the jim yoshii pile-up

so let me guess: you realy miss benton falls. no? well i do. and thankfully i have the perfect thing for me: the jim yoshii pile-up.

and luckilly, these jim yoshii guys really rocked the sad, delicate words just like our old friends from deep elm did. but with more of a flimsy indie-rock direction behind their music (along with a definate fear of being too loud), they end up being way more subdued, kind of like a whispery yawn of listlessness being blown into your ear. but watch out: get too complacent and those chords-that-shouldn't be chords will thrust you into crecendo-appreciation mode.

i'm concerning myself with homemade drugs, the second release from this bunch of delicious sounding miscreants. our main instrumental friend is a treble heavy telecaster twinkling away like nobody's business. occasionally we have a bassier second guitar lay down a mineral-esque opening riff or some lovely thrumming chromatic chords. throw in some occasional piano tinkering, some tickly, cymbal heavy drumming and a gentleman who can actually sing (disconcertingly well for a band like this) and you've got a deal.

and don't forget, our main man paul pens lyrics that have the despair of the most private journal but still manage to harness that helpless anger that only the worst breakups contain. as a result, i just want to pat this dude on the back, give him a hug and tell him everything's going to be okay.

so if you're into polished and textured sonic tearjerking, or midwest emo of any fascination you should check these guys out. [and just for the hell of it, since paul kind of has those scottish tinges to his voice, if you ever cream yourself over simon neil (from biffy clyro)'s voice, get into this shit now.]

"it's because i'm a petty guy who spends his time fabricating useless lies"
"the truth is somewhere in between hurting you and killing me"

file under: twinklecore
listen to: double negative, in focus, middle harbour road

the jim yoshii pile-up: homemade drugs

ethel meserve

today i'm going to tell you about one of my favourite bands. their name is ethel meserve and they're not terribly well known at all. and that's such a shame, because i think that they're one of the best things to have happened to emo since sunny day real estate.

the good thing is that at least some people during the nineties recognised this. a few musical spatterings on such wonderful collections of music as "the postmarked stamp" series and crank!'s fantastic "(don't forget to) breathe" compilation, ethel meserve always remained enigmatic with brash jangly guitars and composed shouting, almost daring the listener to find out more. and if you hadn't taken them up on it, well shame on you.

unfortunately i did it all the wrong way around. ethel's "the milton abandonment" had enjoyed heavy rotation in my cd player before i knew these comps existed. my story is very romantic. i fell in love, it's that simple. head over heels. and truth is, if you listen to the opening to "east coker", you'll know exactly what i'm talking about. the most polite cello you've ever heard humming the same pretty tune over and over again, gradually joined by well-meaning but dissonant guitar jangles. the beautiful thing about this that they seem to carve their own little corner of music that shouldn't make sense but does. getting into the swing of things, we become aquainted with the nice young man who sings to us. honestly and without trite we're introduced to how it feels to come back home and have nothing waiting for you except shadows. poetically shown how sad serious things can be.

and suitably, where these guys hit home resides in the second last track on the ep, ina. any afficendo of spokenwordcore (as i politely dub it) would agree, a disjointed riff, some bitter overdrive and this alienated but annoyed young man telling us about his deadbeat of an alcoholic father, lamenting in lost birthdays and ruined childhoods. as the story unfolds and the tragedy increases, so does the musical panic. special shout outs must go to the bassist and his tocsin; the bass guitar becomes a warning to us: this next crecendo is going to blow you away.

and of course since the milton abandonment seems to be over far too quickly, tree records recently did us the pleasure of releasing all those loose odds and ends (including those blissful two tracks on the abovementioned compilations) onto one handy cd called "spelling the names". although we have the same band here, this cd is ironically as disjointedly arranged as their music, never meshing as a cohesive whole as milton did. almost serving as a warm-up to their opus, yet eclipsing the best efforts of oh so many other bands.

bluntly, if you like mid nineties emo at all, you need these guys. you need find out what it is to fall in love with this beautiful, awkward waltz of a band.



"a town so small you can wave on every block someone knows your name"
mp3s of note: east coker, ina, west decatur
(as well as belated blues, onward foster and calba's last on spelling the names if you can)
ethel meserve - the milton abandonment

the kodan armada

hello internet it's been a while. i've had some remotivation which has resulted in me wanting to write some more. nice while it lasts i guess, so i'd better not waste any time!

in the brief period since we spoke last, i've decided to get a bit more in touch with some shouty hardcore. and who better to lead off the renaissance with the kodan armada, a group of nice young men from kentucky who like loud-soft dynamics and shouting so hard you know that they have tears in their eyes.

during their five year tenure running around playing shows all over the place, a mishmash of tracks that could best be described as their discography was released under the guise of "a collection of songs". and amazingly, it allows the listener to have a little shot of experiencing one of these shows in their very own bedroom, thanks to the little soundbites of honest banter that sandwich every couple of tracks.

i'm not exactly sure which member of the band is speaking during these, but he certainly loves making a statement. opening the album with "this song is about my dad raping my sister. that's a pretty messed up situation. doesn't mean we shouldn't have a party, have a good time."

