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The summer of 1999 was the summer that changed Pyves’ life forever. He woke up at the Toronto Grace hospital knowing things from now on would never be the same.
On Canada Day 1999, a subway train at Toronto’s Bloor and Yonge station was three inches away from killing nineteen-year-old Stacy Edward Pyves. Earlier that night, Pyves and his friend Matt Fielding had been to a house party near Summerhill station on the Toronto subway train. At the party Pyves drank a liter of vodka and soon after everything became a blur. The next thing that happened changed Pyves’ life forever.
Fielding tried to drag Pyves off the train, but Pyves was too drunk to function properly. Fielding became “pissed off” with Pyves. Fielding left him on the subway platform to make a phone call. Meanwhile, Pyves managed to roll so close to the platform edge that his head was hanging off it. When the train came it screeched to a stop three inches away from Pyves’ head. Shortly after, the transit police and an ambulance arrived at the scene. They removed Pyves from the edge of the platform to allow the train to continue its route.
Pyves woke up in his hospital bed with his smiling parents standing beside him. “It happens to the best of us,” they said. But his parents’ forgiveness did not make Pyves feel any better. “I was just thinking to myself I am never doing this again. I became vegan a few years prior to this incident, because I didn’t want to put bad stuff in my system so I applied the same reasoning to drinking. I was never good at limiting myself.” That is when Pyves knew it was his last blurry night. Pyves was now straight edge.
Straight edge is a clean-living lifestyle, meaning drug-free, tobacco-free, and abstaining from sex outside of a caring relationship. An extension of straight edge is following a vegan or vegetarian diet. Some advocates avoid caffeine, and legal or over-the-counter medication. Straight edge youth are often involved in social causes such as animal rights, women’s rights and environmental issues that oppose the consumerist society of many western countries.
The straight edge youth movement emerged from the punk subculture in the US thirty years ago. Minority Threat, a hardcore band, released a song in 1981 named “Step Out,” which contained the lyrics, “Don’t drink, Don’t smoke, Don’t fuck, but at least I can fucking think.” Although it was not Minority Threat’s intention to make this an underground youth movement in DC, it quickly became a widespread youth movement in major parts of North America and Europe.
Pyves has big friendly eyes, defined red narrow lips, a buzz cut, and a smile on his face. He is wearing a simple grey v-neck t-shirt and dark blue jeans. He has a Japanese body armor tattoo visible at his neck and continues down his body. His hands reveal more tattoos. Pyves has been straight edge since that summer of 1999. He was born in Montreal and spent eighteen years of his life in Pickering, a small town of just east of Toronto. By chance, he found an apartment in his favorite neighborhood Kensington market, and has been living there for the past ten years. His right hand exhibits a tattooed “Kensington” street sign. During the days, Pyves works in the shipping department for a film production house. He is involved in the punk community as a vocalist for the hardcore band In Time, and also works as a bouncer for some of the local punk shows.
In Toronto, straight edge became popular in the late 1990s, but many only followed it as a months-long trend as opposed to a lifestyle for years to come. Due to this people who quickly became straight edge ended up breaking “the edge” only a few months later. However, with the growing interest in organic food, staying healthy, and not putting harmful substances in our bodies, the clean-living lifestyle has become more appealing.
Many popular books support this notion of abstaining from alcohol as part of leading a healthy lifestyle. The 2007 New York Times bestseller book on dieting named Skinny Bitch explains “both beer and alcohol jack up your blood-sugar levels, which is bad for your bod.”
Leah Archambault, is twenty-nine years-old and has been straight edge for five years. She has a childlike, friendly face and a smile that is easily mirrored by the person speaking to her. “The type of straight edge people who view it as an individual choice is growing in Toronto,” she says. Archambault says straight edge youth are mostly white middle-class guys between the ages of sixteen and thirty. But others who may not identify themselves as straight edge are also becoming more concerned with abstaining from alcohol for health reasons.
