YMI - USA - WORLDWIDE
Wow. 2025. Just think about it. Hard to fathom, really.
I’m on some Hotel California shit. Subletting Izzy’s apartment. Quite the pad.
They’re renting from a professor on sabbatical. My (Izzy’s) room has big ass windows & a door that opens onto a lawn. It looks out over hills & mountains & birds & trees — all sorts of natural oddities that don’t exist in Bushwick at all. Maybe in Ridgewood, but only sparingly.
Bushwick emo is in the air, though. More on that later.
I’ve published my “top shows of 2025” list twice now, but I’ll keep rolling. I want it archived here, and I gotta make one final addition: Big Nick at First Unitarian Church.
I’ll remember more shows I should’ve included whenever I think about it. But it’s getting late, and next time I hit your line, we’ll be well beyond list season. So here are some nights I hope will stick with me:
TAGABOW @ The Tunnels
Widowdusk @ The Shed
LUCY & Gods Wisdom @ The Drake
Erika de Casier & Quiet Light @ El Rey
Xaviersobased @ Baby’s All Right
Cash Only Tony’s @ Market
Smerz @ The Hancock
YHWH Nailgun @ New Guild
Big Nick @ First Unitarian Church
Worldpeace DMT & Rowan Please @ Everlovin
Punxsutawney @ Dog House
Taxidermists & Yung Lean @ Anthem
Some notes on each:
TAGABOW @ The Tunnels // originally smelled like piss but turned out well. A contender for the form of the good. Free. Somewhat dangerous. Many people. A crowd up on the bridge. Sweaty moshing + clouds of dust falling from the sky.
Widowdusk @ The Shed // This band rips. & this is the kind of show I wanna be at. It’s special to see a group of fans this passionate. Hell of a drummer. Ty Jordan for the last minute add.
LUCY & Gods Wisdom @ The Drake // ft. Gods Wisdom’s mom on aux percussion & interpretive dance. Jack told Mrs. Wisdom that people would love her in Poland… “they’re really experimental out there,” he said. First time hearing “Can’t Tie My Shoes” live. Hope they’ll run it back soon.
Erika de Casier & Quiet Light @ El Rey // Favorite Quiet Light set ever. First Erika de Casier set ever. I won’t miss her again. More info in my PI AOTY.
Xaviersobased @ Baby’s All Right // Maybe a stretch to call this 2025. But it was post-midnight at our NYE party last year. Xavier wore the OLTH shiesty for his whole set. Felt insane sending so much $$ to someone so young. But good for him. We sold out, broke even, & lived to tell the tale.
Cash Only Tony’s @ Market // Love this shit. Chaos. Stacked out. Sinema (now I Promised the World), Push Ups, Foxtails, Holidays, & Newfound Interest in Connecticut. A line down the block. I hope this show happens again & again & again.
Smerz @ The Hancock // The white whale of my brother’s booking career. Hats off big Jack. Smerz really is that band. And The Hancock is a crazy place to see them. LUCY on support. What more could a Kerwin brother ask for.
YHWH Nailgun @ New Guild // Got daaamn this is a machine of a live act. They showed up while it was all falling to shit. Monitors & speakers cutting out. I’d just slime blasted one of the college kids w/ the fog machine. Gave him $20 to prove I was really sorry. These Nailgun boys are dialed-in though. Not sure how they pulled it all together, but they did. & they created something crazy.
Big Nick @ First Unitarian Church // First full-band gig? Ok Josh.......mans got heaters. And stacks. PJ certainly knows how to work a distortion pedal. And Kassie got a lot of sound out of a tiny bass. I like this band.
Worldpeace DMT & Rowan Please @ Everlovin // Optimal a house party, imo. Fire back yard, & songs I’d been waiting to hear live. The Velvet Underground & Rowan for president.
Punxsutawney @ Dog House // Rich said their set gives you a lot of time to think. It also leaves space for thoughts that don’t really feel like thinking. Hoping I’ll find more instrumental bands in 2026.
Taxidermists & Yung Lean @ Anthem // A big moment for the boys. They’ve been a band since they were kids. & they’re still doing new goated shit. Meant a lot to see them up there. Never considered that Yung Lean might have sway over my life decisions. But I didn’t know “Smirnoff Ice.” It got me thinking hard about taking over my dad’s furniture business.
