Almost Famous at 25: A Movie, A Song + Journal Entry That Changed Everything

Almost Famous, Djo, + the Band-Aid Mixtape — How Music Builds a Life + Legacy: As a fan. As a band-aid. 

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Nostalgia & the Power of Music=Memory

"We are not groupies. Groupies sleep with rock stars because they want to be near someone famous. We are here because of the music, we inspire the music. We are Band Aids." — Penny Lane

I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve. A deep feeler and overly-sensitive. Being a child of the 90s, it’s hard not to be someone who is deeply nostalgic. Anniversaries, ticket stubs, polaroids, and old art from elementary school fill dozens of shoe boxes in my closet.

The quote, “everything I’ve ever loved has claw marks in it,” comes to mind as I sift through memories and special dates that have come and gone recently. To be honest, it's never easy to let them go. Some memories I can still hold in my hands, while other ephemera slip away like early morning dreams when you don’t catch them quick enough.

My entire life, I've assigned meaning to the seemingly "meaningless." Everything has a place. Everything has a purpose. Everything matters. It always felt important to me to assign meaning because I knew what that felt like.

Looking back to some of my earliest childhood memories as a thirty-something, I can see with such clear vision that this was because I never felt like I knew what my place or purpose was. That I also mattered. Even in adulthood, I struggle with this. But it’s gotten easier over the years, and I hold that inner eight-year-old close when she feels those all-too-familiar feelings.

Almost Famous: Finding Myself in Film

September feels like a big month, both personally and not. Seasons are changing. Things are happening. Here at BAM HQ, we love hard and hold on tight to the things that mean something to us. Almost Famous just celebrated 25 years since debuting at box offices in 2000. That movie— a pinnacle staple now in the pop culture zeitgeist— has been the missing piece not just for us at the band-aid mixtape, but for so many like us.

Admittedly, I think I was in my 20s when I first watched it, but immediately I found myself in it. I saw myself in Penny. In William. All the bandaids themselves. Even Russell Hammond who was trying to find his place in the world. I finally had a piece of media that allowed me to just… live. Breathe. Be true to who I was to my core: a deeply obsessed music nerd. See also: fangirl; bandaid. 

I finally felt like my entire existence wasn’t a waste. That maybe, after all, I did fit somewhere in this great cosmic puzzle we call life. I’ve always been a writer— yes. But more so, I have always loved deeply, regardless of if it was a silly boy band, my friends, or my childhood cat— I have always given the same amount of love. All or nothing to the things that mattered to me. Music has been no different.

I’d like to think I’m equal parts Penny and William, with a dash of Sapphire’s fire. Growing up, I spent my life thinking that this was a fault and something to be ashamed of. Always hearing, “why are you so obsessed with xyz?” “why can’t you be normal about anything?” Blah, blah, blah. Watching this film for the first time was like hitting the mute button on years of hearing the same thing. 

"They don't even know what it is to be a fan. Y'know? To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts." Sapphire, my girl, you get me. I had never felt so seen, and the truth is— I still do every time I rewatch it.

Music as Solace

As a lifelong fangirl, I’ve spent chunks of my life obsessing over Backstreet Boys, Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, the Jonas Brothers, One Direction, Taylor Swift—the list goes on. Growing up in an abusive household, music was my solace. My safest place. Where I felt understood and seen.

I remember being eight years old, hearing “In The End” by Linkin Park for the first time and feeling understood. It just carried on from there. I’d spend hours up on the roof of my childhood home or deep in the mesquite trees hiding with my little pink iPod nano (or touch) blasting the grittiest guitar imaginable. (Now my hearing pays for it.)

Thank god I had this. I truly believed that music has saved my ass more times than I can count. I would probably be dead in a ditch somewhere, or down a very different path, if it weren’t for music and the communities I’ve been able to be a part of. 

The Moment That Changed Everything

A year ago today, I was at a birthday party for someone I didn’t know with a friend and her parents, and little did I know then that it would change my entire life trajectory.

I brought my journal with me— as I always do— and kept staring at this cobalt blue and black balloon arch. Every time I’d look at it, End of Beginning by Djo would play in my head. I couldn’t really understand why until out of nowhere, like a bolt of lightning, an idea so strong hit me:

A “META IDEA” for a music video/fan project. At this point, the song was everywhere. It had already been out for two years and was having its viral moment through social media. It had always been a personal favorite of mine since the album was released. I scribbled violently and messily in my journal, telling my friend and her parents to let me be in my bubble— that I was “cooking.” 

