Kat Says: "Music For The Mortal Masses"
Depeche Mode, Joy Orbison, Dillon Francis and Yard Act help me make sense of music discovery in my 30s.
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Hey Friends,
How are you doing? I know the world seems even more unhinged than usual. I hope you’re making time and space for rest and laughter—and music! Yeah, make space and time for music.
Music is one of the best mediums through which to feel your feelings and exorcise your thoughts. Whether you’re filled with rage or sadness, euphoria, irony, inanity, whatever. Music makes sense of a senseless world, sometimes with lyrics, sometimes with unbridled noise, and sometimes with something in between.
I don’t know what it is about middle age, but ever since I turned 35 last November, I’ve been thinking so much about mortality and the little slices of time we all get, and music has been the backbone to all my musings—many of which have been posted here in this newsletter, so thanks for coming along for the ride.
Here’s a picture of me and my friend Jake from a few years ago when I painted my face up as a skeleton. Happy Halloweenies :)
I meant it as a joke when I interviewed Dillon Francis last October. I noticed the “IDGAFOS” producer had just turned 35, and I was following shortly behind, so it seemed like a cute jumping-off point. It became the central theme of our conversation, this strange middle-aged taking stock-ness of it all.
“Sometimes I'm like, ‘I just want to sing for the whole night,’” he told me. “I want to play ‘Black Parade.’ I want to play the Rapture ['Whoo! Alright-Yeah...Uh Huh']. I want to play, maybe the Shins ‘Caring Is Creepy.’ Let's get in our feels for a second. Let's get some Death Cab going — 'Transatlanticism.' I have been doing that [at] certain times where I'm playing in Vegas because if you just want to do sing-alongs for like 30 minutes, no one will care, and it makes them want to drink more.”
Further Reading: Dillon Francis Wants to Sing All Night Long (Miami New Times, 2022)
I loved hearing that from him, and I would love to hear that in a DJ set. There’s so much pressure on DJs and tastemakers to focus on the new; to undercut the competition with the latest unheard game-shifter, but there’s so much to be said for showcasing the gems of the past.
I think a truly great DJ set weaves the past, present and future together in a way that feels fresh and revelatory, which is what makes the 2ManyDJs guys so great at what they do, but more on that to come.
This is a sweater that Soulwax/2ManyDJs sells. It’s thematically appropriate.
There was this study that came out in 2015, and it found most people stop discovering new music by the time they’re 33. Data crunchers found that our taste in music explodes from childhood through our 20s, but that by our mid-30s, we’re kind of set in our ways.
I remember thinking, “that will never be me,” but here I sit, a professional music journalist whose job is to kind of sort of know what’s going on, and 18 days shy of 36 years old, I’ve gotta tell ya, I’m really enjoying the excavation of my own musical mind.
It’s less so about “oh, the music was better in my day so I don’t bother.” It’s just that there’s this treasure trove of songs that have soundtracked my life, and as I find myself for the first time sitting on a mountain of knowledge and experience high enough to give a grander sense of perspective, it seems like there’s something to be found in rediscovering the things that got me here.
You know who else is doing that? British dub-house producer Joy Orbison.
"I don't need to be out every week to know what I think is relevant dance music to me," the recently-turned 37-year-old recently told me for the Miami New Times. "There's a lot of music out there, so I don't think it's necessary to hear it all. I think it's being able to have a broader understanding of it and then viewing, 'What do I feel is missing from me personally?' and 'What can I add?'”
Further Reading: Joy Orbison Tries to Push Dance Music Forward (Miami New Times, 2023)
I told him I can relate, that it’s the same for me and writing. I feel guilty whenever folks ask me, “who do you read?” As a kid, I voraciously consumed any and all music journalism. I routinely bought (or rather, asked my parents to buy for me) every music magazine at the grocery store: Spin and Rolling Stone and Guitar World—everything short of Teen Beat (I ain’t no fuckin’ normie). I’d spend the next month devouring the pages, then I’d go to the mall, sit in the Books-A-Million and do the same thing.
It’s awkward to admit, but these days, I don’t do so much reading of music journalism unless someone I know is the author. I’m so much more concerned with what I’m writing, and that sounds navel-gazy as shit, but it’s true.
“It's a fine line between being inspired and staying relevant,” Joy Orbison continued. “At a point, you can't always be a fan. You've got to be able to be like, 'Well, who am I in this?' and keep developing yourself … It’s very self-indulgent, but it's quite interesting to delve into—almost researching your own interests and your own tastes, and what is the interesting bits of that. I quite like playing around with that, and a lot of the music I'm working on at the moment is trying to make sense of all my different interests musically."
Have you ever heard of the “Saturn Return?” It’s the moment in your life when the planet Saturn ends up in the same part of its orbit it inhabited when you were born. That takes about 29 and a half years, give or take a month or some such, so it happens when you’re about 30 or so.
It’s a big moment in astrology (and also the inspiration behind the name of No Doubt’s fourth studio album), because Saturn is the father figure of the sky who likes to get all “what do you have to say for yourself?” Your Saturn Return is a reckoning of “what have I done with my life, and have I lived it authentically to myself?” So, y’know, maybe that explains it?
