Heroin is so passe...

I’ve stumbled upon a treasure trove of sorts, dear readers, and my aural senses are all a-twitter.

In order to get to the exotic locations that played host to my Victoria Day weekend (read: Canadian Tire, an industrial park in Vaughan and a field on the northernmost fringes of Dufferin), I had to do a fair amount of driving. To do so, I needed music, and, in a remarkable flash of foresight, I actually remembered to replace the CD that’s been rocking the Corolla for weeks now—this time, with a disc wallet procured from a drawer in my room.

Well, am I ever glad I did. In said wallet were a good half-dozen mixed CDs, long forgotten by their fickle creator and somehow unplayed over several years/moves. I can’t pinpoint exactly how old they are, but judging by the styles represented and the relative infrequency of tracks from albums I didn’t already own (a symptom of our old farm’s painfully slow dial-up connection), I’d say most were created between 1999-2001.

It’s always nice to discover music, but to rediscover songs that, at one time, were pretty influential in your life, and that you’d somehow managed to completely erase from your consciousness, is pretty damned fantastic.

Among the reclaimed gems: Andromeda by Zuckerbaby, Oh Yeah by Ash, At The River by Groove Armada, Not if You Were the Last Junkie on Earth by the Dandy Warhols* and a knickers-wettingly good recording of Michael Stipe singing Lucky with Radiohead at some Tibetan Freedom Concert or another.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to burn a few discs and bury them in the yard or something.

*Okay, I hadn’t forgotten about this one at all—it and maintains, more or less, a continual presence of kick-assitude on my musical radar. I’m just impressed with myself circa 1999 for deeming it compilation-worthy.