SHOWS // Colleen Green @ The Echo
Words and photos by Andrew Bundy
“Hi, I’m Colleen Green. I’m going to play some songs for you and I hope you like them.”
Almost every time I’ve seen Colleen Green perform this is how she has introduced herself. This past Saturday was my eleventh time seeing her perform live since discovering her magnificent record, I Want To Grow Up, released two years ago – although the first time with a full band backing her. She changed up her introduction for the occasion:
“Hi. We’re the Colleen Green Band. We’re going to play some songs for you and we hope you like them.”
Unsuprisingly, she introduced her band with the same DGAF attitude they likely all share. Like her, they all know what kind of music they love and that’s all they care to be a part of.
It took far too long for me to understand this about being okay with yourself.
Someone else whose work is very near and dear to me happened to be in attendance that night – comic book artist/writer Sina Grace. Sina’s a really good guy and we share similar taste in music.
Sina released a magnificent graphic novel just a few months after I Want To Grow Up in 2015, entitled Self Obsessed. In it, through doodles, strips, songs, diary entries and more, Grace reflects on the journey of his life, the art that’s inspired him, and his experience coming out as a gay man.
He happens to interview Colleen Green in the book as well.
Self Obsessed resonated with me deeply. I wrestled with my sexuality constantly throughout my youth. My first intimate experience was with a guy, in the bathroom, just before turning thirteen. I made the mistake of telling my immature best friend about it.
Rumors of my extreme, perverted sex acts percolated all through campus throughout the rest of my school days. I was pointed to and laughed at by everyone I knew. I was told my feelings/actions were wrong and creepy – even by many of these people who knew next to nothing about me.
I was still growing up, still figuring out who I liked, what I loved, and, most importantly, why. But the world doesn’t work that way in middle school.
No, if I was cool, I had to be listening to System of a Down and Sublime. Incubus and SUM 41.
“Girl singers are for fags.” I actually heard that once.
I had to be slapping girl’s asses and wear a watch bigger than my fist to show off. “You’ve never slapped a girl’s ass before?” another utterance I remember all too clearly.
“Dude, everyone knows Bundy’s gay.”
I still listen to girl bands and don’t slap women’s asses. I relate to Colleen Green so much that her song, “Whatever I Want” makes me want to cry. Just as in middle school, these things don’t make me gay, or even bi, but they have helped me learn who I am and what I’m about.
Colleen’s song “Some People” sums it up; sometimes you just want a girl who thinks like you. Other times you need something else – one of Sina Grace’s comics, or a hug from someone you care about, to make you feel less alone.
Sometimes all I need is to bang my head to some great music that makes me feel something.
“Hi, I’m Colleen Green. I’m going to play some songs for you and I hope you like them.”