A Year’s Worth of Memories | Heartbreaking Bravery

February 1, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Lindsey-Paige McCloy)

Having just run Loren DiBlasi’s beautiful piece on Patio and the impact Lindsey-Paige (LP) McCloy’s influence had on her life, it only felt right to follow that piece with one from LP herself. I was fortunate enough to meet Lindsey-Paige over the summer and came to regard her as a kindred spirit close to immediately after our introductions. The calm confidence that frequently permeates Patio’s music is personified by the guitarist/vocalist and it’s difficult to feel anything less than completely at ease (or even fairly comforted) in her presence. Below, she tackles moments she experienced that were connected to Dan Bejar, Ought, Phyllis Ophelia, and Krill, and the feelings those moments dredged up. Dive in below and keep an eye on this site for more updates on Patio throughout 2016.

I don’t really ever write things that aren’t related to “tech for cities,” so it’s taken me a whole hell of a long time to even START writing this down and to think about how to bound this year (when did it even start? Does anyone remember? Please advise.) because it’s been a long one. Big and small, stretchy, recursive somehow. I keep trying to isolate one musical memory but i’d have to put it in so much context (like, my story of my love of Krill is years long and others have told theirs so much better) that it would be so boring and long, so i’m just going to cop out and use Steven’s (very loose) frame here and talk about four randomly selected bits of bravery — if i can take the liberty of broadly defining that term — that made me feel a thing!

Dan Bejar sits down while he’s singing. He just gets up there with a glass of water and he wanders around in between a ten piece band and a sold-out Webster Hall and then sometimes he sits down. It might make you feel like he doesn’t care and that he’s phoning it in, that he’d rather be anywhere in the world more than here, a couple blocks south of Union Square on a Sunday night. In fact, it does make you feel this way – the legendary wordplay’s crystal clear and the melodies bloom out like oil from under a leaky car but the performance is still flat (feeling weird saying this, who am i to make this call? Whatever, just reporting what i was thinking at the time, it’s important for the rest of the story, bear with me).

I was a little surprised, given the general vibe, that he came out for an encore, but he did, and then he just destroyed EVERYTHING. The band pulled out some horn-heavy numbers and Bejar started going for high notes in an unusual way. There was this one crescendo — I don’t even remember which song they were playing, I was so engrossed — where I think maybe my whole life flashed before my eyes and it seemed as though Bejar had grown to at least twice his usual size. It also seemed like everyone in the whole room was snapped up together into some kind of everything-vortex that he was nonchalantly, expertly marshaling toward some kind of new frontier… or something. I didn’t get a chance to figure out where we were going because everything dissipated really quickly and then we all left down some slow staircase, but I did know that I’d misjudged the whole thing and that Dan Bejar is definitely a wizard master from another dimension.

Ought was billed to play at the same time as Wilco at Pitchfork and i was VERY UPSET. My brother and i treat festivals like a marathon – we get there early, we don’t ever sit down, and we eat only when its absolutely necessary. We hydrate on a rigid schedule (no alcohol! could derail focus), we see as many things as possible, and we collapse at 10pm so we can do it all again the next day. We did not foresee an evil scheduler conspiring against us, placing my two favorite bands playing the festival — Ought, who I had seen and was dying to see again, and Wilco, who I had never seen live and who I love from the depths of my dad-rock heart (aesthetic – cool dad c. 2006) — against each other in the first night headline slot.

Loren, Colin, and I rode, as David heroically drove, all the dang way to Pitchfork, where we met up with my brother. I was going to have to choose between the old and new and I was heartbroken! We took a leap and split the group in two, elder statesmen going to Wilco and the youth pushing up for Ought. We assumed Ought would play for less time than Wilco, and we camped out on the front right (for Ought). This decision was perhaps our most brilliant call. Right before they were to release Sun Coming Down, which was probably my favorite album this year, they closed the blue stage with a completely on-fire, in-control set of new and old material. They bravely conducted a sea of flailing and bouncing teens in the miserable heat and showed absolutely everyone up, including Wilco, whose set I did manage to catch as they launched into the hits after they finished playing Star Wars in full. Thanks for that, Ought.

III

Phyllis Ophelia is both one of my oldest friends and the best songwriter I know. She writes close and catchy songs about emptiness and risk and love and interpersonal activities. My favorite song of hers is called “Saint Hangover” and you really need to listen to it if you’re just a tiny bit hung over at work, trying to finish writing this piece… maybe that’s just me, OK, still, listen. I was lucky enough to see her play again recently at the Sidewalk Café. My favorite part of her performance was watching her pull back a bit, become fully aware of the explicit nature of some of her new material and of the presence of an audience hanging on these words, double down, gamely joke about “being embarrassed” on a mic break in a way that somehow cemented total mastery of the situation and of the central subject matter. Thanks, Phyllis, for going there and for showing us that it’s OK for us to sing about our bodies and others’ bodies and how they fit together and what we want from them, if we want to, and for doing it so dang beautifully.

Krill got out of the game and it seemed like a signal to close a chapter of some kind (this is what I told Gabe, though I don’t think I closed any chapter despite having one fewer wisdom tooth now than I did when I started listening to Krill, maybe that counts for something). Thanks to a friend I managed a ticket to their last show, though thanks to dinner I missed Big Ups and half of the Frankie Cosmos set. Got there just in time to squeeze into a spot in the back near the bathroom and the courtyard door, right in everyone’s way, where improbably, and conveniently, my friends were also standing. Jonah was there too. Though through some good friends I’ve met 2/3’s of krill, I’d still not met Jonah. He’s not the kind of guy you feel like you know through his lyrics or through having seen him perform in many of the months of 2015 (probably 2015 was just my Year of Krill, really). You feel like you can begin to bound the enigma but then “Torturer” comes out as a single and you have to start all over again, etc.

So, Jonah was by himself with a hoodie up next to the wall, and toward the end of the Frankie Cosmos set he turned toward the wall for some sort of private communion with something, maybe — he was probably just tired and psyching himself up for the third NYC farewell show that week — but it felt both like I was intruding on something really private (it also feels like I’m violating that privacy by writing about this here… sorry, Krill) and that maybe he needed a hug. I’m not a hugger, though, so I just sent vibes from my mind, of support and thanks because I really am grateful to Krill for having been Krill. It can’t have been easy to be Krill and speak to, or for, those of us who thought a lot about our effects on others and on ourselves, who worried about how to feel every day, and who felt everything from complete control to utter aimlessness and disgust over the course of a 24 hour period, who cry to “Purity of Heart” (Loren), or drive the Dakota’s to “Alam No Hris” (Stephen and Gabe), or who were the reason for this whole madness in the first place (Bon), or who really think Aaron’s guitar tone is the best of anyone’s (me, vocally). I will miss krill, but I’m glad I got to be there for it and I am very grateful to krill for having been.

In summary: everyone who makes music is the best, I love bands I love friends cool great 2015 thanks good ok!

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February 1, 2016

2015: A Year’s Worth of Memories (Loren DiBlasi)

Patio

Now that (an excessively busy) January is a piece of our past and we’ve had ample time to reflect on the events of 2015, it’s time to return to a series that began last year: A Year’s Worth of Memories. Every year, a handful of this site’s favorite people in the worlds of music and film are asked to reflect on the smaller moments that stood out as personal highlights of the preceding year as a more personalized companion piece to the more static run of year-end lists. A long list of potential contributors were asked if they’d be interested in writing a piece and a handful responded in kind, writing beautiful pieces that scratched very personal roots. This year’s first piece comes courtesy of MTVNews editor — and a writer that’s earned bylines at Impose and DIY — Loren DiBlasi (pictured above, playing bass and singing for site favorites Patio), who is one of a handful of contributors returning to A Year’s Worth of Memories. Loren’s remained a constant friend through some harder times and it’s an honor to have her be an ongoing part of the series. Read about what had the most impact on her in 2015 below.

MY BAND SAVED MY LIFE

I read Our Band Could Be Your Life ten years ago, when I was sixteen, the year I decided what I wanted to be when I grew up: a music writer. It was the same year I read other books like Legs McNeil’s Please Kill Me, and Simon Reynolds’ Rip It Up And Start Again, and realized, hey, this is a thing that people actually do for a living. As my obsession deepened, I amassed an extensive CD collection that started with post-punk revival bands of the time (Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads) and worked its way backwards, all the way from Pixies and Sonic Youth to Joy Division, Buzzcocks, and The Fall.

From sixteen on, I didn’t care about anything. I only cared about music. But I didn’t just want to write about it; I wanted to eat it, sleep it, breathe it, and live it until the day I died.

But I never wanted to play it. I didn’t think I could.

There’s this thing with young girls who love music. Except for a few bands I liked — maybe Yeah Yeah Yeahs and The White Stripes — there weren’t many contemporary female musicians I looked up to. If there was a “girl in a band” — the title of Kim Gordon’s memoir, which I would devour a decade later — she was either “not as good” as her male counterparts (the incessant critiquing of Meg White) or she was the dazzling, charismatic lead singer, a figure far more glamorous than I’d ever imagined myself to be (like Gwen Stefani or Kate Jackson of The Long Blondes).

I fancied myself a nerd, an outsider, a weirdo; at the time, I didn’t know many female musicians who reflected those qualities. An exception might be Eleanor Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces, but again, she wrote lyrics and sang. I was young, timid, and still developing as a writer, let alone a songwriter (and the idea of singing in front of people was scary). I just didn’t think I had it in me.

When I became obsessed with Talking Heads, I worshiped Tina Weymouth; she was cool, and smart, and different in a way I could relate. She had a boy’s haircut, but she was undeniably feminine: her look was chic and classic, and she wore lots of black. She resembled a miniature version of the supermodel Twiggy. I admired her style and her fearless attitude first; her musicianship later. Stop Making Sense was the first time I really noticed the bass on its own, and the idea of playing it — of being like Tina — intrigued me.

But like I said, there’s this thing with girls who love music. I felt that because I was already sixteen, and had never touched an instrument, that it was too late for me. If I hadn’t shown musical promise by that point, I never would. Plus, what if I was bad? Of course, what’s hilarious is that I had never even tried, and I was already writing myself off as incapable or unworthy; this is a classic teenage girl move. Where boys are encouraged, girls are outsiders in music communities, and it takes a lot of time, effort, and courage to break free of that restrictive, deep-rooted thinking.

(Years later, I learned that Tina Weymouth hadn’t picked up the bass until her 20s, to join the already-formed Talking Heads.)

Maybe I wasn’t ready to try my hand at music as a teenager. But once I had reached my 20s, and had gained endless insight working as a journalist, it was time. Still, the circumstances had to be just right. First, there was the concept: Patio. My band. Grass is Green, Vulture Shit, and Flagland played a show at David Blaine’s, spring 2014. Friends and I joked about how we had wasted our Saturday, which was drinking at bars, on various outside patios. Even Randy of Vulture Shit said he’d done the same.

“Wouldn’t ‘Patio’ be a fucking perfect band name?” I proposed. “Like a group of distraught millennials sitting outside, drinking away their troubles, when in reality their lives are actually fine.”

It was a joke at first, but eventually the name took on greater meaning for me; it represented a deep sense of boredom with my surroundings and an overall dissatisfaction with life, whether that was a spoiled mentality or not.

The first time I actually held a bass, I was in bed with a boy, a bass player. I liked him. He had resolved to give me a lesson, but somehow the idea of him teaching me how to play made me more uncomfortable than whatever we had done together the night before. When I didn’t know how to place my hands, he laughed at me, and that was it. I was done. I didn’t want to try something new in front of him, or anyone that I didn’t trust.

I didn’t like him for very much longer. When I finally found the person I did trust, things moved a lot more quickly (and that person wasn’t a boy).

I met Lindsey-Paige (LP) McCloy through mutual friends later that year, and quickly realized that not only did we talk, act, and dress similarly — something that’s still pointed out to us by friends and strangers alike — but we shared an affinity for everything music- related. The major difference between us was that LP had been playing in bands for years, and I had so much to learn.

Through a combination of weird, serendipitous events — like a sudden breakup that afforded me an abundance of free time, and finding our heroic drummer, Alice Suh — Patio soon evolved from a joke, to a joke band, to an actual band. Immediately, LP and I learned that we worked exceptionally well together; her calm and patience, combined with her talent, is an ideal balance for my rash, dramatic nature. The first song I ever played on bass, per LP’s instruction, was Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair” (ironic because I don’t even like Pavement, but it’s the perfect starter bass line). LP wrote fantastic bass parts to Patio’s first ever song, “Air Japan,” and soon — after lots of practice — I discovered I could write my own parts.

I’ve found that the way I make music is similar to the way I write about it: spontaneous, emotional, and unpredictable. Riffs and melodies seep into my brain while I sleep, or completely unsolicited, a lyric will pop into my head while I’m showering, cooking, or riding the subway. By no means is it an orthodox process, and by no means is it easily replicated. Sometimes I’m happy with the end result — I wrote all the words and parts to my first song, “Baby’s Alright,” while my phone was dying on the M train — and sometimes it’s utter shit. Even when it’s shit, it’s still good. It’s all part of it, even the bad stuff.

There’s nothing I look forward to more than band practice: being trapped in a small, sweaty room with my bandmates. LP has the uncanny ability to translate even my boldest, most bizarre suggestions into actual, cohesive sound, and we’ve collaborated on songs I’m insanely proud of. When my penchant for bleak, dark noise becomes too overwhelming, she cuts me off (or we meet somewhere in the middle, like on the track we’ve semi-jokingly dubbed our “goth country song”). Sometimes I’ll arrive at practice equipped with nothing but a sentence, or I’ll start plucking in a random pattern, and with her guidance, it transforms into something tangible and inspiring. Ours is the healthiest, most meaningful (and longest) relationship I’ve ever had, by far, and for that, I love her to no end.

All this year, I’ve worked tirelessly at not just making Patio better, but making myself better. Often, these efforts have been one in the same. After a rough end to 2014 (one which I so openly, or rather drunkenly, detailed right here), and disappointment after disappointment, my positive outlook began to fade, until I hardly recognized myself anymore.

Suddenly, I didn’t want to do the things I’d always loved to do: write, go to shows, interview bands, see friends. After something traumatic happened at a show involving a person I loved more than anything, I could barely leave my bed, let alone leave my house. For months, I couldn’t sleep. I stopped eating almost entirely. I stopped listening to music. I couldn’t go to a show without having a panic attack, or feel completely crippled with anxiety. And if I couldn’t do the things I had always done — the things I was good at, the things that had helped me make a name for myself within our little Brooklyn community — then who was I?

In 2015 I was split open, and Patio helped me feel whole again. My band has given me something new, something fun, something to look forward to. It’s helped me forge a new identity, but it’s also taught me how to embrace my own life again: the friends who love me, the things that give me purpose. Depression and anxiety are both very real, but it’s important to have an outlet that lessens the burden, whatever it may be. I’m lucky to have found a new one, despite the turmoil of this year.

In many ways, Patio is still a joke, but for me, it’s the realest thing I’ve ever had. We write silly, nonsensical songs about diminutive genitalia (“Microballs” is all Alice’s genius) and call fried chicken sandwiches our boyfriends. And yet, I don’t think I’ve ever cared about anything more in my life. Back in my teens, when I read all those books, I knew that I’d one day be a writer, too — and I’ll never stop working at that — but I never, ever imagined that one day, maybe my own band could exist. Now it does. Whatever we accomplish going forward, that feels real, and it feels fucking good.

-Loren DiBlasi

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February 18, 2015

2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories, Pt. 7

To get this out of the way up top: this site’s been going through a lot of planning phases lately and everything’s being collected as it appears. It’s been a while since the last post (mostly due to a new full-time job and splitting time between two active bands based in two cities nearly two hours apart) but that silence is coming to an end now. Initially- when I pitched the idea of a “meaningful moments in 2014 music” piece (one that had been built off an idea that grew out of a conversation with Sasha Geffen on a road trip to Kentucky) to the wonderful and absurdly talented, writers, musicians, artists, label heads, music video directors, and people- I had intended to run all of these together. Before long, it became extremely apparent that there was simply too much great content to do service to all of the pieces. It was extraordinarily humbling to piece everything together and even though this will be the last traditional post of the series, it’s far from over. There will be an epilogue that ties up everything with a bow just a little ways down the line.

Until then, this site will be going into overboard catch-up mode, featuring the best songs, music videos, and records to have been released in 2015. While all of that will bring some exciting new changes to this site, it’s the part of the paragraph where it’s time- once more- to reflect on what made 2014 so great. Below are pieces from a few of my favorite people in music and music writing, who I hold in the highest possible esteem, as well as my own personal reflection. And, lastly, a quick note to all of the people gracious enough to agree to this project: each of you, whether you knew it or not, meant something to me before all of this insanity kicked off and you all now have my undying gratitude in addition to my unfailing admiration. So, without further ado, it’s my absolute honor to present: Heartbreaking Bravery’s 2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories, Pt. 7.

fast like light (august 2014)

How do you tell a secret that’s already told a thousand times a day?

This was August, and I had a bruise like an egg on my shin because I’d tripped over a gazebo in New Hampshire two days before. I’d hiked a whole mountain in my Vans with all my stuff on my back and my leg leaking into my jeans. Now I was in Brooklyn, where the air smelled thicker. The sun puddled up on the crooked streets.

I dropped my bag at Eric’s so I could walk without lugging it. He lived with Nadia in a railroad apartment in Bushwick, the kind of building with black iron scarred across the front. We hadn’t met before but I’d reviewed his tape a few months back, and he remembered my review and gave me a real tape to take back to Chicago with me. I opened the door to the bathroom instead of the stairwell when I tried to leave, and we both felt awkward and laughed.

The day moved slow. I met people I’d known online for years. There was a show in a hot loft. Eventually, we sat in Eric’s kitchen again, his windows blank to the night and fringed by pulsing Christmas lights.

Yeah, Christmas lights in Bushwick. But we also sipped tea out of small, worn mugs, and the show had been so good we couldn’t stop laughing. None of us had really had anything to drink, but we were tired, and excited, and full of the buzz that comes with warm, new love.

I mean love like friendship, the kind you get when you meet someone you’ve been talking or listening to forever, and the whole person is just as good as the parts you glimpsed, even better.

The apartment was stacked kitchen to music room to extra room to bedroom. Everyone went home but me, because I was sleeping on Eric and Nadia’s floor in the extra room. It was two or three in the morning, and Eric and Nadia were going to track vocals on one of Nadia’s songs.

I sat on the air mattress in the next room listening. They’d recorded instruments onto the computer already, and Nadia was making up the lyrics as she sang. Her voice was good and clear, like she’d had lessons once, or maybe just practiced a lot. Some of her takes were airy, whispery, then she’d cut through the whispers with a sharper overdub. She was trying to figure out what sounded better.

I wish I could remember her lyrics. I sat still, like I wasn’t there. You don’t break something like that when it happens.

She sounded like she felt so safe there, in the quarter of the home they’d sectioned off for music. Both of them had day jobs, too. They didn’t get to do this all the time. They made what they could, because they loved to. This is what I mean by a secret.

When they were done and the song was a little more finished than it had been before Nadia went to bed and Eric and I stood talking in the music room. Her project didn’t have a name yet but I told him how good it sounded from the next room. I still don’t know if it has a name.

We talked until about five hours before I had to get up to go to the airport. In the morning I would leave before either Eric or Nadia woke up, slip out the front door, and take the subway into LaGuardia. But it was four, and I wasn’t tired and Eric wasn’t tired, so we stood talking about the friends we had in common, the music they made, how lucky we were to know their music while it was young.

-Sasha Geffen (editor, Consequence of Sound, writer, basically everywhere else)

Finding Strength within Yourself While Working With Music

On sunny days I go out walking I end up on a tree-lined street
I look up at the gaps of sunlight I miss you more than anything

I was walking down Eastern Parkway on a Sunday, early afternoon in the summer. Chris was texting me, again reflecting the fierceness of Mitski’s lyrics of her then unreleased Bury Me at Makeout Creek. This is a subject that Chris and I found ourselves enraptured in often, and continue to delve into at great length today. The sun was shining, and I marveled at how her lyrics described the very street I was walking down. I made it to my doctor’s office and sat in the waiting area with three or four children, yelling about squatter’s rights of the Lego table. Their parents were disengaged, and I matched their stares at the ceiling. It was cracked and dirty, and left you wondering, “How did something that color orange get up there? What is that?”

This was my fifth, maybe sixth visit to this doctor within a month. I was currently diagnosed with a myriad of titillating, polysyllabic phrases, mostly boiling down to “your hormones are messed up big time in a serious way.” From my burgundy waiting room chair, I remember thinking to text Chris something like (though I am certain that I never did, as the joke was never really developed), “Mitski’s line about not being able to afford ‘the drive I need to go further than they said I’d go’ is probably about the G train.” I laughed at myself, then got extremely anxious. My doctor opened the door and waved for me to follow her.

Sometimes the human body stops working, or a part fails. I was diagnosed with cancer when I was seventeen. It taught me that when your body stops working, and it will at some point, there are ways we as humans compensate. But no one is invincible. I had a thyroidectomy, went through radiation therapy, and was put in isolation in my childhood bedroom for weeks. I take pills every day to fill in as my missing, malfunctioned body part. I will take them every day until I die. Sometimes, though, even the ways we find to compensate for our bodies don’t work.

I found myself at the doctor’s office on this particular day, and basically every visit since May, because my medicine was not working. I had ignored symptoms of it not working for months on end. These symptoms included, but were not limited to, frequent panic attacks, inexplicable long sessions of uncontrollable crying, insomnia, obsessive-compulsive behavior, etc. I was spending so much time hiding and sobbing in bathroom at my office, that I had developed a system of guessing when the stalls were most likely empty. Even at my least lucid, I knew that crying alone was most suited for the office environment. My poor parents would have their regular calls cut off by my spiraling into a gripping fear that my boss’ fish would die and I would be fired. I was not myself. I was all of the saddest, least brave parts of my psyche at once. Eventually I was looking out windows and thinking about jumping out of them, and that was about the time that I knew that I couldn’t chalk this up to something I needed to handle on my own. I was later told that my hormones were so imbalanced, not only was I experiencing these extreme emotional side effects, I was at high risk of promoting irregular cell growth and my cancer would likely return if my dangerous hormone levels continued to go unaddressed.

