Taking Back Sunday at Government Center

It’s hard to turn down a free concert, even if that means watching Taking Back Sunday. Especially considering the underlying theme o’ this blog.

I’ve never been entirely “in” to TBS. Just something about them never really caught me, even though I was their prime target when they first hit it big. I can understand the positives and the negatives for and against the band, and in most ways they really epitomize the 3rd wave version of emo that was being cranked out five some years ago. Dashboard was the band on every journalist’s lisps, but TBS was the band like all the other emo bands; their lyrics and music was thoroughly average. Average as in they could easily fit in the middle of a set by any guitar-oriented emo band coming out in that period of time… they sounded just like everyone else and vice versa. Not too many folks took to the acoustic troubadeour style in the emo realm, and in that TBS really are representative of the then-hottest word in the music world.

Anyway, back to Friday night, where TBS were set to play at Boston’s Government Center.

I get there a little after 9, which was when TBS were supposed to go on, only to find some random metal band, Crooked X, doing a really terrible cover of “Another Brick In The Wall” that allowed them to show off their wicketd skillzzzz. ZZZ is more like it. Boring and more than a little trite, and they managed to pack in all the rock’N’roll stereotypes into a solid ten minute perfomance of the song (seriously, how many times do you have to introduce every band member while playing the same riff for five minutes and declaring your love for the audience?) Then some random dude from MTV2 (or some MTV offshoot) did his whole routine of pumping up the audience and shouting one of the most redundant questions that there is: “who likes free stuff?!?!” (ans: everyone) …and it’s more like free advertising, w/free t-shirts with some odd company logo on it (who can keep up these days) while a big Verizon sign stood monolithically in the background.

In the half hour it took to set up, people were busy texting to the big Verizon screen next to the stage, while every once in a while someone would come onstage in order to direct a lost kid to their guardian or cousin for the show. It’s really nice to know that, even with all the mass advertisement and corporate machismo, kids of all ages are able to see what is a fairley big and well known band. And for free. Unfortunately, at several points, many in the crowd would shout the name of the lost kid in a taunting manner… as if they were never some lost confused kid in a crowd.

Anyway, half an hour later and the band went on, with what’s probably 4 new band members. I’d seen TBS perform in that very spot two summers ago, and I distinctly remember a bunch of completely different musicians, save the original guitarist (Eddie Reyes) and frontman (Adam Lazzara). It turns out they’ve now got a bit of a history for a revolving cast of musicians, and it’s good to see they’ve got a sense of humor about it with selling “I Used To Be In Taking Back Sunday” t-shirts for $20.

ALL IT TAKES IS $20 TO HAVE BEEN IN TAKING BACK SUNDAY. ($15.99 online + tax + shipping)

And get a nice yellow t-shirt to boot.

Anyway, they played a couple of new tunes to start out, which seem kinda glossed over radio-pop that sort of resemble their previous material, but in a washed up manner. With the sound cutting in and out, and three guitarists, and Lazzara’s vocal rarely audible for some reason or another, it seemed kinda… well, meh. Meh is the perfect describing word.

Then they launched into some of their older material. And there was a difference. Back in the day, I would always wonder at how they were on the radio. Crammed between the average Creed and circa-90s Green Day song, it would focus on how odd they sounded on the radio. It literally sounded like a revolution was happening, that musical change was occuring on corporate radio. Lazzara’s vocals are the least bit typical of anything you could hear on the radio – neither particularly strong or confident, and yes a bit whiny. And the lyrics crammed every word viable into a short amount of space. And the chug-a-lug of the songs mixed in with these blasts of noise around the chorus, even given what grunge did, so odd.

And yet I forgot how damn catchy they are. TBS now aren’t nearly as catchy now, their lyrics are even more bland, etc etc etc. But man, is there this blast that just hits you and it’s unexpected, and the vocal harmonies. You don’t expect it. Especially today, when they’ve gotten so formulaic.

I left a couple of songs after “A Decade Under The Influence,” because there was nothing more I really needed to see. The band was slopy and a bit of a shadow of what they once were. Even in that one moment, I could somehow, somehow overlook the malintented lyrics and overall bland output of the band recently. But, it was a solid few minutes, and that’s all I could ask for from that band and on a Friday when there really wasn’t much going on at 9:30. Backhanded compliment? Perhaps. But it might be the best I could ever give ’em. It could be the nostalgia speaking (but really, I’m not terribly nostalgic for high school), but those few minutes were O-KAY.