They laughed and left me to it. They were all learning my whimsy and madness that would leak out of me in times like this. Ten minutes later, I finished. I closed my journal. That was that. I didn’t really revisit it until January of this year when, just like when I wrote the idea down, something struck me, and I knew I had to do something insane:

Reach out and try to get this off the ground. I swear, I looked into an invisible camera like The Office and said out loud to no one, “That’s it. THAT’S. IT.” And there it was. Something that gave me purpose. Gave me meaning. I knew from the jump it was bigger than me or Djo. The rich layers and how everything was just worked— I knew this would be something the fans would lose their minds over. I know that because I too am a fan. It felt like I really had lightning in a bottle. 

And you know what— maybe I did. Still do. I spent the next two months obsessively working on a pitch deck to send to Djo’s team. Making it so airtight that they couldn’t say no. Hindsight tells me that was not only incredibly naive but absolutely insane. My logic though? Why the fuck not? Anything worth doing is going to be challenging, and I believed— still do!— so deeply in this project and what it represented for fans and for Djo.

“But Syn— what does this have to do with Almost Famous turning 25 years old?” Great question, and I promise I’ll get there! At the time of me doing this, I knew one person in the Djo community. I wasn’t dialed in. I wasn’t in any group chat or following any fan accounts. Hell, it wasn’t even until last year that I finally learned and listened to his entire discography. I really was going in blind. Purely feeling-based, and I wasn’t going to let it go.

From Idea to Band-Aid Mixtape

I spent most of February and March tweaking the pitch deck and sending an obnoxious (but respectful!) amount of emails to Djo’s team. I knew I looked cringe, and as my best friend Mavis would say later, “you looked cringe in the face and said, ‘fuck you.’” Yeah, I guess I kinda did. It wasn’t until late March that I finally got an email back. Although it wasn’t the email I had hoped for,

I count my lucky stars for it every day because without it, I wouldn’t have pivoted the idea and met Lauren— my OG co-conspirator in all this. It was about a week of our late-night, four-plus-hour calls that The Band-Aid Mixtape was born.

And thank. FUCKING. God for that.

A Life Woven With Music

Almost Famous has been my favorite movie since I first watched it (still have no idea when that was). So much so, when I lived in California and was making candles, I made an AF line with Penny Lane, Tiny Dancer, + Golden God. They smell like you walked straight into the movie itself.

Maybe one day they’ll be on the BAM website, who knows. My left arm has Tiny Dancer tattooed in delicate ink, and hilariously— I swear on my cats and Harry Styles himself— right as my artist Brian was ready to touch the needle to skin, Tiny Dancer came on shuffle. Completely unplanned, serendipitously so.

It’s safe to say this movie is so woven into my life for so long, it’s hard to know where the line between me and it ends and begins. When I left LA to move to the central coast, my going-away party was Almost Famous-themed. My friend and guitar teacher, Dan, was so kind to offer up his backyard and projector for us to watch. We sang and cried during the Tiny Dancer scene, a bittersweet moment I hold close. 

Seeing the movie at Hollywood Forever Cemetery was also a huge highlight for me personally. Watching it in a place where so many rock legends are buried along side just the sheer fact we were in a cemetery is another memory I hold so close. The sense of community that this film continues to bring— and has brought to my life pre-Band-Aid Mixtape— is unbelievably special to me.

Since we officially launched the Band-Aid Mixtape in April, a lot has changed and happened internally and externally. People we thought were close to us left, and that hurt. But we met new people and learned to trust again, both changing us fundamentally as individuals, as friends, and as a “business.” 

It hasn’t been easy by any means. We unfortunately saw a side of fandom culture I’ve never experienced before and wish to never again— a putrid pox that still hurts if I allow myself to think about it too long. The experience left me questioning my place in the world. Wondering if my life even matters at the end of the day. If this is what I’m supposed to be doing, etc. I’ve fought imposter syndrome since January— wondering if this was worth doing. If I was good enough. If they’d take me seriously. The online chatter and hate only fueling that fire. 

There’s a toxicity in fandom culture that no one talks about. And although part of me wants to air that out— I’m not going to. This isn’t the time or place. But I will say this: this past summer was essential to our growth— for Band-Aid, for me, for Lauren. Lauren and I are closer than ever, and she lives in Australia. There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t talk, and we finally get to meet in a matter of days and get to see the music that brought us together live. I’m already crying about it and she hasn’t even landed.

I think because I love so hard, it’s why this summer broke me so badly. People I trusted with everything that swore to protect me and my “whimsy”— gone. Like that. Siding with the very person they swore to protect me from. All while painting me as a villain in a narrative that simply isn’t true. I am a self proclaimed orphan and my friendships are my family. They’re unbelievably sacred to me. I haven’t been able to wrap my head fully around the drive that people have to be unkind and hurtful, all because they can. I don’t think I’ll ever understand it. Or get over it. 

