TEETH TEETH TEETH TEETH TEETH

Someone who enjoyed my video about the band The Teeth that I made in 2020 and who became a fan of the band because of my video reached out to me last year. They told me about the band's series of three reunion shows (which quickly sold out) and surprised me with tickets to that third show this past weekend in Philadelphia*.

(*I don't solicit this kind of gift and in a lot of cases I wouldn't accept it, but the person who emailed me made it clear I could take or leave the tickets, they didn't want/expect to meet up with me, etc, so I felt comfortable going and feeling like I was not getting murdered or coerced into some horrific parasocial date or hangout.)

For context the band broke up in 2008 and I never expected them to get back together. I got into them way after I figured they'd never perform again. These were their first public shows in fifteen years.

There's a fan upload of the concert in full on YouTube. I was in the front row so I'm visible for most of the video. If you watch I'm sure you can see me help pick up Peter's beers when balloons knocked them over or all the times I glared at the people in the front row who kept taking flash photography photos of the crowd, lol.

I talk about it in my old video essay, but The Teeth song Ball of the Dead Rat (timestamped from the concert I went to here) was immediately, brutally meaningful to me when I first heard it years ago- especially the end segment about past creative accomplishments not ever being enough to sustain you when you're down and lonely. I first heard that song not long after Fake Friends 2 had dropped when I was coming to terms with the fact that this one video wouldn't "make" me, and, more brutally, that making a video, no matter how good, wasn't going to meaningfully elevate my self-worth when at the time I was still broke and living with family in my late twenties while my college friends all had stable full-time jobs, got married, bought houses, and so on.

It was only by quitting video essays for a couple of years and working anonymously full-time for a YouTube channel during that period that I was able to pay off most of my credit card debt and move out from living with family (and also afford a variety of medical/dental procedures I needed).

It's hard to talk about without coming across as kind of whiny/pathetic and like I'm trying to guilt fans into consoling me, but after a certain point (and before I started in earnest on the Lutsko essay) I saw myself at best as someone who would never reach the level of recognition and financial stability off my own video essay work that was in any way in proportion to my own ambition and years/sacrifices I put into it (or in proportion to my own ego/entitlement honestly lol), and at worst as a failed video essayist. (For the record ego and money woes pale in comparison to the immeasurable psychic damage I have taken over the years at my own inability or the inability for video essays or art generally to meaningfully "change the world" in any wider structural sense, which is a huge theme in the Lutsko essay I'm working on now).

I think if I wasn't willing to stake months of work (like thousands and thousands of dollars of equivalent work if I did it freelance) on the Lutsko essay and risk it bombing, I'd always be an ultimately failed video essayist in my own head. So I'm happy for the opportunity and working very hard to balance everything and continue on it, and genuinely very grateful for every dollar y'all give me and for all of the moral support and encouragement. Frankly these kinds of risks are only made possible thanks to Patreon help and thanks to me making money doing freelance video editing for ad agencies and bigger youtubers. A video potentially flopping is less devastating to me for sure when I make rent money elsewhere.

Hearing Ball of the Dead Rat live brought all these complex feelings back up for me.

And for Critical Bits fans, I used to have to take the train for ages (or some combination of Uber/train/bus) to get to where Joel could pick me up for recordings and I listened to the Teeth album You're My Lover Now I don't even know how many times on the bus/train to and from those recordings. In a lot of ways it put me in the right mindset for the show (which while a comedy was also dark, full of body horror, and focused a lot on fear and anger emotionally). Especially the song It's Not Funny, which I strongly associate with my character Kim because I'd listen to it and a few other songs as a way to get into character when I played her. And after recording and taking a long train ride home, I'd be exhausted.

But back to the show, seeing it live was really incredible. The energy in the room was insane and the band seemed to give it their all. Their performance style is kind of eccentric while being as full-hearted and vulnerable and sincere as you can get, especially when singing about such dark topics.

I was thinking, consciously or unconsciously, about all this emotional personal stuff and how far I've come and how long I've been at this while at the concert. Peter (Peter MoDavis, one of the band members) had seen my video essay as well a while back and had said he appreciated it. I got to talk to him briefly after the show. It seems like my video was meaningful to him, which is wonderful.

While writing this post I tabbed away for a while and in the process realized my YouTube channel is nine years old next month.

Good lord.

- Shannon