Invasives by Allan MacInnis, Aug. 14, 2026
Invasives nearly prevented me from seeing Invasives tonight.
I mean, it is not that I wasn't welcome. Hell, Byron gave me a free surveillance-themed tie-dyed t-shirt as thanks for my Straight piece (which you see here -- the piece that is, not the shirt, but see the last photo in this post. Apparently the child or children of Hans Anus made these. I wonder if his kids know his stage name?).
No, Invasives were happy to see me. The problem is, the writing of the article very nearly sapped my will go out. I very nearly made excuses and begged off, because, y'see, at midnight last night, I discovered something I did not realize about Gmail drafts.
I need a minute to lay this out:
1. Because Word is due for an update, it does not make sense for me to pay for Office (which I intend to do at some point) and buy a soon-to-be-obsolete version that I will need to upgrade anyhow, somewhere down the line. Nor do I care about using a free trial version. I can find other ways of getting by until the update is out; it's not like I'm Word-dependent or anything.
2. So because most of my writing these days is done for articles that I've been emailing to my editors, and because Google docs never "took" for me, I've just been using Gmail, storing works in development in my "drafts" folder. I mean, why not? Whatever I do with a piece when it is done, odds are good that it will involve emailing it to someone, so all I have to do with a draft is add an address and subject line. Easy!
3. However, there is no "save draft" button that I can see on the Gmail page, and what I discovered last night (which is not the big discovery; that one is yet pending) things getting saved in the drafts folder is not in fact a sure bet. About two hours of work I'd put in on my Invasives feature in the morning had not gotten saved to the draft folder, I discovered in sitting down last night. There were big chunks of transcription missing. Stuff I was going to have to re-do, which is annoying, because I'm a bit behind in general and... there were other things I wanted to do with my day.
Maybe I'd left the draft open and the cat had walked across the keyboard of such and hit the "back" button or something. Multiple times? No idea, just definitely there was material that got lost.
4. So I had tthe bright idea that it would be wise to try to trigger a save by closing the file. Maybe the problem is that I had left it open all day?
5. But as I was tinkering with the draft at midnight, and moved to close it, I accidentally hit the "delete" button. The trash can, like. Oops
6. Whereby (because I missed any brief Undo option that might have flickered), I discovered that Gmail DOES NOT PUT DELETED DRAFTS into the trash folder. It just scraps them, pretty much irreversably, especially if you are not immediately aware of what you've done (I honestly just went over to the Trash folder, expecting to find it, but by that point, the damage had been done). THIS is the big discovery. It gets described online as a known bug of Gmail's, but it was news to me. Delete a draft, however accidentally, and it takes the big sleep.
Which means that because I'd lost two hours of work the night before, and made a mistake as to which key I hit, I lost all six hours I'd put in on the article thus far. I was back to square nearly-zero.
Yes, folks, that Invasives feature is a REBUILD. Bits got lost, forgotten, or in some cases, deliberately left out, as I rewrote the ENTIRE FUCKING ARTICLE AGAIN, some of it from scratch and some from dim memories of how I'd put it together the first time, how I'd arranged Byron's quotes, etc), which I did from midnight to 4:30 AM. I was finally in bed by 4:40. Then I was up by nine, to get ready for work. Four hours sleep if I was lucky? Probably less, because Erika woke me to kiss me goodbye -- she was off on a jaunt (I have been flying solo).
I worked a full shift, even did some heavy lifting sorting boxes, and as I told Byron's bandmate Ford, whose paths I crossed at Red Cat, I was very close to bailing on the show tonight, despite a guestlisting (thanks, Byron, for that and the shirt!). But when I saw Ford was clearly beginning to doubt my commitment to Sparkle Motion, I came upon a solution: I would come home after work, feed the cat, hang out with him a little, and take an hour long power nap before heading back out to the Cobalt.
Which is what I did. I also microdosed with some cubensis to help my brain along to a functional place (not enough to get high, that I noticed, though it was enough that Hans Anus' drumsticks had streamers the whole time. Or were other people seeing that, too?). It wasn't quite strong enough, in fact, hence the cannabis root beer (from just across the street!) that I added to the mix (and the Saturday morning dope hangover I now edit this in). But it probably helped me to get into dancing, too. 'Shrooms are good that way. Amusingly, my camera seemed to capture the streamer effect, but I was seeing this with my naked eye, too:
In any case: Invasives was/ were terrific. They played pert near every one of my favourite Invasives songs: "Living Your Life Like It's Somebody Else'", "Stop and Breathe," "Abstract World" "Just Another Under the Sun". I am also really fond of "Borderline Music", which they did not do, but they played what could become my next-favourite Invasives song, "Help Is On the Way", which is a song off Feel Good Live Forever that I kinda didn't remember but sure should (I have to listen to side two of that again a few more times, clearly). They're actually an odd band for me: their catalogue is evenly divided between songs I love and songs I find are a bit too Spartan and angular to properly grab onto, and I had a bad habit of putting the songs of theirs that I really like -- basically all the ones I mentioned -- onto mixed playlists, kinda greatest-hitsing them. Or else, like, opening Robot Stink on my phone and then going right to my two faves on it. Trivially, I do this with Ford Pier, too; like, I enjoy Huzzah! but 85% of the time I listen to anything off it, it's "Lions and Tigers and Bears", because it's just so fucking great, a song that totally belongs on a playlist adjacent to Nomeansno's "Victory".
Anyhow, because of my nap I missed Kettle Black, and because I am trying not to invest too much in new musics, I kinda tried *not* to get into Wax Mannequin, though a couple of songs near the end made headway into me, regardless. It was a pretty good crowd, hip and sizeable, and I knew a half-dozen people to say hi to. Hamm, Russian Tim, Kristy-Lee, Ford, Mark Bignell, Noelle Chaos. I'm pretty sure Jodie Ponto was there, too! There was a guy in a cat/ pyramid/ UFO-themed t-shirt that I took to coveting, and many balloons bouncing around the dance area. Had my article helped get a few people out? Again, we think: maybe!
I was reminded that live, one of my favourite things about an Invasives show is watching how happy Hans is to drum; I like an expressive drummer and he just has a very sincere smile while he's pounding away -- not in any deranged way, though; he's not Animal, he's not even Matt Wood, he's clearly just enjoying playing his instrument!
I really enjoyed both of the Slacks' playing, too -- some killer basslines in there.
I shot two videos but am only posting one: "Abstract World". And I briefly got confused, thinking "Just Another Under the Sun", which Byron said made him always think of Ford Pier, was surely a Dead Bob cover... no? Nope, it's just an Invasives song I love from seeing live, but on a CD of theirs I barely know.
I may have to do something about that. I have been too selective in my Invasives listening. I need to delve into the depths a bit; I am sure I will pull out a fish or two. Or possibly a geoduck.
Obscure Nomeansno reference, there, for those who get it (actually, Hansons, but...).
All told, a great set, and people who read my article seemed to enjoy it. I stole a setlist but not for a souvenir: I had to figure out a song title and it was easier than asking anybody!
Ford tells me Byron had a whole bunch of moustache one liners he would resort to on the road, not just the ones he offered me. It was nice to see Ford having fun, dancing as much as anyone, but not quite as enthusiastically as he does onstage with Dead Bob, thank god!
Me, I danced only to the songs I loved, and mostly just stood there watching and listening for the ones I don't know so well. So about 50/50 on the dancin'. I got my shroom caplet's worth out of it, anyhow.
Great night! (And a cool shirt).
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