it'll be a tuesday night

the story of the first band i ever interviewed, Bay Faction

Dear Rocka readers,

There are a few milestones in my life as a young woman that I’ll never forget — the day in the third grade I realized my teachers didn’t live in the ceilings of my school building (they had homes, families, etc.), the first time I heard a rumor about myself circulate (my boyfriend was dating me for drugs), and the day I learned you could turn right on a red light (I’d had my license for two months).

But more pivotal to me than the typical growing pains of being a young person with a high IQ and zero street smarts was my first experience interviewing a band.

I was fourteen, and my friend Izzie sent me a now-deleted video of James McDermott of Bay Faction playing a guitar on top of a dryer in an unfinished basement (reupload, sorry BF this is necessary context). There’s a light flickering unsteadily in the back as McDermott sings a song about a man not really speaking to the woman he has sex with regularly. 

The narrator feels as though life is happening to him, a reality shaped by others’ desires and expectations which leads him into a “vicious cycle” of abusing substances and people. Each scene McDermott describes ends with him reminding listeners that it’s a Tuesday night— an average weekday during which reality rears a Medusa’s head of paralyzing truths. 

Hammered multiple times a week and yearning for deeper connection, the song culminates in an ideated suicide scene many years down the line. While in the first verse, McDermott watches his partner put makeup on from the backseat, the final verse reveals that same position to be his last. “Sasquatch .22” is a morbid, depressing, and utterly arresting journey of a man chasing many little deaths which culminate in the final one. 

Obviously, my 14-year-old self could really relate to this. 

Regardless of the disconnect between his chronicled young adult experience and my infantile tendrils of a frontal lobe, something still stuck. As I’ve talked to Bay Faction fans throughout the years, I’ve noticed this same attachment. They’re the band people gatekeep. The one each listener has some rich, personal history with. The group with such a cult-like status it’s nearly a competition to even engage with their work. 

I interviewed James for the blog I wrote for at the time from my childhood bedroom, incessantly thumbing the edge of my legal pad where I had ten questions I had stressed over for days. At that point, I had pored over Reddit threads and every piece of commentary I could find at the time on the band. I did not know what “journalism” was. I just waned to know who “Jasper” was, an ambiguous entity whose name appears in much of the group’s self-titled album. 

That interview was the first time I experienced the flow state so many creatives talk about. I was awkward and had no idea what I was doing, but I was curious. The only confidence I had was that this music was good and I wanted more people to hear it. James was kind, open, and descriptive in his answers— the dream of all journalists. At the end of the interview, he thanked me sincerely for my questions and told me I was good at interviewing.

When a man in a band you idolize tells you that you’re good at something, you listen. 

The article went up on the blog a few days later, and when the band promoted it on their socials I was told the website temporarily crashed from the sudden uptick in traffic. Following James’ simple compliment, this was the second sign I had tapped into something. 

Now listen, it was a small site, a small band, and what I’d generously describe now as an average article written by a 14-year-old girl in her room. The spelling errors speak for themselves. And yet, people read. 

But it wasn’t because of me, and I loved that. It was the mystique of Bay Faction, this East Coast trio of Berklee boys with dramatic music that people either loved, hated, or didn’t know existed.

I interviewed James again in 2018 and wrote about the release of Florida Guilt, their sophomore record, this time for Rocka. This is the article I wrote, which I don’t think is particularly profound. But since I shared the deleted video of “Sasquatch .22,” I’ll call this making it even. 

Bay Faction broke up before I ever got to see them live, a heartbreaking reality to face when my life slowly started to adopt many of the struggles the songs described. But this May, I almost crashed my car on a drive to upstate New York when my friend in the passenger seat said someone named “Bay Fac” had texted me.

So that’s how I found myself in the back of Chicago’s Hideout all these years later, hearing the discography of my golden, forgotten band. The band who launched such a major chapter of my life in ways I am only beginning to see. The first band I ever interviewed.

It was a show and a simple interaction at the merch table, but James remembered me. Sometimes people change your life, and it is enough to simply shake their hand and say thank you.

The concert itself was an actualization of a dreamlike reality I’ve always held close but have never fully indulged in. Everyone around me was drunk, over the moon happy, and sharing their Bay Faction accounts like war stories. The new era of Bay Faction will be a great one, and maybe this time the themes will stick more immediately seeing as though I’m no longer a freshman in high school.

There’s a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that reads, “I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.” I think most things we consume embody that sentiment. We may not remember all the details of the things, the places, and the people we grace in life, but they create us nonetheless. And what a special experience to be reminded of some parts of our inner mechanics that may rust over time but still hold us up.

Keep up with Bay Faction here. 

—

Alrighty, little update for you. I have created one home playlist which I’ll update with the monthly mix, so you can follow one playlist and get fresh tunes every time. I’m going to put each month in a separate playlist as well, so you can always go back and find songs or old mixes you like. But if you want a second Discover Weekly of what I’m rocking with, follow this playlist. 

This month’s mix is called “right on red” and the general theme is having energy without quite knowing what to do with it. I start off with “GEMINI” by BLK ODYSSY and Jackie Giroux which is just a dream. Jackie’s wailing on her verse makes the whole song so gutteral. Lotta smooth jams like “Drivel” and “pink dress” to ease your transition into fall and perhaps a new chapter of life. 

My spotlight track this month is “Now It’s Over” by Dogpark. The shortest way to explain it is as follows: this song fucks. Golden age indie, 80s vibes, a joyous celebration of saying goodbye to what never served you. This song is what it feels like to put sunglasses on maybe even flip someone off but in a nonchalant way.

Alright, that’s my novel of a story for the month. 

Rocka out,

Ally