It’s one thing to hear that you have cancer. It’s an entirely other thing to hear that you might get cancer again. Cancer is like winning the lottery or the opportunity to smoke weed in college: every time you get it, the higher the probability is that you will get it again. And while I’m not sure that bit about the lottery is true, I can tell you that I most certainly never want to get cancer again. And so I sat in the doctor’s office, walked 45 minutes each way to and from the doctor’s office, and would contemplate what my different blood tests would reveal in the moments in between, all the while enveloping myself exclusively in Mitski’s music. Her lyrics would weave in and around the folds of my brain. She taught me ways to put words together that I didn’t even know existed. Her fears, her love, her desires mirrored mine. She sings the kind of songs that make you feel like she is singing these words into your mouth. Even when I was full of fear, I found comfort and strength in knowing I was not alone.

As I began my walk back to my apartment that day, I sent Chris an equally under-thought (but somehow more worthy) joke about how I was prescribed ice cream this week. He replied asking for a referral. And it made me laugh out loud. It made me laugh through the tears and the confusion and the fear I lived with constantly. And for that reason, I felt close to him. I also felt close to him because, beyond our discussions of Mitski and her music, we also could talk about Taking Back Sunday and Bruce Springsteen and how much we love disgusting fast food and how much we love our parents. The night I met Chris, about a month after the height of my symptoms, he was leaving a party early to go see Mitski for the first time at Death By Audio. I had just drafted a track post about her new single for PORTALS and assured him that her performance would be well worth missing out on the party.

It’s beautiful out today, I wish you could take me upstate
To the little place you would tell me about when you’d sense that I’d want to escape

Mitski and I, like Mitski and Chris, met through her music. Her incredibly candid lyrics made me feel like I knew her much more than I did. This is probably because when I heard the first single she released, I did not know her at all. Her artistic creation had accompanied me to doctor’s visit after doctor’s visit. Her songs sat with me on subway trains to and from work. They sunk to the foot of my bed as I screamed into pillows, erratically. Think Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club. I listened to “Drunk Walk Home” on the occasion I was, God help me, under the influence and walking home. When I wrote about her music for PORTALS, she thanked me graciously, as she is very gracious. “First Love // Late Spring” reminded me of a gust of exploding wind, dust billowing into doves. “I was so young when I behaved twenty-five, and now I find I’ve grown into a tall child,” Mitski sang. In between hiccup-laden breaths, I would find strength in her biting sense of humor and total agony in the very feeling she was describing.

I went to see her play a few times, and I talked to her between sets. When she told me about preparing for the record’s release, I offered my humble abilities at writing a short bio for her album announcement. We began emailing back and forth about this and that. At one point, when I was at a friend’s birthday party, I drunkenly texted her asking if she would want to put the record out a tape. This never came to fruition, or was spoken of again, as many things I ask about while drunk at birthday parties.

When I listened to Mitski’s music, I heard all of her feeling, her talent, her words, but I also heard a soundtrack to my own life. It rang like a bell. But perhaps that is why humans make music at all, to connect. And Mitski is extremely well versed in the art of connecting. She shares with great purpose. And the words and sentiments she was sharing were not just present in my life, but also lighting a fire within me, much like I imagine is the same with many of her loving supporters. In the midst of the sludge, the uphill battle I faced in righting the wrongs in my body, my ears perked. When falling in love with music, specifically, your blood gets warmed in an emotional incubator- and this gets you kicking. There is a light that awakens you, but it’s coming from your headphones, and then it comes within you. Instead of looking to someone else for purpose, you look inwardly, contemplating what this music means about the world around you as a whole.

Chris and I continued to hang out, run into each other at shows, trade music videos of our favorite horrible pop punk bands back and forth. We even drove to Baltimore together to see Taking Back Sunday, and I skipped my regular Sunday doctor’s appointment. My health was improving, though. By this time, Chris had met with Mitski regarding management, and had started a conversation with her about the future of her career. I had let her know anything I could help with, I would. That’s the other thing about falling in true love with someone’s music, much like falling in love with the person themselves: the more you get, the more you want. Mitski sent Chris and I Bury Me separately. And once we realized we both had the record, we could not be satiated. Discovering every nook and cranny of this album was our journey to the center of the Earth. We each saw her perform as much as we possibly could, usually together. Before one of her sets, I “performed” a DJ set from the safety of a Spotify playlist that consisted mostly of Blink-182 and Gene Chandler. Chris was late for my introduction, but we were both front row the moment “Townie” began.

One night, Chris and I were walking to our friend Jesse’s house in Greenpoint. We were weaving around the BQE, considering McDonald’s as an actual option for dinner. Chris was talking about the trajectory of Mitski’s career, where he could see her in three, five years. I told him where I could see her in ten. Chris began talking about what we could do managing her together, mostly in the short term. It wasn’t necessarily something we had discussed seriously before, but not something we hadn’t mentioned in passing. The more he talked about what I could bring to the table, the more I realized that this could become a reality. I had never been joking, but had always managed to be laughing when talking about the prospect with him. Once she texted us separately that she could see us working together with her music, referring to us as something of a dream team.

My grandfather died in the fall. He was very wise, and he was an amazingly intelligent man. He taught me my favorite flavors of ice cream and how to play Connect Four. He taught me about country music and how to laugh at anything, how to have a sense of humor. He taught me that it is important to live your life the way you want to live it, because then you will be happy. These are also traits that I see in my parents, my mom, his daughter. I stood in the driveway of my mother’s apartment complex while on the phone with Chris two days before the funeral. I don’t remember exactly what he was talking about, as I was elsewhere. My dad would try to distract us both by asking questions about Mitski. I showed my mom a video of her playing that I took at Cake Shop. It seems crass, perhaps, to be thinking about anything at all at a time like that- but there are times when pain is best escaped and not faced. My parents are strong and they held us together, held me together. We talked about things we missed, things that hurt, and then things we had to look forward to. I do remember that Chris went to see Mitski play a show with her full band that week, while I was away. When I returned, we had a signed contract saying Chris and I were now her managers.

And while you sleep I’ll be scared
So by the time you wake I’ll be brave

Mitski’s music didn’t save me. Her lyrics didn’t heal me. Listening to her songs again and again and again and talking about them ad nauseam with Chris, my parents, and anyone who would listen to me ramble didn’t make any of my problems disappear. However, what Mitski and her music did do is much more powerful. In listening to her music, those moments walking down Eastern Parkway, in being reminded of how music can make you feel, how powerfully it connects our human brains together and tethers them together for life, I found strength in myself to face whatever came my way throughout the year. For good measure, when I go to the doctor next Sunday, I will listen to her record and I will text Chris, as I have for months now.

These experiences as a whole reminded me of why I work in music at all. It kept me believing in not only myself, but also what I, Chris, a team of excellent people, and above anyone at all Mitski herself could do to build her life and career as an artist. When we’re on the phone with her lawyer, or Double Double Whammy, or a potential booking agent, I think about what her music will create for people in the future. I want her to tell her story, and continue to foster this amazing talent she has for connecting to that microphone wire to the ventricles of her listener. I want to have everyone listen her music to hear it and allow her screams and howls and croons to lead them to something true and beautiful in themselves, like it did for me. To be a part of this, for me, is to live.

-Jeanette Wall (Miscreant, PORTALS, Band Practice)

Save the Scene: Eight People Who Taught Me How the Music Industry Should Work in 2014

As with every year before it and with every year to come, 2014 was all about change. That’s all we ever do and, as creatures designed to grow, that’s what we do best. I was incredibly fortunate to find a real foothold in the music journalism industry this year and to watch myself adapt to the feel of it all. It seems so long ago, but somehow 2014 saw me finish up my final semester of college, graduate, travel all over the US, and write a ton. As exciting as all of that is, those aren’t the things that come to mind when I look back on 2014. What does are the incredible people I met, especially in regards to music.

Music journalism is a blind walk through an overcrowded room with a wall of amps turned up to full volume. It’s competitive, it’s loud, and no one actually knows what they’re doing. No one tells you what to do in this field. As digital trends take over and we’re continually forced to reinvent the way music consumption operates, those in charge are fumbling with the remote control. The rest of us watch wondering what button they’re going to press. Well, most of us.

There are a few people out there who don’t want to wait around. They’re happiest when taking action. Naturally, these eight people are all incredible workers—authors, photographers, fans—and fit right into that description. While 2014 was filled with a slew of incredible opportunities, albums, and bands, the best part of the year was seeing those who went out of their way to teach others how the music industry should really work.

DeForrest @ 285 Kent Goodbye show

When 285 Kent was closing, I wandered into New York to see Laurel Halo. I was alone, drawn by the general infatuation with an artist that has enough allure to give you confidence standing idle in a DIY space where people smoke inside and reveal insider data with a flippant shrewdness. A mutual friend suggested I meet up with his old friends from from Tiny Mix Tapes, and after a few miscommunications regarding who was wearing what color shirt, we found one another. For such an in-the-know website, I was expecting its authors to be taciturn, brainy, witty but inane. At their core, they were. They cracked jokes that bounced off remarks not yet made. They kept their voices down, but talked frequently, each with his own distinct pace. It was a great farewell show. When keeping in touch afterwards, however, I learned a lot, particularly from DeForrest. He writes to exceed the highest bar, pushing himself to provoke an intellectual discussion with whomever is reading the material, regardless of the musician at hand’s popularity, product, or longevity. He goes beyond flowery descriptions. He expects a level of determination from the reader, and that in itself demands a great deal from him, too. Over the course of the year, he took time to reach out with in-depth articles, collegiate-level discussions, and musicians that pushed the boundaries. What really stuck, however, was the direction he faced. In a year that drowned itself in clickbait articles, DeForrest marched straight ahead with a well-stitched flag of high-quality content, singlehandedly proving that the music industry should expect more of itself – because both an author and audience are hungry for it.

Christine @ Allston Pudding

It goes without saying that you should support your local scene. Bands grow from word of mouth. If it weren’t for people coming out to shows, buying merch, and listening to their records after the fact, their music would have a hard time taking flight. Supporting your scene means giving them that foothold, showing someone cares. No one embodies this more in Boston than Christine. Despite seeing her at shows all the time for a year or so—trust me, she’s hard to miss, even though her height should technically make her easy to miss—we never talked until 2014, especially when both writing for Boston’s music blog Allston Pudding. Hearing that passion for Boston’s local artists coming straight from her mouth was enough to get anyone psyched, even if they couldn’t remember the last time they bought a record or went to a concert. In an age where promotion teams are at one another’s necks trying to get their roster on Rolling Stone, it’s difficult to truly stand up for music you believe in that has yet to be influenced by larger masterminds. Keep in mind that there’s nothing wrong with that. Being able to decide you actively enjoy what’s coming straight at your ears separate from their name or the URL link you’re hearing it from, though, takes some clear thinking to figure out. Christine knows about new acts before their demo tapes hit the web because she’s constantly at shows. She’s in the front row, listening to people play their heart out and applauding them for it, even if it’s not her cup of tea. She’s the reminder the music world needs that you can support musicians without being a diehard fan. Giving someone a single thumbs up makes a huge difference. So when your backyard is ringing with the noise of a dozen new bands, staying inside becomes the obvious error.

Ryan @ SXSW

There is so much happening all the time everywhere. As Lindsay Zoladz discussed in her essay on hyper consumption and digital exhaust, the digital age is running so quickly that there’s no time to stop and properly digest. Instead, most everything passes us as a vaguely recognizable blur. SXSW is the festival-equivalent. There’s nonstop shows every single day, with a dozen secret events being held around Austin, from house shows to 3am performances on a bridge to impromptu bill swapping. It’s hard not to fall into the trap. There’s a fear of missing out, for sure, but there’s a fear of underappreciating. You want to make sure you’re taking away exactly what there is to be extracted, that your consumption of that moment is chewed slowly and with great attention to detail while still swallowing that bite fast enough to try something different shortly thereafter. As a photographer at the festival, I found things to be chaotic but enjoyable. The shutter moves so quickly that you can reflect on the taste of your so-called meal later on. As an interviewer, however, things are a bit different. I worked alongside Ryan and several other Stereogum writers that week. Watching how they operated felt like walking abroad the Titanic as it sank. People were scurrying everywhere, often drunk and directionless, but their staff stayed calm. It was as if their heads were above the water. They took their time with every endeavor. Every interview would be done with slow pacing, giving the artist time to think before, during, and after speaking, making space for any words that could spill out like drowsy dribble. If you’re going to write something, you need to take your time with it. You can’t be pressured by the various clocks spinning around you. Sure enough, more of Ryan’s work would pop up over 2014. Every feature held tight to its pacing, every paragraph exhaled with soothing resolution. He took his time with his work, and every piece encouraged others do the same.

Photographer @ Governors Ball

The music industry is both tightly structured and casually loose. Because of that, it’s easy to get involved. That also makes it a discouraging toil. When waiting in the main stage pit at Governors Ball, I noticed one photographer pacing back and forth in a green flat-rimmed hat with small ducks on it. Thanks to that hat, I realized I had seen him at various other festivals that summer. He’s young, around 22 years old or so, and average height. In the pit, he looks even smaller. The other photographers toss giant canvased camera bags around their hip while balancing one monstrous lens in one hand and their enormous camera in the other. They wait for the bands to step onstage with a slightly bored look, one that speaks to their familiarity with it all and the privilege they get to be the closest ones to the artist. It’s an overwhelming experience, especially if you’re a young photographer, but he appeared to be unfazed. For a few minutes, we began talking, and I asked him how he was able to get passes to shoot if he was working for a smaller blog. “I don’t know,” he said. “I just ask.” It’s obvious, but it doesn’t get said enough, especially coming from a small, independent blog. That photographer reminded me that it doesn’t matter how old you are, who you’re working for, or what your resume looks like. If you want something, keep asking for it. The worst is you’ll get turned away.

Steven @ Pitchfork Festival

The internet is cool. It can be an awful place, for sure, but it brings together all sorts of people, and thanks to a quick introduction from a mutual Twitter friend, I got to meet Steven (yes, this Steven). We both were attending Pitchfork’s summer music festival and were running around Chicago’s grassy field trying to take in every blissful set. It wasn’t until after, once I was back home and face to face with the internet again, that I began to learn a lot from him. He’s a writer and photographer with one of the most giving hearts. He applauds others for their successes. He highlights the overlooked. He drives long hours to attend a small house show. The running thread through it all? His support for his friends. Steven goes out of his way to see, read, and promote any work he finds important. In a straightforward way, most of us do this. We like what we like and enjoy sharing it with others. However, we place ourselves ahead of our friends, putting their efforts on the backburner when it isn’t a convenience for us to do otherwise. For Steven, that’s not the case. He constantly sets aside time to hear people out. He listens to his friends’ new songs. He’ll take a minute to read another pal’s review. If there’s one thing the music industry needs, it’s a network that uses iron bars to hold itself up, not paper straws. We need to be on the lookout for one another, giving credit where it’s due so we can continue to look in that direction again and again as time carries on. With all the staff cuts and job slicing, the music industry is in need of support. It needs some hugs and it needs some honesty. Over the course of a few months, I learned that may not be as impossible as it sounds. When we look out for one another, it creates a stronger shield to defend with, and Steven makes it clear how effective that can be.

Mark @ Pickathon Festival

Nestled off at Portland’s edge is a small grassroots music festival called Pickathon. It focuses on being family friendly, ecofriendly, and generally friendly, but particularly while drawing a finely curated list of acts to come perform in the middle of the woods. I ventured off to the festival alone, prepared to enjoy excellent music, but soon found there was much more to it. After plopping down in the grass to watch Hiss Golden Messenger, an older man next to me leaned over and asked where my festival bracelets were from. He and his wife soon started talking about all the sets they had seen over the years at Pickathon. They had been going to shows for decades. He dragged her to see My Bloody Valentine a dozen times back before they broke up. He had an audio recording of one of Nirvana’s opening sets a month before Nevermind came out where a mere five people clapped after they played “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Mark pulled out a schedule for the weekend and we began comparing our top picks. Over that weekend, he, his wife, and I would steak out front row spots and trade stories of our musical experiences. They introduced me to their child and his friends. Despite them being the age of my own parents, we got along just fine. It was people united by an interest, not an image. For that, Pickathon is a magical place. There’s no denying that. What makes it special beyond that is Mark leaning over to introduce himself, creating a bond for two people to share their musical experiences – and then enjoy some new ones. Since then, I made it my goal to introduce myself to at least one person at every festival I went to from there on out. So far it’s gone well. Without Mark showing firsthand how helpful introducing yourself can be, who knows how long it would have before I realized how easy it is to join forces without someone just as passionate as you.

The 1975 Fan @ Boston Calling

It’s near impossible to grow up without being a superfan. There’s an intense joy that comes with giving up your time and attention to a musician, and that joy fills you up in the most pleasing of ways. To be 13 years old and constantly fawning over a musician is a wonderful thing. From the outside looking in, it looks rather terrifying. The cults that follow bands are easy to target, and the more you indulge in music over the years, the less attached you are to a single act. It’s evident because you see fans screaming over nothing and, rather judgmentally, laugh. At Boston Calling, other photographers and I found ourselves taken aback by the first few front rows of fans waiting for The 1975. Many were younger than expected and almost all were wearing black. One girl in the front was crying. As the job essentially requires, I went to photograph her. Looking through the lens, I saw she was holding a piece of sketchbook paper. On it, there was a to-scale portrait of the frontman’s face. He was smiling. I went over to the fan and asked her if she drew it, to which she said yes. She was planning on giving it to him when he walked out. Getting a closer look, I was amazed. Behind her, another girl held up a cross-stitch portrait she had made. When the band walked out moments later, both tossed their items up onstage, smiles spread wide, with an inexplicable bliss. The respect fans have for their idols is a beautiful thing. I felt strange, like I had just been laughing at my own self moments ago had this been 10 years ago. The perseverance, dedication, and genuine love diehard fans have for their favorite band is inspiring. Few things in life can get that intense and lasting of a connection from humans, but music is one of those. To remember the honesty of that, especially the importance of that, was an odd moment. Fans are filled with love. Realizing you almost forgot that you felt that same pure emotion yourself is a terrifying thing, but fans like her remind you that fandom is a remarkable thing.

Tom @ Bacardi Triangle

By happenstance, I got to cover a weekend-long party to celebrate Bacardi where three musical performers happened to be there. It was a strange event, especially as someone who doesn’t like rum, but memorable nonetheless. A gaggle of other writers were flown down to Puerto Rico for the event and many of us were confused as to what was the proper way to indulge in the festivities. Sitting next to me at the breakfast table was Tom, an English writer for Dazed. This group clung together at various events, enjoying one another’s company in the bizarreness of it all. On the second-to-last night, Tom lowered his voice to explain his real goal. The next morning, he was going to wake up early, hail a cab, and ask to be brought to the darkest corners of Puerto Rico to investigate the drug trade. He wanted to meet with gangs. He wanted to observe how it all worked. Tom admitted he knew how dangerous this was, but he seemed not to care. A week earlier, I believed going on this trip in itself was a chance. Technically, it was, but compared to Tom’s bravery that was nothing. The difference was what was at stake. Tom was willing to risk his safety, sanity, and status on that trip. This wasn’t a reminder to fling myself out in the middle of the road more often. It was a reminder that bravery is rewarded. Bravery means more than an instant thrill. Bravery means taking the first step, inching closer to the truth, and showing others what you have found. Looking back on 2014, it seemed to snowball out of control. If I were to live like Tom, I could grow more mental muscle. I could push against that snowball. The music industry invests in the art of regurgitation, but with Tom’s approach, it could finally brush the vomit aside to ask why things operate the way they do and what we can do to change things up.

-Nina Corcoran (Consequence of Sound, Allston Pudding)

Becoming

In 2014, I saw more sets than I’d ever seen in my life. I left the country for nearly a week to have an immersive festival experience in Toronto (which wound up being spent with some of the kindest people I know). I made new friends, several of which were responsible for creating music I love or for bringing incredibly beautiful art into existence. When it came time to buckle down and zero in on one subject, I had a million ideas running through my head. Getting chills during sets from Perfect Pussy, Mutual Benefit, All Dogs, Mitski, Pile, Nervosas, Radiator Hospital, Speedy Ortiz, or any of the touring bands that played Heartbreaking Bravery’s 1-year anniversary party? Majical Cloudz’s unforgettably brave Pitchfork set? Putting together Heartbreaking Bravery’s 1-year anniversary party? VAYA’s LCD Soundsystem cover set that took a sharp left and ended with the punchiest, scuzziest rendition of “Crazy In Love” I’ve ever heard? Playing and creating music with a band again? Jayson Gerycz’s drumming? Trading cigarette burns with Maria Sherman, some of the 285 Kent crew, and a few others during an inspired Kendrick Lamar set? Resuming writing my own songs? Any number of moments spent with Perfect Pussy’s Meredith Graves either on the phone or in person (we’ll always have the hammock, ILYH)? Exploding in Sound? Double Double Whammy? The line “The shape of true love is terrifying enough” in Cymbal Eat Guitars’ “Warning”? Curating this project? Running the site and seeing it grow? The unwavering belief in my abilities as a music journalist that came courtesy of a dream-worthy trio made up of Liz Pelly, Faye Orlove, and Jeanette Wall? The way a certain subsection of people in my small town heartily embraces basement shows and so readily encourages any form of creativity? A long-overdue ascension of powerful, respected non-male voices in cultural criticism?

In the end, I went with the only thing I could think to logically do: I chose a moment that incorporated the most items of my constantly-expanding list. After coming dangerously close to revisiting NXNE (and paying special attention to its most memorable moment), I went with something less internally divisive: the day I shot Mitski delivering a stunning solo acoustic performance for The Media. My friend and fellow writer, Sasha Geffen (whose importance in regards to the development of this piece I can’t emphasize enough), had been kind enough to put me up for a few days in Chicago and joined me in catching a particularly memorable Pile set on the first night. After a quiet second day/night spent mostly writing and watching films, it was time to prep for Mitski, who was accompanied on tour by LVL UP.

At that point, Sasha and I had each spoken at length with both acts (though Sasha’s involvement and history was more extensive than my own), which led to some entertaining late realizations towards the end of the night. Mitski and I had been texting back and forth leading up to her arrival, each expressing equal excitement over the ability to be involved with The Media in any capacity (I’ve long held a stance positing that The Media- or Fvck The Media- is one of the most important independently-run publications in contemporary media, so to be able to work directly for them- or in collaboration with them- is a sincere honor). After LVL UP dropped Mitski off at Sasha’s doorstep, a few casual introductions were made and we all stepped out of the cold and into a warm, cat-friendly apartment.

