Jake had knobby, stupid fingers on the ends of his bony wrists. The tips were broad and almost flat, his large hands hanging uncoordinatedly on the end of his skinny arms. He looked like a poorly drawn cartoon, authored by a maker who wasn't paying much attention. The size of his head exaggerated all of his expressions, he couldn't stop his eyes from bugging out or his boulderous Adam's apple from bobbing wildly when he was excited. Jake was smart if nerdy, over intellectualizing and over analyzing most things. His sole ambition was to play in a band, but the abstract fitting of his parts made it almost impossible. He was instantly frustrated by the indiscreet plunking of his fingers, and he wouldn't allow himself to be sucked away into fury. His playing was formal, worthless, and hatefully dispassionate.
When puberty struck Jake he began tottering around haltingly, like a baby learning to walk. He always seemed off balance and uneasy with his adolescence. To spare himself embarrassment he spent most of his time alone or with books. He was drawn to the skirts of crowds, he liked watching people from such an anonymous vantage point. The local YMCA was in the same space as his township library, and one day while hunting books about birds he heard a wonderful racket. There was a band playing, they were kids his own age and their voices screeched even higher than their echoing feedback. All the way up front a young girl in leopard and jangling silver chains, black canvas and the word "Veronica" written on her jacket even though that wasn't her name, danced and popped her hips and shoulders, shook her wild hair to the ecstatic sound. It was in that moment Jake decided, more than anything, he wanted to play music.
After several years of confronting his short comings Jake became the first music nerd he knew. He consumed every band and every genre, the whiff of obscurity was all it took for him to fall in love. From the sweaty feminism of the pacific north west to sunny Florida death metal, he became an encyclopedia and turned his room into a basilica of CDs, vinyl and cassette. The same spastic drive and intellectualism that cut him down in performing made him perfectly suited to be a DJ. He could string together any bands through remote facts and knew a little something about every record. But there was a loveless efficiency to being a DJ. He constantly wrestled with play lists, gritting his teeth when he had to pretend his show was playing Odd Future on it's own accord, and not because of SXSW or Jimmy Fallon. The speckiest part of him just wanted to acknowledge that he knew about the group before they started gaining exposure, he had asked to play them when they were still legitimately unknown and had been turned down. Now he was being instructed to play them. When Gene Ween started missing shows he had to put "Push th' Little Daisies" into rotation so the station wouldn't seem like they had never appreciated Ween in case he died. Jake even had to co-opt his beloved Sleater-Kinney, a band he had previously begged to play to no avail, because his PD thought they were nearing a reunion.
When puberty struck Jake he began tottering around haltingly, like a baby learning to walk. He always seemed off balance and uneasy with his adolescence. To spare himself embarrassment he spent most of his time alone or with books. He was drawn to the skirts of crowds, he liked watching people from such an anonymous vantage point. The local YMCA was in the same space as his township library, and one day while hunting books about birds he heard a wonderful racket. There was a band playing, they were kids his own age and their voices screeched even higher than their echoing feedback. All the way up front a young girl in leopard and jangling silver chains, black canvas and the word "Veronica" written on her jacket even though that wasn't her name, danced and popped her hips and shoulders, shook her wild hair to the ecstatic sound. It was in that moment Jake decided, more than anything, he wanted to play music.
After several years of confronting his short comings Jake became the first music nerd he knew. He consumed every band and every genre, the whiff of obscurity was all it took for him to fall in love. From the sweaty feminism of the pacific north west to sunny Florida death metal, he became an encyclopedia and turned his room into a basilica of CDs, vinyl and cassette. The same spastic drive and intellectualism that cut him down in performing made him perfectly suited to be a DJ. He could string together any bands through remote facts and knew a little something about every record. But there was a loveless efficiency to being a DJ. He constantly wrestled with play lists, gritting his teeth when he had to pretend his show was playing Odd Future on it's own accord, and not because of SXSW or Jimmy Fallon. The speckiest part of him just wanted to acknowledge that he knew about the group before they started gaining exposure, he had asked to play them when they were still legitimately unknown and had been turned down. Now he was being instructed to play them. When Gene Ween started missing shows he had to put "Push th' Little Daisies" into rotation so the station wouldn't seem like they had never appreciated Ween in case he died. Jake even had to co-opt his beloved Sleater-Kinney, a band he had previously begged to play to no avail, because his PD thought they were nearing a reunion.
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