it was the world i had
february 2025
nearly a year of writing these and i’m running out of clever ways to begin them. not tired of it yet. am realizing that their format is crystallizing into a kind of personal snapshot of my listening experience more than a true music editorial. or whatever.
in that spirit, today i will reminisce on a childhood of cd samplers from Paste Magazine, where i’m sure i heard BEN KWELLER’s music in the early and mid-2000s.
a new single with WAXAHATCHEE heralds an upcoming album “COVER THE MIRRORS”. an april show is on the calendar at Basement East. BEN KWELLER returns to my consciousness as if he never left.
it’s been over 20 years since he released his debut album “SHA SHA”. listening to it today, i recall its significance when i was a mere eight years old. and again at 20, in 2015, when i was living in LA and driving everyday in a compact car that my parents graciously rented for me to commute to an internship at an arts nonprofit. ha ha. i listened to that album a lot then too.
i’m inclined to describe it as proto-MJ-LENDERMAN, as if no corner of indie rock can exist outside of His cultural context. but it’s the other way around. MJ LENDERMAN will feature on “COVER THE MIRRORS”, and it’s likely that he encountered “SHA SHA” or “BEN KWELLER” in much the same fashion as i did, and was shaped by it in kind.
Trevor Powers, under his moniker YOUTH LAGOON, released a new album titled “RARELY DO I DREAM”. it is its own kind of time capsule. my friend Lily wrote an excellent review on p****fork. she ends it by highlighting a moment that also stood out to me, from the affecting closer “HOME MOVIES (1989-1993)”: we hear the artist’s parents—their voices absolutely drenched in affection for their kid—entreating him to announce his story. he rises to the occasion not for the last time.
the home tape thing could have been schmaltzy, but somehow it never came off that way. i felt a real gratitude to “witness” this universal parental exercise in preparing somebody to live their story; and the artistic exercise in bracing yourself to tell it. my mom had the wherewithal to digitize our family’s cache of home tapes. excuse me while I go watch them and feel no shame, only awe.
P.S.
ALLEGRA KRIEGER smashed her opening set for CHRISTIAN LEE HUTSON at The Blue Room. i became friends with her boyfriend Kevin who i can confidently say is the man and lives in southern vermont near where i used to live, which is so great. RYAN DAVIS AND THE ROADHOUSE BAND played the best set i have ever seen at Soft Junk under the threat of a tornado watch and eventual rain. the scene could not have been any better.