#every small nice thing that the las nevadas members do for him seem to completely blow him away (like foolish getting him armor or fundy we

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Have you noticed the contrast between c!quackity and c!tommy compared to c!tubbo and c!quackity

Q seems to sympathise and empathise more with tommy despite being aware of what he's doing is...extremely dodgy and potentially threatening to his country. Vs with Tubbo he is a lot more harsh right off the bat a lot more affirmative. But why is that? (Aside from knowing tubbo wants war before that was exposed the conversation was hostile)

i think quackity's edginess when it comes to tubbo has less to do with tubbo himself but the fact that tubbo is building an intimidating tower like right next to his nation. he would've reacted the same way if anyone else, even tommy or maybe even karl or sapnap, had started doing the same thing. actually, he might have reacted worse. he said so himself that he wanted to work things out with tubbo using words, and i believe it, if there's anyone had quackity has (or at least had) a good relationship with - it's with tommy and tubbo.

the white house that he cared so much about, the one that schlatt tore down? the One Attachment that quackity had on the server prior to his horse? that build was special to him because he'd built it with wilbur and tommy, and he tells schlatt himself that it was his last good memory with his friends, aka wilbur and tommy.

and tubbo had been on the same cabinet as him under schlatt. they fought in the pogtopia war, started new l'manberg, fought in the doomsday war together. they've had hearts to hearts about the fate of l'manberg, what it meant to be loyal, what it meant to love and defend a country that was doomed to fail. that's what quackity means by "shared past experiences."

so even though quackity's decisions (and occasional lying) may seem not rational to an outsider, i don't think a lot of people realize that quackity is scared. his nation has zero security, the nation currently isn't even bringing in money (so they have no power), quackity had to literally bet on his life multiple times to get the loyalty of the current members, and they're slowly getting boxed in on their borders, and so he sees a tower that looks vaguely militaristic, and understandably gets antsy.

he's willing to work things out with tubbo, and he definitely doesn't want to fight tubbo (well, he didn't until he got the threat, and even then, he's taking a defensive position, sacrificing tourism for the sake of building walls.)

as far tommy, he's just less... threatening at the moment? quackity definitely empathizes with tommy, immediately backing off when tommy mentions the trauma he'd been through, and telling the las nevadas recruits to be nice to him (though i think it's notable that when trousers had mentioned "the protagonist's trauma," quackity had said "he's not the only one who's gone through things").

to quackity, the only real threat is wilbur. he doesn't fear tommy, has no ill will towards him at all (and tommy doesn't either). however, quackity does feel at least a little threatened by tubbo because of the stance that tubbo is taking, and i think that's why he's acting so defensively (aka taking a harder stance).

actually, i feel like this interaction would've gone a lot worse if it weren't tommy and tubbo. if that stream had been only ranboo and wilbur, or basically anyone else, i feel like things would've ended lot messier than they did today. it sure is a different kind of pain to see quackity mainly being caught up in conflict between people he actually cares about (tommy, tubbo, karl, sapnap, and maybe wilbur)...

[cambriomusic]

Mike Small Interview

Mike Small is a musician from Toronto, Canada. He was a founding member of the Meligrove Band, and now plays bass for a number of bands. CamBrioMusic.com is delighted to present the following interview. It has been condensed for length considerations.

Cam Brio (CB) = Thanks so much for making the time to be here. How did the documentary about the Meligrove Band come about?

Mike Small (MS) = We were playing a show and a group of students wanted to interview us for a video project. We had a lot of fun with them, and not long after they contacted us again and wanted to make a full-length documentary about a band. They ended up capturing a year of some bad stuff that happened with us. We had our bus break down in Florida and we were stuck in Orlando for a week. They weren’t able to come down and shoot that part. We had two bus breakdowns during the overall time of filming, and I think they composited them both into one story for the sake of continuity. It was December 2010 when we were stuck in Orlando, and we didn’t know when we’d be able to leave. The bus breakdown shown in the movie was in Reno, Nevada. In Montreal we had a belt snap on it. Eventually, we sold it to a soccer team. (laughs)

CB = In the documentary, a lot of Toronto-area bands cite the Meligrove Band as an influence, how did it feel to hear that?

