Road Trip Listening Diary: Part 1
New York, Wilkes-Barre, old favorites, new classics.
I’m driving six hours to visit a longtime friend and her family in upstate New York over Memorial Day weekend. I’ve never made a trip this long before, let alone by myself. I’m a little nervous. I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts that long, so I load my phone with podcasts and audiobooks. I don’t listen to any of them. I listen to music instead.
Thursday
11 am
I’m hitting the road a little later than expected, but it’s okay, I tell myself. There are no hard deadlines. I listen to my monthly playlist until I hear a song that reminds me of “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind, so then I have to listen to the whole self-titled album.
One of my earliest musical memories is hearing my parents play this cd; it had an unfortunate scratch that ruined the jittery intro to “Graduate.” I think people take this album for granted because of its popularity, but it really is that good. Beyond the undeniable singles, the back half stuns, from the glimmering guitar tone of “Thanks A Lot” to the somber lyrics of “The Background.”
In summer 2023, I got really into “Motorcycle Drive By” and learned how to play it in guitar lessons. I used to choke up singing along as I stumbled through the intricate finger-picking parts, building to a chorus that crashes like a wave. The lyrics “I’ve never been so alone, and I’ve never been so alive” hit differently on the highway. They feel less like resignation and more like freedom.
1 pm
I’m ready for another nostalgic singalong, so I put on Jimmy Eat World’s “Bleed American” after stopping for lunch. I often can’t decide whether this album or “Clarity” is my favorite Jimmy album, but this listen solidifies that it’s “Clarity.” Sure, “Bleed American” has the undeniable singles, but the b-sides lack the magic of “Clarity,” either feeling too saccharine or trending toward the workmanlike quality that would define some of the band’s later albums. By the end, I tell myself it’s okay to skip “My Sundown.” I snack on a strawberry biscuit from Popeyes and keep trucking.
2 pm
One perk of this trip is driving through northeast Pennsylvania, a region that spawned much of my favorite music. While planning my trip, I decided to stop in Wilkes-Barre, home to Title Fight—a blazing post-hardcore band that proudly repped their hometown in their heyday and has become even more of a cult favorite since their hiatus in 2018.
I became especially intrigued by Wilkes-Barre after reading vocalist and bassist Ned Russin’s debut novel, “Horizontal Rust,” in which recent college graduate Graham returns to his hometown to participate in a fraternal life insurance organization’s conference. “Lucky for me, Wilkes-Barre is boring,” Graham says. He’s not missing much spending a weekend in a hotel, schmoozing with family friends and deliberating organizational bylaws. Jobless and determined to make it out of his hometown, Graham becomes embroiled in a campaign to oust a longtime board member, who happens to be the father of his crush, Ollie, in town from Ohio.
Throughout the novel, Graham shows Ollie around town, visiting an abandoned hotel, a greasy pizza joint, and, in one of the book’s more memorable scenes, a plaque honoring someone who did make it out—abstract expressionist Franz Kline. I looked up the plaque’s location along the Susquehanna River before my trip. It’s not far from downtown.
“Floral Green,” my favorite Title Fight album, hits differently as I drive through the mountains and peer into lush valleys. It’s the kind of album that makes me want to run through a wall, and listening while tearing up 81 is a close second. I turn down the volume as I get off the highway and start to meander through the city.
I park on Main Street right in front of the famous John Slaby mural featured on the cover of Title Fight’s “Hyperview” album. The storied mural is peeling and faded in spots; it makes me realize just how long it’s been since that album came out.
I stop by the Sordoni Art Gallery at Wilkes University, which features an exhibit of beadwork by women from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Then, I visit an art store and an overwhelming record store. I make my way through the town square; it’s charming and quaint, but the streets are quiet and many of the storefronts deserted. I can see why Graham thought Wilkes-Barre was boring.
At Abide Coffeehouse, I order a dill pickle lemonade and a mint mocha to get me through the rest of my drive. The barista compliments my hair.
“Are you a student?” she asks.
