A Year’s Worth of Memories | Heartbreaking Bravery

February 6, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Ben Grigg)

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Photograph by Mark Federighi

We lost a lot of great bands in 2015 to varying degrees of mourning and despair. Krill’s final bow obviously struck a nerve but it’s important to remember that they weren’t the only band to step down. While Ovlov managed to find a spiritual continuation via Stove, Geronimo! — who I penned a hybrid eulogy/review for back in March, just a small handful of months after they played this site’s first showcase — have taken a somewhat different path. Guitarist/vocalist Kelly Johnson and keys master Ben Grigg have been devoting their time to various new projects. All of them will undoubtedly be worth hearing. Grigg was kind enough to reflect on the loss of Ovlov and what it meant to him to be at their final show. Read it below and make sure you see your friends’ bands while they’re still around.

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2015 was a year of change for me. Every year changes people, but last year was a big one for me. The band I had played in since 2007, Geronimo!, called it quits, I left the comfort of a familiar job for the intimidating challenge of a new one, and I moved into a house far from my old neighborhood to the west side of Chicago. The good thing about change though is that it usually forces growth. You lose some comfort for the sake of coming closer to who you want to be. That’s the hope at least.

Pretty soon after our band played its last show, the realization set in that I had no plans for my free time. Intellectually, I had known the that this would happen, but I was not prepared for the reality of it. I would come home after work and have nothing to do. Every day of the week. I found myself contemplating what the hell I was doing with my life. Shit.

Suddenly, amidst all the free time and emo soul searching, I developed an itch to get a plane ticket and travel out to Brooklyn for a weekend. It became imperative. At the time, it wasn’t clear to me why I had to do this. But, with some distance, I can see what was going on in my head. Without playing shows, I wasn’t getting out east to see the friends I had made through past tours. I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to get out there again and somehow it seemed like a way to get some closure on that part of band life.

As luck would have it, some pals of mine in a band called Clearance from Chicago were playing in June at Shea Stadium. It seemed like as good a time as any. I joked to the guys in Clearance that I’d see them In Brooklyn but I doubt they believed me. A few days later, Ovlov announced that they would be playing their last show that same weekend, also at Shea. That sealed the deal. I bought plane tickets.

Getting to see Ovlov one last time was especially meaningful to me.We first played with them back in 2011 on an east coast tour and got along with them pretty immediately. On that tour they invited us to their friend’s beach house in Rhode Island. Drinks that night famously consisted almost entirely of Beer 30. We had to leave pretty early the next morning for a long drive to the next show, but awoke to find a bunch of groceries meant for us and a hilariously illegible note from Ovlov and their friend Gator. It was about the coolest thing that had happened to us as a band. Over the next four years, we played with Ovlov many more times and got to know them. They felt like our first real band friends.

I don’t have too many vivid memories from watching them play that last show at Shea. It’s more of a mixture of visceral fleeting moments. Feeling the floor moving, getting my ears blasted, chanting along to “I can’t wait to watch TV”. It was the perfect goodbye to Ovlov, and somehow, in the most cliche way possible, a goodbye to a part of my life. I’ll be in other bands, hopefully I’ll come out to the east coast again and see a lot of the same people. But, that experience, that specific part of my life was gone.

That night, I stayed up with friends waiting until the wee hours of the morning when my flight left LaGuardia. These are the kind of friends that I had the privilege of making from being in a band. The kind that will stay up until 5am after a show to see you off. It was the perfect end to the weekend. All things told, I got to reconnect and hang out with a ton of people that had made my experiences playing in Geronimo so meaningful. It was all I could have hoped for and it made me feel so damn thankful to have had the opportunity to play music and meet all these great people.

By the end of the year, I was back playing music with friends in Chicago. With any luck, 2016 will be a year of first shows, not last ones. New growth. Every year can’t be a 2015, but it’s good to have them every now and then.

-Ben Grigg

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February 6, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Sami Martasian)

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Photograph by Nina Corcoran

In 2014, I was fortunate enough to spend a week in Toronto with Christine Varriale, who has since introduced me to some of my favorite people in music and music writing. One of the more notable introductions was that of Sami Martasian, who was writing alongside Christine at Allston Pudding. Later on, Christine would join Martasian’s folk-leaning project, Puppy Problems. Somewhere in between all of that, I was fortunate enough to get to know Martasian a little better, and it quickly became clear that she’s the type of person that elevates anyone lucky enough to be pulled into her world. It’s a genuine privilege to have some so unfailingly kind, generous, and enormously talented be involved in this project. Her piece for this series is both a celebration of her friends and an examination of an unexpected moment that felt like a small victory for Boston. Read it below and then go spend some time with the people you love.

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Christine and I were working at Boston Calling almost with the sole purpose of catching Krill’s set. They all played a great show but the sound was funky and there was this huge reverb, and when I say huge reverb I mean: extremely fucking huge reverb. I think we were all a little bummed because it was such a big stage and we were so excited for them to be there and we honestly just wanted people to be really into their set (and a lot of people were- it was by no means “bad”, just a little weird).

So the last day rolls around and some of the Allston Pudding bunch and I wind up sticking around after our shift at the festival so we can see Tenacious D and the Pixies. Tenacious D ends up being unexpectedly emotional for a lot of us and kind of takes us back to being in middle school or what have you and getting into music for the first time and I mean come on its Jack Black in person! We’re all tired from working the fest for the past few days and he gets us laughing and a few of us crying like we’re kids again. Soon enough it’s time for the Pixies to play and Jack Black starts hyping them like crazy.

He shouts “WITHOUT THE PIXIES, THERE WOULD BE NO NIRVANA” and the crowd goes totally wild.

