Wind Up, Free Fall

i thought that things were over but they're not

Star Card’s Trash World has come into my life once before, and now again. I make a concentrated effort to be aware of when local bands are releasing new work and was a proud day-one listener when it dropped last November. I spent months streaming it regularly over the Winter, and it easily made its way into my favorites of ‘25 list. On that first day, immediately recognizing its quality, I shared it in the group chat, in one of countless attempts to connect with my bandmates more deeply about the local bands that inspire me. Diminishing my own enthusiasm: “Yet another top notch brand new nyc indie rock album. NYC local music 2025 banner year wont quit”.

I would have said more, raved about it, but I know I can be too much. I get breathless and gushy easily when excited by art and have a willing ear. But I’ve found most ears aren’t so willing, and have come to appreciate, especially through my relationships in and out of so many bands, that everyone has their own taste, sensibility and emotional bandwidth (obviously). In a lifetime of working around this gushing tendency, I’ve gotten fairly good at parsing my language to leave space for everyone to engage on their own terms.

It still flummoxes me inwardly though, leaves me feeling a bit empty and alone at times. Don’t we all want to be overwhelmed and excited by new art? And engage with our friends about what excites them? I long for deeper conversations about the music that connects with me. I want to share in the excitement and transformation it brings. It’s tricky. No one gets excited in the same way about the same things. Its hard to picture what form those conversations would even take. I’m realizing now, that’s a big part of why I write, both here and in song. I’m following some twisted calling to expose myself to you, in an effort to feel less alone too.

All that said, I see now that I was mostly admiring Trash World’s surface then - recognizing its power, creativity, and density, allowing myself a twinge of nostalgia for the era of heartfelt, raw, darkly emotional grunge it evokes, while callously protecting myself from its conceptual depth and profound songs of rebirth through pain. Perceiving flashes of it but pretending it was probably inscrutable, holding it at arms length to not overwhelm my own emotional bandwidth. Now here it is again, demanding that I let my guard down and recognize what it’s really telling me.

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Music is my life. I am so often deciding what to hear next, even as I listen. It’s much less often that I’m just *handed a tape*, even less so by a musician I admire. A fleeting but significant gesture indicative of true generosity, unexpected, indelible.

I’ve learned to interpret material life as reflective of the spiritual path, to read such indelible moments as meaningful and do my best to follow them. What you remember matters and speaks to what your lessons are. Woo-woo maybe. It’s served me well to think this way. I have proof you wouldn’t believe.

Speaking of woo-woo: All is vibration, and matter is spiritualized by containing specific sounds, just as each ensouled body produces a unique voice. Streaming is beneath and belittling to music’s glory. Art isn’t about convenience. Of course I indulge. But physical media still renders any album real, new, and potentially divine. Even one you’ve streamed dozens of times already. The ritual of selecting an item to put in a player, letting it play in your space, willfully absorbing the artists vision into your life, with repetition - all this lends gravity and meaning to the work.

In this case, more gravity was lent throughout the process by the various acts involved: It was totally up to me if I wanted to work the NYC Tape Fair on May 3rd. I own a DIY record label fulfillment operation, and was asked if I wanted to run a table at the fair on behalf of one of my clients. A previous version of me might not have bothered. I’m swamped in this work - that’s a good thing and I am grateful to be busy - but I tend to live in a weird grey area between sleeplessness and exhaustion lately. I’m also glad I decided to go. I struggle to take days off anyway. It was a fun experience all day, despite my allergy issues that weekend. So many wonderful people stopped at my table to talk about the music I had the honor of selling. Including half of Star Card!

This couldn’t be a coincidence. When I was freely handed a copy of Trash World, I knew exactly why I had come. I want to be around music people and have an excuse to talk to them. Maybe have some of those longed for deeper conversations. Suddenly my entire relationship to this album changed, and along with it, my life. My Trash World cassette was a cosmic cherry on top, a reward for seeking new avenues and connections.

