Sunday, November 14, 2010

hazy shade of winter

Last night I judged a high school battle of the bands at Cafe Coda here in Chico and it was pretty crazy how much NOTHING has changed about these scenes/kids since I was a little live music rat at fifteen. The fashion isn't honestly that different, and the little cliques of kids, very similar.

And the bands... man the bands, so heart stoppingly earnest and not technically good, but their little hearts are just splattered all over everything. And yeah, there are still the dorky joke bands ala the Dead Milkmen and the jocky rich kid bands ala Pennywise. It's alarmingly similar to my life 15 years ago.

For some reason though instead of seeming comical to me, it was just sweet. It made me smile. I'm glad to see that this home for "outsiders" exists in the world still and even still in a really small place like Chico where they only have two high schools and being "normal" is just the only way to be.

Emily kept apologizing for keeping me so long yesterday, but I didn't mind. I liked watching the kids have their night out and talking to a few of them that know me from the radio. They seemed pretty blown away that I was there (which honestly is a far nicer reception than any radio person would've gotten in our scene back in Bakersfield at that time. "Effin sellouts! Raaarr") and the band that won, Color Me Plaid were this cute little acoustic duo, think half of early Paramore, this probably 14-16 year old girl with braces and pink hair singing her heart out. And I was glad for her band to have won, because it is incredibly brave to get up there on stage in front of other mean little teenagers and sing your heart out. So good for her. I wanted to talk to her afterwards but didn't. I mean who cares what some creepy old lady thinks?

All in all though, it was an enjoyable evening and I need to go back and check out Cafe Coda again for food and breakfast.

1 comment:

  1. As someone who once played in an overly-earnest teenage band, I applaud your participation in (and appreciation of) this kind of event. I think that's pretty cool.

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