Something crazy happened to me the other night. I was hanging out at the Silverlake Lounge waiting to play a set with my band The Newports and two people came up and asked if I was in the band. I said “Yeah! Thanks for coming. Who are you friends with?” and they looked at me in a slightly confused way and said they didn’t know we were from LA and had just heard us on Spotify and saw that we were playing and came out to see us.

Whoa. I believe that counts as my first experience of a fan who doesn’t know us coming out hear us. Though I don’t make music in order to get rich/famous/please fans/whatever, I can’t say that it didn’t feel awesome, and that the teenage me who always wanted to make music that reaches people was flipping out. When I got home I got to listening to a bunch of the punk bands that made me feel like I could do that too when I was younger, and made me a little less lonely and a little more confident about being myself, and getting all emotional. Then I made a playlist.

So here’s that.