Some small conversation circled around the room, allowing everyone to get caught up with everyone else while settling into each other’s collective company. Before too long, Mitski had a guitar (a Martin that used to be my father’s, which was also used by All Dogs‘ Maryn Jones in the session I did with her for The Media) tuned to her preference and was launching into a spellbinding three song set. All of those songs were wrapped on the first takes- what’s seen in The Media video was (essentially) captured in real time. After each song, I sat transfixed, clutching my camera; I wasn’t sure if it was more appropriate to applaud or simply sit in stunned silence. I opted for the latter as Sasha did the same, each of us managing to get out a quiet “wow” or some other one-syllable exclamation.

After Mitski closed with “Townie”, easily one of my favorite songs of the year, we all allowed ourselves to breathe a little and struck up some more conversations. Sasha’s roommate Ben made some incredible steamed buns, which we each gratefully accepted after he offered to let us try a few. We traded opinions on things happening in music, weighed the costs of living in our respective states, and exchanged stray thoughts. After a short while, most of LVL UP came back to collect Mitski and allowed us to climb in their van before taking off for Beat Kitchen.

After already amassing a good day’s worth of memories that easily qualify as favorites (Mitski’s set, Sasha playing me Bury Me At Makeout Creek before the session and some of her reactions to my reactions, the van ride over where everyone traded stories and talked about Mike Kaminsky), the one that stands out most from that day is what happened at Beat Kitchen and how I knew I’d found a group of people worth their salt: while everyone crowded around a table that was just slightly too small for such a large party, Mitski’s order got mixed up in the kitchen and even though everyone had been casually mentioning their hunger, no one ate a bite of their food until Mitski had been served- a small gesture of respect and kindness that’s since acted as a perfect summation of the character on display in all parties involved. LVL UP expressed some nervous trepidation over being a headlining act and were formulating some musical runs in their set over dinner while the table swapped stories and jokes.

Before too long, the show was up and running. A decent set from MTV Ghosts and a strong set from Staring Problem acted as the introduction to Mitski’s set and Mitski wasted no time in laying everyone to waste. With LVL UP’s Nick Corbo on drums and Michael Caridi on guitar, Mitski’s songs took on a new life. While both the first listen of Bury Me At Makeout Creek and the earlier acoustic session had successfully made their mark, neither compared to seeing that setup play live. As the band fell into their rhythm, the chills got fiercer and, for the last few minutes of their set, wound up being sustained. Not a lot of moments in 2014 compared to looking back from the lip of the stage to see just about everyone in attendance looking absolutely shell-shocked as Mitski unloosed piercing scream after piercing scream to end “Drunk Walk Home”, which wound up being a perfect lead-in to LVL UP’s set.

Hoodwink’d is a record that contains just about everything I love in modern music and, in a welcome turn of events, it’s the product of four of the better people I’ve had the fortune of meeting this year. LVL UP, Double Double Whammy, and- by extension- Dan Goldin and Exploding in Sound (who co-released Hoodwink’d)- have come to be a few of this site’s biggest supporters thanks in part to shared taste. Double Double Whammy and Exploding in Sound have been in collaboration on a few of my favorite releases this year, with Hoodwink’d operating proudly as the crown jewel of their conjoined efforts. Getting to see those songs, which have now become such a deeply engrained part of my life, performed live for the first time by a band I reserve a deep affection for with the person who originally introduced me to the band, felt surreal. It was an extended moment worth reeling in, savoring, and committing to memory; a time of small bliss and unwavering camaraderie.

From spending some of the morning in silence, working alongside one of my favorite writers today, to some extremely entertaining post-show goodbyes, it was a day that filled me with joy over the things that I was doing and the people that surrounded me. There were more than a few moments where life felt at ease, which wound up being a blessing in an extremely tumultuous stretch of months. So, to The Media, Sasha Geffen, Mitski, LVL UP, Double Double Whammy, Dan Goldin, and Exploding in Sound: thank you- life’s worth living just a little more surrounded by the things that make you happy. I’d like to extend that same thanks to Meredith Graves (this little site’s patron saint), Sam Clark, Ray McAndrew, David Glickman, Jeanette Wall (and The Miscreant), Edgar Durden, Shaun Sutkus, and anyone else who ever had a kind thing to say about Heartbreaking Bravery (or cared enough to contribute to this project); it’d be dead without their interest and encouragement. I love you all.

-Steven Spoerl

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January 23, 2015

2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories, Pt. 6

It’s been an insane project to run and I’ll hate to see it go but it’ll draw to a close soon. Not today, though. In the penultimate 2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories, another colorful collection of contributors touch on the moments and memories in music that meant something to them throughout the course of 2014. In this round, Patrick Garcia recounts the long process of getting Protomartyr to McAllen, TX, Athylia Paremski navigates around the people she grew to love by turning to their lyrics, Joseph Barchi shares some thoughts about the artists to find the strength in himself, Phil McAndrew relays some very just familial pride, and Johanna Warren waxes poetic about the power of The Moon. All of the pieces are moving pieces that aptly showcase some wonderful personalities, settling in perfectly with the spirit of this project. So, with no shortage of affection for everyone involved, it’s my honor to present (the second-to-last): 2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories.

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“Capitalized in this Town”

“If by chance [our] drummer loses his job, explodes, or gets more time off, I’ll let you know”

This was the last sentence in an e-mail exchange between Protomartyr’s gruff-voiced Joe Casey and myself, but it wouldn’t be our last exchange. It happened in early Spring of 2013 when I took on the trepidation of trying to convince Protomartyr, based out of America’s ashen symbol of industrial heartbreak, Detroit, to play a show in the socio-economic scapegoat of ‘the border crisis’ that is South Texas, or, McAllen, TX, where I live and feverishly book shows.

I had only been recently turned onto Protomartyr by a roommate who wrote for Get Bent. He regularly received a dump of new music in his inbox to review each week and decided to put ‘em on one morning while I was burning some hash browns for breakfast. He clicked play on the record and “Ypsilanti”’s ruffian guitar line ripped out through the living room speaker. I was floored. We listened to the record on repeat over coffee for a good portion of the morning when I decided I needed to know more about this band.

I propped up my old laptop and sprung from tab to tab on my browser while the rest of their album, All Passion, No Technique, tumbled and wrenched in the background. I soon found Protomartyr’s social media presence- at the time, surprisingly updated and consistent. The band didn’t seem to have much ‘press’ at the time, but they did have the black and white printed kiss of approval from MRR, of which the band took a photo, shared on their Facebook profile, and, accordingly, received 9 likes. This was a great sign. The vibe of this band was clear- they were doing this themselves, and this became even more evident when their booking contact was simply listed as the band’s own gmail account- a sigh of relief for a promoter such as myself. Real communication between a band and a show booker is a golden thing, as even most DIY centric artists eventually cave to having a booking agent just before their secret is out.

So I did it, I e-mailed the dudes. Nothing special, just a quick hello and interest in booking a band from Detroit in McAllen TX. It made sense in that it didn’t make sense. Detroit, an ongoing media scapegoat that’s branded as being this disheveled, broken-down industrial shard of hope. McAllen, a border town 250 miles south of Austin on the southernmost tip of Texas, or, a market completely and geographically out of the way for any band touring the states. McAllen is regularly ranked #1 by shoddy socio-economic research for being consistently the poorest, the least educated, and un-healthiest city in the blood red state of Texas. The idea of connecting Detroit and McAllen became alluring. It’s like a marriage of two cities, or myths, both with huge socioeconomic issues, both with huge problems, both with huge, battered, cultural souls.

I didn’t type any of that in my e-mail to Protomartyr. It was the total opposite, short, and to the point, and as with many e-mails I’ve sent into the dark to smaller bands, I expected it to fall on deaf ears, either in an un-checked inbox, or, worse, read and left for dead in a digital stack of read messages.

Within the day though, Joe Casey, Protomartyr’s vocalist, had responded with interest. Casey was humbled and wrote out praise and thanks, but also expressed what was not surprising, though sincere and great in its reality: Protomartyr was, refreshingly, a band tied down to day (and night) jobs, and reluctantly couldn’t tour, at least at the time. This response was refreshing to me because, in today’s contemporary realm of music, more than ever the idea of ‘indie’ or being ‘independent’ couldn’t be a more golden fleeced balloon for artists who can afford to live the part, be branded as the part, or sell the part to an even wider expanse of ‘indie’ consumers, without having to necessarily work, or work for it- it’s weird, but it’s true. So many bands are composed of lucky individuals who can afford to tour or make music all day. This is not a bad thing but it’s also not a reality for many. Protomartyr, in the exchange I had with Joe, came off as definitely not having this privilege, unfortunately, and- arguably- fortunately. I keep seeing fortunately because I guess I’m used to working with so many artists who have earned, or been granted, the opportunity to pursue full time careers in music, and become total assholes. Given, an artist owes fans nothing, but I also can’t say I haven’t noticed a correlation between artists more financially strapped to working class realms being nicer, more humble, and more enthused to play shows. What happened shortly after this exchange, though, would be the rolling out of what I could only imagine as being a bizarre dream for a genuine indie band- organic growth and awareness.

In the months since the exchange, Protomartyr started getting attention, and they were doing it without polished videos, or for a paid sub-tier Coachella slot, or for the handwork of a well-seasoned publicist. It began to sink in – they were pretty much living that coveted fable of a band getting discovered and praised for being just that- a great band. Likewise, with their growth, their fans who were there from the start also began to feel that slow burn of anxiety and satisfaction: here is a band, shadowed and great, now being awkwardly forced out into the laptop spotlight of new fans and listeners clicking across a Protomartyr YouTube video or six month late pitchfork review.

Like clockwork or karma or whatever, the opportunity presented itself: Protomartyr would do a weeklong stretch at SXSW with McAllen being a possibility in the days before the fest. Casey and I began the conversation- but it became apparent that the band was still very much not a full-time endeavor- and by full time, I don’t mean they weren’t living and breathing their band, I mean most of the dudes still had jobs that didn’t provide the luxury of asking for weeks off at a time for tour. This was the context for Casey’s quote above, which provided a deserving jest in response to my persistence and refusal to lose out on the opportunity to book a band I had seen grow into a larger consciousness. Their drummer was anchored in and couldn’t get the extra date for a McAllen gig, and alas, the band would not be able to make the trek south to McAllen this time. In an awkward stream of e-mails, Joe and I both apologized for being misread, me on my stubbornness, Joe for being Joe without me knowing Joe. At the time, it felt like I had just a let balloon go by accident that was floating beyond my grasp and I was frustrated at the idea of this band, which owed me nothing, floating out of my grasp to better things. Thankfully, the exchange I had with Joe resonated, and when the band eventually embarked on a tour through the south again shortly afterwards in May, I would finally land them.

The show happened on May 29, 2014 at Cine El Rey, a venue built in the 1940’s that was originally a movie theatre that catered to the segregated Hispanic and Chicano populations before the advancement and effects of the Civil Rights movements of the 1960’s. The theatre has major history, which is often overlooked by most artists out for the book, but reveled with most- like Protomartyr, Shabazz Palaces, and Laura Jane Grace- who cherish the humanities. The band played on the balcony to a packed space and delivered a steady shelling of post-punk shimmer and grit. The crowd that night was full of movement, chants, and was leveling and volleying the energy the band exuded. It was great, and on several occasions I recall Protomartyr’s drummer squinting with a befuddled smile at the kids thrashing around, myself included. At the end of the night the band, beaming alongside their new fans, kept it real and stayed over at my place after the show.

So many bands travel to weird places while touring but very rarely do bands want to come to a place like McAllen, TX. It happens, but it’s rare, and it’s a huge financial, physical, and logistical burden on artists who aren’t doing this for huge guarantees and clam chowder at the right soupy temperature. Scoring Protomartyr in South Texas was my favorite moment of booking in 2014 because, like with the band’s notability, the booking itself came into a slow, frustrating, but eventual, well-deserved fruition based off persistence and timing. More importantly, though, is that they- again a punk band that came out of Detroit’s underground- made a nationally shadowed city feel illuminated.

-Parick Garcia (Tiger’s Blood)

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2014 in Lyrics

Each day my heart grows fonder, one day ill be your small wonder
“Until I Open My Wings” // Small Wonder

We live for a second only, and then we’re claimed by the atmosphere
“For Rock Dove” // Bellows

And I don’t mind that you are not like me because I don’t feel like I’m a lot like me
“Pine Tree Lines” // Told Slant

Wouldn’t this be easier, no it never would, wouldn’t this be better, no wait it never could
“Two Ativan” // Florist

I had something to tell you but I forgot it
“Fire in My Eyes” // Yours Are the Only Ears

But that sunset never left your mindset
“Gemini” // Sharpless

Nothing in this world is holier than friendship
“Broken Necks” // Eskimeaux

Though I only just met the core of The Epoch early last year, they are friends that I have learned much from and hope to continue learning from in the years to come. This also goes for any and all souls surely associated with The Epoch. Though already timeless, I feel 2015 is truly going to electrify the epoch’s takeover because of their proper knack of cultivating all that is good. I eternally appreciate every last one of their existences and wish them warmth and comfort always. One of my favorite memories in their realm is a morning jam session complete with henry and Oliver singing southern twang style on-the-spot songs, Felix grooving on a banjo-head guitar, Emily taking a break from woodworking to make some breakfast, gabby and jack playing around with Gabby’s new spy cam, and hopeful thoughts of Susannah coming home from work to hang in her lovely studio. I am very grateful to have stayed at the Epoch haus the times I did, to have witnessed the beauty of their routines, and to have left with pure inspiration.

So many voices stronger than mine
“To Hold” // Sea Oleena

Charlotte Oleena is a human that i have not yet had the lucky chance to cross paths with yet, except in our dreams. Her spirit and the way she creates the most blanketing atmospheric sounds, especially in shallow, are one of the most breathtaking and inspiring things I could think of. I owe her a good cup of tea and some moon gazing hopefully someday when life allows.

I do what I have to do this is when I say my I love you
“My I Love You” // Frankie Cosmos

When I stay still, I can still feel my body inside of my body
“I Do Too” // Frankie Cosmos

Cause time moves slow, it moves for you to have time to grow
“U” // Frankie Cosmos

Greta Kline is one of the funniest and most welcoming souls I was lucky enough to catch early last year as well. We met in Boston at a show right after we had done our steep sounds art exchange interview. Meeting her and gabby was really lovely and conversations of dogs and good things are never-ending with these too. I was also taught some very secret games and at another Frankie show, we all bonded over a bunny. Frankie Cosmos, Porches., and Eskimeaux have all been eternally stuck in my head ever since.

You think you know me well, I thought I knew myself
“DBTS” // LVL UP

All of the lads (Mike, Greg, Nick, Dave) in LVL UP are spectacular beings doing spectacular things. Now is a good time to mention, Double Double Whammy is one of the most superb labels of all existence. Additionally, David Blaine’s The Steakhouse is also a very cool space doing very cool things and I hope it continues to bring joy to all. Hoping the new year brings more time to hang out in good spaces with these kind folk.

And I see you happy, it warms my heart
“Cold Apartment Floors” // Vagabon

Laetitia is such a gorgeous soul and I am excited to see all the good she will surely accomplish this coming year.

I always wanted to die clean and pretty but I’d be too busy on working days
“Last Words of A Shooting Star” // Mitski

To me, Mitski is world domination.

Running your hand over the piano keys absentmindedly as you pass by
“There is Only You in the Light and Nothing Else” // Ricky Eat Acid

Confronting the fear that lives in your chest
“Altars” // Foxes in Fiction

I was lucky enough to hang out with both Warren and Sam a few times this year as they came through to play shows and stayed with me. All of the work they did last year is beyond astonishing and they are both two of the most honest, kind, and real humans out there. They care they take in creating active, supportive, and beautiful environments and ambiances is everything. That being said, everything orchid tapes releases is a piece of art itself and the principles fueling this label and labor of love are just as important. One of my favorite memories of these two is Sam playing around and writing something lovely on guitar and warren devotedly working on his computer as the room fills with the scent of lemongrass and ginger.

Success for my buddies, success for my friends
“Harvey” // Alex G

Living in the age of Alex G is simply something I feel lucky to be able to experience. The several times I have been lucky to hang out with these souls (Alex, Sam, John, and Dexter) and to experience these lyrics and songs come to life echo in my mind always. I honestly could not imagine this line any other way besides leaving the lips of every person in the room singing along with every word.

I will go to sleep still believing
“No More Sad Songs (N.M.S.S.)” // Elvis Depressedly

Mat and Delaney (as well as Elvis Depressedly mates Eric, Noel, and Justin) stayed with me a few times this year as well and getting to know them more closely has been really nice. They are truly some of the
most kindhearted and honest human beings i have come across. New Alhambra is so pure and an absolute reflection of being completely true to one’s self.

I don’t know you but I feel like I know you
“Hope U Nevr Hear This” // Couples Counseling

Virginia is another human who made last year especially special to me. Her music, tours, art, cassette creations, and overall existence truly is integral to the inner workings of the world. If you have not discovered this yet, I hope you can do so soon.

I couldn’t say if I was awake, I watched my body taking up space
“Prism” // Porches.

I love you at top of the tree,  I lay down to have  two dreams
“Forgive” // Porches.

Aaron Maine is a remarkable human and Porches. is everything. When I met him and Greta together, I was reminded of simply good ol’ humble human respectfulness and kindness. All old Porches. songs are very important life lessons, and all of the new porches will forever reinforce these ideals and only allow for more goodness and learning.

And all I wanted was to hold your foot but I couldn’t imagine how I ever could
“Foot” // Krill

Krill is forever and I hope to see them again soon in Boston. I remember hearing this song for the first time on a radio show recording that Jonah did and have been ever so excited for this upcoming record since. I recall several Krill sets from the past year and each one is filled with pure rejuvenating energy. Every time I see krill, it is very good and I recommend it to those seeking to solve internal conflicts.

Don’t let it matter at all
It’s not your fault
I know what it feels like on the floor
what it feels like

They wanna hurt you
because they’re hurting too
Don’t let ‘em inside your head
They’ll take control of everything you’ve ever loved and did or wanted to be

Doesn’t matter what they said
‘cuz they are fucking dumb
don’t let ‘em get you now
you’re the coolest kid around
“Wake Up” // R.L. Kelly

I got to meet and hang out with Rachel two times last year and that was not enough. The latter night was simply endless hugs, happiness, love, dollar store escapades, piggy back rides, life, and all that is good in the universe. Rachel is a connoisseur of cheer and truly every one of her lyrics and the entirety of the brown horse split (with Spencer Radcliffe) is meaningful and important, but this song is especially crucial for your soul.

~ ~ ~

2014 was filled with the eyes, hearts, kind words, and embraces of so many people I hope to keep close to my soul. The list of lyrics I’ve kept in my heart from this past year along with the memories cherished are quite extensive. Though I am missing many more important words and humans, I hope some of these help you like they have helped me. Good spirits live on in words and sounds, and when coincidence or life allows certain paths to cross, that should be used to make something special if possible. It is not the records or shows, but rather the significance of the people and words that defined last year for me. The lyrics above renew so much for me. As I reminisce, I wanted to share some of these with you and hope that they inspire you to make or do something you want to do. 2015 should be about spirits inspiring other spirits to be most true to the good inside them, for people to get a grasp on how to better the world we live in, to appreciate small things you might have overlooked in the past, and to support the people who need it the most.

-Athylia Paremski (Steep Sounds)

A Love-Shaped Year

2014 was a year of love for me. I fell in love with a boy for the first time, but more importantly, I learned Perfume Genius released “Queen“. When I first heard it, I wasn’t impressed. It didn’t strike me the same way his earlier songs had. I listened to it once and then went to work. I spent the next six hours obsessing over it. “NO FAMILY IS SAFE WHEN I SASHAY” ran through my head on an endless loop. I went home and listened to the song for six hours.

Within that video and song I found courage. I found anger. I found a hymn and a battle cry. I was going to wear what I felt confident in, no matter how uncomfortable it made the straight people around me. I found a new sense of self love within Queen. It felt revolutionary to be able to look in the mirror and love parts of what I saw. I saw Perfect Pussy at Pitchfork that summer, and when some asshole decided to punch me in the stomach, I didn’t cry. I was in a crop top and short shorts and a really great shade of purple lipstick. My immediate reaction to being punched was to vomit directly onto his face. I could feel Meredith’s vocals pound into me. I felt my fist connect with the bro’s face.

I felt a righteous anger bolster me. I felt confidence. I screamed in his stunned and vomit-covered face. He walked off in a bruised and disgusted daze. I felt immediately exhausted, and empowered. Perfect Pussy’s set raged on. Meredith was a force of nature onstage. I could feel her power radiating on stage. I took some of her power with me that day. I carry it in my fists and I carry it in my mind. I have it as a constant reminder that if a boy decides to fuck with me, I am not defenseless. I am loved and I am powerful.

The other big moment of love was falling in love for the first time. It was all soundtracked by Mitski. The night I met him, for the sake of anonymity let’s call him Matt, was the night I saw Mitski for the first time. I had never listened to her before. I was at the silent barn CMJ showcase. I was wearing my favorite button down with little Dalmatians on it. I had been awake since five AM. I was exhausted and anxious and hoping to be kissed.

Mercury was in retrograde, and it was Drake’s birthday. It was set to be an incredible evening. I was standing in the back holding Matt’s hand when Mitski started her set. We had walked in from the outside late and the second we stood still to listen, everything stopped. Maybe it was the lights, or the boy pressed up against me, or the pot brownie, but I felt myself wrapped up in a romantic little haze. Mitski was so stunning I actually felt like I couldn’t breathe.

Matt and I kissed for the first time during “Townie“. I kissed him, something I never did. I don’t take risks when it comes to boys. I’m always terrified I’m being too intense, but in the soft light of the silent barn, being intense felt like the only option. We kissed as Mitski sang “I WANT TO KISS LIKE MY HEART IS HITTING THE GROUND” and holy hell did I.

When Mitski sang “I’m writing this at three am” I felt understood in a ridiculously cliché way. I was always writing about boys at 3 am. I was always trying to find my voice at 3 am.

