Dear Boy In Store

I had another really good weekend. It was a standout two days in a month that has really sucked. Quick Disneyland trip, coffee with my BFFL, first meeting as a sorority advisor, and the train wreck that was the VMA’s. (I did a lot of side eyeing my television last night, that’s for sure). The funny part is, all of that happened on just Sunday! On Saturday (yes, I realize this is backwards), I went to an in store performance by one of my favorite bands, Dear Boy.

According to their Facebook page, Dear Boy (Ben Grey, Keith Cooper, Austin Hayman, and Nils Bue) is bitter-sweet alternative rock with roots in both post-punk and 90‘s British guitar pop. They are based out of Los Angeles and recorded their first EP in London. They’ve built a devoted live following through their shows and you will generally find me somewhere in the crowd if they’re playing in Los Angeles. 

I met Ben in July of 2006, during a rather low period in my life. His previous outfit, Scarlet Grey, was opening for Nico Vega at The Troubadour. I was aware of them, as they had opened for AFI (basically my favorite band of all time), the previous fall. They were great. I stopped by the merch table after the show to express my thanks for their work and tell them I’d be at their next LA show. Fast forward a few months; I’ve kept my promise, Ben spots after they’re done playing, and thanks me for that. We become friends. Ben Grey is one of the most gracious, talented, kind people I have ever met in my life. Even if I’ve already gotten a Facebook notification about a show and RSVP’d, he will still personally message me to invite me, ask me how I’m doing, and listen if the answer is not so great. He is a great person who also makes really great fucking music, and I urge you to check out Dear Boy. (And this is not to shit on Austin, Keith, or Nils…because they’re also amazing men who are ridiculously talented, and equally kind. Shout out to Nils for sharing his beer with me on Saturday).

The in store was awesome. It was held at Vacation Vinyl in Silverlake. If you like record stores, give it a whirl. They had some really good rare stuff, including Jimmy Fallon’s Tebowie 7”. We celebrated the release of Dear Boy’s first 7” by packing a fire code’s violation worth of people into the store on a day when it was already 91,000 degrees and dancing our butts off to 6 song set. I made a few new friends, I got my 7” signed, and I had the pleasure of talking to some old friends. 

Here’s Dear Boy’s Spotify… 

In other news…quitting my day job to follow my dreams is the scariest thing I’ve ever done and I don’t know if I’m handling it well. 

What the fuck is Miley Cyrus’s new album?

I'm in love with emo Bieber. 

When will summer end?

Until next time.

xo <3

Shakespeare by the Sea

I went to a production of The Tempest put on by Shakespeare By the Sea last night, and I really wish I had done it earlier in the season to tell ya’ll about it, because it was so dope! Shakespeare By The Sea (http://www.shakespearebythesea.org/wp/) is a non-profit that puts on free Shakespeare productions all over Los Angeles County and Orange County during the summer. I’ve been going with my mom since I was a kid. It’s been a while since I went to a performance, and I decided to go last night, because I love The Tempest.

The Tempest is my second favorite by the bard, only after A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s a comedy, so you don’t have to worry about your favorite characters dying. So, basically, this dude named Prospero should be the Duke of Milan, but his a-hole brother, Antonio, and the king, Alonzo, decide that they’re not having it and they strand Prospero and his daughter, Miranda on an island. Prospero and Miranda only have the water sprite, Ariel, and a half-human half-something monster, Calaban to keep them company. Prospero is pissed, so he has Ariel conjure a storm and shipwreck Antonio, Alonzo, Alonzo’s son and heir to the throne Ferdinand, and some other randoms on the island in order to get his revenge. Of course the plot can’t be that simple, and Calaban wants to kill Prospero, and two guys who got shipwrecked want to kill Alonzo, and Miranda and Ferdinand fall in love (which was part of Prospero’s plan, but still pisses him off for some reason). I’m not gonna give away the ending, but trust me, it’s a fun ride.

