Why Would I Write

  • 60 minutes of fame

    I spent my weekend being quite productive, I must say. I organized my keyboard spare parts into plastic boxes, and threw out a lot of cardboard boxes and plastic bags. Now I have extra space in my closet for more keyboard stuff.

    I’ve mentioned about having thoughts of recording my own podcast in the past before, and while that hasn’t taken off, I managed to do the next best thing: by being a guest on a podcast I regularly listen to! Over the weekend, I took up Don’s invitation to be a guest on The Board podcast and it was a lot of fun. I was expecting a lot of awkward silences and dead air, but conversation flowed pretty well. I had never been interviewed about keyboards before, so that was fun. I get to speak about something I’m interested in.

    The audio quality of my microphone is pretty terrible, I should have recorded locally so he could merge the files but it’s listenable. If you’ve ever wondered what I would sound like on radio, feel free to listen to the episode. Thanks again to Don for having me on! I’ll be up for another episode down the road if the opportunity rises again!

    I think my body might be telling me to quit drinking. Last night I was out for some beers and I noticed that every time I took a sip of beer, my jaw started to hurt for no apparent reason. It kept happening throughout the night. However, whenever I took a swig of water, my jaw was fine. No pain at all. I’m not sure what the cause is and googling doesn’t give me anything useful. Hopefully it was just something fucky in the air (or drink) last night because it would suck if my jaw hurt every time I drank alcohol.

    In addition to drinking beer, I had a lot of water which helped my body immensely the following day – I didn’t have to sit on the porcelain throne for most of the day (something which usually happens after a night of drinking). I guess I know what to do whenever I go drinking in the future. Water = good.

  • You Had Me at Merlot

    If you’re like me, someone who is always on the hunt for new music, you end up listening to a lot of mediocre artists. But once in a while, you’ll encounter an artist that blows your socks off, and makes the hunt all worth it. You sit up and question yourself, how many bands out there are this fucking good and just waiting to be discovered? For me, this happened last week with the band Mike Mains & The Branches.

    I was listening to Matt Carter’s podcast, Labeled: “The Stories, Rumors, & Legends of Tooth & Nail Records” when during one of the ad rolls, there was a song by Mike Mains being promoted – Breathing Underwater. I instantly fell in love with the hook of the song, looked it up on Youtube and listened to the song in full, many times.


    Mike Mains & The Branches – Breathing Underwater

    Coincidentally, the next episode was a feature with the lead singer/writer of the band, so I listened to him talk about songs that inspired him, and how he went about his songwriting process. Towards the end, they shared a bit of the song called Swamp and holy shit, I was blown away. From the poignant opening line sung over the somber piano chords, the build up, to the way Mike (the vocalist) belted out “Everyday feels like waking up in a swamp”. I knew this band was special.


    Mike Mains & The Branches – Swamp

    After the episode ended, I immediately listened to their latest album and grew enamored with each track. I kid you not when I say every song on When We Were In Love is fantastic. I continued checking out their discography (which stretches all the way back to 2010) and was not disappointed.

    While, in my opinion, the band isn’t artistically ground breaking like Dance Gavin Dance (also – completely different genre), they remind me a lot of California Wives, Walk The Moon, and a hint of later Taking Back Sunday. If you’re looking for some chill, indie pop rock, you can’t go wrong with these guys.


    Mike Mains & The Branches – Live Forever

    Here are some of my favorite songs from the band.

    Mike Mains & The Branches – Pouring Rain

    Mike Mains & The Branches – Stereo

    Mike Mains & The Branches – Stop The Car

    Mike Mains & The Branches – Around The Corner

    Mike Mains & The Branches – Everything’s Gonna Be Alright

    Mike Mains & The Branches – Drifter

  • Sea of Bodies

    When I was younger, my family and I went to a New Year’s Eve party in the city. I can’t remember what year it was but it was long enough ago that I didn’t have a cellphone of my own (remember those days?).

    Anyway, for some reason I let go of my mom’s hand in the sea of people at the countdown. Within a matter of seconds, I was lost in the crowd. A tiny young boy, all alone but surrounded by people. I wasn’t tall enough to see past the hundreds of heads around me to find her. There was nowhere to climb for a better view.

    I cried my eyes out. Eventually I borrowed a concerned stranger’s phone to call my mom. Couldn’t get through to her phone (there were that many people in the area, the networks were overloaded) so that was futile. I had no idea what else to do. We didn’t agree on a meeting point in case any of us got lost. I didn’t even know the way back to the car to wait for them. I thought I was separated from my family forever. I can vaguely remember what that felt like.

    I returned the phone, thanked the stranger, and started wandering around, looking for a familiar face. At this point, fireworks were going off, welcoming the new year. While everyone around me cheered and celebrated, I didn’t revel in their joy. I was just a teary-eyed boy stumbling through the crowd, lost and miserable.

    I didn’t know how long it took, but by some stroke of luck, I found my aunt in the crowd. She didn’t even know I was missing! I held on to her until the end of the night when she brought me back to my family. I had never been so happy to see them again.

    Because it all ended well, my family didn’t think much of it. To them, I had only disappeared for a brief moment. To me, at that time, it was one of the worst experiences of my life. Maybe I’m being dramatic, but I was just a kid.

    I’m not sure why I decided to recount the tale, but it came to mind today as I was making my way through a crowd of people at a night market. Was that incident so many years ago the first manifestation of my disdain for crowds? Possibly. At least it’s not so bad these days. I’m now tall enough to look over other people’s shoulders and I usually have a cellphone with me. I still stand at the back of the hall during gigs – not because I’m too cool to hang with other kids – I prefer the space a lot more.