Something to Believe In: What Bon Jovi Taught Me About Deconstruction and Faith

Not so secret confession: Bon Jovi is my favorite band.

Well, I don’t know about absolute favorite. That honor probably goes to Heart at the moment, who I also seldom shut up about. But Bon Jovi my “comfort band” for sure, a nostalgic auditory bowl of chicken noodle soup when I feel most torn up about adult life. They were my childhood obsession, and if there was a “Jessa Don’t Talk About Bon Jovi For One Day” Challenge, I’d lose almost immediately. Richie Sambora is half the reason I play guitar (the other half being the fact that one-on-one guitar lessons were the only activity my then-undiagnosed ADHD ass couldn’t get kicked out of).

Yet despite my immense love of Bon Jovi as a youngin’, there was one single song that was always a “skip” for me. That song? “Something to Believe In,” a track from their wildly underrated 1995 flop, These Days, an album that, to Adult Jessa, has absolutely zero skips because it’s just that good.

Behold, Bon Jovi’s weird moody grunge phase that actually goes *hard.*

It certainly didn’t help the song’s case to be a power ballad, as that was an art form that would take me a few more years to properly appreciate. But the lyrics were what gave me the most pause, as a good little church girl. The opening lines say it all:

I lost all faith in my God

In His religion too

I told the angels they can sing their songs to someone new

Yeah, you can kinda see why this song gave me pause. It makes me think of my first time going to youth group, right in the middle of this huge campaign to gather up “ungodly” albums and other media for a huge bonfire. I was too attached to my beloved Bon Jovi collection to send it to the flames just yet, but it did make me rethink what I was listening to. And I could not, as a good little church girl, listen to something that so blatantly questioned God.

I struggled with this feeling for a long time, every time I put on the full album and heard the opening drum beat begin. I wanted to love the song — something drew me to it, despite everything — but the song seemed so anti-Christian and blasphemous.

I never appreciated it for what it was — a song about deconstruction.

In exvangelical circles, deconstruction is the process in which you begin to question and unpack the beliefs the evangelical church instilled in you. Now, Bon Jovi is not from an evangelical background. In fact, much of the band was raised Catholic to the best of my knowledge, with frontman Jon admitting to being a “recovering Catholic.” But I feel the exvangelical experience and the lapsed Catholic experience are very similar in many ways.

In re-listening to “Something to Believe In” as an adult, I realized one of my lifelong musical heroes had the same wrestlings with God that I was having. It was very similar to the feeling I got when I first re-listened to “Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night” as an adult and realized Jon may have had the same mental health struggles as me, even worse at times. It really humanized this guy I’d viewed as a god growing up. Like, I used to play make-believe that I was Jon Bon Jovi as a little kid, and here I was having this entire revelation that he’s literally just a human being like me.

With his own struggles.

And his own dark, depressive thoughts.

And his own religious trauma.

That’s what “Something to Believe In” started to represent to me, that funnelling of religious trauma into something beautiful. After all, it is not a sin to have religious trauma, nor is it even a sin to have questions at times. In 1 Thessalonians 5:21, we are told to test everything and hold to what is true. That seems like a pretty big green light to, ya know, have questions.

The evangelical church discourages deconstruction as it can lead to the person believing in another faith, atheism, agnosticism, or perhaps scariest of all, a less oppressive, more affirming form of Christianity. That’s where I ended up falling in the end, but it wasn’t an easy road. There were definitely parts of my life where I felt exactly like how Jon describes himself feeling in the song. Sometimes, you have to reach that nadir in your relationship with God before you truly begin to unpack the toxic things the church has taught you in His name.

Listening to the song now is a reminder of where I’ve been in my spiritual journey. It’s a reminder that this feeling is universal and I’m not alone in this struggle. And most importantly, it’s a reminder that deconstruction can be beautiful.

If you enjoyed the writing in this post and elsewhere on the site, please consider donating to Jessa’s tuition fund! Any help is appreciated!

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The Librarian’s Daughter: A Look Back

It’s been half a year since the release of my double EP, The Librarian’s Daughter.

These EPs were a unique endeavor for me because they started life as Christmas presents for my partners. The Sun version was dedicated to my wife Crass and filled with songs inspired by her, and the Stars version was written and recorded in honor of my girlfriend, Olivia. I always describe my form of polyamory to folks like that — Crass is my sun, and Olivia is my stars, and I love them both in different but equal ways. Although this project began as a private gift, I almost immediately realized the rest of the world needed to hear these songs too. So I quickly but carefully put together what would become the full project, and the rest is history.

The title was chosen because of my partners’ shared backgrounds as daughters of librarians, with Crass’s mother having served as head honcho of her public library and Olivia’s father having worked his entire life in service of his city’s library. I thought it was a whimsical, memorable title that fit the theme of the EPs. I wanted a title that made people wonder — who is the librarian’s daughter? The album art was inspired by tarot and designed by me. I really liked the pretty gold and jewel tones I chose for both versions of the album as well as the “compilation” playlist.

This album was recorded over several weeks in the summer of 2024, primarily in the town of Niles, Michigan, in a small Airbnb my wife and I rented after the fallout of my failed internship. I knew that if I wanted to get this thing finished, it was going to have to be produced quite a bit ahead of schedule. At the time, we were in the process of regrouping and trying to find a place in Kalamazoo, so I wasn’t sure how much energy I’d have to work on it when it was actually the holiday season. So I labored many hours in the steamy living room of that place and set up my entire mobile studio to capture what I wanted.

Since the release of the EPs, not a lot has changed — yet it has. I didn’t do much promo on the album because I was pretty exhausted by the time it came out, and I felt like the people who needed to hear the music the most got to hear it. It wasn’t a breakthrough album. And yet in a way, it was. Barring the Oceanography EP, I’ve never had an album or EP release. Releasing The Librarian’s Daughter showed me I was still capable of doing amazing things in music after what felt like my entire career crashed down in the wake of the internship. It gave me renewed sense of hope.

So if you haven’t heard these songs, here’s a little track-by-track breakdown of everything that’s on the EPs.