One Year After Mexico’s Anti-Emo Riots…

Last year, Mexico City was the scene of an all-out subculture battle that shook the country to its very soul.

Or so the media made it seem.

And so the media made it. Period.

The very reason I was upset by the illogical and false comments by a “journalist” from the Louisville Parent Examiner was because of the influential hold that the media – all types of media at that – have an influence over those who read it. The press are supposed to be the watchdogs of the public in a democracy, with the media informing society about their world around them. But what happens when the details are fabricated, when lies are thrown in? What happens then?

Last year, it was the “anti-emo riots” in Mexico City. What began as some Internet-fueled complaints about emo from those clearly not involved in the scene, local popular MTV Telehit host Kristoff launched some complaints against emo. Next thing you know, there are some scuffles between punks and metalheads against emos in Glorieta Insurgentes Plaza and the media take up the story and make it a headline issue. And then more outbursts involved in these youth subcultures.

Today, as Mexico’s News reports, once the media attention died down, so too did these occurrences. Here’s more:

 

“Fernando Aguilar, a professor of youth politics at the UNAM, said that urban groups largely coexist peacefully, and that their members have been unfairly marked as dangerous and aggressive as a result of a few isolated incidents.

‘The media create a supposed rivalry between these groups, a rivalry that doesn’t exist,’ he said.”

 

And there it is. In print (or online). A message infiltrated into the media, for the media. And there’s more:

 

“Benjamín Flores Esquivel, an 18-year-old dark [Note: “dark” is slang in Mexican culture for metalhead], skates off a curb with a few of his friends, some emo, some ‘raztecas’ reggae fanatics.

‘The fighting between groups is stupid, and it happens in a moment of craziness,’ he said, fiddling with his pentagram necklace. ‘For me, it’s easy to exist with people from other groups.’

Vividiana Aguiar Cinta, also 18, agreed. 

‘Not all punks harass emos. They’re friends,’ she said while passing through the plaza. 

‘Fighting comes from intolerant people.'”

 

‘Nuff said.

 

YouTube clip of Kristoff’s show on emo that apparently (according to a poorly-made translation of the post, by the individual who posted the clip) “started” the riots nearly one year ago:

Red White and Bluemo

James Montgomery’s recent piece for MTV, “Are We Ready For Barack Obama’s Emo America?,” is great not only because of the juxtaposition of stereotypical American values and musical genres, but because the work gives support for emo as a generally progressive and positive mode of communication. Although Montgomery lumps Sufjan Stevens into this mix, the fact that the general attitude of the article (or at least what I take from it over the spare pot-shots at emo stereotypes) exposes a form of critiquing ones’ nation and self as a way to move forward and build to the future is, above all, the first positive message concerning emo of the year. Now there’s some change.

 

Extra: As I pointed out in an earlier post, A.R. Rahman and MIA have been nominated for the Best Original Song Oscar, and they’ve got a 33% chance of getting that award.

They Said It…

Right on the button… The emo-inspiring (in pop terminology, that is) webcomic title of Pictures For Sad Children has some of the driest and most on-point sense of humor I’ve seen online. And the depictions of music blogs and obsessions with top 10 lists is pretty histerical, even given my own end of the year lists.

Still, the thing I love most about end of the year lists isn’t an incessant need to categorize everything, but rather reflect on some of the music/movies/whatever that I found particularly compelling from the past year. These lists are often attempts by many to stand the “test of time,” but in many ways they’re a great marking for an individual’s personal state-in-time. Looking back on some of my previous end of year lists, I see records I undeniably loved and still cherish, but I can see there are other albums that would have garnered higher spots and some records that mean more to me as a, dare I say it, nostalgic item more than “album # of whatever year it is.” Looking back, there are some albums I might dig up soon and give another re-listen (because catching up on music is a job in and of itself).

