You may ask yourself, "How did I get here?"

For as I long as I can remember I've been singing along to anything and everything. When I was a kid it was my parents' Saturday afternoon Beatles or Elvis or Los Bukis. My favorite at the time was Let It Be. Even though it seemed kind of sad, I knew all the words. At some point my older brother got into hip hop and rap. I thought he was the coolest, so of course I liked it too. This was Southern California in the '90's: Snoop Dogg, Dr.Dre, Ice Cube. I learned these by osmosis, but there was a solid mix of oldies and top 40 always coming from the little clock radio by my bed. My childhood was sunny, and there were always kids in the neighborhood to play with, but there were times I just wanted to sit on my bed and sing along to that little clock radio.

By the time I reached junior high I began to discover that there were alternatives to main-stream pop, again under the guidance of my older brother who was listening to Nirvana. He didn't really get too much deeper into grunge, but this opened up a new world of rock and roll and a new radio station, KROQ. It was around this time a female fronted band came out of Orange County with songs that I could identify with. No Doubt's popular album Tragic Kingdom was maybe the first time I felt that music could be a personal experience as much as a unifying force. Those catchy songs were everywhere. Perhaps it was a bit of local pride, but also my friends and I were finally seeing a strong, relatable female role model in rock and roll.

Like most people, I felt misunderstood and out of place in high school. I became dissatisfied with pop music. It didn't speak to me. I had my mind on bigger things, and classic rock seemed to address those issues- war and injustice- while having more complex and interesting music. I became nostalgic for a time I had never known when people played their own instruments and wrote their own songs. Mostly Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, but I was still confined to what I heard on main stream radio.

I remember hearing Elliott Smith for the first time. His music was so heartfelt and different from what I knew of the contemporary music scene that I thought he must have been from a different era. He opened up a new world of indie rock music for me. I was graduating from high school in 2003, the year he killed himself. It was also the year Death Cab For Cutie's Transatlanticism came out and The Postal Service's Give Up.


These days I've mellowed out. I don't rule out pop music as invalid, though I don't gravitate towards it. I still listen to classic rock and 90's pop and hip hop when I'm feeling nostalgic. It's a lot of work to keep up with the newest artists and sounds, and I'll admit I'm not exactly on the cutting edge. I like what I like. The most important thing I've learned about music over the years is still that first lesson- music can be a very personal experience as well as a universally unifying force. Every artist is expressing their unique sound, and as a lover of music I have to stop making sense of it all and allow myself to be challenged by it.

I moved to San Diego for school and discovered an independent radio station that I loved. I was working for the Department of Public Safety on campus which meant I'd work from 11pm until 3am patrolling the sleepy campus- the same time that Midori's show, Big Sonic Chill, was on 94.9 fm. Ambient, electronic sounds perfect for pensive late nights driving around campus- thank god nothing ever happened on my watch or I probably would have just sat in the van until that Massive Attack or Tricky song ended to do anything about it. I'd spend my free time making mix tapes for lovers and mix cd's for friends that included Devendra Banhart and Cat Power. I loved sharing music with people, and I decided I wanted to be in radio.

I moved to Chicago and quickly got a DJ spot at Loyola University's radio station, WLUW. It was such an incredible experience to have that much depth and history at my disposal- not to mention the new music that constantly poured in. I started writing reviews for the music department and going to as many shows as I possibly could. I was completely off of pop music by then, in fact I scoffed at anything "most people" had heard. I was turning into one of those hipster music snobs, and I think that's a valid and important phase for music lovers to go through at some point.

xo-
juliet