Me N' Lou

Me N' Lou

by Kenneth Fury

This isn't an article to convince.

This isn't an article to demand.

This is an article to tell.

Following a heavy depression period in which I found myself only listening to sludgey or doom metal , I realize I had become pretty disconnected from the music world. A disheartening illusion for someone who thought going to one show a week wasn't enough and strove to be there f or every single one. I had loved the t winkle- daddy band, Snowing, who are usually just called an emo band. So I said fuck it, I went to go look for some more emo bands. I had great luck and fell in love with the scene. The math rock influence that had such brilliant playing and tapping, the lovable song direction and aesthetics, I adored it all. I found myself getting more into the faster, punkier stuff. Stuff from Dads such "Grunt Work" was incredibly dope and I spent all my time trying to find more bands like this. (1) It's what propelled me to learn guitar after years of playing 1 bass.

In doing so, I delved into the community. Facebook groups, forums, you name it. Funnily enough, I came across a meme, one of those ones that has an album and then lists personality traits of the listener. For some dumb reason I laughed because the one for "Fuck your emotional bullshit", the Snowing 7 inch was scarily accurate to myself at the time. I went through the other bands and eventually came upon Jank. From the very first second, I loved this band. Every chord choice, every lick, every song change, the structure of the songs, every instrumentalist was phenomenal, how catchy but precise it was. Lou Diamond, oh my god. What a guitar player. With lovable lyrics and mind blowing guitar parts, I was quickly inspired. I ranted and raved to literally anyone who would listen, listened to each song over and over dreaming maybe one day I could play this well. I would even go to parties and play the songs for friends I thought might like it.

Or not . I became obsessed with Jank. I watched every live video up on Youtube. The Little elephant sessions? Burned into my brain. I had started a new band at the time, wanting t o be a heavy, Converge and Every Time I die influenced sounding band. Jank took over that. Jank completely musically redirected me. Potential bandmates had to have heard Jank. Naturally, once I had passed being obsessed with live videos, I sought interviews.

This is when things changed for me.

Somehow, because of my ability to avoid reading comments on Youtube I hadn't noticed Jank had broken up. Quickly I learned of the allegations against Lou Diamond, my favourite guitar player. My favourite vocalist. My favourite songwriter.

I was horrified and felt ashamed. I toiled over the idea. Could I still listen to the music made by a horrible person? I wasn't sure. I talked about it with my peers and heard a range of different answers, all backed by completely different reasons. Often, people cite the fact that they won' t support the band financially anymore. But to me, support is in every aspect. The discussing of the band and their work, sending it to your friends and giving it public attention is support: to me. I tend to personalize the music I listen to and with knowing there' this stain on the hands of this music, they're not ones I want to hold. I fear there are readers who look through this and will see me as virtue signaling and other similar acts. To be blunt, I can't express enough how much I wish I could separate the art from the artist. Art is the most personal thing in the world to me and is a reflection of the person in every way. Sure, "Alligator" by Jank doesn't immediately set off any warnings for me lyrically. But to go back to Brand New, I 'm now aware of harmful the language Jesse Lacey used, mostly in earlier albums is. Sure, he isn't talking about all women, but when you get a room filled with teenage males who all hate a specific person in their life, the energy changes. No, we shouldn't dissuade anyone of any type from talking about people who hurt them through song, however we must be mindful in the language we use. It's okay to be stung to t he point of hateful, it's not great to express this in the way it was on the first Glassjaw record. To me, I stonewall myself from these things, no matter how much I love them, because I think it's the morally correct choice. Maybe it's just a matter of being raised Catholic, something about denying stuff to yourself.

Regardless of how I attempt to justify listening to Jank or Brand New, bands who utterly changed my life, I can't. I envy those who can. If the punk, emo, skramz and beyond community want to be what we claim we are in terms of inclusiveness, this is important. However in saying all this, I struggle with telling people they shouldn't listen to such bands, preferring to discuss why they can, in hopes of developing a dialect that is beneficial for both parties to learn. Overall, these situations just fucking suck. I'm not sure how else to put it. All I can say, is that in observing how we and others react to the situations at hand, we learn a lot about ourselves, our friends and our community.

Footnotes : (1) don't get me wrong I'm down to get sad af to slow music but sometimes a boy has to blast u know?