A Response to "Ripping off the Bandaid: Why Feminism Matters in Music" and Also to A Video Circulating

It’s CMJ! Yay! I always get excited this time of year 1; because it’s probably the best opportunity if you have the means to check out a ton of new bands at little divy venues you’ve never been 2; because it’s a great way to network and 3; because there are a ton of interesting panels to sit in on. The other day I went to the talk Ripping off the Bandaid: Why Feminism Matters in Music, and to tell you the truth, I was left completely unsatisfied. Not only did I feel like we were all sitting a “we hate men” sleepover with way too many giggles, but it was almost like everyone on the panel was playing victim. Going on and coyly naming the publications they had worked for over the years who treated them poorly, nothing crazy positive came out of this talk. 

But the worst of all, was when someone finally came up and asked the question “so how do we stand out among others while trying to get a job?” they answered the generic “don’t be afraid to be a bitch” “don’t get upset if someone asks if you’re on your period.” “make your hair pretty” I think was one of the answers. But no one, NOT ONE person said “know your shit.” 

That’s the only answer to any of this. If you are afraid that a male will get a job over you, what to do what to do!? Know what the hell you’re talking about. Know everything. Anything you want to talk about, any type of work your doing, study the shit out of so you know more about it than anyone. Work speaks for itself. Nobody reading an article sees a woman's name and doesn’t continue to read it. Unless you're a serious ass hole. And yes, we can complain and moan about how we’re mistreated (which yeah, sometimes the music business sucks with women) but more than just complaining and bitching about it, do something about it. Be the best. People gravitate towards good work. They gravitate towards honesty. They can read an interview that you’ve written up and think either “wow this was so boring and those questions sucked” or they can think “wow I would have never thought to ask that, they must know this artist so well.” After the panel I walked out with a lot of the people that were sitting in, and I heard a comment that said “well that didn’t help me at all” — so I looked at her and said “If you want to get ahead of the rest, be good at what you do.” Nobody is stopping you from researching the hell out of anything, nobody is holding you back from learning, so don’t give this weak excuse like…I’m not getting ahead in the industry because I’m a woman! It’s probably because your work isn't interesting to read.

Be interesting. Be interested. Be you. But know your shit. Know everything there is to know about x.

While I’m on this topic, there is a video circulating on the world wide web showcasing little girls 11 and under yelling “FUCK YOU FOR CALLING ME A PRINCESS” “I’m NOT some fucking DAMSEL in distress” — and the whole point of it is to say how young girls saying “fuck” is so uncomfortable but rape and 23% less pay is just as uncomfortable. Although I get the general idea of this video — how about you keep some class about you, don’t teach your daughter words like that, save your youth, and explain to them the best way to fight this — is to work hard, be independent, be educated (which means having an appropriate vocabulary, especially at the age of 8) and fight the fight, classily. “Oh women are just supposed to be classy are we!?” No, but let’s remember nobody using this language and teaching your daughter to say “Fuck You” at that age, doesn’t make her anything but vulgar and angry. 

Let’s keep the education circulating, without the crassness, shall we? 

Stop Being Scared of Depression & Anxiety

Disclaimer: This was a really hard post for me to write, partly because it's so filled with emotion, partly because it makes me extremely vulnerable. So, I'm sorry if it's all over the place. 

Last night I felt compelled to write something about anxiety and depression, one part because of all the statuses I saw people suddenly posting about it, and another part because people are so heavily misinformed (yes, to this day) about how detrimental anxiety can be. But this morning, as I was perusing through the always enlightening Facebook newsfeed, two people posted an article and it sent me entirely over the edge. One person posted about how they wanted to learn everything Catholic about depression and how they couldn’t believe it didn’t have to coincide with living in sin and the other article was “Saints that Suffered From Depression” and one said “I want to know the Catholic stance on depression." K. One. The Catholic stance on depression? You mean the universal stance on a mental illness? Oh my God, a person can be depressed without having to live a horrible sinful life!? Sometimes it’s not only caused by self-loathing? And what, now that Robin Williams died (RIP you lovely, incredibly human) and you liked his movies, you’re going to take the time to actually read up about what causes depression and anxiety, and now you’ve realized that since Saints suffered from it, it’s OK to pay attention to it?

We are in some serious trouble, people. And I’m not going to sit here and blame the ignorance of some religious folk, because my family is Catholic and we are probably the biggest advocates of educating ourselves and others on mental illness. But my God, are people seriously this ignorant? I didn’t want to believe it but, yes, they are. 