But regardless, as much as it’s hurt and taken from me, it’s given me something no one can ever take away from me. It reaffirmed that it hurt because it mattered. It mattered because it's the very blueprint of my emotional DNA.

While there is toxicity, there’s also— on the flip side— the most intense, wholesome love I’ve ever experienced. Some of my closest, most cherished friendships have grown from a shared love of music. Let me name them, because names matter— and they matter to deeply:

Lindsey. Tayler. Jaimi. Cynthia. Rose. Rachel. Mavis. Jaqie. Abbey. Lucia. Margaux. Chell. Neicey. Amy. Amelia. Trisha. Jordan. Sydnee. Shyiel. Paige. Dan. Cassie. Lauren. Taylor. Eli. J + G. Ryan. Cassi. Damon. Zack. Mahsa. Rob. Sarah. Ryan. Taylor. Meghan. And so many more. 

My fellow Band-Aids. My music-obsessed community. My fucking people. People I’ve loved and people I’ve lost. My life has been forever changed by these friendships over the past two decades. I wouldn’t be who I am today without these people. It’s as sacred as the blood in my veins.

I’ve watched friends get married. Have babies. Break up. Move cross country. More babies. Half of these people I’ve never met in person— yet these bonds cannot be broken. Some I talk to every day. Some only twice a year. But the love? Always there. End of fucking story.

Community, Gratitude, + Legacy

And of course, I’d be remiss to say that beyond friendships, it’s imperative to include the artists we’ve featured and connected with since launching. I’m a firm believer that music finds you exactly when and where you’re supposed to have it. Some I found through odd corners like my tiktok FYP and others found through other artists I follow. Regardless of how we found them– I am forever grateful to connect and share music that makes me feel with others. 

Culli._, Sungaze, Post Animal, Erin LeCount, Cassandra Coleman, Black Jeans— and even transporting back to our middle school selves with Good Charlotte. 

And of course— Djo. The song that brought us all together. We have so many more in the pipeline and I feel like in the digital age we’re in now, that list will never end. Praise Digby.  

It’s hard to believe a movie can change a person’s life the way Almost Famous has changed mine. It’s hard to believe that an idea— one that hits you so randomly at a birthday party— can change you just as profoundly. Without these two things (and honestly, a whole lot of in-between), I wouldn’t be who I am today, and the Band-Aid Mixtape wouldn’t exist.

I think a large part of why this film sits so incredibly tender in people's hearts is because this is a lived experience. Not just of Cameron— but for the people like him who get it. The same people who have grown up uncool or too obsessed. It’s as much a loose autobiography as it is a handbook for fellow music nerds. We find ourselves in it so deeply because we’re more connected than people think. Music is that connective tissue and with it we’re all able to breathe and be ourselves. Cringe and mess included. 

Over the summer while in Chicago at the Room 29 Djo pop-up, I was lucky enough to talk to Djo’s manager, Nick, who sent that initial email in March. I got to talk with him and tell him thank you and what it has meant to Lauren and I that it even happened. It was a direct cause and effect, full circle moment and I am forever blessed for it.

While also at the pop-up, I talked with fans about what being in Chicago to see Djo meant to them— Lolla, the after show at The Salt Shed, the pop-up. I heard stories about what the music meant to people, and after feeling like I was doing everything wrong for two months, I quickly realized this was what it was all about: Community. Love. Friendship. Music. Connection.

That afternoon at the  Dark Matter warehouse where the pop-up was held, during some down time, I walked over to Sam Jordan— guitarist in Djo’s band as well as lifelong best friend of Joe himself. Two nights before, I was about two or three people behind barricade, stage left where Sam was. I walked over to talk to him about his epic guitar playing and what being in Chicago that week meant and felt like for everyone. At the end of the day, it wasn’t me, a fan talking to someone famous— no.

Something far more special and religious if you ask me. It was simply two people geeking out (hard!) and sharing what the music that’s brought us all together means to us. He not only knew who we as Bandaid were, but saw us. Me.

I met some of my favorite people and best friends that week. But most importantly: I found myself. A testament to the fact that yeah, maybe I have always been the weird girl that I was in high school. Writing in her journals. Yearning out bus windows. Standing behind a camera for yearbook, archiving the ache and dreaming of moving to New York. Working at a magazine— dreams I’ve long carried since I was a teenager. Now I’m fucking doing it. Sixteen year old me preens inside knowing this is where we end up at 32. We never really grew up and it was never really a phase. 