Matt and I talked about Mitski’s set for the rest of the night. I started falling for him in the back of that crowd and I didn’t stop until I hit the ground. Before Matt and i inevitably ended things and I had my heart shattered, we saw Mitski together for a second time.

I just had finished my last final. I got in my friend’s car and we drove the four hours to Brooklyn. Mitski and I had talked a few times on social media, and she was kind enough to put me on the list for the show. I felt a moment of self-love and power during her set that I had never felt before. She played “I Don’t Smoke” for me and I was given the opportunity to scream every word in Matt’s face.

Let me tell you, yelling “I AM STRONGER THAN YOU GIVE ME CREDIT FOR” in the face of the boy who is ripping out your heart, is one of the most empowering moments a person can have. Two weeks later Matt and I still hadn’t ended things. Christmas day we sat in my friend’s car listening to Radiator Hospital. We were making out and I at one point stopped to sing the words “I didn’t want this to mean nothing”. It felt cathartic to finally hear someone say what I had been hiding.

Even after Matt and I ended things, I found comfort in returning to Bury Me at Makeout Creek. It was the soundtrack to my first love- but it had also become more than that for me. I think that’s one of the greatest things about really truly incredible music. No matter who shows it to you, no matter what memories are attached, if it is incredible, all of that fades away. Then it’s just you with this person’s words. Mitski’s words helped make 2014 a year of love for me, but more than that, she helped make it a year of power.

-Joseph Barchi (@theyarenotaboy)

A Family Reunion

Holy shit. I’ve had a lot of great music experiences this year, many of them not just favorite music experiences of 2014, but favorite music experiences of my entire three decades on planet Earth.

My favorite music experience of the year was definitely on Friday, April 4. I got to watch my two younger brothers play a sold-out show at Death By Audio in Brooklyn, New York. For my brother Ray and his Perfect Pussy bandmates, it was a record release show for their critically acclaimed Say Yes To Love (their first full-length album). It felt like a triumphant homecoming after their first insane five or six month United States tour (all practically non-stop). My brother Tyler and his old band Sarongs, a band that I’ve desperately missed, reunited just for this one show, to open for Perfect Pussy along with two other upstate New York bands: Friendless Bummer and Green Dreams.

Sarongs hadn’t played together in a few years, the members having all left Syracuse, scattering to different cities. But they sounded as if they had never stopped. I’d only ever seen them play in basements and living rooms in Syracuse (I’m not even sure if they ever played anywhere that wasn’t a basement or living room in Syracuse), so seeing them play as part of a sold-out show in Brooklyn was really great. Sarongs was the only band I was aware of that was doing amazing, surprising things in Syracuse, NY in 2010.

I left Syracuse for California in January 2011, right around the time that Sarongs dissolved, and then came back to Syracuse in the middle of 2013, right around the time that Perfect Pussy started exploding. It was a great show, all family ties aside. Sarongs and Perfect Pussy are two bands that I can say with a lot of certainty that I’d love even if my brothers weren’t members. But the family ties made it really special. It was the first time in a while that all three McAndrew brothers were together in the same place. There were so many friends at that show. My parents were there as well as most of the Perfect Pussy band members’ parents. It was the most insane, energetic, heartwarming show I’d been at in a long time. There were a lot of big, happy hugs and high fives. It was also during this weekend in New York that Perfect Pussy and I first talked about working on something together, the result of that being the comic book that doubles as packaging for their brand new 7″ split with Joanna Gruesome. Working on that project- and later getting to hang out with Joanna Gruesome and see them play with Perfect Pussy- would definitely be a close second for my favorite music moments in 2014.

–Phil McAndrew

A Devoti0nal Offering to The Moon

I’ve been feeling overwhelmed by the task of singling out one moment from what has been unequivocally the most magical year of my life, so I’m just going to write about today, because today makes as good a subject as any other day, everything is a metaphor for everything else, every breath contains the whole universe, etc.

I’m going to write about today, even though today was actually a really hard day. It’s a counterintuitive move, given how many moments of unadulterated bliss occurred in 2014, but one that feels deeply appropriate, as I attribute the splendor of my year in no small part to actively cultivating a sort of alchemical theme in my internal processes. I am learning to exercise the power of my own mind to shape my experience. When a challenging situation arises, I look for the lesson; when I get snagged on a thorn, I find the rose. I am learning how, within my own heart, to transmute destructive emotions like fear and anger into their opposites: love and gratitude. For instance, if my best friend doesn’t text me a rainbow of emoji hearts on my birthday tomorrow, I might experience feelings of abandonment, resentment and self-pity. Whereas in the past I might have latched onto those emotions, become convinced that my friend doesn’t love me, and let myself get sucked into a vortex of misery, I would now make an effort to sit with those feelings and realize my friend is probably just super busy and the real issue is that I’m attaching my self-worth to external validation because I’m not loving myself enough. So I say, “Thank you, friend, for pointing out to me the work I have to do on myself.”

When you take on this kind of work, amazing things start to happen. Sometimes it almost feels like the most challenging days become the best days, because you learn so much. So, here’s to today, which was a highly educational day.

I had trouble sleeping last night. My brain kept looping the highlights reel from what has been an outstandingly difficult and draining week. I sprang out of bed at 8:00 a.m. and started frantically throwing things in my backpack, all the while hearing my higher self trying to steady me- “Slow down, breeeeaaaathe”- but masochistically letting anxiety take hold and almost reveling in the horror of what was escalating to a full-blown panic attack. My usual grounding morning rituals were thrown to the wind. I was a runaway train.

I barreled out the door and into my car and slapped on a façade of cool, calm collectedness before picking up my incredible friend and collaborator Jess. She and I were driving upstate to make a music video about The Moon in which I was going to be mostly/entirely naked and possibly/definitely dancing. Nothing was set in stone- all I knew was I had two tubes of body paint, a disco ball, and a vague yet strong feeling that I had something to heal.

Earlier this week I realized how quickly the shoot was coming up and started feeling a little panicky about my lack of a plan, so I pulled up a few Kate Bush videos and started strategizing my approach. Right off the bat I came upon three major issues: 1) I have no notable dance skills or experience 2) I have some very charged feminist sensitivity around semi-nude dancing, and 3) my struggles with self-love have historically manifested themselves as cruel, compassionless objectification of my own body. Thus, the thought of showing considerable skin and conceivably shaking it, on film, called forth a broad spectrum of emotional responses ranging from abject terror to ecstatic triumph… which is generally how I know I need to do something. The way I see it, those squishy, tender, uncomfortable emotions are just big neon markers for wherein lies the stuff that needs healing- after all, “the edge is where the action is,” or so say some permaculturists and yoga teachers (and, I hope, U2’s The Edge, pre- and/or post-coitus).

So, around 3pm today I found myself completely naked, painted white from head to toe like some ritual sacrifice, standing on frozen mud in a beautifully decrepit old horse barn, convulsing with full-body shivers as my own voice cooed from my laptop speakers: Don’t be drawn to me; I may be here today, but soon black moss will cover over my dead body. I sang along, teeth chattering and lungs constricting in frigid spasms, waving my arms in awkward jerking motions and feeling like a frightened, wounded rabbit who was losing a lot of blood very quickly.

Jess, benevolent angel that she is, suggested that we go inside. Flooded with relief, loss and defeat, I stumbled out of the barn, feeling a deep well of buried grief and stress steadily rising to the surface. As soon as the warmth of Jess’s parents’ farmhouse wrapped around my numb flesh, something broke. I sat down in a chair and wept.

This video was to be, as my forthcoming album is, a devotional offering to The Moon, with whom I have been in intimate relationship this year. She has been teaching me how to attune with the cycles of my body and all natural things, and to learn to embrace the darkness as well as the light, for the crest cannot exist without the trough. Although Jess and I got no usable footage today- by the time we got an indoor location set up, we had run out of time- I will forever think of the experience as exactly that: a devotional offering. Yep, here’s where that inner alchemy kicks in: today I totally failed at making a music video, but I succeeded in performing an unexpectedly cathartic ceremony of sacrifice, a symbolic gesture of gratitude for the cosmic guidance and blessings I received in 2014 and the innumerable “favorite moments” I could have written about.

–Johanna Warren

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January 16, 2015

2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories, Pt. 5

Four installments in and this series, designed to emphasize meaningful moments- on a personal level- in music throughout the course of 2014, is going strong. In the fifth installment, Space Mountain’s Cole Kinsler writes about Pile’s Rick Maguire and Pile’s Rick Maguire writes about Yautja. Additionally, David Sackllah writes about both great film and great music (a trend that will be repeated throughout the coming year), Stephen Pierce tackles confronting devastation, and Miranda Fisher looks back on an interview before looking ahead to her next project. As always, it’s an absolute honor to be presenting such extraordinary pieces from equally extraordinary people. Everything they’ve got to say is always worthwhile and their words here are no exception. So, enough introductory grandstanding (or whatever this is), and on to part five of 2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories.

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One Night, When Rick Went Solo

I moved to Boston for work, not really having any close friends in the area. I jumped into the music scene and found a bunch of my now-favorite bands. Ever since I’ve been heartened by how sincere and unpretentious everyone has been. I feel a pretty strong attachment to the city now. Sometime in June I saw Rick from Pile play a solo set at a house in Jamaica Plain. He played in a living room to maybe 30 or 40 people sitting on the floor. There was still some chatter in the room when he sat down and unassumingly began his set with “Purse and Fares”. I’ll never forget the sound of his huge voice in that little room. It was a really cool night. I was blown away, and may or may not have gotten teary-eyed a few times. How beautiful his songs were suddenly hit me. I went solo but the handful of people I met were all super nice and probably just as excited as I was. It’s always awesome to be a part of something like that because it feels so special. I’ll never forget it.

-Cole Kinsler (Space Mountain)

Yautja

I wish I had something better prepared for this but the only thing about 2014 that is coming to mind and then consistently blows said mind is Yautja. Their album Songs of Descent is great. Also, we were lucky enough to tour with the likes of (New England) Patriots, Grass is Green, Fax Holiday, Big Ups, and Speedy Ortiz, and that was pretty great. Hanging out with old friends and making new ones.

-Rick Maguire (Pile)

A Case of Whiplash and Fireworks

2014 was a whirlwind of a year, with ups and downs both personal and social. I made a lot of new friends, grew apart from some old ones, moved back to the city I grew up after four years away, and began a new job. I wouldn’t have been able to make it through the year, or any year, without the great people and music that I found throughout the year. I wanted to touch on two pieces of art here that blew me away, one that left me trembling in a theater and a four-minute song that tore me apart emotionally every time I heard it.

Part 1 – An accurately named film

On paper, Whiplash doesn’t sound like the most tantalizing concept: A prodigious student at an elite jazz school studies with an esteemed yet abusive teacher. The film pulls the audience into a world of technicality, constantly name-dropping great musicians such as Buddy Rich, drawing the viewer into a highly specialized world that means everything to the people involved. Thankfully, a knowledge of jazz, its styles, or its legends isn’t required to enjoy the film. The movie winks at that, about halfway through, when Andrew (Miles Teller), the aforementioned student, attends a family dinner with his uncle and cousins. The whole family keeps on bragging about his cousin’s mediocre achievements in football, as Andrew throws a tantrum for not receiving recognition for being accepted into one of the most prestigious jazz bands in the country. It’s a familiar sentiment for many, where one has reached a level in their concentration that is highly laudable, but the people they have grown up around, of whose approval they seek, don’t understand or care about.

Director Damien Chazelle does an exemplary job of pulling the viewer into Andrew’s mind frame, that of an obsessively ambitious musician who has eclipsed many of his peers, and refuses to back down when faced with obstacles. Only in his case, the obstacle is immense, the cruel, sadistic teacher of the top class at the top school, the fearsome Terrence Fletcher, played excellently by J.K. Simmons. Simmons delivers a tightly controlled performance, stalking his classroom with an icy cool that is always on the verge of becoming unhinged fury. Fletcher snaps often throughout the movie, subjecting his students, and Andrew especially, to a tirade of verbal, emotional, and physical abuse. Simmons doesn’t play it one-note, offering bits of approval, luring in his students with seductive techniques that they have a chance at winning his approval, typically before striking that down.

Whiplash is a thrilling battle of wills; one that also shows the isolation that can go hand-in-hand with ambition. Andrew pushes away his family and girlfriend to achieve his goal of being the best drummer and winning Fletcher’s approval, pushing his body to extremes and making some supremely reckless decisions. The film properly vilifies both student and teacher in their quest to push each other to a breaking point, showing how the extremity of talent or drive doesn’t always make a person likable or sympathetic.

What Whiplash does excellently, is build up its story, getting the viewer to care about its two supremely flawed leads, and then amplifying the stakes before leading into possibly the most thrilling third acts in cinema in the past five years. As Whiplash plows ahead to its finish, the viewer, like the characters, get locked into a full-throttle ride that leaves the heart pounding, and had everyone in the theater in a tight sweat. I can’t recommend Whiplash enough, a visceral journey that felt like a master-class in getting the wind kicked out of you.

Part 2- A little spark doesn’t mean you’re the only one

Three and a half years ago, I met the love of my life, a wonderful woman who is extremely strong, caring, and supportive. I count myself extremely lucky that she wants to be around me. Before that, I spent most of my life in middle school, high school, and college, very unlucky in romance. Like many teenagers, I went through a cycle of crushes. There were times I put myself out there, and got turned, and other times where I resigned to be a sad sack about it and keep it to myself.

There’s two parts to every crush. There’s the fun part, the part where you think the person might like you back. You’re filled with joy and excitement every time you see their name. Your phone vibrates and your heart jumps a little because it might be that person texting you. Then there’s the other part, the uncertainty, the longing, and the nagging feeling that it won’t end well. That’s the painful part, where you don’t know how the other person feels, but hope and pray that it’s the same way you do.

That second part is what grounds “Fireworks” by Radiator Hospital, and made it such a poignant song that when I first heard it, it made me relive every crush of my teenage years. Sam-Cook Parrott does the astounding job of including the song twice on his album. The first version you hear is sung by Maryn Jones of All Dogs, and presents the first character in the tale. She reminisces about a walk with a friend that “went further than we thought it would.” She wonders why he doesn’t call, imploring that her boyfriend isn’t at home. She knows it won’t work, and tries to forget him, even though she knows it’s futile. She asks if he felt the fireworks, and affirms, as if she’s trying to convince herself, that “a little spark doesn’t mean you’re the only one.”

On its own, the song would be a devastating tale of a longing feeling that isn’t returned, but the addition of the reprise towards the end of the album makes it so much more. This time around, you hear the exact same song sung by Parrott, from the male character’s point of view. The lyrics are almost identical, with subtle but important changes. “I think of them often, when he gets home” is changed to “I think of them often, when I’m alone”. “I looked at you like you meant something” is changed to “I looked at you, thought I’d never stop looking.” The meaning is similar, but the difference in words adds a layer of intimacy and authenticity to the song. The events and circumstances are the same, but both people remember them and feel them in slightly different ways.

Both “Fireworks” and its reprise are a master class example in songwriting. Few songs do as good a job as capturing such an intense, familiar feeling. By telling the story from both perspectives, Parrott makes it feel real, complicated, and intense. Hearing it brought me back to being 17, wondering if the girl about to go to college might actually like me back. It made me remember these vivid, specific memories in my life. I’ve talked to friends, who had a similar reaction from the song, applying it to situations in their life. Fireworks isn’t great just because it’s relatable, but the fact that it touches on something so specific and familiar, while being universal enough to apply to people of completely different circumstances, makes it a shining example of stellar songwriting.

-David Sackllah (i am full of light)

Reigniting the Spark

It’s hard, when you’re the obsessive type, to reconcile endings; to change.

The year began for me at a turning point. The outlet for my prior six years of singular drive and dedication– bicycle racing– had ended its season with a question mark hanging over it. Because of a knee injury, that trajectory was sidelined. Stir-crazy, restless, and of course wondering what I had been working toward and what I hoped to get out of it, that question mark only grew as time went on and the problem persisted– worsened, even. Panic set in, then desperation. Eventually, I settled on a sense of existential detachment: You know, that kind of place you can work yourself into where you’re kinda aware of just how stupid it is to be so passionate and depressed about something as ephemeral as whatever that object of your affection may be, but mostly you’re terrified, gripped by a fear of embracing the void and figuring out what’s next.

When you’re in that sort of dark place, you have to embrace what light exists- otherwise make your own. It’s an elemental thing. So I looked toward what had been there the whole time: The soundtrack, pushed from the background to the forefront.

Loveless has been a significant part of my life since 1998. I didn’t understand it then but I was fascinated and enraptured by the sounds that– as a kid that grew up on Crass, Born Against, and Reversal of Man– sounded impossibly otherworldly. That record, and then Isn’t Anything, the EPs, everything but the first 12” really, followed me everywhere, not stopping at bike racing. They were there during long summer rides, winters in the basement on the trainer or freezing in crosswinds, intervals and recovery timed to the pulsing spikes and valleys of whatever record was on. I wasn’t so far out of the loop that I didn’t hear about MBV in 2013 and my February that year was soundtracked by that, pretty exclusively. Immersed, I got to thinking about what my favorite new records were from the previous year and I couldn’t really think of any.

Of course, at that point, I was on the outside, looking in: Nothing new was making its way onto my radar, unless it was by a band that I cared about before putting on blinders. It used to be, though, that new music consumed me, as a part of– through my youth– several vibrant, active DIY punk communities. Cynthia Ann Schemmer, a friend of mine from when we were both living in Brooklyn, just published an absolutely jaw-dropping year-end piece on The Media wherein she writes of separating yourself from this conjoined twin that begins growing with you when you get into punk. Effectively, I had done this at age 26 when I decided to focus all of my effort away from that world, but I think that we’re all, for better or for worse, endlessly followed by that ghost. It haunts you everywhere; manifests itself in everything.

In my case, at the end of 2013, it showed up as that gut feeling that you get when you first hear something that instantly hits as relatable. It showed up, too, in dictating what, exactly, that means to me: Relatable is coming from house shows. Relatable is a sense of community and togetherness, which that world builds and nurtures. The friends that played in DIY punk bands a decade ago that are also carrying that ghost with them down divergent roads these days– they’re relatable. And there are so many of them. Listening to old friends forge new paths away from punk but still working within that ‘code of being’ that we all lived by in our more dogmatic days reminded me of how limitless we all can be. Seeing friends succeed while holding true to themselves is such a hugely inspiring and incredibly empowering thing to bear witness to, and it sparked a flame inside me.

I can’t nail down a single record or band that reignited that spark. There wasn’t a singular “a-ha” discovery but instead a heightened appreciation- in addition to my friends’ new bands finding success beyond basement shows, like Parquet Courts & Merchandise– for the music that had been there all along. MBV, Spacemen 3, Yo La Tengo: Loud, weird guitar music. Being without an outlet for whatever compulsion governed my actions when I was racing bikes, I dove in, down some wormhole or another trying to find music that embodied whatever it is about those bands that has resonated so heavily with me. One day it was the search for something repetitive and built around a drone, the next it was full-volume fuzz blasts, then the next day it was damaged pop. Eventually, all at once. Through Gimme Tinnitus, which became gospel after I saw it name-checked somewhere on some friend’s band’s page, the curtain was pulled back and I became aware of a whole world that had been passing me by.

I found out about Exploding In Sound Records and went through their entire catalog alarmingly fast. I was surprised to see that so many of the bands on Dan & Dave’s label that I was falling in love with were from within a two-hour radius of where I live. Continuing to turn over rocks, I found that an acquaintance of mine from a lifetime ago was making perfectly hyper jangle pop with some other folks as Bent Shapes, whose song “Hex Maneuvers” was one of my most-played songs after discovering it late last year, until their single “86’d in ‘03” dethroned it as my go-to song of theirs. I guess I really hadn’t been paying any attention at all: I had a ton of catching up to do.

The funny thing about feeling the level of excitement and newness that I found at that point is that everything becomes so incredibly urgent, immediate, and entirely possible. When I was young, I remember saying that I couldn’t imagine ever being at a point in life where I was not playing music. Though I remained a member of the mostly-hibernating DIY punk band Ampere, I barely touched my guitar in the time between my first and last time racing a bike. 2014, and the bands I heard in 2014, pushed me to change that. Obsessively, I went for it full-blast. Fast forward to the end of spring, and I had written about fifteen songs for a new band that began in late February.

Who knows fully what would or wouldn’t have been possible with or without the records that I heard and drew inspiration from this year; I think each one has been as important as the last, and will be as important as the next. It’s about filling space and finding that essence- that indescribable feeling of childish excitement and abandon. Some sort of connection. Each record that has factored into my life in 2014 has provided me with exactly what I needed through my darkest moments of reflection: A light.

It’s got to be the biggest cliché in the book to note that from even the most disappointing endings comes the promise of a new tomorrow. When one dream comes to an end, another is right around the corner, etc. etc. I guess the key is to not get too bogged down in grieving what’s departed, to continue to move forward. To apply everything you’ve learned from one path in life to another. There are universalities everywhere, ways that everything can seem to line up and connect. The ghost of the past can show up in anywhere. I can’t help but see this past year as a blur: Darkness faded into optimism, a sinking feeling of hopelessness transitioned to dedication & drive, and all along the way I was taken aback at how very fortunate I am– we all are– to be a part of whatever it is that we’re a part of, right at this very moment in time.
SOME OF MY MOST-LIKED THINGS IN 2014:

Cheatahs – Cheatahs LP
Bent Shapes – 86’d in ’03b EP
Wildhoney – Seventeen Forever 7”
Sweet John Bloom – Picky 12”
Parquet Courts – Sunbathing Animal
Power Pyramid – Silence
Working – More Weight EP

THE RECORDS FROM 2015 THAT ALREADY RULE:

Sweet John Bloom – Weird Prayer
Wildhoney – Sleep Through It
Krill – A Distant Fist Unclenching
California X – Nights in the Dark
Dweller on the Threshold – Volume 2
Longings LP

-Stephen Pierce (Kindling, writer, Exploding in Sound)

Interviewing Neil Hagerty

At this point in my life, I’ve done enough interviews and I know myself well enough that I’m well aware I’m always going to get nervous before interviews. It’s just a given. I’m prone to anxiety anyway, and when you add in the excitement of talking to someone whose work I respect and the pressure of trying to get some usable material out of it, my nerves multiply exponentially. In 2014 I was lucky enough to interview a lot of my favorite musicians, and from Cheetah Chrome to Life Stinks, my heart was always racing in the moments leading up to the interview. But nothing compared to the sheer panic I felt on my way to interview Neil Hagerty in Denver last May.