Largehearted Boy has a full listing of countless year end music listings, to which this blog was humbly included, so check out that site for all the music you could ever want and more. I will not even attempt to match what he’s done, but rather give something of a breakdown, matching where I placed my top 10 against other listings. Enjoy:

# 1: TV On The Radio – Dear Science,

#1: Ann Powers (L.A. Times), The A.V. Club, Chris DeLine (Culture Bully), Entertainment Weekly, Jon Pareles (New York Times), Josh Keller (Culture Bully), Michael D. Ayers (Billboard), MTV, Rolling Stone, Spin

#2: Edna Gundersen (USA Today), I Guess I’m Floating, Margaret Wappler (L.A. Times), Stereogum (Gummy Awards), NME, TIME, WOXY (Top Played Albums)

#3: Blender, New Haven Register, Tiny Mix Tapes, Uncut Magazine

#4: Alexandra Cahill (Billboard), Erik Thompson (Culture Bully), Greg Kot (Chicago Tribune), NPR Listeners Poll

#5: Amy Lindsey (KEXP), Justin Harris (Billboard), Cleveland Plain Dealer

#6: Pitchfork, Troy Carpenter (Billboard)

#7: Associated Press (Best Rock Albums), Nate Chinen (New York Times), Q Magazine

#8: Susan Visakowitz (Billboard)

#9: Cortney Harding (Billboard)

#10: Jessica Letkemann (Billboard)

#11: Chicago Sun-Times

#20: Mojo

#27: Drowned In Sound

#33: Amazon.com editors’ Best Albums

#50: Paste Magazine

General Favorite Listing: John Bush (Allmusic.com, top pop albums), Heather Phares (Allmusic.com, top pop albums), James Christopher Monger (Allmusic.com, top pop albums), Jason Kinnard (KEXP), Joan Anderman (Boston Globe), Kelly Hilst (KEXP), Limewire Music Blog, Sarah Rodman (Boston Globe),

Honorable Mention: New York Observer

#2: Why? – Alopecia

#1: Morgan Kluck (KEXP)

#6: About.com

#7: Drowned In Sound

#8: Eric Mahollitz (KEXP)

#10: Morgan Chosnyk (KEXP)

#11: Tiny Mix Tapes

#13: Stereogum (Gummy Awards)

#24: Cokemachineglow

General Favorites Listings: Kyle Johnson (KEXP)

Honorable Mention: Pitchfork

#3: Parts & Labor – Receivers/Escapers Two

#5. New Haven Register

#6: Greg Kot (Chicago Tribune)

#9: Amazon.com editors’ Best Alternative Rock Albums

#12: Chicago Sun-Times

#25: I Rock Cleveland

#53: Amazon.com editors’ Best Albums

General Favorite Listing: Allmusic.com Best Noise Albums

#4: Sun Kil Moon – April

#1: Erik Thompson (Culture Bully)

#2: Jonathan Cohen (Billboard)

#5: New York Observer

#7: Robert Thompson (Billboard)

#8: Paste Magazine

#16: The A.V. Club

Honorable Mention: Pitchfork

#5: Ponytail – Ice Cream Spiritual

#8: Blender

#12: Tiny Mix Tapes

#13: Fact Magazine

#50: Pitchfork

General Favorite Listing: Allmusic.com Best Noise Albums

#6: Neon Neon – Stainless Style

#7: Uncut Magazine

#11: NME

#28: Mojo

General Favorite Listings: Stephen Thomas Erlewine (Allmusic.com, top pop albums), Matt Collar (Allmusic.com, top pop albums),

#7: The Mae Shi – HLLLYH

#8: Baltimore City Paper

#18: Pitchfork

#8: The Dodos – Visiter

#2: Josh Keller (Culture Bully)

#5: Katie Hasty (Billboard)

#9: Chris Barton (L.A. Times)

#10: Eric Mahollitz (KEXP), NPR Second Stage

#12: Cokemachineglow

#23: Stereogum (Gummy Awards)

#24: I Guess I’m Floating

#39: Paste Magazine

Honorable Mention: Pitchfork

#9: Friendly Fires – Friendly Fires

#8: Drowned In Sound

#10: NME

#46: WOXY (Top Played Albums)

General Favorites Listings: Melissa Trejo (KEXP)

#10: Food For Animals – Belly

Looks like it’s just me…

…then again, this list is quite short of “comprehensive.” And in the end, it’s ultimately the individual who chooses what they like, right?

