2015 | Heartbreaking Bravery

February 16, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Julia Leiby)

I first came across Julia Leiby’s writing thanks to their contributions over at Post-Trash, where they continuously demonstrated a keen grasp of music and excellent taste. Over the past few months, we’ve had some light interactions across various social media platforms. Usually, it’s something simple- but close to every single time, it’s connected back to music. Another photographer/music writer who also writes music, Leiby constantly endorses the artists she loves and frequently acts as a voice of support. I’m excited to be welcoming them to the A Year’s Worth of Memories series and am excited to be hosting their piece, a lovely look at four songs that defined each season of their 2015. Find out what those songs are below and never hesitate to reach out to the people who are positively impacting your life.

Winter

Tiny Planets – Sports – from the album Sunchokes

I started booking house shows in the spring of 2014, with one show in April and then more once my junior year of college was underway. Together, my friend Mitch and I would put together a bill and run things, asking for donations, setting up, and hosting the bands. Winter of 2015 was a particularly brutal winter with temperatures in the low teens and seemingly never-ending blankets of snow. I was dealing with the end of something I wouldn’t really call a ‘relationship’ but it was important to me nonetheless.

I was sleeping in until almost noon every day, and I skipped a 9:20 AM class I had so often that the times I did go, we were covering material that was completely foreign to me. But, the shows were really what I looked forward to, and they were so stellar that winter. People came out in droves to see bands like The Obsessives, Sports, Eskimeaux, and Adult Mom play in houses. The shows were packed and went off with a hitch every time, save for when a moshing crowd broke the wobbly floor of the Pink Mistress show house. One of my favorite shows of that winter was when Sports played at Wolf Haus. Carmen, Jack, Benji, and James play emotional, catchy power pop, and they went to Kenyon College which is about two hours outside of Athens.

The song “Tiny Planets” is my favorite on their record that was out at the time, an ode to the joy, nervousness and confusion that comes with new love, as Carmen belts out triumphantly, “you’re the reason why/ I can never hide / lying side by side / this is worth a try.” That winter was a golden age for shows and being excited about live music in Athens.

Spring

Yowler – Yowler – from the album The Offer

When I was 18 years old, I went to my first house show ever at a place called The Dollhouse. There was no AC in the house, it had pink walls, and I was feeling so undone and out of place around punks much older than me. I can’t remember who else played the show, but Saintseneca headlined. I remember there was no actual drummer, just a man stomping on a wooden box, as Zac Little feverishly played guitar and Maryn Jones provided gorgeous harmonies. After this show, I was so excited to go to college in Ohio and experience the music scene there. Saintseneca was the only band I knew who were from there, and their existence validated my choice to leave my home state of Maryland.

I have been following Maryn Jones’ music virtually since then.

Three days before my birthday in February 2015 Maryn released The Offer, a beautiful, intimate record made of two elements, just Maryn’s sweet voice and quiet guitar. I would walk around in the late spring, when it was getting warmer, listening to this record and feeling so at peace. As the weather thawed, so did my mind. This record helped me pull out of a deep sadness I had felt for months and months, and probably was part of the reason why I decided to do a girls rock camp and started to play guitar in March of 2015.

Summer

Yolanda – Doubles (formerly O-FACE) – from the EP Mint

Summer of 2015 was, in a word, wild. I expected a quiet summer at home, working retail, going to shows, hanging out with my friend Sarah from high school, sleeping in as late as I could and letting the time pass like the breeze. Instead, I started a band, played two shows with bands that I deeply admired, went to New York for almost a week, and recorded a 5-track EP in a studio, all while meeting a lot of new people who left lasting impressions on me.

At the time, I was listening to the Mint EP by the Philly-by-way-of-Bard band O-FACE, who are now called Doubles. They have a song called “Yolanda” which is an upbeat song addressed to a partner or friend about not doubting yourself, and the chorus is exuberant; singer Preston practically yells “You’re the one for me”. I had so many crushes that summer, and I would listen to this song and melt into my feelings, all while feeling motivated and confident to make music for the first time ever.

Fall/Winter

Plant Boy – Brittle Brian – from the album Verisune

Although Verisune by Brittle Brian came out in July of 2015, I didn’t really delve deep into it until the fall when I was back at school in Athens. Continuing to run shows, I was invested in difficult classes and feeling really disheartened about my major/chosen profession of photoj. I felt a pit of dread in my stomach when I went to my once most anticipated class, my capstone class for photojournalism. I was also talking to someone who lived very far away and hanging onto the last strands and memories of what I had with them.

My friend Adam, who has his own project called Lemon Meringue Die, told me about Brittle Brian and I just keep coming back to this record. Victoria Rose writes sparse, experimental pop songs about Daniel Johnston, touching, and love in a creaky, high voice and though her subjects are heavy, the record is soothing and perfect for winding down after a tough or disappointing day. I would basically listen to this record constantly from September to December and I still throw it on these days too. I remember playing a pretty terrifying solo show (my first ever solo show) and then crying during the next band’s set because my friends didn’t come to see me play.

They went to a party instead.

I hit up my friend Evan to try to feel better and he said ‘just put on Brittle Brian and chill out’ and once I got home I did just that. Songs like “Plant Boy” are reminiscent of Alex G in their ability to take you to a place that is reflective, honest, and cathartic. We listened to this record when my band went on our first tour because my drummer loves her stuff too. Looking back on 2015, I can’t wait to see what records will define my 2016. I’m really excited about the music coming out this year and what the future will hold for me.

