The story of just how far a fanboy will go to see his favorite band. 

This story was written in July 2011 for the ill-fated fourth issue of Pins and Needles Zine that never saw the light of day. On May 23rd I’ll be hopping in my car and heading 3 hours north to Connecticut to see the almighty Overcast perform. As you’ll learn if you read on, a 6 hour round trip drive will never stand in the way of a true fanboy who wants to see one of his favorite bands play a 45 minute set.

The farthest I’ve ever traveled for a single show was for the 2002 New England Metal and Hardcore Fest in Worcester, Massachusetts. The four and a half hour trip to the 40+ band festival was made to see one band and one band only…Overcast. Overcast was reuniting for this show after having broken up in 1998 and my friend Dave and I figured this would be our only chance to see them so we called out of work and hopped in Dave’s car. We left on Friday afternoon and got a hotel room just outside of Worcester so we could be rested and ready Saturday for what would be the best live musical experience of our lives…or so we hoped. We arrived at the show around noon, primed and ready to see our favorite band and found out what time they’d be playing…”Probably sometime around 8.” Wow. We stood outside wondering how we were going to kill 8 hours (and there was no way in hell we’d sit through 8 hours of metal bands that all sounded the same) and then out of nowhere a guy came up to us and said “Hey guys, Shadows Fall is doing a press conference in the bar next door if you want to go in and check it out.” That was probably the best thing we could have heard at that moment as Shadows Fall’s singer is also the frontman for…you guessed it: Overcast. Dave and I went into the nearly empty bar, grabbed ourselves some seats, watched a fairly pointless press conference and were served Budweiser after Budweiser by the extremely attractive bartender.

When Shadows Fall was finished they walked past us and I stopped Brian Fair. This is the point in which Dave and I proceeded to fanboy-out to him about Overcast. Brian was super nice and chatted with us for about 5 minutes before going off to do band stuff. Dave and I talked for the next 5 minutes or so about what a nice guy he was and what a relief that was because if the lead singer of one’s favorite band is a complete douche - that could turn a person’s world upside down. Especially a couple of geeks who would drive four and a half hours to see a band. Luckily for us, that was not the case. After we were done acting like 17 year old girls we came to our senses and realized we still had about 7 hours until Overcast would take the stage. Uh oh. Here is a Cliff Notes version of the rest of the day: we drank, slowly but surely. We drank until we were drunk and then we drank until we were tired. We stumbled next door, found some empty spots in the balcony and tried our best to endure some of the copycat metal bands playing before Overcast. Dave fell asleep sitting against the wall and I sat depressed, with my head in my hands. Overcast would eventually take the stage and they were nothing short of amazing, but I couldn’t even remember half of their set-list by the time we drove home. Man did we fuck that one up!

The next farthest show I’ve ever traveled to was just shy of four and a half hours to see Overcast in Waterbury Connecticut in 2008. This was during their east coast tour in support of their, then, recently released album, Reborn to Kill Again. Dave and I saw the first show of this tour in New Jersey and they were so good that we convinced our friend, Rob, to make a weekend out of their show in Connecticut a week later. We arrived at the show about 3 hours early, grabbed our tickets and then hit the liquor store and found a hotel. By the time we arrived at the show we were feeling no pain but it was nowhere near the debacle in Worcester. As we walked into the venue I saw Overcast’s guitarist, Pete Cortese, standing alone against a railing and, being the true fanboy that I am, made a B-Line for him. This wasn’t the first time I’d met Pete. Dave and I (can we all see some patterns forming here?) went to see Pete’s old band, Seemless, a few times in New Jersey and New York. The first time we saw them was at a weird half strip club / half music venue so eloquently named Double D’s. After their set that night we told Pete what big fans we were and asked if he wanted to smoke with us. We were shocked when he accepted our offer and then the three of us went off to Dave’s car, where as soon as he turned on the engine Overcast started blasting over the car stereo. A bit awkward to say the least, but looking back it was not a bad, humorous (slightly creepy) ice breaker. The second time we saw Seemless was at The Continental in NYC and after their set we again retreated to Dave’s car with Pete, only this time it’s a longer story for another time that involves Dave screaming at some girls who came along for the ride and hitting a parked car, all with a terrified Pete Cortese along for the ride. Back in Connecticut now and when I reintroduced myself to Pete he was genuinely psyched that we made the trip and told me that he tells the story about the two guys who kidnapped him in New York quite often. Holy shit. Pete Cortese, my favorite guitarist of all fucking time tells a story about me! Even if the story does paint me as a lunatic, pot smoking superfan - I still left an impression and that’s all that matters. And at this show in Connecticut I still had some semblance of my wits about me and I watched Overcast perform one of the five best sets that I have ever seen by any band.

