everything that I feel's like a warm deep calm casting over me
"and it's taking me to somewhere new." On my Tumblr origins, getting into photography and the first band I ever saw live, Mayday Parade.
I could tell you the exact day I started my Tumblr account had I not deleted all of those old, embarrassing (at the time) first posts years ago (some time around June 2011 is my estimate). What I do know is that I created my account because my sister who’s a year and a half older than me and her two friends both had recently made accounts. My first URL was idontknowwhatsgoingon (and I still don’t, if someone would like to explain, that’d be cool) and my blog background was some terrible too bright teal color.
Fast forward to fall 2011. After having my own laptop and way too many nights scrolling for hours after telling my mom I was going to bed & using my computer in the dark, I saw a flyer for The Noise Tour presented by Journeys. The tour featured Mayday Parade as the headliner with support from We Are The In Crowd, You Me At Six, There For Tomorrow and The Make.
At the time, I was a huge fan of You Me At Six. I probably discovered them after a random song of theirs came up on my dashboard and I started listening to their record Hold Me Down a lot. In the Tumblr post with that flyer, it had a list of dates including Gainesville. That was when I realized that live music was something that was accessible to me and not just something that existed in large cities (I was years away from discovering DIY in any capacity).
At some point, I told my friend Sage about the show. We had spent the previous school year watching band interviews on YouTube at our school’s library while waiting to go home and bonded over bands (one of the ones she got me into was Black Veil Brides.) Soon after, I talked to my mom about the show and she agreed to take me while Sage’s mom would take her. Before the show, Sage pre-ordered Mayday Parade’s self-titled record, the one they were touring on, and we both went to the mall to pick it up from Hot Topic. After listening, she handed the CD to me in our school’s hallway and I added the album to my IPod.
When thinking about the show, I can still remember the slight chill of the November air while getting into the passenger seat of my mom’s car, meeting up with Sage and her mom at the restaurant across the street from the show where we ate nachos and standing in line while waiting for doors to open.
“What a night it is, when you live like this
And you're coming up beneath the clouds,”
There's a rush to experiencing live music for the first time that can't be matched. The dimmed lights coming on as the band walks across the stage, seeing them blast into their opening song and the roar of the crowd. Seeing all the music I used to listen to alone in my bedroom come to life and hearing the crowd sing back as loud as they could. It was exhilarating.
I never wanted that night to end and immediately started looking for more shows to go to, counting the days in between and playing music from those bands to my parents in the car to gage their interest.
The year before, my dad had bought a small, pocket-sized point and shoot camera and I brought it with me to that show. Tumblr and looking at Alternative Press issues at the mall’s Barnes & Noble had made me interested in music photography and at the time, was just something I thought I would never actually do seriously.
Soon after, I started a Flickr account and posted photos with no editing. That following year, one of the art teachers at my school allowed me to borrow one of the school’s cameras for the year and on April 15, 2013, my parents bought me my first camera, a red Nikon D3100 which is still the camera I use today and the only one I’ve ever owned. Between 2011 and 2014, I found myself scrolling through Tumblr tags finding small blogs and sites that were looking for writers/photographers and started taking photos for sites like Unite The Scene and Focus Zine where my first photos and pieces of writing were ever published. During this time, I was teaching myself how to use programs like Photoshop and Lightroom ( my now go-to) and sending countless cold emails to publicists to photography shows. The biggest one being The Big Orlando, a one-off festival headlined by Fall Out Boy and Weezer in Orlando that I went to with my dad and sister and got a photo pass for.
Sure, I was taking photos for years but I didn’t actually feel like the title photographer was something that applied to me until 2016 when I got into the local scene and photographed shows regularly.
It took some more time for me to find a balance between photography and writing and realizing that I like and should do both. Looking back over the years, there’s so much that I’ve learned so here’s nine for the nine years since that show:
If you've quit doing something you once loved, it's worth going back to, at least once.
Think about how (when they eventually return) to make shows more accessible - there's plenty of resources out there, check out LEAD DIY and Half Access.
Be direct - Whether that's asking for help, admitting your feelings to someone or talking about boundaries, it's easy for two people to have opposite perceptions of the same situation.
Appreciate the slower moments of life - for me, that's walks alone at the park.
Drink more water (go grab some).
Try something new even if you think you'll be really bad at it - I'm on skateboarding day 5 baby.
Find ways to connect with your local community - volunteering, facebook groups, etc.
Revisit those old records you used to love, you might find new meaning in them.
Find new ways to reconnect with friends- for me, that's scheduled weekly phone calls, trading playlists, and video calls with friends from high school.
If you need me, I'll be daydreaming about live music. But I know there'll be another moment, we'll meet again.
I am a Big Music Fan and excessive playlister. If you want to throw any funds my way, they’ll be donated to the Nashville Free Store (open every Saturday from 12pm-6pm CT) & Nashville Community Fridge (always open & regularly stocked) located at Drkmttr (the city’s only all-ages venue) here in, you guessed it, Nashville.