#12: Autechre / World Series of FAFO
32 years to get her from there
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I saw Autechre perform live Wednesday. It was like listening to a performance of Stomp by way of a laptop running Max though entirely in the dark. I think I saw Autechre perform live Wednesday, in the darkness. There’s no way to be sure.
The number of shows I’ve attended in my life can be counted in single digits: the one time Unsound festival was in Toronto1, at the abandoned Hearn Generating Plant; a free The Tragically Hip concert, the stereotypical iconic Canadian band, at a Canada Day celebration in Trafalgar Square in London England; chiptune artist Bitshifter at an FITC event; Amon Tobin at a free event in Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square as part of the Pan-Am Games; Los Tigres del Norte at a free show in Mexico City’s Zócalo on Independence’s eve. The few others are not even memorable and, if you can deduce a trend, were probably also free.
I paid to see a musician I like maybe two or three times in my life. I am in my mid 40s.
Social anxiety, insecurity, general uncoolness or the perception thereof, and most likely a placement on some kind of spectrum have kept me away. And it’s a shame, there were a lot of opportunities over the years to see some cool shit. I am in my mid 40s. Maybe I care less now.
Or, Autechre blasting out speakers in the darkness is the most neurodivergent-coded concert around. Autechre’s Sean Booth has himself talked about his neurodivergence and how he’s dealt with it for a lifetime. Parts of it ring true for me. I have never been diagnosed or labelled, no treatments or medications, no groups for self-help or discussion, it’s just something that’s been there, neither good nor bad, all my life. I have a hard time connecting and communicating with people and there, in the darkness, listening to a laptop have a mental breakdown, there was no fear of being seen.
Autechre didn’t get radio play in suburban Canada in the 90s. It was the internet that introduced me. I remember the old dreamless.org design forums, and similar sites in the early 2000s, passing around a low-res 420 pixel wide quicktime of the “Gantz Graf” video. It blew my mind. The mix of the abstract 3D pulsing to the music, the very early-2000s design aesthetics, and the pacing, and glitchiness, of the music itself. By then I was listening to a lot of post-industrial noise acts so the cacophony didn’t phase me, however there was a precision to it that hit all my buttons.
From there I went retroactively into their discography and I really fell in love with Incunabula. It turns 32 next month.
One month before Incunabula released in the UK, Joe Carter hit his legendary walk-off home run at SkyDome to win the World Series. That was 32 years ago last Thursday (October 23, 1993.) I fell asleep during the game. The cheers for the home run on the TV and the noise from the normally empty Mississaugan streets, 12 floors up, woke me. Good tickets to that game, at the SkyDome, were about $200 in 2025 dollars.
Tuesday morning, after the Blue Jays won the ALCS, at exactly 10am Eastern Time tickets went on sale via Ticketmaster2. I joined the queue for non-guaranteed game 6 tickets. 113,791 people were in front of me. After the first dozen thousand the queue sped up and eventually it was my turn: the cheapest seats, in the mid-500 levels, were Verified Resale and were $2,200 after fees and taxes. Clicked on those and they were no longer available. Refreshed and they were closer to $3,000. That’s like 60 Autechre shows.
It was enough to get our doofus Premier Doug “FAFO” Ford to comment about it. Ticketmaster2 was “gouging the people” he said. If only there was someone he could blame for this. Oh right, the man in the mirror himself, it was Doug “FAFO” Ford’s fault. The previous provincial Liberal government (which made ticket scalping legal in the first place) put in legislation to cap resales at 50% over face value:
one of the first orders of business Mr. Ford’s government undertook after toppling the Ontario Liberals in 2018 was to “pause” the price caps just a week after they came into force – arguing that there was “no way to enforce” them. They officially scrapped the cap the next year.
¯\_ (ツ)_/¯
At time of writing the Toronto Blue Jays have just started their first World Series game in 32 years. I was watching the Toronto Raptors. At home.
