Transcript:

Intro:

Cambria: Okay, we are officially recording.

Oliver: Born ready.

Cambria: Born ready.

Oliver: Cold intro.

Cambria: Cold intro. We’re just getting warm. Getting warm, getting ready. We didn’t do — we don’t do warm-ups.

Oliver: No?

Cambria: Before we — when we do this. We, I don’t know if we — that’s something that we should do.

Oliver: That was the warm-up.

Cambria: That was the warm-up?

Oliver: The check.

Cambria: The check? Okay, I just don’t know, you’ve been reading a podcast book. Does it say to do warm-ups before you record?

Oliver: I haven’t gotten that far. Okay. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Can of Worms. If you’re new here and don’t know what Can of Worms is, essentially every episode we dive into a new topic and open up a can of worms. In our past episodes, we’ve interviewed environmental scientists about the Great Salt Lake, we’ve played Dungeons and Dragons, we’ve even gone ghost hunting. So if that sounds interesting to you, then keep listening. I’m Oliver, the host of this podcast. So I’ll take you along for this wonderful journey. Maybe this season, we’ll get a sponsor. I’m hoping for Squarespace. I feel like you make it as a podcast when you have Squarespace on the roster. 

Cambria: Oh, for sure. For sure. 

Oliver: I want to; Yeah, one of those food delivery companies, that, like, preps the food …

Cambria: HelloFresh. 

Oliver: Yeah. HelloFresh. 

Cambria: I’m certain there’s other ones. That’s the only one I can recall.

Oliver: MeUndies.

Cambria: MeUndies? Yeah. 

Oliver: We’ll probably get MeUndies as a sponsor by the end of this season. That’s the goal.

Cambria: What’s the other one? There’s certainly other sponsorships. Maybe they’ll really like us. 

Oliver: MeUndies?

Cambria: And all of them — all of them will sponsor us.

Oliver: Yeah, that’d be great. 

Cambria: It’s a profit. 

Oliver: So if anyone from MeUndies is listening, please reach out.

Cambria: Hit us up. We’d love to be sponsored by you.

Oliver: Anyway. I think this is now season two since it’s a new semester since season one. A new year, new calendar year. 

Cambria: For sure. 

Oliver: So we’re calling this season two. Can I call it season two?

Cambria: Absolutely. You’re the host. You can call it whatever you’d like.

Oliver: Oh, great. That’s Cambria, by the way. They are our Producer here in the show. You’ll probably hear them popping out of these episodes. Cambria you should pop in and give a little witty, a witty little tidbit.

Cambria: Hey guys, it’s me. I’m the producer now. I destroyed Elle in trial by combat. 

Oliver: If you remember Producer Elle.

Cambria: If you remember Producer Elle from season one, from season one producer: Producer Elle. Classic Producer Elle. I beat them in trial by combat. And also producers M, N, O and P. And so now it’s me! So get on with it.

Oliver: Okay, now the producer is doing producer things and holding up a big blinking sign that says to “get on with the episode already”. 

Cambria: It’s true. I am. 

Oliver: The nice thing about an audio format is I can lie about things that you can’t see. So now you think Cambria is holding up a sign. It’s a big neon sign that says “Get on with the episode already”. Oh my god, there’s a wild dog running through now! 

[Audio of a dog barking and Cambria doing a bad British accent in post]

Cambria: No.

Oliver: It’s barking like crazy. Oh my gosh, it’s barking like crazy! 

Cambria: No!

Oliver: It’s running around the studio — it’s just barking! Oh my gosh! And a British man in a flat cap just came into the studio running after him!

Cambria: Why is he British?

Oliver: The dog must be his. You really need to put audio in for this, if that’s okay.

Cambria: Yeah, it is me who has to; I am the one who has to put it all in. 

Oliver: But you will! But you will.

Cambria: Yeah, I definitely won’t just put …

Oliver: You gotta put audio in!

Cambria: I’m gonna put an audio collage of every time that you’ve ever misspoken a word. 

Oliver: No! 

Cambria: Instead of a dog barking. 

Oliver: No, you gotta put the dog barking in. Okay, sorry, everyone. That was a whole ordeal. The owner eventually got the dog and we chatted for a bit afterward. 

Cambria: Yeah. 