25 Years Later: Still Band-Aids, Still Uncool

After everything that’s happened this summer— the high-highs and low-lows— returning to New York from Chicago and seeing THE cameronbcrowe follow us on Instagram at 1:24am was the highlight of my entire fucking year. So much so, I sent a thirteen minute screeching voice memo to my group chat freaking out,

hyperventilating, stuttering, crying. What greater confirmation— and gift!— to receive during an incredibly hard time when you feel like you’re doing everything wrong. The man that started it all. The Godfather of music journalism. William Miller, IRL. Without him, my life would be drastically different. I truly can’t underscore that enough.

Bandaid is something I wish to never take for granted. The love, community, and sanctity of being a music-obsessed person in this world that often goes misunderstood is my lifeline. My fellow bandaids, the music that ties us all together— it lights something in me that, at a certain point, I was almost positive would flicker out.

We’ve only been around for about five months, but we plan to be here a whole lot longer— building something devotional, something holy, that lasts. A space that brings community, integrity, safety, and belonging to those who have been searching for it, just like we have.

We continue to learn and grow every day, making mistakes and learning as we go. We won’t always get it right, but we’re here— and we’ll keep doing what we do best: screaming, crying, throwing up, snapping shitty, blurry iPhone photos from the pit, and leaning on the people who get us most. We’re here, doing our best, one day at a time with nothing but heart, love and liner notes. 

All of it is done with immeasurable love, whimsy, and enough emotion to power the sun. We hope to offer solace to those still searching, and empathy to those who’ve gone without it. There will always be a door open here for anyone looking for belonging, kindness, and connection.

To be here today, one year later from writing that idea down— I never in a million years would have thought this is where I’d be. With all the good, the bad, the ugly— I couldn’t imagine my life any different. As hard and brutal as it’s been with long nights and too many tears, to be here, writing this a year later feels immensely earned.

I don’t think I’ve loved or believed in myself more in my life, all to champion something that means so much to me and now so many others. I think this is what people call “being an artist looks like”. I am proud beyond measure. I know I belong because I’ve fought to be here. 

To Music, Whimsy + Pure Chaos

So cheers to chasing your dreams. Cheers to being insane with an idea and running with it until the wheels fall off. Cheers to leaning back on your friends. Cheers to endings. Cheers to beginnings. Cheers to being so unapologetically authentic and yourself. Cheers to being cringe. And you know what else? Cheers to the haters. 

Because at the end of the day, Almost Famous taught us 25 years ago— we’re not just fans, we’re Band-Aids. How we care not about the music, but the people behind the music— the audio techs, the engineers, the tour managers, etc— without them, none of this exists. The fucking feeling music evokes so deeply that everyone can connect to. It’s not about clout or access or fame— something that the three of us are all highly allergic to— we’re here to feel. To share. “To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts." 

And to be honest, that still fucking means something.

If I’ve learned anything throughout all this, it’s that some things never change. Sometimes you grow into your destiny— weird yearbook girl and all. 

Even 25 years later, it’s still all happening and I am finally, finally, fucking home. 

B Side coming soon!

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POST ANIMAL // Protecting the Whimsy: Adulthood Forged in IRON, Grief, Growing up + Glittering Absurdity

Post Animal’s ten-track feast is tender, feral, + full of sonic prayers for the parts of us that refuse to disappear

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javi + joe on guitar | brooklyn steel, may 7th, 2025 - syn devereaux

Malcom is cooking.

I repeat: MALCOM IS COOKING. Who’s Malcom? What are they cooking? Is it spicy? Can I smell it from down the old gravel road? Not sure the answers on any of those questions, but you know who did cook? Post Animal. Yup. A ten course (track) meal (album) with their latest, IRON just released July 25, 2025– not a single skip. To that I say: YES CHEF. 

By the end of my listen, I was full. Full of nostalgia. Angst. That weird feeling you get when you realize you’re really in your 30s. That you’re not a kid anymore, but you’re still figuring it out. Full of grief– anticipatory and not. I left from listening to the album full, yes. But also whole. It was like these songs were puzzle pieces kept in the dark with truths I didn’t know I needed to hear about myself. The dusty corners no longer so dusty. The tracks hurt. But hurt in a way that feels earned. Mine, but also theirs. Yours. All in a way that only music can do– reflecting on your inner mirrorball and hitting all the notes in all the right places because you’re not the only one in the reflection. Let's dig in. 

