Fucked Up

Things I learned in Toronto:

• The CN Tower is not much taller than the Pru
• There is a place on earth where $5.75 for a tallboy of Molson is considered a fair trade.
• Fucked Up is the most interesting band in punk rock. 

Note that I didn't say "best.” It's not about who’s heard what record, who's the savior of what, or who just sounds like Negative Approach. Leading up to the release of their first LP (after five years of existence) and the weekend of shows celebrating it, Fucked Up had established a "where-will-they-go-from-here" cult of personality that has the likes of Jarvis Cocker and Bloc Party clamoring to namecheck them in interviews.

The entire band works under assumed names that change at random. The current lineup (as far as I know) lists Pink Eyes on vocals, 10,000 Marbles and Gulag on guitar, Mustard Gas on bass, and Mr. Jo on drums. Gulag used to call himself Concentration Camp. The band claims to have a manager who wields and immense amount of influence despite never having seen them live. In spite of four years of steady releases, the band has never toured their home country of Canada.

This year, Halloween weekend coincided with the vinyl release of Hidden World, their debut LP. Until now, their releases have been limited to seven-inch and twelve-inch singles, collected on 2004's Epics in Minutes.

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Upon my arrival at Friday's show it was apparent that, on top of the price of admission, it was essential for everyone (myself included) to buy the Hidden World double LP, the two show-exclusive seven-inches, and the extremely limited, possibly-show-exclusive 12-inch for a total of 35 dollars Canadian. I am told it took four people 45 minutes to set up Fucked Up's merchandise table. With the consent of the band, fans handmade and sold Fucked Up handbags and Fucked Up umbrellas. Until recently, the band refused to even make T-shirts.

The bill for the weekend was diverse, ranging from the to the furious, assaulting Providence natives Dropdead to catchier, garage-rock offerings of Brutal Knights and Regulations. Sunday's bill in particular stood out, as it paired Toronto post-punks the Creeping Nobodies with Pennsylvania's thugged-out sneakerheads Cold World.

Outstanding sets of the weekend included Allentown, Pennsylvania's Pissed Jeans, who taught Friday's crowd of roughly two hundred that, when wailed over a sea of feedback, the phrase "I've got boogies!" can be a rallying cry. Much is made of Fucked Up's reluctance to "ace" any particular subgenre of punk or hardcore, but Pissed Jeans are even more difficult to pin down. They're just as influenced by the Jesus Lizard and the Stooges as they are Black Flag and Nirvana, and they are one of the best live bands in America.

Criminal Damage from Portland, Oregon play shamelessly derivative streetpunk reminiscent of bands such as the Mau Maus and Blitz. They’ve been criticized for not making their influences clear enough and duping fans into thinking they're more original than they are, but I tend not to overanalyze. Criminal Damage sound like Blitz. I love Blitz. Therefore, when Criminal Damage plays I will attempt the worst stage dive of my life and almost knock the singer's microphone stand over.

Each of Fucked Up's sets underscored the fact that, despite all the uproar over their stylistic choices and iconography, they are compelling musicians who nod to the older bands they respect while doing what they can to push the tried-and-true hardcore formula forward. Hidden World contains string arrangements (by Arcade Fire cohort and solo artist Owen Pallett, even), a choir, and several songs over five minutes long. While the band opted not to translate the former two into a live setting, it's impressive that they were able to hold the attention of an audience used to songs twenty percent as long as their own.

Their reaction to the massive amounts of hype surrounding their LP and the weekend was one of casual dismissal. On Friday, Pink Eyes noted that lots of press outlets are referring to them as the saviors of hardcore. "We're not the saviors of hardcore," he rebutted. "We just made it safe for indie rockers.” And on Saturday, Pink Eyes observed that "[Fucked Up] didn't save hardcore. The H100's saved hardcore," referring to a Cleveland-based outfit that (besides putting out excellent records) threw hammers into the crowd and destroyed churches. With these two statements, Fucked Up balanced their use of "artier" methods with a desire to make hardcore dangerous again. In fact, they doubled their tribute to the H100's by tapping Nine Shocks Terror (the H100's minus the vocalist and plus his brother) to close the Saturday night show.

The Fucked Up record release (and, indeed, the record itself) lived up to the mountains of hype. Whether their unpredictability will merit their namedrop in future hardcore festivals or be dismissed as mere publicity whoring, though, only time will tell. For now, though, the naggingly gray creative area in which Fucked Up manages to keep themselves is admirable, and I shamelessly admit that I can't wait to see what they’ll do next.