Oliver: His name is actually Nigel. We got along quite well. 

Cambria: The dog or the guy’s name is Nigel?

Oliver: Nigel. The guy that owns the dog. We all just went out for lunch.

Cambria: What about the dog? Is the dog also Nigel? 

Oliver: No, I don’t know the dog’s name.

Cambria: What’s the dog’s name? 

Oliver: I don’t know. 

Cambria: You didn’t even ask the dog’s name?

Oliver: I don’t know!

Cambria: What kind of friend are you?

Oliver: I don’t know. We went out for lunch though. I know Nigel now. 

Cambria: Okay.

Oliver: I hope we’re all having fun. My idea for today’s episode is about music, specifically about Salt Lake’s local music scene. So we’re going to take a deep dive into that. 

Cambria: Love a deep dive. 

Oliver: I’m sure some of you listeners can relate to me when I say that music is kind of the first medium of art that I can truly appreciate and relate to. I never really understood how people could feel so strongly after staring for a painting in a museum for 20 minutes. But I don’t know I’m still working on that, I can see a little bit more about the emotion that art conveys. But I’ve, I don’t know, I’ve always just truly gotten goosebumps and stuff from listening to music and kind of started from an early age. Just from music my mom showed me and stuff like that. So I wanted to do a little bit of a deep dive in this episode about specifically Salt Lake’s music scene. And I thought it’d be a good idea to get in touch with someone that plays in a band. 

Cambria: Ooh. 

Oliver: Here in Salt Lake. I’ve always wanted to play in a band, I –

Cambria: Have you been in a band? 

Oliver: I have been kind of in a band, I was in a band in high school called, uh, Naive I believe? But it was like a class. Yeah, there’s like jazz band class. 

Cambria: That’s a good name! That’s a great name. 

Oliver: I don’t know. 

Cambria: I don’t know. But, like, for what it is if you’re just like “what should our band name be for this class where we learn to be in a band?” 

Oliver: Yeah. 

Cambria: Naive is pretty fun. 

Oliver: Yeah.

Cambria: That’s pretty good.

Oliver: But it wasn’t very official. It’s just a class, like, we did a few Arctic Monkeys and Cage the Elephant covers and it was fun. But we never performed and we never really had much motivation to actually go out and book shows but that’s kind of my only …

Cambria: I was in a band.

Oliver: You were?

Cambria: I was in a band with my brothers when we were young. 

Oliver: What did you play? 

Cambria: I played the bass guitar. 

Oliver: That’s sweet. Do you still play the bass?

Cambria: I play the bass in that I remember — I have some muscle memory of what I played. I do not really do it much anymore. We – we’ve since broken up. 

Oliver: That’s fair. 

Cambria: It’s crazy, even though … 

Oliver: There’s probably a documentary about how the band broke up.

Cambria: There’s definitely, like, the Jonas Brothers, they took cues off of us, you know? 

Oliver: What was your band called? 

Cambria: There were a couple of iterations. I think the main one was Los Banditos Con Cami.

Oliver: Wow. 

Cambria: Yeah. 

Oliver: That’s cool. 

Cambria: Yeah. It was a good time.

Oliver: Anyway, I’m going to take you on a little old music adventure, and start by chatting with somebody from a local band here in Salt Lake. We’re the Daily Utah Chronicle. I’m Oliver Jones. And you’re listening to Can of Worms. 

Act 1

Oliver: Can you talk into your mic really quick?

Seth: Oh, we got, we got the zoom. 

Oliver: Oh, that sounds good.

Seth: You got me with no headphones? What’s up with that?

Oliver VO: That was Seth Richardson. He sings in the band VALET, a local band where a lot of the members actually go to school here at the U. I wanted to chat with him to get a better understanding of what playing in the band is like and his perspective of the Salt Lake music scene. 

Oliver: Me and you produced and starred in just the pilot episode, it never got picked up. Even though a lot of people are still talking about it. What was the show?

Seth: To this day, it’s like a real tragedy. Um, people were big for Jort Cops. 

Oliver: People were big and still are big for Jort Cops. 

Seth: Yeah. 

Oliver: But let’s explain what Jort Cops is.

Seth: It’s like 70s-style cops are very passionate about their jobs. And here’s the twist. They wear jorts. 