He shouts “WITHOUT THE PIXIES, THERE WOULD BE NO WEEZER” and again the crowd goes nuts.

Then Jack Black shouts “WITHOUT THE PIXIES, THERE WOULD BE NO KRILL” and we all just look at each other and lose it.

We’re all practically chanting “holy shit Jack Black said Krill” to each other. The best part of this was knowing that the Krill guys are enormous fans of Jack and that this must have been an incredibly cool moment for them to experience. I think it felt so good because Krill was like this really personal and important band for all of us in different ways- and for someone a lot of us grew up watching, who’s a really big deal in the world, to recognize these hometown heroes felt like a strange victory for our community. We were all messaging Jonah and our friends who weren’t there. It was probably the feeling sports fans get if their team wins.

I remember calling my mom to tell her “mom, okay, do you remember Jack Black? Yeah, think really hard mom…yeah, that guy from School Of Rock… yeah, it was a really good movie, you’re right, but check it out: that guy said ‘Krill’”.

My mom was really happy.

-Sami Martasian

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February 6, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Jessica Leach)

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A while back, I came across the Basement Babes zine and was immediately floored by the work that was being done. Personal essays about feminism, challenges that still exist because of the arbitrary borders of sexism, and identifying as LGBTQ bled into coverage of Boston’s emerging artists. Smart, nuanced, and important, it’s only managed to get progressively better — and bigger — since its introduction. One of its co-founders, Jessica Leach, was kind enough to submit a piece for this series and zeroes in on how 2015 felt like a step in the right direction for inclusiveness while acknowledging there’s still a lot of work to be done. Read it below and make sure to support the artists who have, historically, been disadvantaged for reasons that don’t even relate to music.

The Voices of 2015

It’s been an incredible year for music overall, but more so, I think, it’s been an incredible year for new voices. I feel that this year has been one of turning the mic toward others, to listening to stories that need to be heard. In admiring that progress, I feel a pang of insecurity. Since I started making this zine called Basement Babes, I’ve made it my mission to see as many female musicians as possible. To learn about all of them and surround myself with the positivity of women making art. I wonder, though, if that’s enough.

In this year, I’ve watched hundreds of shows with the same uncontrollable jealousy. I wish I could make my words loud. I wish I could shout them at crowds, unabashedly. I wish I could be unafraid to cry and stitch my heart to my sleeve. But I am removed. I am far away. I am invisible. I am one head of many, bobbing back and forth, seemingly lost in the music but actually caught in a frenzy of thought and hyper self-awareness.

I have been the girl standing awkwardly in front of the merch table, hoping I seem cool enough. Hoping I don’t say the wrong thing. I have once or twice been the girl behind the mic too, timidly thanking a basement of drunk kids for contributing to a scene that they may care less about than I give them credit for. Being the dutiful emcee to the real artists positioned behind me. Wishing I could give them more of myself but always stopped in my tracks by the anxiety of not being enough.

I make my zines and hope it’s enough. But I watch others with my jealous eyes, and I wonder if they’re feeling what I feel too. If they feel suffocated by the inherent competitiveness of music, of making space, of having your voice heard. I’ve been the girl in the basement at a punk show, knocked over by a man who’s far larger than I, whose carelessness comes from liquor and privilege. I’ve been the girl whose contributions were overlooked, whose presence was rarely acknowledged, dismissed as “probably just someone’s girlfriend.”

I’ve been one of so many girls who’ve encountered sexism in the DIY scene. I hear voices preaching “safe space” and “equality” but no scene is exempt from the poison of it. Boston’s scene isn’t somehow better than others. I am the girl who’s still watching her beer, who’s still listening to her friends talk about survival, who’s still hearing voices that describe fear.

I worry about giving enough, but I also worry about giving too much. I know that I am not alone, despite feeling alienated. I know that my story is still wrought with privilege, despite also being tarnished by disadvantage. But, I see how my peers have made it a mission to give me a space and hear my voice. So, in spite of fear, I am proud. I am proud of all the good things that have happened this year, in Boston and all over the country. I am beaming.

It would do all these accomplishments a disservice, though, to list them as if they were quantifiable. As if I could compare them side by side to other years, measure a time that was more progressive, more worthy of praise, than another. The point of progress is that its imprint is everlasting. The voices we’ve heard this year, whether in music or politics, that have indelibly made us better or worse, their effect trickles into the next year, and the year after that. Every moment in time is just a reincarnation of the one before it, and so I look forward, because all these moments in 2015 that I’ve so cherished are just waiting to be pushed on into a new year. So, 2016, you’re next. Do me proud again. Maybe someday I’ll feel like I am enough. But maybe it’s better if I don’t.

-Jessica Leach

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February 5, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Isabel Reidy)

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Troll, Isabel Reidy’s first EP under the Izzy True moniker, was a record I found myself returning to countless times throughout the course of 2015. For whatever reason, those six songs wound up resonating fairly heavily and it was impossible to escape their grasp. Part of it may be that Reidy’s brand of songwriting is so distinctively plaintive but still manages to contain multitudes of acutely realized personal discoveries; it boldly eschews trends and embraces flaws. Incredibly well-versed and ceaselessly intriguing, it’s rewarded every return visit, continuously unfurling its own peculiar world. Reidy maintains full creative control for the piece below as well, recalling the tour stop that served as the introduction to the music of Bryan Reynolds. It’s a fascinating account of the type of moment that makes getting two hours of sleep a night for a few weeks straight completely worthwhile. Read it below and go looking for your own story from the road sometime soon.