Many feel that straight edge is a different lifestyle from the rest of the society, but are straight edge people not conforming within their own community? D’Arcy Rix-Haynes, a nineteen-H year-old singer with the hardcore band Bored Stiff, has been straight edge since birth. “I do not think straight edge is conforming,” he says. “It is as individual as you can be. More or less everyone drinks. The Ramones talk about sniffing glue. Circle Jerks’ lyrics go ‘live fast, die young.’ There is nothing individual or rebellious about drinking and doing drugs. Straight edge does not have a leader, an organization or hold meetings.” However, straight edge is more than just a lifestyle, it is a community. The community in Toronto is about attending shows, supporting local bands and enjoying hardcore punk music.
There is a majority of boys who attend the punk shows and not enough girls. Archambault named her band UTI as an inside joke with the girls in the audience because only they would know it stands for Urinary Tract Infection. Archambault feels she does get treated differently because she is a female. Despite the punk saying, “no clit in the pit,” she explains the few girls who are in the pit at a punk show are brave considering women tend to be shorter and more prone to getting an elbow in the face than the boys. Rix-Haynes says, “I don’t think most guys have any problems with girls there, but it is an aggressive place. I often see girls in the back holding coats.” Most straight edge youth wish to see more girls involved in the punk scene.
Off Ossington subway station, in a dark alley, a little white house is given the name “Bad Cave” by the local Toronto community because the members of the household were in a band named “Bad Skin.” Unfortunately, they got in trouble with another band and were no longer booked for shows. Instead they threw their own parties. The Bad Cave house is playing hardcore punk that can be heard all the way down the street. The place is small and crowded making it hard to navigate. At the entrance you are asked to pay a small fee of five dollars to support the local Toronto bands. There is a table set up in the kitchen selling band t-shirts and albums. Many of the local bands such as School Jerk, Bored Stiff, and City Sweethearts attend the Bad Cave parties. The floors are covered in hair from the anarchist sign being cut into the back of the School Jerk vocalist’s head by the kids at the party.
In the basement of the house the air gets heavy and moist and the music becomes almost unbearably loud; the walls are bare and white and the toilet and the roof are simultaneously leaking, covering the floor with an inch of water. The basement is a small and closed space making the atmosphere quite intimate between the bands and the audience. Closer to the stage people are more involved with singing along and moshing in the pit.
There are people from age groups ranging from sixteen to thirty years old. Some are drinking while others are sober. Straight edge people are hanging out with non-straight edge people in a relaxed and tolerant environment. It is evident people were there to support the community and bands, but mostly because they have an appreciation for the same music. This is the punk community.
Every Monday night at Sneaky Dees, a restaurant bar close to Kensington Market, a few of Pyves’ straight edge friends meet him for lentil soup. The Monday lentil soup nights started a few years back because Pyves and his friends enjoyed the vegan menu. It was merely by coincidence the crew became straight edge over the years. Although it is the most exclusive straight edge community in Toronto, it does not exclude people who are not straight edge, such as Dakota Park, a nineteen -year-old guy with both parents fighting drug addictions. Park says he looks up to people who are straight edge and says he will be adopting the straight edge lifestyle soon. Park is Pyves’ neighbor and sees him as an influential character. Vik Midha also attends the lentil soup nights. Midha broke “the edge” after being straight edge for four years, because he was “thirsty and tired of going to parties where they didn’t serve non-alcoholic drinks other than water.” Although Midha felt he was breaking a commitment he had made to himself and knew he was upsetting some people, his friend Jason Cousineau says he was not angry with him.“Straight edge,” he says, “is ultimately a personal choice.”
Many people such as Pyves quit drinking because of bad past experiences. However, others such as Rix-Haynes and Andy Stammers, a sixteen-year-old who plays guitar in Bored Stiff, saw no other way of living. Theo Kapodistrias a twenty-five-year-old who has been straight edge for six years says, “I concluded alcohol is the centerpiece of adult socialization and I found that to be sad.” Although the “rules” on drinking and doing drugs is pretty straightforward the “Don’t fuck” in Minor Threat’s lyrics is more ambiguous.