Oliver: That’s kind of the whole thing, they’re Jort Cops. It’s a comedy but also a drama. 

Seth: Yes. Dramedy. 

Oliver: Dramedy.

Seth: And, yeah, it’s a good time. It was a really good time. 

Oliver: I would say really well filmed, really well written. 

Seth: And I think that the biggest risk of the whole production was that one of our [BLEEP] was going to come outside of our pants in those jorts because they were so high up. I don’t know …

Oliver: They were really high jorts.

Seth:… I don’t know if that kind of language is okay on your podcast. 

Oliver: We’ll bleep it.

Seth: Bleep it? [BLEEP]

Oliver: Oh!

Oliver VO: We rambled and reminisced for a while about the hit dramedy Jort Cops. But this podcast is about local music and not two heartthrob cops from the 70s. So let’s jump to Seth’s band and local music again.

Cambria VO: I wish it was about two heartthrob cops from the 70s.

Oliver VO: It will, it will be.

Cambria VO: Maybe next episode.

Seth: Yeah. I’m Seth Richardson. And I’m in the band VALET. I started it with my good friend Mia a little, a couple years ago. And I guess we played our first show together last August — not this August, last August. 

Oliver: A little over a year ago.

Seth: A little over a year ago. We’ve been playing, like, live music together. And then before that, we’ve been writing music together for about a year. So we’ve been just, just cracking. So it’s been a good time. I go to the University of Utah here, I study design, product design, and it’s called multidisciplinary design. So I guess I can go into multiple disciplines.

Oliver VO: I wanted to go back to the beginning and see how the band started. So we started chatting about that a little bit.

Seth: In high school, me and one of my friends, we started going to, like, a lot of concerts together. And we would probably go to, we’d probably attend maybe two or three concerts a month. Which in high school is a little weird, because we were also really broke. So we try to go to as many free ones as possible. But we, like, both big into music. But the hard thing at the time was like, I didn’t have any hard music skills. But I had, like, I really would look up at them. And I’d be like, wow, like I want to do that. Like, that looks like fun. And I just thought like, oh, like if I’m experiencing like this in the crowd, that must be just a whole other level of experience with them being able to play and, and write. It’s, like, probably a crazy connection.

Oliver VO: Seth then got caught up with other things in life, but explained that the urge to be on stage remained with him.

Seth: And, and like it was like a, like eating at me. I was like, I want to be in a band, right? But then I — you find yourself in a position where, okay, I play guitar at that point. And I was a little more confident in my songwriting and my singing, but I was like, I was like, man, if I like, just try to — I can’t just try to join a band because I like it doesn’t really suit what I’m good for. The people don’t really like to just bring people on in a band to write for them. You know what I mean? It’s like, that’s kind of what people want to do themselves. So I was like, I knew I had to just start something, and so, yeah. So I started pinning up, like posters, like personal promo posters like, hey, like, you know, this is me. And this is the kind of music I like, this kind of music I write, you can check out the music I have here. I’m trying to start a band, right? And like, these are the kind of people I’m looking for.

Oliver VO: This pinning up posters method eventually led Seth to the audio production club on campus, where he got connected with a girl named Mia.

Seth: What really came out of that is one of them heard that I was big into, like, trying to start a band. And he connected me with my good friend, Mia, who we then began writing together with and we started the band together. With Mia it was like, we were both just really excited about music. And so we showed up and to meet each other for the first time, and like, wrote a song right away.

Oliver VO: After meeting, Seth and Mia wrote music together for around six months before playing their first show.

Seth: We played Kilby Court, and one of my best friends was playing. And he was kind of getting a band together at the same time. Um, and so we played with him, and then the show actually ended up like selling out because everyone just really pushed it real pretty hard. And the audience was great. And what happened was, like, our drummer at that time, he has been in like, a lot of bands. And he was an older guy, like a little bit older. He’s like, maybe, I don’t know 27. And he was saying, like, guy like, that’s actually like not normal, he, ‘cause he was, because we got off the stage. And we’re all you know, it’s like kind of a tendency to be a little bit self critical to like, enjoy the moment but to also be like, Oh, like this went wrong, whatever. And he was like, Guys, that was like, that wasn’t normal. Like, that was really good. And the people — people don’t usually act like that. They don’t like it that much. And so yeah, that was — it was a nice like confirmation like we’re, we’re heading in the right direction.