The Politics of Fashion

Naomi pointed me the way to this excellent piece by Thursday/United Nations’ Geoff Rickly on the MTV Headbanger’s Blog site on my previous post, and it got me thinking about the impact of fashion on culture. Rickly astutely notes the power of the image, and in doing so recalls Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message.” Rickly is quite correct in his assertion to use McLuhan as an intellectual pinpoint to the decline of political action – or simply plain action – in punk and underground culture. But McLuhan doesn’t sum up the concept of said decline like Daniel Boorstin managed to with his book on American culture – The Image. In the book, Boorstin points towards not only the great power that images have over us, but how they can sometimes distract from the real events and meaning behind said image. In our ability to reproduce certain images, the reproduction often overshadows the thing that made the original such an endearing event in human existence in the first place. You can buy a postcard of the Mona Lisa or download it online just about anywhere, but it doesn’t compare to seeing the lightly-cracked brush-strokes in real life. But, more importantly, when an image is so readily available through commerce, the idea of flying to a foreign country, waiting in massive lines, and paying out of your rear end to see a painting you might not even care for (especially if you aren’t into art) may actually end up diminishing any positive experience with the original image – forget events that went into making it such an emotionally arresting work. The same can be said for folks who enjoy wearing Che Guevara t-shirts; the image is well known, arresting, and connected to connotations of rebellion, and the $15 for the shirt and look of cool is immediately accessible versus the time one would spend in researching Guevara’s political ideas and the true concepts behind his face. It’s a very concept that is rooted in American culture; the democracy of information versus the time and effort needed to be fully aware of the information you are ingesting.

Daniel Boorstin

These concepts are fully drawn into the world of music and its revolutionary/underground/political backgrounds. Rickly points towards Fugazi as a beacon of light in the music-as-action argument; what Rickly fails to mention in the article is that Fugazi never submitted themselves to any easily-replicable image. Among the many ideas that are thrown into Instrument – the excellent Jem Cohen documentary on Fugazi – is their consistent battle with trying to portray an accurate portrait of themselves. The media have such a way of forcing individuals into boxes that there’s no wonder the members of Fugazi did away with the mainstream press; providing an easy-to-swallow image makes the important messages that Fugazi was creating, well, lost in the medium. Most folks may not know a lick about the band, but those individuals who have the forthright to find out about their music and enjoy it will get the full-blast (aurally and idealistically) of the band’s concept.

Fugazi in action… literally (from Instrument):

In music, nothing makes or breaks a band like fashion. It’s the easiest thing to digest when learning about new bands – it takes minutes to listen to a song, but a handful of seconds to stare at a picture and determine if its aesthetically pleasing and cool. Fashion has made certain acts desirable and its also driven cultures and bands to the bitter ground. Take a look at grunge; all it took was for one word – “flannel” – to encompass an entire lifestyle of poor-as-hell artists in the Northwests and a handful of years later grunge was “played out.” As Rickly mentioned, hipsterdom is on the brink of destruction, and that’s mostly because of the easy-to-replicate image of cool. The reasoning behind the wears that artists involved in the indie scene is completely lost on all those who use clothing as a cache for cool – likewise, the need to separate oneself from the mainstream through fashion gets blurred in the culture of consumerism. How non-conformist is something purchased from Urban Outfitters? How neo-conformists is it when you can’t even recognize why an item of clothing is “revolutionary”? The easiest example of this widespread impact of the image of cool and how its deteriorated true subversion of the norm is the newfound fashion statement in the indie world; the kafia. Sure it looks cool, trendy, and yes, different. But how many American teens and twenty-somethings can actually connect with the Palestinian plight that the kafia represents? Moreover, how many people can actually recognize that as the antecedent?

hipster cool

Fashion is not lost in the realm of emo; not a day goes by that the idea of black-clad teens with weird haircuts boxes emo into a seemingly inescapable definition. And it seems like something new and more-or-less negative gets added to the mix; makeup was nowhere to be found five years ago when emo was first getting popular. And yet, despite all the doom and gloom that fashion can force on a once-forceful, active underground culture, I still have faith in some, if not all, of emo and indie (especially when the two are still so hard for people to define). And it has nothing to do with fashion. It has to do with history. Although America is still known as a “young” country, seemingly without a past, certain aspects of our culture go against those stereotypes, and in America, we love our home-brewed history (sometimes too much in the guise of nostalgia). But it’s always good to look back in an attempt to move forward. Geoff Rickly does just that with his piece for Headbanger’s Blog; he takes a concept of revolution and forces it right in the face of the individuals he is more or less critiquing, and using a major source of information (MTV) to do so. And while a movement becomes mainstream, images no doubt takeover, and certain ideas may be lost in translation, I come with the belief that making certain information available to those who normally wouldn’t be aware of its existence is a good thing. Rickly has always managed to articulately and effectively state why it was good that Thursday signed to a major label despite being so independent-minded, and opening up their audience to new people who may not have been aware of the importance of action is certainly a positive choice and change in my book. While one can assume that a large portion of today’s sub-standard pop-punk may not heed Rickly’s advice, I’d prefer to think positively. Because somewhere out there, some earnest fan of Rickly’s has always been a fan of taking some form of action in their everyday life, and they’ll read Rickly’s article and be inspired. Because you can’t always wait for change to happen – you have to enact it yourself.

