For the love of music

I have always been really into music. I grew up with a father who was fairly young, and an accomplished guitar player who frequently played with his friends in bands. We always had music playing in the house, for as long and as often as I can recall. My mother loved to listen to music while driving, doing renovation work in the house, or just on a nice spring Saturday afternoon. Music was something we always had painting the tapestry of our lives.

Naturally as I got older, it was something I gravitated towards. Finding Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails in the early 90’s as a pre-teen cemented a lot of my musical tastes beyond what I was exposed to as a kid, and really set me out on a path to find more of the sounds they created that I liked so much. Certainly, other bands had to sound like these. Needless to say, punk, metal, and industrial became the normal for me to gravitate towards, and things adjacent to those genres. Thanks to a TV network called The Box around that period of time, I was also exposed to a lot of hip hop and R&B, which became as important to my musical palette as all the rest.

I spent my late teens really expanding my musical horizons, and going to a lot of concerts. Many people I speak to during my streams are often shocked that I missed out on certain classic games of the golden era. I know distinctly that while I played some video games in my late teens and early twenties, I wasn’t as plugged in to gaming culture because music had captured my interest much more. I missed a lot of classic games because of that narrow field of view, and in hindsight, I may have told myself to pay a bit more attention to the games… though I would never trade any of my memories for music and what it meant to me back then. Most of what I heard back then still holds a lot of that weight for me today, in fact. A lot of that music shaped who I am today, for better or worse, and I’m especially happy that I was able to see some of my favorite bands in what would be considered their prime, while I was still young.

As I’ve gotten older, my taste and interest in music has lessened in intensity. That is to say, while I still enjoy most of what I used to back in the day, and I still enjoy discovering new music today, the intensity of my search and voracity of my consumption has tapered off considerably. I like to reflect on that sometimes, because when I was younger and started listening to music, you still had to go to a store to discover it. The internet was still a few years off from MP3s, which changed the landscape considerably. Even after MP3s became a more widely accepted method of distribution for digital music, discovering it was still a journey that one could spend hours, days, months, years embarking upon. I loved how fresh and new all of that felt at the time. There was a tangibility to it that I find doesn’t exist in quite the same way for me today. Well, that and I’ve lost the angst that truly fueled my need to search for the bands and the songs that hit just right.

My good friend Row recently approached me having listened to Lorna Shore for the first time, and she wanted to know more about the genre of metal in general, though she had an interest in things that maybe sounded more like that band then the rest. We spoke for a bit about what we liked about Lorna Shore: most notably the grandiose symphonic sound they lace throughout each tour de force track. We also both had appreciation for what vocalist Will Ramos adds to the equation, which is a certain type of magnetic charisma that I’m sure many others pick up on. He’s a raw talent in the genre, for sure. From this conversation, I was able to begin work on putting together a series of playlists for her to explore the genre of metal with, though I’ve merely just begun – there’s obviously a lot to explore.

I still love to make mixes of music from time to time, as it still feels like I’m capturing some of the magic I once felt music held for me. Again, it isn’t that the magic doesn’t exist, I think it’s that I’ve aged enough to feel like it doesn’t hold the same kind of power as it did for me in my youth. When I was younger, I would find bands I loved and seek out any information I could about them: pour over facts about their influences so that I could seek out those bands too, read the lining of the album for lyrics, and look at poor resolution photos of their live performances, hoping that one day I could be in a crowd just like that. Posters would cover every square inch of my bedroom walls for these bands. When I say music doesn’t hold that kind of magic for me anymore because I’m older, that is what I mean. I still long for the song that hits just right. I still want to feel the indescribable feeling music can give you when it graces your ears. That feeling is why I got into one of the most dangerous games in collection: vinyl. My thirst for wax knows no bounds, and yet must be tamed… but I digress. Finding new music is still exciting, and creating mixes is definitely a part of that process these days. I do appreciate that services like Bandcamp and Spotify make creation of these mixes fairly easy, which is why I figured perhaps I will start sharing some of these mixes on this here blog.

Not everything I share is going to be metal, two of these just so happen to be some pretty hard-hitting metal because of the nature of my conversation with Row. I intend to make some more mixes for her in the near future. These mixes just happen to be the beginnings of an exploratory journey she wanted to take to get to know more about deathcore and metal in general. They’re not super comprehensive either – just some songs that I liked, and felt like sharing. Power Trip and The Accacia Strain in particular are two really heavy-hitting bands that I’ve been into lately, as well as the slower and more sludge-y sounds of Conjurer. The first mix is meant to reflect some pretty heavy “adjacent to Lorna Shore” sounds, while the second mix was kind of a list of stuff I wanted to put on the first mix, but couldn’t quite make work. The second mix is a lot more of a variety bag: more melodies and vocals in some, more dissonance and dreamy sounds in others. I’m already excited to make future mixes 🙂

I made a bonus mix for her as well with some goth music, mostly because I’ve found that age cemented my tastes firmly in that somber mellow quality, but with a beat, that goth music often lends itself to. Anywho, hope these are enjoyed!