To most straight edge youth, it is only acceptable to have sex if you are in a caring or committed relationship with someone. However, it is difficult to define what a caring relationship is and what promiscuous sex is. “I have cared about everyone I have had sex with and treated everyone with respect and honesty,” says Cousineau. Rix-Haynes agrees with Cousineau and adds, “Fuck is meaningless sex, and I agree with being in love and wouldn’t want to cheapen myself by selling myself short. To me drinking goes hand in hand with one night stands.” However Kapodistrias does not share the same views. “To me, straight edge is a statement against mainstream society’s escape into drugs and alcohol,” he says. “I can’t get behind that [Don’t fuck] part of the straight edge. If casual sex wasn’t demonized and viewed as a natural human urge, I think there would be a better sexual education system in place. I’d like to live in a society where a woman can have sex without being called a slut.” There is an obvious disagreement within the community about sex and the right to claim straight edge.
Miles Smith is a thirty-seven- year-old guy who attends punk shows sometimes in a suit. He believes the straight edge lifestyle gives younger kids who are more vulnerable to drugs and alcohol somewhere to belong that doesn’t have the pressures of drinking and smoking. Aaron St-Laurent a twenty-three-year-old, who has been straight edge for eight years, knows he will break the edge at some point but for now it doesn’t make sense to him. He says “it is easier to decide if drinking is something for me or not when I am older because it is not such a big deal to the older generation.”
Most straight edge youth are tolerant and accepting of others who drink and smoke. They see it as a personal choice. “[militant straight edge] people pushing their beliefs upon others, not willing to maintain friendships with people who, ultimately, just hold different beliefs than they do, I can’t agree with. Straight edge should never be an agenda to push on other people,” says Cousineau.
Ultimately straight edge is a personal choice encouraging responsibility and a clean living lifestyle.
Pyves’ many tattoos, pierced ears, and buzz cut may give him the “bad guy” look misrepresenting who he and other straight edge youth are, but under it all Pyves is just a guy who can be seen at Sneaky Dees at two in the morning with a cup of tea and a vegan menu.
On Canada Day 1999, a subway train at Toronto’s Bloor and Yonge station was three inches away from killing nineteen-year-old Stacy Edward Pyves. Earlier that night, Pyves and his friend Matt Fielding had been to a house party near Summerhill station on the Toronto subway train. At the party Pyves drank a liter of vodka and soon after everything became a blur. The next thing that happened changed Pyves’ life forever.
Fielding tried to drag Pyves off the train, but Pyves was too drunk to function properly. Fielding became “pissed off” with Pyves. Fielding left him on the subway platform to make a phone call. Meanwhile, Pyves managed to roll so close to the platform edge that his head was hanging off it. When the train came it screeched to a stop three inches away from Pyves’ head. Shortly after, the transit police and an ambulance arrived at the scene. They removed Pyves from the edge of the platform to allow the train to continue its route.
Pyves woke up in his hospital bed with his smiling parents standing beside him. “It happens to the best of us,” they said. But his parents’ forgiveness did not make Pyves feel any better. “I was just thinking to myself I am never doing this again. I became vegan a few years prior to this incident, because I didn’t want to put bad stuff in my system so I applied the same reasoning to drinking. I was never good at limiting myself.” That is when Pyves knew it was his last blurry night. Pyves was now straight edge.
Straight edge is a clean-living lifestyle, meaning drug-free, tobacco-free, and abstaining from sex outside of a caring relationship. An extension of straight edge is following a vegan or vegetarian diet. Some advocates avoid caffeine, and legal or over-the-counter medication. Straight edge youth are often involved in social causes such as animal rights, women’s rights and environmental issues that oppose the consumerist society of many western countries.
The straight edge youth movement emerged from the punk subculture in the US thirty years ago. Minority Threat, a hardcore band, released a song in 1981 named “Step Out,” which contained the lyrics, “Don’t drink, Don’t smoke, Don’t fuck, but at least I can fucking think.” Although it was not Minority Threat’s intention to make this an underground youth movement in DC, it quickly became a widespread youth movement in major parts of North America and Europe.
