The (International) Noise Conspiracy became one of my favorite bands so slowly, so subversively, that i didn't even notice until last month that they've probably been high in that pantheon for years.
They were among the handful of bands that i brought back with me from New Zealand in 2008, having a track on the two-disc Punk-O-Rama volume 8 compilation that defined the second week of our journey. Why that track (A New Morning, Changing Weather) didn't make the 2008 Poor-Ass Christmas, i'm unsure. Probably because by the time i assembled that comp, i was so sick of hearing those songs that i wanted as little representation from Punk-O-Rama 8 and Kerrang! Best of 2007 as possible. This was a mistake. Shit, the PAC that year probably just should have been a direct port of the Kerrang! disc. But as it stands, even Biffy Clyro's A Whole Child Ago, the Kiwiland, Ho! theme song, had to wait a year for inclusion on the 2009 comp, the year The (International) Noise Conspiracy called it quits.
Over the next couple years, i obtained a few T(I)NC albums as they came available in Half-Price Books's dollar bin, and they gradually received more and more rotation through the CD player, and when i eventually set up the digital Mobyfort, through that. It was noticeable enough in 2013 that the song Smash It Up landed on the PAC that year, but at that point i really just thought it was that song that was really doing something for me.
But it took another road trip with accidentally limited musical selection before i finally figured out the truth. I drove across Ontario in July of this year, just me and my dog, to enjoy nature, unplug from the internet and the rest of human society for a while, clear my head, and get some work done. I loaded up my iPod with music for the trip, and then, in my mad scramble on the Tuesday i left to get everything together and thrown into the van, i forgot the aux cable i needed to play the damn thing through the van speakers. This left me, for the first day and a half, with only two albums in the car to listen to: The Buzzcocks's Singles Going Steady, and The Rolling Stones's Sticky Fingers, the fancy two-disc reissue that had just come out. Both of these were in the van by accident; Singles Going Steady simply because it was left in the CD player when i unloaded everything else before the trip, and Sticky Fingers because i'd just picked it up at Target the night before and hadn't brought it into the house.
When i finally managed to pick up an aux cable a day and a half later - and then only by compromising my morals and stepping into a Wal-Mart - i got on the road and the first thing i put on my iPod was The (International) Noise Conspiracy.
And that's when i realized my true feelings for those four boys from Sweden.
They were among the handful of bands that i brought back with me from New Zealand in 2008, having a track on the two-disc Punk-O-Rama volume 8 compilation that defined the second week of our journey. Why that track (A New Morning, Changing Weather) didn't make the 2008 Poor-Ass Christmas, i'm unsure. Probably because by the time i assembled that comp, i was so sick of hearing those songs that i wanted as little representation from Punk-O-Rama 8 and Kerrang! Best of 2007 as possible. This was a mistake. Shit, the PAC that year probably just should have been a direct port of the Kerrang! disc. But as it stands, even Biffy Clyro's A Whole Child Ago, the Kiwiland, Ho! theme song, had to wait a year for inclusion on the 2009 comp, the year The (International) Noise Conspiracy called it quits.
Over the next couple years, i obtained a few T(I)NC albums as they came available in Half-Price Books's dollar bin, and they gradually received more and more rotation through the CD player, and when i eventually set up the digital Mobyfort, through that. It was noticeable enough in 2013 that the song Smash It Up landed on the PAC that year, but at that point i really just thought it was that song that was really doing something for me.
But it took another road trip with accidentally limited musical selection before i finally figured out the truth. I drove across Ontario in July of this year, just me and my dog, to enjoy nature, unplug from the internet and the rest of human society for a while, clear my head, and get some work done. I loaded up my iPod with music for the trip, and then, in my mad scramble on the Tuesday i left to get everything together and thrown into the van, i forgot the aux cable i needed to play the damn thing through the van speakers. This left me, for the first day and a half, with only two albums in the car to listen to: The Buzzcocks's Singles Going Steady, and The Rolling Stones's Sticky Fingers, the fancy two-disc reissue that had just come out. Both of these were in the van by accident; Singles Going Steady simply because it was left in the CD player when i unloaded everything else before the trip, and Sticky Fingers because i'd just picked it up at Target the night before and hadn't brought it into the house.
When i finally managed to pick up an aux cable a day and a half later - and then only by compromising my morals and stepping into a Wal-Mart - i got on the road and the first thing i put on my iPod was The (International) Noise Conspiracy.
And that's when i realized my true feelings for those four boys from Sweden.
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