I inadvertently missed last month’s ‘New Music Monday.’ Well sort of. I went on vacation, came back, closed on a new house, and become a soccer coach. So an entry about music was a distant thought in my clouded mind. I thought I could sneak an entry in but decided that entries about Son #1 and the house were more important.

September has been pretty busy with work around the house. It has successfully distracted me from a plethora of things. But music happens to not be one of those things. This month was a busy month; I picked up five new albums both legally and somewhat more liberally. But of all of the records, all of the music, and all of the emotion, there’s one album that stands out prominently. This is no short order considering I just attended a show of the Gaslight Anthem and knowing that Authority Zero is playing this weekend.

I’ve been listening to Linkin Park for going on a decade now. In the beginning, their albums fit a recipe and were predictable and that’s exactly what I needed. A Nu-Metal Rap-Rock genre. Mashing up rap and metal was perfect for a misunderstood young adult like I was back then. But as I’ve grown, so have these musicians. And I like the fact that they’ve used their creativity and staying power to redefine themselves.


“A Thousand Suns” came out on September 14. It’s a vast departure from the previous album, “Minutes to Midnight.” I always thought the previous album was a little too emo mixed with political motivations. These are two characteristics that Linkin Park has never been known for. Then, they went in trying to make a different record. The band succeeded but I think it was a more self indulgent action. This time around, redefining was the concept again. Rules on what Linkin Park ‘sounds like’ were cast aside in the name of creativity and exploration. What transpired during the creation of this album was something so different yet so distinct that it can not be confused for anything other than Linkin Park.

It’s sonically saturating in its existence. There’s quite a bit of stuff going on in every song. Conceptually in both music and lyrics, Linkin Park is more exploratory than they’ve ever been before. This can be good or bad depending on the band and your fan base. Typically, most die hard fans will like whatever the band puts out. However, the naysayers will question the intent of the record. Likewise, critically established bands are much more likely to be accepted for making such bold moves musically. Lesser established bands do not get the creative freedom nor are willing to potentially alienate a fan base and critics.

For a long time, Linkin Park was musically predictable until they released “Minutes to Midnight.” Trying to be politically charged is not their forte. However, the exploration of musical compilation and the cross pollination of sounds and genres charting new creative directions is right in their wheel house. “A Thousand Suns” is a concept album which explores a theme (love, life, and death brought to us by the hands of humanity and science) in continuum throughout the record. From first track to last, this is apparent. The songs tie together musically and conceptually to create a non-stop sonic experience. It’s not a rock opera like the Who or Green Day. It’s not a message like The Wall. It’s a journey through existence told by sound and music like nothing you have ever heard before.

“Burning the Skies” – Beginning so mellow and innocent, this track morphs into a driven, almost marching tempo accompanied by an electronic warfare of sounds and impeccably poetic lyrics.

“When They Come for Me” – In one word. Tribal. The rhythm is intense and hails a subcontinent type of urgency. This is LP type rap-rock synergy. However, the intense lyrics lead into something a little different. Chester Bennington singing hymn-like into a crescendo leading back into that intense tribal drumming with Hindi chanting for effect.

“Iridescent” – As this song begins, you get the sense of feeling alone and solemn. But the music and the lyrics begin to lift the soul. It’s a song about recovery and rebuilding after an apocalyptic letdown. During one section, you are treated to a harmony of voices telling you to let go of the loneliness and desperation.

It’s difficult to draw a summary from three songs on the record. Everything is so tied together that listening to the entire body of work is the key, including the creepy yet evocative intros.

This record seems so familiar in format. But listening, I couldn’t place it. I was just stoked to listen. It’s not Nu-Metal like years and albums past. It’s a reinvention along the lines of Crystal Castles meets Prodigy meets Shiny Toy Guns. There’s a similarity to “Reanimation” which came out years ago and was an ‘electronified’ remix album. And then it occurred to me…Information Society. An electronic saturation of sound in a very 1992 format without being ‘retro’ or ‘old school.’ I love Information Society so it’s no wonder that I’m drawn to “A Thousand Suns,” its music and its message. Again. This is an album like you have never heard before. It’s genre creating and is due a complete listen rather than spotty track selection out of our short-attention span existence. Beautiful and epic in its entirety. Treat yourself to the beautifully intense and destructive music of this record.

On the eve of a big day in your life, you’re usually overcome with anxiety and fear. Fortunately for me, I’ve been overcome with the stress of mismanaged resource at work and the confliction of new home ownership so I‘ve avoided thinking about tomorrow..