SBTS’s production was AMAZING. They worked a minimal set, the costumes were gorgeous and sparkly, and the acting was TOP NOTCH. They gender bent Alonzo to Queen Alonza, which made me so happy, because Shakespeare is always light on the female representation. The actress playing Alonza had a serious set of pipes and a magical timbre, too. Their depiction of Ariel was brilliant and utilized multiple actors working together. The Calaban was hilarious. I literally was sitting on the edge of my seat during the first act. It was THAT GOOD.

Sadly, this post comes way too late, because last night was closing night. However, because of the great time I had tonight, I’m certain I’ll be catching whatever they do next summer. You should too! 

xo

vans warped tour 2015

i want to start this post by saying i’m over summer. i really, truly am. the month of august hasn’t been particularly kind to me, and in general i’m not a huge fan of summer. i’m more a basic girl who loves fall and ugg boots. however, there are things i love about summer; bathing suits, swimming, iced tea, shakespeare in the park, and warped tour. 

warped tour has been a big deal for me since i was 14. i was always a music person; but that age signified a really special shift. it was when i really, really developed an interest in making my own music and got my first guitar. it was also when i started to find out the bands that would really shape me by becoming my safe haven during a really rough time; good charlotte, afi, my chemical romance, the used, fall out boy, etc. those bands introduced me to older bands like nofx, bad religion, the misfits. it was a my time. this was when i first started going to shows. as a teenager to me summer didn’t actually start until warped tour kick off. that was the beginning of summer and goofy teenage shenanigans (mostly reading fan fiction at the beach, i was lame as fuck). i can look back on that time with rose colored graduation glasses, but i was fucking miserable. depression, low self-esteem, lack of friends, etc. i will never say i was bullied, but i didn’t have the greatest relationship with my peers and i talked my way out of lot of fights (having given a boy a black eye earlier in life helped with that). i hated being a teenager when i was teenager. i didn’t know what to wear. i hated my body. i wanted everyone to just realize how cool and talented and smart and funny i was without putting myself out there, and then i was resentful when they didn’t. i was the only alt black girl at my school and most of the shows i went to. i always felt out of place. but, i still fucking loved shows. it’s a love that hasn’t ended. and while i am not yet the person i want to be, i continually remind myself that 15 year old me would be so fucking stoked by the person i am today and that’s a really affirming feeling. back in my day; warped tour kicked off in long beach and ended in ventura and it bookended my summer. i decided to go on a nostalgia kick this summer and i went to two dates; pomona (june 19), and san diego (august 5). both dates spoke to my soul.

i hadn’t been to warped in years before this summer. i considered going in 2013, because i really wanted to see black veil brides and walk the moon. black veil brides in particular remind me so much of afi, and my personal relationship with their music parallels how i felt about afi as a teen so much. i had a complete meltdown in 2013; i turned 25, i finished grad school and didn’t know what road to take to get where i wanted to go next, and my longest long term relationship ended “out of nowhere”. black veil brides and walk the moon were the only bands i could listen to without crying, because their music was new to me and i had no emotional ties to it. it helped me get through. it sparked that old passion in me, and i wanted to see them. but, i couldn’t go to warped alone. i just didn’t have the guts for it. i didn’t have the guts for much of anything then. i got to a place at the end of that summer when i was tired of being a bitch and tired of being angry and sad, and i was so tired of feeling like a doormat for the universe, that i needed to take some of my agency back. i called a truce with my ex. i dropped some friends who weren’t empathetic to my pain and confusion. i started to figure out what the fuck i wanted. while i’ve been building the life i’ve wanted for a long time in the past two years, i still regret not going to warped 2013. so, this year it was warped tour or bust.

ironically enough, i went to both warped dates alone. for pomona, i was supposed to go with a friend, who had a scheduling conflict. when he told me, i text another friend; she couldn’t go either. in the past, i would’ve just sold my ticket. i had done it so often before. but in the past two years i’ve learned so much about myself, i’ve grown so fucking much, and i’ve really started to like myself. it sounds crazy. i always loved me— at a distance. but i’ve been engaged in intense self love in the past two years. i can literally say i am my own best friend and my biggest cheerleader and not feel weird about it. and i love my own company now. so much so, that i could spend a day, by myself in the desert, and have the time of my fucking life. i had such a great time pomona, san diego wasn’t even a question. i bought my ticket, took a train down there, and partied my ass off. enough about me and my self-love train. let me talk about music.

