It Seems so Simple, You and Me

Something that I seem to talk about when I remember to write in this blog is how I change over time and how I seem to stay the same in the midst of all that change, if that makes any sense.

You ever notice that "change" and "stay the same" are used in tandem WAY TOO OFTEN? I apologize for my use of them above.

But it's true, for every day I spend discovering a new artist or new type of music or new thing about myself, I probably spend two reveling in past interests that had slipped my mind until recently or an old forum I used to post. But even though I would like to convince myself that I am the same shy ska fan I was in 10th grade, the truth is I'm not and I am becoming a new person all the time. Of course I'm always going to retain some (most) of my interests but in reality I'm a lot like my skin in that small dead parts of it are falling off and being replaced by new parts constantly, but when I look at it, it's still the same old epidermis, for all intents and purposes.

What triggered these thoughts for me is the band Rehasher releasing a 7" this year called Clock Smasher. For a few years, Rehasher was one of the bands I listened to most, and not just because they're a Less Than Jake side project. They put out two albums that were in high rotation for me and I pretty much thought they were flawless. In fact, when High Speed Access to my Brain, their second full-length, came out I named it my favourite album of that year. If you would like to read a completely misinformed account of 2009's music, you can read that here (to be honest, I would just swap Rehasher and Shook Ones and remove NoFX). I'll still throw them on every once in a while and I'll still stand by my appreciation for those two albums, but I'm a little older and the tiniest possible amount wiser now and realize that they're just a catchy, fast, melodic punk band.

And hey, that's alright! I like all those things.

Anyways, like I said, they put out a 7" this year and in times past I probably would have said something along the lines of "WATCH OUT WORLD, REHASHER'S GOT SOME NEW FUCKIN' TUNES OUT!" into the faceless void that is Twitter.com, but now I meet it with indifference. Part of that is that the two songs are undeniably worse than the rest of the songs they've put out, but part of that is also that I'm now 26 years old and stressed about my thesis and as a result don't really give a shit about two skate punk songs by a band who only exist when Less Than Jake isn't touring or recording.

I would quote the most famous line from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but I think if I included that AND the opening line of this post I would be on the fast track to this:

Clock Smasher (God, that's a dumb title) kind of serves as a barometer for my personal change. It's something I can take a look at think "Okay, this is different now." and I like that. I'm clearly still the same dude, because my number one album will most likely be a pop-punk release, but at the same time a synthy pop album is right behind it.

Cool, I guess?

Time to go give the new Self Defense Family a few more spins because I am "deep" and "emotional" and I "think about things and themes and ideas".