Early this spring my buddy Joe (Modern Hut) and I played a show in Providence, RI. It was the final night of a little weekend tour we’d been on. We had just lost almost all of our gas money somewhere between Brooklyn and Rhode Island because Joe said, “let’s go to the casino,” and I said “okay, yes.” I said “okay, yes” because I am learning how to be a ROAD DOG and I believe that is how a ROAD DOG unwinds. Joe is a seasoned ROAD DOG with a deep, unwavering commitment to vice. He was teaching me all he knows. A ROAD DOG knows that throwing all of your money into the trash is a karmic investment towards your future, so it was no surprise that that evening ended up being a very special one. That was the night when we first saw Bryan Reynolds.

Bryan is a tall dude in his twenties with wide set eyes, an angular face, and a big mustache. He was dressed like a gym teacher going to church. It’s hard to remember exactly, but I think he wore a crisp pair of slacks, dress shoes, and a track jacket. There was an odd tension between the way he was dressed and his age- it reminded me of a time in high school when my friends and I shaved a bald spot into my friend’s head, dressed him up in my dad’s clothes, and made him try to buy us beer (mysteriously, this worked). His powers were immense- I could sense that immediately.

The show was held in a warehouse; lamp-lit, vast, and populated with couches in various states of dankness. We drank the $1 tequila and something-or-others from plastic cups while the first band played their numerous instruments for a small eternity. Towards the end of their set I crept into the kitchen to write a set list. There was the mustachio’d Bryan and his personal bottle of whiskey, doing the same. I peeked at his list. Some song titles I remember: “I Smoked Pot”, “Mr. Good-times-roll”, the mysterious “Cucumbers(?)”, and “King of the Road”. I have loved Roger Miller since I was a child. Good omens. My childhood friend who I hadn’t seen in years was there, evidently Bryan was his roommate at the time. Good omens.

There were about ten people at the show, not including the bands, certainly including the people who lived in the space. This was about the speed of all of the shows on that tour. I played. Applause, milling about. Joe played. Applause, milling about. Out came Bryan. He pulled a child sized classical guitar out of a brown paper Stop ‘n’ Shop bag and proceeded to play one of the best shows I have ever seen.

There is no way I can adequately describe what happened that night. So much about the show, when reduced to words could sound calculated, but Bryan’s spirit is pure. I’m certain of that. His songs are deceptive simplicity, but he is an extremely skilled musician. He sings with a rich, clear, tenor croon. Lyrically, he’s cruising at Michael Hurley’s altitude- in terms of performance, he is a spooky Jonathan Richman. For the record, those are my two favorite musicians of all time.

I remember when he busted into “I Smoked Pot” his voice warbled and quivered and peeled out beautifully. When he pulled out a little doo-wop “shoop-shoop-shoop” I had to work very hard not to laugh. Bryan delivered those scat lines with such sincerity that it wasn’t clear whether laughter would be appropriate. I ended up with ache-y smile face. At one point during the set Bryan seemed to get stuck on one chord- he played it over and over and over, eyes closed, rocking back and forth.

He did this for what was probably about five minutes.

It got to the point where I thought he might actually be having some kind of seizure or stroke. I felt genuine fear. I thought about calling an ambulance. Suddenly, seamlessly, he jumped right back into the song. Joe and I kept turning to each other and exchanging “Is this really happening???” faces.

The set ended with “Black Magic”. Bryan was joined by compatriot Adam Souza who was playing the Otamatone, an anthropomorphic musical note shaped instrument which sounds like a ghost type Pokémon dying. Everyone in the crowd knew the words and sang in three-part harmony. I felt like I had stepped into some alternate universe where this guy was a huge celebrity, or a religious figure (or something).

A really talented performer has the ability to transform the atmosphere of a place. The space that Bryan created that night was tense and immense. I know all of this sounds completely hyperbolic, but I really mean it. I walked away feeling deeply confused about the world, like maybe it had been some elaborate prank. I couldn’t tell what was real. That show changed the way I look at performance. I didn’t know it could be so much. Me and Joe have been talking about it ever since. If you are ever in Providence, you have to see this dude.

-Isabel Reidy

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February 5, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Phil McAndrew)

Photograph by Shauna Roloff

Last year, Phil McAndrew (pictured above, behind the kit) delivered a heartfelt piece to the first edition of this series. At the core of that piece was a celebration of his younger brother, Ray, and the music he was making with Perfect Pussy. A little while later, he’d become much more than a supportive voice in the audience and create the distinctive comic accompaniment for Astonishing Adventures!, Perfect Pussy’s ferocious split with Joanna Gruesome. It was another small moment of brilliance in what’s turning into an illustrious career in animation. Even while registering credits for places like MAD Magazine, IFC, Cartoon Network, Random House, and Workman Publishing, McAndrew’s found time to join a band and catch a slew of shows (a few of which I was fortunate enough to be able to take in with him). Below, he covers some of the artists that meant the most to him in 2015 and explores his reintroduction to making music. Read it below and then indulge your own creative sensibilities in any way you see fit.

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2015 was kind of a strange year with lots of ups and downs and sideways and diagonals and such. But if we’re talking strictly music stuff, it was a really excellent year, filled almost entirely with ups.

Thinking back on 2015, I’m flooded with music related memories that felt meaningful in one way or another. Scribbling drawings of my brother Ray and our friend Garret as they started writing the next Perfect Pussy album in my childhood bedroom. Directing a music video for my old friend Jeff York’s new band, Major Player. Hanging out alone late at night and turning the volume way up on new tunes from my brothers Tyler and Ray, who make music together as Toxic Parents and separately in a variety of bands and solo projects like Wealth, Crusher, Perfect Pussy, and MKSEARCH. Getting back into drawing weird flyers for bands my friends play in.

