Emo Diaries: The Appleseed Cast

The Appleseed Cast is pretty weird for an emo band. The first album, The End of the Ring Wars, aside, most of the material strays widely from the accepted turn-of-the-millennium formula for emo exemplified by Saves the Day or Alkaline Trio. Instead, these guys take their cues from U2 and Godspeed! You Black Emperor (but in a good, wholesome emo way... I actually don't really like those two bands). That's an awkward way of saying that the Appleseed Cast uses a lot of drone in long songs that typically have the vocals deep in the background.

I saw Appleseed Cast in DC recently at a show that was cut short because there was an after-party for a Ladytron show starting at 11pm. Whatever. The show itself was definitely enjoyable, but it made me think a lot more about the band. These guys just seem beaten. And not only because they were battling illnesses and were almost run over by a tornado recently, but through their songs and performances too. The vibe they give is different from most emo bands - there's a strong sense of doom in a very unironic way. Instead of writing catchy, easy songs for teenage kids, these guys went the opposite direction and paid the price for it. Here they are, coming up on 15 years of existence, and still being booted off stage by some English electro pricks.

It might be the Kansas thing that throws me off. But there's something much more authentically emo about these guys. No flash, no theatre, just pain and resignation. Nobody will be singing the lyrics at these guys' shows, there will certainly be no "whoa-oaa" moments, and if there's anything even remotely like a breakdown, it's hidden under eighteen layers of reverb. Yet their music still speaks, and powerfully so.

Emo Diaries: The Anniversary - Your Majesty

This album came out at the very tail end of the underground emo phenomenon in January 2002 and exhibited almost all of the qualities of the transitional emo-indie album. The very first thing you'd notice once you got your hands on the CD is that it was packaged in a paper case, immediately recalling the packaging of other completely legit albums like Something to Write Home About or Four Cornered Night. Once you opened it, you knew that the Anniversary had higher aspirations than your local bands who would never release a CD in anything other than a broken jewel case or maybe those flimsy paper/plastic envelopes that really fledgling bands give out. It was also on Vagrant, which still kind of meant something at the time.

The music also belied a deep desire to be an indie rock band. The prior Anniversary album, Designing a Nervous Breakdown was a confection-laden treat with synthesizer bursting from every crevice in the synth-emo style of Ozma or the Rentals (but less straight-up rock than Ozma and less Weezer-cred than the Rentals). Your Majesty eliminated the exploitatively catchy and blip-bloop-y synths for "majestic" organ tones and the tempo of ballads or dirges. Along with these changes, the lyrics also moved up in class. The Anniversary wanted a more literary tone than your average emo band, but ended up with generic poetry-ish lyrics that never really resonated with me, though I did think that the song Devil on Your Side was kinda badass... yeaaa.

I once saw the Anniversary open for Get Up Kids and then once headlining. The differences between those shows parallel the differences between the albums. The first time they were a goofy, hook-y emo band with a really cute keyboard player. The next time I saw them, the lead singer was wearing a fighter jet pilot's helmet like he was Maverick or something. That about sums it up to me.

Of course, in retrospect, The Anniversary is just one of several emo bands from Kansas to have more than a passing dalliance with indie. It could contribute this to Saddle Creek's Nebraskan influence, and on some level I kind of believe it to be true even though I have absolutely no basis for doing so. A hybrid band like the Anniversary is required to show restraint and taste to build up credibility as an indie band, but lack of restraint is pretty much the foundation of all emo. Yet, I still really enjoy the Anniversary even though I never became an enthusiastic fan at the time. Yet, their songs are still solid at their base and definitely worth listening to anytime I want to think back to early 2002.


Designing a Nervous Breakdown era



Your Majesty era

Elliott Smith's strengths are melodic chords and a quivering, irresolute voice

Here's a good Elliott Smith song.



Here's another song that I like which has great vocal harmonies and percussion.



Here's Elliott Smith's miserable cover of that song.



That's all!

I'll never be able to review like Robert Christgau

Here's his assessment of Enema of the State by Blink-182, an album that I appreciate more all of the time, and mostly on Robert Christgau's terms:

"Ignore the porn-movie cover except insofar as it conveys terror. These guys are so frightened of females that they turn down sure sex from one hussy on grounds of name-dropping and reject another for being too quick with the zipper. There's no macho camouflage--girlophobia is their great subject. And boy, have they worked up some terrific defenses. If preemptive jealousy doesn't do the trick, there's always suicide, or abduction by aliens. Yet note it well--because they're out front about their little problem, "Going Away to College" is the love song the Descendents put Green Day on earth to inspire."

Such pith! Amazing.

If I think really hard, I remember when I cared about the differences between The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most and Swiss Army Romance

I'm emo, even if I'm not exactly sure what that means anymore. Whether it's music, fashion, or an emotional state, to me, the DC area emo scene circa the turn of the century encapsulates everything emo and, at it's peak, its nucleus was the auditorium at St. Andrew's Church in College Park, Maryland.

St. Andrew's was strictly and rapturously DIY: Cash only, no advance ticket sales, a totally unadorned stage, nothing on sale but merch, and loads of local bands opening for national acts (i.e., bands on Vagrant, Drive-Thru, or Fueled By Ramen). I saw at least a dozen huge emo bands in St. Andrew's viscerally intimate atmosphere. Crashing my car in the rain on the way to see Alkaline Trio and was one of the worst moments of my young life.