If we’re keeping the “meal” imagery, our appetizer, Malcoms Cooking opens the album with a whispery guitar instrumental track. You can hear the crickets and the nature behind them. When Facetiming with Lauren around midnight to listen to it, I said to her, “I bet you it started with them around a fire. Shooting the shit.” As we near the end of July and hit that sweet apex of summer, this is the track I want at bonfires and catching fireflies in the Catskills or BFE Indiana. Wherever you find yourself. It’s soft, but strong strumming opening to a breezy finger picking. Picking up a drum beat and tambourine at 1:14 and ends with bottles clinking and someone talking about Diet Coke. It's human and lived in the way your favorite hoodie smells like campfire and cheap beer; cicadas and spoken memories hanging in the air and clinging to trees. A perfect balance before we get to Last Goodbye. 

It’s incredible how much can change in three months. Three months since Last Goodbye was released and I wrote about how it felt like a love letter to my desert roots. How it reminded me of my family– my brother in particular– and how at the time we didn’t speak. There was peace and grief all rolled into one like a cloud of dust from a canteen fish dust devil (more on that later). In those three months however, something… happened. A chain of action, reaction– cause and effect. In June, I went on a particularly weird date at my local haunt, The Canary in Prospect Heights. It was one of those things that I definitely knew better, but had to do it anyway. Personal growth and all that. Yawn. Eye roll. 

At BAM HQ, we firmly believe that music = memory. And oh my god is it. That night as I was nursing my corona, eyeing the door wondering if I was going to get stood up or not, trying not to cry (and failing) I was hit song after song. I had a meltdown over a song that was too poetic for words with the guy next to me (he finally showed) and then finally, before we left– my brother's ringtone played over the loud speakers. The bassline and chords slamming me (metaphorically) against a wall and had me by the throat. The next few days were ROUGH. In maybe a moment of weakness– human need– or what, I don’t know– the next day I called my brother. I got his voicemail. Left one. Voice shaking. On the verge of tears. Told him I missed him. I loved him. I hoped he was doing well. At that moment, I was just a girl who missed her brother. Deeply. Wholly. Last goodbyes and no contact be damned. 

Cut to this past week, I’m laying in bed. Phone on do not disturb trying to take a nap. I checked my notifications and saw a missed call and voicemail. FROM MY BROTHER. Yes, that one. The only one I have (That I know of). Last goodbye… no more…? We eventually hopped on a call that would be two hours long. Nothing was fixed right away. Didn’t need to be. We talked about our lives and what we’ve missed in the last year and a half. I told him about band-aid and the community of music obsessed nerds I’m helping co-create. He didn’t say it, but I'd like to think he was proud. I know I am. Of him. Of me. Of the two kids who got the hell out of that desert town– whether it's 65 miles or 3,000– we did it, all with a million versions of last goodbyes to things we never thought we’d say. I’m thankful we’ve shifted from last goodbye to a second chance. 

Must appreciate. 

Promptly cries for the seventeenth time today and it's only 2pm. 

Phew. Okay. Back on track. *Wipes tears and throws a millennial peace sign up for deflection to vulnerability. Don’t perceive me. Or do. 

Speaking of voicemails.

The third item on the menu is serving. And I don't just mean in the colloquial sense of the gen-z term. 

Maybe You Have To opens with a voicemail from Wes’ abuela Maria and holy shit. The track ends with another voicemail from her and it felt weirdly familiar like a voicemail from my own grandmother.

“Wesley, it's Abuela, Abuela Maria from Tampa/ I just call you because I am praying for you and I love you/ And I think of you everyday/ And I have you in my most wanted list of prayers/ In fact, you are number one/ I want you to be happy, to get a good job/ And most important/ I want you to love God with all of your heart/ Don't forget that”

Jesus. GIVE A GIRL SOME WARNING?! There’s only, I don’t know, an entire Chevy Tahoe in my eyes. While someone’s cutting onions. The prayers. The answers to God. Wanting a good job. To be a descendant of (what I am assuming is) a Catholic immigrant maternal figure. Full on shaking sobs in stereo over here. In another life my grandma would still leave these. She still tries through Facebook wall messages like love letters to war that go unanswered (bandaids don’t fix bullet holes or something like that). This song fills the hole of ache and grief from childhood trauma in a deeply unexpected way. Reminding me that those generational prayers are holy and maybe the glue that we all need in the stickiness of life. That maybe yeah, life is short and I can knock a few bricks down my own walls and peak over the other side. That I can do that and still be safe.

Listening to this with Lauren over Facetime, she can tell you I may have been a bit dramatic. Snotty cries and lying limply in a broken chair like an ailing Victorian child. I stand by it, okay?