pomona band count; beartooth, amity affliction, moose blood, pvris, set it off, miss may i, memphis may fire, metro station, set it off, motion city soundtrack, wonder years, bvb, and pierce the veil. okay. totally was unaware of who beartooth was before warped tour and now i’m in love. they put on a great show. pvris is EVERYTHING; i just want to be lynn gunn. like, i literally considered her haircut for five minutes. she and hayley williams are part of a vocal family tree i’d kill be to a branch on. my friend jon john texted me and told me to watch moose blood and i’m happy he did, because i dig them. SET IT OFF IS MY NEW FAVORITE BAND OF ALL TIME AND THEY WILL BE THE NEXT FALL OUT BOY, MARK MY WORDS. they’re also really great guys. i had them sign my venue map in pomona and accidentally forgot to take it out of the pocket of my high waisted shorts and ended up washing it. i had never seen miss may i live before pomona, and i was thoroughly impressed. i watched two metro station songs before feeling like i was about to pass out, and went to go get more water and a popsicle. and then, i went to the mainstage for what i like to call “barricade or bust”. meaning, i’d seen black veil brides three times before, but never from the front and goddamnit i wanted to be able to see every bead of sweat on jinxx’s face so i was waiting it out until i made my way to the front. i got to see motion city soundtrack and wonder years from a decent spot. i made it to the barricade. i got crushed during august burns red (who i want to try to like, but their singer looks like a stockier version of one of my ex’s and i just can’t get into it). also, since i’m talking shit right now, what’s with never shout never? i felt real old during their set, because i didn’t get it. i still don’t get it. ANYWAY. i heard memphis may fire, but couldn’t see them and it made me sad. but then, “barricade or bust” worked, because i was on the barricade DIRECTLY IN THE CENTER for black veil brides. andy spilled his goddamned monster right into my eye and he owes me for that shit. but it was everything.

san diego band count; memphis may fire, metro station, moose blood, atilla, sleeping with sirens, set it off, escape the fate, bebe rexha, mallory knox, bvb, pierce the veil, neck deep, cross faith, our last night. memphis may fire played first that day and i actually saw them instead of just hearing them and i cried like a baby, because their music just hits me in the feels. i saw all of metro station this time, because i was properly hydrated. people tried to give me dirty looks for all the dancing i did, but like…why are you watching metro station if you don’t wanna dance? there’s 6 other stages, go be grumpy somewhere else. i watched moose blood again, and they favorited my tweet about how good their set was. i watched like, an atilla song before trying to find a good spot for sleeping with sirens. pause. i love sleeping with sirens. i am a very big sleeping with sirens fan. like, i generally listen to them every day, no joke. i saw them once earlier this year at self-help fest and was so pissed they weren’t on warped. then lo and behold they played one date of the tour and it was san diego. and they were magical. well, what i saw of them. because…i bailed on their set to see set it off from the front, because I MIGHT LOVE SET IT OFF MORE THAN SLEEPING WITH SIRENS. set it off was EVERYTHING. i danced so hard i lost my sunglasses, and at their signing dan (their guitarist) called me out for acting a fool. they signed my map and i got a set list and they signed that too. i also told cody and max (their vocalist and drummer), a series of bad jokes. sidebar; i went to a thinkTEI songwriting workshop taught by cody carson later that day and it blew my mind wide open and made me even more passionate about being in a band again, so thanks bruh. escape the fate was great, but i wish they had played ashley. ben rexha was the bomb.com and when she told the story of how she sold “monster” to eminem it spoke to my soul. she sold him that song as she was going broke and wanting to give up on her dream and it relaunched her career. do not give up, just because shit looks bad. mallory knox was dope. watch black veil brides from the back this time and felt old when none of the kids around me knew the lyrics to rebel yell. pierce the veil was a giant dance party for me and the random next to me. i think neck deep is gonna be huge in a few years. and i had never heard of cross faith and ended up really liking them. our last night was AMAZING. just amazing. 

