I am currently on my 3rd espresso desperately trying to clear my Friday morning brain fog listening to a new playlist I made yesterday called Dopamine Throwbacks. It’s filled with one-hit wonders from the late 90s and early 2000s and it is slowly bringing me back to life. Counting Crows with a side of Chobani white chocolate mocha creamer. It’s what’s for breakfast! Here’s the playlist if you’re into this kinda vibe:
Because I typically only listen to music made exclusively before the mid 2000s, I am often reminded of the time in which these songs came out. Nostalgia. It’s my way of life. Not because I’m unhappy with the present, but because I think there is so much we can tap into from our younger selves.
When I was 17, I met one of my dearest friends, Jenn. Actually, my mom met her first. In case you were unaware, I really loved The Smashing Pumpkins was obsessed with Billy Corgan for most of my life. Fun little story about that here. Anyway, the Pumpkins were performing on Conan O’Brien and because my mother is truly the best person on the planet, she took the morning off work and stood in line to get me a ticket to the taping. While waiting for hours on a line that wrapped around a whole city block, she started chatting with a girl named Jenn who was also a fan obsessed. Jenn was five years older than me, so my mother asked if she would look out for me later that night during the show. Letting your teenage daughter chase her musical fantasies all over New York City is not for the faint of heart. Deb is truly a saint.
After school, I took the R train from Bay Ridge to Manhattan wearing my vintage US Navy bell bottoms and tattered army green satchel covered in checkered Canal Jeans pins and met Jenn on a corner near Rockerfellar Plaza as instructed by my mother. I only knew that she was “short with dark hair and tattoos” but somehow we found each other in the middle of a bustling block and became best friends instantly.
After the taping, we took the train home together halfway (she lived in Bensonhurst so she transferred at 36th street). By the time we parted ways, we had already decided we were starting a zine together. That weekend, I went to her house and we got to work. We decided to call it Honeyspider, named after a rare Pumpkins b-side (because, duh). Our ultimate goal was to land an interview with Billy, but in the meantime we decided we’d interview as many other bands as we could. The zine would also include poetry and album reviews. We made business cards with our names on them and the shared title: Editor-In-Chief and CEO.
We flipped over all of our favorite CDs and started calling record labels listed on the back asking to be put on their mailing lists. Within a few weeks, we were receiving press kits from Atlantic Records, Sub Pop, Fat Wreck Chords, Epitaph and others. Honeyspider had a heavy focus on punk and ska and we spent many nights during the week going to live shows at Coney Island High and Tramps (RIP both!), handing out copies of Honeyspider we’d print off at Kinko’s on 8th street.
Honeyspider had a fast and furious two year run, and during that time we interviewed Blink 182, Metallica, NOFX, Matthew Sweet, The Pilfers, Bouncing Souls, The Pietasters, Metro Stylee, Less Than Jake, and countless other bands. We had regular backstage passes to Warped Tour and virtually any other show we wanted to see. Sub Pop Records used to give us $25 per issue for a full page ad and we’d use the cash to print more copies. It blows my mind that we were just two kids from Brooklyn who essentially turned ourselves into makeshift music journalists. And this was all before social media. Shit, we barely had internet access.
Whenever I find myself making excuses, or feeling stuck or uninspired, I think about my Honeyspider days. I think about sitting on Jenn’s bedroom floor, cold calling publicists after school and planning our next issue in a spiral notebook. I think about taking a Greyhound bus to a music festival in Connecticut with forty dollars to my name. I think about two young girls with a tape recorder and a dream.
This hits home today! I was literally just journaling about the power of nostalgia, as I travel the country revisiting places I used to live. In this season of life, reconnecting with the girl I used to be seems to be the key to healing who I am now. Also, thanks for the amazing playlist!
This is rad. I look back at my zine making days fondly. I really hope you knew about the Kinko's scam where you banged the counter with the palm of your hand, essentially restarting it at 000000