I’m sure part of my anxiety was due to the fact that I am an embarrassingly huge fan of Hagerty and his work with Pussy Galore and Royal Trux — I think he’s the greatest guitarist of the last 25 years, at least. But the intensity of this particular freak-out was largely due to the fact that I was going it alone. Since my friend Jon asked me to create the writing section for his then photography-only zine, Rubberneck, in 2012, he has been at nearly every interview I’ve done. He takes pictures, he cracks jokes that get cut from transcription immediately, but most importantly to me, he’s a calming force. Just having one of my best friends in the room with me gives me the confidence to get through situations that otherwise would have undoubtedly sent me spiraling into a panic attack were he not there. Which is exactly what happened in the car that night in Denver. I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking, my heart from racing. I practiced breathing exercises to try to calm down. I was dipping out of a ladies’ weekend to go see Hagerty’s current project, the Howling Hex, and interview him. And although my girlfriends are wonderful and supportive (shoutout HFC!), they had no clue who this guy was or why I was so worried about fucking everything up.

But I somehow managed to not fuck up! We talked and he was nice and didn’t say anything about my nervous stuttering or the tremors in my hands. Instead, he gave thoughtful, revealing answers to all of my questions (which you can read in Rubberneck #10.) Seven months later, I’m sure he wouldn’t recognize my name, much less pick me out of a lineup. But that night I couldn’t have asked for more from someone I was interviewing, down to his offer, in the brief, terrifying moment I thought I’d lost the recording, to meet me for lunch and redo the whole thing the next day. Then the Howling Hex played and I finally got to see Hagerty on guitar. Every riff, every solo was perfect, seemingly effortlessly so. The man is a guitar wizard. The way his hands move is inhuman. Ten seconds into their set, I felt a catharsis. By the ten minute mark, a reverie. Of all the great sets I was lucky to see last year, nothing came close to the electricity I felt while watching the Howling Hex.

There were six people watching.

I don’t know why I get moved to panic over a musician whom the population of the bar couldn’t be bothered to swivel on their stools to watch. Are they wrong? Am I? (Both?) All I know is that the Howling Hex’s set that night meant more to me than to anyone else in that room, and more than anything else last year.

A month later, when Jon told me he wanted to end Rubberneck, I was heartbroken. I cried basically nonstop for two months. And when he suggested I start a new zine, it made me angry. How could I do it myself? But the more I thought about it, the more I saw the possibilities, the opportunities to do things I couldn’t with Rubberneck. And so going forward with my new zine, Casting Couch, while I know that Jon’s going to be there with me — whether he wants to admit it or not — I also know that I can do it alone if I need to.

2014 was a shit year in so many ways, both global and personal. But it was also the year that I interviewed Neil Michael Hagerty. And I did it by my god damn self.

Casting Couch: coming April 2015.

-Miranda Fisher (Rubberneck, Casting Couch, The Zoltars)

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January 16, 2015

2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories, Pt. 4

Welcome to round four of a series that it’s been an absolute honor and privilege to present. Over the past few months, I’ve been gathering up some of my favorite people in music- emphasizing musicians, writers, label heads, and music video cinematographers/directors- asking each to share some of their favorite moments of 2014’s rich world of music. The responses they generated have been stunning and have, largely, made me indescribably proud of people I’ve admired for some time. 20 people have contributed to this series so far and today, five more get added to that total: Christopher Good (whose work on Saintseneca‘s “Happy Alone” and Perfume Genius’ “Queen“, among others, was inspired), Edgar Durden (whose unrelenting commitment to being a positive force in music and undying support of emerging bands has made him a genuine presence), Ray McAndrew (who’s been making extraordinary music for more years than most realize), Christine Varriale (whose work on Allston Pudding has been invaluable), and Ali Donohue (whose contributions to music continue to be endless). From a Girls Rock camp to the reunion of The Unicorns, there’s quite a bit of ground to cover. So, onward and upward, here’s part four of 2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories.

Panda Bear’s Return and A Few More Notable Moments

I think in the end my favorite music moment of 2014 was the return of Panda Bear- according to my iTunes I’ve racked up exactly 200 plays to date of “Mr. Noah“- so the proof is in the pudding I suppose. Also I really like that song “Just Call It” by SUSAN, it reminds me of Lush when they went all Britpop. I guess it’s weird to say you like a song because it reminds you of the trend-chasing version of a previous band but there you go. Part of me wants to say my favorite moment was Future Islands’ performance on Letterman just because the emergence of a unique persona like that on such a large stage feels so rare- but I’m still kind of bummed that they named their album Singles and then “Seasons” was like the only really, really good track on there. Also big thanks to Speedy Ortiz for introducing me to Sibylle Baier, I don’t know where she’d been all my life!

-Christopher Good (Music Video Cinematographer/Director)

A List for 2014

2014 seemed like a musical dream to me. Chris Brown fell even deeper into irrelevance, Beyonce dropped a surprise album, fake revolutionaries Death Grips “broke up”, and Lorde toured with Majical Cloudz. Really great things happened. But sadly, really shitty things did too (mostly Ariel Pink, but whatever). 2014 was a tough year, personally and socially, but it is in those times that music is present to bring us closer to like-minded people- at least ideally. The chances of a couple of Virgos ending up together in a church courtyard in a little town in the southernmost tip of Texas must be one in a million. But that is exactly what music did back in March during the annual Galax Z Fair. Somehow two weirdos with the same birthday sat on a bench and thought about how beautiful certain things were, including chance, including luck, including music. 2014 was a great year. I don’t know if this is a statement or an argument I’m making to myself.

Here are my favorite records of the year:

1. Torch Song by Radiator Hospital.

Sam Cook-Parrot is my favorite poet. Sam describes my own feelings better than I ever could. The simplicity of the music, the complexity of the feelings being described, and the combination of the two make a perfect record. Thank you, Sam. There must be something beautiful in heartbreak.

2. Say Yes to Love by Perfect Pussy

Perfect Pussy created the most sonically challenging and brutally honest works of art of the year. Jenny Holzer meets Sonic Youth meets The Russian Ballet. Perfect Pussy can’t simply be heard, Perfect Pussy must be experienced. The sheer energy that shines through each band member can change a bad day to a great day. There is so much going on, whether Shaun is making light become noise, Meredith is speaking in dead languages, or Ray is beating the devil out of his guitar. There is never a dull moment with Perfect Pussy. They’re the brave band we needed. Perfect Pussy is the band that is ready to take on the world, I worry the world isn’t ready to take on Perfect Pussy.

3. Burn Your Fire For No Witness by Angel Olsen

Disclaimer: Angel Olsen smiled at me the night I saw her perform in McAllen.

The first time I listened to this record I felt an ache deep in my chest that I wasn’t very familiar with. It was a hopeful type of heartbreak. Angel’s voice is that of an actual angel with evil intentions, like she is trying to take you to the darkest room in heaven, like she is whispering your own secrets to you. I hope to be as beautiful as this record someday.

4. Under Color of Official Right by Protomartyr

How do you describe a record that has to be felt? You don’t. Go listen to this record. Start a war against your local assholes, and use this as the soundtrack. Scum, Rise!

5. Bury Me At The Makeout Creek by Mitski

Mitski possesses one of those voices that haunt you; one of those voices that inhabits the deepest, darkest corners of your heart and mind. The effortlessness of this make it that much more devastating. The beauty isn’t the focal point- but neither is the rawness of the music. But, my god is this record raw and beautiful.

6. Bodies and Control and Money and Power by Priests

A punk band from DC puts out a semi-political record. This is probably the easiest way to write about Priests, but Priests require much more than a simple tagline. Priests are a weird, weird band. They touch on very political themes without ever being political. If anything, Katie Alice Greer seems to be letting us into her mind and her psyche rather than telling us about her beliefs. Katie is a force of nature, and when this record is spinning I am caught in her storm.

7. Gypsy Pervert by Mannequin Pussy

Disclaimer: I first heard this record in 2013.
Thoughts on record: It still fucking rules.

8. II by Makthaverskan

Makthaverskan means “the woman with the power/in power.” This record came to me when I needed it the most. It explained a troubled relationship to me through the other side of the coin. After three years of being a really shitty boyfriend, my significant other decided it was time for her to venture out and find something a little bit more tangible and more, well, stable. I wasn’t the one yelling “FUCK YOU”, I was the one being yelled at… and it was kind of beautiful.

9. Too Bright by Perfume Genius

I sat in my bedroom wearing some grey sweatpants when I saw David Letterman introduce Perfume Genius on The Late Show. What happened next was incredible and so goddamn powerful. There stood a beautiful man in beautiful red lipstick wearing his heart on his sleeve. This wasn’t the usual performance. This was broadcasted to Middle America, to all the bigots, to all the racists, to all the homophobes, and to all the assholes too. And Perfume Genius stood victorious. And we knew our queen.

10. After The End by Merchandise

Nothing will ever devastate me as much as Carson’s vocals do. This record takes me away, like a vivid dream, as if I could float above a field of broken hearts. Wow. And it all feels so real.

Favorite Song of the year:

“Club Going Up On A Tuesday” by ILOVEMAKONNEN ft. Drake

A song about the anxieties that come with modern life; a song about living in the modern age without the privilege that your peers have; a song about doing what it takes to live an actual life; a song about living in a police state; a song about Tuesdays. This song is as silly as it is profound, as it is poetic, as it is perfect.

-Edgar Durden (Edgar’s Friends)

Rediscovering The Unicorns

The Unicorns have played a key part in my life this past year in subtle and not so subtle ways. The first time I remember them being mentioned this year was in March, when I had the opportunity to meet Nardwuar. He had a theory that without The Unicorns, the Arcade Fire would be nothing- entirely due to the fact that The Unicorns (at the peak of their popularity 10 years ago) brought their friends in The Arcade Fire on their first national tour. This made sense to me at the time but- since The Unicorns weren’t very relevant at the time of the conversation- I gave it no other thought. I was 13 when they broke up and listened to their album many times throughout the years thanks to two older brothers’ music libraries. Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone had always been an album I associated with my brothers and one that brought back memories, but I hadn’t listened to them in a while. Nardwuar never came out and said it but I think he may have been hinting at the idea of a Unicorns 2014 reunion tour.

The second time I thought about The Unicorns this year was when Alden Penner released a solo album that, in all honesty, I listened to half of and decided Clues was better.

The third time, The Unicorns created a Twitter account and announced a string of reunion shows with who else but The Arcade Fire? The Unicorns 2014. The prophecy had come true! Except I am 22, not 13. I thought about going but when I saw ticket prices I X’ed out of the internet tab, laughing.

The fourth time I thought about the Unicorns was unexpectedly, in Nuremberg, Germany. I was playing a show with Perfect Pussy that was part of a festival, I went outside for a cigarette (at that time I hadn’t quit smoking) and heard someone call my name. I turned around and it was Jamie Thompson. I knew Jamie only through being a member of The Secret Unicorns Forum (and later we would become Facebook friends), although we didn’t talk that much. It turned out the festival had booked a puppet show that Jamie was a part of a few years ago. He seemed as confused by the whole thing as I did. Jamie saw we were playing the same night he landed in Nuremberg and came to the show to meet me for the first time. We ended up hanging out for the rest of the night until I had had too much to drink and needed to go back to our hotel. This was the highlight of tour for me, having an accidental run in with the drummer of one of my favorite bands during my pubescent years. Some forgotten dream of mine had finally been realized. After that night I rediscovered The Unicorns’ music and began my retrospective that all would lead up to one night at Pop Montreal.

I didn’t know I was going to see the Unicorns until a day before their reunion show in Montreal. I was visiting my partner in Cleveland with the intention of seeing, coincidentally, Islands for the first time when she posed the idea of driving to Montreal the next day to see The Unicorns. Tickets weren’t sold out and we had no responsibilities that weren’t cancel-worthy to prevent us from seeing their final reunion performance in their hometown of Montreal- so why not?

The show played out in a way that I can only imagine a show curated by The Unicorns could have played out. It was hinted at throughout the show that The Unicorns had selected all the bands that played. Of the bands playing I had only heard Each Other– who played second of four. The first band was an embarrassing joke of a bar rock band not even worth mentioning beyond this point.

Each Other were great. I had heard a tape of theirs that a friend reissued through his label, Prison Art, but they didn’t play any songs from it. The shock for most at the show, or at least the bearded bro standing next to me, was Light Fires. A MTF transsexual who stole the stage the moment she stepped onto it. Armed with only an iPod, Light Fires high kicked, sexy danced, and punched her way through her set. Between songs she bragged about the multiple celebrity musicians she knew and about how amazing she is- and I believed her. I believed every word. The bearded bro let out a brief chuckle at everything Regina said. After the 10th or so time it became obvious how uncomfortable he and some of his friends were. These bros would later turn out to be the same bros that repeatedly elbowed me and my partner with half-mosh-half-dance moves during the Unicorns set. They were a mild annoyance on an overall great night.

The Unicorns performance was more subtle in its flamboyancy, but it still held true to a lot of the theatrics that I had seen in their videos. Alden Penner had his eyes darkened and wore a tight pink tanktop and black pants. Nick Thorburn wore a completely yellow outfit, slightly resembling a banana. Jamie Thompson, the only one who wouldn’t have gotten a side eye walking down a busy sidewalk, wore a Brooklyn jersey and had his hair in a bun. The three of their clashing styles were brought together by old Microsoft Windows screensavers that were being projected in the background. The moment the Unicorns began to play the crowd jumped into a frenzy. I don’t remember all the songs that were played but I know they were all from their LP as well as a cover of Daniel Johnston’s “Rocketship”.

The Unicorns had three encores. They are a band that’s known for their wry humor on stage, in recordings, and in interviews and that came through in their encores. Their first encore consisted of a stick click count in and a single quarter note played by each band member. The second encore was quite similar to the first encore. Finally the third encore, which only came after a hand from behind a curtain told the crowd to beg for it, was the infamous “I Was Born (A Unicorn)”. Their set was short, sweet, and felt like it went for the perfect amount of time. The songs were slightly more deconstructed than how I imagined they’d be live but I wasn’t disappointed. It was just nice to see a band I adored as a kid and never had the chance to see when they were initially active.

-Ray McAndrew (Perfect Pussy, SSWAMPZZ, Toxic Parents)

A Strong Year in Boston

I knew 2014 would be my best year yet the moment midnight on New Year’s Eve passed and Krill broke into the most passionate performance of “Theme from Krill” I’ve heard them play to date. The crowd at Pizzeria Regina in Allston, MA (yes an actual pizza place Allston Pudding threw our New Year’s Eve show at) yelled “KRILL KRILL KRILL FOREVER” like we wouldn’t hear this song over and over again throughout 2014.

Allston Pudding has been a part of my life for three and a half years now but 2014 was when it became my family. All of the people I work with at Allston Pudding mean the world to me and becoming a managing editor is the only promotion I’ve ever received- but it will always be the best one. When I started in 2011, I was this unconfident writer and photographer with no idea what good music was, to be honest. Then I discovered Pile and my life was forever changed. Through Pile I discovered all of the other bands that make the Boston/Massachusetts music scene the powerful force it is: Speedy Ortiz, Kal Marks, Sneeze, Girlfriends (now Bent Shapes), Fat History Month (now Bad History Month), and countless others. I grew to love these bands; they grew to be my friends. It’s hard to go to a show in Boston and not feel as comfortable as I would never leaving my apartment (an oft-chosen alternative in my life), because I know people at every show.

Through these bands, I got to learn the other people in the scene not only in Boston but beyond. Writers and other music people like Liz Pelly and The Media, The Le Sigh, Perry Eaton, my fellow Allston Pudding writers, Ethan Long, Steven Spoerl, Dan Goldin, Amy Leigh, Ellen Kempner, Michael Falcone, Aurore Ounjian, Maura Johnston, and Sadie Dupuis, who inspire me and help me strive to be more present and aware of all of the great music and movements happening right now in 2014.

There were some amazing moments in 2014. As I stated earlier, starting with “Theme from Krill” was the best kick-off. Some of my favorite shows were the Speedy Ortiz Real Hair EP release show at Tasty Burger (I guess Boston likes food places for venues?); Disco Doom, Pile, Ovlov, LVL UP and Krill at Great Scott in March; everything at NXNE in Toronto; Boston Calling in May; every Frankie Cosmos show I went to; Ava Luna, Celestial Shore, Palehound, and Rosie and the Rosies; Boston Hassle Fest; seeing Radiator Hospital for the first time (and two other times after that); Waxahatchee, All Dogs, Potty Mouth, Cayetana; finally seeing Swearin’ live; Pile’s Special Snowflakes release show; every time I saw Lady Bones; seeing Mitski in a living room in Oak Square with 11 other people: the list continues!

Some moments can’t be tied to a specific show or event. Some friendships churn over time and these people I’ve blossomed with in 2014 have become some of my favorite people I’ve ever met. To call them my friends is weird and amazing. I wouldn’t change anything that happened in 2014- and if I could relive this year over and over again, that would be my a-ok fine with me.

-Christine Varriale (Allston Pudding)

//GIRLS ROCK CAMP BOSTON//
//AKA the coolest thing I did this year//

It is hard to look back on this past year and pick out a single moment to share. I went on my first full US tour, had more than a few bandmates/friends move, started new projects, watched friends play sets in different pockets of the country and felt like I never stopped moving around, constantly chasing whatever was waiting ahead. If I had to pick a single music-related moment from 2014 to share with the internet volunteering at Girls Rock Boston is the thing that stands out. Girls Rock Campaign Boston is a volunteer-run summer program for girls that fosters collaboration and confidence using music. I initially heard about Girls Rock Boston from Hanna, my bandmate in Tomboy, who volunteered at GRCB the summer before. This past summer Fleabite played one of the lunchtime performances to an auditorium of young girls and badass volunteers, and I taught guitar and coached a band of tweens.

It was awesome and uplifting working with the campers and working alongside so many inspirational women, especially because at the time I was volunteering my life felt like a soggy mess. The week of camp happened to overlap with many other endings. Summer was ending, the pizza place I had been working at for two years closed for good, a bunch of friends and bandmates moved across the county, and I was about to leave for a three week tour. I remember crying a lot but I also remember laughing a lot, smiling, and feeling inspired by the people around me. By the end of the camp I felt a little more together, especially when I watched the group of girls I helped coach take the stage, chant their band name (R.U. IN?), rock out, and have fun.

I can’t relate to the anxiety and sadness I was feeling that week even though I remember that it was there. Summer ended, I found a new job, my friends are still my friends even if they live far away, tour happened and I returned. Looking back I’m glad that my time at GRCB overlapped with those polar experiences because it served as the perfect reminder of the things that are truly important: supporting one another, creating community, and putting your shit aside for a moment to be a part of something larger than yourself. I highly recommend finding a way to support your local Girls Rock chapter and consider starting such a thing if it doesn’t already exist in your community. If you want to find out more about Girls Rock Boston please check out their website and consider donating:

http://girlsrockboston.org/

See you in the pit at Girls Rock Boston 2k15!

// HONORABLE MENTIONS //

Some other 2k14 highlights include // playing Liz Pelly’s b-day bash on the 4th of July at the Silent Barn, Smash it Dead fest raising $5,800+ for the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, playing a very weird show on Martha’s Vineyard, Tomboy playing a college show in central mass that devolved into a karaoke party, Up Yours Fest @ SUNY Purchase, and a Ramones cover band.

-Ali Donohue (Fleabite, Tomboy)

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January 14, 2015

2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories, Pt. 3

A million and half thank you’s are due to everyone who’s contributed pieces to this ongoing series so far: Michelle Zauner, Sam Clark, Tess Duncan, Caroline Rayner, Cynthia Ann Schemmer, Eva Grace Hendricks, Dave Benton, Michael Caridi, Shari Heck, David Anthony, Quinn Moreland, Gabriela June Tully Claymore, Jesse Amesmith, Katie Capri, Jeff Bolt, and everyone who contributed a piece to this round. Hats off to Jesse Frick, Stephen Tringali, Oliver Kalb, David Glickman, and Loren Diblasi for all of the wonderful pieces included below. As always, it’s the most surreal, sincere honor to be able to be providing all of this wonderful writing a home. Enough from me, on to what’s really important: part 3 of 2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories.

Partying (Unofficially)

Hands down my favorite musical moments of the year happened in Austin and Brooklyn, the locations of our unofficial SXSW and CMJ parties, respectively. When you run or work at a label, most interactions with bands, fans, media, and peers are all done virtually. But all bets are off once we’re on the same turf. There is no better feeling after spending 6+ months on a record release or planning a showcase than to see people ENJOYING what you helped to create.

Presenting a show at a festival like SXSW or CMJ is a massive undertaking, a huge pain in the ass of an undertaking. Finding sponsors to help cover venue rentals and bar tabs, scheduling 12+ bands’ time slots around their 15+ other shows, politely screaming in sync with everyone else’s promoting of their own shows, not to mention doing all of this in your spare time outside of your day job- it’s exhausting.

But then I think back to the evening of March 13, 2014- Monster Rally’s Ted Feighan is doing his fucking awesome thing on the second of two stages at our Liberation SXSW party with Gold Robot, Small Plates, and Inflated Records. For a few moments, everyone in the crowd throws their grievances and inhibitions out the window and starts dancing. It no longer matters what website you write for or who you manage or “ugh, I can’t believe that guy who refuses to reply to my emails is here!” For once, everyone remembers why we hustle, why we sacrifice, why we believe and soak it in.

Fast forward to October 24, 2014. I’m standing in the back of The Silent Barn, a community space that I have the utmost respect and undying love for. The Silent Barn is what arts communities around the world should be. It also currently houses some of my favorite Muppet people as well as Gravesend Studios, a recording space that every band in NYC needs to check out. But I digress. Through various ebbs and flows, Jeanette of Miscreant Zine & Records and I team up and with the help of Nina at Silent Barn decide to shoot for a 12-hour party because 6-hour parties are for chumps.

