An occasional series where I talk about the bands I love and why.

I mentioned Brakesbrakesbrakes in a previous post, but I thought I’d talk about them in more detail today. After all, they’ve been one of my favorite bands for at least 5 years.

I don’t often talk about how I discovered this band, mostly because I think it’s embarrassing and I have this internal worry about ruining my indie street cred.(Sidebar: Who put that internal worry there? The hipster patriarchy?) But you know what? It’s part of the story. Over the course of working on this blog, I have come to realize that we all have our own avenues for discovering songs, artists, genres. Music speaks to us in a multitude of ways, so it’s only fitting that it comes to us in just as many outlets. After all, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

So yeah, I first heard Brakesbrakesbrakes through a crappy MTV reality show. It was the song “Worry About it Later.” And that song would become the catalyst for my obsession with Brakesbrakesbrakes – and, by extension, indie music.

“Worry About It Later” is this wonderfully sunny jingle. It’s got a quick acoustic guitar that pairs nicely with Eamon Hamilton’s softly-accented vocals. The song is taken from their album Touchdown, which is my favorite of theirs.

Touchdown is, I think, a nice introduction to Brakesbrakesbrakes, even though it’s their later (and so far last) album. It shows their range: chuggingly slow punk-tinged songs like “Crush on You” (which sounds a bit like R.E.M.), and the blistering “Two Shocks” (which has the classic line, “well you’ll never get to heaven if the wind don’t blow.”)

Their other work is worth checking out, too: the punk-heavy debut Give Blood, the slower, even mournful Beatific Visions, and their live album Rock is Dodelijk (obsessive fans only need apply).

What have been your favorite obscure music discoveries – and how did you come across them, as embarrassing as the answer may be?