I’m not using this post as a “oh Robin Williams was depressed and died from suicide, so let me share MY experience because I totally understand what was going on in his head.” No. Not at all. But maybe, MAYBE from my personal experience I can shed some light on humans who for some illogical reason thought that anxiety and depression only existed in people who led immoral lives so they wouldn’t give their time to them. 

I was depressed at 15 through about 23 along with probably 76% of every human alive. Everyone has some form of anxiety & OCD because guess what, LIFE HAPPENS. I can’t speak for them but I can speak for myself when I say I don’t even know what caused mine. I've been anxious since I was 7. And if you're not familiar, anxiety sucks. You can't help it sometimes. When I was in first grade I used to throw up when my mom would leave the house at night because I was always scared she'd get in an accident. I used to get sick to my stomach when certain songs came on the radio because they...sounded sad and made me anxious. I saw a therapist at 8 and he told my mom I was lactose intolerant. I wasn't, I had anxiety. I used to get scared of getting the stomach flu because I hated when my stomach hurt that I would actually get so nervous I made myself sick. Then growing up, like sure, I had issues with my mom, yeah, I got molested my second semester of college. But now that I’m realizing my time spent in my therapists office, sure, a lot of things were probably factors in my depression, and sure, when I was 21 and tried to overdose on oxy something DID put me over the edge (failed miserably, obviously, I’m still here) but not all depression stems from ONE thing. It’s an illness, and I had it since I was SEVEN. I remember sitting on my bed when I was 21 holding a bottle of pills and the song I was listening to all of a sudden sounded like it was telling me to take the pills. It wasn’t, I was listening to a Flufftronix remix, but in my warped mind that’s what it sounded like to me. And right after I took them I got scared and called my brother. (Blah blah blah fell asleep, woke up in an ambulance, went to the hospital, had to get some psych treatment but I was fine, just in case you were wondering). But when I was in the psych ward of the hospital, I was put in a room without a handle on the inside of the door so we couldn’t leave. It was a giant, metal, empty room. And I was stuck in there with other people. Other CRAZY people. Other crazy people who had been arrested and were on some serious drugs. One woman was tripping on something and kept singing me Beatles songs. It was terrifying. So I knocked on the window and asked the guard (yes, guard) if I could come sit with him because I was scared of sitting inside with the other people who had been taken off the streets. When he let me, and the social worker finally came to check on me to see if I was stable enough, I poured out sorry after sorry telling her I just took the pills because I wanted to sleep for a while. 

Gripping onto her clipboard pointing at me with her pen “but I see the wounds on your wrist haven’t healed” 

“I know but that’s behind me, I just did it as a coping mechanism I won’t do it again!”

“OK but your mom doesn’t think you’re ready”

“But I am I PROMISE”

and she stood there, standing far away from me, panicked, like she was scared of me, and finally decided to release me. 

We have the wrong people working in our psych system. We need people who are compassionate. Who understand. People who don’t treat all patients the same way and cluster them into one horribly cold room.

After that, two of my best friends stopped talking to me. Completely. And were scared, and didn’t want to have to deal with someone like that, or be seen with someone who actually needed a friend more than anything in the world. See, that was MY way of seeking help. I’m not sure if I actually wanted to die, or just sleep for a really long time because I didn’t want to feel sad anymore, but it was an outcry. And some people are just born with really dark thoughts. I think there are definitely certain things we can do to try to overcome it, but to try to pin it on one thing is really awful. YES, of course PTSD exists! but, humans have emotions, it’s what makes us….human. We are happy and sad and angry and everything in between, and sometimes some of us have a really hard time staying positive. So all of these articles I’m reading about what it was that tipped Robin over, or why he was depressed, or, what’s the Catholics view on depression — it’s all bullshit. That’s like asking, so WHY did he get the flu, what was it, and what’s the Catholic take on the flu? What are you talking about. Depression and anxiety is not myth. It’s not some made up disease that only resides in people who aren’t religious. Why are people so scared of it!?

I remember being in college and talking to counselors about my depression and some of them saying “well you need God, and to stop living in a way that’s compromising to your faith.” Which, on one end, is totally true - like we should be living in the healthiest way possible, and live in a way in which we believe actually seeks the ultimate happiness, but, you can’t just brush it off like that. People need help. Some people just need compassion and love and some people genuinely have a chemical imbalance in their brain that requires outward deposits of serotonin. And some people are genuinely just sad. We seek kindness, we seek love, we seek happiness. There is no “catholic view” on depression. There’s a universal view. And we need to start paying more attention to mental illness, RIGHT now. 

Living in Excess Doesn't Make You Happy, It Makes You Sad

I went to Italy and Greece for a couple weeks, and although I knew that it was going to open my eyes to some things, I didn't realize that it would mess with my perspective on just about every aspect in life. Since I've come home I haven't wanted to open soundcloud, write reviews, or even just listen to music. I want to sit outside with my book and a cold cappuccino, turn my phone off, and then pick flowers and make food. Now, I'm fully aware Mercury is in retrograde and that little bastard messes with just about every single detail of life, but I really think something happened in Europe that made me want to change a lot of things. There were a lot of things I noticed when I was abroad that I fell in love with, so I'm going to make a list.

1: The way parents treated their children. When a couple went out at night with another couple to get food, they brought their children. Their children sat in the seats, ate the same food, and held the utensils properly. The kids (especially in Greece) were out until about midnight or later, and then slept the same hours as the adults. They chilled on the beach with their mothers without constantly having to be "entertained" and when they got antsy, the parents gave them toys; not electronics. Having kids in Europe is a joy, not a burden. The more the merrier in those families, and they actually enjoyed the company of their kids. Imagine that, huh?

2: Obviously the food. I ate more food than I ever had in those two weeks, and when I got home I weighed less than I did when I left. You know why? Cause they're healthy, and they cook without butter and shit and sugar and poop. I ate NON gluten free bread, and I didn't bloat, I had more cheese than ever and my body responded more than well to the intake.
The most important thing I took away from it was their coffee. NOBODY walks around with a yoga mat and a venti sized coffee, they sit down and enjoy a croissant with a shot of creamy espresso, and you know what, it does the trick. The more I think about how big our coffee's are, the more embarrassed I become.

3: There were no age limits. On anything. Ages 15-80 were at the bars, all dressed extremely stylishly, and all talking with one another. There were no old women afraid to show their flair of wardrobe, no "oh no I'm too old to wear this or to drink that" - it doesn't matter. Tastes are tastes. It was so nice to be sitting with people of all ages having one conversation.

4: And the most important of all, not one person I met asked me what I did within our first conversation. Not once. And I had learned certain things to say in Italian so I could keep up with conversations, but not once did I have to use "sono journalista di musica." Not once. You know why? Cause nobody cares what you do. It doesn't define you. Here, in New York, every single person is defined by what they do and where they work, there is NO way around it. And yes I lived in the glory of how simple the life was over there, because the coolest people I met were literally a butcher a baker and a candle stick maker, but as I got to talking to this awesome girl I met who spoke perfect English so I didn't feel SO out of the loop - she broadened my mind a LOT. I explained to her how nice it was to not be asked what I do, and I went on and on about how annoying that is to here every time you meet anyone for the first time in NYC, and that your area of work isn't the end all be all of your life, and although she agreed, she made a really good point. She said people in Italy put their dreams on the nightstand, and nobody asks what you do because it's virtually impossible to work your dream career. You can't be a journalist like you can be in NYC, they're all just nice ideas that never come to fruition. In New York City, you CAN be anything you want to be, so when people ask "and what do you do?" it's because you have the resources to become whatever you want. Basically there's no excuse in NYC because you are given the opportunity to make it happen. Obviously the grass is always greener, but I fell in love with the simple life of Italy. When I went to Rome all I wanted to do was come home, save money, and then move back and open up a cafè and floral shop.

I'm spent. I'm so damn sick of this music industry and busting my ass and trying to appease people for nothing. What comes from it? Am I happy? Am I making other people happy? Am I giving myself? No. I'm stressed, I'm broke as shit, I'm up til 3 am trying to meet whoever I can so I can maybe find my journalist break, and I'm so tired of it. I don't care about meeting big producers or DJs or whoever the hell they are. Why am I looking for so much approval from people? What does it do in the long run? We're all human, we're all hustling, and we're all so consumed with this idea of glory. Even how I'm "trying to find my break" - why do I need to be a noticed journalist. As long as I get to write my truths, isn't that all that matters? I want to live a simple life. I also really miss music. I miss listening to it and having time to enjoy a song and love it for just as it is, music. I hate trying to make it a business, it's ruining the purity and bliss of sound for me, and I want that butterfly BACK in my stomach every time I hear a fantastic new track.