Getting to watch Sleater-Kinney play from backstage at Irving Plaza. Seeing more great shows than I can even count, in huge venues, in small venues, on a pier in Manhattan, in an old car wash, in burrito restaurants and skateboard shops and art spaces, and in basements in my neighborhood…. Sheer Mag, All Dogs, Rainer Maria, Destruction Unit, Really Big Pinecone, Izzy True, Downtown Boys, Fleabite, Harmonica Lewinski, Deerhoof, Warehouse, Pretengineer, Arm Candy, Speedy Ortiz, Olivia Neutron-John, Big Ups, Pity Sex, Aye Nako, Nine of Swords, Waxahatchee, Mannequin Pussy, and dozens of others.

The most meaningful thing that happened for me this year was that I myself started playing music again after a very long hiatus. I hadn’t played drums since sometime in 2010, when jobs and grad school and relationships scattered the members of the bands I used to play in to different states. Five years and two cross-country moves later, my friend and old next-door neighbor Mim asked if I’d be interested in taking over on drums in her band, The Nudes. Right around the same time, my friend and current roommate Shauna, started playing bass in the band (they’d never had a bassist before). I’ve loved The Nudes since I first saw them play when I moved back to upstate New York from Southern California in 2013, so I was pretty thrilled to be asked to play with them.

We’ve played a lot of shows since I joined The Nudes over the summer. My favorite show was here in Syracuse in October with local favorites Malvinas, fellow upstate New Yorkers Green Dreams, and the great Worriers, whose most recent album I can’t stop listening to. The show was packed and everyone was in high spirits. I saw so many smiles at this show. I saw people of all sizes and genders bouncing around together as the bands played, getting wiggly and weird and laughing. Nobody was dancing like a violent psychopath. Everything about this show felt right. It was all of the good things that I missed about playing in bands.

2014 was all about watching my brothers and friends do cool things and conquer the world, only participating in the music scene in my own small, non-musical ways. That continued into 2015, but to get back into playing music myself in a band I love with people I love was nothing less than magical.

-Phil McAndrew

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February 4, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Fred Thomas)

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No song in 2015 hit me as hard as All Are Saved‘s lead-off track, “Every Song Sung To A Dog“, a devastating eulogy from Fred Thomas that was addressed to the dog that inspired his preceding record, Kuma. That song, a startling highlight from a brilliant record (and a personal pick for one of 2015’s best songs), cuts deeply in a way that feels bravely unapologetic. It’s told with the acute attention to detail that drew me to Thomas in the first place back when he was still making music with Saturday Looks Good To Me, a band that remains fiercely beloved by a small (but thankfully growing) group of people. So much of what Thomas is able to convey in prose is so firmly grounded in (frequently mundane) reality that the angle he takes for his piece here probably shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Below, Thomas takes on the decision to leave his job to open up creative doors and the ways that decision has been paying dividends on a personal and professional level. Read it all below and remember to never give up on the things you love.

At the end of 2011, I got my first “real job”, the kind with a desk and insurance and a water cooler with beleaguered co-workers standing around it waiting for the weekend. This came well into adulthood and after years of opting for part-time employment at record shops, DJ gigs, service jobs or anything else that could be left with almost no notice when it was time to go on tour for six weeks or skip town to work on a record.

It was an almost by-the-numbers cliché of the struggling musician lifestyle, but I’d been noticing less and less of the people I’d started down that road with sticking it out like I was. The line between chasing the dream and spinning the wheels was always blurry, and this job– as cool of a straight job as one could get, writing record reviews for the longest running internet music database– represented a manageable way out of the uncertainty I’d been living with forever.

At the bar a few nights before I was to start this new 40 hours a week regular gig, I got some skeptical feedback from a friend who was always good for contrary perspectives, but sometimes not far off the mark with his snark. “I don’t know, man. Seems like you’ll be fine sitting around writing about music but after a while you’re just gonna want to be out there making it.”

The next three and a half years were basically a protracted pause in that conversation, ultimately ending with me sighing loudly and replying “Yeah, you’re right.” By the start of 2015 I’d made my place at this corporately-owned little music site, growing accustomed to rush hour, performance reviews and all the other Office Space shit I’d never given a thought to before. I’d also managed to stay remarkably active in the punk world I thought I was leaving behind, playing upwards of 80 shows a year, even if they were mostly local jams and doing more with my tape label and zines than ever.

When I started the job I was excited about slowly disappearing from the culture I’d grown up in, romantically imagining the handful of people who were interested in my music wondering where I’d gone. For a time, I worked on making that self-centered fantasy true, putting out a vibe that playing shows and being part of the music community wasn’t really where I was at anymore. I talked with wide-eyed longing about starting a small welding business and putting all my energy into that.

Regardless, however, of everything I tried to talk myself into, there was always more creative work to do and it was always more important than clocking in on time on Monday morning. Quitting my first “real job” in April of 2015 was as much of an afterthought for me as walking out on numerous dishwashing jobs had been a decade beforehand. I put in my notice after coming home from a tour of the south with Deerhoof that ate up my vacation days and required six different documents approved by a chain of management.

I woke up on my last day sick as hell, having stayed up all night recording a sludge metal band at the studio I’d been moonlighting at. It would have been hilarious to call in sick, but I went in anyway. I was leaving for a month of shows again in a week and needed to use the office copier one last time to make free color copies for the tapes I was bringing on tour.

2015 ended up being one of the most important and intense years of my life, with more changes and personal growth than any time before it. More things in my life moved forward than I could even get into in this space, and almost all of it was helped along by quitting my job to focus once again on making music, art, and the art that is being out in the world talking to other people who are also trying to find a way that feels like their own.