The point being- I had to be there to receive the tape and bring it home. Gingerly handling it and checking on its whereabouts for the rest of the day, like a precious jewel, out of some fearful instinct that I might lose or damage it, or that it was never there at all, a dream. A couple days passed, it gently called to me from the stacks, until there was ample time.

I had to pull out my dusty tape deck, find the cables, make room, plug it in, test the motor. Running several other tapes first to make sure it wouldn’t be eaten. Finally starting the album, remembering how it starts, wondering if the distorted poetry in opening track “Flowers” was available to read, I had to pull up the lyrics, rewind, start again.

Ultimately, in honor of the gift, I had to sit and Actually Just Listen. Entranced. And when the tape stopped, I had to shiver, rub my eyes, and collect my jaw. And despite my previous experience of this music, could hardly believe there was a whole other side to endure.

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Lyric comprehension should be taught in kindergarten. Or at least in high school, alongside basic poetry. Due to prevalent dismissive attitudes, it took me half a lifetime to allow myself to believe that what I’m hearing an artist sing is what they really mean. And that a good chunk of the meat of deep music appreciation is in there. Actual humans will sing simple, beautiful, intense things like: I love you. I am going crazy. I’m so lonely, I want to die. And the words just float by as if they’re not the most bluntly profound and disturbing statements. I want to gesture at the speaker, like, my god. Are you all hearing this?

And that’s just the easy to understand stuff. Add in real poetry and life context and the emotional potential can become infinite, a knife in the inspired and thoughtful artist’s hands to cut across time through the soul. I understand that this is a big part of music’s occult magic. You can hide almost anything you want in a song, and so many listeners will barely notice if at all, and the few that may will inevitably interpret it through their own experience.

Again, I’ve grown to appreciate that everyone enjoys music in their own way, from different perspectives. Different details resonate with different people. Tastes and bandwidths. So often, I wonder if my own bandmates even hear my words and think about what I intend by them. It’s totally fine if they don’t - they are certainly thinking of things I am not, which is a huge part of what makes creating music with others so exciting. The infinite potential provided by combining different points of view.

But I am a lyric person, and as a songwriter - when I know most listeners won’t notice, it can become too easy and even fun to just write flippantly, for the sake of having something to sing, and accidentally bury what I’m really needing to express. On the other hand - if what I’m singing makes me feel vulnerable, uneasy, then I might have actually grasped that magic knife and landed on something worthwhile. If I’m scared to show others, then it’s probably among my finest, most resonant work.

I mention all this because Trash World‘s lyrics and sounds have a rare and unified clarity of vision, boldly and shamelessly painting a harrowing picture of lived trauma, abuse, harm, loneliness, suffering, a near endless burdensome sadness. But one which isn’t content to mope and turns inside out to gesture towards redemption, often with a single line, or even more subtly through its delivery and sonic context. Not necessarily divine - a more real, humble and human redemption via the strength of the soul in facing its trauma in hopes of growing past it. Some semblance of hope for the future.

That line (and several others I’ve peppered throughout this piece) is from “Flowers”, which as I mentioned, opens the album with a poem, twisted and warped via tape play against a gently droning musical backdrop with an artfully broken drum pattern - reading along, this experimental composition clearly establishes the album’s themes in a starkly honest examination of the distorting effects of trauma on a persons worldview, ending in a clear eyed resolution to grow and heal - the warped audio and lurching rhythm seeming to emulate the fractured, unsteady nature of such healing.

From there we dive into a long series of songs examining those various traumas and abuses, storm clouds growing ever closer and thicker. The tension seems to build across Side A, culminating in “When You Want”, the bravest song ever written, a breathtaking, agonizing, bleakly poetic depiction of CSA experience, the gaslighting and enabling that accompanies it, and the resulting damage. The cumulative effect breaks me. I listen and read along and I feel I can’t imagine the courage it took to endure all this, much less turn it into art. But therein lies the redemption, and here it is before me, resonating deeply with me. Reminding me of my own traumas and strengths. Redeeming me, of all people. I feel abashed, unworthy. A mirror is held up and I can’t look away.

