By the way, if you noticed between all that rambling in that last post, I gave praise to my favorite college radio station. You should too! College Radio Day is October 11th and let’s support it by tuning in, y’all! Radio stations that are participating will air keynote feature: College Radio in 2011: Its Past, Present & Future. Sounds interesting!

And also, it’d be pretty cool to donate to your local college (or even high school) radio station. Lord knows we got to keep this form of media alive. It’s free of corporations and organizations with an agenda. College radio is about teaching and learning (for the DJs and their listeners) and about having an independent voice. Click the picture to learn more and to see if your local college station is participating.

I always forget to thank my local college radio station for all the great music they introduce to me even before there is an actual album or before anyone even knows who that band is. I remember them playing Lily Allen’s “Smile” before her name was even uttered in the States. I had already become familiar with We Are Scientists through MTV2’s Subterranean, but KSYM 90.1 was playing “It’s A Hit” and that was exciting to hear since I was still trying to get to know them. And I love them for introducing me to Pacha Massive during their Spanish Alternative hour. I need to berate them for giving up Sunday night Reggae hour (bring it back!) but overall they’ve done good by me.

And this includes hearing MUTEMATH’s “Chaos” one cold fall evening several years ago. It was a live version KSYM had played and I loved the song so much I immediately looked up the band. They had this really awful-looking website at the time with 5 songs streaming (which I would later learn was their EP). There was no album to buy, there were no songs to download. A YouTube search didn’t amount to a lot of videos of them. Some were live but the sound quality was pretty bad. So I did what any sane person would do: I waited. I waited and waited and waited to hear if this band would produce anything else. I waited to see if they were to become anything. Honestly, I didn’t know what google alerts were back then so I would just get on the computer weekly and see if anything by MM had arrived yet. In 2006 an album was finally released and I snatched it up as soon as possible.

I then went to Bonnaroo in ‘07, saw them live and had decided that they go into that list of favorite bands ever. And this can’t be judged by album alone. You have to see them live! I was introduced to MM that way; it is an even stronger point that it is necessary to see them on a stage. It will be the most exciting, thrilling and creative experiences you will ever see. They are a very technical band, which usually drives me crazy. It’s like, yeah you sound on point but you ain’t got no soul. But MM is technical with the soul. It makes sense being that they are from New Orleans. Jazz music is very technical but you must have that element of music improvisation to make it your own. Though MM has never sounded like a jazz act, there is no denying that where they come from has made its way into their post-rock sound.

So here comes Odd Soul, which has been compared to everything from The Black Keys to Stevie Wonder. It seems a little on the short side, even though most of their albums clock in around 50 minutes. I guess seeing them live so many times makes listening to them in album form more constricting. It feels a little slower at times and not as cohesive in parts. They do the whole blues rock, loud-tambourine-gospel thing that works really well but then they’ll want to remind you that they have always had a very Electronica sound. Those songs on that end are still good but don’t seem to go well with the other sound they want introduced. It’s a playlist, not an album. And even though I don’t mind when bands get big (I love telling everyone about my favorite musical artists. Can’t keep ‘em to myself!), I see MM as vulnerable. They are still this band from New Orleans, still escaping their past incarnation as a “Christian band” so they can just be a band anyone can listen to. Just touring small clubs, not a whole lot of interviews going around, and being low-key. So a song featured on the Twilight soundtrack (yuck! No worries, Muse was on it too) and being on late night talk shows, which takes their grand performances and makes them small, has irked me quite a bit. But I’m giving Odd Soul all the chances I can give it. And they’re coming to San Antonio on October 9th so hopefully I’ll catch them. Truth is, I haven’t been as psyched as I usually am when I’m about to see them. I hate falling out of love with bands. It’s a sign that I’m getting too old or am becoming less understanding of change. But I want MM to always be that band to me. I’ve traveled for them, I introduced my best friend to them and we’ve seen them live together thrice, and I even saw them all by my lonesome when I moved to Denver and hardly knew anyone yet. No matter how many times I’ve been moshing in the pit, almost died of dehydration at Warped Tour (TWICE BY THE WAY), driven up to Austin for a show (can’t even count), cried my eyes out when shows were sold out, some of the most memorable experiences have been with MM. I don’t want to give that up.

I wish them all the success with this new album, and as bad as my grammar is, I hope other music fans can understand where I’m coming from whether they’re familiar with this band or not. How do people successfully keep the music alive in their hearts? I don’t want to get jaded about this band or anything else. MM still have the passion after all these years and I admire that most about musicians who can continually put out albums and do shows with the same “family” for months at a time. I need to be that excited about things and people. I guess that’s why music comes first in the sort-of-superficial-things-to-love list. Music is everything I want to be.

Sometimes the Current actually writes super good articles and this one is about how good our music scene could be. It sucks being in Austin’s shadows. It sucks that you have to drive an hour away to see a show by a larger act. SA has a great local music scene that continues to grow but as far as city promoters reaching out to bands, we need to get on it. We’re also a really large city so it baffles me that we can’t get those shows. This article explains this and much more of what our problem has been.

Last year, We Are Scientists played for the first time here and it was a fantastic show. They actually had a really good turn-out for our city and I hope they had fun. The article quotes a bunch of other artists who have come here and actually enjoyed the scene here. On Labor Day, I hung out with my friend Tash and she talked about how San Antonio has (or had) a very distinct punk scene and sometimes a bad reputation. The fact is we used to be known for live music. We need to get that back!

