Tag: music

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Album cover of Precious' Whatever Sinks Your Ship album.

It’s not often I am transported back to High School on a good memory. But with this album, I am. On some weekends with my two best friends, we’d pile up in the car and go see a show. It was typically down to Orlando, about an hour’s drive from our rural tiny towns. Until we got there we’d just talk, or play games to pass the time… like combining swear words to come up with the best (worst) one (and "Grasshopper" won that game in two seconds, with "cuntshit"). Eventually I’d see quite a few shows, wearing platform boots at the front of the stage if we weren’t at the merch tables or braving the mosh pit.

But there’s one show I remember the best.

It was Precious, a band my BFF followed and enjoyed when they lived closer to Orlando’s music scene. They have been telling me all about them, and I was excited to see them in person. And they came onto that stage and rocked. It had the hallmarks of a great live show: passion, stage presence, talent, and a responsive crowd that loved them.

In addition to their Rarities EP, I bought their second album titled "Whatever Sinks Your Ship." My favorite track, if I had to pick just one? "Youth and the Drug Explosion," for how it ends: the wail of the electric guitar, carrying on until it was the only instrument left. Steve just stood there looking cool. But overall, I love the lyrics.

Some lines I still carry around.

One of my greatest fears
Is I’d hit a motorcycler
And I think I see one coming up
Way too fast in my lane “Youth and the Drug Explosion”

There’s the beautiful.

Maybe you can be
Everything I need
The latitude and longitude
Of where I’m supposed to be “All Saints”

Some are more… blunt.

Work harder / and then you fucking die “Work”

And some I think are relatable.

I don’t need a chorus
I need somebody to hold my hand
Tell me everything is all right
What I really need right now
Is another somebody to hold me down
Tell me “Steve, you got it dead wrong” “I Wanna Die”

I saw them play at one other show, where someone had driven four hours to hopefully hear them cover "Bare Necessities."

We’ve kept in touch via AIM. The details of how we exchanged screennames escape me, but everyone was giving our their screennames willy-nilly back then. We’d chat for upwards an hour about current events, broad-strokes life things, and music. I tried not to bug him too often– he was an artist and a busy man. We kept in loose touch after I began college, until the messages tapered off completely.

I feared the worst– he was open about his kidney issues– but I’m happy to report that he’s still around. I’d been keeping a casual tab on what he’s been up to. He has been fundraising for a kidney, and after a long hiatus makes music under the name The Guarantees. But, every once in a while, I still yell Where is Steve Garron?! into the void. Out of habit.

And here’s a call to action for you: go to your local shows. There’s really nothing like them.

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My Contribution to the Juneteenth pool party playlist:

  • Scoop by Lil Nas X
  • Kiss Me More by Doja Cat
  • 212 by Azealia Banks
  • Ima Read by Zebra Katz (if we gon fight)
  • Sing About Me by Angel Haze
  • Cubicle by Sammus
  • Power-Ups by Sammus
  • Childhood by Sammus
  • Mackerel Sky by Mega Ran
  • (re: Sammus, any of those three would be good)
  • Water by Tyla
  • ….you know we gotta play WAP right
  • Drownt by clipping.
  • the entire Age of Pleasure album (or just Lipstick Lover by Janelle Monae)
  • can we get some Drexciya up in there too!?
  • Blick by Scar Lip

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Today, we’d like to challenge you to write either a monostich, which is a one-line poem, or a poem made up of one-liner style jokes/sentiments.

GOOD MORNING

すてきだね x

(a heart is drawn, “ey/em” in the middle)

“You’re six feet above ground.” -Grant

Think about poetry.

Deep breaths.

Makeup? Watch?

Tip on the tightrope. x.

AFFIRMATIONS

“Bitch look: good, haute, pretty, handsome, sexy!” x.

You exist.

You are valid.

Take up space.

People love you.