Oliver VO: After that first show, VALET started to gather some official members to continue playing with them, and continued to book more shows.

Seth: The people that own Kilby Court at S&S, they own Urban Lounge, and they, you know, they run the block party and that kind of thing. They just liked, they just liked us. I think they saw the show, and they thought that it was fun. And so, yeah, they actually, they just reached out to us, again, about playing a show. We played one there recently, opening for a band, and then we’re gonna play another opening for a different band in November. And it’s cool, because we get to meet a lot of really cool people like, we played with this band, Luna, Luna and Michael Sayer recently. And I had seen him play live in 2018 at Kilby Court. And he’s not, he’s not from here. He’s traveling with a band that I really like, called Inner Wave. And so yeah, it’s like really cool, because then I get to really like talk to people that I admire. On like a similar level where there’s not such a like, a detachment, I can kind of know them as a person rather than as just like a figure.

Oliver: What’s kind of the emotion like before a show? Like, how do you prepare for it? Is it pretty nervy? Or are you getting more used to it?

Seth: I’ll tell you what, I’m getting more used to it now. But I’m also inclined towards stress when it comes to, like, I’m not, I don’t know, like, I get a lot of stage fright. And so I almost threw up, like our first show. I was right, right before they’re like, don’t throw up. Like, they’re like it’s gonna make, it’s gonna be like, you, it’s gonna be okay, like, get on stage, it’ll be better. But I was like, so stressed the whole day.

Oliver VO: Seth said that he’s gotten more used to the stage fright since then, but he has developed some methods to getting over the anxiety.

Seth: You just gotta get through one song, and then it’s okay, you know, then you’re comfortable. And then the people aren’t so foreign to you. And I also think that, like, when I get a chance to address the crowd, that really calms my nerves a lot.

Oliver VO: This got me thinking how I would feel before playing to a live audience. I wonder if I could handle it. Anyway, a large part of this episode was to do a deep dive on the local music scene. So I wanted to ask Seth about the community from an artist’s perspective.

Seth: The music scene is like, awesome, pretty awesome here. And I think there’s a little something for everyone. I don’t know if my like, viewpoint on it all is clouded because we just have, like, people have been so kind to us. And like, we’ve gotten like a lot of love out of the gate. But, but yeah, I always felt like just we got a lot of support. And, and I felt like even at times when I didn’t feel like I deserved it. Like we got, like automatic involvement. And like, people were like, Yeah, you’re one of the guys now you know what I mean? Which is like, a really good feeling because sometimes in my head, I was like, oh, you know, No, we kind of got like, it’s like proving grounds. But like people were really like, you know, they’re like, you guys have done a lot of work to be able to perform live. And so we want to just welcome you in.

Oliver VO: Seth continued to explain how much of the local music scene is centered around community and how much the community aspect means to him.

Seth: I think in general, it’s like, it’s a practice that is not fun without other people, you know? And so, community is everything. Because if you can’t get people to come to the show, then your show is going to be like, a practice. But yeah, like, it’s, it’s such a cool thing, I think, to be able to connect with people. And that’s like, been a big reason why I’ve always loved music and gotten into it is like, I want to have shared experiences with people. And, and so like, community is like everything when you want a good shared experience, like you have to be there with the people.

Oliver: So it sounds like community is such an important part of local music and kind of makes it.

Seth: Oh, for sure, yeah. 

Oliver: Do you think …

Seth: To a cheesy amount. 

Oliver: Yeah.

Seth: To an absolute cheeseball amount, it’s like, yeah, it’s all love. And I don’t want to do if there isn’t, if it’s not, like, that’s the thing, it’s too stressful. It’s stressful. Like, it’s too stressful, putting together like organizing people and putting the other shows and the anticipation. It’s like, too stressful, and it takes too much energy, too much time, if there’s not love. You know what I mean? Like if the, if — but like to see people enjoy it is like, Oh, I would like give as much time as I don’t care how much time because like, if people like it, then like that’s so awesome.

Oliver VO: So community is what makes the local music here so great. If you’re listening to this and don’t know where to start with getting into Salt Lake’s music scene, here’s Seth’s recommendation.