And that brings us to today. I am currently knee deep in my farthest trip to a show yet, and this time I’m by myself as Dave has relocated to the sunny shores of California and refuses to eat anything but fruit (I kid you not). Keyport, New Jersey to Revere, Massachusetts is a little over 250 miles. My journey began with a 40 minute train ride to Newark, NJ to transfer to a 4 ½ hour bus ride to Boston. Here’s where it gets good…once in Boston Pete Cortese, guitarist of my favorite band who I may have inadvertently co-kidnapped at one time, will be picking me up from the bus station and taking me to his new band’s show. His new band being Death Ray Vision which also features Brian Fair and Mike D. from (here comes another one of those patterns)…Overcast. And it just so happens that Death Ray Vision are fucking awesome. This is not a case in which I think of them as “The dudes from Overcast’s new band,” while in the back of my head I’m wishing Overcast would get back together. Not even close.

*Editor’s Note: Brian Fair was with Pete in the car to pick me up (which in lamen’s terms is like Phil Anselmo and Dimebag Darrell giving a metalhead a ride to their gig…if Phil Anselmo wasn’t the strung out sociopath that is). I sat in the back trying not to sound like Chris Farley’s amazing SNL character in which he interviewed his heroes. I think I accomplished my goal but on the way back to the station after the show I failed at this…miserably.

Now, I could spend the rest of this column telling you how truly awesome Death Ray Vision were on this amazing night, because they were. This band that is technically a “side project” sounds ten times more professional than many of the full-time bands out there. But this story is not a glorified show review. Hell - it actually started as a time killer as I was the only lone-traveler trying not to look too creepy on a bus from Jersey to Boston. It turned into a realization that even though I’m 30 and am traveling 5 hours to see a half an hour set, that there is no shame in acting like a 16 year old kid who has seen Almost Famous a few too many times. You see, I got into hardcore in 1995 and have never looked back. The only thing that bothers me is that while I was getting into it and immersing myself in so many new bands and so many new ideas, some of the bands that would have the greatest impact on my life such as Overcast, Deadguy, Kiss it Goodbye etc., were doing great things right in front of me but my head was spinning too much with new information that they passed me by until they were just a memory. But now Death Ray Vision is here and listening to their ep, Get Lost or Get Dead, makes me feel like that 16 year old kid again only now I’m like that Rod Stewart song but I actually know now what I should have known then (or however the fuck it goes) and I’m not letting them pass me by. So go ahead and judge and make fun if you will, but my years of fanboying out to my hardcore heroes has greatly paid off, making me some good friends and leaving me with some good memories. And now I’m ready for some more.

pictured: David Walker-Lecic: Harvest, Pete Cortese and Brian Fair: Death Ray Visionand Overcast

Neurosis: Honor Found in Decay

My horrible photo does this incredible release no justice at all, so I apologize for that. This is one of those albums that is a must to own on both vinyl and cd. Both come with a gatefold cover and a brilliant 16 page booklet with some incredible photos taken by Josh Graham (Neurosis, A Storm of Light). Singer/guitarist Steve Von Till described the packing better than I could ever hope to: 

Von Till explained that the artwork, with its “whole vibe of obsession, or meditation, or offerings” intentionally does not tell “an exact story”, but rather “just hints at things - I think it’s a perfect visual space for people to trip on while they’re listening to the album.” 