-Fred Thomas

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February 4, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Tica Douglas)

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One of the quietest surprises of 2015 was a miniature masterpiece of self-dissection offered up by Tica Douglas in Joey. A masterful take on gender and general identity that was laced with as much endearing self-deprecation as bruised hope, it remains a startling listen (and few records packed a 1-2 punch as powerful as “Black & White” and “All Meanness Be Gone“). Easily one of 2015’s most notable — and heartening — records, it also expanded the attention Douglas’ music was receiving, both on a critical and commercial basis. Below, Douglas talks about rediscovering some childhood advice to find the courage to perform some extremely personal songs in front of a group of people who’d been there since the beginning. Read it all below.

Last June I booked a tour to celebrate the release of my newest record, Joey. Compared to my last tours, this one was short and sweet. The whole thing took only about two weeks and the farthest North I went was Portland, Maine — my hometown. Joey’s my most up-close-and-personal record yet; it explores the joy and melancholy of my lifelong gender confusion. I hadn’t really thought about what it would be like to play these revealing songs live in front of my family and friends until the drive north, the day of the show.

I was hungover. I’d played Burlington, VT the night before. It turned out that my cousins who lived there worked at the big sports bar right in the center of town. They were kind of the dual queens of the whole operation. That meant that after playing a low-key set at the quiet art gallery next door, I sidled up awkwardly with my guitar between dudes playing Buck Hunter and Darts, and watched as my cousins gracefully fielded this crowd, handing me free shots and beers in between quick catch-ups.

The next morning, Andrew drove while I sat in the passenger seat, my head swooning in and out of nauseous aching. What a weird scene last night, I thought. Andrew interrupted my stalled thinking, asking if I was psyched to play Portland tonight. My stomach twisted a little. I remembered a text message I got from my mom earlier in the week: “excited 4 show. all aunts r coming, grammy too. plus gina told everyone. should be a big turnout!!! ms. fox will be there.”

I closed my eyes and placed my head against the cold window. Suddenly, the full weight of what was about to happen descended on me. I would be onstage alone, without a band to hide behind, singing personal details about the complexities of growing up in-between to the people I grew up next to. I don’t exactly know why that prospect was so daunting, but it was. I’ve always found it easier to play for strangers.

Luckily, I was too brain-dead at the moment to overthink it. Mile by mile we got closer to home, while Andrew and I flipped through his middle school CD jacket.

But as we drove over the big green metal bridge, the only southern entry “To All Maine Points,” my body faced what my brain wouldn’t, every part of it tied up with nervous energy.

My anxiety peaked as we loaded into the venue. I called Gracie. I told her I didn’t know if I could do this. I didn’t know if I wanted to. I wasn’t even sure why. It just felt loaded, and really awkward.

I paced back and forth outside a bit trying to calm my body down. I smoked a cigarette in secret. I talked to myself. I focused on my breath. Then, right before it was time to go on, I remembered some advice my mom gave me when I was a kid. I had terrible separation anxiety and I was scared to go on a field trip with my class. She told me: whenever you start to feel anxious, like you’re spiraling, focus on someone else. Do something for them, make them feel better. It will take your mind off you. It will help.

It was time to go on. I went to the stage and looked out at the crowd. My family — old teachers, middle school and high school friends, people I hadn’t seen in years — they were all there, smiling up at me, yelling little cheers, whistling, waiting for me to start. Things moved in slow-motion in those first seconds, as I scanned the crowd and saw each of the many faces in perfect clarity.

It hit me that these people are the reason that I, in all my mixed-up in-between-ness, have been able to access joy in my life. Whether or not they knew the details I was about to sing to them, they always understood me, always loved and encouraged the me that I was. I know how lucky that is. This performance wasn’t about me, it had nothing to do with me. Fuck feeling awkward. What a small feeling. This was about expressing my deepest gratitude to my home, to the people who raised me, who allowed Joey to exist.

I was momentarily and unexpectedly overcome with emotion seeing these faces. Especially my mom’s. When I was five, in the car on the way to my first day of kindergarten, I confessed to my mom that I felt like a boy, without fully even understanding what that meant, and I asked her if that was okay. She didn’t seem caught off guard. In fact, it felt like she’d been waiting for this question my whole life. She told me: It’s more than okay. It’s a special gift. Even though it will be painful at times, always know it’s a blessing. You were made special. That moment determined the rest of my life. My mom made me feel special and not shameful about how I didn’t quite fit, and I’ve carried that confidence alongside my confusion everywhere since. I’m thankful for this moment everyday. I recognize how incredibly rare it is.

I closed my eyes and started playing. I thought of my mom. I thought of everyone in the audience. I tried to give them this performance in my deepest thanks. My anxiety disappeared. It was the best show I played on tour, possibly all year.

-Tica Douglas

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February 3, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Lindsay Hazen)

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When I started Heartbreaking Bravery, its sole intent was to spotlight important voices that weren’t being granted the exposure they deserved. While in the early stages, it primarily featured songwriters, it evolved to include filmmakers, and then — finally — other writers. Anytime I made a new discovery, it gave me a surge of hope for the years to come. Even as some of these roles — especially that of the writer — grew more thankless, it was inspirational to see people who were willing to kick back against an intimidating current. After more than two years of meticulously combing through just about every resource I had to identify emerging talent, I still wasn’t adequately prepared for the pieces Lindsay Hazen was quietly turning in on her personal tumblr. Long-form essays on streaming platforms, deeply personal asides, critical dissections of movements and geographical circumstance; everything I read blew me away. It’s a sincere honor to be publishing her writing on this site and the piece she’s turned in may be her most definitive to date. Below, she explores her diagnosis, the artists that brought her joy and comfort, and the general shape of her 2015. Dive in and give her work a look whenever and wherever it surfaces.