(another heart, or a star, even)

“It’s not meant to be a strife. It’s not meant to be a struggle uphill.” x

REMINDERS

“Sasuneac yna hela, pid dryd’c ymm drao yna.” -Rikku

This is our home.

Stay hydrated!

LOC Method!

Relax, just be here (or there).

Journal.

GOOD NIGHT

Rest.

Have you snugged today?

We probably glow, too. x

(and here is a hedgehog doodle)

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You look so familiar but I can’t figure out

Why I think that I recognize ya, don’t know what it’s about

It’s like a parallel existence, but I know that’s fiction

Or is it? Or is it?

Altern8 Endings by Mega Ran

Two scenarios are illustrated, two separate paths taken.

Mega Ran, initially, wanted to be a dentist! So the track takes us to his office with the Wu-Tang albums and degrees on the wall, and he comments how he grew into the profession: it just came so easily to him; it was obvious. After the chorus, he’s then a principal of a high school (and in fact, IRL, he was a teacher before he was unceremoniously shitcanned). He cared about his kids enough to give them pep talks and wake-up calls. In both paths rapping was still a passion, be it a humble a rap listener or someone who freestyles with the students as a reward for not neglecting their studies.

My frequent trips to Rumination Station usually concern the choices I’ve (not) made. My thoughts aren’t as talented as a nerdcore rapper, but you get the gist.

I wonder if I took my Most Likely to… award I got in 8th grade seriously (instead of the bullying) and hadn’t given up on art?

Or I followed of the footsteps of my oldest friend and into journalism?

Or I heeded my dad’s advice and got into the medical field?

Or I took my love for cartoons a step further, and vowed to create my own?

Or if my affinity for wind instruments and singing didn’t atrophy?

What if I understood object-oriented programming and moved away from designing?

Or, what if I loved magazines more than web pages?

What if I kept that spark from my science-fiction short story in English class, of the teacher reading it out loud and the rest of my peers leaning forward, enraptured?

If I remembered when a friend said that he really loved my poems and I should be published?

What if I settled for an administrative job from the get-go? Or, like my mom, I worked my way up from production floor to cubicle?

I wonder what options I would have had if I’ve graduated at a better time, from a different school. If I wasn’t forced to pivot into unrelated fields to keep the bills paid.

If I had picked up a trade.

If circumstances were different.

If. If. If.

What would I be like? Would I still be blogging, and writing for fun? Would I still love tinkering with computers? Would I be in any position to ease children’s fears and give teenagers guidance? Would I be playing video games a lot more, or would barely have time for them?

Would I love it? Would I hate it?

What even was my calling? Did I have one?

Would I be more content?

Honestly, I don’t know. That’s always a possibility, isn’t it?

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My grandmother was dying when I penned this post.

There is a lot of what my mother bitterly calls it, drama, concerning the surrounding circumstances. But most of it is not important; what matters at this moment is how she does not want any of this drama when the time comes for her to require elderly care, and when she passes away.

"Please, put me in a home." I know. Unlike her sister, I will do the responsible thing and recognize that I can be no caregiver. "And I do not want a viewing." Give me flowers while I am living. We agree on that. She does not want the "song and dance" of the whole funeral thing and knowing her family, "song and dance" would be the understatement of the decade. She doesn’t even want a gravestone. "Cremate me. Or donate my body to science. I’m already an organ donor." She even suggests, if she ever succumbed to dementia like her mother, to pump her full of LSD and, hm, let her go. "If I’m going out, I want to have a good time."

Jokes aside, no one likes to think about their mother dying.

So the topic turned to other things– in hindsight– a segue. Mom had recently visited the attic to retrieve the vinyl collection. As an avid user of Spotify and iTunes, she no longer felt the need to keep them around and was going to donate them. And the packrat that I am (my VHS collection can attest to this), I snatched them up.

