farewell vivian girls: new york

Last Thursday Katy, Eloy and I flew into Newark, NJ for the final Vivian Girls shows. We landed at night on my mom's birthday, so I went down to Toms River, while Katy went home to Ridgewood. Eloy stayed with our friends in Elizabeth.

Friday morning my parents and I got breakfast at a little deli in Beachwood, NJ and my mom and I went to the Ocean County Historical Society Museum. That night Eloy and I stayed with friends in Long Island and I drank Fireball for the first time.

It's now been one week since Katy, Cassie and I played the very last Vivian Girls shows. Having come up in Brooklyn, we agreed we should lay it to rest there as well. When our Death By Audio show sold out in a matter of minutes, we added a second New York show at a new Brooklyn venue, Baby's All Right.

Night one, we had Juan Wauters of the Beets (who we toured with in 2009) and Waxahatchee, one of my current faves. On the second night, and the true final show, we asked Shellshag and Potty Mouth to open. We curated two nights of old and new. I think it's a bit self indulgent to make a break up too nostalgic. I prefer to look forward and keep momentum. Celebrate the happy memories, express gratitude, and get excited about the future. I am not a fan of living in the past.

However this weekend, living in the past was sort of inevitable. It was a unique feeling to celebrate a period in your life in front of strangers. The first night I didn't know how to process it. I wondered if I regretted agreeing to play these shows, but the Baby's All Right show changed that. I noticed a girl crying in the front row during our encore and I just looked at her and shook my head, urging her not to cry. As soon as the set was over I cried my eyes out. I hugged Cassie and Katy backstage and spoke to fans through my tears. Anything remotely nice or inspiring anyone said to me made me well up all over again. I didn't know what to make of it, and I spent the next two days in mourning in my childhood bedroom.

In tandem with the death of Vivian Girls, I was home to pack up the bedroom I grew up in. My parents are moving to Florida in the summer and giving the house to my brother and his wife. I packed up junk into boxes for donation and rifled through old photos and diaries and love letters for preservation. It was strange and touching to look at my life thus far. All of a sudden the old show flyers and demos of my first bands seemed much more profound. I found photos of myself drumming behind Katy in a New Brunswick basement and thought "Man, if only you knew what was next."

The tears I cried over the weekend weren't tears of sadness I don't think. They were due to the profundity of the moment. The symbolic death, closing of a chapter, celebration, transition, change, whatever you want to call it. My tears were born of the same feeling I get at weddings and graduations; excitement for what's next, mourning for what's gone, and satisfaction with the way it came to be.

Jenn Pelly summed up these feelings beautifully in her piece for Pitchfork. You can read it here.

Since I can't live a moment of my life without posting about it online, here are some of the photos I came across while packing up my room. I also brought my Hi-8 video camera back to LA with me so I can digitize the film. God only knows what's on there, but I am certain there is a very young Dog Party and a lot of footage from our tour with Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti.

cometbus

I briefly spoke to Aaron Cometbus after the LA Vivian Girls show, and for some reason something about him stuck with me. I immediately went home and pulled all of Eloy's Cometbus books and zines off our bookshelves and asked Eloy where to start. He suggested I start with Double Duce, and with that I went under.

I have a habit of obsessing over bands, actors, albums, movies, musicians, etc. exclusively for days or months until I come up for air. I spend weeks engrossed in one thing at a time until the obsession passes, and then I integrate them into my daily interests and get on with my life. I've done this for as long as I can remember, and I'm not about to dissect the reasoning. I just know it keeps life interesting, anticipating that next crushing obsession.

I can't put my finger on what makes Cometbus so exciting. Since reading his work I feel like my passion for music and community has been restored. I'm excited about DIY and creating and sharing and having real, lengthy conversations about more than just surface bullshit. I'm excited about friendship and scenes and strangers. I feel inspired. Inspired to write songs, book shows, and find new bands to fall in love with. 

I'm even excited to drive 1400 fucking miles to Austin, TX next week.

I think Aaron's words are steeped in that excitement and it rubs off on his readers. He reminds me of all the reasons I got into this music mess in the first place. I didn't sit in my bedroom learning how to play Against Me! songs so I can get a good "score" or make it onto year-end lists. I started doing this because I needed to. Because if I didn't release the valve in some way I would've imploded. Music is about affecting people and connecting and sharing and feeling a little less alone. Scores are for jocks. 

It's refreshing to see someone who can sustain the lifestyle that means so much more to me than any typical adult milestone ever will. When I was fired from Best Coast, I was almost relieved and thought I wanted to go back to school. I thought I was content to make a regular, adult life. I was going to get a degree and a career and buy a house. I quickly learned music isn't simply my hobby. I need music and community and to keep creating and growing or I'll be dead.

Since this infatuation began on Valentine's Day, a few excerpts have really hit me hard, and I wanted to share.

"We must write the story of our own life and play the soundtrack to it too! Our culture will die, nay, it is already on its deathbed, because we do not invest our own life in it! We do not include ourselves in the history! We do not take responsibility to make it into something we can truly call our own! Stand up and make your heroes proud! I need a rallying cry! A flag to unite us in our desparate struggle to stay true and stay together! Give me a slogan!"