The night I got home, I got rid of about 70% of my closet and other random things I own. I am sickened by how many "things" I own, buying new clothes don't make me happy, it makes me poor and stressed out. I don't need a lot. I need love, my books, rent, and the love and company of my family and good friends. I don't know what this means from here on out, but I definitely am just going to try to finish writing my book, and work enough so I can save so eventually I can do whatever it is that makes me happy. I just want to be happy, and I really don't think that's a lot to ask.

RIP Golden Age of Music Blogs

Yesterday morning I was sitting on my computer, browsing (stalking) media bistro, craigs list, looking for jobs and letting my iTunes roll around. Then the BRAHMS remix of “Emily Sue” came on and I immediately typed into my iTunes search “RCRD LBL” to see what other gems I could find, and a beautiful plethora of music, mostly remixes from 07-10 started to play and I felt like I was picked up and thrown into a pile of soft, warm and cozy memories. I sat there for a while thinking about my college days of staying in on weekends going through all those good old blogs finding new music ( I was a huge loner the first couple years of college) and I got really fucking sad. There are days I am so excited to be out of school, published, knowing what I want in life, and then I think about what it was like in the days I first found the world of the music blog, and my God, do I miss it. 

I thought about the first time I found Hypem, and how utterly blown away I was. I remember sitting on my computer, having the tabs for all my favorite music blogs open, and just devouring everything they had to offer. GvB, Audio Porn Central, Vacay V, bbbscience, RCRDLBL (RIP) all open, feeling so damn comfortable just sitting with my computer and this music pouring from these godlike blogs that some higher power must have sent down for us all to be cradled and nurtured by. I adored the community of music bloggers, always sharing what they posted, stalking the shit out of the writers to see where they came from or what else they did. It was an escape for myself, I had no idea there was a whole world of people who loved music this much. I remember receiving Massive Attacks 'Heligoland' cd IN THE FLESH, listening to "Paradise Circus" over and over again, memorizing each transition APC did when they would post their Sunday Mashups. I wanted to be a part of this community. I had started my own music blog, so these golden aged music blogs were my idols. I would borrow cars to drive to CVS just so I could pick up the newest issue of Rolling Stone or Spin, and keep myself in my corner of my dorm, and eerily comforted by the thought that one day I would write for RS. I would get an internship at one of the mags, and just work my way up. Isn’t that how it works? I knew so much about music, more than anyone I had ever met at least. Or at least write for RCRD LBL. Maybe I could have a guest post on APC, because why wouldn’t I? Ah, I had my entire future planned out, I had dreamed of being a music journalist since I was 15, and I was going to make it happen.

LOFUCKINGL. I miss my naive self, more than you can imagine. After I applied and applied to RS, Spin, Fader, thinking that they were holding my resume in their hands, anxiously deciding between me and someone else, when in reality my email probably wasn’t even opened, I scored an internship at this baller music PR agency in NYC. I worked (hardly) and met with random bands and I remember standing in a room next to Jack White, where I swear, although I never actually saw him with my own eyes because they had the interns locked in our little closet, I could feel his presence, smell his dirty hair….. Anyway, that turned out to be a pretty good entry to the scene in NYC, a ripe young age of 20 - felt like I had gotten my foot in. Two more years of school and then I could graduate and make shit happen, right? Wrong. Oh so wrong that it plagues me to this day. Yeah, I definitely got good work, ….except I’m 25 and I haven’t even walked by the office of Rolling Stone. 

I remember when I moved back to NYC after school, I met a guy at Le Bain who told me he worked for Rolling Stone. After verbally vomiting my love for Rolling Stone since I was little to him, and my dream of having at least a guest post, he said "So I basically live your dream life" and then he asked if he could take me on a date. Of course he could! This was it, this was going to be my first intro to somebody who worked there. We went out to this really cool little jazz cafe on Park Avenue, and I had so many questions about RS I didn’t even know where to begin. We got to talking and, well, that was weird he didn’t know any of the books I had mentioned, I’m sorry where did you say you graduated from? OH you’re still in school, oh wait you actually haven’t chosen a major yet OK and …. OH YOU’RE AN INTERN AT RS. Me: “OK that’s fine that’s great, how was the selection process?? what samples did you send in?” Oh no. Date: “Actually my mom won me the internship at an auction, and I hardly ever show up.” I think I was so shocked I actually muttered something like “Oh, I guess my mom must have missed that one…” I remember thinking OK, so this is how it works. I, unfortunately, was not a member of the Society of Children Whose Mothers Win Them Internships At Prestigious Music Publications, but that was OK. I would just continue to build my portfolio, send it in to all the publications. I thought Editors and people hiring actually read random peoples portfolios... 