“One Way Train”

This song began life as one I actually wrote years ago about an ex, but I didn’t really have any connection to him or the lyrics anymore, so I completely rewrote the words from scratch to be about my wife instead. The title changed between “Wishing Well” (from the opening lyrics, “Made it down the wishing well”) and “One Way Train” more times than I can remember, but everyone seemed to like “One Way Train” best when I asked them. The colors mentioned in the second verse refer to our favorite colors as well as the color of a map, which almost aludes back to “I Can See the Rest of Our Lives From Here,” an unreleased Wake Up Jamie track with the lines “Throw a dart at the map and let’s take flight.” I also threw in a kazoo solo because I thought it would make my wife laugh. (It did.)

“Taco Bell”

Musically, I wrote this song as a challenge to see how many times I could change the key without it getting weird. (I call it the “I Walk the Line” gambit.) Lyrically, it’s a testament to mine and my wife’s strange, unique, beautiful dynamic. We’ve never been romantic in the traditional sense of the word. Our idea of intimacy is eating Taco Bell and watching bad movies together, and I honestly prefer that for us! I mention how she hated me at first, which is not a lie, and in the bridge, I actually sneakily incorporate my wife’s name into the words. The “big fat…grin” was inspired by The Maine’s “Into Your Arms” — “She had the most amazing…smile.” I thought that was a real fun, cheeky line, and I love The Maine, so that was a kind of my small homage to them.

“Chicago”

This is my take on the “run away with your lover” song trope. At the time of writing, we were plotting our next move, and it was looking like either Chicago or Kalamazoo. Kalamazoo won out in the end, but I couldn’t find a way to fit the word “Kalamazoo” into a song for another half a year. So “Chicago” was the end result. I’m particularly proud of the guitar work in the finished product. I literally drenched my tone in reverb for the opening bit and it gives my guitar a very characteristic and unsettling sound. The solo is one of my favorites I’ve written. I’m not much of a lead player and I’m sure one of my buddies who can really shred would have elevated it to the next level, but I did the best with the resources I had, which was literally just me.

“Olivia”

Onto the Stars version! “Olivia” was my attempt at channelling my inner Paul McCartney, who is one of Olivia’s musical idols. The piano features heavily throughout the song, although it’s not a real piano but entirely painstakingly MIDI-programmed. This one also features several key changes, both flipping between parallel major and minor keys (between the verses and choruses), and jumping up for the solo and once again for the last chorus. Overall, it’s a real short but sweet tune about the night I met Olivia at a Valentine’s Day-themed show we both were performers at (and yes, there was a real kissing booth!).

“When You Tell Me Goodnight”

The origins of this song are murky at best, because it actually wasn’t originally about Olivia. I’d penned a very primitive draft probably way back in 2012 at the earliest, although at the time I couldn’t think of a good enough muse to truly dedicate it to, so it languished in my drafts. But Olivia gave me the missing piece, and the song came to fruition with her inspiration. It’s a very barebones song, with nothing more than my voice and my Stratocaster with a nice twinkly setting on it. It’s stripped, and I wanted it to be that way on purpose. I feel like so many of my songs are big and over-the-top, and this is a simple love song. It means a lot to me though, and soon, Olivia and I will be releasing on a new version together that incorporates her chiptune work. I’m excited to share that with you too.

“I Wanna Fall in Love With You”

Finally, the song that was the biggest nightmare to produce, but it was absolutely worth it because it turned out breathtaking. I used a lot of synth for this track, so it took a while to piece all of those sounds together. The guitar solo was inspired by “Without Love” by Bon Jovi, from their timeless album Slippery When Wet. Ifyou listen closely, the guitar and synths are playing in unison, and I wanted to achieve a similar effect here. This song contains some of my favorite imagery and one of the best lines I’ve written: “Someday when I am gray and old, I’ll look back at this night at know / For a moment, life was beautiful.” I think that’s the overarching theme of these EPs — the love in my life make all the struggles worth it.

If you enjoyed the writing in this post and elsewhere on the site, please consider donating to Jessa’s tuition fund! Any help is appreciated!

CashApp: $TheJessaJoyce

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Don’t Quit Your Day Job: How to Avoid Selling Out and Make Art You Actually Like

I like to read books on the intersection of creativity and productivity. It’s kind of my way of sharpening my mind for writing and creating music. Reading has always been a form of escapism for me, but these diving into these books of practical tips and hard-earned advice have really helped me develop my own philosophy toward art and work. One book I’m working through at the moment is Make Your Art No Matter What by Beth Pickens, which is crammed full of helpful information and philosophical approaches guided by everything from modern psychology to ancient Jewish wisdom. It’s a great book so far, but the second chapter was what prompted me to write this post. It’s a chapter simply titled “Work,” and it delves into all the ways our hectic capitalistic work schedule fucks with our abilities to create.

Here’s a hard truth I’m learning: if you want to create good art, get a day job. I’m not kidding.

If you want to create unadulterated, pure art, free from the expectations of corporations and The Man™, you need to get a day job. Because the second you rely on your art for your income, it’s not yours anymore.

My wife is an artist. I talk about her quite a bit on here. One thing she does for work is commissions. She specializes in doing quick unhinged portraits of people’s fursonas (furry art is a lucrative field, yo). Imagine if you paid $5 of your hard-earned money for a sketch of your character and you got back a lovely sketch of Shrek. You wouldn’t exactly be pleased, would you?

I don’t think I *could* be mad at this, to be fair.

The second people start giving you money for your work, you owe it to them to give the people what they want.

But if you can make a living independently of your art, you can do whatever the fuck you want with it.

And it’s freeing as hell.

When I was younger, I wished I was Taylor Swift famous. And the truth is, when you’re Taylor Swift famous, you have a little more wiggle room. She has enough leverage to do what she wants creatively. If she wanted to pull a Poppy and go full on metal, she totally could.

And here is proof that it would be absolutely badass.

Here’s the thing: most artists don’t have that privilege. No, not even many artists who are now considered legendary. Take Heart, for example, because y’all already know I’ll take advantage of any opportunity I get to fangirl over them.

Jessa Shuts Up About Heart for Five Minutes Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE!)