I am so fortunate to have so many proactive, engaged friends. They do way more than I care to do in order to curate safe environments and spaces for cool shit to happen. It's refreshing to feel like a part of something, even if sometimes my only contribution is letting touring bands crash at my house.

"For my part, I made life-sized posters for the kitchen. Individuals whose writing, art, or music had been inspirational. More than that, they were people who knew how to look both brilliant and dangerous when posing for a photo. I put them up as reminders. What point was there in living if you didn't at least try to be as cool as your heroes?"

I love this. I feel like so many of my peers are hesitant to admit to idolizing others. People want to seem as authentically cool as possible. This excerpt feels, to me, like a glimpse behind the wizard's curtain. Yes, we all have idols. Yes, we try to be cool. I still aspire to be as cool as everyone I ever admired. Thank God someone said it. And that someone was Aaron Cometbus, and I definitely aspire to be half as cool as he is.

And on that note...

"He had tracked me down, asking everyone if they had seen the shy American fanzine editor. Finally one couple said they had. Evidently I passed by the licorice shop where they worked - not once, but over and over, everyday in my endless trudge through old town. My ears rang, I was so happy. To be seen by strangers, noticed by people without even knowing it, looked for and remembered. Suddenly, I felt much less alone. It's good to remember that now. How just passing by, we touch lives that we don't even know, and become part of stories told by people we don't even know exist."

This. God damnit this is perfect.

When I was in high school, Saves the Day were characters in my everyday life as much as my parents and best friends, and they don't even know me. I hope some day to have that effect on someone else. That they connect so completely to something I make, that I become part of their narrative without ever meeting them. And then maybe one day they will start a band for the same reasons I did, and one day I'll go see one of their shows as a fan, and the cycle will just perpetuate.

You guys, fandom is so cool.

- Ali

bliss

As I write this I am listening to the Bliss episode of Radiolab. At the top of the episode they talk about "perfect" moments. I started racking my brain for perfect moments in my life that I could recall. It's times like these that I wish I was more of an archivist. I did however think of a recent perfect moment that I'd been trying to share,
but just couldn't find the proper platform to do so. 

My grandmother died when I was 13. She and I were very much alike. Her death was the first one I ever had to deal with and it hit me hard. Over the years it feels like the shockwaves have gotten less extreme and further apart,
but I think that's an event that will continue to reverberate throughout my life.

Gram was the self-proclaimed family historian. She saved every newspaper clipping, picture, receipt, and report card, and would regale me with tales of growing up in New Jersey with 9 brothers and sisters during the 1930s and 40s. 

While I was home to visit my family for Thanksgiving I spent a night up in our attic just going through our family photos. I found pictures of my father and his siblings celebrating various Christmases, old photo booth pictures of my mom and Aunt Susan, and unfocused shots of my grandmother posing in a bathing suit.
I even found a box of some of my old clothes of mine that
I was certain had disappeared and now belonged to the ages.
There were Mariah Carey tapes and old letters and gifts from teenage boyfriends.

My favorite find however, was tucked into an old plastic wallet insert that appeared to have belonged to my father.

(front)

"Happy Valentine's Day"

 (back)

"What do you expect from a passport picture"

I clutched this photo to my chest and tried to stifle my laughter while my parents were asleep 

in their bedroom below me. Everything about this picture, this message, and this moment is perfect.

My parents started dating when my father was 18 and my mother was 21. They celebrated their 36th wedding anniversary this past Saturday. If I had to guess, I'd say this was from either their second or third Valentine's Day as a couple. My mother's handwriting is still exactly the same, as is her disdain for photos of herself. 

I feel like as a kid, you never consider your parents had a life before you, and when you get the rare opportunity to get a glimpse of what that world looked like, whether it's through photos or stories, 

there's something so personal and profound about those moments. 

It's as if the big picture of who you think your parents are gets a new shade of paint added to it. 

There are so many things you don't know about your family. So many things. And there are so many things about yourself that your family doesn't know. Think of all the moments that shaped you as a person, that your children will never know. It's overwhelming.

I always considered my parents the epitome of "having it together." It's fascinating to learn as you grow up and as your relationship with your parents evolves (if you're lucky enough to have a relationship with your parents), that they are simply fellow adults. You start to grasp the idea that they were once just as clueless as you feel, and to some extent I'm sure they still are. And while that could be a frightening thought, it's also a beautiful one. We're all in this plane of existence together, and nobody has the right answers. All we have is what feels right to us individually. All we can expect of each other is to do the best we can with what is put before us, and hopefully learn along the way. And what's best for you, might be too much to ask of someone else.

We're all children, learning and growing all the time. Coloring by numbers when we accept guidance, and choosing our own adventure when we are feeling the love and support of the people who mean the most to us.  I used to think there would come a point in my life where I had it all figured out and I could just relax, go through the motions, and be left alone. In reality, that is a death sentence. I think I'm starting to realize that as long as I'm living, I'm evolving. And that is exciting.