T is for...

"Take the Reigns" by Tsunami Bomb

The first female-fronted band on the list.  It takes some effort to find female voices in punk rock, and I wasn't always terribly interested in going out of my way to seek them out.  This group in particular no longer exists, though Emily Whitehurst (the lead singer) heads another project called The Action Design.  There's TAT, Dance Hall Crashers, Save Ferris, and HorrorPops, but Tsunami Bomb was the first lady voice I heard in the genre I liked most.

This song serves as a reminder about how not awesome being an adult is, and how wrong I was to think things would somehow work out into a magically fully-functioning grown up life.  There's no Certificate of Adulthood that arrives one day and then you're good to go, you just suddenly have to deal with more and more crap while still feeling like that dorky kid who struggled through Jr. High math.  "No fair!" I want to cry out, but to who?  There aren't any counselors or recess monitors anymore.  If someone shoves me into the dirt, I have to get up on my own.

No fun.

Back to Tsunami Bomb.  This band seems to have always been hands on with their fans and their merchandise.  I couldn't find any of their albums in our local record stores, so I ordered one off their website back when they were still a band in 2004 or so.  When the package showed up, it was hand-addressed in a manila envelope, meaning that someone had taken to the post office themselves.  It also came with one of those Fortune Teller Fish, and a letter thanking me for buying the CD.  I still have that fish today.  It felt like the band really cared that I liked their music, and I appreciated their appreciation.