Neurosis is a band that deserves every ounce of respect that they get. They’ve been around forever, they never compromise their musical or artistic integrity and are one of those bands that exist on a different plane. Beautiful, thoughtful and original. 

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” -Tim Canterbury, The Office (though apparently he was quoting some “John Lennon” fellow.

Man, I haven’t written in a while. And even now when I find myself with a good hour to dedicate to transferring the thoughts from my mind to my keyboard and beyond, I find myself dilly-dallying by watching Phil Anselmo and Rex Brown perform This Love with Anthrax at the Golden Gods awards on YouTube. That clip has been circulating for a few days now and being that I just blew through Rex Brown’s book Official Truth, 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera in a week’s time, I’ve been on a big Pantera kick so I’ve been meaning to check it out. The clip was pretty much what you’d think it to be- kind of cool to see (especially for someone like myself who never got the chance to see Pantera) but kind of lame at the same time with Dimebag being gone and Phil being…well, Phil.

My relationship with Pantera didn’t start until later in life. They were a band I never cared about as a teenager. Being one of the biggest metal bands of all time I of course always knew who they were, I just never paid attention to them or bothered listening to their music with an open mind. For one, they were always one of the favorites of the 4 or 5 random metal kids in my elementary school. These were the same kids who would also wear Danzig, Megadeth and all-over print dragon shirts and I didn’t care about any of those things so I didn’t think Pantera would have anything to offer me. Then once I got to high school and discovered hardcore music I immersed myself in the world of DIY and metal bands on major labels didn’t take musical priority. I knew a few of their songs and thought they were okay, but I always thought that they had nothing in terms of heaviness compared to the hardcore bands I was listening to in those days. Boy was I wrong. It wasn’t until I was driving home one night well after graduating high school and I was listening to 89.5 WSOU, Seton Hall Pirate Radio that I took notice of just how heavy Pantera was. WSOU is a pretty popular college rock station in New Jersey that plays metal all day and all night. Ironically in every place I lived in Jersey the station wouldn’t quite come through with a clear signal. We would always give it a shot but it was mostly static with blurbs of music that would sporadically interrupt the crackling. It was a lot like watching the Spice channel back in the day when you’d watch a scrambled channel for hours in hopes that the waves of blue and green would be timed just right and you could sneak a peak of a nipple every now and again. So anyway, in this particular spot that I happened to be driving WSOU was coming in quite clear and I was bearing witness to one of the heaviest, most brutal songs I had ever heard in my life. I was hoping against hope that they would inform us of what song it was when it was over, something they never seemed to do when you wanted them to (remember…I’m old so these were the days before Shazam. In fact, these were the days in which you had a cell phone but it always remained off and you only turned it on for emergencies. Yeah…I’m that old). Well it must have been my lucky day because the static held out and the dj just happened to inform me that what I had been listening to was a Pantera song entitled Slaughtered. My mind was blown. If Pantera had a song that was this brutal and I had been ignoring them for all these years then I had a lot of catching up to do. After that they became a band that to this day I really like. I hesitate to say that I love them because I do find a good portion of their lyrics to be cheesy and on every album there are a few songs that I have to skip past. But the songs that are good are really fucking good. So every few months I will get on these kicks and be dumbfounded at how heavy they were and how big they were. Sure they had a bit of a cheese-factor to them at times, but to be playing arenas and making records as heavy as Far Beyond Driven and The Great Southern Trendkill…well holy shit.

