SO. Almost a month ago, I got into a van that resembles a creamsicle with 3 smelly boys from the Bay. I spent 2 weeks with Religious Girls as they started their Shred Till We Ded national tour. We drove coast to coast through the south, stopping in: Los Angeles, San Diego, Irvine, & Hollywood, California; Scottsdale, Arizona; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Lubbock, Austin, San Antonio, & Houston, Texas; New Orleans, Louisiana; Jacksonville, Florida; Athens, Georgia; & Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

I went a million places I’d never been. I saw a million things I’d never seen. Though I expected 2 weeks to feel like forever & to be so ready to not be stuck in a van & sweaty & tired anymore, I felt like a child in the longest ever time-out as I sat in the Nashville airport, waiting to board my plane. Given different circumstances, I would have stayed with the boys as long as I could. Instead of feeling suffocated from a serious lack of personal space & time, all I wanted was to be hanging out in uncomfortably heavy heat, laughing with these dumb boys who somehow snuck their way into my ghost heart. 

But it was what it was, & though 2 weeks flew by, I was on to the next adventure. From Tennessee, I flew to Portland, Oregon. I’d been romanticizing Portland & missing one of my best friends from high school who lives there for far too long, & it was time for me to finally visit. Portland’s a funny place. It’s gorgeous (granted, I had was there for the best weather of the year), & very much has a feel all its own. It was both everything & nothing I expected. 

After a week in PDX, I got on a train headed for Santa Cruz to see Samone. Really, spending time with my best friend is the only way I’d want to end this trip. 

Three & a half weeks and nearly 7,000 miles later, I still didn’t/don’t feel ready to be home.

I missed things from home. Like my cat, my bed, my sister, & my friends. But I never missed being home. I’ve been back for a couple of days & it still feels weird. I think mostly it’s that everything feels too still & familiar here. I’ll go back to work in two days and school in two weeks. Everything will go back to normal. Adulthood will continue to try to eat me alive & I will continue to resist.

I am pretty stoked to be back to things like local shows, my family, & my cat. Plus, now I get to hang out with these babes incessantly. 

There were, at one point, plans for a lengthy post, gushing to you about just how much love I have for Y La Bamba. There may have been too-long sentences filled hyperbolic adjectives. There may have personal reasons for why I feel so connected to their music. There may have been raves about how kind the band members themselves are. There would absolutely be entire passages about how captivating & enchanting their live shows are. There were plans for all of that, but that’s not quite what this is.

Instead, I will say this: This is a band that you should be paying attention to within the next year or so. Their first album as a full band, Lupon, is wonderful. I whole-heartedly recommend that you buy it & let it settle into the deep corners of your heart. 

I will also say this: After seeing them play 3 nights in a row a few weeks ago (when I say I love a band, I am not fucking around), I can tell you with steadfast certainty that their next album (set to be titled Tragos Amargos) will be incredible. 

Here are a few videos of as-of-yet unreleased tracks that I haven’t already posted. When I saw them played, these songs, though new to me, felt familiar and warm and effortless. Their melodies were stuck in my head for days.

Son tus caricias que me matan, que me matan, que me matan, tirando me al suelo. Si quieres que me vaya, que me vaya, que me vaya, que me vaya…Ya estás escrito, escrito, escrito, escrito al dentro de mi corazón. Si quieres que me vaya, que me vaya, que me vaya…

I can’t save my own life, if  I could…I can only save my dreams. Blessings to the world, blessings to the dark places. I’ve been to learning to be free for so long, so long, so long. So long, so long, so long.

Synchronized hand-clapping, accordion, AND ukelele? Fuck, just kill me now.

If the birds were made for walking, what would the sky do? The sky would stop believing, stop facing the moon. The moon could really hear us. And my nights would fall, my spirits would haunt me. Nowhere to sleep, nowhere to sleep.