Beginnings

Beginnings aren't always the best. I can remember so many beginnings of relationships that drove me to complain that people were insane to suggest that this anxiety was "the best part". But of course later the memory of the beginning is so juicy, when you already know how it turned out.

I went on my first date with adorable French boy on Wednesday (he asked me if I knew "feast", ie Feist). He brought his dog Daphné all the way from that mysterious land called The South Shore and we walked her around Park Lafontaine. Best idea for a first date ever. Just light, easygoing, sincere, a beautiful smile and a resonating feeling that all is OK. Isn't that the best?

I thought of beginnings last night at Spectrum, watching The Dears pull off a show that Mary quite rightly called the best of the year. The next best? The Dears, June 29, at Metropolis. I remembered how I got into this band in the first place. The beginning of it all, for me.

It was a tv commercial for wine, aimed at young drinkers. It was an animated ad that looked a lot like the Spanish artist Jordi Labanda's work, or those Lavalife posters in the metro. And the background music, as a cartoon couple floated in hot pink and orange air, was ...da-da da-da da... It was This is a Broadcast, from The Dears' 2000 CD End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story. Before I found that out, though, I spent a lot of time da-da'ing that bit of the song in my head and wondering what the hell it was and if I would ever find out. I often wish there was a sort of Google for hummed song clips, where you could say "I'm looking for a song that goes kind of like this... hmm, la la..." and the MusicGoogle would tell you, "Oh, that's the Postal Service, Such Great Heights."

So last night I took the napkin from my Coke and wrote down all the other memorable first times I heard bands that are now my favourites. "Not by email or msn", I added, because there's too many of those, sent over the Internet by other music-addicted friends who like to share. Those have been great, but too numerous to recount.

I was thinking more of times like when I walked into an indie record store in Santiago and, I don't know why, picked up Pulp's CD Freaks. I asked the clerk to let me hear it. He put it in a CD player and passed me the headphones, and I listened to Anorexic Beauty and I Want You and can still remember how great it felt when I said "I want to have this voice in my house. I'll take it." Years of total Pulp fanaticism followed.

When I had just moved back to Montreal, I read the Mirror to find out what was going on around here. There was a recommendation to go see a triple-bill headlined by Spoonbender at Sala Rossa. I think it was on a Monday and I went with Anna's friend of a friend, Casey. There weren't many other people there. One of the bands was We Are Wolves and I hated them. But the other band... was The Unicorns, and a love affair began. I was mesmerized by their pink outfits, Nick/Neil's shaggy hair, their silly/smart jokes about the main act's name, and the music. I called the Rant Line the next day and said I had just seen the cutest, sweetest, most adorable band EVER. They published it and I happen to know the Unicorns read it, because a long time after that, I asked and they remembered. Ah... give me a second to run through my many Unicorns memories (chaos at the Dark Room; the Nicks talking loops at SAT; discovering the crowds at La Tulipe; Jenn's message from Tazmania that it was all over) that I'll treasure forever now that they're defunct. How come all the other unicorns are dead?