Category: It Happened to Me

Another installment of stuff I was going to blog earlier, but didn’t.

Kingston’s Loudest Band

My sister recently found an old newspaper clipping I’d sent her from my university days almost ten years ago. It was an article written for an old Kingston paper called INQ (short for Independent News of Queen’s; it vanished after it was discovered that it was funded with money stolen from a charity organization) reviewing our band, Volume.

For the most part, we received good reviews. We were pretty good musicians, and I think at least two of us – namely Andrew and me – are still actively gigging; Andrew’s the drummer for a Vancouver band called Feisty, and I’m ready-at-a-moment’s notice accordion backup for whomever needs it (inlcuding Lindi, whose CD release party is this Thursday).

The article was written by Elan Mastai, who’s gone on to work on scripts for the big screen.

Mike, Chris, George and Andrew, this one’s for you.

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Discovering the Length, Width and Depth of Volume

Elan Mastai
INQ Newspaper
Wednesday, April 7, 1993

My regular Thursday ritual of staring transfixed at the television screen absorbed in the intricacies of Seinfeld was abruptly disturbed on April 1st. The distraction came in the form of an invitation to check out Volume at the Carribbean Club. Fortunately for my friend, I was very impressed by Volume’s three-set performance.

Volume definitely has the “grunge” look down pat. All the musicians involved were repsectably clad in multiple layers of flannel, beer ads and rock band T-shirts. They primarily played covers of current Seattle-scene alternative rock.

Volume’s music is of a fairly loud variety, and their sound packs a solid punch.

Bar bands often seem to rely on the ability of their guitarist to carry the tunes, leaving drums and bass to establish the background rhythm (particularly in this age of pre-fabricated techno music). Volume’s drummer, Andrew Pirie, has an established stage presence. His thundering beat had much of the crowd bobbing their heads in synchronicity. Fortunately, George Scriban’s bass stood out as sound completely separate from Chris Walmsley’s guitars. Although the guitars were great, Walmsley wasn’t really allowed to cut loose on any solos until the third set.

Keyboardist Joey deVilla filled out the instrumental section of Volume. deVilla apologized early for his real keyboard having been repossessed. Regardless, I’ve never seen anyone actually play the keyboard with their forehead and still maintain the tune. I was suitably impressed.

They keyboards provided nice additional melody, although it was a real battle to hear them over Walmsley’s guitar.

Vocalist Mike List has a great edge to his voice. When he’s allowed to cut loose with one of his primal yowls, you can feel your brain quiver. List’s vocals on tunes like Alice in Chains’ Would? and Soundgarden’s Outshined are along the lines of what Janis Joplin would have sounded like, had she been a werewolf (and male).

However, Volume would do well to play to List’s strengths and stay away from his weaknesses. Volume has a tight sound, but they should steer clear of more melodic vocal material – ground upon which List is obviously uncomfortable. The only real disappointments of the night were covers of Epic and Nearly Lost You. (I know, I know, Faith No More and Screaming Trees are not generally considered melodic, but it’s all relative.)

However, this criticism is not meant to detract from the band’s overall appeal. They are simply better on the heavier material. Highlights of the night included bang-on covers of Pearl Jam’s Alive and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Suck My Kiss. On another of the more memorable covers, List borrowed from U2’s Bono stating “this is a song Black Francis stole from the Beatles, now we’re stealing it back”. The band then promptly broke into a killer version of Honey Pie.

Practically worth the three-dollar admission charge itself, was the hilarious rendition of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy. List surrendered vocals to deVilla for the cover, giving himself an opportunity for a quick rest. deVilla went way over the top, yelping like a post-punk daemon of disaffected suburban youth and paying particular attention to the more socially stigmatized anatomical protrusions of the human body.

Another of the highlights of the show was Volume’s only original of the night, an incredible tune called No Wonder. If No Wonder is an indication of the original songs Volume is producing, I only wish they would include more originals in future sets. It is so difficult for independent bands to land jobs that often it is necessary to play covers. However, I think that Volume will find that original songs allow the band to evolve more fully and create their own sound. Originals also allow the band to play to their own strengths, particularly on the part of the vocalist.

The band actually played No Wonder twice, the second rendition as the last song of the final set. It was requested by two fairly large individuals who took it upon themselves to create a two person mosh pit on the Caribbean’s chessboard dance floor.

I spoke to deVilla during the break between the first and second sets. He tells me that currently the band is mostly working on gaining exposure around town and refining their original material. Volume will be playing semi-regularly over the course of the summer at the Caribbean with their next show scheduled for Thursday, April 8th.

While Volume hardly transcends the idiom of popular culture or any pretentious music-critic distinction like that, they are well worth seeing. Those of you who do not gauge their musical tastes by its obscurity (just because it sells a million compact discs doesn’t mean it’s not excellent music) and are into the sonic barrage that Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains have cashed in on should like Volume.

Volume is a band that is not only interesting to listen to, but between the hyperkinetic flopping of List and deVilla and the musical skill of Pirie, Scriban and Walmsley, Volume is a band that is also entertaining to watch. All in all a great show. Check them out.

Elan pounded his head against his computer keyboard in the deVilla style while writing this article.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
— Chief Engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott from Star Trek.

Three months ago: The con artist

Back in August, our house was visited by a con man, and we got rooked.

