2.6.09

Leftover Crack - Fuck World Trade


Leftover Crack - Fuck World Trade
01. Clear Channel (Fuck Off)
02. Life Is Pain
03. Burn Them Prisons
04. Gang Control
05. Super Tuesday
06. Via Sin Dios
07. Feed the Children (Book of Lies)
08. One Dead Cop
09. Ya Can't Go Home
10. Rock the 40oz.
11. Soon We'll Be Dead
12. Gringos Son Puercos Feos
13. Operation M.O.V.E.

Leftover Crack is one of the bands that I spent my teenage years listening to, and is probably the most important one for drunken memories that I'll never forget.

When I was about 15 or so I started going to local Toronto shows, as opposed to shows that only more popular touring bands were playing. These shows had a totally different crowd, and the people at the second kind of show, which I had just started attending, were more into punk, generally more active and passionate about the music, and lived downtown like I did. In short, they were more like me. This made for more frequent hangouts since we lived closer together than the people I met at bigger shows, and we all had similar passions, interests, and were stupid kids with nothing to do but homework. I made closer friends, I'm still close with most of them even though we've all grown up a lot, and most of us are still into punk and hardcore, though our tastes have evolved.

Leftover Crack was one of the bands we all had in common. Being troublemaking punk kids in a big city, we needed a place to hang out that wasn't our parents' house or a bar (since we were underage and the Q Bar didn't always let everybody in, and alleys at Queen and Bathurst were bait). We found our perfect squat in the middle of Rosedale, interestingly enough: the Don Valley Brickworks. Though today it's some yuppified farmers' market with like condos in it or some shit, when I was a teenager it was a dilapidated, condemned old brick factory that nobody ever went to. On the outside it was fenced in and boarded up, and the inside was filled with old machinery and spraypaint. We would go at night, drink, and make campfires (inside in the winter, outside in the summer).

Nobody bothered us. We had a tape player and one tape: a mixed compilation of Leftover Crack and Choking Victim, with both their CDs and unreleased demos/unmastered versions/etc. So you can deduce that I listened to a lot of Leftover Crack over the years.

Whenever I listen to Leftover Crack, it brings back a flood of memories of campfires indoors, drunkenly singing along to Rock the 40oz and waving our Black Bull 40s with gloves and hats on in the middle of the winter. Looking for firewood on the floors of a few of the many hundreds of rooms and alcoves in the factory with only a lighter to guide us. Writing the lyrics to Rock the 40oz on my chemistry binder in grade 10. Climbing on the factory roof and Marie falling through rotting shingles to her elbows (she probably nearly died). Crawling through the brick ovens with Jamie. Walking through Rosedale at 3am with a boombox blasting Leftover Crack and yelling along. Memories of my drunken youth that I wouldn't have had any other way.

This album is their newest one, it came out when I was an older teen, about to start university. I think it's vastly underrated by their fanbase, whoever that is. It's fantastic and probably ranks up there with the new Limp Wrist as among my favourite "new releases" from established bands. It's not as raw as their older stuff, but it's amazing. The lyrics strike a chord with me that can't be rivaled by those of any other band.

If you didn't like Leftover Crack before, give this album a chance because it's different and more refined. If you liked Leftover Crack's older stuff, or Choking Victim, give this stuff a chance. It's similar, but not as raw,though I wouldn't at all say that they changed their sound completely. It's still totally Leftover Crack, not better, but different. It'll never replace older LoC, but it has its own place right beside it for me.

Hardcore elitists, step aside. Yeah, it's Leftover Crack. But it's fucking good.

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