by Al Drinkle
October is a meaningful month for us, and not just because wine tastes particularly vivid or because we love Halloween. 24 Octobers ago, Richard and Michelle opened the doors to Metrovino, altering the city, and their lives, forever. I was only 14 at the time and had no interest in wine, but in the same month and quite possibly the same day, my life was to be permanently changed as well.
A friend and I were smoking pot in his parents basement when we heard a startling noise emanating from his older brother's bedroom. As we crept closer, it sounded like an enraged Bobby Darin was playing double-time through a primitive walkie-talkie. It was a record called Walk Among Us by the Misfits, and I immediately recognized that nothing I had previously known about music would ever matter again.
Writing this retrospectively, I'm well aware of the fact that following their disbanding in 1983, the Misfits have undergone dubious reformations and released records that lampooned their original appeal, and that their iconic “Crimson Ghost” logo has been licensed to appear on everything from oven mitts to toddler pyjamas. But what they haphazardly created before '83 has proven to be the most formative music of my life.
While Richard was introducing Calgary to Pacherenc and Arbois, I was embracing punk rock for the first time through the Misfits. I couldn't believe that music could be so simple, yet so impactful. There were no guitar solos, no florid intros, no extraneous details - just concise eruptions of noise, lurking on the outer limits of euphony. It occurred to me that I could probably even make that kind of noise myself! Despite the primitive recordings, the music was irresistibly catchy, with hooks and harmonies poppy enough to make Dion and the Belmonts blush. But this was in contrast to lyrics about bodily dismemberment and Martians exterminating the human race, making the sugary melodies seem so deliciously irreverent. Wine came later, but for several years, this simple, delinquently powerful music was my prime directive.
The Misfits also have to be credited for introducing me to horror films, another obsession and a quintessential fixture of October. Their imagery and lyrics were entirely informed by horror, and the songs collectively served as an advanced tutorial on the cinematic compost that's come to mean so much to me. I was led to Return of the Fly, Plan 9 From Outer Space and Night of the Living Dead, and from these starting points I spent my teenage years immersed in the genre. Back then, I wasn't cool enough to be invited to parties, so I passed my evenings alone watching The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Carnival of Souls. These days, I'm too cool to be invited to parties so I spend my evenings in a similar fashion, but while drinking great wine. These macabre films, and hundreds of others, have kept me great company over the years and if it wasn't for the Misfits, they might not have come into my life until it was too late.
The leaves fall, the sunsets sizzle and the weather cools. This season of sentiment calls for wine that tempers the nostalgia, helping us to forgive these 24 years for passing so quickly. And please excuse us if the Misfits are playing during your shopping experience, but perhaps in some obscure and circuitous way, our histories are intertwined.
