Business as usual, but I already hated the usual business.
California is set to reopen pretty much everything on June 15. That's next week. It doesn't feel real and despite the fact that I actually got a drink with a couple friends last week I don't understand what "open" will really mean. The opportunity to return to a world where we don't only talk about our pandemic experiences is obviously exciting but also incredibly nerve wracking. I'm not the only one anxious about it, and as much as I'm excited for live events to return, I'm also dreading it. I miss a lot of things about touring but there's some things about an active music industry that really needed a time out.
Now that more people are releasing new music again, announcing tours, making merch, I am bracing myself for a wave of you have got to be fucking kidding me.
This morning, the artist Pronoun reminded me of a phenomenon that gives me so much anxiety after all of this that it makes me hesitant to ever tour again:
“How was your first show back?!”
— 👅 PRONOUN 👅 (@musicpronoun) June 7, 2021
The production company talked back at us minutes before we played and then apologized right after to the two men in my band and not me! 🙃
I had no patience for this before the pandemic so I definitely have no patience for it now. Additionally, if someone tries to explain my own amp to me, acts like this is my first rodeo, or says that they're surprised they enjoyed our set... I am going to lose my f*#!ing mind.
I'm really looking forward to seeing folks out on tour soon, but that three-band bill of all straight white men? Y'ALL. HAVE WE NOT LEARNED?! Not that I'm surprised, but the feeling those announcements bring is one I don't want back in my life. Please leave that oblivious shit in 2019.
Also recently, which we shall discuss later this month, a label pandered to the LGBTQ community in a way that I find performative and boring and not at all surprising. It's that oh so familiar feeling of really, y'all? That feeling is one of the reasons many folks I know have ran screaming from the term punk in the past decade, a prime example being that recent Madball show in Tompkins Square Park. A couple of my friends discuss it on this podcast and I appreciate the fact that they're two men picking apart how stupid all aspects of that show were. If that scene is covered in the punk umbrella I'm fine to get soaked in the rain, thanks.
So while I'm not excited for the return to business as usual in many ways, here are some things coming up that I am excited about:
- I was able to see the new Rob Sato exhibition in person
- Julien Baker is touring in September
- Bleachers is touring with Claud (I fucked up and didn't get tickets to the LA show if anyone can help a friend out 😂🤞)
- A new Distillers album is coming out at some point this year!
- Laura Stevenson has new music out today! I'm writing this before I can hear it but there's no way it's not amazing.
- Craig of the Creek is back as of yesterday, featuring music by Jeff Rosenstock
- Dan Ozzi wrote a book called Sellout: The Major Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994-2007) and it comes out in October. I've read one chapter, which was awesome, and Dan has told me so much about it. I'm looking forward to reading the whole thing!
- I'm going to go watch the Menzingers livestream tonight with some friends. ❤️
ICYMI I did a big art shop update last week and added two new prints! Between that and Worriers merch going up on Bandcamp, mailorder now rules everything around me.