and to be fair to him, it's only horrible things like that which could have possibly inspired such powerful songs. "no has never had three letters" starts off gently enough with a forewarning clean guitar but soon breaks down into an extremely haunting spoken word verse enveloped by a threatening crash cymbal. then, cue the distortion and cue the cathargy. the armada's two-way exchange of fragile screams introduce you to pure, unadulterated heartache.

that's not all. after laying down the foundations of their particularly hand-wringing blend of screamo, we're ushered into the almost disco-like beats of bullshit buffet, the layered cacophony of the technology condemning iwishididnthatemyselfdotcom (with quite possibly the catchiest yet shortest breakdown ever). and continuing the controversial nature of their material, cops throws out the worryingly curious lyric "it's not you i hate, it's your fucking race" (referring to the human race and police brutality). the album is tied up with the interesting butterfly effect which boasts a short cover version of prog-rock heroes kansas' "carry on my wayward son" after their original offering. really took me by surprise, i don't think i've ever heard a more unlikely mashup.

but all in all, a fantastic collection. and interestingly, lyrics to most songs seem to be written and sung communally, with each member writing down his thoughts about an issue and then shouting about it. i can't really think of a bad thing to say.

there's band news too though guys. in the style of the best emo bands, they've released this collection of fantastic, cathargic material and then gone and broken up. sigh.

but don't fret. instead, have a listen and let them kick your heart around a bit.

"i think that I've wasted most of my life waiting for it to start. please do not do this"
mps of note: bullshit buffet, iwishididnthatemyselfdotcom, cops
The Kodan Armada - A Collection Of Songs

spy versus spy

so the other week i was browsing ebay looking for oop mineral singles and stuff when i saw spy versus spy's self titled release up for bidding, starting price: un euro solo (€1)

i'd heard of these guys on c-zine ages ago, and after sampling a few of their tracks (namely 'how the cat was invented'), i was immediately impressed. their sound is raw, all over the place, but held into place by some funky rhythms and some really crunchy but enviable overdrive on the guitars. mister lead singer's voice treads the thin line between passionately screaming, honestly declaring and forcefully presenting shards of emotion. there's soft bits where they matter, frenzy where it matters, and the little lines of lyrics you can kind of treasure to yourself.

sadly, upon a bit of research these dudes came out of stoke-on-trent/newcastle (wiki says former, cd cover says latter) and have since broken up. about six years ago in fact. makes me kind of sad, these guys would have been amazing to see live.

stand out track of the album at first listen appears to be "helpless, sign in please" ("do you remember when september began? we'll close our eyes and pretend"), but this is one band who knew how to be consistant in their tunes. though i must be fair and say that a lot of my love for this band is nostalgic; they slot nicely into my favourite genre, and favourite subgenre of that genre making them an instant favourite.

so they're on their seventh spin so far in my player. top notch effort guys. drew rating five thumbs out of five firmly UP.



for fans of: braid, rockets & blue lights, cap'n jazz

mp3: helpless, sign in please

southpaw

so i ran out of things to listen to for a little while. that's not to say i haven't been buying music lately! and it's not to say i've not been relistening to classics, either. but sure, i have some recent purchases such as the new converge album waiting to grow on me, but i doubt that my parents would be too chuffed at me spinning some hardcore punk at three in the morning. there was nothing left but to sit down in front of the stacks and choose some more obscure stuff that i hadn't listened to properly yet.

the winner was "trajectories" by southpaw.

let me explain. i had this phase back when i first turned 18 and got my debit card that consisted of me sitting on ebay searching for anything related to "mineral" or "sunny day real estate". so yeah i managed to get my hands on some absolute gems, such as the ethel meserve tamsen 7", and mineral's split 7" with jimmy eat world and sensefield, but at the same time i bought a load of other cds as well.

in buying these, it's one of the first and only times advertising has actually really helped me out, conciously. you see, a lot of these smaller labels would put their catalogues up on ebay, and in the title field of the item, they'd shove names of bands that the release sounded like. so i think i've got a load of shit discs that sound like spitalfield lying around that i bought just because they had "EMO sunny day real estate" appended to the title.

anyways, enough of my buying habits and onto the disc. southpaw's "trajectories" all in all cost me less than a fiver, postage paid, which was a fantastic bargain to be honest. released on the "boss tunage" label, southpaw seem to have disappeared from the internet; it's impossible to find anything on them anywhere, except for one zine entry. so that's why the album cover above consists of me holding up the sleeve and an awkward flash obscuring a bit. image searches for the actual band consisted of loads of different country western bands holding up acoustic guitars and looking about 35+.

the actual cd itself lies on the punkier side of 90s emo. released in 2003, it's a bit of a return to the sounds of this era, with melodic little guitar lines on top of grunged out powerchords. kind of a departure from other bands though, they slot in the odd pinch harmonic just to really freak you out.

if there's one track you hear from this band, make sure it's 'inertia'. catchy as fuck, blazing along like a rollercoaster. it's a really honest, pop-punk track that just cheered me up as soon as i heard it. i'm a fan, anyway.

really it's better to hear it. check out the mp3 below. catch you guys later.


