Marty Isenberg

Opening scene: A young Marty Isenberg takes his dad’s bass off the wall, sits down on a faded green sofa and begins to play. It’s been two years since his father died and waves of grief wash over him. One year later: Cut to a two-car garage turned into a rehearsal space. There’s wood paneling everywhere, a drum set, two guitar amps and a Rage Against the Machine poster on the wall. Marty is in a spectacularly bad goth punk band. They wear black trench coats and pleather pants. They wobble in and out of time, wonky but thriving. Cut to a close-up of Marty sitting on the bottom bunk bed in his bedroom practicing bass, as if it’s some kind of sacred ritual. He looks lonely but focused, deep in the angst of teenage hood. Cut to the present day, Bunker Studios in Brooklyn, Isenberg recording his debut album, The Way I Feel Inside, a mixtape of songs from Wes Anderson films. He has the spark of someone who turned his teenage insecurities into a superpower—much like Wes Anderson’s characters and perhaps like the filmmaker himself. Fade to black. End scene.