project weird ear

Project Weird Ear

Music is one of the few true pleasures in my Earth Realm existence.

My mother was a music educator for her entire career. A career that included teaching me throughout grade school.

I sang in musicals, played the drum set, and marching snare in high school. And I currently practice piano and vocals in the pursuit to release my first ever EP in 2026.

As adolescence hit, my taste in music moved further from anything any of my peers (and adults) listened to.

I’ve always sought out… different. “Nothing mainstream” was, and still is, my strictest guideline. Though with the advent of “democratized” music distribution platforms like Spotify, “weird” has a more extensive reach. Still, what I listen to now is mostly unknown by a majority of people.

If a band gets discovered and gains popularity after I found them (not rare), whether or not I continue listening depends on how they handle their commercial success—basically, how much they sold themselves out to the negative entities running this shitshow. Some completely lose their roots. Others (e.g., Death Cab for Cutie) find a way to maintain their essence.

This project will grow along with my continued music discoveries, but it also aims to take a retrospective look at what I listened to at different time periods of my life.

More importantly… music is how I’ve always marked life events. As I get older and as time accelerates exponentially, doing this helps me track everywhere I’ve been, when, and what I was feeling and going through in those moments. Music is my emotional time capsule, and maybe yours, too.

Music is inextricable from my feelings–these songs are all deeply connected to how I felt and what I was going through at different moments throughout my life.

Each playlist isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a strong snapshot of my favorites from that time. Some tracks were fresh releases from that period, while others had been around for years—like classic rock popping up in, say, my high school playlist. Though a lot of what I listened to was newly released, it’s less about when the music came out and more about what I was into at that specific moment.

I hope some of these playlists resonate with you, and if they make you feel something, drop them a follow on Spotify. You likely know some of these songs as well–if it turns out our tastes are similar or the same, feel free to message me. Because we’d probably get along.

Welcome to Project Weird Ear.

Thanks for being hear.

90s / early 00s

Jock jams, alternative rock that I would mimic in the shower, and music from SNES, N64, and PC games. These are all popular… little bit before I got full-send weird. But, come on. How many kids were letting the wistful tunes of The Sims pull them away to a Liminal Space where they felt at peace? Heavy 90s synths tunes–from The Bulls entrance song, to the (now) famous Stickerbrush Symphony from Donkey Kong–shaped my brain’s tastes to this day.

90s / early 00s

Quick film break

Speaking of Liminal Spaces (here’s an explanation), this peculiar B-list three-part TV mini-series played on the USA network at this time in my life. It evoked deep feelings of comfort despite its horror classification. For some, Liminal Spaces are scary, but for others (me), they’re more comforting. I think it has to do with their connection to nostalgia + dreams. And I love the dream world.

Back to the music.

Quick film break

Back to the music.

Jr. high and high school

In the 2000s, a 7th grader in normie suburbia listening to Something Corporate wasn’t exactly common. Same goes for ska. This period marked a rapid shift in my music taste—a sort of ‘coming to’ moment. I started mimicking what I thought the ‘cool’ high schoolers were into, chasing their against-the-grain vibe. It cemented my craving for alternative sounds—not the spoon-fed garbage blasted on the radio for pre-pubescent kids on the bus. But movies like Out Cold and games like NHL 2002 for PS2 were still shaping my tastes a bit here.

Jr. high and high school

High school

High school is a pivotal moment that often solidifies a person’s personality in many ways. For me, it also marked more of my weirdness. Sigur Rós was hands-down the most influential band I listened to during those years. They transformed me in ways that are still with me to this day. Around that time, my language skills expanded too—I hosted an exchange student from Barcelona my senior year who introduced me to some fresh sounds and ideas. I also worked under the table at a Mexican restaurant with a crew of illegal workers. One of them was obsessed with alternative Mexican music, like Plastilina Mosh, and that stuck with me too. Also, I discovered the now wildly famous “Kids” by MGMT at Barcelona’s most famous club, Razzmatazz, when it was still unknown. It played in the “Indie Room” of the club and I was immediately taken by it.

High school

College loser

2009-2012

This period was marked by extreme anxiety and lots of personal struggles and pains. Hated my first college, yet I walked around, faithfully listening to my tunes. After getting accepted into an elite acting program, I was a bit better but still struggled with extreme self-image issues relating to my weight. These songs were my escape. They grounded me in ways no therapist could. It’s where I could get lost in imagination for better me.

College loser

2009-2012

DePaul

2010-2014

This is where Spotify truly revolutionized music for me. Its hyper-accessibility opened the door to a ton of new discoveries. At that point, I’d lost weight, was feeling sexy and confident, and was thriving in my acting program at DePaul. I was living with a roommate who’d gone from hipster to new-age vibes, and I finally felt aligned with where my heart needed to be. A lot of these songs were my soundtrack as I biked to class, rehearsals, the gym, work—pretty much all over Chicago. Naturally, no one else in my acting program or college was into this kind of music, which only deepened my quirky taste. That said, I did catch some influence from the ‘hipster’ scene during those years, occasionally falling for their allure of coolness.

DePaul

2010-2014

Post-grad Chi

2014-2017

My top song from this era was Pizza Guy by Touch Sensitive. I stumbled across it when it played at the bar of an Italian restaurant where I was taking a break from my own serving gig at another Italian spot across the street in downtown Chicago. Bartender was playing it and we had a small convo about music. I think he had a weird ear, too. I’m thankful for that guy. That track came with me on my first solo backpacking trip to Costa Rica, where I played it on repeat. It defined a lot of that time—cruising around on my bike, getting in the zone for shows and auditions, letting the vibes carry me through.

Post-grad Chi