Black Mold

I went to a concert the other day. I saw a couple of bands as a part of the "Pure Noise Records Tour '24". There were four different bands on this tour, and I was excited to see them all. The bands in question are "Ben Quad", "Just Friends", "Prince Daddy & The Hyena", and "Microwave". I'd only just heard of Ben Quad when buying my ticket, and while I only discovered Just Friends in April, I ended up buying most of their discography that same week. Prince Daddy is a band that I've been listening to for a few years and I'm actually friends with one of the band's old producers. As for Microwave, I've heard a lot of their music in whatever mix Spotify decided to throw at me that day, but in preparation for this show, I've really been digging their music. The show was great, but when listening to the setlist, something struck me.

One of the bands I follow goes by "Full Blown Meltdown". He's an incredible dude and posts a lot about the DIY/Punk scene. A couple of weeks ago I saw him talk about how one of his favorite songs by Prince Daddy was "Black Mold". When I was listening to the setlist, that track was on it. Unfortunately, they didn't play the song on stage, but the set was still wonderful. While I had heard it a bunch before as a part of the album, I didn't really pay too much attention to it. Other tracks stood out to me as more enjoyable, but this time around something kinda clicked with me.

"Black Mold" opens up with a minute-long voicemail from an old friend of the band. I didn't realize it on my first few listens, but this track is almost 9 minutes long. I wanted to understand what the lines in the voicemail were and Spotify wasn't showing them so I decided to hit up Genius. There's also an article on Brooklyn Vegan that reveals a lot about the album as well.

This track is special. Very special. Bands don't make songs that are 9 minutes long without a good reason. The voicemail at the beginning really got me. Everyone has those friendships that are extremely important, but after a few years, you grow apart and don't really talk to them anymore. It's not like anything bad happened, it's just there was never really a good reason to message them. Time passes and eventually, a decade has come and gone. Any attempt at reconciling over the years has felt fruitless, and you're suddenly faced with a choice. You can either try to either reach out and catch up with them, or you can just let time march on.

That's the whole message behind "Black Mold" and it hit me pretty hard. Immediately I started messaging friend groups that I've been so very close with that are still somewhat active and it's so nice to interact with these people.

Normally I write about music on my other blog, and I might write about this album on there some time, but this album just hit too hard. The band's lead singer, Kory, developed an irrational fear of death, so much so that he spent time in a psychiatric hospital for a month. This record is all about not only about his fear of him dying, but his loved ones as well. There's a track called “A Random Exercise In Impermanence” that talks about how life can be so fragile and impermanent.

It's really surreal listening to this record because I never thought about it too deeply. Learning how it's all about maintaining and being in touch with one's mortality hit way too close to home.

Tomorrow isn't guaranteed no matter what you think, and both "Black Mold" and the album in its entirety speak to that truth.

In the time that it took me to write this all down, I messaged over a dozen different people that I either talk to daily or haven't spoken to properly in several years. I urge you to do the same.

As always, I will leave you with a few words.

Be A Real Person