Memories Sometimes Aren't Fun

I'm moving to Toronto this weekend, which means the last few days have been filled with plenty of packing. Yesterday I went through three large archive boxes of CD jewel cases stowed away in the corner of my room. I had previously removed all the CDs and put them in a CD jacket, but for some reason I decided I don't enjoy this method of storage and wanted them back in the jewel cases.

As I was going through them, I stumbled upon some cases for CDs I wish I didn't own (which I won't name - let's just say that 13-year-olds make a lot of bad musical decisions and leave it there), but at one point I got really excited when I found the old case of one of Silverstein's pre-album EPs.

At the end of high school I was a huge Silverstein fan (who are the only "emo" band I can stomach, aside from Alexisonfire) and bought their second EP, When The Shadows Beam. It has some tracks on it which eventually made it onto their When Broken Is Easily Fixed and an early version of "Discovering The Waterfront," the title track of their sophomore album. It's also got some tracks, like "Dawn Of The Fall" and "Waiting Four Years" which never made it onto any Silverstein albums and which are my favourites. I started leafing through my CD jacket trying to find the CD.

Then it hit me. I didn't have it anymore. I had lost it — along with the Sex Pistols' Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols, The Clash's 1977 self-titled debut album, Nirvana's MTV Unplugged In New York and a bunch of other albums — on a 2003 trip to Paris. I later replaced all the CDs but the Silverstein EP, mainly because only a limited number of the EPs were made.

I don't think I stopped grumbling while I packed the rest of my CDs.