{"id":13342,"date":"2017-02-01T09:00:43","date_gmt":"2017-02-01T17:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=13342"},"modified":"2017-01-30T10:43:30","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T18:43:30","slug":"torontos-uss-return-to-second-home-victoria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2017\/02\/01\/torontos-uss-return-to-second-home-victoria\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto\u2019s USS return to second home Victoria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toronto\u2019s USS (Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker) are playing not one but two dates in town on their current tour for new album New World Alphabet<\/i>, and there\u2019s a reason for that: it was Victoria where the band first started to get noticed outside of Toronto.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2008, when our first song got discovered and started getting played on the radio, someone in Victoria heard it, and we played a show for the Fringe Theatre Festival,\u201d says vocalist\/guitarist Ashley Buchholz, who calls Victoria the band\u2019s second home. \u201cWe played on the street and 800 people came and stood in the rain for four hours to wait for us to play.\u201d<\/p>\n

The experience was certainly a monumental one; Buchholz says the rain disguised his tears of joy. Since then, the band has been a regular in Victoria\u2019s festival lineups and at venues around town. This tour marks the first headlining run for the band. It\u2019s certainly exciting, says Buchholz, who is preparing for the task through meditation and deep dubstep. If that sounds paradoxical, that\u2019s what makes up Buchholz, and he\u2019ll proudly admit it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The members of Toronto\u2019s USS are no strangers to Victoria (photo provided).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where I like to live\u2014right in the sweet spot of simultaneous opposites,\u201d he says. \u201cI have a philosophy in life that involves just constantly being in present of zooming out. One eye\u2019s a telescope and one eye\u2019s a microscope; you\u2019re able to zoom into things and zoom out of them just to get perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buchholz is no stranger to introspection, having spent time in monasteries learning how an attitude can affect a person\u2019s entire reality.<\/p>\n

\u201cHappiness isn\u2019t a feeling,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s a choice you make pretty much every moment with your attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite how it may sound, Buchholz says the new album\u2019s themes are lighter than the band\u2019s previous work; no surprise, considering the mindset around its creation was certainly happier.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe album is just overflowing with joy,\u201d he says. \u201cThe songs might not always seem like they\u2019re happy songs, but it\u2019s because it\u2019s coming from the place where you\u2019re healing things that are moving you closer toward more happiness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Assisting other people toward their own happiness is what Buchholz hopes to achieve through music. He also hopes to connect, citing how people often feel isolated despite the linked nature of today\u2019s world. He points to the song \u201cWho\u2019s with Me?\u201d on the album as an example of this.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intention is to say, \u2018I\u2019m longing to feel connection, I\u2019m dying to feel connected, and that\u2019s me praying for connection,\u2019 and to everybody who\u2019s praying for that connection, let\u2019s just see what happens if we create that intention to connect. Who\u2019s with me?\u201d<\/p>\n

As for what the band\u2019s music actually sounds like, the term \u201cstrum and bass\u201d has been thrown around; Buchholz describes it as \u201ccampfire after-party music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always had a fantasy of wanting to hear Nirvana unplugged but at a rave,\u201d he says. \u201cSo I said, \u2018Well, I guess I\u2019m just going to have to make it because I can\u2019t hear it anywhere.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

USS
\n7 pm Thursday, February 9
\n7 pm Sunday, February 12
\n$30, Alix Goolden Hall
\nussmusic.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto\u2019s USS (Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker) are playing not one but two dates in town on their current tour for new album New World Alphabet, and there\u2019s a reason for that: it was Victoria where the band first started to get noticed outside of Toronto. \u201cIn 2008, when our first song got discovered and started getting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,181],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-february-1-2017"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13342"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13345,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13342\/revisions\/13345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}