-Julia Leiby

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February 15, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Sam Clark)

sam clark

No contributor has collaborated with me on as many projects, both in terms of writing about music and writing music, than Sam Clark. We’ve played together in at least three bands and we’ve written together for at least three different publications. We continue to make music and we continue to write about music on our own terms but jump at collaborating any time we’re presented with the chance. For the past few years, he’s been running the outstanding dimestore saints and last year he released two EP’s of deeply compelling ambient music under the Ancient Mariners moniker. I’m very fortunate to be able to call him a close friend and to have found someone in such an isolated town that shared in some incredibly niche interests. I’m also very lucky to have him back as a returning contributor to the A Year’s Worth of Memories series. Here, he turns his attention to the difficulties of living in an area that severely restricts access to good shows, finding solace in Washington through visiting Wisconsin artists, and learning that isolation isn’t always because of physical surroundings. Read the piece below, keep both eyes on dimestore saints, and remember that you can always build new homes.

2015 is already a flickering memory, and I’m fine with that. This past year was one of my darkest and most disorienting on record – save for perhaps 1992, which was half-spent in utero. I was out of school for the first time in seventeen years with little to show for all of my academic work, and spent most of it in the midst of a year-long lease on an apartment in the northwestern-most tip of the Pacific Northwest, two thousand miles away from all of my close friends and family; I was listless and sometimes lonely, and things generally felt stagnant.

A burgeoning homesickness for western Wisconsin was partially alleviated by an intimate S. Carey living room show in late February. I feel somewhat like a fraud in admitting this, but I go to relatively few live shows a year in comparison to some of my fellow writers. Part of this shortcoming is probably derived from social anxiety, sure, but another key factor has always been proximity; local music scene aside, the nearest concert venue was often an hour or more away from where I lived, and travel time frequently became an issue.

Bellingham is a bit different – it occupies a sweet spot on I-5 almost halfway between Vancouver and Seattle that’s often attractive to bands in the middle of West Coast stretches – so I jumped at the chance to see a homegrown artist whose national tour happened to bring him within a half-mile of my apartment.

The ensuing performance was beautiful; fifty people crammed into a pristine turn-of-the-century home with vaulted ceilings to hear sprawling ambient soundscapes culled from little more than a Fender Rhodes, pedal steel, and heavily-textured electric guitar. That brief respite was then extended into the following month, thanks to a stellar Field Report solo set at a bar around the corner from my apartment; together, these events served as a reminder that salient musical traits of home were, miraculously, much closer than I believed.

Coincidental Wisconsin-related things continued throughout the spring, from a co-worker whose improv trio had performed with one from Eau Claire that I know well, to a random stranger stopping me on a footpath for a conversation because he too had graduated from the alma mater embroidered on my sweatshirt nearly forty years prior, to Sylvan Esso stopping in at the bagel shop I managed the morning after their Vancouver show. A strange conglomerate of events, to be sure, but they were absolutely intrinsic to my growing level of comfort in an unfamiliar place.

I’m back home in central Wisconsin now, and will be for awhile, but it was reassuring to watch all of those connections fall into place so organically, and to learn that I’m never quite as isolated as I feel.

-Sam Clark

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February 14, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Miranda Fisher)

miranda
Photograph by Ángel Delgado-Reyes

Miranda Fisher was instrumental in developing my taste in music and introducing me to what can be accomplished on a DIY level. She played in one of the first bands I can ever remember seeing, Nobody’s Housewife, and her parents’ garage was where I wound up playing my first show. In the 10+ years that have followed, she’s remained a constant voice of reason as she’s moved across the country, written and edited for several excellent zines, and played in a number of great bands. She’s currently spearheading the Casting Couch zine, playing bass in The Zoltars, and helps shape some of the younger minds in her community. It’s a very distinct privilege to have her both as a returning contributor to the A Year’s Worth of Memories series and as a part of my life. Here, she focuses on Casting Couch, implementing a more overtly feminist approach to her writing while maintaining its balance, and being moved by the efforts of a student who shares some of her interests. Read it below and remember to do what you can to ensure equal platforms.

2015 was the year I really took a long, hard look at what it means to be a feminist in relation to rock music. I don’t mean, of course, that it was the first time I’d considered this: women involved in music are constantly forced to confront the ways that their experiences are much different from those of men. And I have identified as a feminist for as long as I can remember, for reasons I hope don’t need explaining. So it’s not like I had a sudden epiphany that hey, it sucks to be a woman in music.

I get a reminder of that every time somebody reposts a review I’ve written in my zine, Casting Couch, along with a caption saying “this guy’s review…” even though my name is ALL OVER my zine. I get a reminder of that every time a blogger (a female blogger!) uses the needlessly gendered phrase “these boys” to talk about my band, even though I’m right there on the album cover with everybody else. And you can be goddamn sure I get a reminder of that every time I walk into a show and see the guy who sexually assaulted me a few years ago, who many people know sexually assaulted me, but not many people seem to care sexually assaulted me.

So yes, these are things that I have to think about pretty much constantly, and I’ve always been aware of them and tried to be conscious of how I can combat these things. But I guess this was the year that I started to think more about what I can do for other women.

Part 1 of what I’m trying to do is to stand as a visible example for other women. That feels HORRIBLY self-important to type out. I’m not trying to imply that anyone looks up to me at all; that seems absurd. I don’t even feel comfortable saying that other people listen to what I have to say. (That is a strange attitude to have for someone who regularly publishes a zine full of her opinions, but there it is.) Anyway, I eventually decided that visibility in itself is just really important.