after both shows i was covered in a layer of grime when i came home, my hair looked like shit, i sweat off my fake eyelashes, and was sick the day after, but i’d do it all again in a heartbeat. oh, i also got the worst sunburn i ever had in my entire life at san diego. i though my pomona sunburn was bad, and then san diego happened and i was looked like a piece of fried chicken for a week afterwards. as much fun as i had this year at both warped dates, i hope this is the last year i attend as a spectator and from this point on go as a performer.

warming up my vocals. see you later. <3

Dark Ladies

*The following is a work of fiction inspired by one of my favorite Cher songs. 

My mother was a witch. Witchy woman. Witchy mom. One of my first memories is of my little body burning from the inside out with chicken pocked fever; she is standing over me while I thrash in an oatmeal bath my father had run. She waves a peacock feather and mumbles her new age prayer, then lifts me from the bath, wraps me in a Egyptian towel, dresses me in my Underoos and lays me down on my Hello Kitty bed sheets. I stop burning in an hour. I’m playing with the neighbor’s dog in two. I stopped trusting her shortly after that. Dark lady. Weird lady. Witchy Mom.  

I was Daddy’s little girl.  I longed for his hugs. His kisses. His lifting me      way-uppy-high to spin round and round like the ceiling fan.  I loved to smell his flannel shirts rich with the smell of wood from construction sites. My dad built houses. My dad fixed cars on the weekends. My dad ate hamburgers cooked rare and Macaroni from boxes. My dad’s only flaw was loving the wrong woman. He was nothing like her. She was glitter, feathers, raw food diets, yoga, tea, Stevie Nicks, and lies. He was wood, mechanics, roast chicken, college football, beer, Van Halen, and trust. 

I can figure why he fell in love with her; her smooth skin, long dark wavy hair, silk dresses, vintage boots, deep confident voice, the full-lipped smile. She was beautiful and the only thing I love about her deceptive beauty is that I inherited none of it. She would have wondered if I were her child if she didn’t remember every second of the thirty-hour labor.  Beyond that, I can figure she probably did something to make him love her. Witchy Mom. She didn’t figure they’d be too different. Her appetite was insatiable and he wouldn’t be enough. She wouldn’t be able to reverse whatever magic it was that made him come to her, and he would never leave. She couldn’t magic away a child he couldn’t walk away from, nor take from its mother. 

I stopped trusting her for two reasons. She couldn’t love my father the way he deserved, and there was no magic she could say that would stop cancer. It was after the chicken pox time. I had walked home from my second grade class in my cowboy boots and pink dress. My mother had forgotten school was a half-day that day. I came home and she was drinking herbal tea in her silk bathrobe with a shirtless man; the living room smelled like incense and musk, and even though I was only seven I knew it was all wrong. She hustled me to my bedroom where I kicked the walls and ripped the feathers from my hair and cried until my father came home and all of the evidence of her tryst was erased. Six months later my father’s cancer was so bad he couldn’t walk. He couldn’t lift me in the air anymore. He couldn’t shoot his guns, fix his cars, or sing along to his favorite Bruce Springsteen tapes. He died after my eighth birthday. I have always blamed her and her lack of love. Witchy Mom. Bad Wife. Dark lady. 

If I was daddy’s little girl before, I became my father afterwards. I learned how to shoot his guns. I ate my steak while it still bled.  I spent the weekends underneath cars learning how to take them apart, how to steal them for joyrides and park them like they had never been moved. I dressed in jeans, heavy black boots, and leather jackets. I listened to the hardest of rock about death and disease and sex. And I fell in love with the wrong person. I eschewed anything pretty and bright and anything my mother would approve of. I didn’t let her braid my hair or magic away my colds or anything. When her boyfriends came over I spit in their faces and told them to fuck off. I was a problem child, a rebellious teen, and an ungrateful adult. After my architecture degree was complete and early-onset Alzheimer’s started to ravage her brain, I had her sent to a home where the rooms were so small she couldn’t take her cards, her crystals, her dream catchers, or her recipe books. 