EDIT: more personal stories from the SA music scene that I’d like to share. Being that the WAS show was the last big show in San Antonio that I’ve seen (most have been in Austin since), the best example of how SA reacts to shows is this: My bud Tash, who I hung with on Labor Day and went to the WAS show with me, (along with my friend Christine, Chelly and lovely Renee) went outside to have a smoke and preceded to say this to Keith Murray & Chris Cain - “So are you guys here for the show?” To which they said, “We are the show!” San Antonio is a really relaxed atmosphere for shows. I hardly go to events where people line up for gigs. Most fans are there for the shows, not for who the people are. I respect that about San Antonio and I have to say this is the experience I’ve had with most SA shows. Is San Antonio too ‘lax for big acts or are we the best example of being over the celebrity and just appreciating the music? I don’t know. All I know is that we’re unique and maybe that’s the kind of bands we need to attract here. (such as We Are Scientists!)

(via After decades of neglect, could San Antonio become a live-music capital again? - Music - San Antonio Current)

Often I sit around San Antonio and ask myself why did I leave Denver. After this short weekend’s trip up there I finally understood though. And I understood it in the most positive way.

My two days at Titwrench were phenomenal to say the least. I was terribly ill the entire time (thanks endometriosis!) but it felt like the most important experience to have. Here was this festival set up by this amazing woman who is the ultimate organizer. And the wonderful thing is that she’s a fan like anyone else who just wanted to see more. And so she did something about it! Then of course, there were all the amazing women who played and were apart of the festival. I was seriously in awe, and sometimes even intimidated, by these female artists. It was almost as though I couldn’t even wrap my head around it. Before I always understood female empowerment but maybe seeing it in this specific form made it more real than ever before. That sounds dumb because it’s not like I don’t have strong women in my life. And all these marches with UniteHere, I see more women than I do men. And of course there are heroes like Angela Davis and et cetera that you hear about so often. But being a witness to it at this festival with such diversity in music and so much effort being put in to make it happen felt like the best example of how things are changing in the feminist community. It makes the movement so multifaceted and you don’t get to see that often. It’s always the same old arguments. But here was a chance to do something. The festival was about action more than talk and I loved that.

Can I also say I found out about a lot of awesome bands that really blew my mind! My favorites that came out of it were Tine who just brought the funk. Sin Desires Marie who apparently played their last show. BUMMER! It was the same drummer for both of those bands and she was definitely one of the biggest reasons I liked either of them. Married in Berdichev was an unexpected enjoyment. And I rarely go to shows where you can just sit or lay on the floor while listening to live music. Her performance was both intense and serenely beautiful. Christina the Hun, in contrast, was both hilarious and simply interesting for using just her voice and drums. I couldn’t understand how she did it but she did! Here’s a link to her performance a year ago. I only got to attend the first two days so to be able to round up my short stint there with Tulip Wars was the best. They were incredibly fun! When I got back to San Antonio, my immediate reaction was to look up all these bands and find a way to make them apart of my playlist. I’m so thankful for all the new music I experienced. Denver, wow, y’all really have something special up there.

And that brings me back to why I left. Honestly, I was really lazy in Denver and when I go back, I realize all the things I should have done. But I also find Denver to be a really odd place where I don’t want to do anything but watch its craziness unfold. I find the city to be haunting. Haunted by the living. Denver is in the smack dab middle of nowhere and despite it’s growth and despite it actually being a real city, it’s almost a ghost town. The absolute perfect place to have an awesome counterculture. You have booming California on one side of them and, I don’t know, maybe Chicago on the other side and they’re not being influenced by any of that. At least not in some major way. And for whatever reason, that scared me. Granted there are a ton of other reasons Denver is scary, but I felt both lost and confined in such a city. It was both a blessing and a curse. It was almost a compounded feeling to already being a young person so far from home. I was saying, thanks Denver, for making me feel that way even more with your oddness. Could I have felt that way if I moved or went to school in Austin, NYC, Chicago, Atlanta? Maybe. But Denver is definitely bizarro world and I was both ready for it and not. I’m extremely grateful for such an experience but I’m happy to not live there anymore. I’m happy to experience that city on a lesser level now.

I hope I can continually go places and be apart of events like this. I hope I can temporarily stay in a lot of cities and understand their scenes and culture a little better. I always speak of these “extended vacations” because I’d honestly want to go somewhere and spend 3-6 months so that I could see it more for what it is. I would have never heard of this festival had I not done this nor would I have met an amazing person (Sara Century!). I got more than the tourist perspective. I want to meet all these amazing people doing amazing things for their community. People being proud of where they come from while also criticizing it and making steps to change it. Being able to watch a city change while being an outsider but also being apart of it. That’s what I got to do in Denver a few years back and I would love to continue to do that in other places across the country. It makes me love San Antonio more. And I have to say, humanity doesn’t look so bad either when you put yourself out there to new things.

Thank you Denver. You’re an amazing place. Thanks Titwrench. Keep growing, keep going. Keep inspiring.

titwrench:

TINE (CO/AZ) performing Thursday, July 28 at TITWRENCH III!

This performance was definitely one of my favorites. Totally had me groovin’ with all their funk! I want to write more and ,of course, share pictures of my experience. But my flight was long so let’s count on Monday that I reveal all!