Am I a crazy weirdo

or do the lyrics to Dag Nasty's What Now allude to more than a bromantic friendship?:
silly boy
in over his head again
silly boy
doing his best again
silly boy
why don't you ever learn?
silly boy you
can't help getting hurt
behind us- lying and hiding
behind us - the lying and hiding

I know it's not much, you gotta hear the spoken word part to understand:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqLSSdoW2Zc
Tell me yer thoughts

coming up sometime: Between The Descendents and Motley Crue lies The Donnas- an assessment

Emo saturday morning part 3: adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

Between 1993 and 1994, a few strange things happened: we got a new president who was just as bad as Bush I(trying to end the welfare program, starting an uncalled war with Bosnia when diplomacy and justice would have faired better,etc.), Cobain commited suicide*, Kafkaesque comic Bill Hicks succumbed to cancer, A young religious man named David Koresh went mad and took a bunch of women and children hostage, and Lorraine Bobbit cut off her husband's cock. Yes, it was a confusing, tumultuous time to be a young person and it certainly shows in these songs. Some have a poppier tone like Evergreen's Constellation while others accurately capture the fear and chaos brewing; listen to the manic howl of Indian Summer's Truman or the suspenseful clatter of Gauge's 38 cinder, that's the sound of desperation and the fear of what was to come.

*By the way, all that talk of Cobain being a spoiled rock star is somewhat diminished here in his suicide letter:
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/05/its-better-to-burn-out-than-to-fade.html

We see that he was in the throes of depression and for him, there wasn't much of a way out since no one really took the effort to reach out and say something until it was too late and they did it half assed.

Emo Saturday Morning part 2: Ren and stimpy (1991-1992)

This here's another short one, but I'm surprised how much I mined out of the first one with one glance at Fugazi's lyrics so here we go:

So we start with another blast of sincerity from Nation of Ulysses, an anarcistish emo/punk band from D.C. with their song Today I met the girl I'm gonna marry. Although this could also be an example of irony since they were quite supportive of Binki Kill, the famous riot grrrl band who eventually moved to D.C. from Washington. Either way, it's a passionate, desperate yelp for love and justice.

Next is Samiam with Clean, this one being a bit more brooding and angsty in the Nirvana sort of vein. Nowadays, everyone says the band's popularity was based on marketing and well, alas, that is true in the case of the grunge genre which they ultimately became a part of. Nonetheless, a glance at the lyrics shows that there's a tiny influence from Nirvana's Lithium, displaying that sort of everyday moping around the house feeling burnt out kind of mood:
http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/samiam/clean.html

Now, onto Jawbox which is slightly more intellectual as opposed to Lithium or Clean as it explores a relationship between two people, one person of which feels a sense of pity and sympathy for the other.
congratulations sister
you put yourself right over
though you don't think i understand
this sudden awkward rupture
this stuck-unhealing fissure
no love could possibly withstand
and i'd never say

it doesn't mean that much to me
glad anyway
to see you struggle free
This half sarcastic half sincere delivery really defines the tone of the first half of the decade; many romantic comedies of the era like Reality Bites or Singles tried and failed to mix existential dread with the wry observations of shows like Seinfeld. Yet, in the end, everything came out as insincere and smarmy with only the music and surprisingly, Children's shows like Pete and Pete or even Ren and Stimpy pulling this off the best.

Next: 1993-1994

Emo via my Saturday morning tv shows: a summer project

So yes, another quick one while school's away- from 1990-1997, I recall watching some kind of Saturday morning block or another or at least watching repeats of some cartoon

Let's start with 1990, Bobbys' world: I didn't watch it when it first aired cos I was two, but whatever, it's good starting point:
songs:
Repeater-Fugazi
wit's end/never more-Iconoclast
Want-Jawbreaker
Guatamala- Moss Icon

1990 was a time of uncertainty and anxiety, obviously because it was the start of a new decade, but also because of the fall of the USSR and end of the cold war in general which left everyone feeling lost and confused, a sentiment nicely expressed by Fugazi:

You say I need a job,
I've got my own business
You want to know what i do?
None of your fucking business
But now I'm lying here
Knowing that business had a name,
But now I'm a number

While this could easily be read as an anti communist sort of sentiment, I believe that it's about losing a status of sorts. In the 80s, people were stockbrokers, hair metal stars, corrupt politicians, any type of deed or sin of the famous you could possibly imagine was splayed across pages as though they were bold epic novels, (a trend which only got worse into the 90s, but that comes later), once the decade was over though? Bam! They became part of the population, one of the unwashed working class people that they once scoffed at.

Along with status change, there was also a hint of sincerity creeping in whether it was expressed through an environmental message like in Moss Icon's Guatamala or via the voice of a tongue tied, lovelorn young man in the aptly titled Want. The 90s was going to be a totally different decade and these songs certainly showed it.

Next: Ren and Stimpy or Emo years 1991-1992

The Meatmen vs Animal collective

Meatmen-we're the meatmen and you suck 198_: surprisingly boring for a so called bad taste band(and for a man who dresses like he's a race car driver being represented by the church of Scientology) Gimmie good ol GG Allin's I wanna fuck myself any day

Animal Collective- Here come the Indians 2003: despite the reputation of these guys as childish hippies, I liked their version of the clanging industrial noise made famous by throbbing gristle or even Lou Reed's metal machine music. Is it redundant? Sure, but they bring a much more lighter, peaceful mood to the style, almost like Phillip Glass trying his hand at Industrial rock.

Swing Kids discography

It's like if a rage induced, spurned rimbaud took a buncha caffeine pills and put his poems to song. And the screaming! Oy the screaming! I think Justin Pearson has pioneered screamo here, friends.

Do I like it? Well the performance certainly more passionate and desperate than Cap'N Jazz's Gilliamesque depictions of youth trauma. I kind of like it.. they certainly brought gothic rock to a softer genre with their cover of Joy Divison's Warsaw so kudos to that(which as an excellent bass line). Yet, lyrics wise, Cap 'N Jazz wins for surrealism.

So what does this 23 year old who was barely out of Elementary school think of these two 90s emo landmarks?

Cap'N Jazz: 8/10 for weird lyrics yet generic beats

Swing Kids: 9/10 for tight, tense rhythm and striking if occasionally grating vocals

Otherwise, I am quite happy with Sunny Day Real Estate and Rites of Spring being my two favorite emo acts.

Bonus review thing: Cap'n Jazz's alphabetapolothology disc 1

So I've sampled Cap'N Jazz's stuff before and could never understand what the hell they were talking about even when I looked over the lyrics. I figured they were depicting some sort of twisted nostalgia for a traumatizing childhood as seen in songs like In the clear which depicts a child's fear of a child eating dog or Yes I'm talking to you which is apparently about mournfully reminiscing of eating cookies with your childhood friend turned best girl on a moonlit night. But then, there's songs like olerud which seems to involve a boy venting all his love problems onto his fairly young father or my personal favorite, Que Suerete which tells of a love/hate relationship between a boy and girl. So is it a concept album biography? How one person develops from a fearful boy into an equally timid socially awkward young man? What? While this record's interesting, the idea of surreal childhood memories was better explored with Boards of Canada's Music belongs to Children, I think.