clarencestreet

[clarencestreet]

sigh

i can't write what i need to yet because the wound is still so fresh. I'm working so hard on staying focused and positive right now, that if i crack open the pandoras box of my memory all my efforts will shatter and I'll spend another night up and exhausted on racing thoughts. this shit is so hard. i wish i could express myself better because then it might all make sense in my head. if i could express myself better i'd be able to explain a chain of events cohesively to help convince you I'm the victim (even though I know I am). I'm too tired to put it down on paper. i can't put it down on paper until i know I'll be okay.

until it's all the way it was meant to be.

[clarencestreet]

the end of march

its the end of march and i wish i had more to say.

in march we saw: pavement, harry styles, bikini kill, lorde, my chemical romance & we went to knotfest. we also went and saw pale waves but that was significant for different reasons.

i'm sitting here with a torn calf, reminiscing on the tears, feathers and piercings screams at the harry styles show. and how much it warmed my heart to see teenage girls have the time of their life. how many weeks in advance they would've planned their day, their outfits and which parent was designated to get them home.

there were so many teenage girls at bikini kill too. that's why i love the internet — i discovered bikini kill via a tumblr post of the documentary dirty girls which led me to then discover riot grrrl. I'm sure they discovered bikini kill from a tiktok video that was compiling a list of 'iconic 90s punk bands' or something like that. or through the le tigre song deceptacon trending on tiktok. some of the girls got sharpies and wrote bikini kill all over their bodies. some of them were with their parents. some of them had freshly died blue hair. it was a monday night and they definitely all had school the next day. i hope they bragged about going.

teenage girls also love my chemical romance. they don't love jimmy eat world (sadly). maybe once they hit their 20s they'll realise how 'real' the lyrics to 'a praise chorus' are and never look back. but teenage girls don't have the reference for 00s suburban nostalgia like i do — one tree hill, channel v rock & autumn school holidays — so maybe they don't have the same frame of reference for where they sit in culture.

then again, how the hell do teenagers have a 'frame of reference' for my chem? well i guess the answer is the internet — the internet is the home of subculture. emo has been warped, modified and expanded because of the internet — emo is gerard way scurrying around the stage like a goblin in a pencil skirt, blaring operatically punk vocals into the void. emo is billie eilish spitting black vile in the music video for an off-kilter rnb-pop piano ballad. all these kids discovered emo online in some different way, shape or form.

just because this shit didn't happen in the confines of a 200-cap venue, doesn't make it any less important. the internet allows us to reimagine, repurpose and rethink past ideals and aesthetics, making them relevant to who we are now. I'm no web-simp either. the fact that i started this by saying how many 'live' events I've attended this year proves that. live music is vital, powerful and life-giving. but so is spending hours into the morning making playlists, or riding on the bus with one headphone in, sharing the other with your friend.

[clarencestreet]

march

It's so hard to write when you're in a deep state of emotional & physical slump. I'm deeply obsessed with my weight right now and all I can think about is food — I can't stop eating, out of boredom, out of needing to feel something. I'm now making protein shakes, I'm trying to hit my 10k steps and I just don't know what else I can do. It's an exhausting spiral to be in.

I do think it is to do with this emotional slump though. When you're an artist trying to make it, times of 'stagnation' feel like pure hell. you can't think of anything else yet there's nothing to think of, if that makes sense. your logical brain knows that things are working in the background like they need to (the songs are streaming, the managers are sending their emails, the posts will go up and tour will start again). but there's always a feeling of you could be doing more, you could be going viral and you could be on the precipice on the deal that changes your life. the only way to calm yourself down is to think about whats changed in a year or six months. but that works precisely 1% of the time, so you start ruminating crazy scenarios in your head that fester and rot until your brain feels crazy off the fumes.

[clarencestreet]

lana & lost in translation of & the end of the summer

the whole point of writing these is because i feel i have a terrible memory. i have this ever so slight feeling that i might be on the precipice of something exciting and i want to remember what it felt like. i want to remember every Sunday. every shitty Wednesday night rushing to get to another band prac. every anxiety-inducing swell of thought i have about the inevitable falling to pieces of everything.

anyway lets roll back a few weeks? days?

movies:

we've watched a lot of important movies recently. lost in translation, eternal sunshine of th spotless mind and mullholland drive. they've all left me reeling. mullholland drive is so steamy and absurd, i love it so much. i love how much of a 'fuck you' it is to Hollywood . it's so vivid and surreal, it's the only movie i can really say feels like a fever dream. eternal sunshine is hilarious and heartbreaking. i don't think there's an actual with quite as much charm as kate winslet, she is truly one of the greats. lost in translation is an aesthetic feast. it's ice cold and tender all at once.

music:

LANNAAAAA!!! It’s funny how ten years ago I was sitting on Tumblr gawking at photos of her and here I am ten years later gushing over her new song. Things don’t change and people never change, we are who we are. A&W is the definition of magnum opus.

other life:

whenever there's a big public event (e.g. a nye, a Halloween) i get really self conscious about not having a group of friends to hit up. this happened over the weekend of the (24/25th). it's the end of the summer and i had a great time, i feel connected to those closest to me.

[clarencestreet]

Mulholland Drive (2001)

[clarencestreet]

kate winslet as clementine in eternal sunshine of the spotless mind (2004).

[clarencestreet]

a lot has happened in the last week. I’m exhausted, to say the least, spiritually, mentally, emotionally. I’m so tired I’m not hungry, I’m eating out of boredom to fill some cavernous void. I hate that I’m still felling this insatiable rage, I think that there’s something wrong with me. 

