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Friday, December 05, 2008

Sometimes, even when life is going well and you feel good about yourself...

...and you're wondering, "How did I end up in this shitty state that I'm in?", something comes along and makes you think "Oh, I remember..."

I went to see this band called Women the other day, supporting this guy called Chad VanGaalen. I thought Chad VanGaalen was in Women because he was doing electronicy stuff with them, and after their set, since he was the only one at the front of the stage, I said hi and said I enjoyed the album and thought their set was really great, and he said "Thanks, but I'm not really in the band, I just play with them sometimes". So I was like "Do you want me to stop talking to you then? HAHAHAHAHA!" Then one of the guys who was actually in the band came over, so I started talking to him, when it suddenly dawned on me that the other guy was Chad VanGaalen, and I'd committed the BIGGEST INDIE FAUX PAS OF ALL TIME.

Then afterwards, I started talking to the guy from Women again, and we went outside because he wanted a cigarette, and some other people came over and started talking to him, and it turned out one of them spent a year in Canada, so him and Women guy talked about that for ages, and I was left with nothing to say but no clear moment to make my exit either, so I just really awkwardly and embarrassingly forced in jokes ("The Greyhound's a bus? I thought you meant people were travelling around Canada on the backs of dogs!") and dull questions ("What's the music scene like in Calgary?").

Then someone *else* from Women came over, and I started talking to him instead, and I said "The songs are much louder live than on record" (which they ARE), but then one of "Oh I lived in Canada for a year! I'm so cool!" guy's friends said "No way, the album is really loud!", which is when I started to worry I was just massively mis-remembering the album, because it's on my old PC and I only ever got to listen to it 3 times because I broke said PC, so I said this to the Women guy, hastening to add that I'd downloaded the album legally (note - lie), and he said "Oh, I don't care about that - I download albums illegally all the time", so I said "Yeah, so do I, but I don't really want to download stuff from independent bands" (still lie), so he said "I download stuff from independent bands..." and it was like I was chastising him for downloading stuff illegally, even though, in reality, we were actually kindred spirits! And he didn't get angry or anything, it just felt really awkward. Then he was like "But yeah, you're right, the songs are much louder live than on the album", and I was like "WELL WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SAY THAT IN THE FIRST PLACE AND PREVENT ALL THIS UNNECESSARY AWKWARDNESS". And I went home wanting to die.