A little bit of (music) news:

*The New York Times has a great piece on the crossover success of Gym Class Heroes.

*The Beastie Boys’ MCA is working in his own independent film company.

*iTunes Version 8 has a program called Genius which supposedly links one song to others like it in your library, as well as ones that may be purchased from the iTunes music store. Sounds like iTunes merely links songs other listeners have purchased online rather than songs that share similar compositions/aesthetics.

Rock N’ Roll Post-Graduates

They really don’t make ’em like this anymore. That was one of many thoughts that jumped in my brain while watching Rock N’ Roll High School the other day. Camp doesn’t even begin to describe it. Joyful absurdity. Now that might do it. Whoever had the idea to take a simple B movie, combine it with Airplane-esq comedy theatrics, and center the entire movie around a punk band that had only achieved some semblance of cult status must have been a mad genius. The Ramones may be icons today, but back in 1980, they would have been the last choice to place at the center of a movie. The Jonas Brothers – or whatever third-rate mechanized creations Disney churns out for the center of some made-for-TV movie – they ain’t.

The original Ramones

Aside from style and vision, the simple juxtaposition of a small-time punk band that failed to realize their dreams of Billboard big-shots playing the role of a big-shot band was enough to make the film such a phenomenal treat in my mind. It’s hard to remotely think of a band today that could be subsumed into a rock-star elite status for a camp film while they struggle away in the real world. Perhaps the only group that could have pulled it off with style and finesse would have been the Promise Ring. The high-calcium pop of their second and third albums would have fit perfectly into a happiness-is-all-the-rage B-movie; moreso, the Promise Ring’s status as a cult-band and icon for the bubbling emo scene would have been a great juxtaposition in the seat of rock kings at the center of a film – their affable attitude is a great base to work with. Not to mention a certain sense of humor and delight that seems to bubble up in their videos:

If anything, one real world emo event seems to have brought Rock N’ Roll High School to reality. When MTV re-started its Unplugged series, it was simply to make good behind the cult of Dashboard Confessional. Not even a cult-group in terms of the mainstream, Dashboard had barely been a fashionable musical name to know when MTV picked Chris Carrabba to be the new face of their once-famous series. So to give a no-name their own special, one which featured high schoolers flanking him in the wings, literally brought Roger Corman’s film to life. You know, if Rock N’ Roll High School were a bit more melodramatic…

Dashboard Confessional – Living In Your Letters (MTV Unplugged):

Free the Musics

In honor of free slurpee day, I’ve decided to do a (rather brief) post on free music.

Since Radiohead’s pay-what-you-want, online release of In Rainbows last October, the idea of artists offering their albums for free has been at the forefront of almost any article relating to popularly consumed music. It could be a simple sign that most mainstream music-critique sources are so out of touch that they’ll jump on anything they can grab a hold of and declare it to be a pop culture phenomenon (cough cough Rolling Stone). Whether or not it is seen as a gimmick or the wave of the future for music consumption, there has no doubt been a rise in the availability of 100% legal, free music for the masses.

Or at least there has been a rise in the promotion and knowledge of said musics since the tipping point of In Rainbows‘ release. Radiohead may have been the first to make such a move seem shocking and relevant, but they were far from the first to release their music for free. Hell, Prince even beat Radiohead to the punch by an entire season, or at least this headline in the Daily Mail would have you believe:

“Prince is determined to revolutionise the music industry” – 14 July 2007

Then again, Prince did release his newest album, Planet Earth, for free a tad earlier than it’s regularly scheduled release to anyone who picked up the Daily Mail on Sunday. Then again, it did cost the couple of pounds you’d need to pay for the Daily Mail… and the cost of knowing you spent money on a newspaper as poor as the Daily Mail (really Prince? The Daily Mail? You couldn’t have gotten a few million from the Observer?). And then again, it was basically only available to folks in the UK.

