Anna Koppelman & Eamon Morris

To be honest, Lost Sock is pretty hard to find. The four-person band, formed earlier this semester, is nearly impossible to find in the same place, and the members are so busy with their own projects that you start to feel a little excited just from talking to them.

Lost Sock is an eclectic collection of people. Some of them are distant, some are serious, some are funny, and some are a combination of the three. Their performances (at venues across the 5Cs including the Grove House and Dom’s Lounge) are a frantic blend of wild energy, indie vocals, and strangely familiar personality.

Below are the conversations Anna Koppelman had in two separate interviews with Lost Sock members. At times, it’s contradictory, confusing, and stressful to read. But it’s worth it, and it’s the best way to understand the dynamic of Lost Sock. The three members that Anna interviewed are first-years at Pitzer. Her first was with Leo Menninger (drums) and Seth Husney (guitar/vocals). Her second was with Connie Walden (too many instruments to name). Her interview with Walden was less structured but equally (if not more) illuminating. At times, her words flowed in a way that almost wrote the article for us. The fourth member of Lost Sock, Aiden Dummigan, could not be reached for an interview but is a second year at Pitzer.

Seth Husney and Leo Menninger

TOB: What genre of music are you?

L: Punk Jazz, you know, I don’t know…labels are fucked up man. Labels are fucked up.

S: We are going with Lost Sock at the moment.

TOB: How did you come up with that name?

S: Ahhh– you know when you’re in the laundry room and there’s just a lonely little sock? That’s kind of like the theme of what most of the songs are.

TOB: Being lost is the theme?

S: Being a sock.

TOB: What’s your favorite part of the music creating process?

S: We just like Jamming together

L: Really like when you first conceive an idea sort of, and it kind of just comes out accidentally, or it comes out sort of different.

TOB: What’s your favorite song you’ve written together?

S: I really like the one we wrote last week. It doesn’t have a name. We can name it Anna.

TOB: Do you have any lyrics you want to share?

S: From this final song I do have a lyric: Why did you leave me on read? And I feel like that’s something I stand by. It’s like relevant, quirky, and indie—nobody’s gonna listen to our music off of this interview. But I feel like [our music] is kind of in earnest about how ironic the world is in general. It’s like serious, but it’s pulling on the fact that issues in the world aren’t serious. Like everything is reductive, and funny if you think about it.

TOB: What topics inspire these lyrics?

S: I think just like, you know, as old frank once said ‘these love games.” You know I think these flirtation love games are completely ridiculous and funny, and the thing that’s really funny about it– that when you are in it, it’s so serious to you. You’re like a freshman [in high school] having the most clingy freshman relationship and that never really changes.

TOB: What about you, Leo?

L: I don’t know man. I’m just a drummer.

TOB: When did you meet each other?

S: Oh, this is the funny part. We sat at a table together at admitted students day. I personally forgot about that, and then on the first day when um everyone was crying and leaving their parents we happened to sit next to each other in Benson and I was like “wait you play the drums right?” And he was like no dude I play the euphonium. And I was like “that sucks” I wanted to start a band.

TOB: When did you finally admit to playing the drums?

L: I don’t actually play the drums. I’m just a euphonium player.

TOB: What musicians inspire you?

S: I listen to a lot of Built to Spill because they’re from Boise and I’m from Boise. So that’s always like a big thing for me and then I listen to the same, soft boy post-Demarco shit everyone here listens to. But I like to think that my music taste is superior and I’m not a sheep. Like slowcore, low fi, and old punk bands for sure.

L: I’m on a very different end of the spectrum. Like in rock and punk and stuff like that–what I’m really trying to do with our music right now. I’m trying to listen to more prog stuff like more progressive more meter technical stuff. And I would like to really incorporate that into our music.

TOB: How do you think being at Pitzer has shaped your music?

L: Before I got here my goals were very different. Like I was trying to sound like a jazz drum set player. But all of these concerts here– I feel like I’m really just trying to entertain a crowd and dance to the music. It’s a very different motivation. It changes the way you have to play.

