What it means to me.

Going back through my music library recently, I happened upon somewhat of a sonic time capsule. I’m not entirely sure how proud I should be that the first time I put Limewire to use was searching for (then) relatively unknown band, Kisschasy, to use as a talking point with an (ex) punk girl I dug, way back in Year 8. But that’s what I did, and I ended up with the entire United Paper People record, their debut effort from 2005.

Once my 15-year-old romantic sensibilities left the building and I realised that common interests ≠ sex, I was nursing a fairly decent rejection complex. But on the plus side, I had discovered the perfect genre of music to convalesce to.

What followed was a fairly stereotypical adolescent adventure into the  subtly emotional pop-punk which Kisschasy proffered, an adventure which - I’m slightly embarrassed to say as I listen back on some of these tracks as I write this - continues to this day. I can still listen to these songs, because they appeal to my sense of what sounds good musically, but also because when I do, something stirs, something deep within my chest, that place of reminiscence and old memories.

For me, there are times and places, people and events attached to this music. Morning has me sitting in the study at my mum’s house (in the days before wireless internet), with the sunlight streaming through the window, making the fatal mistake of coming on too strong. Face Without A Name’s distinctively playful lead guitar lick, and I am transported to the couch in the old holiday home rented down at Inverloch in the 2005/6 summer holidays, with the prospect of two long weeks at the beach and messing around after dark with the kids I saw at this time of the year only, and haven’t seen since. Ione Skye drags me back to Maroondah Festival in February 2006, running around creating innocent mischief, watching the bands, and stencilling anti-emo phraseology all over my genuine Rolling Stones Forty Licks tour t-shirt, a gift from my uncle in London, because it was the only white t-shirt I could find, a decision I regret terribly with the gift of hindsight.

Which brings me to something of a point. With hindsight, I look back on that 18-24 month period as part of the happiest of my life. It’s a constant summer in my mind, the sun always shines. I was in a band. We made music together, just played as loud as we could, and spent more time jumping around pretending to be rockstars than trying to become them. It was enough for us to play AC/DC and Nirvana covers, trash the little space set aside for rehearsal, and argue about how a riff should sound.

With hindsight, I think of sunny lunchtimes at school, before they cut down the trees and demolished the embankment we all used to hang out on.I remember talking on the phone till 3am about anarchism and the evil empire of capitalism, about running away and being free. I remember wondering what it was like to be drunk, what it was like to be in love, and finding out about both.

Hindsight allows us to look at the past through rose-coloured glasses, remembering the good times, preferring not to think about the bad ones. I don’t think about struggling with self-esteem. I don’t think about my parents arguing, and I don’t think about lying in bed unable to remove a female infatuation from my mind, because I’m constantly bombarded with wistful, memories at the edge of my consciousness of the first time I stood up on a wave, the first girl I kissed, and playing simple garage rock tunes with my best friends.

I’m glad I was able to experience such a purple patch of happiness and discovery during what is sometimes an incredibly hard time in adolescence.

That’s what Kisschasy mean to me, anyway.

Later,