Back in the 70s, Heart took over the rock world with timeless songs like “Magic Man,” “Crazy On You,” and the classic musical middle finger to creeps and sleazebags known as “Barracuda” (which I channeled recently at karaoke when approached by a fucko). But by the 80s, they were reaching a nadir in their career. The industry had changed around them, and suddenly, music was less about realness and artistry and more about manufactured image. The frontwomen of Heart, the Wilson sisters, faced with the very real threat of irrelevancy and the impending death of their music career, decided to roll the dice with what I call the Liz Phair gambit. Suddenly, the band went from looking like this:

To this:

In order to survive, the band had to sell out. And with great success! They scored their first ever number ones during their bombastic, hairspray-fueled ‘80s run. Everyone knows and loves their output during this era. Who can forget the epic power ballad “Alone,” with a music video that was so influential to me growing up that it shaped my entire aesthetic?

But despite all the earthly riches MTV could offer, it really wasn’t the music they wanted to make.

I’ll let Ann Wilson herself do the heavy lifting of explaining the situation in her own words:

“What made me the most uncomfortable in the 1980s when Heart was doing everybody else’s songs was that the songs seemed like the empty fishbowls that you could pour anybody into and it would be a hit,” she said in an interview. “That’s the ultimate example of me biting the hand that fed me. But, at the same time, I’m a creative artist and I want to be authentic and I made this Faustian bargain to do other people’s songs and get No. 1s.”

Sure, she did what she had to do to achieve the rock star life. But sometimes I wonder if she would have been happier tackling the music industry the way I am in the 21st century, working overnight as a caregiver while laboring over her MacBook during the day to make the music she wanted to make. I wonder if I’d be as miserable as she was in the ‘80s, having to sell my artistic soul to have a viable career.

The truth is, I may never see more than the measly excuse for royalties Spotify pays out. I’ll likely never be more than Kalamazoo famous. But at least I can make the music I want to make. I’m not beholden to anyone. If I wanted to scrap my upcoming project, LORE, in favor of a Weird Al-style parody album, I could get away with it. And that’s all because I have financial stability outside my creative work.

I won’t say it’s an easy life to live. Balancing a full time job on top of any passion projects is not a task for the weak. But if you want to make the stuff you wanna make, it’s the best road to travel. It’s okay to work a dumb job you don’t like for the paycheck if it means not letting your art become that dumb job you don’t like.

Selling out just ain’t worth it.

Ten Songwriting Truths I Live By

A writing prompt! I love those!

List 10 things you know to be absolutely certain.

Last summer, I read a truly wonderful book called The Creative Act by one of my music production heroes, Rick Rubin. In it, he writes of many truths he’s uncovered in his time working in the music industry and in everyday life. I fondly remember reading it on the beach, soaking in every word as if it were holy scripture of sorts. There’s so much to learn in studying the work and writings of the greats.

I’m now at a place in my career where younger local musicians look up to me, and it’s a cool feeling. I often have friends ask me about my songwriting tips, and I don’t mind passing along my knowledge. I know I’m no Rick Rubin, but I’ve got almost two decades of songwriting experience under my belt. I know a thing or two about writing a catchy song. So here are my Ten Universal Truths of Songwriting:

1. Writing Anything is Better Than Nothing

This one is so important, I put it first. Think about it. A swimmer swims. A dancer dances. What does a songwriter do? Sit around and daydream about how nifty a Grammy would look on their mantle? No! They write songs! It doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect — just do it! It’s better for people to hear what you have instead of wishing it was something else. After all, there’s no wrong answers in songwriting. You don’t have to be Bob Dylan or have a Lennon or McCartney in your life to craft a song. Anyone can do it. What matters is that you do it. If you never write, you don’t get to call yourself a writer any more than I get to call myself a golfer.

2. Shortcuts Are Best Used Sparingly

I can’t chastise anyone for using AI for inspiration. I played with fire myself, and even though I came out the other side leaning more anti-AI than pro, I’d be a hypocrite if I said I never utilized it in any capacity whatsoever. But take it from someone who has used it in songwriting. Using AI will bork your creativity and make your imposter syndrome worse. Use it for chord progression ideas. Use it to flesh out demos. But for the love of God, do not use AI as a crutch. You will get way more satisfaction crafting a song yourself.

3. Grammar Comes Second to Flow

I’m big on the Max Martin School of Pop Songwriting, including and up to prioritizing the catchiness of a song over everything else. That man’s first language was not English and it shows, but in a way it liberated him to be more creative with the language. In “Break Free,” a Martin-penned tune, Ariana Grande sings “Now that I’ve become who I really are,” a sentence that makes no grammatical sense but sticks in your head. I used the same verbiage in “Kalamazoo” in homage to Max Martin, actually — “But I’m happy where I are; I don’t wanna be a star.”

4. You Don’t Have to Reinvent the Wheel

Did you know that most popular music uses the same chords as Johann Pachelbel’s much-loved Canon in D? Those chords are the I, IV, V, and occasionally the minor iii and vi. You’ve probably seen or heard the Axis of Awesome four chords video at some point if you play music, but it stands true. You don’t need to throw in weird jazz chords to make things interesting. You can, but you don’t have to, and too many weird chords muddles things in my opinion. I try to throw in one spicy chord per song, if that. But the truth is, you can’t copyright chord progressions, so don’t feel bad about borrowing from your favorites. Speaking of which…

5. Studying the Greats Makes You Great

Don’t just listen to your heroes. Study them. What did they do, both in their music and out of it? I’m lucky that one of my biggest inspirations as a songwriter is Taylor Swift, whose songwriting processes have been studied and dissected numerous times, to the point where her work is studied in colleges. Because I see a lot of her writing in my own writing, I enjoy reading about how she writes songs, especially to glean inspiration for my own. (Which reminds me, I’m due to write a fun glitter gel pen song soon.)

6. You Are Your Own Artist

As much as I fancy myself a follower of the Swiftian School of Pop Songwriting (yes, there are a couple different Schools of Pop Songwriting), I know I’m not Taylor. I’m not Max Martin. I’m not the Wilson sisters from Heart or Jon and Richie from Bon Jovi either. I know I make a shitty Taylor Swift or Ann Wilson, but I make a great Jessa Joyce. And the best part is I get to decide what that looks like for me and my life — and my songwriting. I found a lot of freedom when I stopped trying to fit my music into a box. Sometimes music doesn’t fit into a pre-existing box. Do you think King Blizzard and Wizard Gizzard or whatever the hell their name is would have a career if music had to fit into a box?

