As I sit down to write this week’s Paperhouse, I am a little saddened. While looking through my past rants in this column, it became shockingly clear to me that I have a very decisive opinion regarding music. In columns past, I’ve endorsed this album or that subgenre, or belittled some artist or criticized a musical trend. While I typically encourage you to believe every word I write, today I want to make it perfectly clear that your music taste is your own. Do not let a magazine, blog, or other individual dictate it.

The music you listen to should be entirely up to you and is truly one of the few choices you have in life. With the wide variety of ways to be exposed to new artists and genres, it makes little sense to rely on the opinions of others. Granted, there are probably too many musicians releasing music today, but that is not a sufficient reason to take someone else’s advice instead of sorting through what is available on your own. As consumers we have become inundated with musical output, with blogs advocating one album this hour and then posting on Twitter about an entirely different one minutes later. It’s important to remember to breathe.

Over the upcoming winter break, after you listen to your finals study playlist several hundred times — I recommend filling it with as much deep house as possible — spend some time figuring out what type of music you actually like and, more importantly, why you like it. What is it about a song that strikes resonance with you? Is it that catchy lyric, that garbled bass line, or that wonderful dissonance? Whatever it is, take note and then go out and find more music that fills that need. In the end, it doesn’t matter what music you like, as long you know why you like it independently of anyone else’s opinion.

(Originally published in The Tartan)

At the beginning of the month, I attended a Falling In Reverse concert at Stage AE as part of their headlining tour, “The Thug In Me Is You.” I normally don’t listen to much post-hardcore music, as it’s one of those genres that I tend to only seek out through particular artists. In fact, I appear to be one of the least likely candidates to go to a concert of this nature, taking into consideration the music I tend to play on my radio show. I will admit that this was my first post-hardcore concert experience and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. My primary interest was the chance to see Enter Shikari live since they rarely pass through the U.S. at my convenience.

The performance opened up with letlive., a group from Los Angeles that I wasn’t familiar with at all until the day of the show. They were… entertaining, at best. Jason Aalon Butler, the lead singer, was utterly incoherent and I would have needed closed captioning to understand what he was attempting to convey to the audience. It was like watching a bunch of circus monkeys, with Butler performing destructive stunts that resulted in a blown out speaker. I especially liked it when he grabbed the metal barricade, violently threw it down towards the floor, wrapped his hands around the bars like he was trapped in a prison, and then repeatedly attacked it. At the conclusion of that song, he explained that his act was representative of “breaking down the barriers of society” and I lost any remaining respect I had for them as a band.

Thankfully, Enter Shikari proceeded to take the stage to make up for letlive.’s mediocre efforts. They began the set with some songs from their latest album, A Flash Flood of Color, which was released in January. A friend of mine had only good things to say about Enter Shikari’s stage presence, but both of us felt that they were a bit lacking. I later came to the conclusion that I probably felt this way mostly due to the concert repertoire for the evening: It was predominantly material from their earlier years, which I didn’t recognize as much. Nevertheless, I will give them credit for selecting tunes that meshed better with letlive. and Falling In Reverse’s styles. Even though I was a bit disappointed, I would love to see what Enter Shikari could do as a headliner.

Before Falling In Reverse took the stage, they decided to test the audience’s patience by playing a silly cat video to lighten the mood followed up by an introductory video that satirized Ronnie Radke, the lead singer, as the president of the United States. The entire venue erupted into cheers and screams when they finally came into view, bringing with them an incredible energy that I have never before encountered in all of the other concerts I have been to.

Let me be frank: I was floored. Something that really stuck out to me was Falling In Reverse’s ability to connect with their fans. For instance, Radke pulled out a Terrible Towel and swung it around as he cheered for the Steelers, an action that definitely made the night that much more memorable. Although Falling in Reverse is a fairly young band, all of its members have had prior experience in other groups, which adds to the overall musical skill of the band. They succeeded in reeling me in to wanting more and they have raised my expectations for future concerts. I walked out of there knowing that this first post-hardcore concert was definitely not my last.

Photos by Jess Phoa.

Something deeply embedded in American culture is the movement of people, traveling. The history of our families and forbearers is emigration, riding the railroad, vacations, road trips, going to college. Furthermore, it’s extremely prominent in storytelling and music tradition.

One of the earliest tunes in American music is the “The Wayfaring Stranger.” Not surprisingly for the early 19th century America, it is a Christian spiritual. The singer is the “poor wayfaring stranger” wandering through this world in search of a heavenly home.

This song is still reordered and fairly popular after nearly two centuries of song writing. Rather than being a joyous religious song, it’s slow and somber. The hardship of traveling overshadows the happiness of religious salvation. What’s reflected is how “home” is a place people long for, especially while traveling in the unfamiliar. This song still resonates because this dichotomy of the happy home vs. the strange world still has lived on through every generation of people.

Much of our western cannon of storytelling from Homer’s Odyssey to AMC’s The Walking Dead are stories centered on people traveling. Our most entertaining stories when we return to our families during the holidays are recounting where we’ve been and what we’ve done.

That said, for all the blue traveling songs there are as many that capture the adventure of living on the road. In American culture you’ll find legends, like the cowboy, immortalized for their work. Musicians are prime examples travelers, particularly when your livelihood depends on touring. One of the better and more famous examples is “Jack Straw” by the roots-inspired Grateful Dead. The song encompasses is a story of survival on the road but the song could be about anyone traveling the road. And finally, there are some who are just not content to sit around so they finally up and move.