intense breakneck drumming.
Druidess brands this sound through a modern and professional take on the gothic appearance to craft a captivating dissonance between the visual and the aural.
“The term ‘goth’ has merged with emo in the past ten years and it’s kind of become an umbrella term for anything alternative. The image that we’re trying to put out there is very akin to the 80s gothic, post-punk look,” said Ryan Beisswanger, Druidess’s lead vocalist. “Like that, but more held back, more casual, more appealing, but also more true to what we look like.”
Beisswanger says “it’s a cohesive look at something fresh.” This attitude of building off the established is essential to expanding reach; it attracts the already initiated by luring them in with the comfortably familiar then stabs them with a knife made of professional gothicism.
Getting everything perfect in a band is harder than getting Ozzy Osbourne to OD. You need to learn an instrument, write good music, agree on musical and lyrical direction, make a sacrifice to an unfathomable being of terror from another world so someone can sing AND play at the same time, practice, book a show, market the show, make your act memorable and finally play well, which you can’t do because you spent too much time playing with your pedals.
“It’s just consistency. You won’t get big if you have shit [music] that you’re putting out, [you need] good marketing, social media branding is the most important thing, just having good pictures and showing your personality outside,” said Massimo Crispino, Druidess’s guitarist. “Your band is a brand as well, so do everything to make it look as best as possible. You don’t want to be looked at as another local band that plays the same venue 20 times.
This is why branding is key. Even if your act sucks because no one can keep time, people might remember that funny instagram reel, that ridiculous poster or the band that played hardcore screamo while cosplaying as My Little Pony characters.
People need to know if you’re talking about Butthole Surfers the band or a clique of really douchey Californians.
The exact sentiments are echoed in the business side of the industry as well. Presenting yourself as professional and not a group of butthole surfers promotes growth.
“Professionalism is a big thing. You don’t want to be overlooked because of the ‘I’m a local band so I’m dirty [mentality],’ said Morgan Paquet, Druidess’s drummer. “People will forget the dress code and show up in this fucking dirty ass shirt and play stoned. That’s not professional and we don’t accept that. We’re trying to get a step away from that.”
What about branding and identity off-stage? The simple answer is merch: t-shirts, pins, maybe some stickers to put on your laptop so people know you only listen to cool underground music that “you wouldn’t get.” The problem is most bands have the same set of merch-, eventually, all your t-shirts blend together and your stickers get covered up.
Blosum, a Toronto-based shoegaze band, takes an unconventional approach to merch and musicianship that deviates from what other people peddle to create other art such as plushies, plants and art of “little star guys.”
“We all make art for fun and whenever we have something that we think is good for Blosum we bring it to the table and try and make it happen,” said Juila Maja, one of Blosum’s guitarists.
Blosum’s music deviates from the norm by including circuit bending among the richly textured sounds of shoegaze.
Circuit bending involves taking apart kids’ toys or similar low-power electronic doo-dads, and putting them back together with potentiometers and switches to adjust the voltage to create an array of blips, blorps and beeps. Different sounds are created by the specific circuit’s design and allow for a unique outcome with every circuit board.
“I play between songs to keep the audience engaged while everyone’s tuning and to emphasize the ambient tapestry of the different sections for [a] more progressive divide,” said Ada Santos, Blosum’s circuit bender.
Each band member’s loose, undefined approach to creative expression has allowed them to discover their identity as Blosum through experimentation. This uninhibited view of who they are has allowed them to blossom into what experience moulds them to be.
“There are a lot of distinct identities [in Toronto], but the ones that are the most distinct I don’t think are super deliberate with it. [They’re] just making the art to express what they want and it just happens to come out that way,” said Jamie Curvelo, Blosum’s other guitarist. When people are deliberate with their identities, they will always want to be like that. They’re being lumped into a really broad category and then they sound like another band.”
This rag-tag group of circuit bending shoegazers say they consider themselves to be individual artists who use Blosum as another creative outlet which allows their personal artistic endeavours to overlap and develop simultaneously.
“It’s good that if you’re burnt out from music to jump to another form of art,” said Sam Morow, Blosum’s drummer. “I like to make something every day, whether It’s a song or draw or make a nice meal. I just gotta do something so I can sleep.”
This don’t-think-just-create mentality is mutual among many independent musicians which helps keep the scene so consistently fresh and innovative despite an over-abundance of acts. Bands simply make music they like and allow their audience to find them.
Lizra is a prime example of this phenomenon by taking inspiration from Latin America, punk and ska among others to create a sound that is defiantly their own.
“We all come from different backgrounds and different life experiences. We’ve all been through all types of shit. We’re just all over the place,” said Diego Rodriguez, Lizra’s guitarist and vocalist.
Lizra has been labelled hardcore, psychedelic and most notably, noodle metal by fans. Noodle metal is a title that comes from their style of contrasting dynamics of warped psychedelic noodling contrasted by destructive aggressive metal.
Lizra says they are defined by their live act and the freeform experimental environment they foster through noodle metal.
“I have never been more moved in my life than [when] playing live with the band. Seeing the environment we’re in and how those people can experience it is great,”said Matteo Morales, Lizra’s Bassist.
That is ultimately what makes something last-, the people experiencing the event in real time to remember and say “I was there,” to keep the memory alive and music blasting.
Identity is everything in the Toronto Junction-, without citizens keeping the identity afloat no one would remember that The Junction enforced prohibition until 2000.
It was the willingness to change what it meant to be a part of The Junction despite it being the complete opposite of what they were known for. But change is necessary; if the leaders of West Toronto didn’t “Damn, we kinda fucked this one up, eh,” in 1909, they might never have gotten running water.
Changing your doesn’t mean you are giving up who you are, but rather you are allowing yourself to grow and become something better.