7. You Can Find Inspo in Anything — ANYTHING!

When I was in college, I was dating a guy who played circles around me, guitar-wise. Like, one of the best guitarists I’ve ever heard in person to this day. But he couldn’t write like I could. He didn’t believe me when I said I could write a song about anything, so I wrote a song about his noisy-ass fridge. It slapped. When people ask me my advice for starting out writing songs, I usually say pick a theme of anything — it can be the ocean, candy, your record collection — and just collect phrases and metaphors relating to that thing.

8. Collaboration is Key

Sometimes the best moments in songs are happy accidents with other people. When Wake Up Jamie wrote “Bones” (a song that may or may not ever see a proper release), we just frankensteined together various bits and bobs we’d written individually. I wrote the catchy chorus, natch, while the other frontwoman wrote the verses. The main riff was all the lead guitarist, and the drummer decided to insert a metalcore-style breakdown in the middle of this otherwise funk and glam-inspired song. Had I been more of a control freak than I am, these elements would have not been possible. But I let go of the reins a little and ended up penning one of my band’s coolest songs.

9. Music Theory is Your Friend

Don’t fall victim to that whole “Music theory is for nerds” mentality. Knowledge is power, especially in music. Sure, you can learn the rules if only to break them, but it’s good to know the rules so you know how to break them most effectively. It’s important to know why music works together. Learning the basics of music theory will help you create more musically and artistically interesting works. Unless you’re creating nothing but barebones punk, you need more than three power chords and the truth.

10. Music Should Be Emotional

I saved the best one for last. If the music you’re writing doesn’t make you feel something, you’re not doing it right. I’m a proponent of getting high on your own supply, so to speak. I listen to my own music all the time. It should spark a sense of pride in you. I know I don’t have much. I’m not a celebrity. I’m not rich or powerful. But I’ve got these songs, and they’re a part of me, and that’s gotta count for something. Throw your entire self into your craft, emotions and all. You’ll never regret the songs you leave behind one day.

If you enjoyed the writing in this post and elsewhere on the site, please consider donating to Jessa’s tuition fund! Any help is appreciated!

CashApp: $TheJessaJoyce

Venmo: @TheJessaJoyce

Reflections on Music, My Late Father, and a Phish Pilgrimage

I write this as my Chicago trip draws to a close. And man, am I glad I won’t have to type “I’m in Chicago” to people every five minutes, as I suck at typing the word “Chicago.” I swear I always write “chichi” or “chacha.”

Anyways, Chicago isn’t exactly a place people go to for spiritual enlightenment, but this trip was different. This trip came on the heels of my father’s death a few days prior. I’d had this trip with my bandmate planned for a little while, and I’d contemplated cancelling it, but sometime told me to go anyways. This trip was to see Phish, and, ya know, my dad had gone to Woodstock. The OG hippie music event.

You *know* I would have been this bitch had I gone myself.

I got the invitation from my bandmate and one of my best bros, Chris, who’s always buying tickets to see someone. Me, I very seldom buy tickets to see mainstream or larger artists. Most of the times I’ve gone to see someone bigger than Warped Tour-level, it’s been because a friend thought “Hey, Jessa likes music” and had no one else to go with. Which, I mean, I will never turn down a free show. It’s how I’ve seen Muse, KC & the Sunshine Band, Kiss, Motley Crue, Van Halen (WITH Eddie!), and so many more awesome as hell artists live. If you put out into the world that music is your entire life and just be nice to people, you will manifest concert tickets. At least I do, somehow.

Anyways, we get to Chris’s cool vegan sister’s studio apartment and I’m already high as balls because this is a Phish concert and if I’m going to see a jam band, I’m gonna do it right. That is to say, with a copious amount of a certain herb that is legal in the great state of Michigan. And Illinois, albeit way more expensive.

There is a speakeasy that has THC shots, to be fair.

And we get there and I’m just full of this nervous energy. I can’t explain it, but something’s in the air as we’re standing outside waiting to go in the stadium. At one point I eulogized Chris’s beloved signature hat that he’d worn during his stint with Wake Up Jamie by singing “Angel” by Sarah McLachlan, and some lady thought it sounded nice, even though I was just being silly. Then we got inside, and the munchies hit all at once. Cue me buying not one but two ice cream cones.

Then the show itself started and it was not at all the vibe I was expecting. I’d never listened to Phish but I knew their reputation as a stoner band, so I was expecting something a little more subdued and shoegazey. Instead, the first song was fun party music! I found myself actually dancing a little, although not as intensely as the old men around me, especially the one who literally spun around in a little clockwise circle the entire time.

Sometimes you just gotta spin around like a clock.

As I stood there with my little ice cream cone listening to these guys play, I studied the music in my head. At one point, there was a musical phrase that just didn’t resolve, and led into an explosive jam. It was uncomfortable and different, and I realized I haven’t been listening to music that challenges me lately. I haven’t been listening to music that makes me get tingles because of some weird cadence I’ve never heard before. Really, I think I’m just intimidated by new music in general. It’s part of why I never checked out Phish before — the archive panic. After all, my first awareness of Phish came after I discovered a compendium of their music and lore years ago at a Borders (really dating myself). All I remember aside from it being rainbow and really pretty was how it rivaled the actual Bible in length.

Someday several millennia from now, Phish will be revered as gods.

And that’s the thing about being at a Phish concert. I was aware that I wasn’t a native Phishhead (DuckDuckGo tells me the correct term is “Phan”). This was not my territory, and I wanted to be as respectful as I would want someone else to be at a Heart show. I don’t know shit about fuck when it comes to Phish, and I won’t pretend I do, but as a tourist in their world, I felt strangely welcome and at home. Some of the guitar solos brought a tear to my eye, and it was a reminder of how spiritual of an experience music can be.

The next day (as in today, the day that I’m writing this), Chris and I went to a Baha’i temple in the Chicago area.

