Whatever Happened To Julian Rose and The Letters To Bands Podcast and Book?
Over the last few years a series of events led me to finally see some truths about my life that I was so strongly denying. These truths were known since childhood but it has always been in my nature to deny the undeniable and take the path on the side. The one that looks like the start of a trail, bushes and some deer hooves, but my mind tells me keep going, there has to be something this way! I’m writing now - to say - I’m taking the highways for travel from now on.
To say “a few years” is not entirely correct but it was during the last few years that it became evident that my use of the offbeat paths had me stuck in the weeds. For context, in 2017 I started to work on a book called Letters To Bands. It was to be a compilation of letters I’d written to artists and in those letters my life unfolded as a story. A story of my life and a testament of the healing powers of rock music.
My life, as of then, did not seem like anything worthy to write about. It was the constant comments from people that would share with me, once they got to know me, that I should write a book about my life. Someone I knew who was significant in my past and now still an essential part of my story but insignificant otherwise, worked in film and had some strong beliefs that a movie should be made. This was strange because I didn’t feel I accomplished anything to be granted the right to share my life over others who I felt had much more important topics to share. I regress, the years have changed me and I now think that every single person’s life is worthy of words and a movie or a podcast! I never got the hang of social media but now that blogs and podcasts are sustaining their rightful place, this is the direction I want to go in more than ever. It is my belief that our society needs to hear things word of mouth via written words or conversations. Just as in the past it was crucial to keep your ear to the radio and seek publications to obtain information. This is to share what is rightfully ours, our thoughts and consciousness learning and sharing for humanity’s sake. It’s increasingly difficult knowing what to trust online and the voices of real people, not branded entities, are being drowned out and disappearing. This to me is a crisis and I hope to support conversations by real people to be heard and shared.
A truth is that I started “writing” at the age of 12. I wrote poetry, lyrics and short stories, entirely for my own pleasure. I never sought out to be a writer but I never stopped writing. The book was an accidental thought and purely a way to repurpose letters that I figured wouldn’t make it to the actual artists. It was a seed, initially, that grew into a podcast of the same title. Through all the stages of writing to the realization of my life being told through the letters, from sharing my ideas and cultivating relations with other fans that shared fanism and encouraged my book concept all the way through creating three seasons of The Letters To Bands podcast, I never once saw myself as a writer but only a fan with a keen interest in media design, storytelling, and interviewing musicians in a manner that is non-invasive, non-exploitative and nurturing to extract their truths.
Exactly a year ago one of my letters that I shared on the podcast led me to do my first musician interview with Ed Barakauskus - one part of the duo Teen Mortgage. As prepared as I thought I was from the previous two seasons of interviewing fans on the podcast, I was entirely not prepared and not polished. A part of me was taken aback and wanted to fan out while another part was trying their hardest to stick to the script of playing the professional journalist. This wasn’t a setback but more of a push to keep at it and a taste of something I'd always dreamt of being my profession.
The result of the interview was a worn off buzz and editing fatigue on discovering that my audio setup was less than par. I regretted not expanding on topics of interest, blaming my fangirl part of self for interrupting my professional podcast voice on many occasions with her high pitched and ecstatic voice, which led to disdain in the editing and promotion process. A truth, I’m a trained vocalist. I studied voice for six years. For six years I had weekly coaching sessions with a highly accomplished Broadway vocal coach in NYC. Though my stage fright has prevented me from presenting anything to show for those years, I can for fact, use my vocal techniques in other realms of professional persuasions. Simply put, if my questions weren’t triggering any provocative and journalistic conversations then I relied on the foundation of a solid audio recording and my voice. The podcast was quickly put on hiatus with the decision to focus my energy on completing the book.
Another truth is that throughout out all of that there was a part of me, the squeaky wheel, that kept whispering… Come on girl, do it, you can do this, please finally do this. Then another part spoke up… You’re really going to deny us? They were talking about my teenage dream of being a media and broadcast journalist in music.
I remember being called undeniable, indirectly, when I was about 15 years old. Undeniable. What a resilient and beautiful choice of a word to describe someone. That is irrelevant to me denying parts of myself that were fighting to show me the truths, albeit relevant in that the person who indirectly called me undeniable is also the person who indirectly told me to start this blog and share my writing.
