Catching up
[Staind voice] it's been a while
It’s been a while since I’ve sat down and caught up with myself in writing. Can anybody out there “it’s been a while” without singing the Staind song? I certainly can’t. Anyway, here’s a little journal entry / life update situation.
Hayley Williams just wrapped up the US leg of her Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party tour and somehow — by luck or grace or the universe throwing me a very specific bone — I ended up seeing a lot of it. Opening night in Atlanta, a couple nights at the Ryman, Kilby Block Party in SLC. Enough times that certain songs started following me back to my hotel room, back onto airplanes, back into my own life in brand new ways.
I realized while trying to write this that I’ve never really written at length about Paramore or Hayley before — the most I’ve done is about This Is Why for Coup De Main in 2023, or a little blurb about EDAABP for WNXP at the end of last year. Maybe a couple sappy Instagram captions here and there. It feels almost ridiculous to have not documented it more, considering the sheer amount of psychic real estate all of it has occupied in my life for the last twenty years. There are probably entire novels worth of thoughts lodged somewhere in my body about finding Paramore at 10 years old and what that did to me long term — or maybe what it undid — but trying to tell the full story would feel impossible now. Too many versions of myself attached to it. LiveJournal pre-teen, Middle school internet kid, Tumblr teenager, high school emo, cool-kid-wannabe college student, confused first-time adult, less-confused almost-thirty-year-old. Through all of those — and all the people in-between — Paramore and Hayley have been there.
That moment nearly 20 years ago set my life into motion. I don’t think I would work in music if I hadn’t found Paramore when I did, or at least not in this way. Finding that band so young cracked open the internet for me in a very specific early-2000s way. Maybe I was too young, honestly, but once you realize music can be a place to put yourself — your fear and your unbearable little teenage feelings — there’s kind of no undoing it. Suddenly your life starts orienting itself around songs, then around the people who make them, then around trying to make something yourself. In my case, that’s been photography.
I got to photograph her second night at the Ryman because of the extremely kind and generous people on Hayley’s team and the whole night felt a little unreal. I’ve photographed artists I love before — I photographed Paramore once — but this felt different. Maybe because Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party feels different and specifically special to this current version of me. The older I get, the more I gravitate toward art that mirrors back whatever specific ego collapse or reconstruction I happen to be clawing my way through at the time. This record feels deeply about that — not coming of age exactly, but maybe coming apart gracefully and inelegantly.
There’s something special about watching an artist you grew up with continue to mutate publicly while you are also mutating privately. Two decades later, the impact that has had on me is permanent and remarkable. Her record feels full of ghosts and nerve endings and humidity and fluorescent lighting and the specific grief of realizing you cannot think your way out of becoming a person, which, unsurprisingly, has been very relevant to me lately.
Anyway. I think sometimes people assume having one favorite artist for twenty years means preserving them in amber somehow but I think the real gift is getting to keep meeting each other again at different ages, different lives, different crises. I’ve been so lucky to do that with hayley’s art in a way that has beautifully — and tangibly — influenced my own. Here are my photos (and there are more here):
Related: I went to Kilby Block Party in Salt Lake City last weekend. I stepped off the plane and wandered through the airport in a half-asleep haze (my flight was at 7am) until I made it outside and saw the snow-capped mountains that felt like they were simultaneously 5 feet away from the airport and miles and miles away. I couldn’t tell. I’m extremely from Indiana so I’ve never seen snow-capped mountains before. It made me cry almost immediately.
The lineup was engineered in a lab to target me specifically. I’m not naturally a festival person — in a grandma way, I like to experience the things I love, like live music, for 1.5-2 hours, and then go home and sleep in my own bed. But I went to do some interviews for work and take some pictures and I had a really good time. I also think going to music festivals should legally require one full business day of recovery afterward where you’re allowed to stare at the wall and consume electrolyte packets in peace. I’m still tired.
Haven’t been able to dive into new music (or new to me) in a meaningful way lately. Noisy brain and too busy to spend time with more than a couple songs at a time. Here are a few, however, that have broken through the noise (no pun intended):
We talked with her at Kilby and she’s so strange and cool. I love when an artist tells an extremely clear visual story that ties in beautifully with their sound.
Cannot stop singing this song. My excessive and dramatic singing of this song is ruining the lives of my friends and family.
I fell off the Kacey train for a few albums (Golden Hour forever, I’m sorry) but I’m loving a lot on this new one, especially this song.
Because of course. Nate Amos is taking the world by storm and I’m stoked about it. I’ve been listening to Box for Buddy, Box for Star for a few weeks straight but also loving this track from his latest record.
Ratboys is the best band in the world right now, I think. Can’t get enough of their new record.
Last one. Another song I can’t stop singing around my house.
Finally: I’m making some more time in my life to take on freelance work, if that interests any of the people who (very kindly) read my Substack. I’m especially good at taking photos and quite a few other things (social media management, digital content, portraits, promo photos, live music, events, BTS, short-form video, creative direction, generally anything internet-related), and if you’re in the Nashville area (or willing to pay for travel), I’m available and would love to work together. Shoot me an email at hi [at] carlybutler.co or shoot me a DM on here or Instagram.
Thanks for reading. I’ll be back with some other words hopefully soon! Instagram (@ylracbutler) is, unfortunately, where you can find me in the meantime.
xo, Carly