This is my final music column. And, for this reason, thinking about writing it has filled me with a stomach-churning mixture of exasperation, latent self-righteousness and straight-up writer’s block. Needless to say, this feeling has not been overwhelmingly pleasant. There’s just something so petty about a final column; like, this is my “last grand musical statement” — my last chance to inform Ann Arbor, for the umpteenth time, about how much better FM radio was in the ’90s. (Seriously, if “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Loser” were to crack the Billboard Top 20 in this day and age, I think my disbelief might even rival Miley Cyrus's inevitable aneurysm).

The point is that, over the course of my year-and-a-half reign as the Daily's music columnist, I have not been saving up. Every half-baked theoretical notion about the politics, ontology and evolution of music, every last morsel of intellectual deliberation about what influences the way in which we process recorded noises — essentially every musical thought that has passed through my mind over the last handful of months, I have already consolidated and vomited out onto this page.

Of course, I could have just gone the noble route and not even mentioned the fact that this is my last column. Who cares anyway, other than myself? I could have just quietly snuck out the back door with a cute little rant about how much I love it when a band knows exactly how and when to use miscellaneous percussion. There’s something so simple yet so stomach-tightening when a tambourine or a shaker bursts into the mix at just the right moment, being shaken just the right way.

It’s just that, given the fact that I’ve already said everything major I could have possibly ever wanted to say about music, and that I don’t really feel like writing that column on miscellaneous percussion, I feel like I’m kind of stuck between a rock and another rock.

In a nutshell, I didn’t want this last column to be incredibly lame, but I also didn’t want it to be incredibly indulgent (although this column is swiftly becoming both of these things). And, while I definitely wanted to feel some sort of personal attachment to it, I also sort of felt like this was just my ego being a bit of a dick. After all, the last time I wrote a column about the role of music in personal life, someone commented, quite concisely: “No one cares about your family. Stop writing.”

But I’m not going to stop writing, even though I probably should, since my word count is telling me I’ve reached the halfway point and my consciousness is telling me I have accomplished absolutely nothing so far. In fact, I’m probably just going to regress and talk about why I’m here.

I am here because I used to take baths with my dad. I would take baths with my dad and he would blast me glorious noises on his boom box: Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Led Zeppelin, Stone Temple Pilots, Alice in Chains, The Offspring, etc.

He would take me to concerts too — I remember having to leave Metallica early because the stage was allegedly supposed to “blow up” during the encore, and my parents, both psychologists, didn’t want me to be traumatized. I remember thinking the smell of marijuana was the smell of rock music. But, most of all, I remember thinking music fans were terrifying: big, husky men with intimidating moustaches and leather Harley Davidson jackets; men who exemplified the term "heavy metal." And, of course, their chain-smoking, red-lipsticked girlfriends.

But if my dad had taken me to jazz shows instead, I would have perceived music fans as a tender, warm-souled group of African American head-bobbers. And if he’d taken me to indie rock concerts, I would have perceived music fans as dressing incredibly ironically and all having eating disorders (not to stereotype at all).

I guess my point that I’ve kind of stumbled across as I’ve been writing this column is that music is big.