Maybe some woman will read my zine and get mad and think “This is a piece of shit! If this lady can do it, then literally anyone can!” That’s a heartening thought, to me, so I’m trying to be a little louder about my womanhood — not interjecting it into the writing that I do where it wouldn’t be appropriate or relevant, but making it clear that the person who writes this zine is a woman, which was something I’d kind of actively tried to avoid before.

Part 2 is that I want to bring attention to more female musicians. To be clear, I don’t want to highlight women in music just because they’re women. I think most bands with women in them are not good. Because I think that most bands in general are not good. But I want to make more of an effort to talk about bands that I think are good that have women in them. Interviewing Frau, the fantastic all-female British hardcore band, was a big deal to me. The way that they talked about making a conscious effort to play music with other women was something I hadn’t really considered before.

That was still echoing in my mind when I interviewed Negative Scanner. The interview itself was a normal, fun interview, but afterwards, I had a more intense, I guess, conversation with Rebecca. I’ve known her for a fairly long time, but not well enough to have this type of conversation. Listening to her ideas about how to make sure that we’re not just promoting more and more white guys and ignoring the people who are constantly ignored was eye-opening in a sense, especially put into the context of the scene in Chicago, a place that was once my home.

Part 3 of my renewed efforts to be more conscious about the way I relate to other women in music is about the actual young women in my life. I work with teenagers. While they know I play music, and once a year or so someone looks up a Zoltars song and plays it for the class during a break, most teenagers just are not interested in rock music. But this year I had a student who’s trying to get a band together, and who works on a community radio show run by teenagers.

Talking to her (even briefly) about music (even though her taste differs wildly from mine) was really exciting for me. But that couldn’t compare to how great it was to play and be interviewed on the radio show she does with other teenagers. My former student kept telling me how excited and how nervous she was to have us on, and I could see her hands shaking as she asked us questions. That was, by far, the coolest thing I did this year. I want to continue to do as much as I can for other women in music on an individual level.

I don’t generally feel comfortable aligning myself with movements of any sort, but as an individual, as a woman, as a musician, as a feminist, and as a writer, these are things I can do, and I’m going to try my best to do them going forward.

-Miranda Fisher

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February 14, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Katie Bennett)

i tried to run away when i was 6

I first came across Katie Bennett a few years back thanks to her work as Free Cake for Every Creature. Since then, we’ve met in passing on a few different occasions at shows, usually stopping to make small talk. I’ve also been fortunate enough to see Bennett play in a separate project, i tried to run away when i was 6. Through everything I’ve seen, she’s displayed a quiet tenacity in the pursuit of simply making (and performing) music. An inspirational artist and an important voice in today’s musical landscape, Bennett turns her attention here to CE Schneider Topical’s “Dreams”, moving to Philadelphia, and more. Read the piece below and remember that there’s an untold level of value in the most common of struggles.

Dreamin’ With CE Schneider Topical

For two weeks in June, I got up early and walked a mile and a half to the University of Pennsylvania medical center, where I participated in a pretty embarrassing study related to me being vegan. The study, along with money I’d saved substitute teaching throughout the school year, would help me finance the recording of my band’s first record and a two-week west coast tour.

By 7:30 on those June mornings, it was already eighty degrees and so muggy I sometimes felt like I was gasping for air. My ears sweat beneath my big headphones, and the sweat dripped down my neck and back. My thighs rubbed together below my black jean shorts and burned slightly from the friction. I was usually rushing, stinking, hungry, and, yep, carrying a small cooler containing a fresh stool sample.

Some of those morning walks, I thought of my partner, who had done the study a few months earlier. I thought of us: what were we doing? Maybe I’d let out a quick laugh, or imagine we were the stars of some crappy indie rom-com: “20-somethings doing weird things for money but happy and in love anyway.” Most of the time though, I felt kind of stupid about the whole thing, like maybe I should have just sucked it up and gotten a job, let go of my DIY pop dreams, and penguin-dived into suit-and-tie adulthood.

Halfway through the study, I downloaded CE Schneider Topical’s Look Who Showed Up Out Here and popped it on my iPod for my morning trek. I didn’t know what to expect, but, in continuing with the my-life-as-a-movie idea, everything seemed to stop around me as I listened to the first track “Dreams”, and a sparkling ray of hope, in the form of Christina Schneider’s lovely voice saturated in tape hiss, reached down from the bandcamp heavens to fill my spirit. I’d hadn’t realized how much I needed the song until I heard it.

If nobody wants to hear about your dreams
Just make sure they hear about them
You’re a lot of things,
“Worthless” isn’t one of them

-CE Schneider Topical, “Dreams”

My dream: to play music. “Dreams” helped me realize I was more than my empty pockets and sweaty pits; my music dreams were real and important, and I wouldn’t back down from them. Walking home from the medical center that morning, I blasted the song, already singing along to every word. I looked around the city, my new city of Philadelphia, and I felt like a champion, my future shining and expansive before me. I punched and kicked the air a couple times, nominating myself as the Rocky of DIY pop music.

