Home Safe: On Turnstile, Being Water, and the Endless Threads of Friendship
When I first met Owen, he had far fewer tattoos. His hair, a perfectly tight blonde combover as it still is now. But no Liverpool Champions League trophy — a constant reminder of my own old pain. No Donna Hayward "Dream Girl." I think it was 2015.
A coy classics major that lived down the hall from several other lifelong friends, Owen was as much a mystery as he was an acquaintance. With the seasons came change. Owen and I grew closer as we found our footing together. As friends and as storytellers. As secret keepers and as music fans.
Owen invited me a little deeper into his world the following year — a hardcore show at Minneapolis' now-defunct Triple Rock Cafe. The one off Cedar that served the best vegan biscuits and gravy. Back when Owen was concerned about who slang the best vegan food in the area.
The show, headlined by the also-soon-to-be-defunct Weekend Nachos, was a glimpse into his world. A, if I recall correctly, "power violence" band from somewhere in the Midwest. Omaha, Nebraska? Writing that now makes it feel wrong, and a quick Google search tells me that Dekalb, Illinois is their actual home.
Before the show begins and the first band steps onto the stage, Owen heeds me a warning. "When 'Shot in the Head' is played, you may want to duck."
When the drums begin to hit, I know. The room becomes a whirlwind of limbs and bodies and gravity. Owen, a share of the chaos, disappears into the crowd. I keep track of him only by his legs, not a full sleeve by then, but enough to forge an identity.
In front of me, a man gets clocked complete and clean by a raging fist making its way through the crowd. I watch a man crumble into the arms of his friend, who gives him a few slaps and an abundance of reassurance. "You're going to be fine," his buddy tells him with a smile and a laugh.
Drenched in sweat, we pour out into the night. It may be then or sometime else where Owen tells how thankful he is for the scene. For the music. For the community. For the outlet.
He thanks me for coming in that 2016 night. We go our separate ways down the same path feeling more like ourselves.
***
Down the street from my Brooklyn apartment is the neighborhood bar. On any given night, I know the faces of the patrons. T is making drinks. Chris has his jerk pop-up. Dante and Lizie are somewhere among the crowd of love-filled regulars.
Most nights here start like this — a cocktail of one too many drinks, cigarettes, and conversations. But there are worse things to be in the world than gluttons for each other, for our immediate world that exists only in our square quarter mile.
Chris, Dante, and I shoot the shit that night for what must've been hours, but it feels like an eternity then—saddled deep under a fluorescent night—one of ashes, presidentes, and the tail end of a heat wave. An end only comes when Chris announces he's going home to get caught in a YouTube wormhole. I agree that I'll do the same.
When I am home, in the sanctity of my never-quiet room, I decide to deep-dive Turnstile videos. The Balitmoreans' performances remind me of that night in Minneapolis with Owen, how they pack themselves and their devotees into what looks like hotel ballrooms, school gymnasiums, and everywhere in between.
At times, it feels claustrophobic even to watch. Tidal waves of punks clamber onto the small stage that barely fits the quintet themselves, only to catapult themselves off of it. It's a ballet of thrashing and mauling and manic love.
I fall asleep to a set that ends, as most Turnstile sets do, with T.L.C. (Turnstile Love Connection), an electrifying closer that starts off the back of a charging riff and crashing drums. As singer Brendan Yates starts in with his first bar:
I want to touch
A level up
Want more connection
And that's enough
The crowd fully overruns him on stage. The bushy-haired frontman has no choice but to abandon his post. Soon, the mob begins to claw for the lone mic, wishing to get a word in.
***
I'm wholly alone in October of 2022. Turnstile is in town. The night can't stave off the rain, so it's a miserable cold sweat. It's one of those rains that seeps into your soul and sits uncomfortably as a shiver. My bones are heavy, and I can't imagine dragging them to the Brooklyn Mirage to stand through three full acts. Not tonight, I shake my head.
But somehow, I find the will to make the trek — an A train excursion to an L train transfer at Broadway Junction before legging the last bit with a crowd that will soon become a community.
Inside there is a quietness as we muck around as a collective, guarded against the open skies only by the flimsy plastic ponchos handed out at the door by security. I'm at the front for the first two acts, Snail Mail and JPEGMAFIA, who share a city with the headliner, and, coincidentally, now my friend Owen. I'm sure he's cozied up in his rowhome just a mile west of the old Domino Sugar factory that dominates the view from his top deck.
By the time Turnstile takes the stage, I look like a sad goldendoodle caught in a torrential downpour. I'm wallowing a bit, glancing down at the sheer poncho, wondering if this is all worth the impending cold or pneumonia that's sure to take hold.
Then it starts. A long, low organ that reaches even the loneliest of observers in the upper echelons of the Mirage. Then the drums. People begin to buzz in the pit. Feeding into, and equally reciprocating, the growing energy being blasted at them. Next is the drum pad, which sounds like rain but feels like a miracle.
The band fully steams into Holiday, their first song in a 50-minute set. An hour that was mostly a blur of elbows, discarded ponchos, and scenes of bewilderment. People were losing their fucking minds. Rightfully so? I mean, here we are, outside, on a terribly rainy October night in Brooklyn.
Standing stoic in the rain, the band takes in the mess they've made. Hearts full, Yates says, "We need you, always, we need you." Then, just like in the videos, the band dives headfirst into T.L.C.
Only tonight, there will be no coup of the stage. Barriers, too high. Security, too informed. Crowd, too populous. Yet again, the Baltimore singer flees from the stage. For almost two minutes, there is nothing but the sound of rain, soft chatter, and the final synth of the song, looping over and over.
This time, instead of his disappearing act, he makes his way into the crowd. Over the barriers, the security, he takes form above his admirers — bolstered only by their outstretched arms. He looms like Christ the Redeemer on the big screen behind him. The image is so large you can almost see his pores exploding with sweat or rain or maybe a mixture of both.
He's wet, just like the rest of us.
As the loop continues, he points the mic downward. The crowd around him desperately crawls towards it to repeat, in their own voice, the closing phrase of the song.
I want to thank you for letting me see myself
I want to thank you for letting me be myself
Thank god it's raining so hard now that no one can tell I'm crying, and I'm not even entirely sure at the time. But now, I am. It's just that, like, fuck man. There are so many ways this shit could've gone sideways, and I'm sure there are plenty of lifetimes where things don't shake out this way. And I'm grateful to be living in the one where they did, in fact, shake out that way. Because here I am surrounded, maybe not physically, but certainly emotionally, by people who I know are made for me in this life. Who let me see myself and be myself. A community. A place to call home. People who I know will be there.
The show ends. We flood out into the cold night, into the pouring rain. I look down at my soaked shoes before pulling out my phone to text Owen. To let him know about the show and how much I love him.
I close my phone and look back at my shoes again. I am alone again. But not really. Never really.
