![]() ![]() (She's in good company: Many writers, including the great Vladimir Nabokov, have been synesthetes.) That's reflected in the soundtrack she suggests at each chapter break to supplement the events she's describing. I hate all that."īarnes has synesthesia - a phenomenon in which people associate certain senses with others, such as seeing colors upon reading words or hearing music. You know if you don't have your lawn perfect and there's HOA? Yeah. But some things remain the same: While she appreciates Fort Collins more as an adult, she says, "that sort of American neighborhood has always felt hostile to me. "Some people just have to be subversive in life," she says. While I’m glad for the health of today’s youth, I almost feel bad they won’t ever experience the dirtbag tang of indoor smoking."īarnes has grown up a lot, of course, and has insights into her teen rebellion. #Type o negative art plusWe knew which cafes would let underage people smoke inside: Max’s Subsonic - an old house turned café with rooms to get lost in that threw actual parties for underage kids - plus late nights at IHOP, and within the dingy, red-painted walls of Paris on the Poudre, the goth cafe. We knew which liquor stores sold to minors: the cramped chunk of cement on Riverside Drive with a view of the train tracks the more wholesome, suburban wine shop where parents might shop, yet they surprisingly didn’t ID. "Our entire network of punks and degenerates knew its secrets. "By age fifteen, we had discovered an intricate infrastructure of debauchery across Fort Collins," she writes. Barnes and her skater-girl gang did their best to escape the boredom that thrives in suburban sprawls. It doesn't necessarily indicate a deeper emotional trauma, it's simply the tendency to dig deeper and burn harder."Įrin Barnes And she burned hard. The truth is that some people are happiest wearing black and listening to fucked-up music, and you're one of those people. The only reason people assume it's indicative of emotional trauma is because you're expected to like pink and cheerleading. In a chapter about skipping class, Barnes writes: "Your 15-year-old self might say you don't need to explain what's cool about ditching class, playing the drums, or subsisting on a diet of coffee, cigarettes, malt liquor, Lester Bangs, and smashy guitars. The stifling atmosphere of Fort Collins was the impetus for her girl gang's plucky, defiant nature. When we ditched school, it felt like a movie, and it felt like we were getting away with something big, like we were robbing a bank." "But as a teenager, you can kind of explore the boundaries of creating situations that are almost movie-like. "Most people don't know what it feels like to rob a bank because their morals stop them from doing that," she continues. If they just totally didn't remember it, I wouldn't put it in the book. I would just reminisce with them, ask them about their memories and talk to them about my memories. "I hung out with, like, my first boyfriend, Johnny Gutpunch. "I hung out with all of the girls that are in the girl gang," she says. Glenn Ross She wrote the book in a matter of weeks during a residency at The Music District in Fort Collins, where she met with her old crew to see what they remembered of their debauched antics. "It was an escapist thing to think about: The idea of running through a field, ditching class as a teenager with very little responsibility, was just so magnetic to me." I was a new mom, and I had to work a lot just to survive in this society, especially as a creative, so I had, like, eight jobs," Barnes recalls. ![]() I just remember being so burdened with responsibility. "I first sat down to write Glory Guitars in October of 2018. Those middle fingers are still in the air, at least a little. She decided to use the Gogo Germaine byline in order to not conflate her career and life as a mom with the PBR-swilling, headbanging, rebellious grrrl with punk-rock proclivities and two middle fingers thrust at societal expectations. Barnes is the communications manager at Meow Wolf's Convergence Station, but she's been leaning into her alter ego, Gogo Germaine, as the book's October 11 release date through University of Hell Press approaches. ![]() That was all part of Erin Barnes's teen years in the white-picket-fence world of Fort Collins, which she chronicles in her latest book, Glory Guitars: Memoir of a ’90s Teenage Punk Rock Grrrl. Raucous punk concerts. Making clay pipes in pottery class to sell to stoners. ![]()
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