My boyfriend didn’t understand why he had never met my mother, though I had taken him to my father’s gravesite. He didn’t understand why I always visited her alone, and only once every few months. He never understood why I looked at him out the side of my eye when he said he wanted to stay home while I was getting dressed for the bar. He didn’t understand why I hated tea, Coldplay, and nice dresses. But, he was kind, and tall, and had a good sense of humor, and smelled like freshly cut wood and concrete.  He was the first person I had loved since my father had died. It had been seventeen years since I had loved anyone; of course I was blinded by it. 

The only thing I had taken from my mother was her intuition. I had felt it was all wrong the day I came home early from school so many years ago. I could feel when my boyfriend started to pull away. Something about the way his brown hair was falling into his eyes was all wrong those days and I couldn’t shake it. I went to visit my mother. I had no desire to see her, but the doctor had called me and told she was unresponsive. It would only be a matter of time. I sat with her and didn’t say anything. The light in her eyes made me know she knew who I was. Witchy Mom. I sat there, rubbing my sweaty palms on my jeans. I was about to leave when she opened her lips and spoke. I almost couldn’t make out what she was trying to tell me. It was an address. I shook my head and left her room. 

The address was only slightly out of my way. I don’t know why I wanted to see what it was. I don’t know why I cared about anything that woman had to say. Dark Lady. Witchy Mom. I drove my motorcycle down the street and slowed in front of the right numbered storefront. It was a magic store. Psychic shop. Witch haven. Of course. I should have known. The gust of wind that blew the door open was the only thing that made me go inside. I sat at a low table. The scent in the room was familiar, intoxicating, and spooky as fuck. The woman entered from behind a curtain of beads, like the kind that used to hang our kitchen when I was a kid. She was beautiful, like my mother. Dark lady. Witch lady. She sat down and asked who I was, asked why I was there. I told her I didn’t know. She lit her candles. She pulled out her cards and turned them over; a king and a three.  Witch woman. She mumbled her witchy words, the way my mother used to. She turned up a black two-eyed jack. My vision went red and tears welled in my eyes. She spoke again and told me my boyfriend’s name. I stood up and walked out of the room before she could continue. 

I got back on my motorcycle and drove down the high way, then up the high way. Up and down again. I couldn’t shake the all-wrong feeling, the way my mother had looked at me that afternoon, the memory of my father’s crippled body in his last days, the way my mother’s boyfriend has smiled at her in my father’s home, my boyfriend’s brown hair, that witch woman my mother had sent me to, and most of all that fucking smell. That smell I had smelled before. That incense and musk and dishonest smell. I went home and lay in my bed without getting undressed. I tossed and turned in my big black boots and turned up The Black Keys on my iPod trying to get the images out of my head, and they disappeared, but the smell remained. I thought I had remembered it only from that afternoon so many years ago. But lying in my bed, in my jeans, reminded me of weeks ago. One night when I had gone to the bar and he had stayed in. I came in, took off my boots, my jacket, and my sweater, and lay in bed drunk in my bra and jeans tossing and turning and smelling that scent all over my bed sheets.

I leapt from my bed and stood in the middle of the floor of my bedroom. I couldn’t magic this away, I wasn’t my mother. Witch woman. I couldn’t let it kill me, the way my father had. If I wasn’t my mother or father, who would I be? Dark lady. I could be a dark lady. I could be the best and worst of both of my parents. I got back on my motorcycle and drove back to the Witch’s haven. The front door was locked, but the side door was not. I crept through the room with the low table and the candles, and took the gun out of the waistband on my jeans. I parted the beaded curtains as quietly as I could and saw them there in the back room. That witch woman and my boyfriend. They were laughing and kissing and drinking herbal tea with wine. And then they weren’t laughing or kissing or drinking because they were both dead on the floor, lying in a pile of feathers and glitter and cards that would never be turned up anymore.