Be the tour you want to see in the world

When I was 21 I still hadn’t seen Rancid, so I went to this outdoor festival in the middle of a parking lot in Asbury Park to try to make that happen. I stood up front during the band before them (Dropkick Murphys) and promptly got head-butted by someone rocking out too hard. GREAT.

Rancid was awesome, I ran into Lars Frederiksen in the crowd, they relegated all the bands fronted by women to some lady-themed stage, and for some reason the only other band I remember seeing was All American Rejects. It was way too hot, way too crowded for me, and I was clearly not punk enough. Final score: 4/10, probably wouldn’t go again.

And that’s the story of the one and only time I went to W&#ped To*r.

I bring this up because the man who founded it said some ridiculous things a couple days ago about why the annual tour ended. Turns out Modern Baseball killed punk! 🙄I’ll spare you my full rant on why I’m not a fan of that tour. It’s truly not important. The important thing that this brought up for me, however, is that there are so many musicians and bands putting their effort into creating positive, inclusive spaces for their fans. Those are the people I want to support. Find more of those people.

I could (and did) spend a bunch of time looking at my phone, writing and deleting a million tweets being angry at some dude for no good reason. It could’ve been spent making a list of all the rad music and art I’ve been seeing. There’s a lot of it!

So I wanted to share with you a few things that I think are reinforcing the kind of community I want. These folks are amazing and talented and deserve your support.

Jeff and Laura put out a Neil Young covers EP. If you haven’t heard it yet, it’s beautiful. Two of the best humans made an incredible thing. Go figure.

Adult Mom has a couple amazing records out, and they’re having some label issues right now that you may have heard about. All of that aside, they’re a wonderful band, fronted by the awesome Stevie Knipe, who I’ve had the pleasure of sharing a stage with a couple times. I remember seeing them at PhilaMOCA once and I thought it was like listening to a queer Dolores O’Riordan from the Cranberries front an indie-punk band. Their voice is amazing. Give it a listen!

Mal Devisa posted the other day that her 2016 first album kiid is now on Bandcamp. We played a show with her in Boston once and it was one of the coolest sets I’ve ever seen. It’s in the same realm as Tune-Yards and her voice is SO strong, it’s very striking. I just remember wanting to shout YAAAAY at the end of her set. It was really powerful.

Last night I watched my friend Angie play drums in Sleater Kinney. What a sentence! She’s also in a band called Freezing Cold and they released their debut LP Glimmer not too long ago. The band includes Jeff Cunningham from Bridge and Tunnel, along with Nick Rice from Weed Hounds, and it was produced by J Robbins from Jawbox. While I pick up all of those names, go check out their record:

Other bands that I’m psyched on right now, in a similar vein of positivity, include Culture Abuse, Rosie Tucker, and Future Teens.

While I sit here and fight off anxiety about not being on tour right now, I’ll throw in the fact that you can further support Worriers through things like subscribing to this newsletter for $5/month or $50/year, picking up some of our remaining merch, following us on Spotify, Instagram, Twitter, etc. or even just sharing our songs with your friends. It goes a long way and means a lot!