-Katie Bennett

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February 13, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Amelia Pitcherella)

Photograph by Aubrey Richey

Over the past few years, I’ve run into the name Amelia Pitcherella dozens of times. At some point in 2015, it was a name that started appearing with greater velocity, at greater volume. Whether it was in bylines, comments left on mutual friends’ social media accounts, or just heard in passing, it became abundantly clear that we existed in the same niche corner of our own little musical world. We now write together at AdHoc and Pitcherella continues to freelance for publications like Impose. Lately, she’s also been creating some very striking music as Most Selfless Cheerleader, embracing an uncanny intimacy that will likely pay dividends as the project moves forward. I’m very excited to be welcoming her to the A Year’s Worth of Memories series and very pleased to see she’s turned her attention to one of last year’s finest records: All Dogs’ Kicking Every Day. Read about what the record meant to her below and remember to hold onto the records you love.

Kicking Every Day

I was on a Megabus when an editor sent me the advance of All Dogs’ debut LP. On the cusp of a breakup, I hadn’t talked to my partner in a week and I had gone to my hometown of Philadelphia to see some friends because I didn’t know what to do with myself. I was on my way back to Manhattan and feeling particularly unanchored. During my visit I had had trouble talking to people. I felt absent from myself.

My body responded to the record before I had the chance to process it intellectually. By the seventh track I was choking back tears. A few lines on “Leading Me Back to You” chilled me: “I can try not to think about you / but when I’m in my room / you are the light coming through the window / whether or not I want you to.” It wasn’t that they were particularly complex, just that they described honestly exactly what I’d been feeling, the pathetic omnipresence of a person who had made their complete physical exit from my life.

It was the simple candor of the lines that made them so affecting. And then Maryn Jones’ rendition of Fleetwood Mac’s “Silver Springs” in the outro shocked me, wrenched me apart—it was like hearing that song for the first time. Jones’ voice on those lines is desperate and yet there’s this strain of pure unmistakable power in it. I watched the turnpike and started crying. Not a conservative cry—it was a full-blown, snotty bawl.

I was feeling totally humiliated by my own involuntary display, and then “Skin” came on. The lyrics are brash: “Don’t you ever say that I’m wrong ’cause I won’t take it / I will find a way to justify my pain.” Jones is self-deprecating, and she’s also aggressively unapologetic. She turns frustration into pure power. I sat on the bus and calmed myself with the thought that my crying a moment ago was all right, it was justified, and even if it wasn’t, I didn’t need justification. I was going through a lot. It was OK.

A week later, in July, I moved to Philly for the remainder of the summer. I was jobless but rent was absurdly cheap and I resolved to only write and make music for my two months there before finishing up my last semester of school. I was fighting depression and coping with the new loss of someone I’d spent close to two years with, and I figured this would be the last opportunity I had to get a feel for a place without having to worry too much about making ends meet. I was fortunate. That summer was a terrific fever dream. Every morning following my breakup, up until my last day in Philadelphia, I woke up with a new song in my head. When I tell people this, even I can’t wrap my head around it, but strange things happen when you’re left to yourself for weeks on end.

I got into the habit of going to shows and dance parties alone, and I met dozens of people who would come to influence me in the span of a few weeks. I was listening to my friends’ bands on rotation. The summer of 2015 was definitively the first time in my life that I felt like I belonged somewhere. As is the case anywhere, there are issues with the Philly music scene—still in large part a boys’ club, cliquey, no shortage of apologists—but it’s also growing into something really special. There are people who are working so hard to make Philadelphia shows and venues inclusive. Until this point, for whatever reason most of my friends making music happened to be men, and I was so pleased to see that finally change.

I went to All Dogs’ show at PhilaMOCA in August, where they were playing with The Sidekicks and Lithuania (who had just released one of my favorite albums of the year, Hardcore Friends), and talked with Nick and Maryn beforehand for a feature for Impose. I think for some time I had convinced myself that all the people doing good work lived on some other plane, as socially accessible as they may have still been to me. I’d only been interviewing for eight months or so, and each time I interviewed an artist up until then I’d been completely knotted up. But talking to the two of them, I felt comfortable interviewing for what might have been the first time. I was so appreciative of their total warmth and openness.

When they took the stage, they were electric. It was one of the most moving performances I’ve seen—maybe in part because Amanda, Jesse, Maryn, and Nick all have rather understated stage presences. They’re not there to create any kind of spectacle, but it’s so evident that they all care deeply for each other and for the music they’re making. I got chills during “Say”, when Maryn sang tenderly, “When you are not around / I am not alone.” Watching All Dogs play on my own that night, I realized—or, maybe more aptly, I decided—that this was why I had thrown myself into working in music. I wanted to write about moments like this, when an act has the power to completely overwhelm; and I wanted to write about people who weren’t men making music. All Dogs made me want to do music more than I wanted to do anything else.

I had been thinking a lot that summer about Leslie Jamison’s essay “The Grand Unified Theory of Female Pain”, in which she notes that people are too often revolted by displays of pain by women. By no fault of our own it too often comes off as a show, and we ourselves can come to doubt our own experiences. But Jamison ultimately believes it is crucial, or at the very least possible, to bear witness to pain and growing “a larger self around that pain—a self that grows larger than its scars without disowning them, that is neither wound-dwelling nor jaded, that is actually healing.”

All Dogs’ music strikes me as realizing that larger self. It doesn’t shy away from pathos—but the pure strength in it makes it bigger than the pain it addresses. After having listened to Kicking Every Day dozens of times over, I was confident now that it was possible to give the pain I was undergoing a place in my music and in my writing without bathing in it or stamping it out. Jones had mastered this.

When Stevie Nicks wrote the line, “You will never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you,” I wonder if some kind of doubt cropped up in her head. Did she question whether others would take her seriously? Regardless, she went ahead and wrote it anyway, and Jones took it 40 years later and made it her own, and her rendition gave me access to my own feelings, validated them. I’m endlessly grateful.

