This post is going to be dedicated to The Strokes, and more specifically, Julian Casablancas. During my first year of University last year I saw a lot of people have pretty big transformations. Developing into the person they want to be or really are. University exposes a lot of people to a lot of new things and due to this they change a lot in the space of one year, and become their real selves I guess.
For me, this happened a year earlier though. I had been going to the same high school for 5 years but for year 12, my final year, for the good of my future career path I decided to go to a new school. This new school had a lot of talented, interesting and unique people. These people inspired the way I thought about style, art and music and I think I really found myself during that year. However, this transformation of mine began when I was 15, infact I probably wouldn’t have even changed schools if I didn’t begin to change when I was 15.
When I was 15 I had pretty average style. Actually, who am I kidding? My style was shocking, so was my music taste. I just listened to whatever was on Video Hits and I wore whatever was “trendy” at the time. So bad, prior to this point I had never been exposed to anything else. I was into design, in a very shallow, naive way. I started dabbling in webdesign which got me into Graphic Design at its most basic level when I was 13. Through a website called Matmice may I added, which sadly does not exist these days.
Anyway, one day, my friend showed me an image of a Man, a very unique looking man. This man was Julian Casablancas, at the beginning I was quite repulsed. My friend told me that he was part of The Strokes, to which I was like whateverrrr. I didn’t really care about this band and their “weird” music. Oh how narrow minded I was. My friend became quite obsessed with their new song at the time, Juicebox. I remember feeling frightened when I heard this song, frightened because I slightly enjoyed it. Especially its intro. I continued to silently and quietly enjoy Juicebox until I liked it so much that I decided to confess my love for this song to my friends. They laughed and proclaimed that they had succeeded into converting. I’m guessing converting me from my major loser status.
After I opened my mind to Juicebox I allowed myself be exposed to a wonderful world of good music. The Strokes were my first favourite band, I was pretty obsessed with them. I still remember August the 6th, 2006 as one of the most exciting/happy nights of my life. Seeing them live was such a thrill. As I looked up The Strokes on the internet I liked their interesting style and as I learned more and more about music and different bands I decided that I liked the attire they dressed themselves in too. I completely changed my look. Suddenly, all the clothes I owned disgusted me. I actually remember going to Myer one day with the intention of specifically buying the start of my new wardrobe. I still own some of those clothes today ^_^. Julian Casablancas’ lyrics made me think of so many things, I was always one to question everything but then I suddenly became more of aware of this. I was suddenly enlightened and it felt great.
Being exposed to all this gave me a much better appreciation of art too and I started to take design more seriously. Basically, I will always have a soft spot in my mind for this band because they were seriously the starting point for a lot of good things I’ve discovered since. So, although they will never know this, I shall forever be greatful to them. Oh and my friend for getting me into them ^_~ Thanks Rhea!
Damn, Julian, if only everyone looked that cool.
