Noah Gundersen

Reflecting on a Younger Self

It's a strange thing to have a living artifact of your younger self. To observe the manifestations of a younger you's inner life. To be honest, it's often cringy and anxiety-inducing. With the benefit of hindsight, our shortsightedness and misplaced fears and hopes seem so obvious. As I look back, ten years later, to the person I was when I made Ledges, I see a young man full of ambition and naivety, desperate for validation and a sense of belonging. I see a boy with a singular vision and a hell of a lot to learn.

Creating Ledges

They say you have your whole life to make your first record and 18 months to make your second. Although Ledges isn't technically my first album, for all intents and purposes, it feels like it. It was the one I spent years writing. Some songs were written on a mattress on the floor of a rented room I shared with a friend, in a run-down old house I moved into when I left my folks' place at 17. Some I wrote in my first apartment in Seattle. One was written in the early hours of the morning, waking up on a friend's couch to a simple, beautiful piano arrangement Abby wrote. One, after the unexpected heroin overdose that resulted in the death of a friend. Another, after briefly reigniting an old flame, only to watch it quickly burn out.

Experiencing Life's Ups and Downs

Everything was new back then. The colors were brighter, the highs higher, the lows lower. Falling in love felt like the first time. Heartbreak felt like the end of the world. Ideas felt important and the future was a big, empty canvas. There's a lot of self-importance in all of this and ultimately, this is just some record that some kid made. But to that kid, this record felt like his whole world. And like all records, it's a little snapshot in time.

Snapshots of a Past Life

How lucky we are to have snapshots, photographs of moments, and memories that ground us in the reality we've lived. I don't want to live in the past. But I'm grateful for this marker of how it once was. A little simpler, a little cleaner, a whole lot of potential. And maybe that's a reminder that I'm living in that potential, right now. This is the future I imagined and hoped for. This is the person I am now. And it's nice to be able to look back and see how far I've come. And if you found this record 10 years ago, I hope you can listen back with the same gentle hindsight.

Event Admission Policy

This event is 21 and over. Any ticket holder unable to present valid identification indicating that they are at least 21 years of age will not be admitted to this event, and will not be eligible for a refund.