May 142008
 

While I genuinely enjoy a wide variety of music, there are four bands that go above and beyond and make me feel like the beating of my heart has come to a grinding halt, rust and sparks flying all up in my grill. Those bands are the Cure (but if you didn’t know that, you don’t know me at all), the now-defunct Cold (I experienced quite a few emotional breakdowns at their shows, much to Henry’s horror), Chiodos (sometimes I feel like I’m going to puke up a potion of fluttering hearts, vitriol, and a street fighting match when I listen to them), and Circa Survive (helped me evade mental institution during the summer of 2005).

All four of these bands, I’ve met. I’ve had the opportunity to tell each oh them how much they mean to me, how many ways they’ve changed me and saved me, but it’s four bands that make me freeze, that make me stutter, that make me run away in tears (it’s true, and it’s embarrassing). I managed once to write a five-page letter to Cold, thanking them for helping me through a death and even though I had spoken to them several times before, Henry had to pass it on to the drummer because I ran away and hid. How do you thank someone, total strangers,  for saving you? It’s hard and no matter how many times you rehearse it in your hand, it still comes out sounding stupid and trite. "Oh hay, you guys are good. Sign my CD?"

I saw Chiodos two weeks ago. I saw the Cure on Saturday. I’m going to see Circa Survive tonight.

The only other time this has ever happened was in 2004 when I saw Cold and the Cure within two days of each other and I flipped my shit, seriously collapsed in a heap of emotional baggage and mental frustration.

I’m nervous. Scared. Anxious. Because Anthony Green’s voice sounds like a whale, a high-pitched sonic torrent of opposing emotions, of suicide dreams, anger and love, and the last two times I was within twenty feet of this caterwaul, it scissor-kicked my heart and bear-hugged my synapses and I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t move and I cried and cried and then I felt emotionally spent for days.

The past few months I’ve been an emotional wreck — not always in a bad way, but emotional still the same. Sometimes, all I felt like I ever really had were these bands and their aural therapy, because when you reach out to music, it reaches back; it’s more dependable than people. So seeing three of them so close together is a big deal for me. I think the universe is trying to kill me.

I’m not sure my heart can take it.

 

  12 Responses to “when music creates nausea: The 4 C’s”

  1. the way you relate to music—
    (and the ppl who make it)…

    “it scissor-kicked my heart and bear-hugged my synapses and I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t move and I cried and cried and then I felt emotionally spent for days.”

    “How do you thank someone, total strangers, for saving you?”

    … is so intense and real and incredible that you’re exactly the kind of “fan” that they want. i love how you describe the feelings associated. it makes me ache the same way.

    have fun at circa survive! don’t die.

  2. Im jealous that you get to go see Circa Survive!!

    Also I replied to your email a bit ago, but it was from my blackberry and our email server bit the dust, so I dont know if you got it or not. I just wanted to let you know I wasnt ignoring you if you didnt!

    • I got it! I’m sorry I didn’t reply yet, but definitely let me know if you guys decide to come to Pgh that weekend, and if not, drunken frisbee will still be in our future!

  3. Have you ever had a band that you felt like this about and then they changed and you felt like a friend died?
    I feel that way about Alkaline Trio. They are coming this way, but Im not sure I have the heart to go see them, as their new stuff is kindve awful and I think Ill cry, not in a good way, if I see them live now.

    Its funny how perfect strangers can elicit those kinds of emotions. Its something to look forward to, I think. If nothing else at least they remind us that were human.

    • YES! In fact, I was starting to feel that way about the Cure, but seeing them last weekend helped. I’m still not really down with their new stuff though.

      It’s crazy that you mentioned Alkaline Trio because I JUST got off the phone with Christina and I was telling her about how they were on an episode of The Hills and I wonder how many of their fans were punching themselves in the face after that.

      Your last paragraph = The Truth. I couldn’t agree more. It’s like, on one hand it’s physically painful sometimes to feel this way, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t ever want it to stop. It definitely makes me alive.

      <3333333

  4. i completely understand.

    i hope you made it. :)

  5. it’s good to feel. a lot of people don’t.

    <3

  6. “because when you reach out to music, it reaches back; it’s more dependable than people.”

    YES.

    This entire post resonated with me, but especially that part.

    It’s why when I feel crappy, I turn on Fates Warning instead of the phone. The outcome is the same: I feel better. Understood. Not alone any more.

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