The pain graciously recedes to a background thrum, never quite subsiding , slowly building again across side B, and climaxing again in the gorgeous and insistent anthemic dirge of “Keep On Rocking in the Freak World”, a Painted Faces cover, somehow a perfect encapsulation of all that preceded it: depression, anhedonia, and revival through self-reliance and resilience, something like salvation, hard-won by the decision to keep living another day, perhaps out of pure spite some days. Even more graciously, the cassette ends in an exclusive demo jam track, a band of friends simply and safely enjoying their chemistry, the sound of redemption at work and in action, joyous, ending with a laugh, allowing the listener to catch their breath and remember to smile.

I am forced to admit - I have a developed a tendency to shield myself from indulging deeply in this kind of music. Music with lyrics that touch open nerves, delivery that makes the blood rush, my throat get choked, chest begin to heave, until I say something like, “No, it’s actually too good. It’s too much. Less would be better” and I turn my mind away, put my head down, focus on my work, half-listen, or run back to something childish, flimsy, angry, trite, humorous, for safety. A maladaptive avoidant defense mechanism of mine. So I won’t get all breathless and weird. I parse my language even with myself.

Usually these feelings are easier to hide from. I have stacks upon stacks of reliable shields. Trash World tricked me into laying them down, with loud, intricate guitars and subtle, tenacious hooks. My bread and butter. I had thought I was just enjoying the music of a particularly special local band. I wanted to hear those sounds again. Usually they help distract and dance around life’s hard truths, or at least just skim along them wistfully or even humorously. Here, they are laid bare, right on top, for those with willing ears to hear. I’d forgotten rock can do this too. Trash World opened me slowly like a bloom that turned out to be a wound.

Now, during a raw and transitional time, when I am feeling my own storm brewing, I don’t want to shield myself anyway. The familiar strange ecstatic melancholy of imminent transformation is certainly upon me, and maybe all of us. Change is constant, but upheaval is rare. I’m old enough to know to embrace it, even want it. Felt it coming years off and made long slow subconscious preparations. It’s not so wrong to want something new. I am more equipped to weather a storm if one should come. I hold what hurts most in my hands. I warm it up. I give it a big kiss, I let it go.

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A meme to briefly lighten the mood: One does not simply listen to Trash World. Now it scares me, and now I crave it. It lingers. I think about it all the time. Doubting my memory. It’s just music. It couldn’t really be that heavy. right? I put it off, have to work myself up to listen to it. Time has to be set aside. It must be played in full, so my heart can become full with it, and then I can pour out. In this way the wound begins to heal and scar. Yes, it is that heavy.

Still, it ends and I instinctively look for my old shields, even as my heart is screaming with that fullness: flip the tape again. Or at least, allow it to hover in the air! There is more to feel. Open up further. Overflow. Bawl, with joy and gratitude. Feel how honest and fully realized this work is and how it actually touches you in deep, sad, dark places, forcing you open. All while brimming with the cleansing joy of creativity. Even had fun. Acknowledge and honor its truth, and how lucky you are to be alive to receive and behold it. Admit how it makes you want to become a more honest artist. Admit that you need permission from music to cry, and this is the music that finally gave it to you. Stop hiding behind clever-clever, and get at the thing you’ve been hiding from already.

We can never be brand new. But through art that speaks to our experience, we may discover unseen and forgotten places in ourselves, and a form of renewal occurs. Broadening our emotional bandwidth. This is happening to me, thanks to the bravery and resolve and generosity of others. Therapeutic, cathartic. These words don’t really cut it. Too clinical.

I am writing all this because I want its creators to know that Trash World works. It comes across. The bloodletting and the sacrifice. I can’t imagine. I am certain I don’t have a clue what it’s really all about. It’s just there to be heard and felt, plainly and entirely scrutable, for those who have willing ears to hear. Searing past all shields directly to the soul. Please know - It was worth it, if the goal was to reach and inspire other people. Someone else feels it. Me. I feel it.

