Generally speaking, it's not common advice to start your first band at 29. But that's what I did. In grad school, for the first time since I finished undergrad, I had the space and resources to have a hobby again. The year before, I bought a bass on Craigslist that was cheap and beat up and I was going through a breakup and I thought, fuck it, I've always wanted to play the bass, I’m getting a bass.
It took almost another year before Jen and I started Mani Pedi, and a little while later, met our bandmate Dave at a speed dating event for bands. Yes, that’s our love story! The first time we hung out, we wrote Likin in one session and that was that. To create something so quickly with others that I actually liked was a kind of magic I hadn't experienced before. Most of my creative work has always been done solo, at least in drafting—everything comes from the energy inside, collected here and there and over there throughout time. Experiencing that process with others helped me to more clearly see that I'm always working with different kinds of energies, no matter what I create. We're always bumping into each other—how could we not be?
I rewatched the film Happy-Go-Lucky tonight by Mike Leigh for the first time in a long time. I kept thinking about it while editing and mastering the tracks for this record. In the film, Poppy, our protagonist, stumbles through the world giggling, smiling, engaging with everyone around her with openness and curiosity and wonder. To be honest, she kind of seems stoned (though she's not, at least as far as what the movie shows us!) As you can imagine, when she begins taking driving lessons from a dude who seems to only be able to speak at one level, which is shouting, they are a nightmare for each other. Poppy is cracking jokes, constantly trying to lighten the mood and embrace the moment while her instructor describes the world as a hellscape. It turns out he's also a racist, sexist fuck. I think part of why I love this film is the way it captures how human beings project their own internal landscape onto the world. The driving instructor sees the world as a place not built for him and so sees rejection everywhere. Poppy has clearly fostered an imaginative, kind, playful space inside of her where it's safe to be herself. This allows her to move through the world in a way where not every connection is a threat to her ego. This aspect of Poppy is exactly what ends up being most threatening to others, whether it's her men's-rights-racist-anger-prone driving instructor or her pregnant sister that thinks Poppy needs to take life more seriously now that she's 30.
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