Tomorrow, Son #1 enters the ranks of public school as a kindergartener. And while it is a fairly insignificant occurrence in the greater space-time continuum relationship between stars and planets, it’s a mammoth milestone in the journey of our family unit down the crooked uncharted path of life.

It was almost exactly five and a half years ago to the day. I got up early, washed my car, packed up my pregnant wife into the car, and motored south along the Valley freeway to the hospital. It occurred to me on that drive that in a grossly understated thought, our lives were never going to be the same. Hours later, I was holding Son #1 in my arms, changing my first diaper, and making telephone calls to friends and family that I was now a proud father.

Fast forward through the birth of Son #2, soccer and T-ball, preschool, and millions of random acts of craziness and imaginative stories, and here we are tonight; waiting to get up tomorrow morning and take Son #1 to his new school in our new town. Are we ready? Literally, yes. Figuratively, no. His backpack is packed with his school supplies and his school clothes are laid out for him to easily get dressed. That’s the easy part.


The emotionally challenging task is knowing that he’s growing up. He HAS grown up. He’s going to school without us. Preschool was easy. It was craft time, bible time, and play time at a church. He’s now moving on into an education system which marks a milestone of life of growing older and less dependent on our provisions. He will always be our little boy but in some alternate reality, he has become light years older just in one small moment. Tomorrow he walks into a new challenging and stimulating environment by himself. Tomorrow, we let go and have faith in his heart that he will always be strong enough to combat the fears and challenges of being himself.

I’m very scared that while this is just a first day of school, just kindergarten, little by little, the fears and challenges of the world I could once protect him from are slowly being taken from me and revealed to him. It’s a tragic yet surreal theatrical production where the curtain of the real world is opened on his first act and our production is starting to come to its end. Ever so slowly from this night on, he takes a new step to being a big kid.


Some night like this in the not-so-distant future, I’ll be waking up and he will be a grown man. I’m not rushing him to that. Just the levity of the night is a friendly reminder how quickly life occurs while you are preoccupied managing your day. When I pick this laptop up tomorrow night to finish this entry, my perspective altered permanently much like that drive to the hospital when Son #1 was born. He is only my little boy for such a small moment.

Today, it was painfully obvious by the tears streaming from both my own and my wife’s eyes that Son #1 was handling the first day of school much better than we were. We managed to get out of the car, walk across the street to the locally historic brick elementary school. Son #1 stood there stoically wrapped one arm around my leg and one arm around his mother’s leg. For a moment, it felt like we were going to need to pry him off. But he was much more confident in his surroundings than we gave credit.


I leaned down several times to see how he was doing and with very few words he concluded that he was fine and more importantly, not scared. In a strange dichotomy of life, I was more scared for me than he was for himself. One more milepost of life was past this morning. It marked growth for him and age for me. I don’t think my wife was emotionally prepared for the morning to play out either. I think she may have gone through the hypothetical day in her head multiple times. But when the rubber met the road, her eyes were leaking like an old faucet and her voice cracked like a pubescent challenged 13 year old. But it’s hard to prepare yourself for an event like this in your life. It should be easy.

He was in preschool only months ago. The activity of taking him to school and coming back later to pick him up is not new. But this is his formal foray into the public school system. But even more than that, this was the reality check that he is no longer the little baby we brought home in 2005. It’s only kindergarten. There will be tons of firsts like this in the years to come.


But I think what makes this emotionally complicated is that he was born into a troubled time in our lives. He was our security blanket. The little bit of hope in a desolate stage of life. Just six years ago I was in counseling letting professionals convince me not to end it. And here we are now. My wife and I have battled down this path and come out happy on the other side. If I had to draw any conclusions here, I’d have to say that it was less about us being his security and more about us losing our security in his childhood. He was an emotional crutch for us at times. He was unaware that he was an angel that saved us.

He was leaving us for a few hours a day to emotionally remind us about having some inner resolve. Just like him, lining up at a new school, with no friends, and marching into that classroom. He wasn’t afraid and we shouldn’t be afraid of this next stage. Our security blanket is slowly teaching us the example of resolve.


He did great on his first day of school. Before, during and after. He was filled with stories of the day. Granted, he was more apt to tell the comprehensive version to his grandmother rather than his parents. Tomorrow, another big day. He wants to ride the bus with the other kids. Another step along the journey for me and my wife to let go of the blanket and watch the example he sets for inner resolve, a lack of fear in the unknown, and the innocence of life before it gets complicated.