It’s important to make clear: this is a joyful experience. Trash World on cassette lends my life more depth and beauty and has inspired me to confront things I’ve hidden from for far too long. Confirming that familiar strange ecstatic melancholy of imminent upheaval. And like all great rock ‘n’ roll, it also just sounds and feels glorious played loud with the windows open. I am so grateful for this gift.

I couldn’t possibly be alone in all this. but I find myself in the awkward position of being able to say so, or write it down anyway. And I have this weird puritan-punk streak. A compulsion to support the small artists, in hopes that it might help them keep going. A duty to tell them what their work means to me, so they’ll know it is just as valuable as the work of any of the supposed all-time-greats. More valuable, to me-right-now. I just also know how lonely it is, to pour it all out and still feel unheard, and still somehow have to get on with life.

I am tempted to pull back, delete this outpouring. Inject it with humor. Make it more normal and legible. I still fear being too much, fanning out, seeming crazy or becoming irritating and freakish to those I admire. Disgusted by my outsiderness. But isn’t all this what I’m really after? A confrontation with the truth. A confirmation of who I am and what I’ve been through and what its led me to create. If I want a deeper conversation about the music that connects with me, the conversation has to start between me and the music. Language un-parsed. Mutual validation with the artist through the work itself.

I can hide from it for years on end, killing time, getting the job done, pretending, performing normality and maybe even coolness - the truth just hangs there waiting for me to be real. I have always been ready. It’s just, my version requires being too much. I’m following some twisted calling to expose myself to you, in an effort to feel less alone too. Please accept this as sincere, and not mere flattery: Thank you Star Card, for forcing me open. Letting me gush. And for inspiring me to plug in my tape deck.

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Thanks for reading, and seriously, thank you Star Card.

Apologies to songwriter Calley Nelson for repurposing their penetrating, insightful lyrics in various places throughout this piece, no doubt in ways that misrepresent their original intended meaning at times. I tried working them in as “quotes” but it was breaking the flow in a way that felt weird for the tone and flow of it all. In a way I consider this writing a collaboration with the album. I sincerely hope this is in line with the work’s intent and not merely self-indulgent. Maybe some other time I’ll write a more normal “review” for this album - it certainly deserves it. If any readers are wondering, I’m glad to point out the copped lines and which songs they came from.

But you should really just go listen and read along if you’re that interested: Trash World on Bandcamp . I recommend getting a copy on cassette.

Its unclear at the moment when the next Star Card shows will be - I think they’re going on tour in late August. Follow and support them: Star Card (substack) @_starcard (Instagram)

My experience of this album has brought me to reflect on so many things, and has brought a long simmering personal creative renaissance to a fever pitch lately. The feeling has reminded me of a similarly keyed-up era I went through, around 11 years ago, during the creation of one of my old band’s albums.

I was fairly early in my spiritual journey then, and had become obsessed with making our album a conceptual piece that would hopefully encourage the raising of consciousness in it’s listeners. I wrote a long document that laid out that whole idea in detail with diagrams, and shared it with my bandmates, who graciously humored me in that process and agreed to incorporate its ideas into our work. It’s hard to say how successful we were, but I’m proud of the work we did together. That album is called “This is Post Wave” by the band Future Punx, if you’re curious. I will probably publish that document here around the 11th anniversary of its release, later this Summer.

I mention all this because, in the spirit of all this reflection, I re-read that document for the first time in about 10 years the other day, a few days after writing this piece. It hit me like a ton of bricks as one of those very obvious examples of how life will go in escalating cycles, repeating lessons for you until you grow past them.

Back then I could imagine (and had probably already subconsciously experienced) how a well-crafted and meaningfully intended album could literally transform an engaged listener, help unblock stagnant energy and encourage growth, and spent around 20 pages intellectualizing how all that might be done on purpose with the use of intentional symbolism. What I didn’t understand yet was the nature of the album that might do all that for me, and how it would speak much more directly to the source of my own blocked energy, without all the obfuscation. No doubt I am still “fairly early in my spiritual journey”.

Woo woo. Like I said, I have proof you wouldn’t believe. Thanks again for reading. More show write-ups, and who knows what else, coming soon.