Prince's Planet Earth

But even before Prince fired the first big shot at the music industry, bands of big and small sizes had been releasing their music for free to anyone with an internet connection. From Harvey Danger (of “Flagpole Sitta” fame) to Danger Doom (through the lovely folks at Adult Swim), free-online music was the cutting edge before it was cutting close to a gimmick.

But before free, legal downloads were en vogue, one band broke through the fighting lines of the music industry to deliver the goods straight to the fans: Jimmy Eat World. As the Arizona emo quartet entered the new millennium having been dropped by Capitol records following frustrations between both parties. With their future unclear, Jimmy Eat World set up a mini-tour across America for their die-hard fans in order to scramble together some money for the follow up to their now-beloved 1999 album Clarity. As with numerous acts in the emo lineage, the guys in Jimmy Eat World knew that creating an intimate connection among their audience was a top priority. How do you build a community between fans and a band, especially with a community that stretches from sea to sea? Through music. And, knowing that having an audience aware of every note you play is essential for the inclusion of concert-goers, Jimmy Eat World did what Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich would have found at the time to be the least-sensible thing; they released the demos of their next album to the fans for free. And they did it through Napster, the controversial music-sharing program that kicked off the music industry’s current worries.

Jimmy Eat World

Jimmy Eat World made a big gamble… and the returns were immediate. Their tour sold out, and the band returned home to record the new album. A major-label bidding war erupted (their old label Capitol even threw down after hearing the group’s newest work), and Jimmy Eat World signed with DreamWorks. Jimmy Eat World’s new album, Bleed American, was released in the summer of 2001. Following September 11th, the band changed the album’s name to simply Jimmy Eat World.

In 2002, Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle” hit the top of numerous pop charts and was in consistent rotation on MTV. Jimmy Eat World became the band’s first platinum (and multi-platinum) record, and opened the gates to emo’s larger acceptance into the mainstream. Dashboard Confessional may have become the poster-boy for emo at the time, but Dashboard never earned the success and widespread acceptance that Jimmy Eat World not only garnered, but has continued to reap. Behind Jimmy Eat World’s surprise success, emo found its natural springboard as a cultural phenomenon on a mainstream level; in many ways, JEW are the Nirvana of emo, and “The Middle” is very much the new “Smells Like Teen Spirit” of the third wave of emo. Emo’s success as a widespread movement owes a debt to Jimmy Eat World and their vociferous support of their fans and community. And Jimmy Eat World’s success owes a bit of debt to music downloading. And so, before Radiohead made legal, (possibly) free music a “new” concept, Jimmy Eat World made it a lifeline for an entire movement.

With that, I present a listing of numerous free/pay-what-you-want albums and EPs that have been released online this year.

Enjoy it:

AmpLive – RainyDayz Remixes

Antlers – New York Hospitals EP

Atmosphere – Strictly Leakage

The Cool Kids – That’s Stupid The Mixtape

Dan Deacon – Back-catalog

Food For Animals – Belly acapellas

Forest Fire – Survival

Girl Talk – Feed The Animals

Gnarls Barkley – elpuocddoeht

Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts I – IV and The Slip

NIN and various openers – Lights In The Sky Tour EP

Stereogum’s Remix Artist Collective Volume 1

Let me know if I missed any 2008 free releases!

Impossibly Short

Just a quick one for tonight. Caught The Impossible Shapes at the Milky Way Lounge and Lanes in Jamaica Plain this evening. First thing’s first – the Milky Way may just be the best venue in Boston, period. The Middle East is the time-olde locale for great incoming shows, as is the Paradise and a number of others. But nothing can beat the feel of the Milky Way. It’s an anomaly of a club; the place was used purely as a bowling alley until someone had the bright idea to turn it into a quasi-club. You can still go duck-pin bowling and catch a band playing on what is still the hardwood floor of a bowling lane. And they’ve got really cheap and free shows and events. If only JP weren’t so far out of the way….