MS = It’s weird, but some if it we already knew because bands tell each other that kind of stuff. I remember at the Montreal festival where we met the guys from Tokyo Police Club, their keyboardist Graham came and sat at our picnic table in the band area and told us what an influence we were on them. The very first comment on our band’s Myspace page, when we had that about a million years ago, was teenaged Graham saying, “I’m going to have a band and get huge, and we will let you open for us.” (laughs) It came true.

CB = Who are some of your musical influences?

MS = A lot of my early bass playing life comes from Paul Simonon from The Clash. Around that time too, I would say Klaus Flouride from the Dead Kennedys. Mike O'Neill from The Inbreds was an influence, but it wasn’t until recently that I started to figure out his fun chords. At some point I got really interested in the Neil Young album “Harvest.” The bassist plays grooves only on the kick drum, and was otherwise staying out completely. The bass becomes a physical presence that controls the volume of the song. Before listening to “Harvest” I would just play constantly on our songs, but when bass players do that songs have no dynamics. But now I find that with bass, not playing is a part of playing. You’re deciding what the dynamics of the songs are. A lot of bassline ideas come from me walking around with the new song I had to play on, in my head. I’d go home and try to figure out what I was hearing in my head. Then I’d go and record and change it around again, that’s generally the process. Two other guys who influenced my playing are Robert Sledge, who played in the Ben Folds Five, and Derek Tokar, who led the Toronto band Radioblaster. Both of them played a Gibson bass with a Russian big muff distortion pedal. They got me into really fuzzy bass you could play on high strings and sound almost synthy, and I definitely put that to use on almost every Meligrove album and anywhere else I could get away it with. (laughs)

CB = Funny connection here, I went to the same high school as you. Did you play a lot of school events?

MS = Yeah, in a sense. Before the Meligove Band formed, I didn’t know Jay or Darcy at all; they had their own band. Meligrove started because the band backing the school choir had all graduated, and the teacher who ran the choir knew that the three of us played instruments, so she approached us to take over. Then the three of us became the school liturgical band, before we were the Meligrove Band. When grade 12 ended, their bass player was leaving so they asked if I would start playing with them. Are you familiar with Sandy from the band Fu*ked Up?

CB = Yeah, for sure.

MS = She went to the same high school and had her own punk band called SNI. If I said no to Jay and Darcy, they were going to ask Sandy to play in the band next. In a sense, Sandy has me to thank for being in Fu*ked Up. (laughs) So when high school ended, that’s how I joined the band. I remember that the three of us went to a Treble Charger concert at the Opera House and that was the first time we all hung out. Side note: I’ve become a freelance bass player for hire. Do you know Rich Aucoin the East Coast singer?

CB = Don’t think I know him.

MS = Well, he sent me a message asking if I would play a bunch of shows with him starting in Ottawa in two weeks. I said yes, and my first show with him was at the Ottawa CityFolk Festival. We were in this arena and there was an outdoor stage next to it. Bush, Live and maybe Our Lady Peace were playing, and I don’t really like Live but they were a lot of fun. (laughs)

CB = Did you ever play with The Cybertronic Spree?

MS = No, but I did make their website. For a while they were getting a different friend to appear on stage as “Weird Al” Yankovic with them. At their very first show I was their first “Weird Al.” They play the ‘80s Transformers soundtrack and there’s a “Weird Al” song on it, that’s why they get someone to play him. Did you see that Kickstarter they did that got over $100,000?

CB = I missed that one.

MS = They asked for something like $15,000 to make an album and they raised way more. They planned to roll all that money into their live production, and were going to go on a huge tour this summer but obviously now can’t. Right before this Kickstarter they were going to play the Gathering of the Juggalos and asked me go to and be their tour manager and merch person. It didn’t work out, but right after that discussion they did this massive Kickstarter. If they ever ask me again, I know they can afford me. (laughs)

CB = In the Meligrove Band you guys always seemed to do your own thing and not try and find into a particular “music scene.” Did you actively try and stick to your own style?

