2025: A Reflection On Music, Trauma Healing, All Ages Shows. Red Ship Vinyl Release Jan 20 2026

The latter half of 2025 has been both action packed, musically speaking, yet incredibly hard. Red Ship came out digitally in June, and while high on optimism and a deep yearning for connection, I made plans to hit the ground running between the East Coast tour and shows in the Western Washington region. Then as soon as September came, my family had a medical semi-emergency and suddenly my capacity had to shift to accomodate. My spouse was fairly immobilized for months, had to have surgery. He's back on two feet now, though full recovery will take at least a year. Things could be a lot worse.

My nervous system is kind of a wreck still. I kept playing the shows. I'd be so much worse off if I hadn't. They warded off the audhd burnout I experienced years prior, though they did add more 'moving parts' to our family life on a day to day basis. I'm still catching up on sleep, I did have a hugely embarassing meltdown on the phone with my doctor's office, my kids watched me meltdown uncontrollably on the laundry room floor. Many more meltdowns and shutdowns I hid from them. But I at least don't want to die anymore, not really. I made it to all the appointments, school plays, play dates, birthday parties. Work. And the shows.

The shows allowed me to sing, strike, be witnessed, and to witness others. I feel so much less alone, like I'm part of something bigger that's living, morphing, growing. I've ruminated over this often the past few weeks, especially as R.A.T Fest came earlier this month. All ages shows saved my life, even when I was too unaware to appreciate it fully as an adolescent. Indigenous healing traditions all around the globe include singing and music making in community, "KPop Demon Hunters" became a huge hit (even in my family), yet the mainstream perspective here on Turtle Island in regards to music-makers is of frivolity and afterthought. I still don't like to tell my mom about Star Matriarch out of fear I'll be shamed for putting so much energy into it 'when you have children to take care of.' Yes, I've been told that. Thought I was healed enough to let the shame bounce off but when this family health problem hit it was clear that there's still a long way to go. The quiet, horrible guilt I felt for having invested in Red Ship because I have not made a 'return on investment' when I have a family to care for, when my spouse was on crutches for over two months, while my oldest, who is neurodivergent and needs extra support, is adjusting to a new school, and the toddler (who JUST became a preschooler) feels these changes intensely and needs mommy more than ever.

But the shows exposed a truth that gets buried under all the day to day stress of parenting under late stage capitalism, that music is a real physiological need for many of us. I need it in order to stay rooted, to stay in my body and alive. What I love about the greater DIY/punk communities is that there is no disputing this, that music making is recognized as a form of community care. I never have to apologize for it, not for my rage, my despair and defiance, my joy, my indulgent cry-singing, shouting, screaming, noise. I'm expected to present myself fully and authentically in a way I don't get to anywhere else.

Between roughly 2011-2021 I couldn't even listen to English language music that had distorted guitars without feeling shame for not having 'made it', for being too burnt out to keep trying. At the time, the running internal monologue centered around how my family was right - I did not deserve to make music for a living, only white people had the right and capability to pursue this kind of American Dream. My parents traveled across the ocean to escape war torn Vietnam so that I could be the model minority, not do that. Not sit around and write rock riffs to wail over. How dare I desire it, even though my white cismale peers were not shamed for their ambition. And because I did not achieve that goal soon enough, I added to my ancestor's karmic debt. Or something like that. Because I wasted everyone's time while I could have been the good little Asian software engineer to pay for my parents' hard work. Even my youngest brother, who rarely spoke with me for years, had something to say about how I was "wasting my life away".

However, that decade long break from music making allowed me to heal in unexpectedly ways - I danced, traveled to Egypt, made friendships and uncovered unacknowledged parts of myself by learning alternate ways to embody voices and sounds. I particularly felt drawn to folkloric music of Upper Egypt and mid 20th century Cairo, the more raw and lofi the better. The drums were louder, the violin and rababa scratchier as were the vocals. Dancing and listening to those, I felt the same energy as I did at punk shows in my youth and missed them immensely. My theory is that both are closer to 'source', expressions of unmasked collective consciousness, pure emotion and presence, that's where that energy comes from. Even the dynamic, complex orchestral pieces sung by Um Kalthoum and Fairuz felt kind of punk to me.

An American musician I once admired greatly said something like "if you're not singing real words, don't sing" and my autistic ass immediately thought "what a limiting, prescriptive way to approach the human singing voice." How colonial, how white, how neuronormative. Sometimes words can't adequately express what's felt in the moment, sometimes words are not big enough. I'm sorry for the limits to his imagination.

Across the globe, there is plently of 'wordless' singing, or vamping on the same vowel sound over and over again, and it can be intensely cathartic and elevating for the singer and witnesses. It speaks to the oldest dna in us, parts that have existed before dominance was normalized, long before empire. and it is so fucking punk to me.

That internal monologue krept back this fall as responsibilities piled up. I wish I could say that I've successfully overcome that shame. However, being armed with this consciousness, this new way of embodying music has been incredibly healing. Playing shows, as I'm supported, witnessed. Unapologetically stretching my words so they become wordless, taking up space. Receiving inspiration from others. Something unlocked this time as Star Matriarch, and while I still have so much healing to do, this is exactly how to do it. I felt it when I watched Lie Ability, Zailee Haze, Elegant Pleasures, Echo Ravine, Grizzly, Ponty's Revenge, Milk Krayt, Stormboy, the kids shoving me from the circle pit (the proprioceptive input is legit healing). When I danced with my 7 year old to Life Rips. Connecting with others through this richly dynamic energetic and sensory exchange. In this political landscape, with the young humans I'm responsible for as a Matriarch, it's what I have to do. We all have to find our people and spiritually arm ourselves this way. No, I'm not religious, but music helped me recognize our interconnectedness as a superpower.

All ages shows save lives. Punk rock saves lives. Music saves lives, wordless singing saves lives. Guitars save lives. Drumming and chanting saves lives. Empire does not so fuck it. Free Palestine, Free Cambodia, Free Sudan.  

Deep gratitude for everyone who came to a show, hosted or played one with me, chatted me up before or after a set, babysat while I played, bought my merch. You all saved my head this year. Wishing myself and everyone an abundance of rest, music, and community this 2026.

Oh, the Red Ship vinyl is 'coming out' January 20th, 2026. Pre-order on Bandcamp and I'll donate a portion to PCRF. Because that ceasefire clearly meant shit.