I am dramatic. I am full of emotion. Of whimsy and woe and everything in between. “Protect the whimsy” she whispers. This track does just fucking that. Yeah, first F-bomb. I said it. Feeling things will do that to you! The grief and ache and awe of life and the cyclical nature of transformation through sonic residue and leaving it messy on purpose. It’s present and unapologetic in its raw and sacred humanness. They’re not polishing it up or running away from it. Leaving it messy on purpose, with purpose. It’s a love letter. A eulogy (Wes, I sincerely hope your Abuela is still around to hear this because YEAH. YOU DID IT, PAL! And if not, I just know she’s proud. Fuck, now I’m crying again.)

“Maybe you have to go/ Flash of light it's like that/ You know that life doesn't work like that/ Somebody goes, I can't bring them right back/ Another life, it doesn't work like that/ But maybe/ Right there on your own/ Imagine the way that you fill my soul/ It's all a gift, don't let it be forfеit/ Maybe you have to leavе a thing unsaid”

Again: GIVE A GIRL SOME WARNING, OKAY?! And don’t even get me started on the synths layered in it, okay. I hear you What’s A Good Life sonic easter eggs. The guitars?? The drums?? You served. You ate. You licked every finger clean. I’m going to violently sob again into a soup plate. 

After a dish that left me teary and hollowed out in the best way with Maybe You Have To, Setting Sun arrives like a slow exhale. The fourth course. Still warm, but softer– more fleeting but heartier. The kind of plate that tastes like something your body already knows. Comfort food for the end of something.

The end of something? Yeah. I burst into tears when I heard the studio version. It immediately brought me back to Brooklyn Steel in May. Hearing it two nights, not in a row, but back to back nonetheless. Something about music is memory and all that. It’s a bittersweet ache that mirrors a personal unfolding that was happening in real time and now– now things are so different from those moments I stood in the crowd swaying and dancing watching Dalton sing. Hindsight is funny that way. It was foreshadowing a setting sun I never saw coming. 

And sure, it hurts. But what happens when the sun sets? It rises again and again. 

“Not scared of the dark side, just of letting it all pass by/ I'm sheddin' again, just look up and see/ Always movin', always changin', passin' by/ Like a setting sun/ Still burning, just around the other side/ It's a setting sun/ Always movin', always changin', passin' by/ Like a setting sun/ Still burnin'/ Still burnin'”

The intro with the drum fill and those guitars and the synths? I immediately saw myself in a ridiculous roller disco montage, full 70s get up with the Farrah Fawcett windswept hair and everything. The tube socks. Big hoops and cherry lipgloss. Headphones plugged into my walkman. Eyes closed. Lights twinkling and refracting in neon memories. Just me, a cassette tape and a roller rink. In this music born fantasy I can skate backwards and am a graceful gazelle gliding around and NOT a newborn baby deer learning to walk for the first time with knee pads and wrist braces. I’m old, okay. Being thirty two and a half has not been kind on my bones or joints. 

Daydreaming with music and seeing myself in the odd and impossible is a coping skill I’ve had since I was a kid. Makes for a really interesting and overactive imagination. It offers a contrast to the actual visceral and rooted memory of the song I have. Both can exist. I’m really glad they do. 

If Setting Sun was a hearty pre-main course, Pie In The Sky is the dessert coming to the table too soon but indulging anyway. The lightness after the heaviness and yearning of the last three tracks is a perfect palette cleanser and shift in mood. Instantly offering a little bit of ridiculousness as the apex of the album. She’s giddy. She’s saccharine. 

We needed something sweet post dehydrated cry fest. Our blood sugar and Moony aren’t the only things on the rise. Since its release, this song has felt so personal and the perfect blend of silly and devotional reverent prayer. “Hit me with your shine” Guys– GUYS. It's charming, cheesy (hehe) and has bats in the cave. Ironically, the other day there was a bat where I was house sitting. I named it Betty at first. Then Dorien (Kregg) only to finally land on Ozzy. RIP Prince of Darkness. 

Pie In The Sky is a not so quiet shove away from the table. It’s a throw the napkin down, unbutton your pants and do a little dance with your table mates. It’s the moment in the meal where you stop crying long enough to laugh at how hard you’ve been crying. Gasping for air in that weird liminal cry/laugh place. It's indulgent without being too much. After the first four tracks, it lands soft, yet firmly and is balanced. Earned. 

There is service in absurdity and Post Animal doesn’t shy away from it. They’re dishing it at full sonic speed, leaning in with all gas and no breaks. It’s exactly the kind of song you want midway through an album. All levity and heart– these guys aren’t afraid to put the clown make up on and say, “The sun has set. We ride at dawn. LFG.” 