Before that Pantera rant came to be, my intention was to sit down and write about the fact that I have fallen into my usual pattern with Pins and Needles Zine. That pattern being that I go a couple months of being gung ho about writing and telling myself that I’m “really going to get my shit together this time” and keep up with the ritual. But then life goes and gets in the way. Work starts piling up because the waste of cells that was your full time walker decided that she was going to skip walking the dogs and just go into the client’s house, fill out the report card and then leave to do whatever other important white trashy things she had to do that afternoon not being bright enough to know that neighbors watch for things like this. Okay, that was a bit specific but it can certainly be applied to all jobs if looked at in a Mad Libs sense. So after firing this idiot and having to get an attorney and the (useless) cops involved just to get my client’s keys back my world has been turned upside down for the past few weeks and I have had zero time for Google Docs, Tumblr, Facebook and anything really except for sneaking in some Nurse Jackie and Mad Men episodes. Something tells me that there hasn’t been much “Where has that Pins and Needles Zine guy been hiding, I’m itching to read his trivial thoughts” type concern happening. Sometimes it’s good to be unnoticed I guess. At least you won’t let anyone down. And now all of the sudden I’ve got an urge to listen to Down’s Nola. Caffeine is a beautiful thing.   

Edison Recordings

Looking back, Edison Recordings is probably my favorite label of the 90’s. Though because of its small sample size I suppose it has a bit of an advantage. Both Ferret and Trustkill had periods in which I was buying everything they were putting out. But Edison put out some truly amazing records in its relatively short existence. In addition to the three records pictured above some of Edison Recordings standouts include: Overcast Fight Ambition to Kill, Disembodied Heretic and a Converge/Coalesce split to name a few. Their only real flub was putting out a 25 ta Life split, but I suppose we’ve all had our share of embarrassing moments.   

I’ve been vegan for a little over two years now. If not for my awesome wife, Gia, I’d be eating Amy’s Brand frozen dinners every night of the week. Luckily Gia isn’t afraid of a challenge in the kitchen and enjoys making new dishes. She works full time and then comes home and cooks a nice vegan dinner. I’ve dubbed her “The Queen of the Quick Meal” because she whips up these dinners very quickly (hence the name) and she doesn’t use weird, pretentious overly-hippy ingredients that you have to go to the health food store and ask the snot-ragged, self-righteous prick with plugs and throat tattoos behind the counter to help you find. She uses mostly everyday ingredients and it’s real food that even the staunchest of meat eaters (namely our dads) seem to enjoy. So we wanted to share some of our favorite meals to show how easy healthy and harmless eating can be. We hope you enjoy.   

I know this isn’t technically a meal, but these guys are just so good (and easy) that they deserve a little recognition.

First of all, I would like to point out that this recipe is for stuffed mushrooms, not “shrooms”.  I really hate when you go to a restaurant and look at the appetizers and there it is an option for “stuffed shrooms.” The original recipe for these mushrooms is from my grandmother (which I obviously tweaked because no way did my gram make anything vegan) and I know she would be pretty pissed if she heard a bunch of hip kids referring to her food as some trendy slang. Are people really too lazy to pronounce the actual word or are they secretly hoping that after ordering a plate of “shrooms” they’ll be seeing in Technicolor? For this “far out” recipe let’s just stick to calling them mushrooms.  

Anyway, this recipe is very good, spoken from a woman who doesn’t really care for the taste and texture of mushrooms. I would say that this side dish goes along with most meals. And on an occasion or two my dad, the carnivore, ate them not realizing they were vegan. They are just that good.

Recipe

Ingredients:

-1 clove garlic

-Vegan butter (Smart Balance Light is my personal favorite)

-Onion: a little less than ¼ cup minced

-White Mushrooms (stuffing mushroom)

-Vegan Breadcrumbs: Panko with Italian seasoning works best

1. Preheat oven to 350
2. Wash the mushrooms and pop off stems- chop stems.
3. Add garlic and onion to frying pan.
4. Add about one tablespoon of vegan butter to pan.  Sauté until onions are translucent about 2 minutes.
5. Place chopped stems in the pan with the onion and garlic.  If the moisture from the butter is absorbed add a teaspoon.  Cook until stems are dark in color.
6. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over mixture to soak up the liquid.
7. Use the mixture to stuff the mushroom place in pie dish or round cake pan.
8. Bake in the oven for 10 mins.  Once the mushrooms are soft turn the oven on broil to crisp the tops (about 2 minutes)
9. Take out and enjoy

