Gratitude essay: the Car Seat fanbase

I used to write in darkness. “Trapped!”, an old song from the Nervous Young Men era, sums up my typical state of mind during high school, or maybe the whole album it’s on does. Life felt like a series of looming deadlines and fatal pronouncements; the air felt like a tangle of toxic forces I couldn’t understand. Anxiety, insecurity, and physical discomfort combined to create an overwhelming feeling of loneliness. I had friends, family, but these negative forces felt too big to talk about, unable to be defeated or related to. So I wrote to an imaginary audience, sharing with friends when they wanted to listen, but mostly not sharing it at all. I did find some comfort in the darkness, some recognition, in the albums I found at Hot Topic or squirreled away in my sister’s CD wallet, bands like Green Day and Nine Inch Nails who seemed to write in that same isolation, seemed to be able to truly communicate it through song. I participated in this tradition, because it seemed like the only outlet I had available. 

Though I remained in darkness, people did hear me. My friends continue to collaborate with me and listen to my music. I came to college, and dropped off handmade copies of the numbered CSH albums in the college radio station’s PO Box. Soon the station director sought me out, and became my friend, bandmate and roommate. Strangers online started sharing my music on 4chan. When my hard drive failed weeks before I was set to finish Nervous Young Man, fans were able to provide me with files they’d ripped from WIPs of the album to help complete it. And suddenly I was on the other side of it, making music to a real audience, who were not only listening to it but relating to it, seeing their own isolation reflected and lessened in the music. 

Throughout this process, I was, to be honest, prickly as hell and unreceptive to more or less all of it. I looked at the problems rather than the benefits. I saw that more listeners didn’t heal the basic pains of life, or take away the darkness. Was it supposed to? I did have flashes of healing, moments in life where it felt like I’d been able to clamber up another step towards whatever life was supposed to be. But it felt unrelated to my career. Once our work with Matador started, life became a roller-coaster of press, recording, and touring, at a speed and relentlessness that took me to some of my darkest places yet.

Eventually, things shifted. The pandemic hit, then my own round with disabling illness. More willing now to be patient and gentle, I used this forum of Patreon to enter with the band back into the public world. And as the chaos of preceding years settled, I saw the intense, enduring love that had been given to me by all of you. A love of listening, of sending well-wishes when I had to cancel concerts for my illness, of sharing, archiving, participating in our music. When I want to look at a piece of music I recorded in high school, I can safely assume someone’s already uploaded it to youtube. When I post an essay here, I get back thoughtful, heartfelt responses every time. When I drop a PO Box address, I get wonderful mail and art sent to me. 

I’m so grateful for this. As I wrote at the start of the month, gratitude is hard for me to express, sitting as it does alongside dread, doom and despair. The darkness hasn’t gone away, but my vision of it is widening. Now, it seems like the backdrop to a great sea of lights, each one vivid and distinct in contrast. I would not have seen the lights, known their beauty and power, if I did not know the darkness. I’m honored that all of you have shared your light with me, and I hope I can share likewise for many years to come.