Bizarre, bizarre frustration.

I've become convinced that one of my close childhood friends is now playing bass for a well known Canadian band whose name shall we won't mention, but let's just say it rhymes with shmalexisontire.

Same Name. Canadian Band. Said friend of mine possessed some pretty effin' awesome musical skill. Band formed in 2001, so the chronology could be accurate.

Said childhood friend and I lost touch roughly 16 years ago. Over the years I've been trying to track him down via classmates, facebook, google. etc. Connecting with other elementary school friends, I'd ask whatever became of him, but the question was always skirted.

For a while I feared him dead, which would explain people's reluctance to speak of him. For another while I thought maybe he was a porn star, which would even more greatly explain people's reluctance to speak of him (our hometown, to the best of my recollection, was quite a bit about 'keeping up appearances').

I did get one response from a guy who said he was still in touch, they played in a band together. He was a little reclusive, this mutual friend said. Not a fan of passing out contact info. That's fair, I said, and passed along my own. Not another word.

So today I saw the name.. and I've been scouring the internet for some scrap of evidence - a date of birth, a hometown (all bios I find just say 'formed in Ontario, Canada) that will either confirm or deny my suspicions. Even pics are inconclusive when one takes into consideration that A) all the pics I find are either blurry action shots B) the ones that aren't feature AIF's bassist with a huge shaggy beard and C) the last time I saw this friend, he was clean-shaven.. and 14.

I'm probably way wrong, but geez.. you'd think it'd be easier to prove myself wrong than this.



Post-script: as I type this, I just saw a website that cites the band's origin as St. Catharines, ON. There you go. Mystery solved. That killed some time.