In my most humble of opinions, the world needs more of this. For that, I say, thank fucking god. 

B Side coming soon!

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GOOD CHARLOTTE // Rejects: The Soundtrack to Being Too Much + Never Enough And Why Being a Reject Is A Radical Act of Self Love, Acceptance + Rebellion

How Good Charlotte’s new song helped me embrace every messy, glorious bug-collecting part of myself.

I’m a reject. Always have been. 

Daddy left when I was 4. Momma when I was 9. Never first. Always last. It’s an echo chamber I’ve fought to leave, but maybe I don’t have to anymore. 

It’s June 25th– a loaded day in my personal treasure box of lore, yes. But you know what it also is? Rejects release day by Good Charlotte. For the past week, I’d been hearing the snippets of it and knew I had to write about it. Just from the short ten seconds I heard in teasers, it felt like a time machine. 

God was I right. 

The guitar intro feels reminiscent of their first album, Good Charlotte– a self titled debut in 2001 that was full of teen angst, some rock, some roll and a whole lotta attitude. Twenty-four years later, that’s all still there in those opening notes but more subdued, aged, calmer. But no less punchy. Vital. The guys are older and so am I, but the feeling of music and memory remains. 

Watching the music video brought me so much peace and felt reminiscent to the days of MTV, fuse and VH1 and the early oughts music scene I was so desperately obsessed with. After school I’d race home from the bus stop to hit channel 339 on DirecTv just to watch the new videos dropped. Clay-mation works for them in a way that is nostalgic and so Good Charlotte’s og roots. With the original crew on the track, it was like a weird time blip. I blinked and we all have crows feet and a few grey hairs. I wasn’t ready for that but the A/V made me feel like I was an angsty pre-teen again. Same sound. Same feeling. Just… older. Lived in.

Good Charlotte’s debut album was on high rotation in 2003 in my childhood bedroom. Quadruple platinum in my eleven year old heart with Tiger Beat posters on the wall and burnt cd’s on repeat, I was finding myself through music. How can a kid not feel seen with an opening track like Little Things:

“Yeah, this song is dedicated (this is Good Charlotte)/ to every kid who ever got picked last in gym class (y'know what I'm saying, this is for you)/ To every kid who never had a date to no school dance (this is for you)/ To everyone who's ever been called a freak (y'all know what I'm saying)/ This is for you, (what?)/ here we, here we go” 

I was fully in my burned-cd-Good-Charlotte-scrapbook-studded-belts-emo-haircuts era and no one could stop me. I dressed in as much black as I could– stripes and studs, spikey earrings from Claires– you know the ones. If anyone asked, I’d say in the most deadpan and serious tone, “I’m PUNK. I’m GOTH.” and vanish like a bat in the night with melodrama and flair. 

Nowadays, she still lives inside me. I don’t play with her much anymore, but I know she’s there. Sometimes we fight. Sometimes we cry together. Lately when I have hung out with her, I just sit with her in our childhood bedroom– she shows me the scrapbook excitedly. Princess, our cat is curled on the bed on our favorite Tinkerbell pillow (we are still just girls afterall). She gushes to me, I listen. She finally has a safe place to nerd out over the music she loves so much. The music that made her. Shaped her. Bad haircuts included. (We both hate it.)

At 32, almost 33 the angst is just as heavy as it was in 2003. Perks of being a big, deep feeler I guess. When GC dropped the teasers for Rejects, me at 11 lit up like the fourth of July and me at 32 was sat. 

Here we are, together post release and yeah– yeah. It… hits.

I’m holding 11 year old me’s hand and we’re dancing. We’re crying. It’s giving Elton John hugging himself in Rocketman (a scene that still makes me sob violently to this day), just with more than a dash of pop punk angst and teenage rebellion. 

We talk about music being memory a lot over here at BAM HQ and woof. This song is proof of that.

“When I was little, playing in the dirt/ No one with me, there were no words that hurt/ And all my friends, they were insects/ But all my feelings, I didn't know them yet”

Jesus fucking Christ. OK!!!!!!!! Yeah, so once again, Good Charlotte is giving me language to feelings and memories I didn’t know how to articulate. Not at 32 and sure as shit not at 11. 

Fun lore drop on me: I had a bug collection. Mostly entailed collecting dead scarabs and cicada shells from my backyard and storing them in my grandma’s discarded Altoid cans. I’d wrap them in tissue and put the tin in my Lion King purse. I was, objectively and hilariously speaking, a very weird child. And no, I haven’t outgrown it. I traded rusty Altoid cans for beetle tattoos, honoring that very odd and peculiar wildling I hold inside.