This picture doesn’t do it justice. It’s a beautiful work of architecture. That’s not what made me tear up, though. When we went inside, we were greeted by a beautiful a cappella chant led by a single man. It was absolutely soul-invigorating. This trip ultimately made me re-appreciate the way music has been there for me spiritually throughout the years, even in non-spiritual contexts. Like karaoke, or a Phish concert. It truly is a divine gift. As one of the founders of the Baha’i faith wrote:

“Music is one of the important arts. It has great effect upon human spirit … music is a material affair, yet its tremendous effect is spiritual, and its greatest attachment is to the realm of the spirit.”

I’ll never forget one of the last conversations I had with my dad. He was the extrovert. If you’re ever wondering where I get my outgoing nature from, it’s him. The man never met a stranger. You could be standing next to him in line at Meijer’s and he’d strike up a conversation with you about sports or the news or what-have-you. Anyways, I’d heard him mention Woodstock, but he’s been known to embellish stuff here and there, so I wasn’t sure if this story had actually even happened. But when I went to visit him last, I decided it was time to ask him.

He said he saved for two months to go because he knew it would be a big deal. All his coworkers made fun of him for it, but he didn’t care. He drove up there with some folks and stayed in little hotels along the way. At the site of the festival, they slept in a 20-man tent, and music went all throughout the night. He said he came to the festival with six friends and left with 28.

And that’s the power of music. It brought him together with those folks, many of whom he said were his best friends for years after the event. It brought me closer to him as he shared that story with me. And as I watched that Phish concert, I felt a sort of kinship to my dad and to everyone who’s ever been moved by music.

The thing about music is it’s not forever. Every song has to end sometime. But I’m glad I got to experience the song that was my dad’s life, even if it did have to end.

AI Killed the Radio Star: How Technology is Crushing the Culture of Music

I wasn’t sure how to answer this prompt—

What bothers you and why?

—until my girlfriend and I had a conversation on AI. Which is not unusual, since she’s a pretty staunch advocate against it. I’m fairly neutral on it, to be fair. I think it opens up lots of exciting possibilities, and it’s a tool like anything else, but at the same time, there are multitudinous problems with it that no one seems to want to address. Hell, I experimented with it against my better judgment and realized it was making my imposter syndrome so much worse. The unfortunate truth is we’re just going to have to learn to adapt to this somehow. There’s no putting this genie back in the bottle.

But it’s disheartening, because the advent of AI might be the final nail in the coffin of the music industry. And that is what has been bothering me lately.

And the sad truth is, the state of music has been in decline since the dawn of the internet. In fact, Suno is just finishing a job started by Napster all those years ago and continued by Spotify to this day.

Back in the 80s, everyone and their mother knew who Michael Jackson was. You only had a handful of radio stations in any given town to listen to, and if you wanted to hear a particular song any time you wanted, you had to go out and buy it. The albums would be prominently on display in your local Kmart. Even grandma was familiar with Bruce Springsteen’s ass.

Television isn’t as much of a special interest to me as music, so I don’t really care as much about its history, but you can see this kind of monoculture in TV throughout the years too. In the beginning, you had ABC, NBC, and CBS (and DuMont, the weird fourth one no one remembers). Everyone in your city was watching The Andy Griffith Show at the same time on the same channel and having this shared experience. Then cable came and divided everyone. If you were into sports, you went to ESPN. If you were into music, you went to MTV. If you’re into watching Amish people do mundane things, you went to TLC. Even the big cable networks splintered eventually — from MTV you get MTV 2, MTV Tres, VH1, VH1 Classic, CMT…

And none of them are playing music at any given moment.

With more technology, you get more options. But I’m starting to wonder if that’s a good thing.

We’re seeing a shift in music especially. We no longer have a monoculture, and I blame this on how easily accessible the entire catalogue of music is nowadays. If you want to listen to nothing but obscure pirate metal for the rest of your life, you don’t have to go on a wild goose chase hunting down every obscure pirate metal album ever made by every band that’s ever done obscure pirate metal. It’s as easy as going to a specialized Spotify playlist. And let’s say you want to listen to nothing but obscure pirate metal about your cat for the rest of your life. With AI, that’s entirely possible.

Why on earth would anyone seek out new music if they can just beep-boop an entire playlist tailored to their specific taste with lyrics reflecting their own life?

I think that’s what bothers me most about the future of music and how it has been intertwining with AI. I’m not scared of it taking my job necessarily, at least not in the traditional sense. I know human-made stuff is still largely superior. I’m really not even so afraid of the environmental stuff, since the planet’s borked anyways (I’m an optimist). It’s the death of culture and interpersonal connection that scares me. A survey said 62 percent of people actually prefer chatbots to humans. There are people straight up dating AI bots. How much more isolated are we going to allow ourselves to get?

My prediction is that eventually, this AI bubble will burst — but not without seeing huge reforms to the music industry. I can’t see the current model lasting much longer. I can see a return to smaller, more intimate shows as people get sick of how overflooded music platforms are with AI slop, low-effort music, and whatever the executives are trying to feed us. At least the true music fans will pivot that way.

Humans have a thirst for something real. It’s why American Idol always pushed artists with sob stories. We love when the art we consume comes with a captivating backstory, and entering a prompt and pushing a button was a cool backstory — the first thousand times it happened. Like, if you told someone in 2018 that a robot wrote the music for this song, that would be some neat Futurama shit. But the fact that technology can beep-boop songs from scratch is old news now, and people don’t want manufactured backstories. There was already a recent backlash against a band that was revealed to be AI. People are quick to turn on an artist when they sense disingenuousness. Remember that author who penned an autobiography that got noticed by Oprah, only to have it all come crashing down when it was revealed the story was fabricated?

The hidden controversy is the sensory nightmare that is that book cover.

I think the music industry is going to change in a lot of ways in the upcoming years. My hope is that we musicians don’t become obsolete and that the human need for connection and genuineness is stronger than the fleeting coolness that is AI. And I think we do have a need for real, human-made music. You can’t replace the camaraderie of your local punk scene or the chills a live orchestra brings or the sheer joy of going out to karaoke. Music in our souls. It’s what humanity sounds like.

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Stepping Into My Own “Barracuda” Moment

Let’s talk about Friday night.

I’ve been sitting on this blog post for a few days now as I process what happened at karaoke on Friday. Here’s the SparkNotes version of the events.