Needless to say, The Impossible Shapes put on a solid set. Their music went through crazy time signature changes, hung around low-fi folk tunes before blasting them with a hit of psychedelica-cum-rawk instrumentation, and the harmonies were just great. Suffice it to say, their work reminded me of the Sunny Day Real Estate album How It Feels To Be Something On. Before all of the indie rock reunions of today, the band that brought emo to the big time with the appearance of the “Seven” video on MTV rotation in 1994, Sunny Day broke up in ’95 only to get back together a couple of years later. What came out of this reunion was a startling piece of pop music. Although I’m quite partial to Sunny Day’s second release, 1995’s LP2 (otherwise known as The Pink Album as its cover is drenched in bright pink and has no official title),
How It Feels To Be Something On is a masterpiece, a startling evolution and ideological streamline where before there was simply a caterwauling mess. Sunny Day could caterwaul with the best of them, but their first album after their reunion was startling mature, comfortably crafted, and a straight shot of pure emotion. Whereas on Sunny Day’s earlier material, frontman Jeremy Enigk fights against the drift that has swept him away, with How It Feels Enigk’s voice and lyrics are startlingly clear, straightforward, and thoughtful. Before his words were a question in search of an answer, but with How It Feels, Enigk appears to understand the question, answer, the entire picture, and the reason that’s it all there.

And the music cannot be beat. Diary and LP2, Sunny Day’s first two albums, excelled in the world of the DC, post-hardcore aesthetics of what is known as emo. The music lurched back and forth, seething with a catharsis that cannot quit, and a restrained hardcore punk fury that pushes it along. But with How It Feels, Sunny Day stretch out their musical abilities – those which were easily heard on their first two albums, but put to their experimental tests with their inevitable reunion. It may reach out into prog territory, but it works for the benefit of the album, which takes in the best of many rock-based genres for trips into tranquil waters and angelic highs. Enigk’s voice, an uncompromising falsetto, soars to unbelievable new heights, lengths that crash through the ceiling the singer had set with songs such as “J’Nuh” and “Song About An Angel” on earlier albums. For anyone who thought that emo was uniform, terrible pop, or impossible to listen to, How It Feels To Be Something On can quell the worst fears that emo went the way of the dodo after it left DC.

Also, before I sign off, check out the blog Songs Across Boston. In the coming weeks, I hope to establish a guerrilla performance schedule, a flash mob for bands, if you will. More details will be up soon on the blog, so stay tuned… it should be an interesting experiment. Anyway, here are some musics for you…

Sunny Day’s live rendition of “Guitar and Video Games” plus the “Seven” video:

The Impossible Shapes – You Are Not The Target

Say Anything About Science Fiction

There’s something about the 4th of July that screams “joy”. It could be the way that folks file out of the woodwork to aimlessly meander around Boston in numbers that rival a sports championship parade. It could be the atmosphere of happiness that bounces off porches and front lawns, where normally reserved neighbors suddenly take to the near-outdoors to share a laugh and an afternoon. It could be the way fireworks careen through the streets of Allston the moment darkness sets in, a venerable battlefield of noises raging through the air. It could be the familiar smell of meat (and your garden variety of vegetables) wafting through the air, almost as if it’s every individual American’s right, nay duty, to fire up the grills and fill our stomachs. It could be the way that Boston turns from a normal city into a communal playground, the kind of place where everyone does indeed know your name, or at least act like they do.

Or it could be The Twilight Zone marathon on the Sci-Fi Channel. Seeing as I rarely indulge in TV on my own time and that the number of shows currently broadcasting aren’t what I’d pin down as “entertaining” (though I do watch my fair share of DVDs and random re-runs) it’s funny that of all the days of the year, I’d take the 4th of July to spend some quality time with the good ole’ Jawbox. I’d forgotten about the annual Twilight Zone marathon, and it wasn’t until I dropped by a friend’s cookout did it pop back into my head and on the TV.

Suffice to say, Rod Serling was a genius and the impact his program has had on popular culture and modern storytelling is pretty hard to underestimate. In just the first episode that I watched (of three), I saw shades of Toy Story, a better and more succinct version of what I think Lost is all about (truthfully, I’ve barely seen that show, and have no interest in continuing to watch it), and the strong influence of Samuel Beckett. Titled “Five Characters In Search Of An Exit,” the episode (part of which I’ve placed below) quickly reminded me just what made The Twilight Zone such an anomaly and a brilliant work of art.

Serling, like so many great artists, had his finger on the driving impulses of humanity. His work has the mark of absurdity, but in the way that what is accepted as normal within The Twilight Zone isn’t necessarily as absurd as what we accept in our reality. Just as many great works of science fiction point out the absurdity of the human condition through metaphors (such as George A Romero’s take on racism in Night of the Living Dead, although that is more horror than science fiction) or critique the absurdity of society (the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers and it’s critique of the red scare), Serling’s work struck a chord either with the paradoxes of humanity, the state of our society, or simply played on our individual fears.

