Taking Out Some Old Trash: A Mixtape Essay

Crimpshrine

“How old are you?”  

“10”   

“Then why are your boobs so big?”   

It must have been those swing-set traumas during those Andover, Massachusetts days of sour-faced uneasiness that led me onto a self-pitying path of afternoons which consisted of lying on the dirty white of my bedroom floor,   

ears clinging onto,   

adolescent brain processing the simplistic turmoil found in the lyrics of bands like Crimpshrine: ”Negativity’s too enchanting…”     

It’s Punk’s lack of apology that seemed to lull my pre-teen angst into something seemingly righteous.   

I claimed to be an anarchist simply because Steve Ignorant kept aggressively pronouncing words of pretty, anarchistic idealism over the militant crashes of Penny Rimbaud’s drumming.   

I was sad, so I spent my hours writing awful poetry along to Henry Rollins’ thick-necked complaints, “Suppose to act my age…Suppose to act mature…But I’ve got better things to do than listen to you.” And nothing is more beautifully paired with 12 year old angst than a slow bass plucking Black Flag song.   

However, my anger was far from refined, just like my new-found hormonal lust which I’d project onto Richard Hell, with his ripped purple shirts and inflated ego roughening his baggy-eyed smirk.   

 8^th grade was filled with the whiskey-infused chants of Oi!   

More specifically, Clockwork Oi! With bands like Cock Sparrer and The Adicts.   

Those were bands that despite their celebratory songs of working class violence, enabled in me a glee-filled clarity amidst the stupid cynicism that made my 14 year old frown artfully reflective  of my internalized smorgasbord of confusion and frustration that fumbled and molested my psyche: wet-panty confusion,  dry crotch frustration, how to live confusion, how to be a cute desirable girl frustration, indoor confusion, among crowds of people frustration, humor confusion,  and of course the monumental frustration of not being able to fit into a cute suburb of America where it’s all about the football studs and sweet-voiced chicks who dress in spring colors, all who’d listen to the slimy idealism of sparkly pop stars (who are, when you actually dissect their purpose; products) rather than to D Boon sing over jazzy punk, words that endure sophisticated resistance or Jack Kerouac drunk-reading poems that cradle Buddhist thought.  
  

Those days weren’t all so bitter. Despite the 5 days, 6 hours of heartless math books and a neurotic  history teacher with perpetual pit stains, there was the after-school dance along to “Joker in the Pack” by The Adicts. 
 

Or “Do the dog” by The Specials in Gracie’s orange room that looked like its sole purpose was to honor the Stones.   

Then the day came when the biggest chunk of melodious fulfillment ever strangely seeped out of FM Radio, it was summer, I was pissed and I thought I was some kind of an artist…   

 “You know her life was saved by rock ‘n’ roll
Despite all the amputations you know you could just go out
And dance to the rock ‘n’ roll station   

And it was all right”   

Strange how it was the Velvet Underground’s most commercial song that lifted me out of my car-ride daydreams, strange how John Cale or Moe Tucker had nothing to do with this godless revival, but it was that song that turned me onto The Velvet Underground…Often considered one of  the mother bands of punk, but I had no idea,   

My mother and I were probably arguing.  

And Lou Reed had a cool voice that sounded like heroin was shot up into it, during a tastefully pretentious night in New York City.   

From the blessing that streamed out of a bland classic rock station, the one that usually plays Tom Petty and Bob Seger so much you start to think about dads whose sleeves are filled with corny jokes and Michelob Ultra, birthed a refreshing string of life-affirming sorts of songs.   

Don Van Vliet

From the Velvet Underground came Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band’s  Safe as Milk, Don Van Vliet is a bizarre Howlin’ Wolf-admiring guy with eyebrows raising creepily, eyes bulging deceptively as he sings in twangs and moans.   

Then Joy Division, Ian Curtis’ voice is a sad ghost, robotic almost in its lack of range which only assures you of the dungeon-dark dissatisfaction that makes Unknown Pleasures so uplifting; in those small years of a vast depression, at least you know someone else was as miserable.   

Then Mississippi John Hurt, the most consistently beautiful music, sad songs with sad pretty guitar and old voice that comforts you and concerns you at the same time, listening to it while I blew 2am tobacco smoke out of my immaculate window.   

Then college comes,   

Not as sexy, culture-packed, and artful minded as it was presented to be. Mostly drunk chicks crying, boring complaints, mornings eating eggs that taste like butter,   

the counterculture  is bong hits and “Hey man do like you Phish?”   

And so mostly punk rock again, prevalent, prominent once again. And it’s during my time at Dean College when I discovered The Cramps.   

They came out of Tina’s clunker of a car last winter.  

The thin-air irritation broke away from my consciousness as I became a loyal listener of Lux Interior’s monster-Elvis vocals, Poison Ivy’s spooky rockabilly riffs, it was as if I was encountering a glimpse of some sort of sleazy enlightenment. The androgynous glamour of vulgarities seemed to have finalized a dim-lit aspect of myself.   

My existence in Franklin, Massachusetts was comforted by listening to “Garbage Man.”  
  

Hearing the line “you can’t dig me, you can’t dig nothin’,” approved my passing exterior of pomposity, the one that seeps out only as a means of protection—a form of defense derived from the clench-fist culture of Punk. More than my own father, Punk Rock taught me strength, whether it be genuine or façade.   

Regardless, music is a vehicle of self-discovery, offering clarity to the most hideous flaws and providing beauty to the most immense phases of discomfort.  

Bio: Lindsay MacDonald is currently moseying around Haverhill, MA but it’s Andover, MA and two strange years in Franklin, MA where I‘ve scrounged out most of the inspiration. Writing since 12 years old, will be attending UMass Lowell in the fall where I will be majoring in English, minoring in Gender Studies. Very few publications prior to this, but once touched Rodney Anonymous’ arm (he of the Dead Milkmen).