MS = Yeah, I would say that’s accurate.

CB = Do you think that sticking to your own style helped the band’s longevity?

MS = In a sense, yeah. Often in a band your longevity is decided by the public. If in the popular imagination you are an example of a certain style and then that style falls out of favour, you kind of get dragged down with it. I think a lot of music scenes can emerge in an organic social way. A scene may center around an arts school, for example. Where we grew up there was an arts high school and the teenage music scene there was amazing. When we started trying to play in Toronto, we didn’t know anyone and had to exist outside of those social connections. We also always took a while to write songs and record albums, so if we followed trends then the trend would be long gone by the time we put something out. We may have been influenced by things that were current in an organic way, but we never sat down and said, “this is what’s hot right now, so let’s do it.”

CB = Are the other guys in the Meligrove Band playing in other groups now?

MS = Brian and Darcy have a band together. They recently put their album on Spotify. The band is called Quite Nice. Jay has been writing music. He’s been mixing a band’s record and it sounds awesome. He actually mixed the last Meligrove album all by himself. It’s my favourite sounding record we made. I was playing in a live karaoke band for a little over two years. That was really busy, around 3 – 5 gigs a week and a 4-hour set on stage. I have a garage rock band called MAX that’s with Dave Monks and Nick McKinlay. We’re just finishing up an album right now. I have this band called Bankruptcy and we had finished an album and were sitting on it for a while, unsure of how to put it out. We put it online, and then one day later a record label contacted us and wanted to put it out on vinyl. We deleted it to give it time to get pressed. We were supposed to get out and play this summer, but it’s too bad that now we can’t now.

CB = Who are some of the bands you’re listening to right now?

MS = It’s rough because I was playing live karaoke until last fall and it messed with my taste in music. I had to keep track of over 400 songs because we didn’t know what people would choose to sing. So I was constantly listening to a playlist of our repertoire, keeping all 400+ songs fresh in my mind, hardly ever listening to anything else. Lately I’ve been more into The Inbreds. I got this fun ‘70s synth record called “Plantasia.” It was sold in some plant shop in the ‘70s in LA and was reissued last year. The idea is that it’s scientifically engineered to make your plants happier. It’s really just some synth nerd getting stoned and having fun with his synths. It’s hilarious and really fun to listen to. I really like that Neil Young is dipping into his archival stuff and releasing really nice records of shows from the ‘60s and ‘70s. Two months ago I listened to “Enter the Wu-tang” for the first time and I couldn’t stop listening to that for three days. (laughs)

CB = Do you have any favourite concert films or music documentaries?

MS = I liked one called “Last Days Here.” It’s about the guy from Pentagram. They were this young, promising, Sabbath sounding band in the early ‘70s. Now, he’s in his 60s living with his parents and he’s got a lot of problems. If you think of some people you know who’ve kept trying music for too long and then extend it over an entire lifetime into old age, that’s what this movie shows. There is a concert film I love, it’s Canadian, and called “This is What 110% Smells Like.” It’s about B.A. Johnston. He’s pretty much lived on tour in Canada almost constantly since around 2004. There’s a great Globe and Mail article calling him “the new Stompin’ Tom Connors.” We took a pay cut to play a show with him in Sudbury. We drove him to Toronto from Sudbury so that he could take the bus to Hamilton. More recently, B.A. made a TV show about Hamilton as a tour guide. I know it’s fictional, but I recently watched “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” and I loved it. I remember when “Walk the Line” the Johnny Cash movie came out I hated it, and felt lonely about it. I feel like “Walk Hard” makes fun of all the stuff that I hated about “Walk the Line” when it came out, and I thought, “wow, I’m not alone.” (laughs)

CB = Did the Meligrove Band play last year?

MS = Yeah, we played two songs at a Sloan tribute show. The band The Golden Dogs organized it. I asked if I could join them on bass for a couple of songs, and they came back and asked if the Meligroves would get back together to play. To my surprise everyone was immediately into it. We were just one small part of the show, but it felt really good.