Basically, I was already riding high from a very successful music bingo night that I’d just hosted at a different bar. That part is important because had I not been in such a powerful mood already, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do what I did. I got to Old Dog Tavern (shout out to one of my two favorite bars in Kalamazoo!) around 10 I think and met up with one of my bandmates and best friends, Ellie. We were just outside on the deck probably sharing a joint with a few friends or something when we both headed inside for some reason. Not ten seconds after we stepped inside, some crusty short old white dude with a Colonel Sanders goatee in a green hat came up to us. He reached his shriveled hands within an inch of our titties and made a honking motion, remarking “Eh, isn’t this how you greet women?” and shyly begging “Can I?”

I saw red. It was enough that this fucko disrespected me, but also poor little Ellie, who is for all intents and purposes a little sister figure to me. I pushed back through the doors to where my wife, Crass, was sitting outside, and all I had to say was “creep,” “tried,” and “grope” and she was equally livid. We both bursted back inside, her to find the pervert and me to make a fucking statement.

I ran up to the stage and grabbed the microphone. Fuck whatever else was going on. This man had to be stopped. I screamed to stop the music, took the mic, and with all of the pent-up rage of 32 years worth of creeps thinking they can test me, I declared:

“Nobody is allowed to sexualize me and my friend without our consent.”

The bar bursted into a frenzy of confused looks and claps, save for one asshat heckler in the front who yelled “Too late!” like a goddamn Reddit troll in real life. This made me even more angry, and I lunged toward him, grabbed him by the collar to make him look me in the eye, and said “What the fuck did you say?” At that point, Crass had turned her attention to the heckler, and she literally chased the whole man out of the bar. The original pervert got tracked down and kicked out as well, and the whole time, I was shaking and crying and in shock at what I had just done.

I — the bullied little girl who had to eat lunch in the library to avoid being pelted with ranch dressing packets — finally stood up for myself.

Then, the most amazing moment happened. The whole bar rallied around me, encircling me physically with their bodies and figuratively with their love. I sunk into my friends’ arms and let out all of the emotions that had built up.

Because I was no longer scared. I felt like I had become something new. I stepped into who I was supposed to be this whole time. Like, there was something deeply spiritual about what happened that night. My good friend’s girlfriend said it’s a Leo moon thing. I keep drawing powerful feminine cards like The Empress and the Queen of Wands, the latter of which is a card that’s always resonated with me, though I couldn’t place why at first. I always thought I was more of a Cups girl — soft and emotional — not a fiery, passionate Queen of Wands.

I’ve mentioned my ridiculous admiration for Ann Wilson, frontwoman of the classic rock band Heart, on here many times, and it’s fitting that this particular night was the day after her 75th birthday. I wanted to be her so bad growing up, to the point where I’d study her singing and her performances and her fashion sense and even her personal life, as stan-ly as that sounds now (give me a break, I was an autistic child). One thing I learned when reading about her childhood was the fact that she was bullied extensively too, like me. She was overweight; I was underweight. She had a stutter; I had undiagnosed ADHD and autism. But I saw myself in her. Hell, I created a cringey wish-fulfillment OC based on her! She gave me hope that I could someday be the badass rocker chick I desperately wished to become.

That night at karaoke, that’s exactly what I did. I became that woman. The take-no-shit rock and roll queen who isn’t afraid to call a fucker out.

After the creeps were exiled from the bar and karaoke resumed as normal, the DJ (who may just be the best cishet white man this side of Steve Irwin) asked me if I was okay and if there was anything he could do. I had one request, because I knew exactly what my last song of the night would be.

Back in the 1970s, Ann and her own (actual) little sister, Nancy, were frequent victims of slimy men in music venues, especially since rock was very much considered a man’s world back then. The iconic “Barracuda” was written as a response to some guy backstage who made a creepy joke toward Ann at her sister’s expense, insinuating their relationship was incestuous. Absolutely filled with unbridled rage, she wrote the scathing lyrics that would eventually become the now-legendary song.

And that night was my “Barracuda moment.”

I got on stage to a roar of applause. It’s funny because a while ago I wrote a song half-joking about wanting to be “Kalamazoo famous” instead of actual famous. In that moment, I really did feel like a small town celebrity. With what little was left of my voice after cussing out the pervs, I sang my musical heroine’s battle cry, dedicating it to her for helping me find my voice — and to every man who ever intentionally made a woman feel unsafe in a bar.

I left the best part out. After everything was said and done, a young woman came up to me and quietly thanked me for what I did. She’d been victimized by the creep too. It made me realize how much power we have as women to lift each other up and protect one another.

I want to carry this night with me whenever I feel like I’m not strong enough to stand up for myself. Because now I know I have what it takes. I’ve seen it. My friends have seen it. The entire city of Kalamazoo has seen it.

I have more power than I thought.

Following Your Heart: Lessons From My Lifelong Muse

Last week, my best friends from the Kalamazoo karaoke crew stole me away to Detroit for the night to see my childhood heroes, Heart. And let me tell you, it was magnificent.

And bittersweet.

And oddly galvanizing, in a strange way.

To think my lifelong obsession began with this American Idol performance I watched in my parents’ living room one evening as a wee 10-year-old. I remember thinking out loud that it was a really pretty song, and so my mother beckoned me to her cassette collection as if to show me a clandestine secret.

And there it was. The Rosetta Stone that would decode my entire direction in life.

I’m also fairly sure Heart invented Pokémon with this album cover.

I’d never heard anything like it before. That voice, it was almost unreal. I was already captivated by the audio, but then I managed to catch the music video for “Alone” on VH1 (and recorded it onto a VHS tape, natch) and by God I was mesmerized.

I mean, Nancy Wilson, the guitarist and the younger of the two sisters, was beautiful. As a young blonde girl who’d just picked up guitar herself, it was expected for me to gravitate towards Nancy. Everyone in my life asserted I was a little Nancy. But the sister who really stole my heart was the raven-haired, soulful-voiced siren, clad in all black, with a longing gaze that burned into the CRT screen of my childhood TV.

That would be Ann fucking Wilson, and suddenly, I didn’t want to be a veterinarian or a racecar driver when I grew up. I wanted to be her.

I’m not actually goth — I just watched this music video too many times as a kid.