The line-up came together like buttah. We managed to squeeze in 19 of our favorite musical people and everyone played a full set! Jeanette and Liz put together a phenomenal issue of The Miscreant special for the party with submissions from all of the performers. My dad and stepmom flew in from Miami to come to the party. Friends from all over swung by throughout the day to say hi, drink wine, get haircuts, and just enjoy being with one another. We underestimated the schedule so the 12-hour party turned into a 14-hour party but that didn’t faze us- we were still dancing like mad at almost 4am with Moon Bounce closing out the night. It was a beautiful thing.

Now, looking forward to 2015, a new year filled with new records and new parties to organize and I think to myself, I am one lucky son of a gun. Thanks to everyone who made this year so special- much love to you all.

xx Jessi

-Jessi Frick (Father/Daughter Records)

Setting Sail

This past year, I was fortunate enough to work on several music videos for artists that I truly respect as either the cinematographer (Roomrunner, Chastity Belt, Speedy Ortiz) or the director (Connections, Big Ups).

Many may already know the struggles of making independent music videos- they don’t pay much (or anything at all); the budgets are incredibly small but the expectations are high; and they would mostly be impossible to produce if it were not for the devoted and passionate filmmakers who make them.

The second music video I worked on this year- Chastity Belt’s “Black Sail”- stands out as the most intense, most gratifying memory of 2014. My friend Maegan Houang had pitched the band a sprawling western/horror concept and asked me to be the cinematographer on the video. The treatment was spectacular and Maegan is one of the most talented directors I know. Of course I wanted to be involved.

We prepared for the video over the coming months but the sheer scale of it did not really hit me until I arrived in Yucca Valley the day before the shoot. There, sitting on the side of the road, was an enormous tractor-trailer towing a full-size Conestoga wagon. Beside it were period-correct barrels, broken chairs, rifles- everything a production designer might have on a production with a real budget. I had no idea how Maegan had pulled this together but I assumed she had done it through pure tenacity.

Getting the wagon to the location was an entirely different issue. Between it and the filming location was a long and winding sand path, some small hills, and even more sand and bushes. The tractor-trailer obviously couldn’t take the wagon any farther, so we hitched it to a 4×4 that slowly towed the wagon through the terrain. All the while, we had to turn the wagon’s wheels by hand and guide it along.

I fell asleep that night curled up in a sleeping bag in the back of my car (remember, this was a low budget music video). My ears were ringing. I knew this meant that my stress level was at an all-time high. I felt an enormous pressure to make this video look better than anything I had ever shot before. The potential for everything to fall perfectly into place on the first day of the shoot could not have been greater. And that’s exactly why I had nightmares of the entire production going up in flames.

Thankfully, this did not happen. We had all prepared well. I had an excellent crew (1st assistant camera Vito Huizar, key grip Nate Thomson, and many others). And the weather was kind to us.

After the video premiered online in late August of 2014, Stereogum featured it on their 5 Best Videos Of The Week list. It was accepted into the Los Angeles Music Video Festival and won the Audience Award. Reflecting back on the project, I could not be more proud of my contribution.

-Stephen Tringali (Director/Cinematographer)

Some Thoughts About The Epoch and My Year

When I think back on my year, I first think of my friends and how proud I am of them for everything they’ve accomplished in just a few months. Though 2014 is the first year that our collective The Epoch has really come into the fore in New York City, the truth is that each of us in the collective has been working on our separate projects for almost four years now. Instead of writing about my favorite moment or album of this year, I want to share some thoughts about our collective’s history and the significance this year played in re-forming my ideas about being a part of a music scene.

Henry Crawford, who now plays under the moniker Small Wonder, used to play in a loud rock band called The Mighty Handful. Their shows were spectacles, in a variety of ways. Jack Greenleaf, often instead of playing an instrument, would throw confetti at the audience and run back and forth around the stage like those two extra members of Arcade Fire. Henry and Jack Ferencz, the co-frontman, would flail and convulse violently. An inaudible violin and the occasional appearance of brass players were sort of a ploy to assure the audience of the intelligence and ambitiousness of the band. There were tons of things that were over the top and nearly lame about The Mighty Handful but they were also a beautiful band to see. All of them were around sixteen years old and were so earnestly excited about their band that, even when they sounded terrible, their energy infected everyone in the room. They were willing to fall on their face and seem ridiculous and it made them able to achieve higher heights than the more “mature” pre-chill-wave bands that they were playing shows with in 2008.

Eventually the members of the Mighty Handful broke up and went to college in different cities. Those of us who remained friends formed separate solo projects, most of us adopting a lighter touch and quieter sound. In 2011, we began calling our group of musician friends “The Epoch,” and started to use the word ‘collective’ to describe the group dynamic we’d already had for a number of years. Though all of the old members of the Mighty Handful are now embarrassed by their high school super-group, the Mighty Handful’s lofty ambition and high-stakes rocking-out hasn’t really left us– I think that in some ways our collective’s slogan “The Epoch is Now” is basically a reflection of the same bravado that guided the Mighty Handful to rock out so hard. We’ve just re-contextualized their boyish energy into a somber stoicism that appears more humble but is basically just a less teenage way of demonstrating that we’re super serious about the music we’re making.

In January of this year, Henry released an album called Wendy, a downtrodden and elegant record that’s hugely dynamic and sonically intricate. It’s a really demanding album that took Henry about three years to write and a year to record, the product of long periods of hunkering down with Jack Greenleaf, who produced and arranged the record. Wendy got the attention of a number of blogs and was basically the first Epoch project that got some notice in the “blogosphere.” It was the first of a slew of Epoch projects that came out in the first part of this year. In April, I released my second album as Bellows, Blue Breath, which I began writing working on in late 2011 and continued to write, record and revise for almost three years. In May, Jack Greenleaf released his second album as Sharpless, a painstaking record called The One I Wanted To Be. All three of these albums made minor blips in the NYC indie blog circuit. They circulated moderately well around mid-level blogs and ended up getting tape and vinyl releases on small indie labels. The attention was hugely important to us and we talked about it almost obsessively in the spring and summer. Then, as is the way of the Internet, people stopped talking about the albums and moved onto other things.

It was then that we started to freak out. Had Wendy gotten enough attention? Had people understood Blue Breath? Was some information about J-Pop necessary to see what Jack was going for with Sharpless? Reading these questions back to myself, they look totally ridiculous. It’s tough to admit the amount of emotional stress each of us went through over the inevitable decay of our blog cycle, but it’s totally true and worth discussing.

At sixteen, the allure of rockstardom can be deeply entangled in the way you develop as a young artist. Most teenage bands emulate the songwriters that speak to them the most. I know in my high school music scene, we had sound-a-likes of Joy Division, Modest Mouse, and The Replacements, to name a few. It’s not that we were plagiarizing— it was more like practicing a foreign language: translating other peoples’ words can be the easiest way to figure out how to speak by yourself.

I’ve found that songwriting is a performance, not just in the obvious sense, but also because it involves constantly and aggressively reimagining your personality. Obviously no one is as dark and brooding as their songs suggest (or as bubbly and outgoing, as the case may be), but the songs they sing depict a darker aspect of their everyday self that isn’t readily available to anyone other than close friends. Performing a “character” when you sing a song you wrote isn’t as glam or gaudy an act as it might sound- I think a lot of artists and singers like to show a more serious side of themselves, possibly because they think it’ll be more easily believed or swallowed by their audience, or maybe because it feels good to exorcise hidden parts of yourself that you don’t get to express in everyday life. The character can be so close to the real person that it’s very hard to distinguish them- sometimes it might not even be a noticeable difference, but I’ve found that there’s always a distance between the person a song tells you about and the person who you meet after a show.

I’ve only recently been able to notice a difference between the voice I use when I write Bellows songs and the person I am in public. The union of these two distinct personalities is interesting to me and is something I’ve been trying to explore in my music lately (the song “Cease to Be”, the last track on my album Blue Breath is about this idea. I describe a close friend of mine looking at herself in the mirror and seeing a complete person, a sort of net-zero of self-image and reflected self: “You look at her once and you know completely/she is the way that you thought she’d be/something like clarity that I seek out/to look in the mirror and cease to be”).

It’s increasingly clear to me, however, that the character a songwriter presents to the public very quickly becomes a product. Songwriters who become popular very quickly lose access to the private, personal characters they invent once they begin the process of signing off time and effort to companies with the ability to turn their art into money. I’m not really a kook or conspiracy theorist about the music industry, but I do think that it can be a problem when music is sold as a seemingly “authentic” experience of confessional, hyper-real access to a singer’s private life. We have a culture in our indie rock world that puts these “characters” songwriters invent on a very high pedestal. I’ve heard that Elliott Smith, the prototype of the depressed, drug-addicted songwriter on whom so many songwriters base their unstable and reckless behavior, was nothing like the person his songs made him out to be. By the end of his career, it’s obvious that he was deeply disturbed by how commodified his depression and addiction were- he was becoming rich off of his own pain- and was expected to stay in pain forever in order to keep the checks coming.

Obviously I’m not famous by any means, so my doubts about the industry around DIY and indie music communities are mostly speculative. But as I see more of my friends move into low and mid-levels of popularity, I see them stricken with the same questions. Do you want a company to require you to tour six months out of the year? Was that the reason you made your first record? Do you want your time off touring to be sequestered to the task of writing something that matches (or hopefully exceeds) your last record? Even when that last record took you three years to write? And by whose standards can you even judge the worth of your music if not your own? The further distanced you are from the process of actually making your art, the more difficult it is answer these questions. When I was most distressed about whether my album was doing well in the blog world, I was least connected to the actual music I had made. I would walk my dog around my neighborhood listening to the album on repeat, but may as well have been listening to nothing. My anxiety made it impossible to hear what I had done, because I was so intent on hearing it from everybody’s ears but my own.

It seems to me that the only way to survive as a person trying to take things seriously in this unforgiving music world is to create your own fulfillment. If the act of writing songs itself is no longer satisfying to you, you’ve already failed yourself. There’s no possibility of failing or succeeding in the wider world of indie music because you’ve categorically denied yourself the ability to experience real joy or satisfaction. Everything is hollow because you’ve projected an image yourself that’s so far removed from the person you are in private that you don’t even have access to that person anymore.

At the risk of sounding corny, I’m going to end this with three sort of self-important/self-flagellating reminders I’ve been trying to drill into my own brain:

Access yourself. Write songs because you want to. Not for an album. Not for a blog or record label. Because, again, you want to and because you have to believe that something pure guided you to be so psyched about making music when you were sixteen and there wasn’t anybody coming to your shows.
The private act of making music is the only thing that matters- the stuff that’s created behind closed doors when nobody’s commenting and there’s nobody else to hear and appreciate it but you.

3. There’s no Album of the Year.

-Oliver Kalb (Bellows)

++

Upon Seeing Majical Cloudz at Fun Fun Fun Fest

I saw Majical Cloudz for the first time five days after my aunt had died. We were close, and devastating doesn’t even begin to cover what I felt when I received the phone call from my mom that she had passed away. I spent that whole day stumbling around Austin feeling hollow, bursting into tears when I started to talk or think about her. I didn’t want to do anything at all in the days that followed but I made it out for the show, in large part to help celebrate a friend’s birthday. “Childhood’s End” had already made its way onto my iPod, but Impersonator hadn’t come out yet, and for the most part I was entering the show knowing little of what to expect; just a few overheard stories about their sets being powerful. The duo took the stage nonchalantly and, over the course of the show, latched onto something inside of me. The songs were simple, sparse, but carried a weight to them, a sense of importance that could not be shaken. I left their show thinking how desperately I wanted- no- needed to experience their music again.

I grabbed a copy of Impersonator as soon as I possibly could; I listened to that album practically every day of 2013, internalizing every song, every lyric. “Childhood’s End” became about my emotional state, the romanticism of “Silver Rings” became a source of small comfort. I couldn’t listen to “Bugs Don’t Buzz” for long stretches of time; the way it way it talked so point-blank about death was something I couldn’t always handle. My favorite track, though, was the last one, “Notebook”, a song about comforting a loved one in a hospital while confronting one’s own mortality. I lost count of the nights where I would stay up to three in the morning, listening to that song, wanting to scream the line “I don’t want to turn to the Bible yet”. This is the album- and the band- that got me through a terrible time in my life.

And so after more than a year, I finally got to see them perform again. I skipped out on seeing Dinosaur Jr to get the best spot possible and waited patiently. Matt Otto and Devon Walsh soon took the stage, just as casually as they did last time, and began to play. A complete hush quickly fell over the audience (something I’ve only witnessed at Majical Cloudz shows) and the opening lines of “This is Magic” came out of the speakers. The next song was “Notebook”, which Welsh dedicated to me after I yelped for joy. I was wanted to tell him everything that song meant to me, but all I could do was sing along. I would have been content with this show, re-experiencing the quiet intensity that I witnessed before, now being a little more aware of what I was experiencing. Instead though, for the fourth song Welsh stepped into the crowd and started performing from there. The dynamic changed instantly, as the audience began to move to the music, singing and even shouting along to the lyrics.

Suddenly, this wasn’t about me experiencing music that meant something to me; it was about the audience collectively experiencing these songs together. We swayed when Welshed asked us to, crouched down for another song. People swarmed around Welsh, wanting to be as close to him as possible, to sing every word along with him. Everyone hung on every moment; even the new songs were mesmerizing (one with the line “I’ll be your friend ‘till I’m buried in the ground” in particular left a dull pain in my chest). In between every song I would turn and look at the people around me. Everyone wore the same small smile, one crafted from the sense of knowing that the people next to you were experiencing, in their own way, the same brilliant catharsis as you. The band ended the show with “Bugs Don’t Buzz”, with the song’s ominous piano lines sounding even more foreboding at such a high volume. And yet as the lyrics came in, as Welsh and the crowd sang about love crumbling in the face of death, there was no dread in the air. Because these songs weren’t about the end, they were about living a life, despite knowing the end was there. Experiencing that feeling, surrounded by strangers all experiencing similar feelings, was amazing. Welsh and Otto managed to make the tent they were performing in, at a massive music festival, seem like the most intimate spot in the world.

They were performing again later that night, but I didn’t go; I couldn’t experience something like that twice.

-David Glickman (The Daily Texan)

Navigating Adulthood in 2014 (via Lyric)

Being a grown up is hard. You don’t realize how hard until adulthood slaps you in the face. I suffered several of these brutal attacks in 2014, my 25th year of existence. Quarter-life crisis? That’s a thing, I guess. This year, I was bruised and battered like never before, sometimes at my own hand. But while many of life’s punches left their mark- and in some cases, the pain still stings- I survived, and that’s probably worth something. Isn’t it?

“How easily we forget in order to live.” – Priests, “Design Within Reach”

For the purposes of this essay, let’s go with a resounding, “Yes!” But when you’re 25, every day feels like a question. Am I doing the right thing? Am I going to be happy? Is this person I’m spending time with going to make me happy? Should I even bother letting him try?

Of course, 2014 wasn’t all doom and gloom, although it’s always easier to harp on the darker moments. This year brought several triumphs, both personal and professional, and an abundance of good times with good people. As usual, music functioned at the epicenter: going to shows, hearing new records, meeting musicians I admire, and even making my own music (however poorly) for the first time.

All in all, nothing new. And yet, in the overall scheme of things, 2014 has been noticeably different. I’ve always allowed music to soundtrack the important, and also not-so important, moments of my life: every change, every milestone, and every achievement. Still, this year, it was uncanny how my favorite songs and albums seemed to align with whatever was happening, as it was happening, in my life. Suddenly, lyrics rang true like never before; melodies haunted my brain for hours on end; I worried that musicians I had never even met might be invading my dreams, engineering them without my knowledge or consent.

“Do I bother to define myself beyond what they allow? Have I already forgotten how?” – Parquet Courts, “Black & White”

If nothing else, 2014 was eventful. My first trip to SXSW was an endless blaze of bands, booze, and (literal) body surfing. Death By Audio closed, taking a tiny piece of my soul along with it. I (probably) saw Guy Picciotto on the subway. I was hired, I was fired. I started a band. I fell in love. Now I’ve reached the end, and to be quite frank, I’m fucking exhausted. So where do we go from here?

“I often get the feeling I don’t have any sensation/ It isn’t much of a feeling.” – Viet Cong, “Unconscious Melody”

I guess we rewind, right back to the beginning. Some people are just inherently good at life. I’ve never considered myself one of them. Raised by a badass single mom from Brooklyn, I’ve always believed that my strong will is mainly what’s gotten me this far; that, plus my affinity for foul language (you can’t trust anyone whose parents never taught them to curse). I’ve never shied away from anything, really, but I’ve still never been jazzed by the idea of taking on the “Real World.” In 2014, I was thrust straight into its clutches, mostly against my will.

We all know that writing– like any creative endeavor– simply isn’t lucrative. There’s no set career path to follow, and especially with music writing, there aren’t any rules. After graduating college with a butt-load of student debt and not much else, I quickly realized that the occupation of “writer” was mostly reserved for the fictional realm of movies and television. In order to survive, I would need a job to support my ambitions.

Just before turning 25, I was hired at my first real job, and before the year was through, I was let go. At the time, the thought of returning to a life of freelancing- mainly, a life of financial uncertainty- was utterly terrifying. Then, I had a breakthrough: hadn’t writing been really, really good to me this year? Sometimes, it’s easy to feel like you haven’t accomplished anything at all, because being a writer means second-guessing your every move, whether it be the placement of a comma or a meaningful life decision. Most of the time, that isn’t the case at all. Usually, you’re far better off than you think.

“As it breaks, the summer will wake/ But the winter will wash what’s left of the taste.” – Future Islands, “Seasons (Waiting On You)”

This past spring, I was lucky to find a home at Impose and I’m so thankful for all the opportunities I’ve had because of it. Last year, when I was working mostly for no pay at small, local blogs, becoming a staff writer at my favorite site was nothing short of a Les Mis-style impossible dream. Now, as the year comes to a close, I’m taking on new assignments from new outlets and collaborating with like-minded people like never before (and have the free time to do so). By no means is it easy, but for the first time in my life, I feel like a real-life music writer. I’m not so numb with terror anymore. In fact, it feels pretty good.

“Finally I know what love is/ It’s the feeling that you’re being pulled apart by horses.” – Flagland, “Superlove”

Alas, we’ve finally reached the fun stuff. At 25, after years of fancying myself an emotionless humanoid shell, I discovered that I, too, am susceptible to feelings. If you prick me, I do bleed, and unfortunately that blood is the same color as every other broken-hearted girl in Brooklyn. It was a hard realization, but once the damage had been done, there was no turning back. Fuck!

It’s okay, though. I mean, it’s not okay- getting dicked around by someone is never okay, and allowing it to happen more than once is even less okay- but still, there’s something to be gained in losing at love. Knowing that the struggle is, indeed, all too real. Knowing that you gave it your all. Knowing that you’ve said all there is to say, even when saying it hurts more than you ever thought possible. Knowing that time really does make everything better, and that good friends (and alcohol) definitely help speed up the process.

“I wish someone would swallow me.” – Krill, “Turd”

Are you not supposed to write so candidly about these things? I don’t know, because like I said, in writing there are no rules. This year, I’ve interviewed some of my favorite bands on the planet and struggled with this very concept. Objectivity in music journalism is something I’ve never been able to fully wrap my head around. How can music writing be objective when music itself is anything but? If a song or a record or a band is able to move you, and in turn you’re able to share with others how you’ve been moved, isn’t that the whole point? Isn’t that why you do it?

I’ve always imagined myself an outsider. That’s why working so closely with music has always appealed to me. Music makes it okay to feel whatever you want, because as long as someone else feels the same, you’re not alone. This is how bonds are formed; they’re most definitely the truest bonds I’ve ever experienced. Obviously, it’s best that some lines don’t become blurred- I’ve learned that lesson the hard way, a couple times over now- but isn’t the messier stuff always the best stuff? At least sometimes?

“We’re all the fucking same.” – Ought, “Today More Than Any Other Day”

Early this year, I sat down for an interview with my friend Joe, whose band Big Ups released one of my favorite records of 2014. Something he said during our talk really stuck with me, and has stuck with me ever since. Regarding his band’s debut, Eighteen Hours of Static, he said, “the record asks a lot of questions, because I don’t know what the answers are.” We were discussing what it’s like to be our age, and to see the things we see every day, and to feel the things we feel all the time. I don’t believe I’ve ever had the answers, and even at 25, I still don’t. I also don’t think that’s a bad thing.

Maybe don’t listen to anything I say. Maybe I’m drinking white wine straight from the bottle right now, and maybe my judgment is a bit clouded (hint: it is). Regardless, I can’t shake the feeling that everything will be okay in 2015, or maybe even better than okay. This year presented itself with a lot of problems, but starting now, I plan to live each day with the blind faith that they’ll soon be solved. Is that what being grown up means? 2014 wasn’t the year I grew up, exactly, but it was the year I started to get there.

-Loren DiBlasi (Impose, DIY)

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January 13, 2015

2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories, Pt. 2

Yesterday, it was my distinct privilege to start running pieces that were contributed to Heartbreaking Bravery for a long-gestating project. A long list of some of my favorite writers, label heads, music video directors, and musicians (many of whom have had their work covered here in the past) were kind enough to contribute pieces focusing on some of their favorite moments in music over the course of 2014. These pieces will continue to run throughout the week and I’m unbelievably grateful for everyone involved. Below, David Anthony fondly recalls taking in The National with someone of great importance, Quinn Moreland muses over her peers’ achievements, Gabriela June Tully Claymore tackles Bad History Month’s “Staring At My Hands” and its many personal connotations, Jesse Amesmith covers a particularly memorable show, Katie Capri rails against false assumptions, and Jeff Bolt revisits a show with The Marked Men. So, once again, it’s an absolute honor to present 2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories.

A Night Out with The National

While I consider myself lucky to have several moments rush to mind– seeing American Football’s “secret” reunion being the closest runner-up– the experience that will stick with me the longest was seeing The National with my mom. Sure, that might not be the coolest answer in the world but there was one small exchange that made it, unquestionably, the most memorable musical moment of 2014.

First thing’s first, I have to tell you a bit about my mom. She’s always been into music of varying kinds. Some of my earliest memories are linked to her blaring Springsteen on Saturday morning, listening to Dookie as she drove me to school, or her cleaning the house to Sam Cooke. The second, and perhaps most important point, is that my mom is a saint. If she were to detail the number of ‘90s pop-punk bands she took me to see while she stood in the back of dingy punk clubs, I’m fairly certain you’d agree. It’s these circumstances that make this National show stand out to me. It’s a moment where our interests overlapped and instead of her having to stand in the back of a dive bar- or me uncomfortably sit in the nosebleeds of an arena- we could meet in the middle and enjoy music without any pretenses.

