When I was 16, 17 years old, I became aware of music coming out of Olympia, Wash., which is the state capitol and about an hour south of Seattle. And there were bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile and Heavens To Betsy, and for the first time, I heard my story being explained to me, being sung to me.
With so much of music blurring the lines between ersatz and authenticity, at least the 'Rock Band' game is a tribute to rock rather than an affront.
Nutty fans are fine with me, as I have no known nut allergy. In general, though, it's best to carry an EpiPen to deal with outbreaks of fan nuttiness.
I think there's a lot of wonderful comics that leave you hanging in a state of apprehension or anxiety before alleviating that tension with a joke.
Much of the music I remember from camp was unofficial: the songs a counselor would play for us on acoustic guitar or that an older camper would sing after telling us a tale of his hard-knock life. We couldn't get enough of 'One Tin Soldier' or 'Cat's in the Cradle.'
I think people would describe a lot of Sleater-Kinney as unsettling. And I don't think our best moments have sonic assonance to them. I think that we are best with a little bit of... a caustic attitude and tone.
There's some horrible connotations in the word 'reunion.'
The value of kitsch exists in its novelty and in its connotations to more legitimate counterparts.
I have really never aligned myself with hipsterdom or coolness.
Of course, 'Portlandia' is all about ways that people curate their physical space and their life.
One summer, when I was elementary-school age, my neighbors and I built guitars and keyboards out of scrap wood, painted them in bright colors, and formed the cover band Lil' 'D' Duran Duran. We didn't make our own noise or even pretend to play our fake instruments.
What I appreciate about Sleater-Kinney is that we did six records, and they all felt different. It was a band that was able to encapsulate different sensibilities because we were focusing on it as music and art and not as a statement.
I try, in the present, to not exalt the past because I think that's such a way of diminishing the present. And it's hard to live like that.
I think music took hold of me and captured my imagination at such a formative age that I ascribe a mysteriousness to it, and I exalt it and take it seriously in a way that I think has just permeated my life ever since. And I'm less interested in music that is novelty or jokey or ironic.
So many things can be filtered through fandom - joy, compassion, love.
I get mad at myself when I get news from Twitter before I get it from a regular news source. Then I'm off to a bad start: getting the second-hand, filtered experience all day long.
The Northwest, to make a generalization, is a fairly sensitive populace. Slightly self-conscious and very self-reflexive.
Only in retrospect can I find clues to my father's gayness. Sometimes the dull detritus of our pasts become glaring strands once you realize they form a pattern, a lighted path to the present.
The hedonistic lifestyle is difficult to achieve when you're still carrying your own gear. Trust me that you don't feel glamorous with a 60-pound amp in your arms; it's a lot less sexy than toting a vodka gimlet and impossible to do in heels.
In the early and mid 1990s, every musician I knew was obsessed with Helium. The 'Pirate Prude' EP and 'Pat's Trick' played on repeat at nearly every gathering I attended. And we didn't just listen to these records - we discussed them, the worlds they opened, novelistic and strange.
