The end of something, the beginning of something

Doors close, windows open; every end is a beginning; etc.

I do intend, however, to make a firm end of some things.

I’ve just deleted the band webpage. We effectively dissolved in mid-2019, when I asked my guitarist for a divorce. Y’know. Typical band stuff. But I held on to the band name (which I still adore), the band insta, the band webpage, with the hope that someday I’d make more music under the moniker I felt I’d built with such intention and clarity.

Since releasing our album (finished mid-2019, released early 2020), I’ve recorded bits and pieces of music with Campbell. I’ve done a few things on my own, all unreleased. I’ve played some jazz about town. I’ve toured all over the states, the UK & Ireland, and some of Europe on other peoples’ music. But I’ve struggled with even the initial steps of forming a band. Always, in the back of my mind, hung Punch The Sun and the efforts I made around it… not wanting to close a door and label a failure a failure. Because in many ways it really wasn’t. But it did end. And I have been extremely reluctant to let it die.

It’s been over seven years since we played a show. That’s nearly as long as I lived in New York, for goodness’ sake. And my life now is, in so many ways, diametrically different to how it was in “my New York era.” (what a pompous way to describe that time.)
There are plenty of things I loved about that life. I loved having a band. I loved playing with Campbell, especially. I loved my songwriting community. I loved playing shitty little gigs in shitty little pubs. But I didn’t love the day job in a field I could care less about (though I do miss the long walks to work in the morning; primo songwriting time, tbh). I didn’t love the vast amounts of time I spent in work. I don’t miss the relationship I was in. I don’t miss the smell of pee, or of hot garbage in the summer.
But the things I loved have the fog of nostalgia around them. I’m grateful I had those experiences, but I don’t actively miss New York. These days, my life is just different. Better in a lot of ways. I feel more in control of my destiny, on my good days.

Now I’m writing with a sleepy, just-woken baby in my lap. When I got reminders this summer that my squarespace was going to renew, I thought “maybe it’s time to let that die.” I got a notification that my credit card number was out of date and that my website would get canceled. Perfect, I thought. But then the payment went through, because the internet has ways of keeping things going even when you get a new credit card number. So I’ve had to take intentional action (which I suppose is a type of gift) and close the website down myself. But I’ve got the page until July 15th of 2027, so in the meantime, let’s have a blog that will be around for the better part of a year, and then disappear into nothingness once my subscription lapses. Here today, gone in… 11 months or so.

Goodbye, Punch The Sun. Hello, whatever comes next. I don’t want to pin too much hope on the future just yet; I want to sit with this goodbye for now, and let the chapter close. The next thing will come in its own time. So for now, fare thee well, you band that I loved. Pass on in peaceful memory.