The show itself was as good as any other National show I’ve seen, but it was the band’s encore that sealed it. When vocalist Matt Berninger jumped into the audience and began walking across seats during “Mr. November” I saw my mom’s eyes light up. She grabbed my arm and looked at me with the biggest smile, and in that moment I felt like she understood what’s made music such an integral part of my life. She was raised on stadiums and rock stars, so seeing a front-person become one with the crowd gave her the same feeling those pop-punk and hardcore bands did for me over a decade ago. It may have only been a brief moment, but it reminded me why music is so vital. At its best, it brings people together and allows them to feel part of something bigger than themselves, even if it’s just for a second.

-David Anthony (Digital Manager, The AV Club)

Peers in 2014

2014 was weird and crazy and cool in so many ways, it feels impossible to pick one or even two or three specific #FavoriteMusicMoments. However, I can summarize many moments with one simple Frankie Cosmos lyric: “My heroes are my friends / my friends are my heroes.” My favorite musical memory of 2014 was any time I was blown away by my peers, whether at a live concert, on a recording, or even a YouTube video (this is so cheesy, I’m sorry). Just a few people who turned me into a starry-eyed Q are the entire Epoch crew, team Double Double Whammy, the staff and writers at The Media, the Alex G gang, Jawbreaker Reunion, Girlpool, Frankie Cosmos… that’s more than a few but not nearly everyone. I was inspired by anyone (minus total jerks or sexist assholes because there were a lot of those too) who was involved with music in any fashion in 2014. So I guess my favorite musical “moments” were the times it was truly evident that my peers are my heroes.

-Quinn Moreland (Associate Editor, Impose)

Bad History Month’s “Staring At My Hands” and Learning to Breathe Easy

I turned 21 in a bar on June 15th, sandwiched between the almost shockingly audacious advances of a former coworker and a girl that I had befriended at school but still didn’t know all too well. I had been in Buenos Aires the day before, saying goodbye to the uneven cobblestone streets, the violent rainstorms. I found myself back in New York unmoored and uncertain—an official Grown Up without an apartment, without a job, and without any sense of who my friends were. Here, I pause to examine my existence as a total “post study abroad experience” stereotype—alienated from my homeland, and in turn, myself. I was in free-fall, descending too quickly into the real world, and in those first few days I thought that the turbulence would kill me.

I do not mean to make this an essay about “poor me” but rather one about “poor us,” when we lose sight of who we once were and have no idea who we want to will ourselves to become.

My readjustment period of several weeks expanded into a month, then into a summer. The morning after my birthday, I awoke to the news that a friend had unexpectedly died. I was told that he drowned in a pool- and my ribs began to crack open to make room for an inexplicable emptiness.

What followed can only now be described as farce. I learned that the former friend subletting what was supposed to be my room was refusing to move out. After spending two weeks on another’s couch, I moved into my future roommate’s room while she was away in California, and I got my old restaurant job back. A week later, I awoke to find my body covered in small bumps—rows of three that trickled down my arms my legs, my brow-line and eyelids. I found one bed bug crawling across the sheets that morning. I found another when I stripped the bed, and dozens as I peeled away the plastic corners of the box spring that didn’t belong to me.

I spent the next two months in motion as little bits of my stunted world continued to fall apart.

In an effort to recover what was left of my sanity, to remember who I had been and what I had enjoyed before I left New York, I tried to burrow myself in a familiar musical landscape. I remembered that I liked going to shows, I liked the familiarity of dozens of strangers swaying alongside me. I had loose plans for the future and an obscenely long list of goals. I didn’t really believe in God but I believed in something undefined. I was motivated without subscribing to a concrete belief system. I did’t keep up with the local scene while I was away, but somehow I found myself listening to Famous Cigarettes, a split EP that the Boston-based band Bad History Month (formerly Fat History Month) released a month before. Rather, I found myself listening specifically to “Staring At My Hands”, the lead-off single, on repeat.

“Staring At My Hands” begins with an almost imperceptible, echoing thud. A heartbeat. It’s a slow build that Jeff Meff’s wayward lyrics eventually weave themselves into. Instrumentally, the song is so textural it’s practically tangible but the almost desperate proximity of his voice never feels jarring. If anything, the introductory moments of “Staring At My Hands” carry you beyond stripped-back skin, dipping into a single strand of streaming consciousness. Meff sings, “Inevitably all my molecules dissolved and then my problems/ Were all resolved/ I spent a lifetime deciding which way I should go and now that I’m gone/ I finally know.”

I first listened to “Staring At My Hands” in the apartment that was not yet mine, the subletter who was supposed to be gone skulking around in my room. I was probably waiting for an exterminator or examining the dishes that had amassed in the sink while I was away sleeping on couches and in beds that I shouldn’t have been in. I spent an excessive amount of time on the train that summer, attempting to seamlessly transition to and from the various apartments I was staying in, figuring out what clothing to dry for approximately 25 minutes on the hottest setting so as not to spread the infestation along with my miserable disposition. Never entirely sure where I would end up each night, I started carrying a backpack containing a change of clothes, a toothbrush, and a book with me everywhere I went. In transit, I listened to “Staring At My Hands” or I didn’t listen to anything.

Making my way back to a friend’s apartment for the night, my throat began to constrict when Meff wailed, “Staring at my hands and picturing them decomposing/ Feeling my existence as a ripple on an endless ocean/ Not even a drop/ I will take no substance with me when I’m gone.” All summer I felt like a ghost—another person on the subway, face glued to the window, watching for passing graffiti. “Staring At My Hands” is about being lost in the space between, and my own feeling of absolute transience accompanied by the song’s oceanic thorough line forced me to imagine and then reimagine what drowning in an ocean, or in a pool, must feel like. I wondered if there was any difference and then, wishing for nothing but numbness, I wondered if that mattered.

Every night I dreamt of bed bugs. I would spastically jolt awake to find myself scratching long after the bites had disappeared. When I didn’t dream of bed bugs, I would lie with my face against a pillow envisioning lungs filling up with fluid, the unbelievable weight of a waterlogged body.

Up until this point I had always considered myself to be “just fine” most of the time. There had been bouts of crippling depression in high school subdued by the cliché remedy of poor decision-making and crappy movies on repeat. That was the kind of depression that could be mended, the kind of sadness that comes with being an adolescent. The kind where you can take your index finger and point at the small things in your life that are making you unhappy. But the feeling of that summer was entirely new. I could point at all of the things in my life that were depressing—and there were a lot—but realizing that I felt hollow, that I couldn’t bare the effort of caring about any of it beyond the surface level of daily upsets, frightened me.

The morning after sleeping on a friend’s couch for the umpteenth time, she asked me to describe how I felt. I told her that every morning I woke up to A Great Emptiness, or what most people would jokingly refer to as an existential crisis. I read Albert Camus’ “The Myth of Sisyphus” in my senior year of high school, right before graduation. I thought it was really pretentious. In that purgatorial academic space, I found the central ideas of Camus’ essay to be objectively interesting, but never personally applicable. Although it’s a fairly complex text, the argument at the center of the Camus’ treatise on existentialism is essentially whether or not one should kill themselves is they believe the world to be devoid of Godliness. Camus describes life as an incessant struggle—Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a mountain, only to watch it tumble to the ground—until we die, our spirit interned along with the corpse. The essay is extensive: written in five parts, it totals nearly 140 pages. I recently revisited “The Myth Of Sisyphus” and couldn’t help but think that Bad History Month explained Camus’ argument better- and in less than five minutes. “Staring At My Hands” is a song about coming to terms with your inconsequential existence and being okay with feeling small. It is about choosing to live.

“Staring At My Hands” references A Great Emptiness as an ocean, the intermediary space that one encounters before arriving at capital N Nowhere (Meff capitalizes the word “Nowhere” on the lyrics sheet that comes along with the Famous Cigarettes cassette). There is a line that I remember hearing very clearly one night in the Bergen Street station. I think it was a Tuesday. I had been reading Junot Diaz’s “This is How You Lose Her”, but decided that I was depressed enough on my own thank you, and put it away. In the moment that I closed the book, Meff’s whispered declaration felt cavernous, “Dying while you’re still alive/ Suddenly you’ve opened your eyes/ It’s only when you realize that you’re going Nowhere that you finally arrive.” I admire the decisive nature of Meff’s lyricism, the absolute self-assurance, the complete sense of control. Every time I listened to “Staring At My Hands,” I exhaled my anxieties and I felt absolved.

I do not know what Jeff Meff looks like, and I do not know how old he is. I know that his real name is Sean but I’ve chosen to hold onto his elusive persona. As I begin to bundle the loosened bits of my life back together, it has become very important that I leave Jeff Meff and his band in the transient space that I found Famous Cigarettes in. For now, I want his lyrics to exist in what he names the “Imagined Separation Between Things.”

Looking for solace in the absurd is an exercise in total futility. Now, I search for it in cadences and honest voices. “Staring At My Hands” is immediate validation that the world cannot produce an overarching, predictable narrative, but the song gives me a momentary sense of purpose. It manifests in small ways. Instead of planning where I will be next year, I plan what I will eat for dinner, or what show I will go to on Friday. I stay late for the extra drink and prolonged conversations- I ignore my intolerably long to-do list to walk the Eastern Parkway. I stopped thinking that I still have time to do the things that I had been “meaning to do.” I am trying to believe less in what might be and more in the immediacy of what I hear. My perception of time elongates and fills out spaces of uncertainty now that I have stopped trying to get anywhere.

Someday, I will be ready for Bad History Month and I to exist in the same world, for “Staring At My Hands” to exit the imagined space and become just another song. Someday, I might see Jeff Meff perform “Staring At My Hands” and maybe my eyes will well up with tears or maybe I won’t feel a thing. For now, the song exists as part of my own consciousness—I tell people to listen to it when they find themselves in crisis, when they need the reminder that everything is not “going wrong,” it is simply “going.”

There is a moment in “Staring At My Hands” when the heartbeat-like thud falls away, long enough for Meff to sing, “Nervous outside of a bar, focus on a single star until it/ Disappears/ Reaching for the comfort of just how small things are.” This is the definitive centerpiece of the song, muted and astral. It sparkles. Months after discovering “Staring At My Hands,” this line is so peaceful, so lovely, that it’s almost burdensome. As if Meff and I alone have found a sort of antidote, a kind of answer. I left the realm of A Great Emptiness that summer to travel Nowhere- and I accept it.

-Gabriela June Tully Claymore (Writer, Stereogum)

A Show in Rochester

This past July my friends Perfect Pussy and Feral Future were on tour and decided to meet up in Rochester, NY to play a show with my band Green Dreams (and Utah Jazz, an excellent band from Buffalo). There was a miscommunication when the show got booked, and an extra band got added to the lineup. When the band was contacted and told “sorry, misunderstanding, you can’t play” they didn’t take it well, and after begging to play and being told “no”, members of that band and their friends decided to boycott the show.

Rochester has that problem that I’m sure a lot of scenes have: the same guys play in different formations of the same bands playing the same type of music and like to think they have a monopoly on the scene. I’m not saying they aren’t making good music, or that there isn’t space for what anyone has to offer, but I am saying that the cool-kid apathetic circle jerk vibe is toxic and it really numbs my buns. It was important to my friends- and very important to me- that all the bands that played this show have non-male persons in them, and besides… it was OUR show. What they really didn’t like hearing was that it was someone else’s party, that nobody on our end cared if they came to the show or not, and it didn’t go over well. There’s a right way for women in our scene to participate and behave, and then there’s the wrong way. I’ll let you guess which category I fall into.

Haters have always buzzed around my head like flies (cuz I’m the shit! HOHOHO) so I swatted them away and went about my business, getting more and more excited for one of the best shows I have had the pleasure of playing here in Rochester. I bunkered down and made a flyer that was a mash-up based on two of my favorite pieces of art: Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemisia Gentileschi and Sedmikrásky, a Czechoslovakian art film made by Věra Chytilová. It’s pink and bloody and there are Miyazaki sprites and flowers and fruit all over it. I poured a lot of love and respect for the bands we shared the bill with into making it, and was excited to make prints and have a great time.

As expected the trolls had a field day with my flyer, and jumped on an opportunity to belittle and shame the show and the work I had put into it. GASP! “IT DEPICTS VIOLENCE TOWARDS MEN!” “WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?!” My detractors think that being socially conscious requires some sort of score keeping, that because my politics include intersectional feminism and smashing the patriarchal police state that every action I take should be righteous by all accounts, like I owe it to them to continuously prove myself. It’s exhausting, and I take a lot of hits so that hopefully the next generation of punx in our small city can grow up in a more inclusive, safer space than it is now.

Long story short, I got (and continue to get) a lot of shit for just being myself and wanting to do my own thing leading up to the show. I was nervous. I had put a lot into it, what if nobody came? What if my antagonists show up and start something? What if someone dumps pig blood all over me? The thing about letting the haters get under your skin is that 99% of the time the worst of it is in your head. Nobody can say anything half as mean about you as you can say about yourself when you think the world is against you. The day of the show arrived along with my friends from out of town, and I began to understand that it doesn’t actually matter if some people don’t like what you do or how you do it. My music isn’t for everyone, but the people that it IS for love it and me dearly.

I was surrounded by mutual admiration and support the entire evening. We ran around and took pictures, laughed and told jokes and secrets, caught each other up on our travels and adventures. As the venue filled, I noticed how many young people I didn’t know were in attendance… and I started to suspect that what I had been feeling was exactly right; if your scene doesn’t welcome you with open arms then it’s time to make your own scene. I was so concerned with the people who were trying to keep me down that I didn’t realize how many people were there holding me up, singing along, and cheering me on.

The show was incredible. People were happy, friendly, and excited to be there. TWO YOUNG PEOPLE MADE CAKES WITH OUR BANDS NAMES ON THEM AND BROUGHT THEM TO THE SHOW FOR US! CAKES!! WITH OUR BANDS NAMES ON THEM! SERIOUSLY!! You can’t make this shit up. There was an all-girl mosh pit. We laughed until we cried and then hugged until we cried more. We made speeches. People made .gifs of us. It was everything I’ve ever wanted or needed in punk: community, passion, forward thinking young people, and cakes. When it was all said and done it stood as the most incredible moment of my past year… because I finally felt at home in my hometown. All it took was stepping back to realize that the scene I needed didn’t exist without me there to fight for it.

-Jesse Amesmith (Green Dreams)

Brooklyn DIY’s Not Dead Yet

2014 is the year I broke a long dry spell with music by somewhat unconsciously flooding every aspect of my life with it.

This year marked a rapid paradigm shift in the Brooklyn DIY community. The closure of 285 Kent, then Death By Audio and soon Glasslands killed Willamsburg as it was/had been. As I got my sea legs as a music writer and musician myself, the moaning about the death of New York DIY was reaching a fever pitch. That volume never seemed representative to me because, honestly, I hadn’t gone to shows at those venues since 2013 anyway. The shows moved further away from Manhattan a while ago… at least the ones I was going to.

The Borough of Brooklyn alone is bigger than the entire city of Philadelphia. Over 96 square miles. Within them there will always be untapped resources. Sure, there are extra logistical obstacles in this city. But giving up the ship because a giant yacht docked on your old turf? That’s just boring.

Stuff had been bustling further from Williamsburg for years but 2014 took a giant leap away from Manhattan’s glaring sheen. To the south and west were Palisades, Silent Barn, Trans Pecos, David Blaine’s The Steakhouse, 94 Evergreen, Emet. These are spaces with poles in the middle of the room, with stages at the bottom of a flight of stairs, in backyards enclosed in a sheet metal triangle or in front of warped glass overlooking the Freedom Tower.

Of the six spaces mentioned above, the last two shuttered in 2014 too. Their organizers, though, found new spaces. Slackgaze (behind 94 Evergreen) opened Nola, Darling in Chelsea, moving against the current Manhattan exodus. The people behind Emet just opened Aviv in Greenpoint, which is estimated to be the largest DIY space operating in Brooklyn right now.

These venues are held together with spit and elbow grease, sweat and most definitely some tears. They’re not fancy, and that’s what makes them so exhilarating. They’re just people and music without much polish. That’s my favorite kind of place to be anywhere, but they’re especially meaningful in New York, a city caked in layers of veneer.

This year was flooded with moments surrounding music, every weekend a new favorite replacing the last. My most recent favorite was in the middle of December. The day after 50,000 people marched through Manhattan declaring black lives matter, I sat under a cellar door on Malcolm X Boulevard watching 90 people host a hypnotic neo-jazz band from Georgia called Red Sea.

The show flier deemed the venue “X”, maybe just for the night or for more shows to come. I’ve learned you shouldn’t count on a “next time” in these situations. The bouncer who ushered us into the unmarked barroom above the dusty basement’s soundproofed ceiling suggested this meeting place had a long underground history. Probably not one rife with experimental rock.

Upstate acts Palm, Annie Blech, Dog, and they city’s own Big Neck Police joined Red Sea that night. Each set’s dissonance seared its way up my spine with every elegantly placed wrong note- another theme of 2014. That basement, though, is what left the biggest impression on me.

Between its crumbling concrete walls, I saw people who play twee pop music. I saw people who play nu metal. I saw people whose music defies categorization. We were all enthralled. We were there watching a community of musicians share their art and host members of a sister community in their own. We were there showing support. Through late-listed addresses, unmarked doors and a few thickets of cobwebs, we sought out that shitty basement in the middle of a borough that the uninspired roll their eyes at. By being there, we know inspiration is still there, still churning out amazing music from amazing people. By being there, we keep it going.

That night I saw what you can’t with your eyes rolled back inside your skull. ‘DIY’ shows aren’t going to die in New York anytime soon. They just don’t have time to cater to people unmotivated by what’s found off the beaten path.

-Katie Capri (Fern Mayo, Impose)

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A Marked Men Party

2014 was a great year for me, maybe the best I’ve had yet. I turned 30 this year, traveled a lot, saw a bunch of great shows, and also (most importantly) said “fuck this” to having a boss and started only working for myself. I was trying to think of my favorite memory this year and a lot of things came to mind: Playing a midnight show with Tony Molina and Big Eyes under the Grey’s Ferry Bridge, playing a generator show with Acid Fast and Constant Insult at Graffiti Pier in N. Philly, hanging out with far away friends and eating huge burritos in California, and Tommy Borst’s birthday party in Michigan City Indiana (Tommy walked through fire that night, fell through my drums, tried to destroy his own P.A. and probably made fun of everyone there. Jon [Rybicki] & I took mushrooms way too late in the night and I fell asleep in the basement without telling anyone. Jon thought I walked out to the woods and drowned in the pond behind Tommy’s house).

I’d have to say that my favorite memory of 2014 was playing with the Marked Men on my 30th birthday in New York. The day before my birthday I was helping my friend Tim with some work at his shop. It was a long Friday and I was excited to get home and go see some friends from Ohio who were playing in Philly that night. I stopped by their sound check on the way home to pick up my friend Evan who was on tour with them for dinner. When we got to my house I was very surprised to find it empty- with the exception of my friend Ken from Richmond and one of my oldest best friends, Marco, from Detroit. When I asked “what the hell are you doing here?!” I was answered with “making cookies”. Marco flew in from Detroit and Ken took the bus up from RVA to surprise me for my birthday the next day. Over the course of the evening some more folks showed up and we ate cookies and drank copious amounts of beer. Realistically that was more than enough of a birthday for me but to add the next day’s show on top of it was too perfect. Now I’ll be honest, I fucking hate New York.

I have a lot of great friends there and have had some really great times there- but overall it’s not for me. The show and the people involved and other friends that came made it feel good and right, though. All the bands that played were friends, and a lot of friends from NY and Philly came to the show to hang out (which is all I care about from a birthday, having friends around hanging out). The bill for the show was Worriers, Radiator Hospital, Iron Chic, and Marked Men. I hadn’t seen Marked Men in probably 7 years or so, so I was very excited to see them again. Jeff Burke writes- and has written- some of my favorite pop based punk music of all time. He’s shy and humble, but not stand offish. He has no problem having a great conversation with you but might not be the one to start it if you’re not that close. I really like that about him. A lot of people hold him in a high regard but the ego that sometimes shows up with that stature has never been a part of him.

It was really cool to see Joe again too, he’d booked a show for Swearin’ a couple years before with his band Low Culture (who are amazing) and we had a fun night at his house in Los Cruces. After we played, which was an okay set, not our best but definitely not our worst, I started in on party mode. I tried to keep it together as best I could among all the shots and beers people offer you on a birthday night. I did a great job of it too! After the show we all went to the now defunct Lulu’s down the street for drinks and to continue with the party. After many more drinks and illicit things the night was finally called and we went to a nice un-comfy floor for sleep. It was a nice easy ending to a fun, wild night.

2015 has a lot to contend with, let see what happens.

-Jeff Bolt (Swearin’, Radiator Hospital, founder, Stupid Bag Records)

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January 12, 2015

2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories, Pt. 1

I don’t know where to begin. In all honest, at this very moment, I’m at a complete and total loss. The support and kindness lent to me and this thing that I’ve created has been gratifying beyond reason and some of the responses to the things I’ve shot, written, and posted over the past year (and some change) have been overwhelming on a deeply personal level. When I first started Heartbreaking Bravery, I did it so I could write about the things I love and publish them more immediately than an outside editing process would allow. I did it to keep myself in practice with writing. I did it so that there could be another outlet, no matter how small, to lend a greater focus to marginalized artists. I did it to celebrate DIY music, to celebrate great publications, and to celebrate great writers. I did it so I could write about live music documentation and so I could analyze the contents of great music videos. At no point did I expect to gain support from the people behind the art I loved. I did it so I could explore something like the idea that Sasha Geffen- a writer that I greatly admire and a friend that I greatly appreciate- helped me develop on a trip to Kentucky; a year-end piece that focused on moments in music rather than relying solely on individual lists of top albums or songs. At no point did I expect the site- or the idea- to start expanding into what they have become.

