A couple meme/trend posts recently sent me spiraling through nostalgia in ways I haven't in forever so as (un)fortunate subscribers to my stream of consciousness here you get to take that journey with me.

"Date yourself by posting a song you loved in high school"

I forget the exact wording, but that was the general idea and if you follow me on Instagram I apologize/you're welcome for the absolute flood of songs I posted featuring everything from Assück to Geto Boys to Lush to Youth of Today because expecting me to post just one song is an obvious fail right out of the gate. One of those songs I posted was from Crimpshrine. As I was listening to it I remembered, in addition to my long time inability to spell their name correctly, just how much I used to listen to them and how weirdly I hadn't listened to them in I don't even know, decades? I put on the the "the sound of a new world being born" and found myself singing along to every song, the words so deeply burned into my subconscious that I'd never considered how impactful they were on me at the time.

While there were no shortage of new ideas and radical politics being projected directly into my brain thanks to punk and hardcore and metal the east bay scene was unique (at that time) with presenting issues like race, poverty, and homelessness in a more personal and human way that I'm certain stuck with me from that point forward. While I think we can all agree Jawbreaker's 'Kiss The Bottle' is the absolute heartbreaking apex of this theme, they cited Crimpshrine as an inspiration and I'm sure Blake was just as moved as I was listening to Jeff's plea in 'Sleep, What's That?" and of course the Operation Ivy through line goes without saying.

Don't get me wrong, as my numerous Jawbreaker tattoos will attest I'm all in, but while Blake is a brilliant and beautiful writer telling personal though perhaps somewhat fictionalized stories, Jeff was just trying to tell his own and you can feel that difference if you sit with it. I didn't ever choose to stop listening to these records, I don't know why it'd been so long since I heard them but listening to them now I'm really glad they held up as well as I remembered them. One thing that struck me as "In My Mind" played was this air of hopefulness that some of these major societal problems were in the past. I was reminded of Steve Albini's introspective assessment where he noted "Within our circles, within the music scene, within the musical underground, a lot of cultural problems were deemed already solved... The music scene was broadly inclusive. So for us, we felt like those problems had been solved." and the problem with applying what you see in your small social circle to the rest of the world.

Not that Crimpshrine was suffering from that, the opposite probably, but it was just a reminder that stepping back and taking a wider view is often beneficial.

Zooming all the way out to space, in late '92 or early '93 I saw Man or Astroman? play in Gainesville at the Covered Dish and it blew my fucking mind, from start to finish it was the most creative and exciting thing I'd ever seen. Their commitment to the bit, incredible execution of it, and and just relentless display of talent was unmatched. Made better because outside of a t-shirt a friend was wearing I don't think I'd ever heard of them before this show. Needless to say I was an immediate fan and told them so in the parking lot after the show. We became quick friends and I'd make an effort to see them play as much as possible and they would crash at my apartment and we'd get food/go tubing and stuff whenever they were passing through Florida. We sometimes talked about doing something together on Toybox but the song on the (now infamous) Blindspot Mailorder comp was as far as we got.

At one point they got in touch and told me they both had a new record coming out that they were going to tour for, but that they also were planning to record a live show (ultimately released as 'Live Transmissions From Uranus') and asked if I wanted to kick around with them for a few days and help with some press and whatever came up around the show, of course I said yes.

About a week before the show I started feeling a little weird, it wasn't a cold or something like that but I just felt really worn out and by the end of the day I was so exhausted I could barely make it home. I'm pretty sure there was a show I was supposed to go to that night, but I was wrecked so I dragged myself into bed and just crashed, hoping to wake up the next day feeling better. I woke up 2 days later. Literally. It was like a movie where someone wakes up from a coma to learn months or years have passed. In my mind I'd slept for a few hours, but it was days later and my roommates told me people were starting to ask questions about where I was as I hadn't responded when they were knocking on my door. Super weird.

I didn't "feel better" at all, but I was awake and could make it from my bed to the couch before I needed to sit down and catch my breath. In trying to figure out what was going on I realized I'd missed a show I wanted to go to, a first date I'd been looking forward to (which was never rescheduled), and several days of work which was piling up fast. I also realized this was the week Man or Astroman? was coming to town and I'd promised to help them. I realized that when they knocked on my door the following day.

Never one to disappoint my friends I let them in, told them I was sick with something unknown but was there for them as much as I could be. The next few days are blurry but I remember sleeping in their van, sleeping in the lobby of a local radio station while they went into to do an interview, and sleeping/crashing on the side of the stage while they played the show I was so looking forward to. Knowing it was going to be a live recording I had planned a lot of witty banter to yell out in between songs, instead I could barely hold my head up. At some point the band pulled me up on stage and said something about infecting me with some interstellar space virus which I think people were generally amused by?

That week has continued to hold this weird mystery spot in my brain because all these important and exciting things happened, but I was on my deathbed and can't quite remember exactly how they all happened or any real details. Years later a doctor would tell me it was probably mono, though I have no idea how I possibly caught it as there was no kissing going on in my world at that time.

Why am I telling you this story? Another insta-meme thing asked people to post an old photo of themselves that they still loved, and I joked that I hated every old photo of myself. Then my friend Jana pinged me saying she found this old photo that I might like:

Might I ever! Holy shit. Holy shit. That was the show! Photographic proof it happened right there! Top is me dead on the side of the stage leaning on some 2x4 handrail or something, and bottom is Star Crunch likely holding me up so I don't fall over, and you can even see Coco and Birdstuff there on the side as well. Also hilarious baby me with no visible tattoos or glasses. Hilarious. I wouldn't consider this a great photo of me specifically, but it's an incredible photo for me if you know what I'm saying. I'm so overjoyed to see this and so happy she found it and bounced it over to me. One of the mega perks of being the kind of person who stays friends with people for 30+ years is occasionally a diamond like this pops out of the earth. Also, check me out not in all black. I hope you are enjoying this as much as I am, and if not you are missing out. It's fantastic.

There's of course a lot of crazy news right now, but I don't feel like writing about any of it. Instead I'll share these few little life protips that I sent out to The Crowd telegram group earlier this week:

Find a few people you like who make you smile and hold them close, even if they are far away.

If you think you might regret doing something, don't do it.

If you think you might regret not doing something, do it.

If you see a problem where you can help with, help.

If you say you'll do it, do it.

Find something to give a shit about.

Make 10 year old you proud.

And as final bit, as I look at alternatives to Spotify I decided to revisit Apple Music after avoiding it since iTunes wrecked my collection (long time readers will remember a mid-2000's tragic episode where iTunes added a "sync" feature which scanned my MP3 collection and deleted any file it thought it had steaming versions of. So high res files were gone, replaced by low res streaming versions, but also alternate recordings I had of songs or albums, gone. Unreleased versions, gone. Some songs I had 10 different recordings of, all gone and replaced with one shitty streaming version. Even worse when that was the censored radio edit which happened in a few cases.) Anyway, apparently Apple Music is way better these days, and upon loading it up the first recommendations it sent me were J Church's "Nostalgic For Nothing" and Deadguy's "Near-Death Travel Services" so not a bad start at all.

What are you listening to right now?

-s