PAID SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE BACK! (ALSO, AN ANGRY SUN IS SHINING & MAKING PATTERNS)
As announced in the subject line, I have returned to accepting paid subscriptions for the rest of the foreseeable future.
Why, you axe?
The simple answer is I need the money. Also, if kind folks such as yourselves pay to keep this thing going, it’ll force me to break out of this post-surgery funk. You know, the same one I insisted wouldn’t happen…
But if we can get down to the core of why I need an excuse to provide you with something/anything to read or hear or smell every goddamned week, it’s that I need a distraction. If I keep my head down and stay busy, maybe it’ll block out all the crap that’s helped make me into the amusingly miserable jackass that I am today. Prior to two years ago, my only reasons for my attitude were living on a literal island with the dumbest people in the state of New York, maintaining a home I don’t give a shit about, always being broke, and being a 24-hour chauffeur. But now, I can add to the list of issues pissing out bile, the stale smell of urine that emanates from a pull-up during a late night changing, and the fact I will never be able to sleep more than four hours ever again. What can I say? I’m a loudmouth manchild who just wasn’t built for adulting.
Last summer, in a possibly conscious attempt at being morose, I returned to the strains of Codeine with my discovery of What About The Lonely?, a live record recorded in ‘93 and released in 2013, being my go-to when sullenness was needed, especially the particularly crushing version of “Wird” on there. Since the bands’ recordings as well as the solo work of member Chris Brokaw had played such a large role in the pre-gaming of having my bladder removed, I decided my return to witnessing live music would be a solo performance by Brokaw held at the Record Grouch store in Brooklyn.
I wish I could tell you it was a magical coming home of sonic proportions, but it was fairly typical of many events I’d attended in my adult life other than a kid who was rockin’ an outfit like he was Tonie Joy in 1993. A skicap atop a decent amount of black hair with an old workmen jacket on and a pair of perfectly scuffed mailman oxfords. It was further proof the 90s are now and what happened back then was just a large-scale promotion for The Matrix.
Anywhos, Chris performed what he told us was his entire upcoming album and it sounded just as epic and wonderful as any of his previous releases with equal amounts of grey, churning guitar noise and moments of awkward tranquility. After that, he performed a few older songs, including “The Heart of Human Trafficking”, a track I was OBSESSED with back in the fall. Since hearing that song was the whole reason I left my house, drove into Brooklyn on a Saturday night, and stared at the back of someone’s neck for 45 minutes, I felt the proper response at its conclusion was to drop a twenty in the bucket, avoid eye contact and get the hell out of there.
At 51, this was my idea of an ideal night out.
To maintain this healthy mood, I’ve been delving deep into the YouTube accounts of Canadian Wasteland and Thisisaproxychannel on YouTube to rediscover or simply discover some 90s emo/proto-screamo/whatever in an attempt to find more reasons not to leave the bed.
Post-Christopher Robin quiet-core unit Patterns Make Sunshine’s EP from 1995 is a new discovery from the past few years that’s been on heavy laptop rotation. The sound is very much in the vein of Evergreen or Native Nod with its from-a-twinkle-to-a-scream dynamics and effectual, whiny male vocals that teeter on the brink of being annoying as a sock that’s lost its elasticity. I’m unsure what my opinion would have been of Patterns Make Sunshine if I heard it at the time of its’ release. I either would have dug it or found it to be too derivative of the above-mentioned units.
Another 90s emo thingamajig I’ve listened to on YouTube is the 1994 demo by California’s Allure. For the most part, what this trio of kids produced doesn’t stray too far from the quiet-hissy fit-quiet routine of many other bands from this time, so I think what grabs me in the present day is the horrendous sound quality and the overall rawness of how they laid it out there. If I heard or saw this band back then, there’d likely be some permanent stain on them due to my snottiness. I suppose that’s the best thing about discovering some of this stuff at such a later date. I’m beyond the point of giving a shit what anyone thinks. If you find it funny I’m giving virtual press to a twee-core record that barely existed over Water Damage or The Chisel, I understand. Just don’t be surprised when you’re in my shoes 30 years from now and wondering how you never heard of Grid Iron.