Seth: So I think on both sides, if you want to be someone that just attends concerts, maybe just go. You know? And I’m not saying that, like, just just go give us money. No it’s like, I mean, like, whatever show like if you see something that interests you. And go start out, go to Kilby Court, it’s like really warm and welcoming. For like almost every show I’ve ever been to, you could pull up alone. Like, that’s actually just pretty fun. Sometimes just go alone, because you can just stand [in] the back. And when your legs get too tired, you can just go home, and it’s 10 bucks. So you know, it’s not that crazy. Yeah so I think just, you know, grab a friend. And even if you don’t know a band, go. And I think there’s a similar sentiment where it’s like, if you are interested in making music, then a really good way to get into it is to like, like, you know, do what you can on your own. And then just go and meet people and tell people that that’s what you want to do.

[back in the studio]

Oliver: There you go. Just go. Again, listeners. That was Seth Richardson from the band VALET. It was great chatting with him. He told me that they have some new music on the way that they’re really proud of. So be on the lookout for that. Also make sure to check out the songs they already have released on Spotify.

[Friendship Spaceship by VALET plays]

Act 2

Oliver: After chatting with Seth, I was even more stoked on learning about Salt Lake’s music scene. And I thought it would be a good idea to talk to somebody that is a frequent showgoer. So I got in touch with Keegan Hayes, a writer at SLUG magazine.

[interviewing Keegan]

Keegan: Hi, my name is Keegan Hayes. I’m a [Contributing Film Writer] at SLUG magazine. Really interested in the Utah local scene.

Oliver VO: Keegan is also an avid enthusiast of the hardcore music scene, something I know a little about. So we got together for an interview so he could educate me a little bit.

Keegan: I’m somebody who says they’re into all types of music. But when it comes to the local scene, I’ve sort of fallen in love with like this, this new wave of hardcore coming out, which is like, hardcore is like this, it’s like a mix, I guess of metal and punk might be the best way to describe it. It’s much heavier than punk music, but it has the same politics and mentality of that sort of punk era, if that makes sense. And I first got into a really, like really, really got into it when I moved up to Salt Lake City because I’m from the suburbs like 15 minutes out of here. And it’s kind of crazy the difference in the culture between these two places. So when I moved up to Salt Lake to start school, I got really into the scene. I started going to a lot more shows, a lot more DIY stuff. A lot, a lot of really cool, met a lot of really cool people. I got like, you know, I totally listened to a couple like, hardcore songs every once in a while on Spotify, but I feel like the real like joy of that type of music is the live, the live aspect of it. So once I moved back up and I started attending the shows, that’s when I really really liked the passion really started to blossom for me.

Oliver VO: I found that interesting to me. Keegan got into the hardcore genre through attending shows and experiencing the music live and being in that atmosphere. Keegan shares how one of his first hardcore shows really sparked that interest for him. 

Keegan: One of the– my first shows that really made me like, wow I love this, was a– it was a New Year’s, New Year’s show, over at Beehive they were playing a bunch of bands are headlining gives us a big long show, I believe we were going till midnight, it was like Ribbons, Zodiac Killer —these are all some, like, local — local stuff. And I went there with a friend of mine who had never really listened to hardcore before. And I had at this point, I think I’d probably listened to it and maybe seen like one show or two. But this was the first show I was like, “Man, this is really like my people. This is so fun.” As I got a, I got a Christmas tree thrown me. Which, it sounds terrible. But it was just felt like initiation. You know, I also like, man, I got absolutely wrecked, I feel a part of this community now. And that’s what it really is. It’s just a community of people.

Oliver VO: There is again, that idea of finding that community. What I keep hearing is that the community aspect is such a prevalent thing for people and going to these local shows.

Keegan: I definitely love it for the people. There’s so much it’s I think that it shows like this usually you have the perfect people around you know, people who are like, pretty punk mentally, you know, they got those ideologies like the the leftist sort of perspective on things, it sort of as a place where things like gender, sexuality don’t matter. Everybody just sort of like, just has a great time, you know, and I’d say that’s it most hardcore shows, I’d say the community is my favorite part of the whole thing, you know, getting to go and getting to just like envelop yourself in this group of people who most of the time you don’t really know, there’s always new faces around sometimes you recognize them, but like only from other shows, you know, and just going crazy with group people for like an hour or two. You know, it’s a great feeling. It’s very, very free, I guess, might be the right way to put it.

