#MyMusicStory

Submitted by: Grumpy Kitty Boy (Spotify,Website,Facebook,Instagram)

I’m now listening to Casey Mecij’s “The Otherside of Concrete” (from her album “Psychic Materials”) as I write this story. I first heard the song after its release in 2016—I was searching for new music tracks as a host/producer of a Filipino radio talk show in Montreal back then. At a point in time when feeling at home in Canada as an international student can only go so far for me, I felt so much embraced and consoled with the song’s colours and heavy warmth. Sounds enveloped me like a thick, warm blanket on a cold winter day. After all, the whole album is built on that idea—“when understanding fails, music consoles,” its liner notes say.

As the song channelled dreamy expressions of queerness and love, I resonated with its message on how deep affection takes slow years of learning. This slow process spoke much about how I struggled to find my way into a sense of diasporic belonging: “the other side of concrete.” Now that my life stands on the other side of it all as an immigrant, I would listen to it now and still feel the same soothing, warm embrace from years back.

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Toronto-based singer-songwriter Grumpy Kitty Boy (real name: Juro Kim Feliz) writes songs to keep in touch with deep, sober feelings about reality, often left ignored in people's conception of positivity. With lyricism and a synth pop style emulating Owl City, he expresses the worldview: “Be authentic! Embrace the grumpy!”