Name
Brett Wodon
Twitter Handle
www.twitter.com/antsmoshing
Current Favorite DMB Song
Warehouse
Current Favorite DMB Lyric
"I'd like to stay here..." - Warehouse
Song In Reference
Crush, Ants Marching, Sugar Will
My Brief Dave Journey Hi, my name is Brett. I am 20 years old, and I am a huge Dave Matthews Band fan. This alone is strange. I think even stranger is that no one really helped me get into the band. Fans my age usually have parents or a family member at least who guides them into the DMB family. My case is way less direct. I figured for my first post, I would introduce myself and what DMB generally means to me. The story of how I got into them falls right into this conversation.
It was senior year of high school, 2018. My best friend (we’ll call him P) showed me a comedy bit by Marc Maron (one of the best, in my opinion), that poked fun at Dave. I had never even heard of Dave Matthews or his Band. Little did I know, my best friend and my girlfriend (also in the room; we’ll call her H), grew up hearing DMB from their dads their entire lives and absolutely hated Dave. Being young, dumb, and really into death metal at the time, I took one listen to Crash Into Me and Ants Marching and went “Jesus those guys were right.” It became an inside joke to play Ants and Shake Me Like a Monkey (P’s father’s apparent favorite song) while we hung out.
Flash forward to me in my freshman year of college. Late 2018. December to be exact. I had been away from home, my family, and my girlfriend for the first time. My life was changing, and I kind of was too. I began to get weirdly curious about DMB. It started with me listening to UTTAB one night, and I was sort of jamming out. I then started putting on Luther College to fall asleep. I really got into One Sweet World, since it was the first song on Luther College. Still a cherished song to me. I then checked out Come Tomorrow, since it had come out that summer. I really enjoyed Come Tomorrow. I don’t quite love it as much now, but it will have a special place to me, because it really helped me get into the band. Over that December month I listened to it a lot, and then I went home for winter break, and I started checking out the older music. I fell in love with Crush. That is still one of my favorite songs. I also now had something to talk to my girlfriend’s dad about. I even went with H, her older sister, and her parents (who go see Dave every year, as I will be doing from now on) for Camden N2 2019. It was a magical experience. I was already really into DMB by then, but I still had a lot to learn. I’m still so mad at myself for not knowing Sugar Will at that time… After that concert, I was completely hooked. DMB is now my top played artist on Spotify, and UTTAB is my most scrobbled album on Last.fm. Before These Crowded Streets sits comfortably at number 9 on my latest update of my top 50 albums of all time.
What Dave Matthews Band means to me was an escape from a world of heavy metal and punk music that I had entrenched myself in for a long time. (I still love metal and punk a lot, see my Twitter handle: “@antsmoshing”). It was a fascinating new world of music that was so hugely popular for 25 years, but I had never even heard it before. It was a new music journey for a new chapter of my life. Dave helped me handle so much change going on in my life. I am openly a Dave Matthews fan, and I will wear that proud forever. My mission is to spread the love to my generation.