I blush and tell her no.
“Are you sure?” she asks. “If you did go back to school, what would you study?”
In D.C., I usually answer public health, which is something I’ve considered, but I’m not in D.C.
“Probably creative writing?”
It’s funny how when you’re traveling you can sometimes be more yourself than you can in your everyday environment.
Juggling my drinks, I start to sweat as I make it down to the river, which is grander and more beautiful than I expected. It’s getting humid and threatening rain. I realize my parking meter is about to run out, and Franz Kline is in the opposite direction. For some reason, when I read “Horizontal Rust,” I pictured his plaque standing alone, but Kline is just one of many local legends immortalized in bronze along the riverfront, making him harder to find.
I imagine my friends pacing around waiting for me. I imagine trying to explain to them that I was wandering around a small city trying to find a plaque from a book published on a small press they probably haven’t heard of, and then I got stuck in rush hour traffic. I have to go. I start skulking toward my car when I realize that I am indeed walking in the right direction, and there is Franz Kline’s plaque right in front of me. I burst out laughing. I’m home.
5 pm
After a brief detour at a Turkey Hill for gas and snacks, I’m feeling weary, so I put on some music for a singalong: the 2003 Grammy Nominees cd. The summer I was eight years old, my family got this cd from the library and dubbed it on a tape cassette that we played in my mom’s car everywhere we went. It kicks off with Vanessa Carlton’s classic “A Thousand Miles” and Norah Jones’ dusky “Don’t Know Why” before upping the ante with “How You Remind Me” by butt-rock titans Nickelback.
I remember singing The Chicks’ cover of “Landslide” in a “singing contest” at a sleepover (I came in second place) but often fast-forwarding through it around my parents, noted Fleetwood Mac haters. I still know all the words to Eminem’s “Without Me” and Nelly’s “Hot in Herre,” and the ever-painful, ever-relatable “Foolish” by Ashanti is one of my favorites of all time. I used to practice “All You Wanted” by Michelle Branch for my eventual American Idol audition.
I used to start losing my voice around Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” when I sang along as a kid, and the same holds true for me as an adult. I sit back and listen to John Mayer, Sheryl Crow, P!nk, and Britney Spears. What a time capsule.
5:45 pm
The Grammy Nominees album starts getting a little weird around the Sting song, but there are a couple gems toward the end, including “Girl All the Bad Guys Want,” by Bowling for Soup. When I was 13, the first summer I had an iPod, I spent so much time listening to “A Hangover You Don’t Deserve” and thinking, “this summer’s going to be different!” (I’m not really sure what I meant; I think I just really wanted to relax more with friends without adults around?) There are some undeniable songs on that album, but halfway through, Jaret Redick’s voice starts grating on me, and I realize just how dated a lot of the lyrics sound. At least I’m not stuck in traffic.
6:15 pm
I put on the “I Saw the TV Glow” soundtrack and finally get off the highway. The sun is starting to set, and I’m noting every farm store I pass, dreaming of stopping for doughnuts or fresh fruit in the morning. I’m hooked by the melancholy Sadurn track, “How Can I Get Out?”, which feels like the perfect soundtrack for golden hour, and put on their album “Radiator.”
I brushed this album off when it came out, thinking the tracks I heard paled in comparison to other country-tinged indie rock that came out in 2022—Wednesday, for example—but I listen now with fresh ears on the winding mountain roads. Like Wednesday’s Karly Hartzman, G. DeGroot feels at home slipping and sliding in the space between notes, but Sadurn’s lyricism takes a less abstract, more confessional tone than Wednesday’s impressionistic storytelling, making for songwriting that compels me in a different way. While some songs feel held back by programmed drums and bedroom pop trappings, the full-band songs really rip; and DeGroot’s voice is spellbinding. I can’t wait to hear more from this band.
Before I know it, I have arrived.
Here’s a sampling of what I listened to on the way. In the next issue, I’ll tell you what I listened to in Ithaca and on the drive home, and I’ll update the playlist accordingly.