S: I guess my music taste hasn’t changed that much before I got here. But I think Leo’s right, like a lot of the shit I wrote before I got here, was really soft. Now I think I am leaning more on punk shit because live performances matter more, but I mean, in high school I was in a band and I feel like the biggest difference was like a lot of people there fucking sucked. But here there’s a lot of talented musicians. The hard part is getting people to commit to putting shit together.

TOB: What’s at Pitzer sustains you the most?

S: The oranges– I seriously eat like five oranges a day.

L: I’m a big fan of Gary in the dining hall. He just always brightens my day.

TOB: What do you think Pitzer as an institution lacks in terms of supporting musicians?

L: A better Jam room

S: It’s a shit hole. It’s literally in a trash shoot.

L: We love it. But it smells like trash. It’s our shit hole.

Connie Walden Interview

C: Being in [Lost Sock], they don’t treat me that different than any other guy in that group, I don’t know. I guess like, there’s definitely a big culture of masculinity that comes into the music scene at Pitzer and that’s just the music scene in general. I’m currently taking an electronic music class right now and 9 out of 10 music producers of any kind are guys, and that’s staggeringly stupid to me.

That’s bizarre because there are so many beautiful stories that women can tell that aren’t being told, and not to make it about being trans, but there are so few trans musicians that get recognition outside of Sophie or like Laura Jane Grace who’s one person in the punk scene. It can be a little overwhelming– but I’m trying not to frame myself as a trans girl musician, even if that’s important to the context of how I’m playing and who I’m playing with. I’d just say it makes shit a little annoying and hard, even though I don’t really write shit about being trans anymore

TOB: Why don’t you?

C: I don’t know, I think because my problems at this point don’t all revolve around trans problems, I mean I still have a lot of trans problems, but it’s way more just girl problems which is a good thing. It’s a good realization when you realize ‘most of my problems right now are just about being a girl– being like a dumb lesbian who doesn’t know how to talk to human beings. It sucks like hell but it’s so much better than being confused or unsure about my life, or being super dysphoric, that used to be all I could write about or sing about and it just doesn’t take up that much mental space anymore.

TOB: Do you think you’re able to track your own mental growth in your music?

C: I mean most of my songs are super sad and bittersweet songs, but that’s also the type of songs I like listening to, I like songs that are honest, but I can definitely see my own growth in my own maturity changing. I think one of the biggest things on my latest album I’m working is bitterness. I think I used to think, “well in the future I am going to be a girl and everything is gonna be okay” and now I’m just like stuck where I am. I think maturity and bitterness go hand in hand. So I think my songs have kind of gone from incredibly sad to kind of bitter and mature and from a place of more perspective. And I think my songwriting has totally changed since I was here, I have other musicians, like Carson Barry who I can collaborate with and we help work on each other’s songs. It’s nice because even though in certain settings there’s overwhelming masculinity when you find the right people (like Carson) who can understand the context I’m coming from, it’s so much easier to work on your songs and develop.

TOB: What genre of music is Lost Sock?

C: We are definitely indie punk, like 100% indie punk…

C: I think that’s one thing that  Lost Sock likes to do. We like to poke fun at ourselves. A lot of my lyrics like to be dumb and poetic, one of my lyrics recently was “sitting in your room, lost in the shadow, your armchair is overturned” and like it’s…there was a version of that line about sitting on the floor and it was me joking about myself on that level… I think it’s how people use humor in that same way, to be honest when using humor and irony it lets you get at topics you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get at, it’s like when you make fun of something very important and vulnerable. When you listen to a song that has a personal side to it, the music becomes 1000 times more relatable because humans are written to accept song as musical programming. Music is like plugging emotions into the brain.

Anna Koppelman PZ’22  is just a lone girl trying her hardest to make Nora Ephron proud. If you are looking for her, she’s probably either listening to the newest Vampire Weekend songs or promising one of her friends that she is about to start meditating again “really soon.”

Eamon Morris PZ’ 22 is from Orange, CA. He’s happy to be a part of this and wants as many people to join as possible.