Oliver VO: The way Keegan describes the feelings you get when you go to a hardcore show is making me want to go and see what it’s all about. Especially since Salt Lake is a hub for this kind of scene, which Keegan explains.

Keegan: I think that anywhere where you have a very oppressive culture, you’re always gonna have a very strong counterculture against that. And I think that Salt Lake has always, at least in the past 20 years, from what I know, it’s become a bit of a hub for that that sort of mentality and the queer community, the LGBTQ plus community has really grown in Salt Lake. If I if I’m correct, I believe like, we have one of the highest populations of queer-identifying people in the entire country. Which is really cool. And I think that sort of counterculture is directly tied with that, you know, hardcore scene, you know, both the music and the culture go hand in hand, in a sense.

Act 3

Oliver:  Okay, listeners, I’m back in the studio. Now. I would say a lot of my journey so far about the local music scene. But I think the only thing left to do is to go to a hardcore show myself and take you listeners along. So I’ve been looking around for shows. And I found this place called Aces High Saloon, and their website says, Salt Lake’s only music venue dedicated to heavy metal punk rock and outlaw country music. I’ve never heard of outlaw country music so that might need to be another episode itself. But this Wednesday, there’s a lot of bands playing one called NARC, All Systems Fail, Resistance Culture and Avskum, I think is how you pronounce that. So they sound pretty hardcore enough. So I guess let’s jump to a little Oliver in the wild segment, heading to the show. 

[Oliver in the wild]

Oliver: Okay, I’m here with my good friend Lexie, who really likes to be on podcasts. 

Lexie: I love it.

Oliver: But they’re the only friend I know that likes punk music. Would you say that’s a correct statement?

Lexie: That is a correct statement. I’m not sure if we’re going to a punk show though. 

Oliver: We’re a little iffy of where we’re going. But we were looking for a show with kind of heavier music. And we found this bar where they do apparently they do like heavy metal and punk shows.

Lexie: Mostly. Yeah, a hardcore band.

Oliver: A hardcore band. So we’re seeing a hardcore band. We’re documenting the experience. We’re seeing what it’s like we’re contributing to local music in Salt Lake. We’ll tune back in when we’re inside.

[Inside Aces High Saloon]

Oliver: Okay. We’re here, we’re in Aces High Saloon now. I feel good. I ordered a quesadilla, we’re waiting for the first band to go on. Any thoughts, Lexie? It’s very punk in here. It’s very punk.

Lexie: Oh yeah.

[First band audio]

Oliver: Okay, that was NARC. And my whole worldview has changed.

[Heavy metal audio]

Oliver: Hey, everybody! This is me after the metal show, my ears are ringing. Through chatting around a little bit I discovered that it was kind of a sub-genre — it was very heavy it was more drum and bass heavy there wasn’t really any of any lead guitars on any of the bands it was very bah bah bah bah! But, man. My whole perception on the genre changed after going out to see these bands and going out to be a part of this community in Salt Lake. It really is, it really takes going out to see these bands live to kind of understand what they’re all about like … yeah.

[Even more heavy metal audio]

Conclusion

Oliver: Okay, everybody, I’m back from the hardcore show, Aces High Saloon.

Cambria: How was it? Was it crazy? Was it wild?

Oliver: I was a little intimidated at first, I won’t lie. Just based on feeling a little out of place. You know, I didn’t have like the punk clothing, you know what I mean? But a lot of people there had like, some spikes sticking out of like, cool-made vests and stuff. 

Cambria: Oh, cool. Okay. 

Oliver: Just a lot of you know, like actual punk clothing.

Cambria: So the ambiance was there. 

Oliver: The ambiance was there.

Cambria: You felt left out because you didn’t have any spikes.

Oliver: On the outside I felt left out. I got inside and everyone was really friendly like the guy that we gave money to get into the show super nice. And then I got a quesadilla. As you heard in the episode, I got a cheese quesadilla. And the guy that brought the quesadilla out to me was like — if you’ve seen the movie Salt Lake City Punk, he looked like one of those guys — like he had a dyed pink Mohawk that was like a foot tall. 

