my name is jonas (part 3b)

sirs, and ladies, i apologize for the interruption. as last time drew to a close, we were discussing that although technically metal and punk have ruled that time period we have already come to call the last decade, as early as 2002 i had my nose to the wind, picking up the faint scent of that which we call indie rock. and dear readers, it smelt like something i should feel guilty about. the punk rocker that was 19 year old vern could not degrade himself to listen to that heartless and passionless drivel and would rather be listening to a 15 year old blink 182 cover band labor through an hour set than be caught dead with a dashboard confessional cd under his mattress. exaggeration you say? on some days. i will say that it did help the fact that among the ranks of bands i would listen to late at night when noone was awake to judge, were the likes of jeff suffering, who had more punk cred in his little finger than all of south east texas.

more importantly than looking cool, my body needed pop. i needed sweet little girls with hair under their arms singing about troloping through the woods or whatever it is that hippies do these days. i needed weezer's melodies to lull me into a false sense of ok-ness with the world. i needed to know that someone else out there felt my chris carabba-esque pain.

...

its been a week dear readers since ive written the two paragraphs above. i came back to this page over and over hoping the creative juices would flow like a waterfall of chocolate into charlies darling little hands. and then i realized that i hate that movie. i also realized that i cannot write about music while i am not feeling the music, and i havent felt the musical pull. at least not when ive sat down. but this brings me to my point, music makes you feel. it can make you dance like a goat on fire.

in ten years i have denied myself certain joys, but also, ive felt more music than i think some people feel in their entire lives, and dear readers, music has ruled, and you could even say saved, my life. it was about ten years ago, maybe a bit more that i decided that i wanted to play music for the sole purpose of helping other people feel music the way i did. i wanted to do for others what others had done for me. that is why i play, and ultimately what determines the music i listen to. i seek that feeling. i dont care if its good music, if it doesnt make me feel, then its out. and most of my friends know that i will listen to garbage that makes me happy. (ie. chumbawamba, or mxpx's version of auld lang syne)

i cant go into too many details right now. perhaps there will be a time and place for that, but i have just run out of clever things to say. and now dear readers, some of my favorite musical moments of the past ten years.

1) i walk into the house with an inadvertent soundtrack of point of recognition. clay is doing some air punches in his room, he sees me, smiles a smile of ultimate satisfaction and stage dives out of sight onto his bed.

2) flogging molly, the fist time. scott and i both have a shot of jager in one hand and a guiness in the other. joe strummers redemption song goes on the speakers as the lights go down. we toast, shot, and start in on our beer. by the time the song is over and the first strains of drunken lullabies comes on, our beers are finished. one last look, all smiles, as we charge the stage.

3) a truck stop just outside of denver colorado will be the setting for this one. its been a long day of blizzards and loud mouth truckers. thus the song. heidi tells me i hafto hear this band. i put the ear buds in as the angelic sounds of the murder city devils wash over me. 18 wheels is the song, and i am speechless. i smoke a cigarette after.

4) for some of my friends, whos musicality started toward the begining of the previous decade, this will time stamp me to the younger generation. keep in mind tho that i grew up in the middle of what the kids refer to as bfe. i wont tell you what it stands for, my sister reads this, however the first time i saw a band that wasnt on a big stage a milion miles away was in this decade my friends. living sacrifice, stavesacre, and project 86. living sacrifice blew my small town mind.

5) my first performance with a band. shortsleve was our name, falling down and breaking stuff was our game. we either sounded horrible or we sounded like dogwood, take your pick, but i think everyone had a good time.

just a few my friends. for the rest you will have to be with me at the right time, on the right night, at the right level of inebriation, and then you will hear all about it.

happy holidays, you bastards.

and thank you dear readers.

memphis has been laid to waste (part 3a)

so much in the past ten years. so many changes. the body changes every seven. completely new cells. i heard that once, im not sure, but it makes sense looking at how much someone changes in ten years. for me, it went from from being in high school to 8 years graduated, and i still dont have a career, nor have i held a single job for more than a year's time. through college (failing out 4 times) and living in my car/brother's couch/future brother-in-law's couch. ive hitched from coast to coast and back, and flew to the other side of the world twice. tho i'm not quite done with them, i believe the first ten years out of high school are one's most formative. they also give one the chance to branch out and see what he or she is made of, as well as seeing what the world around one is made of. saying that, i hope to be proven wrong, and i hope to continue to have many of the same types of experiences through the next ten years. but today my friends, we speak of music. more specifically, the music i started this decade with, a little of what happened in the middle, and the music i am ending this decade with. so, my dearest readers, with a fresh cup of coffee and a new song starting as we speak, let us begin.

to the best of my knowledge, at the turn of the century 'living sacrifice' and 'zao' were my favorite bands, with 'horde', 'extol', 'overcome', and 'few left standing' making for a fairly brutal second wave. i had just discovered hardcore music in the months since the last summer, making the switchover from contemporary christian to spirit filled hardcore with grace and style fit for any small town preacher's kid. i probably even spent the dreaded y2k changeover in my room with my headphones on listening to bruce fitzhugh scream about how christians shouldnt smoke*. ah, christian metal. scare your parents for jesus. i was just trying to express myself, i said. i was just being what god made me. ha. to be one hundred percent on this, it was about half and half. i can think back to junior high, being attracted to the heavier, faster parts of the christian rock that dominated my burgeoning taste buds for years. i really wanted heavier, faster music, and i'd finally found it. but like i said, being at one hundred percent, it was kinda fun to piss off my parents. that got old after a little while. thats probably about the time the bitterness started to set in and solidified my need for speed, as it were.

my roots in this style of music have shaped the last decade, and even ruled the first half of it as a foundation for whatever else was going on in my head. by the end of high school, i listened mostly to black metal and goth, but still had one hand in hardcore. by 2003, it was all punk all the time, except for when my friends and i would get together and try to find the most brutal, bone crushing, blastbeat ridden, skull pounding, yet still danceable breakdowns. speaking of which, ive always hated hardcore dancing. dumb. i digress. where was i? punk rock. perhaps as one looking in, punk could adequately describe the last ten years. but i wouldn't've gotten there without metal coming first, and then later, dragging me back into 80's hardcore in late 2004 or so. punk was all i wanted to be for all time, forever and into eternity. never quite made it, did i? little things kept pulling me away. the fact that i was an idiot being the chief concern. growing up in a little town and then moving to a slightly bigger town didnt really give me the chance to flex my punkrockedness much. as soon as i got out of huntsville and saw the rest of the world, i realized that i was full of it. like most people who are, i realized that i had a really good imagination about the world around me. le sigh. back to the music talk? no, i will break now and make this a two parter. next time discussing the undercurrents (purposefully?) not seen by the average 'vern friend'. or maybe nobody really cared that much and im a vain, s...[end transmission]

*the song 'burn the end' was actually on the cd 'the hammering process' which wasn't released till later in 2000, which means i was probably actually listening to zao. forgive me, dear readers.