Music makes me breathe.
Good music, bad music, popular music, unpopular music, exterior music, interior music, the soundtrack-to-my-memory music... it's all there, all the time. It's all there, in my head - painting a kind of picture for me. Be it good or bad... certain chords, certain voices, they make me remember the past. They make me not forget the present. They make me believe in a future.
I think in music. It's weird.
Oh, and for the record, I am currently watching The Grammy's, and can I just say... Quentin Tarantino looks like an overly-botoxed sixty-something-year-old woman, and his stylist should have told him not to wear that polka dot shirt. Are you kidding me, QT? Yikes.
Anyway.
Music.
I don't discriminate.
I especially don't discriminate against live music.
(Dear Grammy's, I don't appreciate the one-minute censorship because of one word that probably lasted 3 seconds. Thanks.)
There's something about watching people perform, create, establish, inspire, react, express - all before they've had time to be critiqued, reigned in, contacted. Just watch the faces of the people who watch live music, the faces of the people who perform live music; it's like nothing else. It's like watching an idea spark, slumber, glow and ignite. It's passion, in sight.
The first band I ever saw live: The Wallflowers. Yep. I know. The Wallflowers. "One Headlight" Wallflowers. Ha. It was at Lupo's, and it was amazing. Because it was the first. The first time I saw people play music I had previously associated with radio speakers. The first time. I stood in the center of the floor, with the band in sight. I watched it all happen, and I was hooked.
Second band I ever saw live: The Cardigans. Also at Lupo's. "Kiss Me" was really big at the time. It was a great show. It cost me like, twelve dollars, and I had the time of my life.
Those were the days...
The rest of my live music education is a blur. One band after the other... the closer, the better; the louder, the better; the more, the merrier. Records, tapes, bands, road trips, t-shirts, photographs... Yes. Yes. Yes.
I think part of the reason I became so obsessed with indie/emo/punk rock when I was younger - mere months after the two first shows - was because there were shows I could see without purchasing a ticket in advance, without having a plan, without even considering the possibility of a "sell out." They existed. And the music was fun. And the community felt like family. They were family.
I was inspired by local music because it was accessible, enjoyable, intriguing, and - above all - it gave me that sped-up heartbeat. It gave me that warmth in my palms; that skip in my step. It gave me happy. It gave me community. It gave me a heartbeat. It gave me a story to tell.
And now, more than ever before, I can feel myself longing for that; that community, that life, that inspiration.
But I don't think it's possible anymore. I feel like the girl who's seen it all, but seen nothing; the girl who's been everywhere, but who has been nowhere.
I want my music. I want to embrace it, cradle it, hold it, and think of nothing else.
Except maybe you.
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i know by "you" you really mean me.
ReplyDeletelets go find a music community.
or make our own...
what do ya say?
I remember The Scooter Kings' first show very fondly. We played with Flipside, Embrace Today, Immortal Alice, and Smakin' Isaiah. I was fourteen, about six feet tall, maybe 100 lbs soaking wet and I had bleached blonde, spiky-ass hair and a Pennywise t-shirt with their PW logo in orange flames.
ReplyDeleteI loved Pennywise. Bro-Hymn, that was some cathartic shit right there, especially the Full Circle version.
We played eight songs. Our set probably lasted just over twenty minutes. We were horrible, maybe ten people watched us, we didn't sell a single patch or button, nevermind a copy of our demo "Junkpunk for the New Millennium". But it was still, to this day, the most exhilarating thing I've ever felt to play music on stage. And not just music, but OUR music, our misfit music that we made because we were immature and stupid and nobody understood us. We didn't even understand each other, let alone ourselves. But we still owned those songs moreso than we'd ever owned anything in our lives.
Kyle and Mike both went home after our set. Trevor stayed, but he disappeared with his girlfriend. By the time Smakin' Isaiah came on it was dark out and all the lights in the room were off except for a few glaring lamps set up by Nick Angelini's drum kit, facing out towards the crowd, which had ballooned up to about seventy five sweaty teenagers fueled by alcohol, nicotine, marijuana, and pure adrenaline.
I never liked Smakin' Isaiah on record, but live they were something else. They were fast, furious, crude, and arrogant. They spat and told us to fuck off and then told us they loved us in the next breath and we hung on every last word. Seventy five bodies crammed together in a dingy drug rehab pumping fists in the air and belting out the words to songs like "Beer and Loafing in New Bedford".
It was like a bomb exploded inside the minds of every single person there that day. It was like nothing mattered other than what was happening in that room, the music pounding, the bodies colliding, and the sweat. It was like fucking with the lights on while seventy five people watched.
And I didn't even really like that band.
New Bedford needs music because New Bedford bleeds music. I want to bleed New Bedford, but I just don't know where to start.