Modern Love Child

So here we are publishing words and links about the World Premiere of a catchy-ass lil' indie pop rock song titled "Ali" from an artist called Modern Love Child!

Modern Love Child makes music that has that Matthew Sweet meets shopping malls in the early 90's vibe to it. It's long knee-d elastic gym shorts comfortable and gives me that nostalgic feeling where I have nothing else to worry about besides being bored as fuck, and maybe where I'm going to skateboard once it stops raining. No bills, no job, no other people to disappoint while you stew in your own brain.

It's shimmering and poppy, but if you pay attention to how the shit starts, the aesthetic is thick and complicated and gorgeous. Sounds like from Modern Love Child seem one way on the surface, but when you peel back that skin, you discover a whole depth you wouldn't have gathered from a mere 30 second exposure. This shit's deep and you don't even know it.

*CUE A ROOM FULL OF FACELESS PEOPLE IN BLACK TURTLENECKS ALL SNAPPING THEIR FINGERS AT SHOULDER HEIGHT*

This is where we deflect from reality and portray every pop song as being rooted in a happiness that is how everyone else besides ourselves lives. Everyone else, besides you, is always fucking happy. Everyone else's life is fucking awesome and blue skied like the Tom Petty "Free Fallin'" music video. You are the one with the problem. Hate to break it to you, bud.

*CUE A ROOM FULL OF FACELESS PEOPLE IN BLACK TURTLENECKS ALL SNAPPING THEIR FINGERS AT SHOULDER HEIGHT HAVING THEIR FACES ALL SLOWLY COME INTO FOCUS AND THEIR CLOTHES ALL MATERIALIZE AND THEY'RE ALL ACTUALLY WEARING COMFY REGULAR CLOTHES, AND THEY AREN'T SNAPPING, THEY'RE WAVING YOU OVER TO JOIN THEM BECAUSE WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER*

Modern Love Child is the pseudonym of indie-rocker Jonny Shane, who originally wrote this song with his high school bandmate, Greg Hillman. Greg completed suicide on his 21st birthday, and is the inspiration behind Mr. Shane heading west to LA to chase his musical dreams.

How's that piece of news hit ya? From a place of pure and complete devastation right?

I knew this song was something thicker than a popsicle before it got to the chorus, I swrrrrrs. I've shared more than one moment in silence with a musician like Jonny here.

Jonny Shane grew up with a dude he loved like a brother who didn't know how to contend with the invisible enemy in his head, who ultimately lost the battle and took his own life. I'm sure you've lost people you love to suicide, as I have lost people I love to suicide.

So why does this song, in all of its bright watercolor joy, inspire me to keep writing outside of just a "hell yea, this song is summer beers in super loose fitting shorts"?

If you aren't aware of my own personal involvement regarding the topic of suicide and suicide prevention and attempting to break the stigma surrounding mental health and suicide, I'll give you a brief synopsis here, and then you can do some clicking and join me in fighting to make sure this shit doesn't happen again.

On May 10th, 2003, I lost my college roommate, Fasil, to suicide. It was Mother's Day, it was to be his graduation day, it was fucking gorgeous outside. While it really fucking hurt me, I was in a transition period in life, having just bought my first home with my fiance, with a wedding coming up the following year, and all of these milestone distractions to keep me mainly unaffected after the tears dried.

Then, in late July 2017, I lost another friend to suicide, and it completely fucked me up. I realized I never actually dealt with my Fasil's suicide, and I certainly never dealt with my own insecurities and fears and all that other shit. I started seeing a counselor and working on the brain brain more and more. But ever since then I have been unable to shake the idea that I should be doing something to help stop these preventable tragedies from happening. So, out of a complete personal shock about the fact that I couldn't handle something on my own, as an alderman for a few more years, I started working on a proclamation project that asked cities all over the country of any size to simply talk about suicide.

That simple proclamation project started in 2017 with a few dozen cities around Illinois all adopting a proclamation acknowledging National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month, and then last year in 2018 it hit 234 cities and 20 counties in 40 different states, and then this year I've been striking out with the emails because everyone is completely overwhelmed with everything else, and I've been doing actual work instead of just talking about talking about suicide.

BUT, since 2018, I've been working and learning about how to better communicate about suicide from the folks at Hope For the Day in Chicago. Led by Jonny Boucher, CEO and Founder of HFTD, I've taken to actually following up with the cities who have the stones big enough to talk about suicide from an official capacity, and attending their city meetings and accepting these proclamations and physically entering their spaces and saying WE SHOULD KEEP TALKING ABOUT SUICIDE, HERE ARE MY FRIENDS WHO CAN ACTUALLY FACILITATE THAT. And then we find ways to get HFTD's educational programs into their communities and schools and all that other shit.

I went from complete and total devastation to realizing I can't shut up about it because I care too much. I want you to be here tomorrow. Period. When Modern Love Child's PR rep Jillian emailed me about this, I had told her I would most certainly run it because I liked the shit out of it (we don't shit on music here, just ourselves), and that I would love to hook Jonny from Modern Love Child up with Jonny from Hope For the Day. She asked what that might entail, and I responded "Even just providing Hope For the Day resource cards, buttons, stickers, and bracelets that say IT'S OK NOT TO BE OK at the merch table is work enough". And I meant it.

But we both know when Jonny from MLC meets Jonny from HFTD that they're going to continue to save the world right?

Because that's what Jonny from HFTD does, and that's why Jonny from MLC released this song in the first place. It's what Greg Hillman inspired him to do.

Rest In Peace Greg. And great fucking work Jonny. This shit bangs.