The Breakdown: mutual benefit - jizz kitten
Today we’re excited to start off a new year with one of my favorite features - The Breakdown. In case you forgot, the feature allows the artists to explain the work and today we’re welcoming jizz kitten.
As cliche’ as this is going to sound, I was basically living in my car and sleeping on couches when I met Ri. It was around may of 2014; we both worked mediocre-corporate-slave-wage jobs, and we were both depressed as hell. one day, I’m getting off work, and Milli, our mutual friend, who I was staying with at the time, wasn’t home. So off I went to go and search for something to do, or someone to hang out with. I remember sitting in traffic, feeling drowsy and hopeless, dirty and tired. I felt completely alone in the world; stuck in a congested college-town in Mississippi. and by chance, by some coincidental and miraculous odds, I happened to look over at that moment, and who do I see but Ri sitting in traffic, right next to me, smoking a cigarette, looking like she was ready to quit her shitty-burrito job and hop a train out of state, which wasn’t that far off. I followed her back to our buddy seth’s house and I popped out and said, “I’m lonely, can I hang out with you?” As it turns out she lived at Milli’s house and I had been sleeping in her bed. For the next 2 weeks, we hung out on Seth’s stoop, smoking ourselves to death, drinking beer and listening to the moldy peaches and the front bottoms. and I swear it was always “almost raining.” We were sad together, which made us happy. We had found each other, someone to be sad with. A seed was planted.
When I moved back down to the coast, and later that summer i got a DUI. By that christmas, Ri and I had started sending phone recordings of us playing our songs back and forth. The next time i came up to Hattiesburg to visit, jizz kitten was established. The whole sad-porch-in the rain-together thing lasted for a while, and I started visiting a lot more often. Since then, jizz kitten has progressed so rapidly and so vividly that it’s hard to fathom sometimes. We’ve started playing shows consistently, and we’ve had a lot of great response and support. But i think what i’m getting at is that, the “essence” of our “band,” is less about the music, and more about our friendship. It’s less about playing songs and being a band, and more about connecting with people, and sharing emotions.
That’s basically the gist of "mutual benefit.” there seems to be this theme surrounding our music/performances/lives, from any perspective, where there is a feeling of both parties gaining something. for example, Cameron, the guy who recorded the ep for us, needed to expand his portfolio, while we really needed something to show other than a collection of phone-recordings. Thus, there was a mutual benefit. There are several other examples i could list, but i think the biggest one is mine and Ri’s friendship. Anyone who knows us, knows that we benefit from and accent each other, whether it be musically or emotionally, or even spiritually almost. We have a bond that’s truly astounding, that neither of us have ever felt anything like before in our lives.