Canadian Softball

Brought to life by comedian and musician Jarrod Alonge, the fictitious emo-rock band Canadian Softball made their debut in 2015 on the Beat a Dead Horse album. Alongside other genre-satirizing outfits like Sunrise Skater Kids and Amidst the Grave's Demons, Canadian Softball represented the late-'90s/early-2000s era of emo, lampooning bands like Hawthorne Heights, My Chemical Romance, the Used, the Promise Ring, Jimmy Eat World, and, of course, American Football and Modern Baseball, from which the band got its name. The group's first songs included the Fall Out Boy-esque-titled "The Distance Between You and Me Is Longer Than the Title of This Song" and "Breve Canzone," both found on the Dead Horse compilation. In 2017, Alonge released the song "Fund Me," which kicked off an ultimately successful crowd-funding campaign that produced a full-length album, Alonge's third overall. Awkward & Depressed arrived in the summer of 2017. It featured the singles "Your Validation," "Great Again," and the medley "Ohio Is for Emo Kids," which took aim at popular songs by Panic! At the Disco, Underoath, Paramore, blink-182, AFI, and many more. Also included on the album was the track "Peev Shalpatine," a musical rendering of "The Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise" from Star Wars Episode III. ~ Neil Z. Yeung