-Amelia Pitcherella

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February 13, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (100%)

elaiza

The May 5-12 series served as my introduction to the music of 100%, a project intentionally cloaked in mystique. Ever since then, I’ve become increasingly absorbed in the frequently haunting worlds that 100% conjures into existence. The music the project creates tends to carry an undercurrent that not only begs but rewards return visits, even when it never fully answers some of the questions it presents. Deeply alluring and endlessly fascinating, it remains a project that feels inherently distinctive. With the guarded lengths the project’s gone to maintain some semblance of anonymity, it’s a privilege to get a glimpse into some of the more acute machinations that drive 100% via its influences. Find out what some of those influences are below.

Album: Sloppy Music to Feel Dreamy to (2003)
Artist: Wizard Apprentice
Track: Polyamory Anthem (Worthless)

If you slow this down and change the pitch lower by a hair on QuickTime, you can open a portal into your own heart. untouched, it still sounds pretty devotional. What a cool sonic/visual artist with lyrics that get right to my gut.

Although i can’t be yooourss alone, that doooesnn’t maaaake it worthless.

Album: Small Wind Power (2015)
Artist: Fraternal Twin
Track: The Loud Word

I slept on this album, maybe out of a subconscious effort to save it for when i needed it most. And then a night came when I wanted to vanish and track two was all I could listen to on loop. Don’t mean to be corny or dramatic, but it’s true. Saved m’dang life!

Album: Official Waste (2013)
Artist: Ancestral Diet
Track: Water Buries

Soundtrack to my eerie spring night bike rides home from the devilish depths of the library. Clare’s arrangements, subject matter, and overall demeanor were a huge influence on the music I made earlier in the year. Shrouds of mystery and images of water. Danger! I was looking for this album since winter of 2013(?) and it came back to me years later in the company of the person from whom i’d heard it the first time without getting a chance to ask who we were listening to then. I ended up telling her this story in person and it spooked us both. This stuff makes me tongue tied. approach with caution.

-Elaiza

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February 12, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Toby Reif)

toby reif

When I first found out about Toby Reif, it was through a staggering 2014 EP that blew me out of the water. I would quickly come to find that we had a handful of mutual friends and shared a similar musical perspective. In December of 2014, Reif quietly joined The Sidekicks- an event I’d only discover after being surprised by Reif’s appearance with them at the Silent Barn in August. What I didn’t know was that the events leading up to Reif becoming a full-fledged member of the band were fraught with a tumultuous uncertainty, even landing him in the hospital at one point. Here, Reif covers all that went into that part of his life and, now that things are on a more stable path, looks towards what might lie ahead. It’s an extraordinary story and a rousing look at personal perseverance, dumb luck, and an amount of sheer will and determination that’s nothing short of inspiring. Read it below and never stop fighting for the things you deserve.

I’m going to cheat a little bit here and make this more of a two-years-in-review. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, the “music scene” always seemed like a far off, unobtainable thing that people who lived in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago got to participate in and people like me watched from afar via YouTube videos and message boards. I had played in small bands in Bellingham, WA for a few years, playing countless local shows to audiences of friends and always dreaming with bandmates about the possibility of touring, but the idea of going anywhere beyond our hometown seemed reserved for people already in those far off places.

January 2014 found me living on the basement floor of a four bedroom house in Seattle with old curtains stapled to the ceiling in place of walls and no furniture beyond a leaky air mattress (I would inflate it every night before going to sleep and wake up on the floor every morning) and a suitcase in place of a dresser. My band — The Palisades — had finally booked our first real tour, a thirty day trip that took us to the east coast and back, and broke up immediately upon returning.

During that month, we played a few good shows, a lot of really bad shows, totaled my parent’s minivan, and lost more money than I’ve had to my name since the tour. The move to Seattle was an attempt to “settle down”. Touring had been a fun little exercise, but at that point it felt like it was time to find one of those real jobs, the kind that provides silly things like a steady schedule, health insurance, and financial stability. As luck would have it, the job hunt went miserably and five months later I was still living in the basement (I did manage to get a good deal on a “scratch-and-dent” Ikea mattress, so I was off the floor).

I held a part-time job hanging posters for a small marketing company and even toured sporadically as a merch-guy/TM. It was around then that a friend of mine named Jason asked if I would be able to host a band from Ohio called The Sidekicks for a week or so while they worked on a new album in Seattle. I tried to play it cool, but I think I did a pretty bad job of hiding my excitement. Awkward Breeds, their third LP, remains one of my all-time favorite records, and the opportunity to be so close to the process of creating a follow up was not something I was going to pass on.

I had hosted a few touring bands over the years and had previously met Steve, lead singer of the Sidekicks, when Saintseneca (which he also plays in) stayed at my house, also arranged by Jason. It didn’t take a huge amount of convincing to get my three roommates, all musicians themselves, to help host the band for that week. Serendipitously, every other house Jason had lined up for the Sidekicks to stay with ended up bailing, leaving the band on our couches and floor for the full five weeks they were in the city. By the time their record was finished and they went back home to Ohio, I considered them all close friends and our four bedroom house felt empty with only four inhabitants.

Through another strange stroke of fortune, a month later my roommates and I were unable to renew the lease on our house. It was around that same time that I was invited to fill in on guitar for a week of shows with another Ohio band called Signals Midwest. I had hosted them on their past two west coast tours and became close friends with them, so it took no convincing at all for me to buy a plane ticket to Cleveland. It didn’t solve the issue of not having a home, but it did manage to put off the need for one by a few weeks.