2014 was an extraordinary year for music. I listened to more new music than I ever have in the past, met some extraordinary people, became aware of a lot more things that were happening across the DIY landscape, and saw some people I know and admire start succeeding on greater levels. Today, it’s my absolute privilege to share with you the first portion of something I’ve been working on relentlessly for the past few months. Below is a compilation of musicians, label heads, music video directors, artists, and writers whose work I’ve admired from afar for lengths of time. Each of them has contributed a recollection of the music-related things that meant something to them throughout the past year. More parts of this series will be running throughout the week to grant the pieces the emphasis they deserve. I consider myself unbelievably fortunate to be hosting all of these pieces and am eternally grateful to each contributor. A quick note to them: each of you, whether you knew it or not, meant something to me before all of this insanity kicked off and you all now have my undying gratitude in addition to my unfailing admiration. So, without further ado, it’s my absolute honor to present: Heartbreaking Bravery’s 2014: A Year’s Worth of Memories, Pt. 1.

Deserving of Gratitude

2014: the year my mom died, I got married and we released Tropical Jinx all within three weeks. Yes, really. It was the year of a lot of heartbreak and a lot of love. In May we found out my mother had stage four cancer, and a very short five months later we lost her to it. I wrote a eulogy two weeks after I wrote my wedding vows. I slept in hospitals for weeks. Music, whether I was listening to it, performing it, writing it, or interacting with its community, played a huge part in giving me strength and helping me through.

Things I’m grateful for in the year 2014:

“The Struggle”

In March, Ian (Little Big League’s drummer) and I (Michelle+Ian=MACHINE) turned twenty-five in front of exactly four people in a giant, brightly lit college auditorium. We debuted all of Tropical Jinx, played our entire discography in chronological order to two friends who’d come with us, and the sound guy and booker who watched us from two folding chairs in the back while smoking e-cigarettes. At the end of the show some old guy somehow affiliated with the school gave us our $500 check and asked if we had played two sets of one hour as the college had apparently requested in a contract that was never sent to us. I drank a can of high life in the van and maybe cried a little bit on the dark four-hour drive home while reflecting on what Max Stern from Signals Midwest and I refer to as a prime example of “The Struggle”.

Cleveland, in general

Everyone is always like—Cleveland sucks! Why on earth would anyone want to go there? It’s not even like we have some huge following in Cleveland. So why is it that anytime I tour, even if it’s five to six hours out of the way, I will play a show in Cleveland? And the reason is—Cleveland fucking rules! Every time I’ve gone to Cleveland I have had an amazing time. Even when we were sick and our van broke down in Cleveland we got put up in the craziest house I’ve ever seen. It looked like a sixties opium den. Lava lamps, fur rugs, and Soviet army hats were everywhere. We played Magic: The Gathering there for like eight hours while our van was getting fixed. Big ups to Jesse from Cherry Cola Champions! He is the nicest dude and has booked like every single one of our shows in Cleveland!

Also an awesome Cleveland person, Nina Holzer (who I know only by touring through Cleveland), always puts us up and is just everything you want in a badass, music-loving woman. Watching Bars of Gold play Brite Winter Fest in a filled-to-the-brims bike shop. These dudes have lived the struggle twice as long as I have and put on the most raucous show I’ve ever seen. Watching my friend get so drunk he tried to take a swig from a roll of duct tape before proceeding to fall asleep standing up during Bars of Gold’s set. Falling on my ass a million times while loading out of said bike shop in February on hard iced over snow, post so many shots of fireball. Happy Dog, where I got tater tots with a can of SpaghettiO’s and fried egg piled on top. What the fuck. You go, Cleveland.

People who spoke the fuck up

Meredith Graves from Perfect Pussy, Christian Holden from The Hotelier, Max Stern from Signals Midwest. Joyce Manor. Saintseneca. Fuck anyone who says you aren’t hard. How could anyone get upset with an artist who chooses not to work with other artists or promoters who were publicly accused of domestic violence and rape? Or for stopping a show because young, stoked girls at the front are getting pummeled by dudes twice their size, making them feel even more like they don’t belong there? The answer is —a lot, apparently.

I got socked in the face by a drunk front dude this year because I got all girls-to-the-front and wasn’t going to let two really aggressive moshers get in the way of supporting my friend’s band. And then I get hit in the face by the front man! This is a friend of mine, who didn’t apologize, because he thought I was punk enough or something and would think it was funny. Uh, dude. No! It means something when a front person says hey, let’s have fun, but look the fuck out for each other. Do you know how cool it is to watch people propelled to mosh around and crowd surf when your band plays live? It’s awesome! It very rarely ever happens at a Little Big League show, but every time it happens, I am so excited! I feel so fucking cool! I can’t imagine having the true good person-ness and lack of ego to say, hey, I can tell from here things are getting out of hand, cut it the fuck out. These people were just so impressively outspoken about what just seems so obviously right and fair, all the while under the spotlight of vicious online commentators and at the risk of losing what little money they probably make. Also, Azealia Banks! I just watched this interview and it is just so real and important and emotional. The way the two dudes in the interview condescend to her just drives me nuts. Just—bravo, thank you, and I’m sorry the world is so fucking horrible.

Albums, EP’s & Singles

Azealia Banks’ Broke With Expensive Taste, Spirit of the Beehive’s s/t, Mitski’s Bury Me at Makeout Creek, LVL Up’s Hoodwink’d, The Hotelier’s Home, Like No Place Is There Is, Mr. Twin Sister’s s/t, Alex G’s DSU, Frankie Cosmo’s Zentropy, Perfect Pussy’s Say Yes To Love, FKA Twigs’ LP1, Crying’s Get Olde/Second Wind, Chad Van Gaalen’s Shrink Dust, Perfume Genius’ Too Bright, Angel Olsen’s Burn Your Fire For No Witness, Hundred Waters’ Murmurs, Makthaverskan’s II, and all the Ovlov and Porches. singles that came out this year.

Touring with Foxing & The Hotelier

This was our last big tour before I moved back to Oregon to be with my family. There was a lot of anxiety waiting for the dust of a hard, second chemo treatment to settle and see if we’d beaten it or not. I cried a lot because I just felt so guilty being away from my family during such a hard time. But it was also just the best tour ever. The Hotelier and Foxing are the very best dudes and are so, so hard working and talented and real. We went to Typhoon Lagoon. We went night swimming in Ft. Lauderdale. Christian Holden is just my hero. JP from Rescuer and I talked hours into the night like little girls in Tampa and I got to feed his terrifying, giant pet pig an enormous zucchini.

Wedding Songs

When we found out my mother’s cancer was terminal, my family went to Korea for a last vacation and as a way for my mother to say goodbye to her country. Our plans were shot down. My mom became violently ill and had to stay in the hospital the entire two weeks we were there. I slept there, by her side, every single night. We were planning an emergency medical evacuation to get back to the states. I called my partner from the hospital. I asked him to marry me. I asked him because I knew it would make my mom hold on a little longer. Because I didn’t want things to end that way. I wanted it to end with flowers and macaroons and my mom watching her only kid get married. Because I was in love, and it would have broken my heart if we’d just waited and she wasn’t there when the day did come around.

I saw my mother’s face light up as I walked down the aisle to Smog’s “Mother of the World”, and walked away, hand in hand with my partner to Wilco’s “She’s a Jar”. Summerteeth has gotten me through every single break up of my life, and to be all shit, I am a jar with a heavy lid and to find someone that just opens you up and loves all of you as you walk together to a buffet table lined with Korean BBQ? That’s a great feeling.

-Michelle Zauner (Little Big League, Japanese Breakfast)

Favorite Music Moment of 2014 — Ex-Cult at MACROCK

Every April, I take a trip to Harrisonburg, Virginia for MACROCK. The independent music festival is a twoday event in the Blue Ridge Mountains that I coordinated with a team of my friends in college. (MACROCK was once associated with James Madison University, but no longer receives funding from the school and is now a DIY production.) In the past, I’ve lost my voice by the end of the weekend from a combination of singing along, drinking, and catching up with my friends who either still live there or made the same annual pilgrimage I did. This year was no different. I got to see rad bands like Ex Hex, Amanda X, and Charly Bliss for the first time at Clementine. I watched the totally silly madness that unfolds without fail in that town during a Diarrhea Planet show. I discovered teenage sister duo Skating Polly as they tore up the Blue Nile stage, trading off guitar, bass, and Kliph Scurlock’s drum kit. But Ex-Cult was the band that made this MACROCK particularly exceptional.

When I first discovered the Memphis punk band last year, I became obsessed with their self-titled record. It was unruly but focused, an album overcome with vicious hysteria but anchored by tight instrumental skill. I had seen them live once before — at 285 Kent in Brooklyn the previous October — but that was before I’d spent much time with their recordings. My best friend Marisa’s band, Vulgar, played some shows with them and hearing her talk about Ex-Cult’s chaotic sets got me more than stoked to see them again at MACROCK. She didn’t get too specific, but urged, “You need to see them tonight.” Her word was good enough for me.

I skipped their official MACROCK show at Clementine for the aftershow at my friend’s house, My Mansion. It was well past 2am when Ex-Cult started playing, late enough that I had sobered up and reached the point of existing in a hazy blur, as is common by the end of MACROCK weekend. The room in which Ex-Cult played (one that I helped paint an unappetizing shade of orange many moons ago), was tiny. There’s always a mattress propped up on the back wall, though it’s been known to make its way on top of the crowd, usually carrying some adventurous showgoer. But that was the vibe of MACROCK itself: A weekend-long party for downtown Harrisonburg, one that kicks off Thursday night. And right in the middle of this citywide party was an aggro band playing a small room around 3am.

It wasn’t warm outside yet, maybe in the 40’s or 50’s at this point, but it felt like I sweat more in that hour than I have in my life. I had no idea they would play for that long — Ex-Cult was a punk band after all. I guessed 20 minutes tops. But Midnight Passenger was due out later that month and they must have played their entire catalog. The raucous corkscrew melody of “Knives on Both Sides” soundtracked bodies slamming against walls, “M.P.D.” riled up drunken attendees with metallic, discordant chord progressions, and one of my favorites, “Shot the Beehive” even had Marisa crowdsurfing. J.B. Horrell stared the crowd down with wild-eyed sternness throughout, expertly shredding through garage-psych solos without missing a beat. Chris Shaw growled out sinister lyrics with more violence and frenzy than
could ever be felt from their recordings. I was blown away. It may sound hyperbolic- but it’s true.

I know that it is because I don’t normally hang out in the middle of the crowd during punk sets. I’m skinny, I wear glasses, and just generally don’t enjoy close contact with other humans, even if half of those humans are my friends. But getting to watch Ex-Cult was worth any sweat and bruises that might come from sticking around and getting into the thick of it. I was constantly squeezed in between roughly four other people, so much so that my bra came undone on its own from all the bending, pushing, and shoving. Everyone was going totally nuts as I focused on the utterly impressive and consistent musicianship of this band as kids constantly crashed into them for a solid hour.

Eventually I had to leave — before their last song or two — due to heat and dehydration. I stumbled outside, my hair completely damp, and I must have looked like a rat that just crawled out of a sewer. I collapsed outside on some concrete next to my friend to recover. All I could think was, “I can’t wait to see them again.”

-Tess Duncan (writer/editor, Wondering Sound)

Ricky Eat Acid’s Three Love Songs

A package from Orchid Tapes showed up on my doorstep at the end of a very snowy and cold February. Inside the box was a piece of hard candy, a bag of tea, a small thank-you note, and a copy of Ricky Eat Acid’s Three Love Songs on baby blue vinyl. I had first become privy to Sam Ray’s electronic project at the advent of the new year; I was initially drawn in by the pulsating “In my dreams we’re almost touching” but soon found myself emotionally attached to his more melancholic compositions which favored the juxtaposition of faint piano melodies with washes of white noise and feedback.

I was fresh out of an upper-level composition and history class on electronic music and my discovery of Ricky Eat Acid allowed me to make the rare, immediate connection from the classroom to the real world. I could hear hints of Hugh Le Caine and I noticed a very conscious use of space consistent with a minimalist approach to composition- but I could also listen to Three Love Songs without ever trying to dissect the nuances of its construction. It was soothing and fluid and soon proved to be one of the rare albums that I could routinely get lost inside of. I made do with the digital version while my physical copy was packaged and shipped but I carved out some listening time on the evening the album arrived.

Up until the needle dropped, Three Love Songs had primarily served as my soundtrack to the frigid Wisconsin winter that was exacting vengeance on my city, its drones and swells mirroring the stillness of frozen trees and the punishing gusts of wind they would occasionally succumb to. In an indoor setting, however, the album radiated warmth and revealed its true sense of polarity. Alone in my bedroom with eyes closed to avoid any visual distractions or associations, Three Love Songs began to more clearly dictate an entire spectrum of emotions, from haunting uncertainty to elation to what can only be described as a consoling embrace. I began to truly connect with the album’s intimacy during that span of forty-five minutes lying on my bedroom floor, and Three Love Songs consequently served as my musical compass of 2014, a personal reference point that has kept me grounded throughout one hell of a year.

-Sam Clark (founder, Dimestore Saints)

HEY HALLWAYS “ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART FORGET”

Radiator Hospital toured out to California this summer- and while it was by far my best experience of the year- that is not what I want to write about. There’s too much, so let me focus on one part, which is the folks of the Bay Area and the art they produce. Maybe it’s a combination of the opposite sea’s salt and the genuine personalities of the friends I’ve made, but it all feels so real and true. A lot of these people probably have no idea, because in the grand scheme of friendship our ranks may be low, but I really cherish the heart-to-hearts I’ve had with some of them. Overcoming grief, self-doubt, and our own demons dominate many of the conversations we’ve had and they’ve truly split me open. And so, I was honored to play (the last show) at the House of the Dead Rat in San Jose. It was, by far, my favorite show of the five-week tour. Aside from Radiator Hospital, the show included Try the Pie, Joyride!, Pigeon Island, Wuv, and Tall Can. Surrounded by some of my favorite people and musicians, it felt like a dreamy haze.

At the end of the night, Jason Brownstein handed me a tape of his solo music. Jason’s one of those people I’ve mentioned above whose friendship and conversation I hold dear. We’ve discussed our fears of creating and pushing ourselves, something he even mentioned when handing me the tape, so I was wild about him releasing his solo music. Radiator Hospital put it on in the van when we left San Jose for Southern California and I immediately knew that it would be one of my favorite releases of 2014.

Jason plays in Joyride! and Permanent Ruin, but in June he quit his day job so he could write his first solo record in 6 years. Hey Hallways’ Absence Makes the Heart Forget is a collection of five songs that remind me of why I got into punk in the first place. You can hear the fear and conquering in every note and every word. Fierce guitars and melodic vocals envelope Jason’s thoughtful and self-aware lyrics. They question how he got to where he is, how he sometimes slips, and how he can move forward. In between songs are recorded pieces of conversations with his father, a seemingly complicated relationship perhaps addressed in the opener, “Proven Facts”. On side B is a 9-minute piece of lyric-less music that, for me, serves as a moment of self-reflection. The piece was recorded in 2011, two years prior to the tracks on side A but with the addition of his father’s voice. Side B says to me that we need the past to push us forward, to move us in the direction we want to go. Ending the tape on this note from long ago is a perfect nonlinear conclusion.

On the track, “Anything At All”, Jason sings the following:

Is it enough to justify spending all my time thinking about myself or how I got this mind or how to dispose of it or spending all my time trying to help somebody else? I’d rather wait inside, but I’m lucky to feel anything at all.

I think such thoughts every day. I go to therapy and spend a great deal of time on me, and sometimes I feel guilty for it. They could come off as selfish, these things we do, but they’re not. The music, the self-improvement, and the conquering of emotional pasts and presents are the things we need to get by in this life. Things aren’t easy in Absence Makes the Heart Forget and we are better for it. Where there was once forgetting, there is now remembering. There are feelings buried deep that have resurfaced and there are new feelings where there was once old dark holes. Hey Hallways confidently unearths a plethora of emotions and creates a truly resonate release. None of these emotions are anything we haven’t heard before- they are the same old feelings most of us deal with daily- but Hey Hallways presents them to us in a refreshing way and I’m glad to call Jason a friend who sheds new light on dark days.

-Cynthia Ann Schemmer (Radiator Hospital, solo artist, managing editor, She Shreds)

Releasing Zentropy

In January of 2014, LVL UP sat in a Holiday Inn somewhere in Indiana, after an 11 hour driving day doing 25 mph on a sheet of ice highway. The arctic vortex was in full swing, and sort of bumming us out, having cancelled what looked to be some really awesome shows with Pity Sex. Earlier that day Dave and I had posted the pre-orders to Frankie Cosmos’s Zentropy, the first LP we would put out as Double Double Whammy. Being totally unsure about how well the record would sell, we ordered a modest 300 records for first press. So, after having a really stressful and scary driving day in a white out blizzard, we finally got a chance to check our emails at the motel. Well, at some point during that day things had really snowballed (pun intended) for the Frankie pre-order- and to our complete amazement we had received 100+ preorders in less than 24 hours. From that moment on we knew that Frankie Cosmos would soon take over the world. That was a real standout moment in music for DDW!

-Michael Caridi & Dave Benton (Double Double Whammy, LVL UP)

Women In Music

I’ve been so inspired by all of the women kicking ass in this past year. The ones who kicked ass didn’t do it subtly and I think that has been my favorite thing about 2014. Also, Jawbreaker Reunion.

-Shari Heck (Cyberbully Mom Club)

2014 in Six Parts

I stayed up until three in the morning, and I still can’t remember everyone I saw this year and everything I heard this year and I can’t figure out all of my feelings about this year. I’ve been listening to Liz Pelly’s voice memos for inspiration. I want to say something elegant and resonant, but I’ve been failing, so here are my disorganized musings.

I used to be afraid of interviewing anyone, because I have lived my entire life under the impression that I have nothing interesting to say and that I ask weird questions. I have tried to take up as little space as possible in order to avoid bothering anyone else. I have often dreamed of disappearing.

Even though I have spent quite a bit of time this year working to unlearn a history of self-hate, sometimes I am still terrified to speak, so I wonder how I held conversations with Cynthia Schemmer and Meredith Graves and Katie Crutchfield without visibly freaking out.

Cynthia and Meredith and Katie are three of my heroes.

I still think about how Cynthia said that sometimes she’ll write an essay, then rip it apart and write it again, differently. I still think about what Meredith said about writing songs as a way to transform sadness. I still think about how Katie explained her writing process, how she takes forever to craft images.

Perhaps these conversations sparked a little bit of personal confidence. I realized that I am not insignificant. I realized that I am capable of forming friendships with women who inspire me. I realized that I can connect with others through honesty.

I was wearing a black skirt and tights and boots the day I wandered through the rain into Queens to see Priests and Downtown Boys for the first time. Katie Alice Greer talked about how she feels like Downtown Boys are not afraid of anything.

I am afraid of everything.

During one of her speeches between songs, Victoria Ruiz said that we should no longer be bodies defined by borders but beings created by liberation. Perhaps this will sound hyperbolic, but I felt like part of a revolution. I felt electric. I felt inspired and empowered.

And I realized that I have a voice.

I saw Neutral Milk Hotel. Afterwards, I could hardly speak.

I thought about leaving New York while standing by the East River and freezing and listening to All Dogs.

I thought more about leaving New York while walking down a street that smelled like snow and pepper and dead fish and listening to Great Thunder.

I thought even more about leaving New York while walking back from the library as fast as I could and trying to stave off a panic attack and listening to Perfect Pussy.

One night while cleaning up the kitchen, I put on Radiator Hospital, and I collapsed to the floor in tears, because I realized that I was living inside “Our Song“.

“This would all be so much easier if I had nothing more to say”

Angel Olsen gets me.

-Caroline Rayner (writer, Tiny Mix Tapes, The Le Sigh)

Discovering Girlpool

Last summer, at the suggestion of one of my professors, I decided that it was absolutely crucial for Charly Bliss to embark on our first tour. We all live in New York, so of course it probably would have made more sense financially to tour the East Coast, but I’ve never been one for practicality. Instead, we decided we would fly to Seattle the day after school ended and careen down the west coast in my best friend’s grandmother’s van.

Anyone who has ever booked a tour by themselves will tell you that it involves constant anxiety and the replies to your zillions of sent “Hey! We’re a band from New York and we would love to play with you in San Francisco/Olympia/LA…” e-mails are few and far between. When it came time to actually book our flights, I lied to the band, telling them that I was finished booking, when in reality I had only confirmed three shows.

It was right around then, after much Facebook band page surfing, that I discovered Girlpool. I can’t really describe it any way other than kind of magical, which sounds stupid, but is true. Digital interactions usually feel really blah, but finding Girlpool’s page reminded me of the first time I realized that I could look for music myself and not just listen to whatever my older brothers or my parents liked; subsequently gobbling up every Rilo Kiley song I could find and feeling like I had some special secret on my iPod as I rode the bus to and from middle school.

Listening to their music felt like that- like a secret. Like listening to someone’s diary, which is a songwriting cliche, but also true. In The Punk Singer, when Kathleen Hanna talks about her 1998 Julie Ruin record she says, “It sounds like you could hear a human being’s fingers all over it.” That’s what Girlpool sounds like. When I saw the obscure allusion to The Princess Diaries in their bio, I thought it was too good to be true.

A few months later, at the very end of our tour, we played with them at Pehrspace and I remember being really shocked by how the room was simultaneously silent and electric while they played. No one was checking their cellphone or anything, everyone was totally absorbed. The show happened to fall on the night that Cleo was graduating from high school and I still feel really honored that we got to be a part of it. We also played with SUSAN and Feels and I remember being awestruck the whole night. I didn’t even want to drink after the show, we just went and got milkshakes and talked through the night like forty times.

But really this is all exposition because my favorite moment in music this year was watching Girlpool open for Jenny Lewis at Terminal Five. Harmony and Cleo lived on my couch for a few weeks in October/November while they were in New York for CMJ, and as spellbinding as every Girlpool show I’ve ever seen has been, seeing them play for thousands of people, and opening for my all-time hero of all heroes, after having spent three weeks together watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, talking at length about being away from home for the first time, eating despicable amounts of Thai food… I guess, generally getting to know both of them for the two huge-hearted whip-smart g00fballs that they are, was really special.

While they were in the middle of “Alone at the Show” I tweeted “I LOVVVVEEE BEEEEINNNNGGG AAAA GIRRRRLLLL!!!!!!” from the balcony, and that’s exactly how I felt. As several witnesses can attest, Cleo’s parents included, I cried the whole way through.

-Eva Grace Hendricks (Charly Bliss)

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Tag: A Year’s Worth of Memories