Over and out,

-Queen of the Quick Meal and Taffy the Sou Chef

16 Horsepower: Sackcloth ‘N’ Ashes & Secret South

Last Friday night I had the privilege of seeing David Eugene Edwards perform in his band, Wovenhand. It was one of the most amazing shows I have seen in some time. Before Wovenhand, DEE played in 16 Horsepower which is the band that opened my eyes to his musical genius. While I was never able to see 16 Horsepower live, I was ecstatic that Sackcloth ‘N’ Ashes was recently reissued on vinyl and also that I was able to grab a copy of Secret South while trolling Discogs.com late one night which, in true nerd fashion, seems to be a habit of mine. Amazing band, amazing records.  

I’m seeing Wovenhand tonight in Brooklyn. It’ll be my first time seeing David Eugene Edwards perform. To say that I am excited would be a massive understatement. 

Today, April 9th 2013, Rival Schools is releasing their lost, fittingly titled second album, Found. The tracks were originally recorded in 2003, before the band’s breakup later that year. Walter Schreifels has been a musical hero of mine (and pretty much everyone else that I know for that matter) for some time now. Every time he passes through my area I head out to his shows, make my way over to his merch table, hand him copies of Pins and Needles Zine and try not to come off as too much of a fanboy as I basically tell him how much I love him. His comedic stage banter is unmatched and he also wrote a hilarious story a while back so the last time I was being a fanboy in Asbury Park, I asked if it’d be okay if I post the story on my site and much to my surprise and delight, he happily agreed. So without further ado, here is “Real Berliners at a Pizza Place,” by the one and only Walter Schreifels. And make sure to go out and grab the new Rival Schools record, Found. 

Real Berliners at the Pizza Place…

Like New York, Berlin is a town where you could live and not make any friends that were actually born there. I have Berliner friends and I guess they have a kind of roughness that my friends from say…Dusseldorf don’t always display. From what I gather that rough edge is part of the native Berliners birthright. It’s the same kind of Archie Bunker, Bronx cheer, blow it out your ass kind of edge that native New Yorkers used to have a reputation for. They say that Berlin is like New York was in the 70’s.

I had what I think was a real encounter with actual Berliners yesterday at the pizza place. It was a sunny part of a partly sunny day so I wanted to sit outside while the time was right. As I was waiting to order my pizza I had my eye on a nice little spot on the benches out front. Just then a woman from further up the line walked with her pizza toward my spot. As I fretted impatiently to order I watched her sit across from a man on one edge of the bench, there was still plenty of room on the other side for me. A little less shaded than I would like; but still outside.

As soon as I ordered my pizza a few different groups stepped in and so I quickly legged it toward my intended seat so as to head off anyone with the bright idea of grabbing it first. As I approached my spot I did have it in the back of my mind that I had no bag or newspaper to represent my presence on the bench for when I’d inevitably have to go back to the counter to get my pizza, the best I could do would be to be seen there and maybe that would be enough to hold it for the 40 seconds it would take me to get to the counter and back.

The woman at the end of the bench was sitting with a very large man with a long scar below his right eye, he reminded me of the nazi guy that Indiana Jones had to fight by the bat winged airplane outside the well of souls, only more Slavic looking. The woman resembled the Throw Mama From The Train mama when she was in her late forties. She had her bag sitting a little less than midway to my end of the bench. As I sat down she barked something to me in German that roughly translated to “what the fuck are you doing? this is my bench and you haven’t asked permission”. I told her that I didn’t understand her and if there was a problem in English. She growled again and then said “iss okey” as she nodded toward my seat.

Germans are very polite. Even when a seat is pretty obviously free they will often ask anyway. I knew that no one was sitting there and I don’t feel that in this case that asking permission was necessary but perhaps I had given this woman the opening she was looking for to bark at someone. The man with the scar on his face appeared to be used to this kind of behavior from the women, ultimately I was hoping this would be my last dealing with them.