Two years later, in 1995, Autechre released their third album, Tri Repetae, literally three days after the Toronto Raptors played their first ever game. It’s my third favourite Autechre album3. They played at the SkyDome, an awkward venue for basketball, and played there for years before moving to their new, permanent corporate named arena.
One of the conditions the NBA gave before expanding to Toronto (and Vancouver) was that they could not include any NBA games in the various provincial sports betting lottery schemes. A requirement that the governments happily complied with. This seems so quaint now.
This was not Doug “FAFO” Ford’s fault – this was a true bi-partisan cultural shift, in Canada and the USA – though the long term end results were predictable: Blazers coach Billups, Heat G Rozier among 30-plus arrested as part of FBI gambling inquiry
Rozier, who was arrested Thursday morning at a hotel in Orlando, Florida, is accused of participating in an illegal sports betting scheme using insider NBA information. As part of the scheme, gamblers used nonpublic information to bet on at least seven NBA games between March 2023 and March 2024 involving the Charlotte Hornets, Orlando Magic, Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Lakers and Toronto Raptors,
What can be said? Sports broadcasters are covered by gambling ads, broadcasts are partnered with bookies, they talk of odds mid-game, and have let that subsume the culture. How can one not expect players, especially the role players trying to make a living, to not have it pass through their mind? And even if the leagues keep their hard-lines on gambling and most players stay away from, it doesn’t matter: it all becomes suspect.
Nothing will be done. Not while the United States of America government is, itself, an inside-trading, corrupt, mob racket.
Of course, the big FAFO news of the week did, indeed, come via Doug “FAFO” Ford: his multi-million dollar Ontario tax payer funded ad campaign, which even broadcast during the World Series. The ads, shown in the USA, are meant to… what exactly? Make a case against tariffs? Using Ronald Reagan?
It did not go well.
The biggest snowflakes on the planet, those with the most power, got faux outraged over it and ended trade discussions with the federal government, even after Mark Carney’s pathetic asskissing these last few weeks (and even though the ad came from a provincial government), and also raised a 10% retaliatory tariff. Over an ad. Thanks, Doug “FAFO” Ford!
Ford’s mistake is in still thinking the Trump regime is a partner. A neighbour. No. The United States of America government is, itself, an antagonistic, corrupt, mob shakedown. There is no negotiating.
The World Series ads have been pulled.
Go Jays!
A really cool show that was part of the one time the very-Boomer oriented Luminato festival tried to actually be cool.
Criminal organization.
It sits outside of their “essential” albums, yet 2010’s Oversteps is my second favourite Autechre album. A likely contested selection.
Related Links
Doug Ford’s Big Wager on Online Gambling | The Local (Feb 2025)
Each of the three parties which have governed Ontario since 1993 has undertaken gambling expansion on some level. And historically, legalized gambling grows in moments of economic challenges. All of that suggests that, no matter who wins this provincial election, the growth of legalized gambling will continue in Ontario—an unprecedented wager whose repercussions we won’t understand for years to come.
Who Loses as Online Betting Takes Over Sports? | The Walrus (2022)
Single-event betting is now available in every province through provincial lottery systems. Ontario is an exception, as it took a different approach, in 2021, by using its alcohol and gaming commission to manage online gambling through a subsidiary organization called iGaming Ontario. By doing that, it opened the market to private gambling companies on April 4, 2022.
Reissue of the Week: Autechre's Quaristice | The Quietus (Sept 5, 2025)
Listening to Quaristice some fifteen years ago brought me back to their music again, making me remember what was so great about it, setting me up for the fresh start of Oversteps two years later. Listening to Quaristice again now it still feels like the perfect place to re-acquaint yourself, or to get to know Autechre for the first time.
Listen to This
Oneohtrix Point Never announced his 11th album last week. As a fan of the very early corpo-nostalgic OPN work, and less a fan or the more recent output, the track and video have me excited.