My fingers would stick together, as I peeled the top white sticker off. The one containing the band’s name, along with the album title. In those pre-ipod days, I would lay across my bed, pop the disc into a portable CD player, stare up at the ceiling fan. Headphones on. Cue track one. A moment of anticipation.
I can still see the progression of albums, almost in the order I bought them. MxPx’s Slowly Going the Way of the Buffalo. Five Iron Frenzy-Live. P.O.D.’s Fundamental Elements of Southtown. Local group CR33.
And then, my year at Jr. College. I remember a guy who’s hoodie read “Death Cab for Cutie,” a band that would blow up three years later with the indie-rock classic Transatlantasism (and it would be another three years after that before I discovered that album). I got really into Blindside’s Silence record that year, as well as the underground hip-hop sounds of Mars ILL. I remember the guys on my basketball team bumping Jay-Z’s Blueprint CD in the locker room after practice.
Often, these albums would be experienced along with the printed word. I’d devour the latest issue of Rolling Stone, burn through the Chronicles of Narnia for the seventh time, pick up Tale of Two Cities and say the words softly aloud. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
After transferring to a four-year school, I remembered the joy of loading all my music onto the hard drive of my Dell (I had not yet been enlightened about Apple), flipping through my library of thousands of songs. Sleeping at Last opened for Switchfoot, and my friends and I braved the crowded CTA (there was also a Cubs playoff game going on) to see two of our favorite bands at the Metro, arguably Chicago’s finest music venue. It was one of my first trip to the city that without parents or teachers watching over me, and I reveled in the freedom of my nineteen years. It was on that night that I met my friend Matt Dally, bass player for Superchick. Our lives were running parallel. He was in a newly signed band, wide-eyed at the possibility of making a living off of music. I had just started my first “real” radio show on Shine.FM, wide-eyed at the possibility that this could be a real career. Matt would come down to the studio for my night show, and we’d talk about hip hop, prank call Superchick’s drummer and put it on the air, dream aloud as to where all this might take us. (Note: it took him to the Grammy’s.)
We must all come of age somehow, and in our own unique ways; some of us at 16 because of the pressure life holds, others when when we turn 22 and get a real job, others…later still (and there’s a price to be paid for the delay).
Now that I am a few years past those magically turbulent times, I look back at the major events: leaving home, blowing out my knee, losing my first girl, giving up the basketball dream, finding radio, seeing my parents marriage collapse, seeing hope in the eyes of an impoverished South American child, and those events are always tied to some kind of media that accompanied the journey.
Sitting out late at night, I’d stare up at a sky that wasn’t my own (for there are different stars in the South American night), heart hurting from the poverty I’d seen. I’d just keep hitting the back button on my iPod, listening to Sleeping at Last’s song “Needle and Thread” over and over again.
Later, I laid on the beach in Puerto Rico for two days straight, tearing through Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, and then pulled out my tattered copy of Miles to Cross, a memoir of travel across Europe and America. And I knew, somewhere close to my bones, that I had to keep moving. When I finally got to northern California in the summer of 2008, I’d already been there four or five times, circa 1953, with a young Kerouac, following him, word for word, as he quit his college football team and rejected the white picket fence life for days of adventure.
Four weeks ago, I stepped down from my duties at Relevant Magazine, after realizing that I couldn’t do that and try to write a book. One dream had to die for the other to have breath. So here I am, a now-unemployed writer sitting in my old Levis at the kitchen table.
There are moments when I feel stupid for even thinking I can take on a project this big. One of the biggest secrets of every person working professionally in the arts is that we all hear the voice that says “what if it’s all been a fluke so far. What if this time, everyone will see that I have no talent.”
It’s usually art that pulls me back. Last night, my friend Ryan from the band Sleeping at Last sent me three live songs we’re going to use on the show. The songs brought tears to my eyes. Ryan is one of those songwriters, alongside a short list that includes Brian Fallon of The Gaslight Anthem, Johnny Cash, and a handful of others, who create music that changes my perspective.
It only took a three-minute song to help me discover why I’m chasing this.
So, this is my confession, as an unemployed writer: because I wouldn’t be me without those books and albums when I was 16, 19, 23…I’ve got to take my chance at risking to create something that might change another’s perspective. Whether it’s courage or folly depends on if I get a book deal or not. If I do, it will be soon…and then I’ll share more with you.
Seth
P.S. Sleeping at Last plays at Park West next Saturday. Their new album is called “storyboards” and they will be on my show a week from today. I hope you check them out.
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