By Daron Hennessey, Contributor, Virginia Tech
Foster an early disdain for the taste of the masses. When everyone else is listening to top 40’s hits, listen to all the music your older brother listens to, the classic rock that your parents still love: Queen, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Journey, and learn the words to all of it. Sneering, tell everyone in your seventh grade math class that you don’t really like Miley Cyrus, and roll your eyes when that new song by Fergie plays (even though you know the words to that too—but it’s really hard not, only because you hear it so much.)
When you’re starting high school, branch out a little. Test the waters. Use the iTunes gift card you got for Christmas to buy that song you heard your cousin play on the guitar once, about the gang of murderers: “Shankill Butchers” by the Decemberists. Buy the rest of the album. Tell everyone you love it because it isn’t all just love songs. Draw the cover art on your binders—a crane with a broken wing—so that people will ask you what it is and you can sound like you know what you’re talking about. When a boy in your history class recognizes it, engage him. Later, when he makes you a mix CD, listen to every song on it and look up all of the artists and full albums of theirs, just to impress him later on. Start off listening to beginner indie rock bands, like Death Cab for Cutie, and the Killers. Listen to their albums on Youtube. Buy those too. Pay attention to the great songs you feel no one pays attention to. Not just “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” and “All These Things That I’ve Done,” but the smaller sad ones like “What Sarah Said” and “Jenny Was A Friend of Mine,” and talk to everyone who will listen about how much better those are, even if they’re not as catchy. Make your friends copies, so that they can listen to them too, in hopes that if they ever find something worth listening to, they’ll share it with you.
At the end of ninth grade, when you know by heart everything the Decemberists have ever recorded, and you hear they’re releasing a new album, (a rock opera, no less,) start making everyone you know listen to it on repeat, ensuring someone will go to the concert with you. Check tour dates every day until Atlanta shows up. Start trying to convince your dad to let you go a month beforehand. Get your brother to go with you—even if it’s just with you and your best friend, promise he’ll still have fun; you won’t be annoying. Offer to pay for parking in the city. Try to keep your excitement in and act like you’re not fifteen at your first concert surrounded by thirty-year-old stoners. Sing to every song, like they might be able to hear you. Brag about having touched the stomach of the fat sweaty guitar player when he crowd-surfed right over you (even though you didn’t really, you weren’t tall enough). Buy a t-shirt, the most eye-catching one they have, and the album of the opening act. Why not?
Listen to that album (3 Rounds and a Sound--Blind Pilot) almost exclusively that summer, and tell everyone it changed your life. They’re your favorite band now, of course, but no one’s ever heard of them. Complain about that fact, but secretly revel in it, like it makes them your close personal friends. Suggest them and other bands to that boy from your class, Matthew, and take suggestions in return, even if some of them are a little out there: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Bright Eyes, Dr. Dog, The Strokes. Start downloading all of it illegally because really who can afford all that?
In class, when Matthew brags about going to the Muse concert that weekend, profess your extreme jealousy, and don’t mention that you really only know one or two songs of theirs. If he calls that Saturday, saying that his friend can’t go and asks if you want to—sorry it’s so last minute—accept immediately and spend the afternoon blasting everything Muse has ever done while trying to find something to wear. Make an effort to learn the words to at least the choruses of a few of the songs, so that when you’re at the show, you can sing along and jump up and down like you’ve loved them forever, rather than admit that you just don’t know the band that well. And when, the following Monday, Matthew tells you first thing—by the way, that wasn’t a date or anything—shrug it off casually and say of course not, you were only there for the music.
Listen to bands just because they have funky names, like Neutral Milk Hotel or Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s. Listen to women singers, too: Florence and the Machine, Regina Spektor, and Marina and the Diamonds. Preach about how you have to support them when the industry is against them. Listen to side project bands. When the lead singer of the Shins makes an album with the Black Keys’ producer, Matthew will get it a week before it’s released—somehow—and burn it just for you. Talking with him, compare it to when Ben Gibbard did the Postal Service. Say things like “James Mercer just has a better voice for the more electronic sound. It doesn’t seem as forced,” when you know it really doesn’t matter.
Become the one person your other friends go to for music suggestions, by suggesting things before they ask. In fact, do this to the point that it’s annoying, because whatever, it’s for their own good. For a bad break up--Midnight Organ Flight by Frightened Rabbit. For spending a day down the shore--Mignonette by the Avett Brothers. For a feeling of general loneliness--Seeds by Hey Rosetta! For ambient falling asleep music--For Emma, Forever by Bon Iver. (That’s “bohn ee-vair”, by the way, it’s French for “good winter.”) Have something for everything. And if someone tries to suggest a band to you, say, “yes I’ve heard of them,“ even if you haven’t, “I haven’t heard them much.” But say it with the tone like it’s the band’s own fault you haven’t heard of them. Every band you haven’t heard of is a personal challenge, so make it your business to know that band, download an album, look up where they’re from, the name of the lead singer. And if they’re any good, you can get credit for showing them to Matthew before he can get there first.