I was working at home that day, Dan was recently laid off by OpenCola, and our other housemate Paul hadn’t moved in yet. Someone buzzed the front door, and over the intercom he told us that he was our neighbour from a couple of doors down and needed our help.

I answered the door and met a guy named Sean. He looked like a U of T student — in his mid-twenties, black, dressed in sweatshirt and jeans, looking rather distressed.

He explained that his car broke down and he needed money to get it towed before the parking authority towed it away. Here in Toronto, the combination of parking fine and impound fee can set you back $300.

He told us that he’d just moved in from Aurora, where if he were there, he could easily get help since everyone knew their neighbours. Now that he was in stranger in the Big City, he didn’t want to impose on a neighbour he didn’t know, but he was in a bind. He said he’d return in a couple of hours to pay us back.

Dan and I each gave him forty bucks, and he gave us his phone number and even offered to let us hang onto his Mac laptop as a guarantee that he would come back and pay. I felt a little guilty about not getting to know all my neighbours and told him it would be all right — the phone number would be sufficient. After that, he was on his way.

It was only after he left that I got the sinking feeling that we’d been had.

Dan said that he got the feeling too, but he kept mum and watched for me to make my move — when he saw me lend him the money, he did the same.

Sean never came back. Upset that he, an infosec specialist who’s read numerous papers on social engineering, got taken by a street-level con artist, went on at length about how he’d “fucking kill” Sean if he ever dared to show his face in the neighbourhood again.

“I know capoeira!” he exclaimed at brunch the next day, spitting out flecks of scrambled egg. “I. Will. End. Him.”

Today: The con artist returns

Today, while I was away at work, Sean showed up at the house again.

This time, Paul answered the door. Paul moved in a month and a half after Sean’s visit, well after the con job had ceased to be a topic of conversation. I’m not sure we’d ever told Paul about him.

Sean explained to Paul that he needed a lift to Bloor and Yonge — something about car trouble. Dan came upstairs to see what was going on, and saw Sean. He explained to Paul that we’d loaned this guy some money and he never paid us back.

The story should’ve ended then and there, but it didn’t.

Paul asked Sean about this, and Sean explained that while he didn’t come back that day, he paid me back a month later when I helped him assemble his waterbed. No such event ever took place, and hey, if I’d been paid back, why wouldn’t I have also gotten Dan’s money back as well?

Paul, having no reason to doubt Sean, accepted Sean’s story and proceeded to give him a lift. Dan, beginning to feel a twinge of doubt went downstairs to phone me. Dan explained the situation, and I was livid.

“Why aren’t you stopping him?” I yelled at my phone, helpless since I was miles away.

“I told Paul, Sean explained that you got the money back when you helped with the waterbed. I’m calling to double-check. Sean didn’t call you, did he? He said he called you and got no answer.”

I got no such call.

“Didn’t you explain to Paul that this man is a lying thief?!”

I asked Dan to run out to the garage and stop Paul from giving Sean a ride in his car. I spent a couple of anxious minutes waiting for Dan to return to the phone.

“Gone,” Dan said when he returned.

I had visions of Paul either getting ripped off or worse, being led to some secluded place Sean’s partners in crime were waiting for him to bring back someone to mug.

I chewed Dan out for a little bit for being so lackadaisical about the whole matter. I think I brought up some point about being a little more participatory in the affairs of running the household, and protecting it — you live here, act like it! Dan apologized over IRC, but I was just too pissed it off and logged out.

When Paul got back home, he called me and told me that he lent Sean 80 dollars.

“You’ll never see that again,” I said.

The two phone numbers Sean left were fakes, and the “house keys from his place two doors down” that he gave to Paul as a good-faith guarantee most decidedly did not open the door of the house two doors down.

When I later talked to Paul, he told me that Dan had given him the impression that Sean was a friend who’d just defaulted on paying back some money we’d lent him. Dan did not make it clear that he was a con man who’d ripped us off once before. After all, if he’d conned Dan out of some money, wouldn’t Dan have been a little more confrontational with Sean? Wouldn’t he have made it very clear that Paul should not be doing him any favours?

I’m generally slow to anger, but right now, I’m seeing red. The cavalier way in which Dan handled Sean’s return, plus his allowing Paul to get into a potentially dangerous situation by giving him a lift is just too much.

I am trying not to blow my stack at Dan. I’ve made more than a few boneheaded moves in my time and know that excessive carping just breeds resentment. But he should have known better. We’ve already been burned once. Dan’s supposed to be an infosec guru — Mr. “Security is not a product, it’s a process.”

Yet here he was, dealing with the real-world equivalent of a “script kiddie” whom we’ve met before and whose modus operandi we know. And somehow, he casually let Paul go off and give this guy a ride in his car.

He never once confronted Sean and said “Get out of here before I call the cops,” or even “What happened to the money we gave you?”. He most certainly did not use capoeira and “end” him.

The end result: This house has twice been robbed by this petty thief, all because of inaction and stool-softeningly bad judgement.

What’s done cannot be undone. Hopefully, Dan will be a little more responsible in the future. Collectively, we’ve paid a 160-dollar tuition at the school of hard knocks. I will probably be considerably less angry tomorrow. Maybe it’s best to view this as a learning experience for Paul and a refresher course for Dan.

And somewhere, out there, there’s a guy who may or may not be named Sean having a really good laugh.