001: Serendipitous Sounds
a series on my musical journey
For one reason or another, it’s been a cluster cuss of a week so I have been wanting to write something fun (any Wes Anderson fans around here? Of course there are, he’s a genius and you lot are also geniuses.)
I have been CRAVING a post write-up about music but it’s such an expansive topic and therefore I have been thinking a lot about my interaction and experiences with music. I could go on and on, so I decided I would be. It’s a series now oop. That’s the glorious thing about Substack, it’s yours and you can write about whatever you want, you make your own rules. So will I be adding ‘musician’ to my bio… *shrugs* I technically am one so maybe.
It all started when I was five. Apparently, I was a dancing baby, so earlier than five– you know the littles that dance as soon as they can walk, the singers before they can talk. I see it in my daughter, genetics are crazy. I sang in my grandparent's ginormous Baptist church in the Christmas play in the children’s choir, wearing a red checked Christmas dress with white frilly socks and dress shoes. It’s one of my earliest memories of singing, I think. I remember being amazed by the applause and eyes on me (and the rest of the kids), beaming at the choir director, “Oh, come all ye faithful.” The red jello with a puff of cool whip on top after service hit the spot.
I continued the choir streak from elementary into middle school and through high school all the way up to concert choir as a Senior. Which at my school was the pinnacle of choir nerdom, if you know you know. It wasn’t cool to be in choir but I idolized the senior girls with their long black choir dresses as a kid, singing incredibly high notes so to be one of them was a lifelong goal. I always tell the story of singing valentines where we got to choose a “contemporary” song to arrange in our small groups of five. We could be “purchased” (candy cane style, once again, iykyk) to sing in classrooms to Steven’s girlfriend of one month in Geometry class. I was put in the group singing “Just the Way You Are”-Bruno Mars. I was an alto two. FML. I had to sing in a man’s vocal range in front of my crush it was *horrifying*. (I lived, but almost died from embarrassment, spoil alert.)
I think about my foray into actually good music. It was a slow burn, with most millennials it all began with a little band called Paramore in middle school (and blink-182 of course). I was a rocker girl (he was sk8r boi). Except I wasn’t allowed to have a Myspace but I did anyway and you better believe my emo/screamo girl music was on that playlist. You can’t forget where you came from, you know. (we will not be deep diving into what the emo music was, we can use our imagination, some things are better left in the past lol).
It wasn’t until my freshman year of high school that I discovered *indie* music. Passion Pit changed my life in the back of the mom-van of my friend Hannah on a road trip to IKEA for her fifteenth birthday. Hannah had a huge laugh and is still to do this day the funniest girl I know, I have her to thank her for introducing me to indie synth music. I had another best friend named Jessica (she was a cutie) and she lived in this amazing house by the beach (I grew up in Florida), she was the epitome of ‘cool girl’ to me. She had amazing taste in everything–looking back I still think this– I still remember to this day the feeling of utter contentment and awe waking up on her living room floor at a sleepover and her running up to their loft to put a record on to get our morning going. That record was Campus-Vampire Weekend circa 2009, I hadn’t heard it yet and it was indie girl movie magic. I was hooked from then on. I dug for hours on Purevolume, iTunes and Youtube for the most indie thing I could find, to the point my parents had to yell at me to get off my computer they regretted getting me. So I could be like “Oh, have you heard of ___, no?… oh” to my friends. Le eye-roll.
Indie pop was blooming into its first iteration I would say, bands like Phoenix, Tokyo Police Club, Two Door Cinema Club, all the clubs really laying the foundation for a resurgence of the 80’s but with guitar-driven melodies. 2009 was a formative age for myself in music and I would argue to say a turning point for the mid 2000’s. Alternative piano-heavy music was on the radio, heavy rock still reigned supreme, bubblegum pop and dirty rap were still prevalent of course, but there was an undercurrent of weirdos making shit up that no one had heard before, dancy trippy fun stuff. I could go on and on about my high school experience finding my music tastes and digging for any all things new. iTunes songs were $.99 so as a high schooler with a couple of iTunes gift cards from your grandparents, you had to actually want the music you were listening to. You had some ownership of it, literally. It took research and dedication. I sound like a good ol’ days cloud-gazing finger shaker right now.
Live music was another journey in itself that I can get more into down the road. Still, I remember my first show ever, I was a kid and it was to see my mom’s favorite band (let’s just say she did not have good taste in music), so I don’t even count this experience to be fair. The first boy band I ever saw was in middle school and my private school had a conference where they brought in this popular Christian band at the time. They played alternative rock songs with themes of romance in them. Looking back, how cringey. I ate it up as a middle schooler, the swoopy hair, and musicianship. I remember it was the first time I consciously noticed that music is made up of individuals playing instruments together at the same time since I was right by the stage watching the guitarist and I was hooked. I got a picture with them and they signed a poster with their faces on it for me which then hung on my bulletin board in my room above my desk for far too long.
That’s just where I have come from, my connection to music a personal one from the start I think is what I am getting at, and we all have our stories and memories with it. The way a song can transport you back into a moment is unlike anything, it evokes emotion and can remind you of people or places you have been. It binds us to others who enjoy the same things as us. Which I love, Brian Eno said:
Music is the big connector; it's the superpower that we all have.
Anywho, I cannot wait to get into current-day music obsessions and share some playlists and such down the road. Thank you reader for allowing my foray into my personal music history like this. Welcome to my music memoir.
Thanks for sharing this, Liz. Makes me really wish I kept up with my music.
Can’t wait to see your playlists!!