When Band of Horses comes to town, get tickets for you and your best friend. Go with her sister when she decides she wants to go with her boyfriend and buys tickets in a different section. But meet up with Matthew there, and spend most of the night with him. His seats are closer, of course, and there are a few empty ones around that he says you both can occupy. When they play the song you know is his favorite, try not to scowl when he spends the whole time texting his new girlfriend, who’s two years younger than you and listens to Taylor Swift. Turn down his offer to drive you home when you have to leave early with your friend and her boyfriend, who has a sudden migraine. Maybe don’t listen to Band of Horses for a while, they’re too country-ish anyway.
Doodle song lyrics on your skin. Imagine one you’d like as a tattoo, and where. Re-draw it there every day until you get sick of it, and then think of another. Keep a bulletin collage of ticket stubs and lament how the ones you print off online aren’t nearly as cool. Road trip to Athens, two hours away, to see Blind Pilot play at a bar with a fake ID your brother borrowed for you. Drive back at three in the morning. The next day at school wear your tired expression as proudly as you wear your new t-shirt. Tell Matthew all about it, because it was his girlfriend’s birthday and he couldn’t go, even though you did invite them both. Tell him you almost melted when the band got off stage, barely a foot away from you, and unplugged their instruments to play the last song. Tell him you did melt when Israel Nebeker patted your shoulder on his way out and said, “Thanks for knowing the words.” Try not to smirk when Matthew looks like he might vomit with jealousy. Tell everyone it happened so often they want to kill Israel Nebeker for patting your shoulder in the first place.
Use radio websites—but not Pandora, too many ads—to find new bands that maybe no one else knows yet. Follow music review blogs online. Don’t let anyone accuse you of only listening to a specific type of music. Create a wide range: indie-folk-industrial to neo-tribal. But don’t let go of the bands you loved in ninth grade, even though they’re so mainstream now. Just insist that you’ve been listening to them since before they did get popular.
In fact, when The Decemberists come back to town after their new album releases, do everything you can to convince your dad to buy you a ticket. If you fail in that endeavor because the concert is the same week as your SATs, lament to everyone that you’d give anything to see them again; there were so many songs they didn’t play the first time! And you’ve grown out of your t-shirt! When Matthew unexpectedly gets you both tickets for your birthday, (two weeks after he and his tasteless girlfriend split), convince your dad by saying if he doesn’t let you go, you will flat refuse to do anything productive instead, least of all study. On the way there, show off your skill of identifying any Decemberists song within the first two seconds it plays. Talk Matthew’s ear off about how they won’t have any more albums for a while because the organist has a tumor, and the lead singer is writing children’s books, and the guitarist and drummer have an off-shoot band (which isn’t that good). During the show, in between songs, tell him about the show in 2009, and how they really changed your life and got you into all this great music in the first place. Leaving, mention casually that without the Decemberists, the two of you really never would have been friends in the first place, which you’re really grateful for. Hold hands for a while. When he tells you in the ride back that he really likes you, he just wants things to stay the way they are, that he wants to be close friends and nothing really else—he just wants things to stay the same—just say okay. Stay mostly silent for the rest of the lengthy drive, humming to the music to prove you’re not upset. You’d sing, but you don’t know this band—weird, because he used to share all his music with you.
When, after that, he stops talking to you, stops playing you music in the hallway, stops leaving CDs in your locker, you should completely stop listening to all the music that reminds you of him. Find new bands on your own: Little Joy, Grizzly Bear, and The Teeth. Good music that carries no emotional attachment or memories. Even though it’s difficult to find them, get a tiny piece of satisfaction with every band he doesn’t know that you now do. Don’t allow yourself to think that he’d love them, or that the lyrics may apply to you both. Refuse to admit that maybe you started listening to this music for him, and you couldn’t escape him in this genre at all. But when “Shankill Butchers” plays one day by accident (you have to remember to turn off Shake-to-Shuffle), remember that Colin Meloy’s voice just calms you down, and that the Decemberists were your favorite band for a reason. How could you have abandoned them? You’ve lost sight of what’s important. So when your friends ask what happened with him, you have to just shrug it off casually and insist again, you were only there for the music.
