Fucked Up frontman Damian Abraham, the man otherwise known as Pink Eyes, has a whole lot of energy-- something you already know if you've ever seen Fucked Up live. So now that Fucked Up are taking a break from their tireless touring schedule, Abraham has a bunch of other things going on.
First off, Brooklyn Vegan points out Millennial Reign, Abraham's side project with members of the late Toronto hardcore band No Warning. According to the band's MySpace page, Abraham and No Warning's Jordan Posner had long hoped to start a "clevo style band" (Clevo meaning Cleveland hardcore-- epic, apocalyptic stuff like Integrity and Ringworm).
Brooklyn Vegan reports that the band's song "Luminous Veil" is part of a free sampler download from A389 Recordings; head over here to download it, or stream the song on the band's MySpace page. Brooklyn Vegan reports that the track will be available on a forthcoming 7" with the awesome title Bones... Dust... Nothing.
Also, the Matablog reports that Abraham will participate in a couple of Toronto community events. This evening, he'll be at the Toronto Reference Library, taking part in Book Exchange, part of the Keep Toronto Reading Festival. Abraham and authors Pasha Malla and Zoe Wittall will bring their favorite books to discuss and share with the audience.
And right now, Abraham is also taking part in an awareness-raising initiative called Do the Math, run by the food program the Stop. Along with fellow prominent Torontonians like author Naomi Klein (No Logo) and Toronto Medical Officer of Health Dr. David McKeown, Abraham will subsist for as long as he can on a standard hamper of food from a local food bank. The idea is to show the limits of public assistance. And Abraham is a big guy! This won't be easy!
Abraham is documenting his progress in the program on Fucked Up's Looking for Gold blog, as well as his own brand new Twitter account. (Sample observation: "Bad news: no cheese or fresh anything. Good news: Lucky Charms!") On the blog, he also outlines the purpose of the program and his own reasons for taking part in it: "I am well aware that all I am doing is play acting and that I can stop this at anytime but the point of this is not to show me or anyone else what it is like. What it is hopefully going to do is start people putting pressure on the Ontario government to enact some changes." If Abraham shows up to Book Exchange looking a lot skinnier tonight, you'll know why.
