my first love in --

I always remember what I want to write when I’m driving. My brain is not very nice to me in many ways, and this is one of them.

I remembered that my first love was punk. I’m not sure if any of us ever forget our first love. I have always had a connection with music that I just could not get from a human. My gateway “drug” I suppose you could call it, was Green Day. My oh my did I love them, especially their early stuff. I listened to their first album/EP compilation over and over. Then I discovered grunge, and punk, and psychobilly.

Hole’s Live Through This is probably the greatest love affair that I’ve ever had. I cannot believe that the cd still works, with no skipping (kids these days will never experience the frustration of that). I think I played that album twice a day or more for… a full two years. I still get excited when I see/hear Courtney Love’s name. I can tell you that Hole has had like three different bassists. I can tell you who collaborated with them to write the albums. I can tell you on which tracks on Live Through This you can hear Kurt Cobain doing back-up vocals. I still want a small tattoo of one of the little pictures of the witch in the album.

They’ve all come and gone. Green Day. Hole. Alice in Chains. Sex Pistols. The Cramps. Fiona Apple. Garbage. Neko Case. They still hold a piece of heart. I still play many of these on rotation (maybe not Green Day, unless it’s a very early song/album).

The best moments of my life were when I saw Neko Case, and Garbage live. It’s just… so magical. It just feels like me, it feels like home. It almost feels surreal, that I am dancing or swaying to these people that I feel like I know. They don’t know that they’ve encapsulated me, or have been with me through difficult and good times in my life. They don’t know that they reminds me of certain times in life, or events. It’s strange.

They’ve certainly all defined me at some point. They still do. I suppose many people can say the same for a person in their life whom they’ve dated. Some people have the “one who got away.” I guess I’m just stuck in this place of remembering music in that way. I still mostly connect with people on a surface level, so it’s nice to really connect with something every now and then. I love to be enamored with a new song or album. When I find it, I play it on repeat for awhile. I love that feeling.