You are Wonderful

You are reading the preface to this blog post

Jeff Rosenstock put out a new album last week. In keeping with IMU tradition, I will write about that album here. As per usual, the album is available as a donation-download on his "record label"'s website here. I would recommend that you download it because I think it is good music.

You are now reading the main body of this blog post

I have a long and interesting relationship with Jeff Rosenstock. His music that is. I've only met him one time, but he was very nice to me that one time. As a result of that relationship, his music is by far, in my mind, the most written-about thing on this blog.

I started listening to him fairly early in my own musical life, but also his, discovering the Arrogant Sons of Bitches a little after they released All the Little Ones are Rotting when I was in 10th grade. Originally, I liked them because I liked ska and would listen to more or less anything that remotely resembled ska. I also liked them because they were very, very fast and had cool basslines and I thought the chorus to "So Let's Go Nowhere!" was just about the coolest thing ever. A little after that, my tender high school heart was broken for the first time and then I noticed that most of their songs dealt with that and I was "OOHHHH!"Three Cheers for Disappointment then came out and it took me forever to find it and I listened to it almost exclusively because I was a very, very emotional 16 year-old who was bad at expressing and speaking, but very good at attaching myself to music.

When I first discovered the music of ASOB and Bomb the Music Industry!, it seemed like I was the only person in Ontario who listened to those bands. I wore my ordered-online ASOB shirt at shows and it seemed like nobody knew who they were and I wore that with pride. I had friends on MySpace from the North-East United States because they listened to ASOB and BTMI! and that seemed cool to me.

Gradually BTMI! became more and more popular with punk fans, starting, in my mind at least, with 2007's Get Warmer. I got more people into the band and more people in general got into the band, to the point that they became downright popular.

I noticed with the last BTMI! shows, and also with the pre-release of tracks from We Cool?, that the crowd at shows seemed a little different from the feelings and experience that I shared with Jeff's music. I started to get a little (look how) jaded (I can be, when I turn 16)* and I started to think that I had maybe grown up and grown past Jeff's music.

But then I listened to We Cool? when it was streaming last week and I read along with the lyrics during my first listen, which is my own little personal tradition, and I was instantly reminded of why I love him and his music and it hit me in the chest and I can already tell there are many songs which resonate with me.

Never act like you are above things you like, just because other people like them too. Don't get too cool for your own life. Figure out what you need and stay near those things. Find things that move you and use those things.

*C'mon son.