When I think about 2015, I get overwhelmed. It was a year marked by unmanageability, the sheer amount of events, information, and media unable to be synthesized, catalogued and understood in any satisfying way. My year started off memorizing the lyrics of Colleen Green’s “Pay Attention“, a song which takes up an attitude of assertive indifference to her attention deficiency. As someone whose lifelong fight not to doze off/get lost in the middle of conversations (and lectures, and my own sentences…) is an endless cause of anxiety, it’s such a relief to be able to embrace two and a half minutes of a right for my absent-minded brain to exist in the world, even to the point of sitting in judgement of others.

Whenever I listen to it, “Small talk on the bus, wondering how do some people talk so much/ Small talk at The Smell, talk so small you’d need a microscope to discern much at all,” I hear an echo of “Psycho Killer“, “You start a conversation, you can’t even finish it/You’re talking a lot but you’re not saying anything/ When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed/Say something once, why say it again?”

It’s ending sort of like it began, anxious and cold. But on a cold December day, I weep quietly to Modern Baseball’s “The Waterboy Returns“. It comes on on my iPod, on the bus, and I run my thumb across the crack in the screen incessantly. I’ve never successfully made it through the song without crying and this is no exception. The first time I heard it, I sobbed hard and loud; now I just turn to the window and let the emotion wash over me, trying to catch my tears on my knuckles as they slip out past my glasses.

2015 was made up of moments like this. Being backpacked in the face by an aggressive guy at a Speedy Ortiz show, only to have them start a hotline just weeks later for people who feel unsafe at their shows. The way the stage lights at the Hard Luck Bar looked through eyes, brimming with tears, as I watched Sorority Noise perform “Using“, hearing the song for the first time. I didn’t cry then, blinked it away. I wonder if this is how normal people always feel. Accepted, joyous, okay. Among people who understand them.

Not drinking alcohol anymore because it’s disastrous for my anxiety, and spending the minutes between each band’s set admiring how brave the girls are at the show – an all ages affair. These teenage punks, eyes lined with black and bags covered in patches and buttons. So grateful that these girls have a place where they could yell and scream and jump; so in awe of how they held their own in a sea of giant men – at 24, I’m just learning to do the same.

The Sorority Noise record was my favourite of the year. I spent a lot of time in the early months of the year shouting songs off their 2014 effort Forgettable in the shower. The anticipation I felt for Joy, Departed was such an integral part of my year. Maybe it’s because it paid off, a powerful and direct series of emotional appeals that oscillate between soaring and slow-burning – sometimes within the same track.

It’s a record that dropped right as I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to stay in the city, just as I had to move away from my friends and my education and my life. It’s a record that I hope one day stands as a classic in the canon of art that explores man vs. self. It is certainly an album which elucidated many thoughts I had about my own mental illness, and led to my being able to develop coping mechanisms for the first time since my diagnosis. I still get a lump in my throat when I hear, “maybe I’m my own greatest fear/ maybe I’m too scared to admit that/ I might not be as dark as I think.”

Next to Joy, Departed, the record that had the most impact on me this year was Krill’s A Distant Fist Unclenching. Where Sorority Noise’s songs felt like the slow blossom of hope in my chest, a hand reaching out to pull me away from all the things I’ve done to myself and my life, Krill songs are like the first fidget coming out of stasis. All of the angles and dissonant reaches.

I can’t think of a song in the world I identify with more than “Brain Problem“, the drums skipping along like arrhythmia and the lyrics part confession and part prayer. Before listening to Krill I didn’t think of there being a separation between my mental illness and my self. Krill gave me a sense of personhood that I was starting to be too jaded to believe I would find in music anymore. I won’t go on because they’ve been eulogized, praised and parsed by minds much finer than mine.

Everything Everything released my favourite pop album of the year, a dystopian rock opera continuing a loose narrative they introduced in the post-apocalyptic banger “My Kz, Ur Bf” a few years ago. Get To Heaven is an album that lets you revel in the sheer amount of evidence that you are the problem, because people are the problem, and we have let the world end around us – and are nostalgic for the way it happened all the same. “Take me to the distant past,” “Did you imagine it in a different way,” “Keep on rubbernecking, yeah, whatever feels familiar.”

There’s been a few difference thinkpieces on the increased awareness/acknowledgement of mental illness in music this year and I listened to a lot of music this year for aforementioned therapeutic/self-help kind of reasons. But, holy hell is it ever lovely to put on Get To Heaven and live in the world that Higgs and company have created – to feel a universalized misery and to find a narrative, to find humour and grand tragedy that leads to a greater sense of catharsis.

There were also a million punk/rock albums by women that just kicked my ass. The Speedy Ortiz record, the Palehound record, Dirty Dishes, Bully, Chelsea Wolfe, Marriages, G.L.O.S.S., The Lonely Parade, not to mention the valiant return of Sleater-Kinney. I don’t know why it’s harder for me to write about these records, or even to speak about them. I push them on others with half-formed sentences, gushing about something that escapes me.

I tell them about the loss and longing in the first moments of “Red Roulette“, and about how I woke up early one morning in August to sit in the backyard just after sunrise and listen to Abyss in full – how the record that reveled in so much lush darkness was somehow even more beautiful in sunlight so bright you could barely open your eyes. I tell the producer/songsmith at my work about how in my most anxious moments I scream along with the G.L.O.S.S demo because of what I can only term as its inclusive alienation. It is a record that feels made for moments when I feel alone and afraid in my house and in my skin. It is a reclamation of the space around me.

