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He's already repping an Amsterdam snapback, and bragging about how he feels bad for people who're stuck writing behind their desks while people like him are out “living their dreams” (those dreams of which, apparently, mean traveling far, far away from Calgary). Point taken, Transit. Moving on.Yes, VICE has already spilled some words on the overflow of bad Calgary flood songs (though I'd argue that this one is much worse, and I'm going to keep linking it until you watch it). Ricca Razor Sharp's contribution isn't just bad, however. It's maddeningly inept. It looks and sounds as though he conceived, wrote and recorded the song in less time than most people were taking to read an article about the Calgary flood. It's like slacktivism in song form.First off, just pause the video at the two-second mark and absorb all of the stickers on that guitar. Primus, the Dead Kennedys, chalkboard writing that reads “you suck.” Is this a bad prop from a television show set in the mid '90s? Did Fox recently purchase That '90s Show, and they're shooting it beside Calgary's tumultuous Bow River?As the camera zooms out, you'll see that the guitarist (who, despite being more hammy than anything, is named Pastrami), wearing an 'I Am Canadian hockey jersey and looking like an all-around righteous dude. He's even making a cool-guy duckface. Ricca Razor Sharp is wearing a purple t-shirt with an iron-on image of Nenshi on the cover of the (ruthlessly conservative) Calgary Sun and a pleather Calgary Flames hat. Both of them are rocking some discount shades.
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Like Ricca Razor Sharp, b-Ravenous and his crew are all about discounted hockey jerseys and questionable headwear, this time with cheapo cowboy hats. Unfortunately, most of the song is cut off. Even on his MySpace, the song is only available in a 30-second snippet, as if the bluesy acoustic guitar and wailing organ would have you racing over to iTunes to pick up his Outta The East EP.Fortunately, it has survived on his CBC Radio 3 profile (complete with one of the worst photographs I've ever seen, a mish-mash of Photoshop filters that almost recall the visual effects from Repo Man).The song's all about moving west to Cowtown (gross), the home of famous hockey players like Theo Fleurry (who, it's worth mentioning, sings in this video that I'm sharing for the third time), where they promise to swing the vote away from the conservatives, fatten their pockets and living large, at least until they pay off their student loans. It's funny how much they praise Calgary's promise in the song considering that the refrain is built on the phrase “it's a shame that we're leaving Nova Scotia.” Sounds more like an admission of failure than a brag rap.Of course, much of the oil money flowing around is spent sipping beers on many of Calgary's patios, the most famous of which is unquestionably the Ship and Anchor. They're packed year round, and practically printing money by offering up brewskies and the occasional punk show to their vast clientele. Rapper Bloodpaw (John Byskal, formerly a drummer for this transcendently awful band) resembles a Calgary archetype in himself, rocking a massive beard, stretched lobes, deep Vs, cheap beers and weed, like a combination between a metalcore fanatic and someone who internalized Fubar without any ironic detachment. That's not to say he doesn't have a sense of humour—he's fucking convinced that he's hilarious on “Ship Rap,” a five-minute ode to the bar that has essentially ruined it.
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