It also happens that our 30s are a time when life becomes more complicated, and it’s nice to visit the best parts of simpler times. Many 30-somethings have children, some just being born and some old enough to have their own favorite bands. Parents and grandparents, if they haven’t already passed, are getting much older, and the weight of that starts to sink in. So does the weight of our own age, the small signs of fatigue.
My mind wants to stay up late, but my body just feels ill after a while. My vision gets blurry, my heart races and my breathing is a little more labored. I used to party for 36 hours at a time, but now I can barely go 24 hours without feeling like a phone charger that’s been chewed by a chihuahua, pieces of wiring just hanging out, likely to start a fire and shit—and don’t even get me started on the two-to-three day hangovers.
The worst though is when your body just physically gives out. Honesty, if I hadn’t dislocated my knee doing seemingly nothing out of the ordinary (for me, dancing on top of a speaker is not out of the ordinary), I probably wouldn’t have spent the past year meandering existential caverns—but I did! And that shit fucking sent me *and I already wrote all about that, so read it below*
Further Reading: Kat Says: “Sorry For Party Rockin’” An honest essay about aging, as told by a music lifer
I guess that’s why I’ve become so obsessed with knees. I see anyone over 60 pop a squat, and I’m like “LOOK AT THOSE KNEES!” That’s why I was so impressed by Karl Hyde of Underworld at Portola a couple weekends ago. It’s what makes Iggy Pop such a goddamn fucking icon. Like, that dude famously rolled around in broken glass and survived heroin. He may not be able to stand straight, but that motherfucker is still dancing, and I aspire to be one of those, even if it still hurts to go up and down the stairs eight months after my surgery.
I went to see Depeche Mode last Friday, and the first thing singer Dave Gahan did when he hit the spotlight was bust a fuckin’ squatting power stance. I know a fuckin’ knee flex when I see one, and he was FLEXIN all night long. He also still has the pipes of a fallen angel and all the sexual magnetism of a fuckboy dressed in women’s jeans.
You ready for something really wild? The first and only other time I saw Depeche Mode live was on my 18th birthday in 2005. My mom originally bought tickets for the band’s Miami performance, but the concert was canceled because the whole Tri-County area was without power after Hurricane Wilma. I had a part-time job working for my mom’s boss, though, and they told her to go ahead and buy tickets for the show in Tampa, which was actually factually on my real-ass birthday, and I went to the show dressed in this fetish nurse dress made of latex. It was an incredible night, and my mom and I talk about it lovingly to this day.
Last Friday marked almost 18 years to the day of my first Depeche Mode concert. If it was just three weeks later, it would have been exact. I joked about it to my friend Kristin on the drive down like “I don’t know if Depeche Mode will still be alive when I turn 54, but maybe I’ll just have a Depeche Mode-themed birthday party.”
“A Black Celebration,” she said. We laughed. I definitely have to do that now.
Before my favorite band was Daft Punk and Justice, my favorite band was The Cure and Depeche Mode. I just have to love two, different sides of the same musical coin.
Screaming along to “Walking In My Shoes" and “Everything Counts" and "A Pain That I'm Used To,” it moved me to acknowledge how omnipresent these songs have been in my life. It’s one thing to love a band, but it’s another thing to love a band for some 20-odd years. It’s not even about Depeche Mode anymore. It’s about the hours spent staring out my mom’s passenger-side car window as teenage ennui swallowed me whole, looking at the stars, beginning the slow journey toward my late-20s-onset tinnitus by blasting “World In My Eyes” through cheap earbuds.
Of course, it is about Depeche Mode. That band is a rare generational bird that speaks to so many of our childhoods. I’m borrowing them from Gen X, after all, who has loved Depeche Mode for some 40 years or so. I saw teenagers at the show with their parents, continuing the tradition my mom and I participated in, the passing of ye olde music-lifer baton. I hope it continues forever and ever.
I’ve been going on and on about loving the music you’ve loved your whole life, but I did discover a new band today. They're called Yard Act, they're from Leeds in the U.K., and I was immediately bowled over by the singer’s Cake-like spoken-word delivery over a sound that’s kinda like Franz Ferdinand meets Soulwax meets I don’t fucking know, man. I’m still discovering them.
The foursome formed in 2019 and dropped a debut LP in January of 2022 called The Overload. I haven’t listened to it in full yet, but there’s a track on the album called “100% Endurance,” the band’s second-most-listened-to on Spotify, and it’s got some truly brilliant lyrics that kind of sum this whole essay up:
“It's all so pointless / It is and that's beautiful, l find it humbling, sincerely / And when you're gone / It brings me peace of mind to know that this will all just carry on / With someone else (Someone else) / With something new (Something new) / No need to be blue / Everything has already happened, time is an illusion / It's hippy bullshit but it's true / Come on, come on, come on, come on, yeah.”
See? Music just has a way of capturing exactly what you’re feeling and making it danceable. It’s magic, and if you’re feeling some type of way today or tomorrow or any time, give yourself time and space to rest and laugh and listen to music. You’ll feel better, or maybe you’ll feel worse, but you’ve got to go through the feelings either way, and they won’t last forever either way, too. Trust me.
