Patrick Flynn

The interior of my heart. ________________________________ (Ft. Give as the soundtrack)

Little one-off with @bandofnothing and @dynamitehardcore and @makewaylondoncrew this summer. New music def out and about by then. Peace & love.

My good mate Alex and the lovely lads in @basementuk put out the album of the year today. While I may be biased, I genuinely love this record and appreciate the break it gives from all the hokum that seems to surround most music these days. There’s nothing better than keeping the spirit of creativity alive and putting out your best material as you keep going and going. Extremely thrilled for @fiddleheadusa to share the stage with them in Europe next month. My favorite track is “Deadweight” at the moment but that fluctuates with “Satisfy” depending on my mood. Peace & love.

Fatherhood is teaching me that the answers to life’s big questions can be found while watching your children play T-Ball.

My band @howmuchartusa is playing with @outspokenoc and @stepfirsthc and I couldn’t be more thrilled. My musical and much of my personal philosophical life is almost entirely shaped by Outspoken and more specifically their record, ‘The Current.’ It’s a fair claim to make that if there’s no Outspoken, then there’s no @haveheartusa - The last half of my teen years and early twenties were mainly spent riding a bmx or the T while listening to ‘The Current’ on repeat, over and over. Their lyrics and sound just hit me exactly the way it should have and I’m glad to have come to know John Coyle (and his lovely wife Tina) a bit better over the years and as a friend who’s as wise as his lyrics suggest. I’m sure the line, “Deny the Flow” is imprinted in some visible way on my brain. Come on out early to @bridgeninerecords in Beverly on May 15th and check out @stepfirsthc to see a piece of the new generation with the right and true spirit you hope for from HC. Peace & love.

🇺🇸 | I’m back home and fully situated in my Fortress of Snow otherwise known as Massachusetts in February. I think my kids liked the trinkets I got them. Massive hugs from them and they look bigger than I remember. Kills me. The Latin American trip was the best tour I’ve ever done. I’ve loved all my trips. Truly. But, oddly I’ve never been more tired in my life while simultaneously happy. “Yo no se.” Maybe it’s American-Hemispherical Unity at work. I just felt a radiating joy rolling through the continent and with all the people we met along the way. I wish we could go back next week and that every band would go there. Latin America is just the place to play. Some (not all!) highlights: 1.) Hearing the crowd in Mexico chant “Fuck ICE” 2.) Monday morning in Costa Rica. Positive, casual vibe. 3.) Rocking the high wire gondola 🚠 thing in Bogota with @dowwwzy 4.) Sammy @mrsza yelling “ALEX!” to Dow right before going into GMMR 5.) Excited talk about the new @basementuk LP with @skatetochurch 6.) Excited talk about the new @fiddleheadusa EP with the Dogs 7.) Brother Bogesh Big Nick Hinsch @nick.hinsch thinking I was going to die in my sleep because I was coughing so bad 7.) Two “meet cute” dinners in Bogota and Lima with Costa (good drummer, I taught him everything he knows) 8.) Seeing @livingcolourofficial at the airport catch up with Walter from when @qsnyc toured with them 9.) @caroxinthesun singing “Fifteen to Infinity” in Sao Paolo The highlights are too numerous and I’m thankful for it all and surely will still be warm from it all on the dark days ahead in life as the ravages of age continue. Life is precious and easily taken. Thank you all. Peace & love and may our paths cross again.

🇧🇷 | The mountaintop of this Latin America trip was trying to check out anything regarding a personal hero of mine, the great Brazilian philosopher, educator, thinker: Paulo Freire. I read ‘Pedagogy of the Oppressed’ when I was in college and then wrote the lyrics to ‘The Machinist’ pretty much the next day. When I teach, especially on the hard days, I remember quotes from him on the importance of infusing love into the act of teaching. It would be an understatement to say Freire altered my life’s trajectory and the choices I’ve made while on a path he envisioned and outlined for all teachers who see education as an act of liberation. Latin America’s greatest administrator @caroxinthesun brought me and Costa around Sao Paolo. We tried to check out the Paolo Freire Institute but sadly it was closed. Alas, I got to see how his work is celebrated in some kind of way. Nonetheless, I was grateful to have a semi-leisurely day eating Brazilian food and seeing the epic color schemes that completely outline the city. It’s wild and I wish dreary old Massachusetts would take a cue from Sao Paolo. The Sao Paolo set the other night stands to be one of the best, if not THE best set @fiddleheadusa has ever played. It’s definitely up there with Jakarta, Santiago, Anaheim, Los Angeles, Boston and London. The set had “the Feeling” as the great @furyochc says. After we finished, the crowd asked us to play another song. We were going to play ‘Widow in the Sunlight’ but this one kind soul who had been getting jumped on for 60 minutes at the front of the stage pleaded for us to play ‘USMA’ and so we did and it was just….ahh…I love that song so much and it means so much and to have what felt like an entire venue singing it back will be a memory I’m taking to my deathbed and into the grave. God bless. However, this whole trip has easily been one of my favorite tours I have ever done. The spirit we’ve encountered along the way is unmatched. More on that after I get home and pass out after landing in D.C. and driving into the cold wintry soul of New England. | 🇺🇸

