So the song for the very first column is like, whoa, way important.

I knew that for my first entry I wanted to think back; back to the 90’s, back to my most awkward years, back to the first real musical experience I had—that one where I put my headphones on and listened to an album on repeat, until my ears throbbed. Many came to mind, but one really stuck out.

Illustration by Bryce Wymer

Weezer – Only in Dreams

If I was musically defined as anything through middle school and high school, it was a Weezer kid. I know. That first album affected the way I dressed, the way I spoke, the way I listened. Like all children of Weezer I even went through “the Pinkerton phase” where I cited The Blue Album as maturation to their much deeper second album. Now, as a grown child, I think, “what a jerk!” The Blue Album is Weezer’s true pièce de résistance.

Currently, the band is much maligned—and deservedly so. The death of Weezer directly correlates with the exit of bassist/vocalist Matt Sharp who left to make some fine music with The Rentals. Rivers Cuomo and drummer Pat Wilson took the band in a different direction and it’s been nothing but disappointments ever since (even though I will occasionally listen to “Beverly Hills” for ironic appeal). Those who held on to Weezer’s new sound ended up liking emo music. Thank God I had enough sense to hop off that train when I did.

The Blue Album it is. But what track? How can one pick amongst ten solid gems? The album was perfect from front to back, even in its lazier moments. Jonas, Sweater Song, Buddy Holly, Surf Wax, Say It Ain’t… ahhhhhh, I know. It’s the song I sat in my room with and practiced the bass line until my fingers were callused. It’s the song I recorded myself singing along to, harmonizing into a yellowed tape-recorder and subsequently realizing I would never be any sort of singer. It’s the song that Pat Wilson owns, turning a six-piece drum kit into a wall of fervent drumming. The closer, the capper: “Only In Dreams.” This, is an appropriate way to start this column…

Preparing for Warm Bud Light at “The Slates”

It’s the tail-end of high school. It’s middle America. It’s cul-de-sacs and shrubbery and vinyl siding. It’s CD Walkmen with 10-second anti-skip protection and a four-hour battery life. It’s the first evening of the weekend and you’re a teenager picturing yourself floating above a gymnasium floor, dancing with somebody you never had the nerve to ask out. It’s an awkward dance where you’re so nervous about stepping on your partner’s toes that you barely move your body, shifting in slow steady circles. Essentially, you are every pseudo-nerdy, suburban, non-jock in America in the mid-1990’s.

Your bedroom is painted tapioca. Your stereo sits on your nightstand—no remote, no subwoofer. A CD of periwinkle blue spins beneath the clear window on the stereo lid. Matt Sharp’s meandering bass line begins on a Friday night. You get dressed in front of a full-length mirror and try to make some sort of fully conscious anti-fashion statement on your narrow frame. Your glasses have thick black frames—like Rivers’, like Buddy Holly’s. You’ve just gotten off your landline phone with your good friend Jeff—the first with a driver’s license and a rusty white Lumina he can borrow from his sister for the night. Wilson’s symbol hits have risen behind the bass line now. The cooler kids at your school are drinking from a half-empty keg down at “the slates”—a creek bed hangout named for its shale-composed shoreline. You and Jeff are going to Tom’s house to steal five Bud Lights and then heading to the slates for the first, maybe the second time. You weren’t invited your freshman or sophomore year, but you’ve become more accepted as college admissions gain ground on ball throwing, catching or kicking ability. You spray on some cologne from JC Penny’s as the distorted guitar crashes on the first chorus. Rivers sings, “reach out your hand / hold on to hers,” and you practice summoning the courage.

She’ll be there: Meghan. Meghan with the eyes. Meghan with the legs. Meghan with the laugh. You’re sixteen and there doesn’t seem to be anything in the world that’s more important than this. You don’t care about skirmishes in the Middle East, an impeding energy crisis or the fact that Ellen finally came out of the closet on her self-titled sitcom. Now Wilson and Sharp are building the beat to a crescendo together, and you’ve decided you look appropriate. It takes some work to seem effortless.

You wish you had a car and didn’t have to wait for Jeff any longer as you intermittently peek out your bedroom window at a quiet suburban street. From your speakers the great crescendo nears its release and Rivers begins to deliver a solo that seems to make time stand still (conjuring Ace Freely). You play air guitar with him and flop onto your bed to play the climax on your back, doing your best to be a rock star. The tide pulls back and the bass and distant acoustic strumming are left naked. Jeff honks the horn. You hit the stop button and your parents throw you a “be careful” as you run out the door.

The night feels great, like something is definitely going to happen—like you own this stinking town. You roll your window down and rest your elbow on the doorframe. You are youth and exuberance and beauty and you have nothing but a wide-open road in front of you. You joke about the week at school with Jeff and talk about how you hate the taste of beer and can’t understand how people drink the stuff at like, dinner. You agree that it must be an acquired taste. He’s got the local alternative rock station on, but you still hear “Only In Dreams.”