Additional lore: I loved mud. I loved the dirt. Mess. All of it. Made mudpies and slopped around in the Vegas heat with my cousins and brother until we were covered head to toe. It wasn’t until I got in trouble when I was 8 (??) for making mudpies that my love of mess changed, the freedom to get dirty and be feral, gone. Time to be clean. Bright and shiny. Maybe then they’ll love you. Ouch. 

I’ve always been sensitive. Cop it being a Cancer moon, childhood trauma or just sheer dumb luck– my sensitivity has always been used as a weapon against me. A dig or passive aggressive joke, thrown in my face when it suited someone. I had feelings I didn’t understand at an alarmingly young age– and one that I have been intimately familiar with most of my life.

“Sometimes, I still wish I wasn't born at all/ I've always had the feeling that this feeling is my only one”. WOOF.

Not to get heavy, but I think that feeling has been swimming inside me since utero. Consciously though, I was about 13 when I had my first actual “I mean it” thought about wishing I was never born. It was downhill from there. Add that to a violent upbringing and feeling everything from everyone– a messy cocktail of suicide ideation and dreaming of never existing came into focus. As someone who's spent the last decade taking care of other people's children, I couldn’t even imagine any of them having these same feelings. As an adult, your instinct is to protect them from the prickles of life. I’d like to think that I’ve become the adult I needed as a kid to the kids in my life. 

Even in my 30s, those feelings are still there anytime something goes remotely wrong– my instinct thought is “I need to self-delete” or “I wish I was never fucking born”. Whether I’m 7, 11, 19, or 32– the feelings are all the same: you’re too much, yet still never fucking enough. Too this, too that. Too loud. Too sensitive. Too verbose. Yadda yadda yadda. The thread that’s held me in every moment of self doubt or imposter syndrome? Music. It’s the link. The bloodline. The tethering that keeps me here on this mortal plane. Dramatic? Maybe. The truth? Absofuckinglutely. It feels easier to take yourself out of the narrative than to sit in the uncomfortable feelings. 

“Life is bigger, now the words can hurt/ I'm talking to myself, wishing I was in the dirt/ And all my friends, yeah, they're all rejects/ They all love me, but they don't really know me yet” 

I’ve never been popular or the one people picked first. Always a maybe, a back up or second choice. Even for my own family. As Penny Lane- the OG Band-aid would say,

"I always tell the girls, never take it seriously. If you never take it seriously, you never get hurt. If you never get hurt, you always have fun. And if you ever get lonely, you can just go to the record store and visit your friends."

My friends (IRL homies, you don’t count right now, ok? I still love you.)– the rejects (all-American and not) are the ones living in milk crates in basements and record stores. In liner notes and vinyl folds and record scratches. Cassette tapes in old cars and burned cds from teenagers past. Synths that make me cry and bass lines that get you freaky.

These are the friends that made me feel understood. Especially when I’ve spent my entire life feeling the opposite. The difference between younger me and me now? I couldn’t give a fuck less about being understood. How very (finally) punk rock of me. I’ll take the preferential company of myself and the friends that live in Spotify playlists and vinyl collections over fake friends or people that refuse to see me as I am. Weird bug girl and all. 

“They liked us better when we were together/ You said, "Whatever," I was never clever/ Sometimes, I still wish I wasn't born at all/ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah” 

I’ve been dismissed. I’ve been waved off, scoffed at and counted and internalized so many eye rolls I've lost count. How convenient to be liked better when you’re holding the worst thoughts you have inside your hands. The watered down versions. The ones who don't quite know their worth. The selves that haven’t made it through yet. People counting on your downfall or staying small, loving you on the ground because it makes them big. Powerful.

This song was a balm to my 11 year old heart and every version after that only Good Charlotte could whip up like the pop-punk magicians they are. At an age when I was just learning what I liked in music and not anyone else's influence, Good Charlotte created my musical foundation of black emo hearts and ghosts of midddle school's past. It was finally an invitation to a party that I felt like I belonged to.

Shedding a light on a self that needs some good ol’ TLC from a healed and healing adult me– it was the map I didn’t know I was missing, the ancient texts of language I yearned for over twenty years. It was a reminder that I am seen. I am held. I am loved– in all my weird ass bug collecting and mudpie making glory. Back to the angsty studded belt roots that made me.

I’m a reject. Always have been. 

This time, at 32, I’m dancing with all the versions of me never chosen or loved the way they needed. And like it or not, I really don’t care. 

I’m a reject. Always have been. 

And thank fucking god. 

To all the rejects out there:

I see you. I believe in you. Dance in your weird magic and don’t let anyone fucking stop you. 

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