Some music I’ve liked so far in 2020 Part Three
Filling the days has become more and more difficult as this has gone on. I’m trying to tell myself that it’s okay but capitalism has wired my brain to believe that it isn’t. Productivity is social currency. If you’re not out there crushing it, then you’re lazy, unmotivated, directionless. Write that newsletter. Read that book. Keep working out. Start that podcast. While I appreciate the optimism that comes with such a line of thinking—to a point, anyway—this self-quarantine has me wondering about what the point of it all is. That thought process comes with the understanding that at some point in the very near future things will be back to normal. It’s only been a week but that return to normalcy seems increasingly unlikely, even by the hour. Even in the face of all evidence to the contrary, people are out here remaining optimistic, as if the system that was built to oppress us is going to bail us out. Bleak.
A few weeks ago the left side of my face started twitching, around my lips and below my cheek. If I contract the muscle it happens pretty much on command. I’m sure it’s nothing. I don’t have health insurance so don’t ask. I’ve been having trouble sleeping again. The other night at about 11:30 I was sitting alone on the couch and I heard some rustling around the fence in our backyard and my stupid brain convinced me that someone was coming into my house to murder me. I could feel my heart pounding from the bottom of my stomach to the top of my throat. People can (and have) walked through the narrow alley that separates the backyards on my street from those on the next street over. We have a security system but stopped using it because the stupid cats would trip it in the middle of the night. Don’t tell my landlord that. So then as that happens my brain races with thoughts of what I will or won’t do when whoever is there does finally come through the back door or the kitchen window. Will I fight? We don’t have much. It’s just stuff but since I can’t leave the house this stuff is about all that’s keeping me sane. It was probably just a raccoon or a cat or maybe an opossum but I heard sirens nearby a few minutes before it happened.
I wish our street had trees.
I was reading Luke O’Neil’s very good Welcome To Hell World newsletter this morning as I often do and it was full of dispatches from people who are dealing with addiction and sobriety during these unprecedented times we currently find ourselves in. It’s all very sad and worth reading for the most part, but this one really struck a chord with me. Sorry to Luke for pasting the whole thing but anyone who reads it needs the context. I’m also writing this on an iPad it’s a huge pain in the ass to do anything let alone piecemeal an excerpt. Emphasis mine though.
I was diagnosed with social anxiety related to high-functioning autism pretty late in life. I started drinking socially when I was 16, and found that even 1-2 drinks was enough to prevent panic attacks that I otherwise suffer if I’m around more than 2-3 people sober. As I’ve gotten older, though, especially being around the music scene, it’s regularly 4-5 drinks in a night which for a 110lb girl who has a family history of severe liver disease is pretty significant.
Granted I’m not an alcoholic, I never drink at home alone or during the days and used to not go out often. I did have to start a business where I could get away from people. I’ve been a dog walker for 8 years. So I’ve ramped up how much I go out at night, which has increased the amount I drink. It’s gotten up to 2-3 times a week on the norm.
So yeah, this last couple of weeks I haven’t gone out in any kind of large social situation and haven’t touched more than a glass of wine the whole time. It was shockingly easily, scarily easy. Get rid of the source of anxiety, no need for the “medication.” No more hangovers, so I can actually do a lot more with my day. I’ve been doing yoga in the mornings, as opposed to stumbling around and stubbing my toes. I can sleep through a whole night instead of waking every two hours promising myself I’m never going to drink again, knowing I’m lying. I’m not paranoid about my pancreas exploding every time I feel an abdominal pain.
This time has also made me realize who in my life is actually important; when I’m staring at my phone thinking “I should check in on...” 80% of the people I know didn’t come to mind. That’s clarifying in a “my life is half gone, or more, and I think maybe I’m wasting it with all these people” kind of a way.
The only anxiety I’m starting to feel now is about when (if) things go back to normal. With nothing going on right now, there’s no Fear Of Missing Out pulling at my id, so I’m quite happy to stay at home and start all the wonderful hyper-focus projects that Aspergersy people like me love. I’ve learned how to crochet, picked up my cello, wrote 4 chapters of a new book, did my taxes, and started reading some of the pile of books I’ve been wanting to read for years. But once stuff starts up again, am I going to revert back to social drinking mode, going out 3-4 nights a week? Or can I find a balance and resist much of the FOMO now that this quarantine has opened my eyes a bit? I don’t actually need many of the social associations I’ve filled my life with to be happy.
Both being in the city and on social media has put such a focus on quantity and not quality in social interactions and it’s probably literally killing me via my liver, and for years I thought it was worth it because I thought despite the anxiety I did love being out and about.
But now, totally sober, I’m thinking I was wrong and that I need to empty out the social cellar. Just connect to the people I love and maybe not avoid but certainly not be as involved with the people I don’t. Society should be a backdrop to the things and people that are truly important to me. That thought has kept me going through this. I’m going to try and turn this into a positive turning point. As long as I can resist the FOMO in the future.
Here’s a painting by Francisco Goitia called “Zacatecas Landscape with Hanged Men I.” I think about this painting a lot. It is still probably the scariest piece of art I have ever seen in person.
If this drags into next month I will not be able to pay my bills. I’m trying not to think about it. Just get through today. Here’s some new music I like.
As someone who used to do this I really fucking hate it when music writers say or write something like “so-and-so are the best band in [insert city]” because it comes off as such an underexplained, pretentious proclamation, like, I know about this thing and you don’t, and I don’t need to explain why, you should trust me because I have 6,000 twitter followers or whatever. It’s unnecessarily boastful yet also not helpful in any material way to the band or the person reading it. Anyway I won’t say that about Control Top but what I will say is it’s hard for me to think of a Philadelphia band that I like more at this very moment. Ah shit. Their 2019 LP Covert Contracts was a personal revelation—a loud, forceful punk band maintaining their ferocity and energy while still making experimental, danceable music. Plenty of hardcore kids have “grown up” and started dance punk bands and many more will, but what sometimes happens in that situation is the energy inherent in hardcore music, instead of being repurposed just ends up lost. Control Top have managed to avoid those pratfalls and create something vital and refreshingly confrontational. Ali Carter’s chunky bass and Alex Lichtenauer’s incredibly propulsive drumming set the tone, while Al Creedon’s guitars and electronics zap in and out, adding and subtracting tension and noise in all the right spots. Carter’s vocals, which can range from bright singing to sharp yelling to throaty screaming, are the final and most charismatic puzzle piece. The band’s new song “One Good Day” builds on those established sounds with lyrics that now seem a little prescient, given the circumstances. (Get Better Records)
Staying in Philly, Eye Flys are a newish noise-rock band from members of Full Of Hell, Backslider and Triac. Their approach to the genre really checks all the boxes—sludgy guitars with groove-forward rhythms; snarling, sneering vocals low in the mix; a thunderous rhythm section. Their new album Tub Of Lard is punishing, heavy, claustrophobic and uncompromising. If mosh pits ever exist again this band will be creating a lot of them. At this particular moment a song like “Guillotine” feels appropriate. (Thrill Jockey)