I guess the last big thing of the year for me was spending two months with Smokes’ debut, Zone Eater. It opens with the absolutely cutting lyric, “I know I need to evolve instead of revolving,” on “Dead Hand” and repeats into the chorus, continuing, “I need to evaporate, but I’m still devolving.” There’s a detectable desperation, in Nick Maas’ voice and echoed in both the guitar and violin that suggests a critical mass, a return of Saturn, a day that you make a choice and you don’t look back – the record is full of this feeling. Of looking into the face of nihilism and deciding to just fucking leap into being who you want to be.

It makes sense, I learned in reading the press surrounding the record that the second song on the record, “Lemonlime“, is a coming out song. It might just have ended up my favourite song of the year. “I used to be a mind among machines, now I’m a timebomb wearing tight jeans/I was a clock but I couldn’t tell time, but I can tell a lemon from a fucking lime.” “Now I’m a shark, and I still can’t tell time, but I can tell a lemon from a fucking lime.” “I’ve lost all my baby teeth, so what you see is what you’re going to get with me.” “I’m a fucking shark, I eat what I want.” I moved back to the East Coast – I still don’t know whether it was a good decision but “Lemonlime” is the song that made me stop worrying about it.

I finally acknowledged the loss of my own metaphorical baby teeth. Their early single “Body Heat” is on the record, and it’s the one that hooked me. It’s a cinematic song made for walking through the busy streets and feeling everyone move past you like a blur – the violin, fiddle-like, a soundtrack fit for a hero walking into the sunset. ‘’For once in your fucking life, wear your heart like body heat.” There’s a rawness to the emotion on this record that runs right through, even the most starkly Canadian indie music tendencies don’t obscure the boiling blood contained within. And there are songs like “Snakeskin,” that bypass all of that and head right for a heartland that falls somewhere between L’Acadie and Rasputina territory, thrilling and chilling me.

I guess to me, being overwhelmed by music was a welcome distraction from all of the other things that overwhelmed me. The music of 2015 reminded me of all the excitement and enthusiasm and effusiveness with which I loved music as a teenager. I felt so profoundly grateful for music this year. I guess that’s the place that I should leave off – knowing that the music I listened to this year helped me to rediscover the parts of my brain that I liked, helped me to realize that depression hasn’t taken away my ability to feel grateful and fulfilled. I slip out of the imposter syndrome that has cloaked me and all my decisions in doubt and though I stand about as tall as a concrete foundation, I have all of these songs; these melodies; these lyrics; these memories on which to build some fucked up, crazy, beautiful life in the coming year.

-Lindsay Hazen

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February 3, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Nicola Leel)

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Doe made several appearances on this site over 2015, from mixtapes to several Watch This appearances. Their subversive brand of pop-punk that owed more to the gritty roots of the latter than the polished gloss of the former landed with considerable force. After 2014’s brilliant First Four compilation, Doe followed it up with two memorably impressive entries for Fierce Panda’s singles series. Nicola Leel, the band’s central driving force, was kind enough to lend her talents to this series and submitted a piece that focuses on the inspiring strength and resilience of a few of the women who dominated the industry in 2015. Read it below and make sure you’re doing your part to combat sexism whenever and wherever it rears its ugly head.

The most impactful moments of 2015 for me were not my own, but those of all the women who went out of their way to make things better in the music industry, quite often putting themselves in the path of online abuse to do so. In previous years there were defining highlights, but in 2015 there seemed to be a constant stream of positive movements building to form a wider shift and pathway for change.

Seeing people like Sadie Dupuis, Lauren Mayberry and Girls Against taking active steps to change the culture of sexism was so important, creating a ripple effect so others were able to acknowledge their own experiences. To varying degrees, these women sent the message that what we’ve become used to is not acceptable. The mere act of speaking out against something from a position of power can and does have so much impact in filtering through to others.

Meanwhile, Sleater-Kinney dominated the mainstream, returning after a ten year hiatus. A band that spent their formative years championing discussion of the female experience, S-K reached a wider audience than ever before and were embraced by long term fans and new listeners.

In the UK and beyond, festival organizers were forced to answer for themselves when people started flagging the abysmal representation of women on bills. Edited posters of what the line ups looked like without the men called to light something that had been happening for years – women were being ignored. Suddenly this wasn’t OK anymore.

This is just a tiny snippet of what was going on – and I’m not saying 2015 was the year things got fixed by any means, but huge steps were made in the right direction and moments like these paved the way for more to come. It really felt that across the board sexism and misogyny became less tolerated, experiences of such were more widely talked about, pressure was put on individuals — and the industry as a whole — to make changes. Here’s to more of that in 2016 and beyond.

-Nicola Leel

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February 2, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Sabyn Mayfield)

Over the course of 2015, more film coverage started trickling into this site’s regular coverage and that expansion will continue going forward. At the outset of Heartbreaking Bravery’s creation, the plan was to emphasize film in some way. While most of that emphasis lay in the admittedly limited coverage of the technical aspects of music videos, a few short-form documentaries and art films made their way into circulation. Before beginning this series, there was a 15 of ’15 post that covered the best scenes of last year and following the conclusion of this series, the final 15 of ’15 — the films list — will go live. Even with films now officially a part of this site’s fold, the critical dissection of music videos will remain, as it’s still one of the most fascinating short-form presentations currently being produced.

By all of these tokens, it’s a genuine honor to bring in Sabyn Mayfield as a contributor after he nearly topped the music video list and as he continues post-production on his directorial debut, Boomtown. A few of Mayfield’s various other credits working as a writer, producer, composer, casting associate, key grip, and actor include cult classics like Wristcutters: A Love Story, Spring Breakers, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, and Palo Alto. Below, he writes about site favorite Julien Baker, the “Sprained Ankle” shoot (which easily ranks as one of my favorite clips of all time), and touches on Boomtown. Dive in and go shoot something beautiful when you’re done.