Absurdity is a great and oft-dangerous tool in art. Use it well and you’re a genius; misuse it and your work suffers (one cannot forget Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, which seems to both use and misuse absurdity in extremes; the film is a bumbling mess that’s both hideous and brilliant at the same time. Unfortunately, one half cannot be without the other). Of all the acts in emo, Say Anything is the one band to make excellent use of absurdity for the bettering of art (and sometimes, abuse it for the unfortunate nadir of art as well). People may complain about the state of emo today, but chances are, none have them would have bothered to pick up Say Anything’s 2004 effort …is a Real Boy (which was later re-packaged as a double album in 2006, with the second half labeled …was a Real Boy). The blogosphere is no stranger to hype, and hype is no stranger to frontman and perpetual mind of Say Anything Max Bemis, but …is a Real Boy is easily one of the best albums to come out this decade.

Epic, mature, humorous, brilliant, lyrically-intelligent, spellbinding, and yes, absurd, …is a Real Boy takes the idea of extremism in punk rock and hits it out of the park. For a first album, any band would be proud. But Say Anything is not any band, and Max Bemis is not any frontman. Here’s the skinny:

Max Bemis grew up in LA a punk-pop prodigy, told from a young age that he would be the next Bob Dylan. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a young man, especially one who would later be found to have manic-depression. After putting out some independently-produced albums, Bemis scrapped all of Say Anything’s back catalog to make something, well, epic. Bemis concocted …is a Real Boy as a great emo rock opera. Quite literally. Bemis even went as far as to recruit Stephen Trask, creator of cult sensation Hedwig and the Angry Inch, to produce the album and what was meant to be a giant musical production of the record’s songs in conjunction with its release. The overarching story is of a boy who is struck to breakout into song when he reaches some climactic and passionate burst of fury over whatever he was agonizing over. Musicals are easily the most absurd form of modern art (honestly, nobody simply breaks out into song and is joined by a massive, perfectly-choreographed chorus in order to express their inner thoughts and then simply act as if said moment never happened afterwards), but the songs on …is a Real Boy made it work. The way a punk lifer described his iconoclastic ideals through passionate bursts of song that made the critiques on reality just as absurd as the moment of intensity of the performance was flawless.

Too bad the musical never panned out. Bemis had the first of many psychological breakdowns during the wrap-up of the album’s production; he got in a fight with strangers on a New York City street corner, believing they were actors in a film about the production of his album. Several nervous breakdowns later and a career in danger and Bemis is found to have manic-depression. A number of years later and Bemis has signed a major label deal, has his videos on MTV, and (rightfully so) has found his work on top of the Billboard heap. Call it what you will, but I was disappointed with the release of In Defense of the Genre; it may have landed Say Anything at the top of the pops, but it was an example of absurdity in unfortunate extremes. A double album with only enough good material to fill a single side, In Defense of the Genre is a good effort, but merely an effort in comparison to …is a Real Boy. The idea of defending emo is excellent, and the cavalry of emo stars who fill out the album’s guest spots is great (such as Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba and My Chemical Romance’s Gerard Way), and the (ab)use of a multitude of genre aesthetics is an interesting concept. But ultimately, the performance and the ideas fall flat. Still, it is a valiant effort, even if Bemis is much more concerned with love (most songs on In Defense of the Genre) than, say, rightfully bashing elitist hipsters (“Admit It!!!”).

Sometimes I wonder if the absurdity, nay, even the brilliant social commentary of Say Anything ever really seeps into America’s tweens. But there’s no doubt that Say Anything’s best work has a certain staying power that most pop cannot achieve. Hopefully somewhere in the middle of America those who pick up Say Anything after hearing it through some Clear Channel station will play …is a Real Boy years from now and understand what Bemis is getting it. Or maybe I’m just not giving these tweens the right credit. Sure, Warped Tour is ground zero for shameless product plugs and hours upon hours of pop-punk. But with the cathartic live experience of Say Anything – Bemis is halfway between Andrew WK and a white, male MIA – there’s no doubt that those messages critiquing society’s ails can reach someone.

I’m in a video mood, so here’s the video for Say Anything’s “Alive With The Glory Of Love”, itself a critique on the important aspects of life during times of desperation (listen closely to the lyrics):