Pyves has big friendly eyes, defined red narrow lips, a buzz cut, and a smile on his face. He is wearing a simple grey v-neck t-shirt and dark blue jeans. He has a Japanese body armor tattoo visible at his neck and continues down his body. His hands reveal more tattoos. Pyves has been straight edge since that summer of 1999. He was born in Montreal and spent eighteen years of his life in Pickering, a small town of just east of Toronto. By chance, he found an apartment in his favorite neighborhood Kensington market, and has been living there for the past ten years. His right hand exhibits a tattooed “Kensington” street sign. During the days, Pyves works in the shipping department for a film production house. He is involved in the punk community as a vocalist for the hardcore band In Time, and also works as a bouncer for some of the local punk shows.
In Toronto, straight edge became popular in the late 1990s, but many only followed it as a months-long trend as opposed to a lifestyle for years to come. Due to this people who quickly became straight edge ended up breaking “the edge” only a few months later. However, with the growing interest in organic food, staying healthy, and not putting harmful substances in our bodies, the clean-living lifestyle has become more appealing.
Many popular books support this notion of abstaining from alcohol as part of leading a healthy lifestyle. The 2007 New York Times bestseller book on dieting named Skinny Bitch explains “both beer and alcohol jack up your blood-sugar levels, which is bad for your bod.”
Leah Archambault, is twenty-nine years-old and has been straight edge for five years. She has a childlike, friendly face and a smile that is easily mirrored by the person speaking to her. “The type of straight edge people who view it as an individual choice is growing in Toronto,” she says. Archambault says straight edge youth are mostly white middle-class guys between the ages of sixteen and thirty. But others who may not identify themselves as straight edge are also becoming more concerned with abstaining from alcohol for health reasons.
Many feel that straight edge is a different lifestyle from the rest of the society, but are straight edge people not conforming within their own community? D’Arcy Rix-Haynes, a nineteen-H year-old singer with the hardcore band Bored Stiff, has been straight edge since birth. “I do not think straight edge is conforming,” he says. “It is as individual as you can be. More or less everyone drinks. The Ramones talk about sniffing glue. Circle Jerks’ lyrics go ‘live fast, die young.’ There is nothing individual or rebellious about drinking and doing drugs. Straight edge does not have a leader, an organization or hold meetings.” However, straight edge is more than just a lifestyle, it is a community. The community in Toronto is about attending shows, supporting local bands and enjoying hardcore punk music.
There is a majority of boys who attend the punk shows and not enough girls. Archambault named her band UTI as an inside joke with the girls in the audience because only they would know it stands for Urinary Tract Infection. Archambault feels she does get treated differently because she is a female. Despite the punk saying, “no clit in the pit,” she explains the few girls who are in the pit at a punk show are brave considering women tend to be shorter and more prone to getting an elbow in the face than the boys. Rix-Haynes says, “I don’t think most guys have any problems with girls there, but it is an aggressive place. I often see girls in the back holding coats.” Most straight edge youth wish to see more girls involved in the punk scene.
Off Ossington subway station, in a dark alley, a little white house is given the name “Bad Cave” by the local Toronto community because the members of the household were in a band named “Bad Skin.” Unfortunately, they got in trouble with another band and were no longer booked for shows. Instead they threw their own parties. The Bad Cave house is playing hardcore punk that can be heard all the way down the street. The place is small and crowded making it hard to navigate. At the entrance you are asked to pay a small fee of five dollars to support the local Toronto bands. There is a table set up in the kitchen selling band t-shirts and albums. Many of the local bands such as School Jerk, Bored Stiff, and City Sweethearts attend the Bad Cave parties. The floors are covered in hair from the anarchist sign being cut into the back of the School Jerk vocalist’s head by the kids at the party.