I’m sentimental, but I’m not dead. I’m going to a music festival this weekend, the 10th annual III Points in Miami, of which I’ve been to every single installment. I’m going to see Iggy Pop there, for the third time this year, and he’ll be grand and twisted and inspiring.
I’ll most certainly be in my feels, because a 10-year milestone is a reason to look back if there’s ever been one, but I’ll also *dare I say it* discover some new music. I’ll definitely dance along to a lot of songs I already know, and maybe, just maybe, when the festival is over, I’ll be back with another essay all about it, so stay tuned.
Coming Up
Kat Drawls 03: Joy Orbison
Hey! Are you a paid subscriber of this newsletter? If you are, you’ll get an email tomorrow with the latest episode of the Kat Drawls podcast. It will feature my recent conversation with Joy Orbison is full, a little III Points special (he’s playing Saturday night).
If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, consider upgrading as a means to show me you like this newsletter and want me to be better at making it weekly, because it’s very encouraging when I get your $5-a-month. Upgrading gets you instant access to the previous interview podcasts with Moby and Disclosure, too. 🙂
Kat Calls: Mija
Thursday, Oct. 19
7 pm ET / 4 pm PT
twitch.tv/katbein
YES! Y’all. I am SO excited for this chat. I’ve never interviewed Mija, and I’ve been a huge fan of her unique sound for years. She first came onto the scene as Skrillex’ protege, but she soon carved her own lane, exploring everything from indie rock to future bass, techno, vogue and more. Her latest EP No Rules dives really deep into ballroom culture and lives by its name, doing whatever the fuck she wants, sampling poets and drag queens, it’s just nutty. Listen to it and tune in this Thursday!
Absolutely Necessary
(This is the part where I share songs that are so good, they’re absolutely necessary to listen to. That’s it. That’s the bar.)
I made two Spotify playlists for this section that you can follow: one weekly playlist updated with just the new stuff every week, and one cumulative playlist that will host every song I pick ever (until Spotify tells me it's full). Check them out! I made them for you—and me, but mostly you.
Here are this week’s five highlights:
Yard Act - “The Trench Coat Museum”
Okay! This song isn’t expressly new, but it’s new to me. “The Trench Coat Museum” came out in July and popped up in my Disover Weekly playlist on Spotify yesterday, which was my official introduction to Yard Act. I’m obsessed with this song. It’s 8 fucking minutes long and I’ve listened to it at least 15 times now. The singer sounds like the dude from Cake talk-singing over a tune that’s something like Soulwax remixing Franz Ferdinand, in my mind anyway. It’s so sick and irreverent, and the jam in the second half is enough to make a bloghouse dropout kick a mailbox (I promise I won’t kick a mailbox, but it is enough to make me want to!).
Juuku - “Ripple” Feat. Grandpa Julie
I’m so clearly obsessed with Juuku. Every track this dude releases makes my playlists, just about. I actually just threw out a request to have him on Kat Calls before the year ends, so we’ll see how that goes! Here’s what Juuku had to say about this latest tune: "The label sent me a bunch of tracks to sift through, and I heard these insane grandpa jules [sic] vocals that resonated with me so much. For the past few years, I've felt I lost my light/happiness in the world, and I became so jaded in my day-to-day life—trying to chase something that I don't even have a clear definition of. This song represents to me the need to let the ripples subside so I can clearly see what I’m here for." Awww, hang tough, Juuku!
Imanu x Zeds Dead - “Rush”
Zeds Dead are one of those groups that’s known for making bass music but is actually a lot more versatile than it’s given credit for. I interviewed the duo many years ago, and I walked away from the conversation with a real soft spot in my heart for the Canadians. Imanu, meanwhile, is a signee to Zeds Dead’s label, and this melodic tune serves as a single to his forthcoming EP Paradise. It sounds like it’s going to go one way on the build, then makes an about face on the drop dive not into some massive noise but an emotional melody. I’m digging it!
Ténéré - “Kill’Em With The Flow” (ft. Alaska, Lil Camelot)
This is kind of a random cut. It’s a French producer with two rappers, one from Philly and one from Bonaire, and it’s just got a real cool moody vibe. Something about it is just real different, and that caught my ear. It’s a fuckin’ vibe, and it switches up on ya. Just sit in it and enjoy the ride.
Moore Kismet - “Girls On Bread”
I’m not sure what happens when girls are “on bread,” but it sounds fun! Moore Kismet is just the sweetest and they’re soo talented. I like this tune because it showcase the technical and the softer melodic side of their limitless abilities in the studio.
Okay! I’m done! Yay! Join the paid tier to hear my Joy Orbison interview, and if you’re gonna be at III Points, absolutely say hello! I’ll be the weirdo in the back of the crowd at Skrillex dressed as mink-coat Ken hahahaha. YAY
Thanks for tuning into my newsletter. Listen to the playlists on Spotify. One is updated weekly with all the songs from each edition. The other is cumulative with all the updates ever!