I love the living, breathing paradox that is all things punk. I play bass (read: I play guitar so terribly I was Survivor-style voted off the instrument) in a punk band. I’d even go as far to say that I play in a bad punk band. So, arguably–the trope goes–I play bass in an “authentic” punk band in that my technique is garbage, our sound is downstroke-driven primal, and I chew through picks the way that my dog chews through every screen door we’ve ever had. This idea of authenticity is, of course, ridiculous. Everything starts to get muddled when we start considering that bad punk is more authentic than good punk, authentic is “better,” and good punk is ostensibly “bad.” Throw in the fact that we’re playing in a musical style whose swan song really should have come about with the first power chords of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and (even more concerning) that the genre is so obsessively concerned with “poseurs” and submits to an ouroboros of the bona fides–eating itself away into oblivion–and you’re dealing with a beautiful hodgepodge of contradictions as expansive as it is limiting. Despite all of its paradoxes, its burnouts, and its tenderhearted but naive ambition, it still seems to exist in some state just fiercely trucking on, blind to all its faults. Point is, although there’s a huge part of me that likes indulging in blaring nasty distorted noise at a level way past human decency, there’s a part that is drawn to punk because it both delivers a hard credo and gives you license to do whatever want under its crusty, threadbare umbrella. It allows me to carve out my own space between shades of gray.

If you’ve ever done a quick search on the Internet for “writing about music,” you’d have a difficult time avoiding this nugget of supposed wisdom:

“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”

The quote is nebulous in origin, but as pervasive as a perennial garden weed. Despite its persistence, it is a quote I can imagine only exists because of the incredibly dull sort of people who like to maintain that the current crop of musicians are far worse than the ones of their own generation.

But why is it so aggravatingly narrow-minded? First, to argue that we can’t dance about architecture assumes that either ballet or buildings can’t be greater than the sum of their own parts, and that something so intangible and fluid could never hope to create a dialogue with something as substantial as a concrete structure. You could maybe try to argue that architects and dancers had no business talking to each other if each one was able to grow up in a bubble– totally isolated from one another–free from any shared experience aside from the mystical “divine” spark of inspiration. But the reality is we live in a world where paintings are not just paintings, songs can “save lives,” and works don’t just have the ability to exist outside themselves; but they may need to in order to make any sense. Like punk, you’re blocking meaningful thought if you’re asserting that your art has to be “totally authentic,” and completely isolated from other media and experiences.  Anyway, the case can be made that you can write about music, and furthermore, that exploring an art form through a different medium is not a futile pursuit.

And I guess that brings it back to me. I’m here to try to do just that—not simply to hone my writing skills, but also to create some dialogue with some works, works for which I have an overwhelming, nerd-like love, and hopefully works about which I have something meaningful to say. I’m guessing that by the end of this, you’ll have something meaningful to say about them as well.