My pizza was not ready yet and I still had the problem of getting my pizza while keeping my seat at the end of the bench. My seat was not as nice as it once seemed with this couple next to me but it was still the best available and was not going to let them ruin my good time. I had to stand up a couple of times to keep my eye on the counter. The second time I did this the woman barked at me again. Fuck what is it now? How have offended her this time? I wondered.  “You are making me nervous with all of your standing and sitting down!” she said. Just then the woman at the pizza counter rang a bell and gestured toward me that my pizza was ready so I said to Throw Mama From The Train/Mom of Sloth from the Goonies that I was sorry but that I would have to get up just once more. With the ring of the pizza bell combined with my delivery I felt that I now had the upper hand with this lady, the man with the scar with a grin even seemed to appreciate how I had quickly turned the tables on her tyranny.

Nonetheless I didn’t want to sit with them anymore as there was no telling what Mama would do next and if were to escalate Scar would have no difficulty in ripping out one of my arms, so as turned around with my pizza I quickly scanned the room for other options. I found a pretty crappy seat inside at a smaller table to share when I thought fuck that, that’s my bench as well as Mama’s and I won’t be cowed or distracted by her crazyness. I even though, hey maybe she’s not even that bad, maybe she’s just salty in her friendlyness. I could have her all wrong. So I returned without incident to my seat, determined to tune them out.

Easier said than done as the woman leaned over to make out with Scarman. I had seen her teeth when she barked at me and some of the food in them too and I thought, poor Scar…these two must have really gone through some shit together. I felt shame for wanting to barf. After what seemed like an eternity but was more likely 30 seconds or so they unlocked lips. As Mama sat back on her haunches she let go a burp that Booger from Revenge Of Nerds would have been proud of. I wondered what was on her pizza. I once again felt the shame of my disgust. I thought maybe I should gesture to them that I thought it was funny in a friendly way, even if only for Scarman’s sake. He had just made out with her and then she ripped this enormous burp in his face after she had started with me but I couldn’t do it, that burp was too gross and by completely ignoring it I was at the same time being polite as I was censuring Mama’s crudeness. By ignoring the burp I thought that maybe  I had earned the right to no more contact with them.

We sat peacefully for some time more together on the bench and I compartmentalized all that had transpired and determined that it would not ruin my lunch. The pizza was still good I told myself and Mama’s burp/rudeness and Scarface’s huge and intimidating physical presence did not change that.

I heard them speaking to eachother in German and picked up that they were talking about leaving. With nearly half of my pizza left I began to eat even slower so that I may enjoy more of it when these two scrammed. Mama from The Train must have oicked up on thos because just as the warm thought of her leaving washed across my mind she leaned over to me and put an uneaten slice of her pizza on my plate and said “for you, I am too full”. Has that ever happened to you? Who would do that? The tables were once again turned and very much in her favor. All I could muster was “oh, thank you”.

I had never seen a slice like the one she put down on my plate before. I knew that it had fueled that burp of hers. I just didn’t know and had never seen this combination of ingredients before…roasted potatoes, red peppers, mushrooms, basil maybe? It looked like an ashtray poured over foccacia and there it was sitting so close to touching my clean and civilized slice with aubourgine. How was I then to play it and keep face?

I couldn’t then stop eating altogether because then Mama would have won, so I ate a piece of my pizza that was farthest from the one she had put down on my plate. As this curious couple returned to discussing whatever it was that were going to do next I considered what this whole putting her pizza on my plate might mean. The easiest way for me to continue sitting there was if I were to believe that in her own way she was saying “hey, I know I’m rough around the edges and that you don’t speak German, that i burped and that was gross, please accept this uneaten perfectly good slice of my favorite kind of pizza as a token of friendship, just so you don’t have the wrong idea about me when my boyfriend and I leave here’. I would know soon.