So these events over the years finally came to head in November of 2024. Enough happened to make me fully sit and say OK BABES COME OUT, LET’S TALK. I am, and was, at that point very familiar with the parts that make me a whole. Having had spent years in weekly therapy learning how to love, accept and talk to them. Never had I actually got them all together in the same room and spent time actively digging to find the silent parts that rarely spoke up but patiently waited for me to acknowledge them. A few of these conferences led me to understand that it is not sufficient to allow one part of myself in one moment to make a decision, but instead I needed to involve all of me in every thought process. Some parts of me are just better at things the others are not and it is not fair to shut them out because that era of myself has passed. My parts do not get to live for a year or a phase, they are not trends, and they don’t hide because of fears. They are what makes me who I am and they deserve to grow and expand on what they started.
The book Letters to Bands has been canned. That is not to say those letters won’t be shared, just the concept of it as a published book is no longer a goal of mine. What happened in the time that I took a break from the podcast to finish the letters is that I grew too much. The letters, though dear to me, belonged to another journey in my life that I have not been living. Many of the new letters I was aching to write on the spot were stemming from a new direction in my life which became an entirely new book. Letters to Bands inspired a spin-off book that at the moment takes precedence because it is the truth of who I am. A belief I coddle now is that there is no past and no future, only memories and beliefs. Letters to Bands kept me in the past trying to perfect my writing to someday showcase in a fully published format for all to see. How do I end a story if I continue to live in it and the artists written to continue to produce music and inspire me? It became an endless game of seeking perfection and trying to capture moments that keep escaping. The birth of the new book assisted in accepting that those sets of stories/letters had to end but more letters could be written! A truth to accept is that it will take time to become the writer I want to be and there will be plenty of books to write as I become that writer. Letters to Bands should live and breathe as I did during those moments of my life. Not suffocated to fit an agenda for publication purposes. The letters tell a story of my parts and the struggle I had, indefinitely, was placing my life into a neat little package to present. It took away the authenticity of what I wanted to share with the artists they were written to.
The “spin-off” book - is without doubt a book written to and about Miss Ezra Furman. There will be more posts about that later. For now let’s not take away from the artist that started it all. Iggy Pop. Iggy Pop is the reason Letters to Bands was ever thought into existence, and I am not done with him just yet. All I ever wanted was to finish the book so that my letter to Iggy Pop would mean something. I was waiting to write his letter last to prove his impact on me. The problem was that he triggered the start of something but the ending had not yet happened. Once it hit me in November that I was at my ending the rest of my next phase of life quickly fell into place.
November of 2024 is what I like to call my “Hour of Deepest Need”. That month felt like my soul was trying to leave my body. This was due to the political state of America, a break up, being homesick and feeling lonely, plus the pressure I put on myself to suppress my parts and show up in the world in a way that I think others wanted me to be but not as as I should be, as I have been created to be. Sat on my chaise on a Saturday afternoon thinking, where do I go from here, what happens next? What is my purpose, what can I do to change this world? An angel bestowed me white legal pads with white pens and said - you are at the end of your book. Perhaps an angel did not say that but there was a moment of enlightenment in recognizing that I got to the end and I could finally write my letter to my father in life, James Newell Osterberg. The lesson from the moment I met him to that moment in November, had been instilled and was alive and breathing inside of me, it was power. It is power. Raw Power.
January to now I fixated on finding my voice as a writer. There’s two people in particular who’s writing styles fascinate me - so by studying their style I thought I could create my style - but the real work is in getting through it. Writing enough to develop my style, entirely my own style of writing to showcase my stories and express each of my parts. In April of this year, I decided that I am enough. I found a mantra from when I was 12, I have it all. I have it all and I am enough, along with a few other phrases, changed me to my core.
There’s a lot of “I’s” in this first blog post but allow me to clarify that my truest intention for everything that is about to be released is in all regards to amplifying the voices of the artists that created me. Letters to Bands the book and the podcast is intended to praise the rock persona’s that set me straight in life. The magicians who by their words, vocals, instruments, and pure bravery - chose to live the life of misunderstood chaos - scooped me up and wrapped me in a coat of my own bravery. They led by example and I followed. Now I want nothing more than to share THEIR stories and their influence of creating a life that without them was a tragic travesty.
What does that mean for the future? Well there is no future for me but there is a belief that the Letters to Bands podcast will exist with a slightly different concept and name, to be revealed soon! There will be a special segment for my actual letters from the “book” to be shared. There is also a belief that the current writings I am creating will take place as a published book about an artist that is one of the greatest rock and punk artists of our times. And if that little book doesn’t get published - then - hey, I guess I have season 2 content of the newly revised Letters to Bands podcast figured out.
I imagined my first post to be much more thought out and less of a word dump… and here we are.
Welcome to my world of word dump.