My Musical Identity: The Formative Years 1997-2007

While Lady Amy spent the weekend in Boston becoming one with her womynly self, I spent my spring break from teaching traveling through Milwaukee and Chicago, becoming one with my musical self. I went down to see friends (including DoktorPeace and Sean) and catch two sold-out shows put on by the now massively popular instrumental post-rockers Explosions in the Sky. Before I headed out my Minneapolis door, I prepared for 12+ hours alone in the Saturn. Now whenever I go on an epic solitary road trip, I always pick out the CDs that are going to keep me awake the easiest, i.e. the longtime favorites that I can sing along/rock out to from the opener to the closer. This time was no different, but what caught my ear as I trekked down 94 East was that I was not just on a road trip. I was visiting old friends that were still around the Midwest, I was visiting my hometown even though my family moved to North Carolina over a year ago, and I was traveling to see a band that had changed my life in 2003 while listening to several other albums that had formed who I am today throughout what I am dubbing my "formative years" as an adolescent, college kid, and semi-adult. This was a trip through my past, and I'd like to take you through it as briefly as one possibly can go through ten years of his/her life in one blog post.

Recently, Entertainment Weekly attempted to go through the past 25 years of music and pinpoint the "indie-rock" album that defined each year - bizarre task for a mainstream publication, but it got me to thinking. Since the majority of music lovers don't always fall in love with their favorite albums the year they come out, and since these are the albums I brought with me on my road trip, I wanted to look back at my own life and see the progression of my favorite albums throughout the past ten years. Years are approximate and I often still think of things in terms of an academic school year, but you get the idea. 1997: Slanted and Enchanted by Pavement. A freshman in high school, I needed more music than the radio could provide, so I went through the few compilations I had randomly gotten through Columbia House (yes, I conned my mother into letting me use my lawn-mowing money for this scam) to see if I could expand my record collection without giving into Goo Goo Dolls or Matchbox Twenty. The No Alternative charity disc had always been a standby, so I listened through it again and fell in love with the weird ditty "Unseen Power of the Picket Fence" by Pavement (fittingly, it's a tribute to R.E.M. - Qualler's heroes), which quickly led me to buying their debut album. The gritty and sloppy sound combined with the light-hearted pop melodies blew my mind. I never listened to music the same after this and now always hark back to the CD, originally released in 1992, as my "favorite album." 1998: The Proximity Effect by Nada Surf. It's odd that in 1996, they were hugely popular for their singular hit "Popular" and I moderately liked them. Now in 2008, they're hugely popular in the indie scene and I again moderately like them. But in 1998, when only the French were fans of the band as MTV and Elektra Records cast them aside, this is when I went psycho for Matthew Caws and company. One last order from Columbia House to fulfill whatever deal I had with them had me say, "sure why not" and purchase their sophomore follow-up that very soon after I fell in love with it, would only be available in France. The playful nerd-rock aspect of Weezer and Pavement ran rampant through the disc, but it had a yearning heart at the center of it, showing me for the first real time that pop songs could encapsulate the weight of a thousand lonely nights.

1999: Emergency & I by The Dismemberment Plan. I spent many a weekday evening downloading random songs via Napster based on an AOL profile search for "Weezer," bringing me to great songs by Belle & Sebastian, Sunny Day Real Estate, and more. It wasn't until my friend Dean heard "The City" from this now indie-classic on the Milwaukee college radio station WMSE and downloaded it on his computer, however, that my friends and I became obsessed with Travis Morrisson and his troupe of keyboard-inflected post-punkers. It was the first album where I had a group of friends to drool over it with, and the compelling energetic quirkfest that is this album reignited my heart and officially sent me into the realm of independent music now and forever. 2000: Nothing Feels Good by The Promise Ring. Things get depressing when you begin to see the end of high school, like a light at the end of the tunnel, but you have no idea what it's going to be like when you get there. Discovering a Milwaukee band that helped spawn a sub-genre based around the idea of spilling emotions on the musical floor (yes, now you understand how far the term has fallen) certainly helped level me and was incredibly cathartic for my turbulent adolescent self. That I was able to share my TPR obsession with my great friend Arun as we started our first band together shows just how much proximity and sincerity can influence a 16-year-old with a guitar. Along with other bands that deserve to be mentioned such as Braid, Joan of Arc, and The Get Up Kids, TPR brought me into a subculture that I ravenously consumed for the next 2-3 years. 2001: Low Level Owl, Vol. 1 by The Appleseed Cast. It was the first day of college and what I was most excited about was venturing into the city to see The Appleseed Cast, the first of many scheduled concerts I planned on attending now that I lived in a "real city," as I remember calling Minneapolis. My goal for my freshman year was to be more extroverted and not be wary about how people viewed me, so I hopped on the bus, found a guy with a Rilo Kiley t-shirt, and asked him if he was going to the show. We chatted on the way there, I got lost in a stellar wall-of-sound performance from the Cast and listened to the Low Level Owl series (but Vol. 1 the most of course) at least once a week throughout my first semester in this strange world of dorm rooms, meal plans, and drunk people with hooka shell necklaces. The disc catapulted me into a world of atmospheric keyboards, backwards drums, and most importantly, the delay pedal. I realized the limitless potential of the distortion-less guitar.

