Left Coast – Static, Stage Dives and Stolen Smokes

I was raised on the left coast,
Oregon-born, rain-soaked,
where punk rock grows like mold in the corners of your basement
and everyone’s got a band, a vendetta, or both.

Back when rebellion came in cassette form—
when mixtapes were love letters
and distortion was therapy,
we didn’t scroll,
we rewound.

Flannel wasn’t fashion.
It was armor.
Thrown over band tees with holes in the armpits,
boots scuffed from skate sessions
and back-alley beatdowns.

We burned our boredom
with American Spirits and stolen lighters,
sitting on curbs outside corner stores,
talking about how the world was bullshit
and we were right.

Basements weren’t just basements—
they were cathedrals of chaos.
Sweaty walls, busted amps,
some kid’s older brother screaming into a mic
with blood in his spit and truth in his throat.

The shows were loud, lawless, and perfect.
You could stage dive into a pile of strangers
and land on someone who’d become your best friend
for the next three weeks
until they vanished like smoke
after a house party gone sideways.

We didn’t have hashtags.
We had flyers on telephone poles,
taped up with stolen Scotch tape
and layered thick like bark—
every poster a pulsebeat,
a promise of noise and release.

Out here, on the Left Coast,
the sky always looks like it’s thinking about raining.
And even when it doesn’t,
we walk like it might.
Heads down. Hoods up.
Heartbreak in our walkmans.
Hope in our duct-taped dreams.

We kissed in parking lots
to the hum of streetlights and the static of radio stations
that barely came through—
and somehow that made the songs better.

It wasn’t perfect.
Hell, it was barely livable.
But it was ours.

We built stages from pallets and prayer,
learned politics from patches on jackets,
held hands with ghosts who taught us
how to scream without flinching.

Nobody cared if you were pretty.
They cared if you showed up,
sweated through your shirt,
and knew the words to the last chorus
when the mic was shoved in your face.

And yeah—
we broke bones,
broke hearts,
broke curfews.

But at least we meant it.

We weren’t online.
We were on fire.
Kicking at the fences
with chain wallets and middle fingers.

This is Oregon.
This is the Left Coast.
Where the woods breathe heavy,
the cities scream softly,
and the punks don’t die—
they just fade into static
on someone’s old mixtape
you still can’t bring yourself to throw away.