Foster an early disdain for the taste of the masses. When everyone else is listening to top 40’s hits, listen to all the music your older brother listens to, the classic rock that your parents still love: Queen, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, Journey, and learn the words to all of it. Sneering, tell everyone in your seventh grade math class that you don’t really like Miley Cyrus, and roll your eyes when that new song by Fergie plays (even though you know the words to that too—but it’s really hard not, only because you hear it so much.)
When you’re starting high school, branch out a little. Test the waters. Use the iTunes gift card you got for Christmas to buy that song you heard your cousin play on the guitar once, about the gang of murderers: “Shankill Butchers” by the Decemberists. Buy the rest of the album. Tell everyone you love it because it isn’t all just love songs. Draw the cover art on your binders—a crane with a broken wing—so that people will ask you what it is and you can sound like you know what you’re talking about. When a boy in your history class recognizes it, engage him. Later, when he makes you a mix CD, listen to every song on it and look up all of the artists and full albums of theirs, just to impress him later on. Start off listening to beginner indie rock bands, like Death Cab for Cutie, and the Killers. Listen to their albums on Youtube. Buy those too. Pay attention to the great songs you feel no one pays attention to. Not just “I Will Follow You Into the Dark” and “All These Things That I’ve Done,” but the smaller sad ones like “What Sarah Said” and “Jenny Was A Friend of Mine,” and talk to everyone who will listen about how much better those are, even if they’re not as catchy. Make your friends copies, so that they can listen to them too, in hopes that if they ever find something worth listening to, they’ll share it with you.
At the end of ninth grade, when you know by heart everything the Decemberists have ever recorded, and you hear they’re releasing a new album, (a rock opera, no less,) start making everyone you know listen to it on repeat, ensuring someone will go to the concert with you. Check tour dates every day until Atlanta shows up. Start trying to convince your dad to let you go a month beforehand. Get your brother to go with you—even if it’s just with you and your best friend, promise he’ll still have fun; you won’t be annoying. Offer to pay for parking in the city. Try to keep your excitement in and act like you’re not fifteen at your first concert surrounded by thirty-year-old stoners. Sing to every song, like they might be able to hear you. Brag about having touched the stomach of the fat sweaty guitar player when he crowd-surfed right over you (even though you didn’t really, you weren’t tall enough). Buy a t-shirt, the most eye-catching one they have, and the album of the opening act. Why not?
Listen to that album (3 Rounds and a Sound--Blind Pilot) almost exclusively that summer, and tell everyone it changed your life. They’re your favorite band now, of course, but no one’s ever heard of them. Complain about that fact, but secretly revel in it, like it makes them your close personal friends. Suggest them and other bands to that boy from your class, Matthew, and take suggestions in return, even if some of them are a little out there: Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, Bright Eyes, Dr. Dog, The Strokes. Start downloading all of it illegally because really who can afford all that?
In class, when Matthew brags about going to the Muse concert that weekend, profess your extreme jealousy, and don’t mention that you really only know one or two songs of theirs. If he calls that Saturday, saying that his friend can’t go and asks if you want to—sorry it’s so last minute—accept immediately and spend the afternoon blasting everything Muse has ever done while trying to find something to wear. Make an effort to learn the words to at least the choruses of a few of the songs, so that when you’re at the show, you can sing along and jump up and down like you’ve loved them forever, rather than admit that you just don’t know the band that well. And when, the following Monday, Matthew tells you first thing—by the way, that wasn’t a date or anything—shrug it off casually and say of course not, you were only there for the music.
Listen to bands just because they have funky names, like Neutral Milk Hotel or Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s. Listen to women singers, too: Florence and the Machine, Regina Spektor, and Marina and the Diamonds. Preach about how you have to support them when the industry is against them. Listen to side project bands. When the lead singer of the Shins makes an album with the Black Keys’ producer, Matthew will get it a week before it’s released—somehow—and burn it just for you. Talking with him, compare it to when Ben Gibbard did the Postal Service. Say things like “James Mercer just has a better voice for the more electronic sound. It doesn’t seem as forced,” when you know it really doesn’t matter.
Become the one person your other friends go to for music suggestions, by suggesting things before they ask. In fact, do this to the point that it’s annoying, because whatever, it’s for their own good. For a bad break up--Midnight Organ Flight by Frightened Rabbit. For spending a day down the shore--Mignonette by the Avett Brothers. For a feeling of general loneliness--Seeds by Hey Rosetta! For ambient falling asleep music--For Emma, Forever by Bon Iver. (That’s “bohn ee-vair”, by the way, it’s French for “good winter.”) Have something for everything. And if someone tries to suggest a band to you, say, “yes I’ve heard of them,“ even if you haven’t, “I haven’t heard them much.” But say it with the tone like it’s the band’s own fault you haven’t heard of them. Every band you haven’t heard of is a personal challenge, so make it your business to know that band, download an album, look up where they’re from, the name of the lead singer. And if they’re any good, you can get credit for showing them to Matthew before he can get there first.
When Band of Horses comes to town, get tickets for you and your best friend. Go with her sister when she decides she wants to go with her boyfriend and buys tickets in a different section. But meet up with Matthew there, and spend most of the night with him. His seats are closer, of course, and there are a few empty ones around that he says you both can occupy. When they play the song you know is his favorite, try not to scowl when he spends the whole time texting his new girlfriend, who’s two years younger than you and listens to Taylor Swift. Turn down his offer to drive you home when you have to leave early with your friend and her boyfriend, who has a sudden migraine. Maybe don’t listen to Band of Horses for a while, they’re too country-ish anyway.
Doodle song lyrics on your skin. Imagine one you’d like as a tattoo, and where. Re-draw it there every day until you get sick of it, and then think of another. Keep a bulletin collage of ticket stubs and lament how the ones you print off online aren’t nearly as cool. Road trip to Athens, two hours away, to see Blind Pilot play at a bar with a fake ID your brother borrowed for you. Drive back at three in the morning. The next day at school wear your tired expression as proudly as you wear your new t-shirt. Tell Matthew all about it, because it was his girlfriend’s birthday and he couldn’t go, even though you did invite them both. Tell him you almost melted when the band got off stage, barely a foot away from you, and unplugged their instruments to play the last song. Tell him you did melt when Israel Nebeker patted your shoulder on his way out and said, “Thanks for knowing the words.” Try not to smirk when Matthew looks like he might vomit with jealousy. Tell everyone it happened so often they want to kill Israel Nebeker for patting your shoulder in the first place.
Use radio websites—but not Pandora, too many ads—to find new bands that maybe no one else knows yet. Follow music review blogs online. Don’t let anyone accuse you of only listening to a specific type of music. Create a wide range: indie-folk-industrial to neo-tribal. But don’t let go of the bands you loved in ninth grade, even though they’re so mainstream now. Just insist that you’ve been listening to them since before they did get popular.
In fact, when The Decemberists come back to town after their new album releases, do everything you can to convince your dad to buy you a ticket. If you fail in that endeavor because the concert is the same week as your SATs, lament to everyone that you’d give anything to see them again; there were so many songs they didn’t play the first time! And you’ve grown out of your t-shirt! When Matthew unexpectedly gets you both tickets for your birthday, (two weeks after he and his tasteless girlfriend split), convince your dad by saying if he doesn’t let you go, you will flat refuse to do anything productive instead, least of all study. On the way there, show off your skill of identifying any Decemberists song within the first two seconds it plays. Talk Matthew’s ear off about how they won’t have any more albums for a while because the organist has a tumor, and the lead singer is writing children’s books, and the guitarist and drummer have an off-shoot band (which isn’t that good). During the show, in between songs, tell him about the show in 2009, and how they really changed your life and got you into all this great music in the first place. Leaving, mention casually that without the Decemberists, the two of you really never would have been friends in the first place, which you’re really grateful for. Hold hands for a while. When he tells you in the ride back that he really likes you, he just wants things to stay the way they are, that he wants to be close friends and nothing really else—he just wants things to stay the same—just say okay. Stay mostly silent for the rest of the lengthy drive, humming to the music to prove you’re not upset. You’d sing, but you don’t know this band—weird, because he used to share all his music with you.
When, after that, he stops talking to you, stops playing you music in the hallway, stops leaving CDs in your locker, you should completely stop listening to all the music that reminds you of him. Find new bands on your own: Little Joy, Grizzly Bear, and The Teeth. Good music that carries no emotional attachment or memories. Even though it’s difficult to find them, get a tiny piece of satisfaction with every band he doesn’t know that you now do. Don’t allow yourself to think that he’d love them, or that the lyrics may apply to you both. Refuse to admit that maybe you started listening to this music for him, and you couldn’t escape him in this genre at all. But when “Shankill Butchers” plays one day by accident (you have to remember to turn off Shake-to-Shuffle), remember that Colin Meloy’s voice just calms you down, and that the Decemberists were your favorite band for a reason. How could you have abandoned them? You’ve lost sight of what’s important. So when your friends ask what happened with him, you have to just shrug it off casually and insist again, you were only there for the music.