After the brief trip through the Midwest with them, they extended an invitation for me to come along on a month-long tour with them in Europe a few months later, which I promptly accepted. That whole real-job lifestyle that had brought me to Seattle in the first place was slipping further and further away, and September began with me on a plane to Germany with four friends from Ohio. I was laying on the floor of a cramped apartment in Hamburg, Germany, when I received a message from Matt Climer, drummer of The Sidekicks. Their previous guitarist and vocalist had just quit and they needed someone in Columbus by January to learn three records of material and tour for as much of 2015 as possible.

It only took two days of consideration to agree.

Upon returning to Seattle, I sold most of my belongings and in December I was on a flight to Columbus with a guitar, a suitcase, and a backpack. January 2015 found me living on a couch in Columbus, Ohio as a member of a band I had loved since I was in high school. The beginning of the year was not without it’s hurdles.

On January 10th, less than two weeks before we were due to start six weeks of touring in support of our new record, I collapsed on the floor of my room at 3am.

My roommate drove me to the OSU Medical Center Emergency Room, where six hours later a surgeon chopped my almost-exploded appendix out of my body. It was up in the air whether or not I would be able to go on the tour with the band I had just moved across the country to join. I was released from the hospital the next day, but a week later I was still struggling to hold a guitar.

The band was ready to find a new guitarist for the tour, but I assured them that I would be ready, and on the 23rd, I played my first show with the Sidekicks at a sold-out Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn alongside Cayetana, All Dogs, and Roger Harvey. I kept my guitar against my side for most of the show because it still hurt to have anything resting on my stomach and I was still taking pain meds, but I’ll never forget the feeling of playing some of my favorite songs to an audience I never could have imagined having a year prior.

The night was a blur, and the pace barely slowed for the remainder of the year. In the weeks following that Brooklyn show, we traveled with LVL UP through the Midwest and down the east coast, pursued by a blizzard that would end up chasing us all the way through Texas. When LVL UP finished their leg of the tour, we met up with Cayetana in Nashville and they joined us through the Southwest and up the West Coast.

We returned home from that tour and within two months were headed overseas for a UK tour with Great Cynics. After that, we set out for two weeks on the East Coast with All Dogs, three weeks in Australia supporting The Smith Street Band and Andrew Jackson Jihad, and then returned home to spend two more weeks out with Saintseneca in support of their new record. In what felt like a blink of an eye, that touring-band life that I had wanted for so long and had given up on simply fell into my lap.

January 2016 has found me in a new apartment in Philadelphia, where I’m finally learning how to balance having a life in and out of a band. I just found a steady job that allows for time-off to tour and has even mentioned the possibility of that grown-up touring musician holy grail: health insurance. In six weeks I’m leaving on another five week Sidekicks trip, this time with The World Is A Beautiful Place…, Into It Over It, and Pinegrove, and I am currently finishing up what I hope will become my side project’s first LP.

While I’d like to pretend like I have a firm grasp on my expectations for 2016, the past 24 months have shown me that I have no business pretending to know what will happen next in the next 12. At this risk of sounding exceedingly cheesy, all I can do now is thank the people that have helped me get to where I am now and look forward to whatever happens next.

-Toby Reif

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February 11, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Stephen Tringali)

Last year Stephen Tringali turned in a piece for this series about working on Chastity Belt‘s “Black Sail” music video. In 2015, he worked on a slew of new projects including his debut feature-length documentary Corridor Four, which centers around an officer from the K-9 unit — and military veteran — who was experiencing PTSD after the bravery he exhibited on 9/11, rushing into the Pentagon to attempt to save as many lives as possible. It’s a big leap from directing and serving as the cinematographer on videos for bands like Big Ups, Low Fat Getting High, and Roomrunner. Here, he talks about seeing Pile play for the first time, discovering Pill Friends, shooting their latest music video, and lists his top 10 albums of 2015. Read it below and hold onto the things you find inspiring.

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My first great musical memory of 2015 was finally getting to see Pile perform. I live in Los Angeles, and I don’t think the band makes it out to the west coast that often. When I saw they’d be playing Los Globos in late March, I marked the date on my calendar and prepared myself to turn down any gigs that might conflict with it. Needless to say, the show was excellent.

Pile, Los Globos – March 29th, 2015 – Ilford 35mm Black & White 3200 ISO Pushed One Stop

Later that year, I had the chance to make a music video for this group from Pennsylvania called Pill Friends. I honestly can’t remember how in the world I found their record Blessed Suffering, but hearing it brought me straight back to high school in Central Pennsylvania. Since moving to Los Angeles, I’ve grown increasing interested with nostalgia and childhood. What images bring up those memories. How to access them after a long time has passed. I wanted to somehow recreate that feeling of growing up in suburban/rural PA for this video.

The band didn’t have much in the way of a budget, so flying back to PA to shoot this video was out of the question. I decided instead to hitch a ride with a college friend on his way back to Denver, CO and stop off in this small town called Leadville, CO where another college friend was working. We spent 3 days filming the people in the town in a kind of documentary style. It was perhaps the scariest premise I could have come up with for a music video because there was such a huge chance that it would fail. What if no one there wanted to be filmed? What if the town didn’t really have the look I was after? What if we were snowed in for most of the time? There were a million things that could have gone wrong.

