Hey, chums. Can we talk about Carrie Brownstein for a sec? I just read her book, Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, and it literally kept me up at night thinking about how much I related to her experiences with trying to find her place as a musician. I was never into Sleater-Kinney in their heyday, but they were one of those rare bands which I was still able to hold in high regard- the old pretentious chestnut “I don’t like them, but I respect them” applied for me. I liked what they stood for- when I was old enough to understand it, anyway; I was several years too young for the Riot Grrl deal- and appreciate the doors they kicked down in the service of dropping the “women” qualifier from “women musicians.” And I really liked what Carrie and Corin did outside of Sleater-Kinney -Wild Flag and the Corin Tucker Band, respectively- both of which efforts felt more fleshed out to me (so sue me, I’m a bassist. I like my bands to include bass). But honestly, my biggest connection to S-K itself came not from listening to their music, but from the fact that my grandma lived in Lacey and would proudly send me newspaper clippings about her hometown heroes as a way to relate to her music-obsessed grandkid.

Despite that lukewarm background, I still was eager to read about how Carrie characterized her experiences before, during, and after S-K. I look to biographies for a blueprint for life and for reassurance: that successful, biography-worthy people failed before succeeding and thus it’s okay for me to fail too; that I have things in common with people I admire. On an insecure day I look for evidence that I’m doing better than the subject was at my age. I want an existing story to measure myself against. Maybe it was because she’s a PNW native that I was especially intrigued by this book- would I care as much if she name-checked venues she’d frequented as a teenager in Detroit? Likely not; I love a story set in my own backyard. And maybe it was because of that familiarity that although we were separated by the better part of a decade, I was primed to feel personally connected to what might otherwise be an unremarkable journey. I just know that I found some sense of comfort in her tales of trying to come into her own as a guitarist, and the attendant feeling of not knowing what the fuck she was doing but seeing a community and wanting to be a part of it.

I could access that feeling easily because it still drives me: the desire to be a bigger presence, to be inside an important movement, to mean as much to others as they’ve meant to me. The desire to be recognized and not just be a bystander, which is especially difficult for someone not inclined to jump into the fray. Carrie characterized herself as shy and I’m similarly introverted and reserved, but the difference is that she still didn’t seem to have trouble throwing herself shamelessly into the community she sought. I, on the other hand, feel uncomfortable imposing on anyone and will wait for an invitation (this hasn’t proven to be a winning strategy, and I recognize that most of my biggest accomplishments happen when I can throw off the shackles of potential embarrassment and be bolder, but it doesn’t come easily).

I too saw the community that I wanted to be part of when I was 13, 14, 15, but didn’t know how to access it; I was too young to go to clubs, too young even to drive myself out of the neighborhood to seek out other environs where I might encounter the people I was looking for. The kids around me who clearly branded themselves as fellow music fans and musicians mostly worshipped the Dead Kennedys, whose anger I didn’t connect with at all, or Iron Maiden, which was beyond me technically. There wasn’t a clear path from playing along to Gruntruck and Hammerbox alone in my bedroom to finding like-minded, like-aged people to share these obsessions, to learn and grow with. I’m always envious of those who had friends who shared these interests early on- the musician friends I had weren’t interested in doing White Zombie covers with me, and the White Zombie fan friends I had weren’t musicians.  And so when she wrote about the isolation of being a burgeoning musician without an outlet, I could recall those attempts at connection via classifieds in the Stranger which never went anywhere. When she wrote about the frustration of feeling like the awkward kid knocking on the door of her chosen community hoping there’s room for her despite having little to offer but enthusiasm, I recognized that desperation and felt gratified that someone else had experienced that same headspace. That it wasn’t always as easy as just answering an ad in the LA Recycler, as so many other origin stories begin. Really, that many of us are still struggling to find the space for ourselves that we envision, and though it brings insecurity and discomfort, it’s the search itself that connects those of us who reject giving up or surrendering to complacency. And it’s in sharing our stories that we help each other build our own new communities from the ground up.