You would think these things would be easier for me to write being a writer/director, but in all honesty, I’ve become a writer out of necessity rather than pleasure. Writing is something I’ve done from a very early age and have found enjoyment in, but with the advancement of technology, I have to admit that my typing ability has not progressed at the same speed as my thought process. Long-form handwriting is my preference, but once I started transcribing it from pad to laptop, I said the hell with it. But I digress…

2015 was an enlightening year for me as a director, but the catalyst for it was a 3-taco combo I ate at the end of 2014. A few years back I worked on a film called Spring Breakers, directed by Harmony Korine. Harm has become a good friend, but more so someone I look up to and can seek guidance from as I make my own path as a director. At the end of 2014 I was in Nashville working… or hanging… or something.

I reached out to Harmony asking him to take a look at the body of work I’d compiled at that point with the hope that he could give me some feedback or guidance in taking it to the next level. Long story short, we played a little text tag, and he hit me up saying his car was in the shop, but if I was free I could pick him up and we could grab lunch. Done and Done.

So we ate tacos. Harm was cool, as usual, and told me that he thought my work was really great, but that it was obvious I had amassed a series of pieces that reflected what agents/managers/productions companies told me I needed to help “sell” me. From what Harm knew about me personally, he felt my work lacked my true fingerprint. What he meant was that it wasn’t the type of work that reflected my individuality, edge, and identity as a filmmaker. And the real kicker was that he was right! Hard to argue with a guy when he vocalizes the thing that you knew all along, but couldn’t quite pinpoint. Boom!

This was the best and worst lunch I’d ever had. Best, because I felt free to truly express myself as an artist. Worst, because I knew that meant becoming more selective, which could negatively affect my “Dolla, Dolla Bill Ya’ll”. But at that point, it was the only option moving forward.

Now a little back-story on me as a filmmaker: From as early as I can remember, and even when I was in film school making my first shorts, I knew that I wanted to make films and tell stories that made people feel. Stories that affected people good, bad, or indifferent. Stories that ultimately became timeless because they were based on a universal truth or experience that everyone could relate to; real stories about real people.

So all that information takes us to January 11, 2015, and me sitting on my computer trolling Facebook for something to pass the time. What I found was a link to an EP self-released by Julien Baker on Bandcamp. I listen to a ton of music. I’m a fan, I make records, and I love shooting music videos. It’s always a blast no matter what, and one of the ways I get videos is my reaching out to independent artist that I like. Sometime it goes somewhere, sometimes it doesn’t.

But there was something really special about this record and the single in particular. It had this sparse instrumentation and these vocals/lyrics that penetrated deeply to my core, but more that than, on first listen I could visualize exactly how the video would play out in my head. So, having the obsessive compulsive tendencies I do, I trolled the Internet some more and found an email address for Julien and shot her a note.

Lucky for me, she replied right away (she addressed me as Mr. Mayfield which made we feel incredibly old at 33, but I guess to a 20-year old I probably was) and we began a dialogue that continued until May 12, 2015 when Julien arrived in LA and we drove our asses to Joshua Tree to shoot the video for “Sprained Ankle”. Now the end result is what I can only describe as lighting in a bottle. We had zero fucking dollars, but we had an amazing song, an amazing vision, incredible team, one location, one outfit, and one continuous take (I’d like to tell you how many takes we did and which one we actually used but that would ruin the mystique of the whole thing).

If my memory serves me right, we left for Joshua Tree around 6am, began shooting at 10am, wrapped by 1pm, got back to LA at 4pm, and delivered the 100% locked video by 6pm. Pretty rare for something this cinematically impactful to happen that smoothly. But, because of all the ingredients I mentioned above, we were able to make a breathtaking video that represents the song and Julien to the T. And, to expand on my point earlier, it is representative of me as an artist. It has been an evolution, and this video is the culmination of the work I’ve put in to developing my craft and who I am as a filmmaker.

What is so impressive to me about Julien is that at such a young age, she is confident in who she is and her voice. Not only as a singer, but also as an individual. It takes most people, including myself, many more years to trust in their inner voice and follow the path that is unique to them. In hindsight, not only was this piece pivotal for me as a filmmaker, but this experience was necessary for me as a man.

OK, so that seems to be a really good place to stop, but it actually gets better if you can believe that….

So just about the same time Julien and I were getting ready to shoot the “Sprained Ankle” video, my close friend and frequent collaborator David Newbert (who also shot “Sprained Ankle”) asked me what I knew about Williston, North Dakota, to which I replied “fuck all.” What I also didn’t know was the seed he planted that day would 8 months later turn into my first feature film, Boomtown. As I sit in my living room writing this, it is November 30, 2015, which is exactly 8 days since we wrapped principal photography on Boomtown.

What began as a casual lunch conversation turned into an 8-month whirlwind of researching, writing, casting, scouting, interviewing, funding, fighting, and driving, which culminated in our arrival in Williston, North Dakota. I don’t want give away too many details about the film at this point, because post-production has only just begun and we have a long way to go, but what I can tell you is that Boomtown is the byproduct of the “Sprained Ankle” video, specifically the way we willed it to be and the rawness in which we shot it. Boomtown is a unique and specific story that takes place in a very extreme and real environment. My main objective with the film, as was my goal with Julien, was to capture the true essence of the individuals, their emotions and environment, be it past present or future. To convey a feeling that you can only capture by being there and living it.

What I have come to find to be true through the course of this year is that you don’t need all the bells and whistles to deliver a dynamic product. You don’t need over-produced music. You don’t need big budget blockbusters. You need the simplicity of a true story and real people. People just like you and me. Those are the stories that are too often untold. But when they are, it is a sobering reminder of how much we all truly relate to one another.

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