2002: We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes by Death Cab for Cutie. Full into college mode, this is the band that could have sponsored my university years. They came to town at least once every nine months and the crowd at First Avenue grew every time. The first time, my future roommate Joe and I consumed copious amounts of Soft Batch cookies and orange juice on the bus before being blown away by DCFC along with the other 30-40 people that decided to show up at the Mainroom that night. This album (along with the Cast's) finally made me realize how essential mixing and production is in making an unforgettable record, and I quickly appreciated it as the ultimate headphone music that also worked simultaneously as a sing-along pop CD that I could never tire of. So sad and yet so catchy. As they inevitably grew in popularity, I might have grown away from them, but I'll always tune in to see how they may be garnering another disaffected and sensitive college student. 2003: The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky. It makes sense that it happened now that I look back at the progression - memorable prettiness combined with cinematic spaciousness? Of course it had my name writen all over it, but I really couldn't grasp what magnetized me to this music at the time. Seeing this band twice while listening to all of these other CDs helped me figure it out. I had always loved movies, but never paid attention to film scores. So when a wordless "indie-rock" album comes my way that incorporates previously acquired tastes such as the delay pedal, impeccable production, and deep earnestness, I started playing imagined films in my head to go along with the music. Suddenly two passions collided into one with this record, and experiencing it live with the past in mind in 2008 helped me come to this realization, which is actually pretty simple when laid out. This also made me revisit their 2007 release, which I may have unfairly dismissed - after taking a break from listening to it, it sounds amazing and definitely should have been on my Top 10 list. 2004: Things Shaped in Passing by The Six Parts Seven. The progression begins to make even more sense as this is the album that officially led me into co-creating nowlikephotographs (which is also the name of a song on this album), which has gotten more than its fair share of shameless self promotion on this site. Once again, we have an instrumental record that helped mature my musical taste and ease out of pop territory. It's the least popular disc by far on this list, and thus, the most understated. It takes the rock out of post-rock, and quiets everything down with subtle yet gloriously playful guitar compositions with swirls of vibraphone and bare-bones percussion. Appropriately enough, the album brought out the minimalist in me and uncomplicated the aspects of my life that were challenging me intellectually and emotionally. Not quite ambient, but it definitely got me to a place where meditation and music could walk hand in hand. The perfect bedtime album - please listen if you don't know it.

2005: Takk... by Sigur Ros. I didn't realize it until recently, but this was thee album of 2005. My pick at the time, Why?'s Elephant Eyelash, is spectacular and important, but the Icelandic group's most under appreciated effort is the only time that bliss and tragedy have co-existed as one on an album. Agaetis Byrjun and ( ) are both cluttered with moments of perfection, but not until I saw Sigur Ros live on this tour did the songs on one album all fully congeal with my heart. It truly was the only time I've ever cried at a concert from the beauty of the music - it was exactly the kind of grown-up-meets-cherubic experience I needed to get myself through the end of undergrad. The epic instrumentalness combined with the pop candor, all while still being modest as all get out. I can't express enough how much I love this band and this record. 2006: At Home With by Owen. Former member of American Football, whose self-released album would be right alongside The Appleseed Cast if I were to break pattern, comes back to fully accomplish making the perfect album for official adulthood. As bland as it sounds to youth, there's a reason old people like acoustic singer-songwriters. It just so happens I like my singer-songwriters to use cascading pianos, layered production values, wandering synths, and biting sarcasm in their lyrics as well as the simple organic ballad. Mike Kinsella gets reflective on youth while still holding a hopeful gleam. For the sake of my sanity, I hope this album stays with me throughout the years. This brings us to the present...2007: The Con by Tegan & Sara.

All right, I won't go on this kind of rant again for another ten years. That period will be named "The What Happened to My Youth Years 2008-2018." Oh who am I kidding, I'm already there. "You kids think you listen to emo, well I'll tell you a thing or two...mumble mumble Davey Von Bohlen harumph!" Oh grandpa!

This entry was posted by chris, on Thursday, April 03, 2008. You can leave your response.