In fact, I think this particular album cover made me realize I was into girls:

Better than the album cover that made me realize I was *also* into guys.

Ann had become my biggest musical inspiration, my baby lesbian crush, and perhaps most importantly, somebody I could see myself in. I remember my favorite cringy OC from my middle school stories and how it was essentially just Ann Wilson but like, with a cool outfit and a hot boyfriend too. At the time, I was a far cry from the effortlessly cool rocker chick I desperately wanted to be, but I still had hope.

Because Ann wasn’t always the effortlessly cool rocker chick either.

In fact, when she was a kid, she was just like me. She was bullied relentlessly, same as I was. For her, it was a stutter; for me, autism. For her, it was being overweight; me, I was scarily underweight. I remembered finding out about her struggles and felt an odd kinship with her. In a way, she felt like my big sister, the one who went through hell first so she could show me the way through.

That’s why the show felt so bittersweet. In a way, I felt like I was saying goodbye to an old friend. Because — and it hurts my heart to admit it — I don’t know how much longer I’ll have her. She did recently beat cancer, which makes her even more badass, but I’m not naive. Even if she is in otherwise perfect health, she’s not getting any younger, and who knows how many more years she’ll be able to tour. Same with most of my musical heroes. The remaining members of Queen will eventually die. There will someday be a world with no Bon Jovi. And after my pantheon of boomer musicians have passed on, I still have to watch all the gen X musicians I looked up to perish. And after them, it’ll be my generation.

But despite sobbing on three separate occasions at the show, I left that night feeling strangely empowered. Because one day, Ann may be gone, but she’ll live on in my heart (pun only slightly intended). And I’ll carry on her legacy as best as I can by creating beautiful music and giving it my all at every performance I do. I owe so much to her, because she’s the one who made me realize I could be whoever I wanted to be. I didn’t have to be a scared bullied kid anymore. I could be a rock and roll baddie. It’s kind of funny — a few days ago, a woman at my music bingo show said, and I quote:

“You know who you remind me of? The singer of that one band. You know, Heart?”

Music, Failure, and the Weight of the World: A Small Rant

So I was let go at Guitar Center.

It was the professional equivalent of a relatively amicable breakup — my boss saw me struggling to even make it in on time due to my insane work schedule, and so she mercifully allowed me to quit with no hard feelings. I’ve never been fired, and this doesn’t even really count as a firing since I left on my own terms, but it still stings.

I’m not a stranger to failure, despite it rivaling death and abandonment as one of my biggest fears. Leaving the internship in Fort Wayne felt like a huge failure after everything I’d put myself and my wife through in order to finish my music therapy degree. I wasted so many years in school and have absolutely nothing to show for it. That was a rough moment in my history, but I managed to claw my way out of the dark depression it sent me into.

I don’t know how much clawing I have left in me, though. My fingertips are bloodied and raw. I’ve struggled enough.

This is all on top of the weight of the world, which has been crushing me with every disheartening story that passes through the news cycle. We live in a truly evil world where people get their kicks by literally kicking others down. Some bitch got hundreds of thousands of dollars for calling a child the n-word. How is it that terrible people get rewarded, but actual good people get fucked over? There’s still a whole bunch of bullshit happening in Israel and Palestine to folks whose only sin was being born in the wrong place at the wrong time, and don’t even get me started on the mess that is my own country at the moment. I wish I could just leave, but it’s not that simple. I can’t leave my family and friends and partners behind, so my only choice is to stay and fight the good fight, wherever that leads me.

But like I said, I’m don’t know how much fight I’ve got left. I’m fucking exhausted. The one thing that’s kept my spirits up at all is music and the prospect of someday becoming a successful musician in some form, but I’m afraid of becoming obsolete. I’ve already mentioned on my blog how dabbling with AI software started to bork my creativity, but like, what’s the point of writing songs when I can push a button and make the robots write one for me? And that’s the future we have to contend with. I’m not a vehemently anti-AI Neanderthal — I think there are legitimate uses, even in the art and music fields, and I’d be a hypocrite if I said I’ve never used it. Like, sometimes I’ll use AI to test out acoustic demos with a full band so I know whether or not the song is even strong enough to work with. But I’d never, ever release something to the public that I didn’t create myself. And I’m realizing most people don’t operate with those kinds of creative ethics. So as AI music becomes more prominent, I’m going to have to compete with a torrential onslaught of “creators” cranking out slop. Like, how long until we have an AI popstar?

But even if I didn’t have robots to compete with, I’m still racing against time. I’m 32. No one wants to listen to grandma sing her little songs, and I’m practically a grandma already to the suits who run the music industry. I remember when I was a freshman in college, it was a big fucking deal that Carly Rae Jepsen, who was at the height of her “Call Me Maybe” era, was 26. I’m six years older than that, and I have yet to make any significant waves in the industry. The music video for “Sweet Honey” sits just below 100 views, which is next to nothing. I can’t help but wonder what would have happened had I moved to Nashville or LA in my youth, but it’s too late now.

And even if I was still a hot twentysomething ready to take on the music industry, you have to remember, the music industry has changed. A lot. It’s damn near impossible to make money with streaming. And there’s no such thing as rock stardom anymore. Unless you’re Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter, or Beyoncé, no one knows who you are, and no one cares. Monoculture is dead. Back when you had to listen to music on the radio, people could bond over hearing their favorite songs together. Now, everything is so fragmented. If you want to listen to nothing but progressive zydeco pirate metal, you can just search for bands that fit that perfectly in that very niche and never bother putting on anything else again. Vinyl sales are up, but that’s not gonna help your up-and-coming local band that’s still getting off the ground and doesn’t have thousands of dollars to drop on printing physical records. Which leads me to the biggest problem.

It costs too damn much to “make it” in the creative fields.

I could have moved to Nashville had it not been prohibitively expensive. I could sink all of my time and energy into recording quality music if I didn’t have to work three jobs for the privilege of breathing air. The famous folks you know and love are largely only there because they were born into money and had multiple safety nets to catch them in case of failure. Taylor Swift’s wealthy upbringing has been the subject of much scrutiny, but even one of my personal favorites, the aforementioned Chappell Roan, had a charmed life, growing up in a sprawling gated home that looked like this. I’m livid that the music industry and this entire country as a whole demands you be born with a silver spoon in your mouth, or else what you have to say or contribute isn’t important and you should just fuck off and die. It makes me viscerally angry, the amount of talent we’ve lost to poverty. The next Jimi Hendrix could be just around the bend, but if that kid’s parents can’t afford to get him a guitar and lessons, too fucking bad.

