Julien Baker – Memories of Days Before Emo Was a Bad Word

I wonder if performers realize that every show, every gig, every night in dimly lit bars or on collapsible starlit stages, is part of a unique memory for each and every person in attendance.

Julien Baker. Took me back twelve, thirteen years? True Love Cafe and Dan Potthast. Or was it Matt Skiba. Awkward meetups. Capitol Garage and Josh… he was, what? Six years old? Incredible. Rocky Votolato. Mid-week trip to SF with Kiel and the Chris Carrabba experience and the pineapple on my windshield and the belligerent vegan (my first).

I wrote the above several months ago, after first hearing Baker’s full-length debut, Sprained Ankle. I think what impressed me the most – or confounded me, maybe – was how a teenager in 2015 could transport me back to a time and a musical environment that existed before she started learning to write in cursive. How does a kid avoid all the negative associations with the term “emo” that erupted in the mid-aughts? How does she find a voice for her joys and sorrows and frustrations that so eerily takes me to a glimmer of a point in time that most people ignore, forget, or outright berate?