In the basement of the house the air gets heavy and moist and the music becomes almost unbearably loud; the walls are bare and white and the toilet and the roof are simultaneously leaking, covering the floor with an inch of water. The basement is a small and closed space making the atmosphere quite intimate between the bands and the audience. Closer to the stage people are more involved with singing along and moshing in the pit.
There are people from age groups ranging from sixteen to thirty years old. Some are drinking while others are sober. Straight edge people are hanging out with non-straight edge people in a relaxed and tolerant environment. It is evident people were there to support the community and bands, but mostly because they have an appreciation for the same music. This is the punk community.
Every Monday night at Sneaky Dees, a restaurant bar close to Kensington Market, a few of Pyves’ straight edge friends meet him for lentil soup. The Monday lentil soup nights started a few years back because Pyves and his friends enjoyed the vegan menu. It was merely by coincidence the crew became straight edge over the years. Although it is the most exclusive straight edge community in Toronto, it does not exclude people who are not straight edge, such as Dakota Park, a nineteen -year-old guy with both parents fighting drug addictions. Park says he looks up to people who are straight edge and says he will be adopting the straight edge lifestyle soon. Park is Pyves’ neighbor and sees him as an influential character. Vik Midha also attends the lentil soup nights. Midha broke “the edge” after being straight edge for four years, because he was “thirsty and tired of going to parties where they didn’t serve non-alcoholic drinks other than water.” Although Midha felt he was breaking a commitment he had made to himself and knew he was upsetting some people, his friend Jason Cousineau says he was not angry with him.“Straight edge,” he says, “is ultimately a personal choice.”
Many people such as Pyves quit drinking because of bad past experiences. However, others such as Rix-Haynes and Andy Stammers, a sixteen-year-old who plays guitar in Bored Stiff, saw no other way of living. Theo Kapodistrias a twenty-five-year-old who has been straight edge for six years says, “I concluded alcohol is the centerpiece of adult socialization and I found that to be sad.” Although the “rules” on drinking and doing drugs is pretty straightforward the “Don’t fuck” in Minor Threat’s lyrics is more ambiguous.
To most straight edge youth, it is only acceptable to have sex if you are in a caring or committed relationship with someone. However, it is difficult to define what a caring relationship is and what promiscuous sex is. “I have cared about everyone I have had sex with and treated everyone with respect and honesty,” says Cousineau. Rix-Haynes agrees with Cousineau and adds, “Fuck is meaningless sex, and I agree with being in love and wouldn’t want to cheapen myself by selling myself short. To me drinking goes hand in hand with one night stands.” However Kapodistrias does not share the same views. “To me, straight edge is a statement against mainstream society’s escape into drugs and alcohol,” he says. “I can’t get behind that [Don’t fuck] part of the straight edge. If casual sex wasn’t demonized and viewed as a natural human urge, I think there would be a better sexual education system in place. I’d like to live in a society where a woman can have sex without being called a slut.” There is an obvious disagreement within the community about sex and the right to claim straight edge.
Miles Smith is a thirty-seven- year-old guy who attends punk shows sometimes in a suit. He believes the straight edge lifestyle gives younger kids who are more vulnerable to drugs and alcohol somewhere to belong that doesn’t have the pressures of drinking and smoking. Aaron St-Laurent a twenty-three-year-old, who has been straight edge for eight years, knows he will break the edge at some point but for now it doesn’t make sense to him. He says “it is easier to decide if drinking is something for me or not when I am older because it is not such a big deal to the older generation.”
Most straight edge youth are tolerant and accepting of others who drink and smoke. They see it as a personal choice. “[militant straight edge] people pushing their beliefs upon others, not willing to maintain friendships with people who, ultimately, just hold different beliefs than they do, I can’t agree with. Straight edge should never be an agenda to push on other people,” says Cousineau.
Ultimately straight edge is a personal choice encouraging responsibility and a clean living lifestyle.
Pyves’ many tattoos, pierced ears, and buzz cut may give him the “bad guy” look misrepresenting who he and other straight edge youth are, but under it all Pyves is just a guy who can be seen at Sneaky Dees at two in the morning with a cup of tea and a vegan menu.
