Jonny Numb

As I age, I’m not content to cycle through the albums I listened to like a lifeline on “repeat” during my teen years, trying to – well – “cocoon” myself within some shell of bygone nostalgia.

Don’t get me wrong: for the most part, I still love and value the albums that kept my head above water during those tumultuous, (faux-)angsty times and/or encouraged my “erratic depression” act.

I used to catch wind of new bands via magazines or people within my circle who knew older people with more experience listening to the genres I was fixated on. (I elevated these people – whom I’d never met – to Elder-God status.)

Today, I rely on places like Bandcamp and Facebook to introduce me to new musical acts. Say what you will about the Big Bad Algorithm, but for someone like me – who looks to social media for cat memes, physical-media sales, and music – it can pull some interesting stuff into your field of vision.

I mean, if you’re using Facebook or Twitter to give yourself a steady brain bleed over politics and global issues you are unable to impact in any meaningful way, I can’t offer much except maybe, “make better choices, hon.”

But I digress.

Sometimes, I discover new music purely by accident. For example: I’ve recently fallen hard for Queen Kwong, all because of a “Suggested for you” news article that popped up in my Facebook feed.

Like Austin Powers, I like to live dangerously. I’ve taken to buying albums without hearing any music beforehand, maintaining an element of surprise until I pop the CD in for the first time. While this may seem like a surefire way for a fool to separate himself from his money, I’ve gotten to a point where the gamble pays off about 90% of the time.

Maybe my intuition has gotten better with age – if I have a good “gut feeling” toward the artist, the experience of listening to their music is similarly pleasurable and intellectually stimulating.

After listening to Queen Kwong’s most recent album, “Couples Only,” I quickly snatched up 2 other releases – “Get a Witness” and the “Bad Lieutenant” EP. A quick Wikipedia search revealed that she had been discovered by Trent Reznor, and served as a tour opener for Nine Inch Nails.

Somehow, it all goes back to NIN…the first band I ever took an active interest in, circa 1996.

Based on the 3 releases I’ve picked up, Queen Kwong’s sound hovers in the Karen O-Jack Off Jill-Veruca Salt Universe. But the music is its own unique thing.

And if you order via her website, you get cool packages with stickers and autographed and illustrated sleeve art. Just another incentive to buy direct from the artist instead of Amazon…