We went through the entire stack. Some I’ve never seen before (growing up, I was more interested in the growing technology that was the Compact Disc; the vinyls were safe from my pillaging), but some I recognized as the art the covered the living room wall. From Talking Heads to Prince, Michael Jackson and ZZ Top and AC/DC and… albums about… drag racing? That one took me by surprise.

Some are certainly damaged. Others scratched. Others still, missing covers in the dusty stack. Covers missing records.

While I did joke about selling The Beatles’ White Album, I knew they weren’t going anywhere. Especially with mom’s words in my ears, about leaving nostalgic tokens of love behind.

There was a story for most of them: going to the record store after watching The Wall, her singing a few bars of Lovin’ You, some albums she had while growing up, and some I remember fondly as cool stuff on the walls.

These stacks of albums tell a story of what my parents experienced and loved. It is another thing I can hold, memories of weight I can feel and thumb through.

When the time comes I will let her go, but I’ll hang onto Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk album for a while longer.

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“Whoa,” I said, sitting up a little as the credits rolled. “I haven’t heard that in forever.”


“What song is it?” he asked, shifting under my head. We had been binging Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure for two hours and Netflix’s “Are you still there?” prompt caught us lounging on the couch, my head on his lap.


“…I don’t know. It’s been so long since I’ve heard it.”


And as he did a quick Google search, I was too busy remembering.



As everyone should know by now– by pop culture osmosis or actually reading and/or watching the series– JJBA references rock artists and songs.


And my dad loved classic rock (rock, generally). Music, generally, but classic rock was his favorite genre. When I first heard Roundabout, I wasn’t familiar with it. But I knew the style, and it was confirmed by my mom that it was one of the many songs he liked.


I may not remember much, like the title or who performed it, but I knew that tune from my childhood:


There are spoilers here, btw. Check out Spotify instead if you need to.


Growing up for me consisted of a lot of waiting– my school district was in another county, so we had to wait an hour for the bus. When I was older, we waited for daycare to open. During the periods where we had only one vehicle, we waited for mom to get out of work. We waited for the bus again in my high school years and when I graduated, we waited in a McDonald’s parking lot on top of a surprisingly scenic hill.


A lot of that waiting was done in the car, with the radio on. And all of the time, it was me and my dad. And finally, my dad would scope out pretty chill places to, well, wait. These would usually be bodies of water or an interesting bit of forest. When he was in the mood, he’d talk (OK, a lot of the time it was more like lecturing), but we mostly just listened to the music.


And hearing the first bars of that song… it jogged a memory of when I was much younger: There was a lake, and it was afternoon, probably early spring. We may have been killing time before we picked up mom. I don’t remember what I was doing or even which car it was at the time. Hell, human memory is pretty faulty in general and I could be misremembering all of this.


But I remember when my dad was still alive.


Grief is something else. It never goes away, it just crops up when you’re watching an animated series that’s supposed to be (for the most part) fun. But considering my reaction to Dan of Steel (Gaucho was another defining background album from my childhood), I kinda saw this coming.


So this “just” (air quotes) made me miss him.


I listened to this song on Spotify and finally cried again.

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Not too long ago I received my first singing lesson since grade school:


He picked up his guitar and tuned it; I sat in his computer chair. Back straight, deep breaths, sing loud and deep and hold that note. Listen, and match this note. Deep breaths. No, deeper. He had to get close to really listen. He had to correct, and praise, and guide. We practiced together– voice and cords, to our favorite songs.


It was a different sort of intimacy than what we were used to.


My voice was strongest when I really felt the song… really connected with it and my emotion carried the notes through. I felt so proud of myself.


I daydream the mic in my hands, confidently singing the words that resonated with me, then through me… to you.



This week, we had our karaoke outing, the first after a long hiatus. It’s supposed to be a group activity, but most of the time it’s just us two. Which, sometimes, it’s fine: when my heart flutters as he sings my favorite lines, or I’m forcibly transported into my past by nostalgia, I’ve no witnesses and thus no questions (and if the other patrons ever noticed, they were nice about it and left me be).