Maybe you’ve heard — it’s been TAGABOW season for months now. Some highlights from TAGABOW season:
2 free generator shows: the tunnels in ATX & the tea factory rooftop in NYC
TAGABOW x Smerz “Big city life” remix
NTS junkyard live session (just dropped)
First Euro tour
2025 ‘album of the year’ love from The New York Times (two spots up from Addison Rae and two down from Bieber), Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Stereogum, Pitchfork, & Perfectly Imperfect (shoutout legend Shane)
Sold-out shows, new shows added, shows sold-out again
I’ve tried to start blogging again a bunch of times. If you forget why you signed up for this, or if you doubt you signed up at all, feel free to unsubscribe. Sending love <3
I wish I could hide the subscriber count from myself anyways. It’s stressful. I hate emails. Makes me sick to think about sending out so many emails at once.
But I’m still going to shows & I feel like I should be capturing more. Cuz there’s so much. And if I don’t, I’ll certainly forget.
I might have to keep it low key and shoot from the dome for a bit though. Just while I get the ball rolling. Sorry if my writing suffers. I’ll clean it up at some point.
Massachusetts
Let’s go back—back to the beginning.
I called Kenneth from my favorite smoke spot back home. Over by the grist mill.
I wasn’t sure on New Year’s Eve. It was the first time Jack and I hadn’t booked the Baby’s All Right NYE party since 2022. I knew there’d be some core homies over there, though. And there was a psycho bill over at The Broadway. But I haven’t really had a proper Broadway sesh since there were $12 bottled cocktails & Jack knew the code for free Narragansetts. It was cold in Massachusetts, and I wasn’t eager to be cold in NYC.
Kenneth hit Instagram with the bat signal. A picture of the open road and the question I needed to hear: “NYE in LA?” I told him I’d been considering it. He’d just set off on the 6 hr drive from Tucson to Cali & said to call him.
It had been a long while since I’d felt the kind of optimism I heard in Kenneth’s voice when he said, “New Years Eve, I’m picturing..………a house…in The Hills.” It seemed like a vague enough dream that it just might work. I booked my flight.
Got Things Cooking w/ Angel Investor
First night out on the town and it’s already a tough call. Acoustic nyc emo vs. LA shoegaze vs. Cali slowcore. Kenneth made the move to El Cid.
Angel Investor was on when I pulled up. Seemed full. I wasn’t confident about pushing in. But there are gaps in the brick wall way back behind the booths. I hung there. It’s hard to know what’s really going on when you’re separated by a brick wall. But the untitled (halo) squad seems pretty activated—I’ll get a better spot next time.
I’ve had embarrassing moments searching for friends in bars lately. Worried it’s an eyesight thing. Or maybe these places are just dark?
I found Kenneth in a booth on the upper patio. Met Noël. He gave us a frontliner’s perspective on the Marty Supreme hype & how it’s shaking up the industry.
I like El Cid. First time enjoyer. I wanted to catch the Safe Mind show last month. Next time.
El Cid —> El Prado
Ran into Neema.
Lucas got me up to speed on different psychedelic analogs. If you have a question about a molecular structure, this is the guy to ask. He also got me back to Eagle Rock. Much appreciated, my friend. More soon I hope.
New Year’s Eve
I met Kenneth at house in the hills location 1. Pretty impressive. Would happily live here. Hosted by Ella Woolsey. Boyfriend Nate seems like a nice young man. It was raining, & hard to find anywhere to hide.
Someone from the party brought fireworks out to the intersection. They were the type that usually go off a few hundred feet in the air, but these were special. They exploded on the ground. So nobody watching could be sure they were out of reach—a fun way to up the stakes.
The kid next to me got burned. I asked if he thought they should keep going. His friend said “yes” confidently. The slight-burn victim was less sure.
Kenneth disappeared. Off to house in the hills location 2. I walked. I thought it’d be cool to cross the LA river. It was. But I underestimated ~45 minutes in the rain. Things intensified as I got close. Only to find that the Current Joys mansion sits atop a comically steep hill.
Again, though—quite the pad.
Felt like a ski lodge in the trees. Dark wood panelling & beams across the ceiling. A fireplace. A spiral staircase. Snow Strippers. People smoking in the basement. People smoking on the patio. People smoking on the other patio. People smoking anywhere they could avoid the rain.
Wonder if they could have bands play here. It really is a palace. Aggressively packed. Again, nowhere to hide.
The rain kept coming, and before long the cops were there too. Luckily, they couldn’t get very close to the house because of a bottleneck of Ubers on the aforementioned steep-as-fuck hill.
Post Everything Fest pre-show
The kind of night they always told you about.
I showed up mid- Punxsutawney. Sam on his rockstar shit. Thought I saw him do a windmill. But maybe not. I was back behind the brick wall again, so not much of a reliable narrator.
Think I saw Blimp as a trio this summer. There were four this time. Which I liked. Filled it out. If I’m wrong, and there were always four, maybe it’s a lighting thing. I’m always happier when it’s dim. Will catch them again soon.
This was the first stop on the Cash Only Tony’s x Holidays in United States west coast tour. Bringing Bushwick emo to the world. Just Holidays at this show, though. I haven’t seen guys sing like this together in years. Kali broke out the Höfner. I bought a CD.
Kenneth & Noël got antsy during Othiel. We pushed over to 4100.
I needed a beer. And a beer I got. We met some fellow weary travelers—NYU acting students. They were pursuing two women, but there were five or six men. So I couldn’t tell how it was going. One student lined up 9 empty chairs for them in an effort to prove that chivalry isn’t dead. Wasn’t sure on the connection but admired his commitment.
Post Everything Fest
I didn’t last long here. Glad I caught Cash Only Tony’s though. Zach Anderson on his manager shit. Love it. Shoutout to the festival bookers. You crushed.
But the fact of the matter is, it was still raining. And it was all-ages. Smoking in front of the youths always makes me feel like a disappointment.
So I snuck off after Cash Only Tony’s. Will make sure to catch Minerva Hoyt & Stitching soon.
Goodbye Kenneth
This was tough. I knew it would be.
I’d just settled into my new lifestyle. Everything was starting to feel normal.
We linked at El Prado for the grand send-off.
Noël brought ping pong balls. As he does. We went out back, & they got some trick shots going. The ping pong balls ricocheted around the patio, disappearing one after another, until the last one was confiscated by an unamused bar patron.
Lucas pulled up. We moved the operation over to Marcelino’s.
I’ll be back there. I’m a fan of checkerboard floors. But I’m scared of playing pool. Pretty sure Kenneth said it’s $8/hour for a table though. That arrangement + the red & white tiles could be enough to get me over it.
Cash Only Tony’s x Holidays x The Ritornello Forum x Evanora:Unlimited
In my early NYC blogging days, I had a “gotta catch em all” mentality. Seeing how many shows I could hit in a night. It’s harder to do in LA. Especially on foot.
But for one night, it seemed possible. Two goated shows, a 15 minute walk from each other.
I checked in at the Frog Store. Seemed like I had time to kill & I didn’t see Evan Carson.
So I walked over to Evanora:Unlimited. Evanora is always swagged out, but they went particularly hard at this one. A fur-lined trench coat over a three piece suit. A fur hat & beads hanging down over their face. First time seeing them with a drummer. He had headphones on over a black beanie & a t-shirt that said “ADAPT OR DIE.” Pretty hard.
Made it back in time for The Ritornello Forum -> Holidays -> Cash Only Tony’s. I never saw Evan Carson.
To Hell with our Detractors
Charlie Horan is a man unchained. They said we couldn’t do it. That we’d be small-town Massholes forever. That we’d never see a building taller than the bunker hill monument.
But look at us now. In Lev’s apartment.
Lev is a gifted cook. He’s always had that golden child energy, so it makes sense.
Awesome meeting Margad. Good to hear the other side of the story.
The Scribble
Back on my GoMacro bar diet. Re-opening myself to the possibility of a sponsorship.
The roomies got me over to this one. Tala working door. I still paid. On my patron of the arts shit. But I got inside & knew I wouldn’t last long.
I rock with Scribble. Need one in NYC. I’m a fan of dark wood & interesting ceilings. Scribble has both. But it’s wholesome. Intimidatingly so. And I was worried I stuck out. Like a dark cloud.
There was too much light & too much open floor space & I couldn’t see anywhere to hide the dark cloud. Watched a couple songs then snuck back out to the lobby. I told Tala that I was gonna get a drink — that I’d be back if it helped.
Travels with Charlie: In Search of America
The boys picked me up in Eagle Rock. Lev snapped some pics of the crib & gassed up my lifestyle.
Good to see Jud. He’s got a beard now. Long time since middle school jazz band. Seems like he’s been good.
We started at Walt’s. Unbeknownst to the rest of the team, I’d been there (alone) just a few hours earlier. Got my hands on the final cut of the TAGABOW NTS session. Figured I’d celebrate with a smoke / brew on the sidewalk patio while I reviewed the tapes.
Drivers & passersby looked on with concern while I drank in broad daylight, clearly solo, headphones in, staring at my phone. But I was proud.
Less proud showing up again a few hours later. The pinball tournament was pretty active though, so my face probably got lost in the shuffle.
Walt’s —> Ye Rustic Inn
Sue me. I like margaritas.
At the moment, I’m drinking less than usual, but liking margaritas more than usual. It’s a confusing balance. Charlie, on the other hand, is a strict beer & politics kinda guy.
Lev continues to be gifted and responsible, returning home to finish a press release before the morning. Sad we couldn’t keep this crossover episode going.
We’ll pick it up again soon.
❤️❤️