Montreal’s most beloved band of the 1990s will be reuniting for the first time since 2007 for this year’s online edition of NDG’s MTL vs Racism concert. Grateful fans have John Jordan to thank.
These days Jordan may be better known to NDGers as the neighbourhood’s infamous alley cat gallery curator, but he’s also the Ska pop band’s saxophonist.
The gravelly voiced 51-year-old is dressed all in black. He wears steam-punk aviator glasses and two-toned shoes as he sits on the couch in his bachelor apartment near Girouard park. The walls are plastered with art, posters, flyers and stickers.
At the band’s last reunion he “didn’t do well,” explains Jordan, as he takes a sip of his dark roasted coffee and hauls on his cigarette. But he and singer Gus Van Go have patched things up.
“I’d made things difficult for everyone. I was hard to deal with and Gus kind of cut me off and didn’t interact with me anymore, which is totally understandable. But when COVID hit, like many people, he got a bit nostalgic and reflective and reached out to me and wanted to start communicating again and so we did. We had a few video chats, we [talked] quite a bit on messenger and stuff,” he says.
Jordan says when he found out about the MTL vs racism event, he proposed it to the band as an opportunity for a reunion. “We always had taken a stand against racism. Everyone immediately went for it. And so now we’re just getting this video finished so we can be ready in time.”
Lost friendships and damaged working relationships are a normal but painful part of bipolar disorder, an illness Jordan lives with.
“It was really surprising to me. It was the really close friends that I lost, and the people who stepped up to help me were all these people who were very minor figures in my life. Except for my friend Rupert [Bottenberg]. Rupert was a super close friend and he never wavered at all. He was always supportive. He was always by my side. He let me stay in his place when I lost my place. Always checked in on me, was never out of touch. He was the exception. Pretty much everyone else just backed off,” says Jordan.
People who live with bipolar disorder fluctuate between manic highs and depressive lows, with periods of relative normality between them. They can also experience psychotic episodes, characterized by delusions such as being watched or spied on, and/or hallucinations which can be visual, auditory and even affect your sense of smell and taste.
About 1 percent of the population lives with bipolar disorder. It can sometimes be treated successfully with medication, but there is no permanent cure for the illness. However, recovery, which is defined as living a full, meaningful life despite ongoing symptoms of your illness, is possible.
The last time Me Mom and Morgentaler reunited for a series of shows in 2007, Jordan had a manic episode that spun out into a full-blown psychotic episode.
“I was pretty bad. I was seeing everything in terms of extreme polarities, people were either good or evil. I thought there was a holy war going on between angels and demons on earth. It was really way out there. It was beyond being just difficult. I was really impossible to deal with at the time,” he says.
The road that got him where he is today was long and full of challenges says the artist, songwriter and musician who has played with bands such as The Kingpins and The Planet Smashers and helped launch The Fantasia Film Festival, among a lengthy list of accomplishments.
“It took me a few years to accept the diagnosis, because you justify everything. I’m like this because this happened to me, and this happened. You justify the way you react to things and you aren’t really capable of stepping outside yourself and going like, maybe my reactions aren’t very healthy and maybe I am overreacting to things, and maybe I am acting in ways that are against my best interest. I didn’t really have a concept that sometimes the best reaction is no reaction,” he says.
Jordan talks happily about how these days he’s busy playing music with his band Osmosis Unlimited, recording artists in his studio, and running his record label NDG Ska.
“Coming back to NDG was the smartest move I ever made. It’s great to be in a place I know well, with people I know well. I’m surrounded by friends. Living in NDG I’m more dialed into a network and a community than I ever was living in the plateau for 10 years. In NDG there is more of a family community, a human community.”
Jordan says finding a sense of balance was key and that it was only when he learned to see being too happy as a warning sign, that he was able to head a lot of his manic episodes off at the pass.
“I remember very clearly. It was spring, and I woke up in the morning and I was walking up the street like some kind of Disney cartoon. There was a song in my heart and a spring in my step, and like a lightning bolt it hit me, and I was like damn it. I’m too happy. This is dangerous. And I turned around and went home and took extra Risperdal.”
The openness and honesty with which he talks about his experiences is a way to give back. He says it helps “take some of the poison out of the trauma,” which almost invariably accompanies living with this illness, because of the way it wreaks havoc on your relationships.
“These are not strange, abnormal experiences. They are very common experiences. A lot of people go through them. It’s not rare and it’s not unusual, and we’ve got to be open and talk about it more,” says Jordan.
Jordan has taken the time to give back in other ways too. Sales from Osmosis Unlimited’s first album went to AMI Quebec, a community mental health organization.
Jordan has also worked as a volunteer companion for people trapped in the throes of their illnesses. He is a big advocate for peer support. “I can’t emphasize enough the value of having people in your life who’ve lived through this stuff,” he says.
You can watch Me Mom and Morgentaler perform online as part of the MTL vs Racism concert. It takes place September 12, from noon to 9pm. Details will be posted soon on MTL vs Racisme’s Facebook page.