Anyway we went to Melbourne. I used to hate Melbourne, but after spending extended periods of time in Brisbane, Wollongong and Newcastle it’s nice to be back in a real city. Melbourne has heart - Carlton and Fitzroy are genuinely fucking beautiful. You don’t find old Italians hanging out of cafes drinking coffee and gossiping on a Friday morning. People in Melbourne are well dressed but they still look like everyone else, I really want to go somewhere where no one looks like someone. People argue about sydney and Melbourne not because one is better than the other but because they’re the only two places up for debate in Australia. 

There’s nothing more comforting than the aircon and sterile lighting in a rural service station. You know you’ll find cold water and a disgustingly reliable pre-mixed Sirena tuna and rice packet to keep you full enough for now. 

I’ve been knocked down in my confidence. I feel like the worst in me is all anyone sees, and the best has got nothing to do with me.

[clarencestreet]

january 30th - wrestle

i'm conflicted. do i confront the issue head on? or do i look at the bigger picture? i can't say who or what this pertains to, but it's slowly driving me crazy. i can't describe how it's making me feel other than crazy. it's like there's two hands within me grasping at my lungs in an attempt to squeeze some clarity out. it's keeping my head fuzzy from the lack of oxygen. that is such a shit metaphor, i hope i get better at articulating these things. but maybe this can't be articulated yet because I'm still confused. confused, frustrated, annoyed.

anywho. we played our sydney leg of the tour over the weekend. it was sold out and it was a great success. i feel like I'm constantly chasing the high it felt the first time i realised we were good. i had a great night though.

we watched the whale on sunday. it's really haunting me. i keep making these insane google searches like "could The Whale happen in real life" and "health complications at 600 pounds". lol. it's good when a movie traps you in its world like this. that's what i want from everything. i love how cosy the tiny, depressing apartment the main character lives in is. it's insane how comforting that place of immense pain and struggle is. that juxtaposition is powerful. i love how every time there's a knock at the door or the door swings open, it feels like the viewer is the next person to pour their heart out to charlie or berate him for his life decisions. everything in this movie is a slow burn - a dragging, frustrating and uncomfortable play out. i love how focuses on the minutia of what a week left to live looks like - and just how long the slow, acceptance of death is.

[clarencestreet]

fortitude valley, honesty, boygenius

january 24th - the tuesday night after the first two dates of the first ever grenade jumper headline tour.

god the towradgi beach hotel is tragic. it looks like a primary school hall & the sound is about as muffled as one too. playing to the other band and their girlfriends is character building. that show was one of the roughest I've ever played but honestly, it didn't sting as much as others that were technically not *as* bad. we listened to rush's moving pictures on the way home in the rain, before getting 2hrs sleep ahead of a flight to Brisbane.

why is sydney airport always so humid. we had fun in Brisbane. we rode scooters (like every other band ever has done) and sat in a nondescript metro station and drank boost. innocent.

the show was okay. greaser bar is actually really cool and kind of looks like a setting from ten things i hate about you or empire records. but yeah, the show wasn't amazing and it wasn't horrible. which kind of sucks. i'd rather it be so painstakingly horrible. what is horrible though is the fortitude valley on a 33 degree Saturday night in January.

i'm not purposefully bah humbug about the rest of Australia, but it's just really difficult to stay positive when the tarocash brigade is knocking your prada nylon out of your hand in the oppressive humidity while waiting for an uber xl. brisbane is a country town.

over this weekend boygenius returned.

boygenius feels revolutionary. they feel like they've existed for decades. i know the whole point of the Rolling Stone cover was to place them within the pantheon of the Greats, but it does genuinely feel like this band exists within that realm already, they're so important.

[clarencestreet]

[clarencestreet]

boygenius recreating this nirvana photoshoot.............. iconic

[clarencestreet]

Death Cab For Cutie’s Transatlanticism

[clarencestreet]

jan 19 - my first tumblr post in 8 years

i made this account to document my inspirations and feelings over the course of the year in which the first grenade jumper full length record will be made.

so at the moment im falling in love with music again. nothing connected with me truly last year except for the taylor and phoebe records of years past that i already loved. i think i needed some space or time to crave that "feeling" again.

the feeling i had trawling the pages of sophie's floorboard in 2014, downloading zip files of tigers jaw and american football records, reading pitchfork reviews of loveless for the first time, watching videos of man overboard play to gaggles of kids behind a rest stop in new jersey and of course, endlessly scrolling tumblr just to stumble across an audio file of 'everything is embarrassing.

long story short i feel inspired. max and i spent the first week of this year writing songs for this record and it genuinly filled me with the direction and fulfilment I've ever experienced. we then went off on holidays and had the most glorious time. i felt like a kid, as cliched as it sounds, but i guess going to queensland kind of has that vibe lol. i read patti smith's 'just kids' and i felt nicely reassured — her closeness with her family, resistance to fitting in with "important" people and lack of drug taking. i can relate. i know I'll never write a horses or anything as culturally important as her, but it's nice to find a commonality in one of the most iconic punks of all time, especially when everyone you're around is fighting to have their faux edginess acknowledged.

during the trip we listened to superchunk, the dismemberment plan, pavement and the promise ring. I'm too tired right now to put into words what i think makes those artists special - the warmth, texture, yearning, crashing, youth ecetera. i don't know what it is, but listening to these artists felt like 2014. there's a buzz of serotonin stinging my brain and i don't want it to go away. pacific northwest indie rock of the 90s - that pitchfork article changed my life forever when i read it in 2016.

i'll leave it at that for now. we go on tour tomorrow so I'm sure I'll have more to say after that.

from clarence street