It’s a cultural crisis. And I’m scared I’m becoming one of its casualties.

I want to make it in music more than anything, but I’m so disillusioned at this point. I’ll never be a rock star. I’ll never be John Frusciante. I’ll never be Ann Wilson. The best I can hope for is some steady gig where I can make the music I want to make and earn a decent living, but there’s not a lot of jobs like that out there, especially not here in Kalamazoo.

I don’t want to end this post on a negative note, as many things in my life are going well. My dad was recently hospitalized, but he’s made a speedy recovery. My two primary partners have been incredibly loving and immensely supportive of me, and I might have a third partner who is also very sweet if I play my cards right. My dream pedalboard is finally finished, and since moving to Kalamazoo, I’ve got more friends than I can keep track of. I do have a lot going for me, but there’s always that part of me wondering when the other shoe is gonna drop. And a big black cloud hanging over me as of late is my frustration with, well, everything.

But I’m going to keep pressing on. With Guitar Center out of the way, perhaps I’ll have more time to work on the songs I want to get recorded and produced. Maybe I can sink more energy in the podcast I started with my best friend. Maybe I can even sleep a full eight hours like a normal person.

I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic, but optimistic nonetheless. That’s all I can really do.

More Than Words: Five Quotes I Live By

Do you have a quote you live your life by or think of often?

If there’s one thing I can take away from being a writer my whole life, it’s the fact that words are powerful tools. We can use them to build people up, tear each other down, spread information, spread misinformation, and evoke strong emotions. Something I’ve always been fascinated by is the use of mantras or affirmations for self-improvement. Just repeating a certain phrase to yourself can make an impact on your mental health. And here’s the thing — your affirmations don’t have to be anything in particular, so long as they resonate with you.

Like a favorite quote!

As I began writing this post, I realized I have a handful of quotes I constantly repeat in my head like mantras. They’re the words that shape my personal philosophy and the way I approach life. I never really stopped to actively consider and appreciate how these words have shaped my experience as a human being. But I wanted to share a few of these quotes I carry with me.

She refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring.

–Zelda Fitzgerald

This first quote comes from the iconic flapper wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, who absolutely should have been absolutely as famous as him in her own right. She was a Renaissance woman — a writer, painter, and dancer, who went on to die tragically in a mental hospital fire. I see a lot of myself in her story. She was diagnosed with schizophrenia, but had she lived today, she would have received a bipolar diagnosis like me.

Zelda was a wild child with many diverse interests, so I can’t imagine a woman like her would ever be bored. That’s kind of how I want to be. I don’t enjoy being idle, and I don’t ever want to be boring. I always want to be involved in exciting new projects and opportunities. Life’s too short to sit around and be bored. You gotta actively make a life worth living. That’s kind of what the quote means to me.

Show love with no remorse.

-Red Hot Chili Peppers (“Dosed”)

I remember the first time I heard this song and being entirely floored by how beautiful it was. It was in the car with my former drummer Jerry and another short-lived bandmate on the way to our bandiversary date. I’d heard plenty of Red Hot Chili Peppers before that day, but this was the song that really made me appreciate them on a deeper level. I loved the guitar work, the harmonies, and perhaps most importantly, the words.

I’ve always said I wanted this exact lyric tattooed on me someday. I just think it’s a simple concept. You’ve got nothing to lose by giving love freely and joyfully. We need much more love in this world, and now is not the time to be stingy with it. You’ll never regret treating people with kindness.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

-Robert J. Hanlon

I hesitate to call this a quote. It’s technically a philosophical razor, which eliminates — or rather, shaves off — weak explanations for a particular phenomenon. The phenomenon at hand when it comes to Hanlon’s razor is “Why are people awful to each other?” And the explanation it offers is simple: people just don’t know any better.

Hanlon’s razor is why I still have faith in humanity, even after I’ve witnessed some of the worst of it. People very seldom intend to hurt each other. We’re all just big dum-dums that say and do the wrong things sometimes, and we really need to treat each other with more grace. That’s why I don’t believe in cancel culture — we need a grace culture. If you make an honest mistake and own up to it, that shouldn’t be held against you. No one is perfect, and we can’t hold people to impossible standards.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

-Romans 12:21

I struggled to think of just one Bible verse to include, since so many have been influential to me growing up in the church. But this one felt really relevant with some of my recent posts about loving your enemy and fighting the rampant dehumanization of marginalized folks in our society. It’s easy to lash out against the people who are hurting me and my loved ones. But you have to remember that they’re human and they’re hurting too. Hurt people hurt people. It’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation. And it’s why I choose love — because you don’t know what someone else is going through.

The verse immediately before this one talks about how offering your enemy water when they’re thirsty is akin to heaping hot coals on their head. The Good Book is telling us to kill them with kindness. I saw a post recently that said the true test of a Christian is not whether they love Jesus, it’s whether they love Judas. I’ll admit it’s hard for me to show love to the people who hurt me. The human part of me wants revenge. But the divine answer remains to be love.

Where words fail, music speaks.

-Hans Christian Andersen

I’ll admit I never knew the person behind this quote was none other than the Danish purveyor of fairytales such as The Little Mermaid, The Emperor’s New Clothes, and Thumbelina. But I’ve always related to this quote. As a child, the signs of my autism were very apparent. I would often stim by pacing or making bird sounds, and I had sensory issues surrounding things such as loud noises and upsetting smells (looking at you, ranch dressing). And like many autistic kids, I struggled to communicate with my peers. My classmates thought I was from France for the longest time because I never spoke in elementary or middle school, so they assumed I had an accent or didn’t know English or something.

But then I picked up a guitar, and everything changed. When I learned to play music and started performing, that was when I truly found my voice. Music was my way of reaching out into the world. I call music my first language for good reason. It was the bridge that connected me to other people for the first time in my life, and for that, I’m forever grateful.

What quotes do you live by? Leave your favorites in the comments!

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