I’ve been planning to send a newsletter this month, with the hope that’d I’d have a year end list together, but it just hasn’t happened. Like, the list is pretty much done, but I wanna write about the records. Maybe that’s a next week thing. Here’s a December playlist though…
In feeling that self imposed stress crunch though, I remembered that I used to write reviews as part of a “Shitmas Zine” for a few years near the beginning. And that made me think, “Well, 10 years of Shitmas. Maybe I should share the lore.” So strap in for some punishment.
The whole thing started as an accident. A joke. Back in 2013, both Warthog & Glue hit me up to play a show on the same day, between Christmas and New Years. That’s where the trouble began.
On a snowy December 30th, in unit 112 at 163 Sterling Road, S.H.I.T. played with Warthog, Glue, VCR… and my record just says Hired Goons, but I wanna say Absolut also played. I distinctly remember talking to Vassil at the gig and CLT’s vocal pedal being a pain in my ass. So it goes.
SHITguy was there. There was a photo booth - I still have all the photos but I’ll spare you. A ‘feast of shame’ - which I still don’t really understand. I think we gave out free t-shirts? We gave out free shit a lot at Shitmas. Bootlegs, pins, t-shirts. It was like that. It was a lot of fun. Something someone could describe as ‘the good ol days’ and not be entirely incorrect. A true Celebration of Friendship.
And then, well, 2014 rolled around. It was a few months after that Shitmas that we opened S.H.I.B.G.B.S. Boy, that was dumb. Beneath 225 Geary, before you could get natural wine, artisanal line-up pasta, and attend a legal rave up there. It was us and KITCH. Real ones know. God bless that $5 mac and cheese and Andy Weaver.
Well, the second Shitmas happened there, cause why not? Us, Career Suicide, Triage, Wild Side and… Glue! I don’t remember much from the SHIBGBs era, because I was so sleep deprived, but I do remember this show being easily the biggest show we ever did there. It was uncomfortably full. The way a good gig should be. I think we covered ‘Kids of the Black Hole’ that night. Fitting.
By 2015, SHIBGBs was gone. Stuart Berman, scourge of Toronto music journalism, outed us in the Toronto Star even though we asked him not to and not a month later the bylaw officer was knocking at the door ready to make room for the ‘monied interests.’ Do you know how much money you needed to have to start up something legally on Geary back then? Millions, man. Anyways, congratulations to the winners and fuck that loser forever. He got upset when he saw I posted this online and, in the spirit of holding a grudge for an unreasonably long time, I’m happy to share it again.
SHITMAS 2015 was S.H.I.T., Fuck SS, Mueco, Conman & The Boys at Coalition - the last proper ‘Punk Venue’ in the city. I cannot believe some of us have been friends for this long.
2015 also began the Faith/Void era, of which the only relics are tattered tote bags and what can be found in the local dollar bin. By 2016, FV was ready to host thee gig. It was always a last minute affair in the days of the festival. That one was S.H.I.T, Conman (again!), Mil Spec, Intensive Care & Lumpy Records recording artists Mollot.
2017, we gave Owl’s Club on Dovercourt a shot and had our friends in Dark Thoughts join us. It was S.H.I.T., Dark Thoughts, Sour Key & Hady. The sleep deprivation was only realer by then. Do you have photos of that night? I’d love to see’em.
By 2018, I was so very fucking over everything. S.H.I.T. did a 30 day european tour. The last NDY was that year. I was consistently between jobs. I was a shell of a human being. Thus, that was the only Shitmas I personally didn’t organize - but it was a killer one, again in the FV basement. S.H.I.T., Tomb Mold, Perfect Blue and Wasteland. I know this because I found the flyer that I posted online for it. It was supposed to be the last show at FV, but I feel like maybe there was another one after that?
Either way, 2019 I got back to it. That Shitmas felt like a rebirth. It was the first show at a new venue off Dupont called Grand Canyon. S.H.I.T., Pelada, Pravik, The Fact, Korea Town Acid. Stacked lineup. I couldn’t believe how many people showed up. And man, Grand Canyon felt like it was primed to be the next best place for a gig in the city.
And we all know what happened March 2020. S.H.I.T. entered 2020 with the intention of writing and recording another LP. That obviously never happened. We were a few songs in and the pandemic stopped us. We had two tracks recorded that ended up being the ‘Hidden in Eternity / Eraser III’ 7”. But, before we decided they would be a 7”, I found out you could press a single song onto a postcard. Missing that feeling of stress around the holidays, I embarked on a dumb means of preserving tradition.
So, Shitmas 2020, we posted a ‘mystery gift’ on our Bandcamp, and I set out to collect the mailing addresses of friends around the world. So, there’s are copies of postcard, with custom S.H.I.T. stamps on them and hand written messages all over the world.
By 2021, well, the universal spirit was broken by the pandemic. There was no SHITMAS.
2022 was the return. S.H.I.T., Poison Ruin, Public Acid, Slash Need, Fertilizer and Beyond the Pale at the Velvet. It was good to get that feeling back after so many years away from it.
And I mean, that’s what it’s always been. A reason to get people together when it’s time to get together. A thing to do with friends. We’d give out gifts, play some dumb music and just have a laugh as a crew one night a year. It’s remarkable to look back and see how many people have played it so many times.
Tomorrow, we do it all again. A real who’s who is joining us for this one. The legends IRON LUNG, who are not just IRON LUNG, but our ‘label honchos.’ GLUE, for a third time! DARK THOUGHTS, for a second time! K.O.S. and DELCO MFs, who really are among the best hardcore acts in the U.S.A. right now. Old friends in PUFFER, who just scorch live. And, our fave new local act of 2023, CALAMITY.
When I posted the flyer for Shitmas 2018, I captioned it “All good things have endings. New beginnings forever. Or something like that.” Well, tomorrow is gonna be the last Shitmas for the foreseeable future. Times change. People change. If I’m playing music, I’d still rather be on the floor in the basement, playing songs too fast and getting shoved into an amplifier. This ain’t that anymore. So, all good things have endings. New beginnings forever. Or something like that.
Tickets here.