🇦🇷 | The stay in Buenos Aires was the shortest of all on this trip sadly. Plus, we’re all completely fucking exhausted. I hope it didn’t show on stage because the crowd couldn’t have been more of a life force. They would overwhelmingly sing the GUITAR PARTS which is just the god’s honest best. Riff recognition is a hard skill and I believe the good people of Argentina have mastered that skill. I wore shorts which i hate doing (it was hot), I made up for it by wearing my Crudos shirt. Sadly I forgot to sing the opening lines to the big Evita song, “Don’t cry for me Argentina! The truth is….” My father loved the story of Eva Peron. A poor person who came into some real power and chose to remain a champion of the poor. My apologies to the good people of Argentina. I have failed you in this way and intend to make it up somehow. I did however get to catch some cool little pieces of B.A. before the gig (big Evita on a building, Tupac Amaru on a building, etc) and had a classic lovely outside dinner with the Dogs of @fiddleheadusa (check pic #3 to see the epic sunlight on @skatetochurch and @dowwwzy ) - Being on the road with @rival_schools_nyc we, in the Fiddlehead camp, debated at dinner and eventually concluded, after rigorous debate, that “Wring it Out” is a top 3 @walterschreifels song (“Landmine Spring” and “Audrey” are the others in that top three, for me, FYI). A little dog came up to us during dinner (check the other pics) and I was instantly reminded of the @mirahmusic song “The Dogs of B.A.” and then immediately thought of my wife, who loves Mirah. Then I found myself missing her and relieved that I’d get to see her and our children soon. But not before the final boss of the tour, SAO PAULO, whereafter I hope to catch a flight home and go straight back to teaching, weather permitting. “No sleep, good dreams.” Onward to Brazil | 🇧🇷

🇨🇱 | I think I had a perfect day yesterday in Santiago, Chile. The @fiddleheadusa set last night was basically perfect. The crowd was packed. A shirt I bought in Lima was ripped during the first song. I lost my shoe during the second song. My head smashed into the microphone during the third song. @mrsza yelled out “Alex!” to @dowwwzy right before Get My Mind Right and we played ‘Widow in the Sunlight.’ The kids after the set all made us feel loved and I hope they felt it from us. If I could live anywhere in the world it would be Santiago, Chile. As I fly off from it right now I’d move there tonight if I could. When @haveheartusa first came here 21 years ago we had an odd amount of time to kill (2 shows in 6 days!) in Santiago. There was this sick crew of youth crew straight edge kids straight out of the ‘We’re Not in this Alone’ photoshoot that we hung out with every day. Amongst them was this cool, suave, soft spoken guy named Kifo who let us stay at his high rise apartment in the middle of Santiago. We would ride in the back of his truck as he showed us all around Santiago. Then we’d hang out on the rooftop talking about our favorite New Order songs and how the opening riff to ‘The Factory’ by @samiam.band was easily the greatest and most chill-inducing riff to begin a song (listen to the song in this post to hear it and see second picture for photo evidence of rooftop hangs circa 2007). Those are some of the fondest memories of my life and I was so happy to spend some good time yesterday, 19 years later catching up with Kifo over breakfast. Those memories of a more simple time all came back to me as if I walked through a portal and could see myself enjoying a life free of complexity. We caught up and I met his cool and funny wife while listening to Los Prisoneros. Happy to say he’s still the same, just wiser. Later that day the folks from @monkey_chile gifted me a NO shirt after I told them I was desperately seeking as I am a student of the actually radical and significant but short history of nonviolence. What a gesture I’ll hold onto for the rest of my life. I hope to return the favor one day. Onward to Argentina, somehow. | 🇦🇷

🇵🇪 | The @fiddleheadusa set in Lima, Peru was so good. The kids stayed packed up front and knew every word it seemed. One kid wanted us to play “My World” which we had not played in years. Usually we back away from a request for a song we haven’t played in a while but the positive energy of the crowd and the life or death nature of the kid screaming for ‘My World.’ So, we played it and I quickly remembered how special those lyrics about my father’s “office door, poetry books and Dylan tapes” still are to me to this day….”Their grass dries, and moons rise, and clocks tick…” 🔥💔🔥 I was a younger man last time I was in Lima almost twenty years ago. This was when I discovered my favorite poet, Cesar Vallejo, and my Peruvian friend Gonzalo. Gonzalo is just one of those people who if you ask someone if they know Gonzalo they’ll tell you he’s a truly wonderful human, right alongside his wife Tefa. Gonzalo kindly brought me to check out a little monument to Vallejo in his birth country. Later than night we walked by the city center. Shout out equestrian San Martin and also baby San Martin rocking a microphone. Had some of the best chicken in another “meet cute” with Costa. When I was 19 and just about to head off into the world beyond the U.S.A., my father told me that I would encounter the kindness of strangers on my way and I believe what he meant is that I would meet people like Gonzalo. Onward to Chile | 🇨🇱

Fiddlehead en Lima 🥀 @fiddleheadusa convirtió Vichama Conciertos en una terapia colectiva: gente desahogándose, guitarras al frente y una batería marcando cada latido. Ayer, 18 de febrero, llegaron por primera vez a Lima con @procrastinacion1yo0 abriendo la noche y @goodcrewpe haciendo posible la fecha. Post-hardcore / rock emocional para cuando necesitas dejarlo todo con cada coro. #fiddlehead #posthardcore #hardcore #limaperu #unfractalenlapared

Bandsplain Emo Draft recorded live @somethinginthewayfest in Boston is up now! With my dog Christopher Ryan and our extra special guest @patrickflynnx who knows exactly when the treaty of Westphalia went down Listen now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts