Bitter City are a late addition to the Wednesday, March 18, Apple Crisp Fest show at the Grad Club. The band includes Meghan Harrison, former Kingston scenester and Journal scribe turned journalism student in Halifax. I sent them a questionnaire and they proved loquacious and confrontational. Get ready, Kingston: one of your favourite daughters is returning and she’s bringing a darkly witty troupe with her.
Who are you and what do you do in your band? Why is your band a band?
How is your band a band? How has Harrison’s tour of duty near the
Atlantic Ocean fucked with your band’s progress?
CARLEY: I’m the bass player in the band and the country influence (although I don’t know how that happened). I’ll do some singing and guitar but it’s not my main thing.
MEGHAN: I play keyboards and sing.
We all met through Toronto Kickball in summer 2007. Val and I had been writing songs separately, I didn’t really know how to play anything and Carley had a bunch of instruments at her house, so we started getting together there. Toward the end of ‘07, we all bought instruments and started learning together. We picked up a drummer (also from kickball) a few months later and then hustled to record a demo in August before I moved to Halifax for journalism school.
VAL: I’m Val and I play guitar and sing.
In the early days at Carley’s we played really random instruments - trombone, musical saw, toy accordion etc. It was really fun but pretty hard to make anything work. Things came together once we got some more conventional instruments. I secretly hope we one day manage to work the musical saw back in though.
CARLEY: I think our band works because we each have a unique style of songwriting, but when the songs get developed, other members’ styles creep in. Therefore there’s some reggae in my country songs and some calypso in the cuddlecore. We all write, we all sing and we all contribute which is really cool.
MEGHAN: Our “calypso influence” is “the time I found the ‘marimba’ setting on my keyboard.”
CARLEY: Meghan being away has been tough, but sort of good in a sense, because it gave us the impetus to record the demo before she left. Also, it’s tightened our sound, as the remaining three of us have had to keep playing with a major part missing and it made us more aware of our own parts. It’s neat too when we play shows without her and we say “that was pretty good,” and then we play shows when she comes back and it blows everything out of the water.
VAL: When Meghan left we had to learn to operate in two different modes, Meghan mode and non-Meghan mode. We can now switch pretty seamlessly between the two, but at first it was hard. I don’t think her leaving has fucked with our progress TOO much…perhaps it has actually made us stronger by forcing us to overcome obstacles, as Carley said.
MEGHAN: I’m really excited to come back so we can work on more new stuff.
Oh, and Leslie plays drums, but she decided she was too indie for this question.
VAL: It’s true, Leslie is SO indie.
Sebadoh?! Seriously? I thought you guys were in your mid-20s? Are you
actually in your LATE-20s?
VAL: You caught me, I was born in the 70s. Does that blow your mind? I am however, the only member of the band who was born in that particular decade. I guess the best way to describe us is to say that we are in our mid to late twenties.
CARLEY: Yeah, that’s all Val. We are that old, but I didn’t listen to any of that stuff growing up. For me it was all top 20 and then just Western Art Music. I’m getting a crash course in it now, though. When we started the band, we made these mix CDs with our influences and favourite stuff on them and then traded them around. It was pretty cool. I haven’t listened to Leslie’s yet, but she’s just the drummer so it doesn’t really count.
MEGHAN: I’m the youngest, but I like Bakesale because I have a lot of feelings. I also once mooned over a dude who misquoted Lou Barlow on his Facebook profile (so sensitive!).
Are you at the wrong party? Do you know what I mean?
MEGHAN: I definitely know what you mean. It’s the worst, especially when you try to wait it out, like you won’t be horrifically out of place any minute now! Luckily I haven’t been at the wrong party in a while. Or I’ve had too much wine to tell.
CARLEY: I think we’re throwing our own party and at least I know that my friends in the band will show up, so really that’s enough for the moment.
VAL: I am definitely a square who feels it, that’s for sure.
You are actual journalists or associates of actual journalists. Have I
outed myself as a blogger? As a zinester? Do you condescend to my
jejune questions? Is this the same old bullshit?
CARLEY: Meghan is our only journalist. Val is a graphic designer, Leslie is a medical illustrator and I’m a classical musician thrust into the real world. This whole thing of answering questions I find pretty cool. Have I just outed myself as a great big lame?
MEGHAN: “Jejune” isn’t the same old bullshit, but I can lend you my copy of The Art of the Media Interview if you want.
Kingston made me, I guess it’s true. Can you go home again? Is this the same old bullshit?
CARLEY: You can always go home again.
MEGHAN: Sometimes — the same way that home can become not-home overnight. I don’t think I can go home to Kingston again (I spent five years at Queen’s) but we still have an affectionate abstract relationship.
VAL: I think Leslie has a story to share on this. Leslie?
LESLIE: Ah yes, home. It makes me remember what happened at the train yard junction near Keele / St. Clair. His screams were muffled by a loud “thud.”
I vowed never to talk about that night me and Meghan got hammered on black label and finally entertained the one thing we had been pestering each other to do — kill a homeless person. Someone who doesn’t matter — whose screams would only be echoed by the clanging metal of the box cars sleepily rolling to their destination.
His name was Ron, or that’s what he told us anyways. We were already quite drunk, but already agreed to approach whomever we found with kindness, friendship and even offers of our alcohol in order to entice and gain their trust.
Ron used to work in the city works department. His job was to clear out the sludge that eventually built up in sewer mains, water lines and other underground connections throughout the city. It was a dirty, filthy job, but he loved it.
One day, three years ago, Ron slipped on one of the ladders as he was descending down a sewer access. One of the discs in his back was badly damaged and for the next few months, he was in excruciating pain. Because he had a city job, he was pretty much covered as far as disability and medical / rehabilitation expenses went.
Ron opened up pretty quickly to us. We kept glancing at each other with excited passion. Each of us held an Extendbar — the same type that are used by police and security officials.
“My wife stood by my side at first. Both our kids had moved out by then and the house was empty. She sympathized with me,” he mumbled between loud obnoxious slurps of our alcohol.
“How did you get here?” I boldly asked
“Well, the doctors gave me something called OxyContin. I had no idea how strong it would be,” he sighed.
“Do you ever miss your old life?” Meghan asked
“I miss my home. I miss family dinne—-”
Before he was able to finish, I smacked him in the side of the head with my Extendbar. He dropped to the ground and his whole body shook for several minutes. We watched, and finished our drinks.
Then we took the bus to Kingston, Meghan got off to start a new life — maybe get a job on a farm or a factory job assembling mechanical parts. The doors closed and the bus resumed its course — to my eventual destination.
MEGHAN: In related news, Leslie can’t play this show because of her parole conditions, so our original drummer Alexis will be joining us.
You have played many times in Toronto. Is Toronto over or underrated?
Is Toronto adequately rated?
CARLEY: Toronto is pretty cool. It’s the only place I’ve played this type of music and so far it’s nice. It helps that Leslie knows some people through her Doom Tickler.
MEGHAN: Does “four times” count as ‘many’ now? I guess we’re veterans. I love Toronto, but I think it’s pretty adequately rated. I think Hamilton’s underrated, though.
VAL: I don’t know, I don’t have much to compare it to. The only other place I ever played a show was at a small, sort of underground club in South Korea, and it’s pretty hard to compare the two since they were so different. I love Toronto very much. I guess you might expect everyone to be jaded and mean or something, but there are lots of nice people who love music, so I love it.
Oh, Halifax. Oh, Ontario. Compare and/or contrast.
CARLEY: I’ve been to Halifax once when I helped Meghan move. The Seahorse was pretty cool and I ran into a friend that I had a pretend band with when we lived in Montreal. So I guess Halifax is a really small place. I think no matter where you are, though, it’s sort of the same. Once you get into the scene everyone knows each other, or at least knows a band member of a band member. Be it in Montreal where I spent a few years, Ontario or Halifax. Maybe it’s just about being in Canada.
MEGHAN: Sunday shopping: still kind of a big deal in Halifax. Also, in Halifax, the ’90s never really ended. It’s basically 1994 + 15. But that doesn’t capture much of the vibe.
So I will tell you that the Halifax equivalent of Broken Social Scene is probably a band called Journalists, Wolf. When I saw them, they included eight people, an accordion and a keytar. All of their songs are about celebrities. They are gloriously, life-affirmingly terrible. At the show I went to, one of their guitar players dislocated his finger, and then a guy picked the guitar player up and carried him around the front of the bar during his guitar solo. The guy carrying him also picked up his amp so the guitarist could still hear himself. There were like 20 people there. That’s Halifax.
VAL: I’ve never been to Halifax actually. I mean, why leave the centre of the universe, right? Kidding! please don’t kill me.
What do you need from Kingston? What does Kingston need from you?
CARLEY: I’m so excited to play in Kingston. I spent a summer here once and I loved the Bagpipers. So I’m hoping for bagpipers at our show. And what does Kingston need from us? I would say our $3 CD’s. Lovingly hand made.
MEGHAN: Having wasted much of my own youth in The Grad Club, it’s very exciting to play there. So personally, I’d like a hero’s welcome. And sweet potato fries if The Grad Club still has those. What does Kingston need from us? An excuse to let its hair down, man. (Well, however much hair Kingston has left.)
VAL: When I think of Kingston I think of limestone and Sir John A. MacDonald. So I guess I need a life sized limestone statue of Sir John A. MacDonald? Also unconditional love and acceptance. Just kidding, I hope people have fun at our show, that would make me happy.
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