I’ve been back for three years and I still do not understand the algorithm that is the music scene.  And the saddest part is to watch the music scene / music blog community grow to such a point where it’s overflowing and there’s just no structure anymore. There are so many damn music blogs now, so many damn remixes, how are any of them special anymore? Nobody makes posts like Simon Iddol used to, nobody makes remixes like Miike Snow used to. I really miss the days of MSTRKRFT, Final Fantasy and old Breakbot. I miss feeling like Fools Gold was a secret treasure. I miss the day I went to my very first Mad Decent Block Party (where it was FREE and at South Street Seaport) and not a ton of people were there and I went out with DJ Sega afterwards to some random party in BK where people, who people now pay to see, were casually hanging out, open to meeting any and everyone, cause they were hustling once too. I miss not having to worry yet, and being comfortable enough with the sole day dream of being an editor of Rolling Stone. I miss the golden age of music blogs. I miss it all. I miss it a lot. 

Denying Your Passion Is the Greater Sin

I have been so bad at keeping up my own blog, for I have no free time for it anymore, which saddens me, but also is really cool because that means I'm too busy writing for other people. But if it serves as one purpose only, that's fine by me, because my thoughts and random spews have a home.

I've been wanting to write something about this for a while, but instead I've trapped people in conversation hoping they hold the same views as me, or trying to get them to understand what I'm saying, I don't even really know. But lately I've been struggling (?) with the notion of sin, more importantly Hell, and who goes and what not. DISCLAIMER: I'm Catholic, you all know this, you can't change my stubborn view, don't try. On top of coming to a 25 year journey of a conclusion, I'm staying this religion. Plus I'm a Taurus so just....don't even try.
Anyway, I've been thinking about the traditional views on whats right / wrong in the Church, connecting it with what's right / wrong in terms of just being healthy for us in general, trying to figure out why one thing is a greater sin or the other, and I mean...this is totally going in a direction I didn't want to go in, but shit, that's what stream of conscious writing is, right? I don't want to talk about what's wrong and right, I know what I know / have been taught, BUT one thing I think has modernized itself as one of the greatest sins (and not necessarily in a religious sense of sin) is denial of your passion.
And I don't mean passion as in sex or food or being passionate about partying, I mean our intrinsic passion. We were all born with different minds, different souls, different likes, distastes, and passions. Having a talent is one of the greatest treats of life, but being too scared, too self conscious, or too unaware of it really is detrimental to our time here on Earth. I've spent a better part of my years too scared to do anything. And that did nothing but lead to regret. I regret not tapping into my mind in high school and being overly preoccupied with being social or too caught up in the drama going on in my family. I spent too many years self-loathing, being depressed, lying on my bed blasting music and not wanting to talk to anyone, undergoing therapy sessions of fixing depression, and worried what other people thought of me. It wasn't until I was STUCK in the middle of fucking nowhere in Georgia in college that I fell in love with Dante Alighieri, and a bunch of other authors and books I was forced to read. It was then I started my blog because I realized I LOVED writing, and since I was always so passionate about music and that super annoying girl in HS who was always like "HAVE YOU HEARD THE NEW PORTISHEAD" and begged other kids in college to let me play my music at their parties, I figured maybe (actually my mom suggested) I should start a blog about music. And just write about it. Even if no one reads it, write about it. Nobody was listening to me when I would hound them with music, nobody cared, so I wrote to the internet when I was 19. #bloglife. It wasn't until my school shut down and I was transferred to a really hard University in Naples, FL (and busted my ass like I didn't know what possible) that I found out I was actually moderately decent at writing. My professors told me my strong point was honesty, and that I'd make a killing at journalism, because I have to know every detail of every story I hear. So, I had a good ear for tunes, had a knack for writing, loved them both my whole life before I ever even knew I loved it, and made a life. I was lucky enough to grow up in New York so I took full advantage of moving back with the understanding of the city that a lot of people don't have.
I don't get paid well. I still nanny on the side. But I took a passion and I made it fruitful. The other night I had one of the highlights of my career, and there was a moment I looked around and I was just like "how the hell did I get here, how is this even happening right now?" And I realized I was living my dream. SHITTY effing things have happened, are still happening, I'm broker than hell, but for that ONE night, everything that I have been working for was right there, and it's a really cool feeling to know that I did it all by myself.
The point of this post was not to talk about my life, but to try to make a point that we should all take times of silence to figure out what it really is we're passionate about. Whether it be a writer, in finance, a nanny, a mother, a wife, a coffee lover, a failing guitar player, find it. Find that passion and go with it, even if you can't make a living off of it, at least you spent your ONLY time we have on this Earth trying it all out.
I also think about if something really sudden happened and my life ended. What would be said about me? Would people remember me in a good light? Would I be pissed because I never went after what I was too scared to go after? Was I nice while doing it? Did people want to be around me? I don't know if we get to keep doing what we love after we die, so this is it.