And maybe that’s why it’s one of my most memorable experiences from this past year. I wanted to make a video that felt less staged, more impromptu, and more genuine than previous videos I had done. Strangely enough, it worked out. There was something exciting about having no clue what we were going to film that day. Plenty of people said no thank you; please don’t film me. But there were other folks who were completely open to the idea. Mechanics, barbers, skateboarders, kids playing basketball. The result turned out to be a really wonderful portrait of the town.

LEADVILLE, CO – November 2015

And finally, I got to have coffee with Michael Sincavage of Low Fat Getting High. I made a music video for his band in early 2015, but all of our communication up until that point had been via e-mail or phone. It might seem a little strange, but I don’t actually get to meet many of the bands I make music videos for in person. I’m really proud of the video I made for LFGH and so thankful that Michael gave me an unusual amount of creative control. It was great to finally meet him in person and talk over coffee. There was just something so encouraging and positive about that experience—that I could make a new friend simply because we connected over e-mail and collaborated on a project together.

My favorite records from 2015:

1. Sleater-Kinney – No Cities To Love
2. Dilly Dally – Sore
3. Car Seat Headrest – Teens Of Style
4. Screaming Females – Rose Mountain
5. Built To Spill – Untethered Moon
6. Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit
7. Yowler – The Offer
8. Ava Luna – Infinite House
9. Pile – You’re Better Than This
10. Protomartyr – The Agent Intellect

-Stephen Tringali

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February 11, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Gabriela June Tully Claymore)

gjtc
Photograph by Megan Manowitz

A few years ago I started noticing a lot of the bylines for Stereogum pieces on bands, songs, and videos I loved were consistently attributed to Gabriela June Tully Claymore. We started following each other on twitter, occasionally trading thoughts about bands or some of the other small things more enjoyable. She turned in a massive piece for this series last year on Bad History Month’s “Staring At My Hand”, demonstrating an intense care for the music she loves in the process. Last year, we met for the first time and then ran into each other on a startlingly regular basis, taking in countless shows in the process. Whether we were getting rained on at a pier in Manhattan and bolting for a Times Square diner or just winding down on the roof of DBTS, there was usually an underlying sense of adventure- something that informs Claymore’s personality. Here, she fondly recounts a moment at the Heptagames and celebrates some quiet adventuring in the process. Read it below and remember that the biggest rewards are usually reaped from taking risks.

Heptagames, 7/19/2015

Summer softens me. Something about humidity and sweat and sticky hands makes me feel like I’m crawling out of some great big New York City womb every morning and into a very different kind of urban space. People slow down in the summer, they take their time, they hang out more. Summer makes me feel nostalgic for places I’ve never been to, for oceans I have yet to swim in. This is corny as hell to say, but it makes me feel like literally anything is possible. It’s a needed reminder that I am actively living a life and not just existing in one that someone created for me.

This particular summer, I joined the eclectic group of artists-in-residence at the Silent Barn, and it was one of the best experiences I’ve had in a long time. One weekend in July, a huge group of people traipsed upstate to a retreat in Franklin, NY called the Heptagames. There we spent two days swimming, hiking, meeting new people, and eating. Ironically, it felt very freeing to go hang out in the woods with a bunch of people I didn’t know well with no means of escape. On the last day, everyone hiked up a trail to the top of a little hill, following my friend Noah as he played the flute.

He was the pied piper. We sat at the top of the hill in silence as Noah performed some of the music he makes as Cuddle Formation. At the end of the short set, he pulled out a telephone receiver connected to a looping pedal, and cooed into it quietly before passing the receiver on to the nearest person in our fairly large group. They passed the phone on to the next person, then the next, as Noah recorded each of our individual songs. Together, as a group of familiars but not necessarily friends, we made a song out of “oohs” and “aahs” and “hellos” and “ribbits.” It became a noisy, joyful chorus, and people around me giggled as it played throughout the shallow valley.

It was a simple, participatory moment that reminded me of something that I shouldn’t really have to be reminded of: Being present is important. Sharing never-going-to-happen-again experiences with people and recognizing that they are special as they are happening is important. Letting your guard down, all the way down, is important. Giving a little bit of yourself to the Bigger Picture is important. Watching a stranger’s back as closely as you watch your own is important. Staying playful, no matter your age, isn’t just important; it’s necessary. Because sometimes, even though the state of the country, the world, breaks my heart every morning when I scroll through the news on my way to work, I need to cling to my truth: That it really is just small interactions that hold us — you and me and everyone we know or don’t know, or may never meet — together.

-Gabriela June Tully Claymore

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February 10, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Megan Manowitz)

Megan Manowitz
Photograph by Stephanie Griffin

On my first full day in Brooklyn, I woke up and drank tea on the roof of DBTS with Greg Rutkin. We talked about life, what I wanted to achieve while I was in the city, DBTS, nearby places worth frequenting, and the plan for the day. A few hours later, we hopped on the M train to get to SoHo to pick up a pair of glasses. As soon as we hit our stop, we ran into Silent Barn resident Megan Manowitz. She was the first person I met outside of DBTS and greeted me warmly, taking interest in how I wound up in the city. She was also the first person to ask if I was “Heartbreaking Bravery Steven”, which wound up being a weirdly memorable experience. I would soon come to find that Manowitz admirably put in a tireless amount of work at Silent Barn, whether booking shows, running the booth, bartending, cleaning the space, promoting, or doing any number of tasks that most people would find utterly thankless.

