I had no idea there were so many strains of shoegaze. Whenever I don’t know what to listen to, I’ll find some random shoegaze playlist on Spotify and let it play in the background. I’m not sure how it took me so long to discover ‘my sound’ but I’m firmly in the camp and there’s no turning back at this point.
That said, I’ve been listening to more and more hip-hop regularly as I get older. Maybe it’s making up for the lost time of how little I listened to when I was younger.
It seems I only write when I’m coming back from a trip, but this time, I’m heading on a short trip so perhaps that’s progress?
Apparently, I saw Jessica Pratt years ago and forgot about it. Thankfully, I have a penchant for photographing most of the shows I go to for this reason. Her most recent record, Quiet Signs is my fall record of choice.
I can’t seem to get myself in the mood to write. I never thought remote work would be my fate, and I mostly like it. But there are days when I think I probably need the routine of going to a place. Coworking is cool when it works well, but too often, it’s just a semi-empty room full of strangers and I can’t really see myself paying for that honor.
Also, it’s just nice to be able to play music at home whenever I want. The snacks are better here, too.
Postcards from Finland, redux
In case you somehow missed that I went to Finland earlier this month, here’s a pic of me from the Pesäpallo game. I drove 4.5 hours from Helsinki to Vimpeli, Finland to watch my favorite team (lose) in the final playoff game of their season. People ask me why this story resonates so much over there.
I’m not sure how to explain it, except to mention there’s a Finnish saying (loosely translated) “Someone mentioned Finland. Everyone meet the town square!”
Speaking of music, I’d mostly been avoiding Finnish music until my trip home. I prefer post-punk/shoegaze/warbly stuff and you don’t find that as much in Finnish bands. So I tend to listen to Swedish bands for that.
Two of my favorites are Hurula and Vånna Inget. There’s just not a great parallel for their sound over here. Somebody book them to a festival stat, they’d be huge.
I’ve been wanting to send one of these for months, so I’m glad I finally was able to share some music with you.
Feel free to reply and say hello, I’m the only one who’ll see the reply.