This life is the ONLY life we have, we need to make the best of it. If we all used the passion we were born with, imagine what we could do.

Miami & its Music Scene

OK, so I know I haven't posted in a  while and for those who actually enjoy my blog, I apologize, and for the others who don't like it, whatever. I just spent a week in Miami visiting my University best friends, and quite honestly, I think this was one of the best weeks I've ever had. I do understand that if I was just a little more patient with my depression, I could've waiting and gone during WMC and made it year three for me, but nah. So I have a couple things to say about revisiting the good old South Florida coast. Driving down Ocean Drive and Collins Ave with two of my best friends blasting Moon Boots, Alison Valentine and other feel good summer breeze music with the windows open, palm trees lining the streets, the ocean in plain view, absolutely melted my heart. I get chills when I look at the art deco buildings, am able to walk around bare foot, get coffees in just a bathing suit, get so tan and salty, come home, change and go out for the night, sleep and repeat. My two girlfriends are from Central America and never fail to expose me to the best of the best Reggaeton, which makes me even happier because living in NY, you forget about music like that. 

i.e:

Beach life is one of the greatest thing that happened to me, and being back this week reminded me why it is so healthy to visit places of beauty and warmth every so often. This f'ing city (NYC) is on my last nerve, it's freezing, it's grey, this industry is beating my ass, and quite frankly, I'm getting really depressed here. Just like how we should be eating clean by eating foods of color, I think we should live in places of color as well. Anyway, as I was standing on my head in a yoga pose facing the water on South Beach, I was seriously considering looking for jobs down in Miami, because nothing is better than being in that weather with my friends around music. So anyway, one night we went to one of the South Beach clubs, and as we walked in, they were playing the AMTRAC remix to "Bassline" and I was like "hell yeah, word." But then the DJ transitioned it into an Avicii song. And I mean like, to each their own, but NOBODY but me was like "WTFFF". Do you know why? Because nobody in Miami cares wtf is playing,  as long as they look good and everyone cause see them at an expensive club. And I realized, as tight as WMC is, that's mad lame that that is the only time that good music along with good crowds roll thru Miami. And don't fight with me on this one, I know theres like the occasional Bardot show with a dope DJ, but I swear to you, nobody in the crowd cares who is playing. Nobody. Everyone's on their phones, it's like a $60 cover, and drinks are stupid pricey. Now, I know Miami is getting kinda cool with areas like Wynwood and shit, but still, those are just little bars, kinda like a Willyburd / Bushwick area sans concert spaces and warehouse spots. 

If Miami had someone (me) come down and maybe help create a dope year round music scene, it would be the coolest spot in the world. Like, warm weather, gorgeous atmosphere, tan people, sand, sun, surf, music. And I'm really aiming this towards the electronic scene, not the reggae ton scene or anything. I genuinely am upset that WMC makes Miami thee shit for a WEEK then after its like a bomb just went off and everyones dispersed. It's not fair, Miami should be a tight place for music year round. Everything is too expensive, the people are too concerned with status, and it just sucks. It's like going to Avenue or 1Oak or some other super super shitty spot in NYC with dumb ass models and bottle service no matter where you go. Miami could have the tightest underground low key cheap ass spots, it just needs someone in there to go kick it's ass into shape a bit.

And I'm totally willing to be that person.