Over the course of my time in the city, we’d run into each other every now and then, occasionally striking up conversations about little things that were happening in our lives. Then, in late September, tragedy struck: Silent Barn caught fire, displacing its residents and throwing kinks into several of the venue’s planned shows. Watching everyone come together to fight to rebuild and preserve that space was nothing short of inspiring. Here, Manowitz takes us through the struggles surrounding that time of her life and the show a lot of people worked especially hard to make happen: Krill’s farewell. It was a show that wound up being far more than a simple goodbye. Read about those events below and remember to always fight for the things that matter.

Self-Hate Will Be the Death of Youth Culture but Thankfully Krill Existed and Now I Love Myself and All My Friends

I’m writing this while sitting in one of the empty apartments above Silent Barn. The Silent Barn residency is where I call home, and Silent Barn where my allegiances lie, and ever since the fire back in late September when the other residents and I were displaced I’ve been hopping around a few different spots in Brooklyn. Lately I’ve been feeling so homesick that I’ve gotten into the habit of dragging this shitty Ikea desk that was left behind into the middle of my apartment and doing work there.

It’s quite the spectacle- the apartment is covered in drywall dust and there’s not a single surface I can touch without getting coated in white powder. The only contents of the apartment other than me, this desk, and a folding chair are big, black contractor bags filled with ceiling, along with a scaffolding and some ladders. The fact that I’m choosing to do work up here says a lot about my recent head space and my anxious desire to get back home.

It feels like this shit is never going to get finished and that my self-appointed role of Silent Barn Ghost who wanders amongst the rubble will become a permanent one, but I know deep down that it’s getting better, that it’s so much better than it initially was. The day after the fire we had a collective meeting that was initially supposed to be about the Silent Barn becoming a non-profit but ended up being about the incident and how to rebuild, and I very vividly remember feeling like it was the end of the world.

I wasn’t able to sleep the night before and I remember sitting in the yard surrounded by people who care so deeply about the space and not even being able to talk, only being able to cry and smoke cigarettes and look down and do nothing. I didn’t change my clothes for six days. Looking back I was very much preserving my trauma, truly becoming a ghost of the fire- returning back to the spot where it happened day after day, same clothes, crying, nothing changing. I couldn’t interact with the real world, I couldn’t talk, I could only be present as some sort of effigy of myself to serve as proof of what had happened.

So we had this meeting to talk about what was next, what the fire meant for the immediate future of Silent Barn. At that point I hadn’t even thought about Silent Barn closing temporarily, not to mention permanently. It was suggested that we move all shows that were scheduled in the upcoming weeks. It felt insensitive to talk about shows when there were people who had just lost all of their belongings, but the lack of shows threatened the space being able to reopen. I remember hearing someone say, “but it’s Rocktober…” Rocktober – the month where Silent Barn does well financially due to unofficial CMJ shows and a slew of other events that are sure to be “bangers.” I quickly ran through what events I was in the process of booking for the month of October and remembered the Krill show.

The fucking Krill show.

I turned to Stephanie, my close friend and a Silent Barn collective member, and all I said was “the Krill show” and we both started crying, I’m not even joking. This shit was so dramatic. We were all so broken down and every small thing felt like such a huge loss. And it was a huge loss- these shows, this space, it’s where all of our energy lies. We put work and time and emotion into this space and these events and the Krill show was a huge one- Liz, Stephanie, and I had been planning it for the past month ever since Jonah sent me a cryptic Facebook message about a “super secret Krill show.” Having the last Krill show at Silent Barn felt like this sort of badge of honor.

Stephanie made sure to tell everyone within earshot that we had to be open by the day of the Krill show and I practically barked whenever anyone asked me whether or not I knew if the show would be able to happen. We were spending our days ripping out the ceiling of the main space and the estimated finish date changed every other day. Aaron and Jonah were there a lot. They both took me to a storage space with my belongings the initial days after the fire, at a point where I was too much in shock to hold a conversation.

Jonah helped me scoop up mysterious animal shit found on my roof during what I’m certain was a hailstorm, and Aaron spent an entire day removing screws from the ceiling of the main space wearing goggles that were impossible to see out of, making the act of standing on top of a 12 foot ladder while holding a power drill much more daunting. Their presence made it so much more pressing to have this show at the Silent Barn, for the sole purpose of us having a night to celebrate what we all have a stake in and what we have built together. Krill is a part of this space, they literally helped us build it.

A few days after the fire I had a conversation with a person who has a studio space at Silent Barn about how this place functions as its own kind of temple, it’s our sanctuary and it’s where our spirits reside and it’s where we recharge and get our energy from and it’s true, it’s so true. This shit is spiritual, it’s all so much more than just a concert. Shows like the Krill show are healing because they serve as a reminder of what we’ve all created and are continuously creating and what we are all in together. And the show happened, and that’s what it was, a ceremony of rebirth and love and affection and really celebrating what we all have stock in.

This space, this community of people. Frankie Cosmos played and Greta was there the day after the fire with donuts and packing tape. Big Ups played and Joe was there both the night of the fire and the day after, packing my belongings into his car and taking them to a storage space. There’s no way this night couldn’t be charged with the energy of what had happened and the work that was put in to building it back up again, and it was palpable. I was rolling in it. I hope everyone there could feel it.

I love Silent Barn. I love Krill. I love my friends and I love the community we’ve created here. No one can ever say that the scene is over or DIY is dead or whatever people say on their shitty websites because I saw it and I’m living in it, and I’m grateful every day for it. 2015 kicked the shit out of me and everyone I know but I left with the strong sense that we’re in this together and that has made it all worth it. That’s what the Krill show was about. Krill is forever.

-Megan Manowitz

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Tag: 2015