It is 3:10am on September 18th, 2023 and I am currently working a graveyard shift at the treatment center I’ve worked at for almost 7 years. I am an alcohol and drug counselor full time for a non profit organization where I actually got sober a little over 8 years ago. I have written about my life before and after I’ve gotten sober on this blog a lot so I don’t really want to go into all that. If you have any interest, there is a bunch of stories and entries I have written on here over the years.

It has been almost 2 years since I posted anything on here, or really written anything like this. I have spent a lot of my free time writing research papers, reading textbooks and doing homework, so sitting at the computer and writing more never appealed to me. I graduated from Cal State Channel Islands recently with a BA in Psychology, completing my 7 year journey of education. It’s crazy before I got sober I had so many things I wanted to do, so many goals and dreams and stuff like that, but I never did anything. When I was about 9 months sober I started at Santa Barbara City College and made a goal with myself to get my counseling certification and my undergraduate degree in Psychology. I worked full time through it all and I finally did it, and added an AA degree in there on accident.

I feel like I always pick the weirdest time to write on here, especially in the last few years, like it’s 3:18 in the morning and I am sitting in a giant homeless shelter/residential treatment facility and it is dead silent. This place is usually buzzing with chaos and conversation, but right now it’s silent. Before YLIA ever became anything this blog was the only YLIA material I ever did, so I wrote on it all the time. Now that YLIA has become a consistent radio show with consistent listeners, the radio show is the main source of putting out YLIA material. Along with some merch collaborations and some shows, but the blog is kind of like just here with tons of stories and entries, just sitting.

It is interesting to watch people in the world create things, like music or social media content or whatever. Everything is so magnified from beginning to end, like you see the idea, then the preparation, then the process of making something, then tons of promo, then by the time it hits its like consumed and gone with a flash. I watch all the creative people I respect and am influenced by, whether its a hardcore band, a clothing company or a comedian, and they all have a sense of anticipation that’s created by them not really doing anything but putting something out when it’s done with little notice or an onslaught of promotion. I feel like there is power in objectivity when it comes showing the shit you make to the world, like putting your music or art out there is so subjective in nature already, don’t let people get lost in the build up and miss the final masterpiece.

That probably didn’t make any sense but the reason this comes to mind is because someone recently asked me how I’ve gotten certain guests on YLIA or how I’ve been successful at making stuff that people like. I didn’t really have an answer to that question because that was never the goal. I started writing this blog because I was watching a Bears vs. Packers Thursday night football game and I wanted to pretend I was a sportswriter in a newspaper writing about the game. I started doing radio because it was a crazy opportunity that I never imagined I would get. My first 3 years doing radio, most of that being early YLIA days, I was legitamitely scared shitless every week going on the air. I didn’t care if people were listening I was just making sure I didn’t mess something up or forget to turn the mic on. I didn’t even record the show for the first year or so because I thought it was goofy and no one would listen to it, and I was right no one did lol.

I started uploading the show to SoundCloud and each week had 1-3 listeners, for a long time, and those plays were probably me just making sure it worked. I didn’t get on the radio feeling like I am gonna do this so I can interview Hatebreed next week and get 5k plays on my second ever episode. But I showed up and did shows every week because I loved it, it was fun and it was challenging. Eventually I started playing hardcore and eventually I started getting some hardcore bands and people on the show, but it never turned into a professional thing with tons of promo and me wishing that this was gonna be the episode that got a thousand plays. After years of doing that eventually people started to pay attention more, and in the last two years I have interviewed some of my favorite bands and favorite artists and people I would’ve never even dreamt of bringing on the radio.

The Pat Flynn interview still doesn’t even feel like it was real. When I was 15 I used to write Have Heart in black sharpie along the white soles of all my Vans. Even as an adult I looked at Pat through my 15 year old eyes, the Have Heart reunion show in LA and all the Fiddlehead sets. A lot of people in hardcore or music don’t reply, even if they say they wanna play your scene, or they take 2 weeks to answer a yes or no question. Mr. Flynn responded quickly always, he thanked me more than I thanked him and we had a fun time on the radio. Shout out West Point, BC and Columbia.

People hate on hardcore from the outskirts for a variety of different reasons, it used to piss me off and I used to get defensive but I realized that it doesn’t really mean anything and why I do I care so much about what people say about it. Every time I’m piling on top of my friends singing my heart out to a song that means something to me none of that shit matters. Those people don’t get that feeling of being in a community center room with 20 people, moshing and having the best night of your life. Or maybe they do, but they let all the other negative things outweigh that feeling and just talk shit from the outside looking in. I think Death Threat explained it perfectly in the song Disgrace. People leave for whatever reason and then hate from the outside still wishing they were inside only because they wanna be recognized or they want hardcore to do it their way. I just couldn’t imagine a life where I didn’t get to do what hardcore allows me to do with my friends on a regular basis.

Anyways, I want to say thank you to anyone and everyone who has ever supported YLIA. Thank you to my Aunt Rosie for being my co host for 2 years and helping me learn to be on the radio and get comfortable. Thanks to all the bands who I’ve done merch collabs with and all the bands and people that have been willing to come on the show. Thanks to everyone who helped me make YLIA fest happen last year, all my friends who came early and stayed late, everyone that bought tickets and all the bands that played. Especially to Dan and Downpresser, Matt Discourage, Cameron and In Time, Vince for everything, and Omega Point for filling in last minute, Andy Die Hard, Tony IYF, Joven (Dodgers Forever), Torena, Ry Outwest da gawd, all of Firestarter, and Dalan Rascals. Thanks to Casa De La Raza for taking a chance on hardcore again. Thanks to Davin Marked for Life for always linking me. Thanks to every band who’s ever sent me records, tapes, stickers, tee shirts and to all the couple hundred new listeners in the past year, crazy, appreciate it so much. The logo at the top was designed by Frankie Hernandez @ffo_frankie

There’s close to 200 episodes of YLIA in the streaming library, which you can find on this site if you click on my name. I’d love to incorporate some more sports talk on the show so if anyone ever reads this and they’re down to do that dm me. See that’s the cool thing about building your own thing from the ground up and having it be yours, you can do whatever you want, DIY. I hope the Dodgers win the World Series this year. Listen to the Chromatic EP by Seltzer while it still kinda feels like summer. Trash Talk is still my favorite band of all time and I truly feel bad for Aaron Rodgers. I hate the Padres more than any other franchise in sports history. Never Ending Game is the best band in hardcore right now. The Cowboys are always pretenders, the Alabama dynasty is over and thinking dark roast coffee is good is the worst take of all time.

Rest in Peace to my Grandfather Walter Grove 1941-2022. The best man I ever knew.

“You’re born. Life is hard, and then you die” – WG