Cambria: Oh, like. Oh, straight up on his head. 

Oliver: Oh, yeah. And then like shaved on the sides. 

Cambria: Wow, that’s awesome. 

Oliver: That night was like heavy metal, almost death metal. So it was very hardcore, as you guys heard, and it was not what I was expecting. I thought I’d get like really riled up. Like, you could feel the bass and the drums like through you. And I was sitting kind of back against the wall for a section of it. I was moving around, they got closer to the bands for a little bit. You could like feel it through your whole body. And then after like, the set finished for a band, you’d feel like, I don’t know if it’s weird, like sense of calm. You know what I mean? 

Cambria: Oh, really? 

Oliver: Yeah. But like Keegan was saying, like, you definitely can’t judge like a genre of music until you go and …

Cambria: And see a show.

Oliver:… and see a show and experience kind of the community aspect of it. 

Cambria: Yeah, it’s — that seems like community’s kind of been the core of everything that we’ve found out for sure.

Oliver: Definitely. I think like the whole idea of local music is like the local very, like the local idea of it like you’re going with a group of people. And just kind of finding your community. You know what I mean? 

Cambria: And having an experience together.

Oliver: Definitely. And a lot of people there at Aces High School seemed to know each other pretty well. And just like lots of hugs were going around that were like a very warm, welcoming group of people which I was not expecting. I was pretty intimidated before going. And then afterwards I like I was talking with sound guy a little bit he said it was nice hanging out with me. The guy with the Mohawk was really nice. He was like, “here’s your quesadilla, man!”, I just felt very …

Cambria: Very welcome. 

Oliver: Very welcome. Very warm. Like I would definitely go back honestly, like I wouldn’t. I think I’d probably listen to a little bit more hardcore just on Spotify and stuff. But I wouldn’t say I’m like a big hardcore guy on my own. But like, going to a show and being with those people just like …

Cambria: Yeah, but it seems like most people also didn’t mind that you’re not — weren’t necessarily like a metalhead. 

Oliver: No.

Cambria: They were just like, Hey, you’re here. So you’re here. And so we’re friends.

Oliver: Yeah.

Cambria: ‘Cause we’re all here to support the same kind of thing.

Oliver: Definitely. Yeah. So that was my experiencing, experience out in the wild. That was my whole deep, deep dive into the local music scene. 

Cambria: And that seems what both Keegan and Seth were talking about, was like the local community is really what makes it a thing as well. Going to see shows and having the people that you know around your own neighborhood and the new people who come in from places that you don’t know. It seems to be kind of the golden, the golden ideal. 

Oliver: The golden ideal. 

Cambria: The golden ideal is community! Sweet, sweet community and being nice to each other and loving everyone, despite what music tastes you have. 

Oliver: Definitely. 

Cambria: Wow, that’s pretty cool. 

Oliver: It’s been a fun episode.

Cambria: It’s been a really fun episode! We gotta go see more local bands.

Oliver: Definitely. And you, listeners, if you feel like you — I hope, after listening to this, if you don’t really know where to start with, like, going to some smaller local venues, I hope you feel a little bit better about it, even if you wouldn’t consider yourself a hardcore fan. But, you can find joy in a lot of different places, you know?

Cambria: Lots of friends to be made.

Oliver: Definitely. Lots of friends to be made.

Cambria: Even where you don’t think they can be.

Oliver: Lot of Christmas trees to be thrown at you.

Cambria: If you go to a Christmas show, beware of flying Christmas trees, but other than that, it seems like nothing was thrown at you.

Oliver: Nothing was thrown at me.

Cambria: In fact, maybe you’ll get handed a nice quesadilla. So go support the shows! Go see what’s out there! Meet new people!

Oliver: Yes! 

Cambria: Go to new places!

Oliver: Very fun. Again, listeners, this was another episode of Can of Worms. Thank you to our producer, Cambria.

Cambria: You’re so welcome.

Oliver: Thanks again, Keegan and Seth for being on the show and talking to me. We’ll catch you next time.

Producer: Cambria Thorely [email protected] // @cambria_thorley
Host: Oliver Jones  [email protected]