Another polite thing that Germans will often do is to say goodbye to the other people that have sat with at a communal table. We don’t do this much in New York but I think it’s nice really. I was not going to say goodbye to them when they left. I was also not going to leave before them because I knew that how they left our bench would explain a lot about our time together and who these people were.

As the moment of truth arrived the couple gathered their things, her bag, and got up to leave they both looked toward me and in a very natural way said “caio” to me which I returned with a “tschuse”. “Caio” is Italian where tschuse is German. Saying ciao came into fashion in Germany in the eightees from what I’m told and although it sounds nice it’s not something that I hear my German friends saying much. Although it sounds exotic to my American ears, in Berlin I associte it more with people I come across at shops and hear in the streets but we don’t hang out much otherwise. It made me feel warm, as though all the trouble of our lunch together had been worth it. I like to think they were real Berliners.

Ebullition Records: 

Iconoclast, Struggle, Give Me Back compilation, Downcast

The first piece of vinyl I ever purchased was a 7” by a political hardcore band from NJ called Iconoclast. It had a creepy cover with goblins on it and my older brother’s friend who was teaching me about hardcore told me I should get it, so I was sold. Plus at $2.99 it fit into my budget. Call me impressionable but I loved this record. As a teenager with a thirst for (hardcore) knowledge I dug deeper into the catalog of the label that put out this 7”. Ebullition put out some of my favorite records in those days- the Struggle 7”, the Portraits of the Past/Bleed split, Amber Inn and Downcast to name a few. What also set Ebullition apart from the pack is the detail they put into their layouts. The Downcast lp is more like a zine than an lp insert. You could tell there was hard work and passion put into every record they released and that’s not something to be taken for granted. Ebullition is an important label that had a huge impact on my early days of hardcore.  

Last night I received a text from my good pal Rob. He asked the following question: “As a Propagandhi fan, what do you think of The Weakerthans? For some reason I love them at this time of year.” It was then and there that I went off on a rant about how much I dislike them as a band and that I even skip the Propagandhi songs on which John K Samson sang (who, if you couldn’t tell by now, used to play in Propagandhi and now fronts The Weakerthans). After getting that out of my system and returning a few texts back and forth, Rob then made a statement that got me thinking. He wrote “I’m a sucker for depressing emo this time of year.” I knew exactly what he meant and could instantly relate. Though it’s not necessarily a “time of year” prompting in my case, I certainly get bit by the emo-bug every few months. Then, being the nerds that we are, we decided it would be fun to come up with a list of our 5 favorite emo albums of all time. And for the record- we are 32 and 33 years old so our definition and hesitant use of the word “emo” is much different than what you see on Warped Tour these days. Without further ado, here is my list:

elliott- False Cathedrals: Their next full length Song in the Air is a pretty close second but False Cathedrals is such a classic record- so good from start to finish. Also worth mentioning is the amazing layout. If asked for an example of emo in my eyes, elliott and False Cathedrals would be a great starting point.

Texas is the Reason- Do You Know Who You Are?: Another near perfect record. Their self titled ep would be atop my list of favorite eps of all time as well. In fact, back in 1995 when their ep came out I was on a pretty strict “If they don’t scream, I don’t listen” regimen and they changed that.

Jimmy Eat World- Clarity: Can’t go wrong with Clarity. Could be one of the best records of all time, in any genre. Static Prevails got me hooked and then Clarity put them on a different planet in my eyes.

The Get Up Kids- Four Minute Mile: Almost a weird choice for me because I never enjoyed any album they put out after this one. But this record (and the Woodson ep that preceded it) sounds so incredible to me. I’ve read interviews where the band talked about this sounding too raw, but I guess that’s what I love about it. They wouldn’t make my list of favorite bands, but this album is one of my favorites of this ilk.  

Gameface- Every Last Time: This might be the one that wouldn’t be considered as “emo sounding” as the others, but I don’t care…it’s my emo list and I’ll cry if I want to. This album was released right around the same time as the others and back then I was listening to mostly hardcore so any DIY bands who weren’t screaming their brains out, to me, were emo.