In the audience I sometimes find myself warbling along, almost compelled. I always have before, but now I’m remembering my lesson. Still, only the people nearby could hear me.


I believe I heard him say that night, “you should go up there.”


I’m too shy– I don’t know all the words– I’m not as good as the others– I need more lessons, I’m not ready– I’m terrified– I’m content to sing in this corner of this tiny little bar— I’d rather watch you all night, lover– stage fright.


He didn’t push.


I’ve been on the karaoke stage before. I’m always down for singing Disney tunes or The Time Warp with a group, or… even a duet with a favorite song and one of my favorite people.


But never by myself. Not yet.


In order to become better at something, you have to be brave. And, to quote Jake from Adventure Time: “sucking at something is the first step to becoming sorta good at something.” I know it’s all being frightened and doing it anyway, and practice, and knowing mindtricks for crowds and stages. (To pretend he’s the only one in the audience– would that work? Because I have no problem when we’re at home, and it’s just them overhearing me.)


Since I (rarely) go onstage, I watch and I cheer to make up for it. People of varying talent still go up there and are much braver than I; that alone warrants an enthusiastic “WOO!” But my night is near: I’ll be brave enough, soon. I’ll be tired of daydreaming, eventually.


I’ll ask for another singing lesson tonight.

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I haven’t been talking much. Or doing much of anything, really, beyond existing and feeling pretty bad ab–


Sorry. “Pretty bad” is a terrible understatement.


I’m depressed. Capital D Depressed.


Alanis Morissette, “Tapes”



All these tapes in my head swirl around
Keeping my vibe down
All these thoughts in my head aren’t my own
Wreaking havoc


Alanis pretty much nailed it, here.


For me, this is how my depression starts. I get thoughts stuck in my head and they work their grooves in- some grooves are already there thanks to my anxiety. They echo and become very, very loud.


I’m on Week 3? 4? of them groovin’ and yellin’. And I can’t stop them.


Tis the season.


Flying Lotus, “Debbie Is Depressed”



Sittin’ in the dark and the day’s so bright
You wanna sleep all day and sleep all night
’Cause all those days just feel the same


If I had my way, I wouldn’t have moved out of bed all week. But, you know, job. And errands. And things.


Battling the voices in my head on a constant basis is tiring. Hours blur together. If it weren’t for smartphones I wouldn’t know it was [INSERT CURRENT DAY HERE].


I know there’s hope and there’s darkness before the dawn, and all of those things. But I’d still be wondering what time it is when it’s over.


Phoenix, “If I Ever Feel Better”



If I ever feel better
Remind me to spend some good time with you
You can give me your number
When it’s all over I’ll let you know


And a major obstacle a lot of depressed people deal with is self-isolation. They withdraw and don’t talk to anyone; calls, texts, and Discord messages go unanswered. Plans are canceled.


“I’m not feeling so great, lately,” I manage to say. If I say anything at all. It’s the truth: mental illness is still an illness. “I’ll get back to you later.” Maybe make plans for future!me and hope for the best.


Elements of Soul, feat. Mia Taylor, “Head Above Water”



Is there anybody out there
That feels the way I do?


I know I’m not the only one going through this, and I can’t help but yell into the void and hope it yells back. And it does, if the void has Internet access.


And on said Internet, I deliberately seek out music to simultaneously feel validated… but still not great. But that’s the beauty of music: it can be so accurate to your situation that you find yourself bawling your eyes out on your commute to work.


You feel validated but you still feel pretty shitty. But at least you know you’re not alone. If you’re struggling, know you’re not alone. If you are just laying in bed staring at the ceiling, know that someone else is doing the same thing.


I did that on my day off. I’ll probably do that tomorrow, too. But after, I have a party (to try) to go to.


Then I hope I get bumped up on the waiting list for a therapist soon.


And maybe next week will be better, and days start feeling like days again.