mp3 http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZZBR3QHD

if this doesn't work after a period, just give me an email at iamdrew@gmail.com requesting i send the file.
i've never used megaupload before.

ps southpaw, if you don't want mp3s up here, just let me know and i'll take them down.

forstella ford

i got my fostella ford cd through the post today, which really was just what the doctor ordered. especially since it took nigh on three weeks getting here. i guess i'll let them off though, as it was imported from florida somewhere, and is actually worth the wait.

but when i opened up the envelope, guess what? the jewel case had been broken in the mail. oh yeah, i understand that's a bit of a hazard accepted in dealing through the post, but sometimes it just really pisses me off: probably about fifty percent of my cd collection have broken jewel cases, and when opening up i have to be careful that the disc doesn't go flying all over the place. hell, i even ordered about fifty blank cases the other week to put all my unboxed cds in, but even when arriving these cases were mostly all cracked in one way or the other. and i'm not even going to speak about the quality.

putting the cd in my player though, i really was waiting with bated breath for something fantastic. i'm not sure if any of you are familiar with forstella ford, but they're the band that 'only airplanes count' broke up to form. only airplanes count are really difficult to find anything on, and the only song i know that they've released is 'kings do not have watches' from the emo diaries 1 comp. and it's probably one of my favourite songs just due to the sound these guys have. twinking dissonance, rough vocals, almost incomprehensible lyrics.

one of the few things i did find out about only airplanes count was that they'd broken up and formed forstella ford though. so upon googling them, i listened to a few of their tracks scattered about the place and i was so disappointed. it turns out fostella ford turned into a hardcore/thrash band. not that it's a bad thing, just that i was really hoping for the gems of tracks such as 'kings do not have watches'. so i forgot about them.

until one day. when on c-zine someone happened to mention emo diaries 1, so i asked a tentative question about only airplanes count and came back with a bit of a discussion on how much they'd basically changed. the one saving grace is that someone mentioned their first album sounded a bit like what only airplanes count sounded like. and that was enough for me, so i ordered it.

now it's in my player though, i can't help but feel it's a pale shadow of what only airplanes count was. sure, it's a good album. it's mathy in all the right places, has the right guitar sound (maybe not quite as twangy as i remember it), but the lyrics are distinctly more.. i dunno, adolescent. it's all clearly about girls as he describes them, what they've done to him, what he never did. he leaves no room for interpretation, no room for the listener's experiences.

and they do weird inexplicable things too. after the first track comes a 1:20~ long acoustic ballad. it was over before i knew it, and i really just said to myself, "what?". in the later tracks it all kind of blends together, but one thing stands out is the good old voice over trick. they get some well spoken, probably well known dude's voice sampled over them playing. distinctly reminded me of ethel meserve's "ina", but was just not as good. why did such a good band break up to form such an inferior one? i almost cry at the thought.

maybe i'm a bit harsh. maybe i'm jaded from previous expectations. and maybe i've just not listened to this enough yet. and even though i'm disappointed that it's not the perfect album, i still enjoyed listening to it, and i'm still kind of happy to have it sitting in my stack.

rockets and blue lights

i thought that tonight i'd like to talk about one of the records i own, but i wasn't sure which one. so i've been looking through my record collection and although there's a lot of stuff i'd like to talk about, there's one thing that takes priority over that. you see, i'd already picked out the 'i hate myself' 7" that would be great fodder for some wordy meandering, but then i opened up the top of my turntable and saw the rockets and bluelights 10" just sitting there begging for a spin.

this one hasn't left my turntable in a good couple of months, to be honest, and is definately the opus of my collection. and i think it's one of these things that quite probably everyone should have heard of, but copious amounts of people HAVEN'T. needless to say that this record represents everything that's both hidden and good about emo. a 10" vinyl: two tracks on each side. of course flipping it is a pain, but what can you do. even side a has enough fantastic material to blow the socks off of a large mountain.

so i googled them a while back when i was all curious about them, but all i could find information on was the painting they were named after. needless to say that's NOT what i was looking for, though i suppose it's a pretty painting! and it obviously meant enough for them to name their band after it, i suppose.

but on further investigation, i was able to find a small geocities website from the band which is badly produced and really juxtapositioned (it's not what one would call top notch design), but without sounding insulting, it actually suits the music perfectly. spanning pictures showing their lives, obviously a very visual band. and their picture page makes me so jealous that i was and am unable to jump down into the basements where they play their shows. and on the site there was a promise of a 10 song lp, which i'd be bursting at the mention of. sadly i'm not sure whether the band are still together or not.

released on very elusive redder records, the actual record is hidden away at the bottom of the page, as the very last release! not exactly in a standout position, to be honest. it's also only $9.49, which considering exchange rates is cheap as chips for me.

so sitting here with the vinyl spinning, listening to the heavy feedback, mathy rhythms and random shouts is probably as close as i'll get to the diy scene over there. but as long as they produce superb records like this, i suppose i'll be sated. but i'm not even asking you, but telling you that you must hear this band.

mp3, rockets and bluelights - a smashed piano
vinyl, buy it at redder records