The greatest show I've ever been to, though, also anticipated emo's demise. Instead of just one huge emo band, several of them performed that night with a few local favorites. St. Andrew's was filled well over capacity with wildly vibrant expectations. The region's emo kids descended on College Park clad in their finest. One bespectacled girl who wore a striped sweater while lying under a tree, a leather bound book held to her chest, stared into the sky while the line progressed behind her into the church. It was probably the most emo thing I have ever seen.

Yet, that night signaled emo's conversion into a mass culture stereotype, personified by Chris Carraba. The crowd, accustomed to a full band's distorted grind, was skeptical of Carraba, then the only member Dashboard Confessional, and his completely acoustic set. However, he quickly caught on. About a year later, Dashboard's soft tones would blow up in the mainstream. Record execs eviscerated the emo-purity of Dashboard's solitary acoustic guitar and added a backing band, making the songs somehow much less emo. When drums were added to "Screaming Infidelities," the emo scene became unhinged as though Dylan had gone electric. This perceived betrayal created the emo caricature that garnered a spread in every supermarket magazine, killing the scene. It wasn't ours any longer, it's been sold and securitized to Universal Music Group though a distribution deal with Vagrant Records and that girl in your english class who wore a Get Up Kids shirt even though she'd never shed a single drop of sweat at a show.

When the Green Album came out, my emo fandom dwindled further. Every song on Pinkerton begat another emo sub-genre; it was emo's VU & Nico. Even better, Weezer had been mostly defunct since 1997 and unable to fuck up their legacy. The Green Album, and subsequent recordings, however, did precisely that and called into doubt whether Weezer, and therefore all of emo, had been fundamentally flawed from the beginning. Sickened by mall-emo, underground kids went back to the well of hardcore for authenticity and came back with screamo. Other more tender souls were captivated by Conor Oberst. Screamo eventually drifted back into punk while other emo kids merged into indie genericism. By that point my interest deviated to totally non-emo things like Dischord shows at Fort Reno and Wes Anderson films at Cinema Arts. (Let me explicitly note the sarcasm here.) Eventually, some jackass set off a firecracker in the middle of a crowd at a St. Andrew's show, quite literally blowing things up and making sure that nobody ever had a show there ever again.

Yet, my emo side will never die. While I don't still wear Dickies and I've never worn Chucks or a spiked belt (all emo standard issue), I still dress sort of emo, love girls with dark hair, bangs, and eye shadow, and wish I cared enough about an existing band to crush myself against hundred of other sweaty people and scream the lyrics all night. The basic environment of St. Andrew's affected me more than any other venue because of the community. We were owned something special and unique. It was ours. It wasn't just about musicianship, it was contributing to something true and DIY with people who understood. Emo's totally dead in all but its remnant form, but my memories remain.

Elliott Smith

Albums With a Personal Importance Completely Disproportionate to Their Musical Greatness

Interpol; Antics

I kind of liked Turn on the Bright Lights when it came out, but Antics just must have came out at a particularly vulnerable time of my life, because anytime I hear any song off of that album, I turn into a stuttering, emotional mess.  In the alternative, Antics turns me into the most giddy, bouncy person you've ever seen.  Upon reflection, Antics quite rightly reflects my own volatile situation around the time it was released.  That said, Our Love to Admire kind of sucked and the two times I saw Interpol live, they were terribly emotionless.  However, play Evil, Slow Hands, or C'Mere around me at your own risk - chances are those songs will elicit some sort of extreme reaction, and you might not like it.

Saves the Day; Through Being Cool

Most close acquaintances know that I was pretty intensely emo between the years 2000 and 2004, give or take.  Saves the Day certainly was not my favorite emo band at the time, (The Impossibles) but they are the band that has endured the best in public appraisal and my own regard.  Just to bolster my emo cred, I was in a band that, after my very appropriate departure, developed into a pretty solid emo band in its own regard.  (And by that I mean they played at the Vienna Community Center a few times.)  Anyway, I've seen Saves the Day probably about four times live, all during high school.  I don't think it's terribly crazy to have developed some sort of subconscious vulnerability to the tunes that contextualized your adolescent years.  Their other albums are also pretty badass.  However, My Sweet Fracture, The Last Lie I Told, and Rocks Tonic Juice Magic just totally slay me.  God, I wish I had the Saves the Day shirt I bought back at St. Andrews.

The Magnetic Fields; 69 Love Songs

This album is difficult for me to talk about for many reasons.  First of all, it is simply a complex album that would take me quite a while to completely explain on its own terms, regardless of any personal meaning.  The fact that this album devastates me on a personal level only adds to the intricacy.  Needless to say, if you want me to go crazy, put on How Fucking Romantic.

Weezer; Pinkerton

Like everything else Weezer, the memory of their old albums is comprehensively tainted by their modern albums, which are inferior in every way.  However, I would be completely remiss if I did not mention the relevance Weezer had on my life in, say, 2001.  Pinkerton possesses all of the most emo qualities of Through Being Cool times twenty minus its temporal and physical immediacy.  So there's a bit of balancing going on.  

? and the Mysterians; 96 Tears

This might be the one song whose importance to me personally is equal to its musical greatness.  On a daily basis while studying abroad, I woke up to 96 Tears as an alarm clock.  I'm almost certain that my roommate (we shared bunk beds) was driven crazy by the song, especially the day that I was away and he later admitted to me that he listened to the song three consecutive times.  Beyond its mechanical importance, as an emo kid and a classic rock kid, I can totally empathize with the sentiment of crying "too many teardrops for one heart to be crying."  Furthermore, 96 Tears reigns as the greatest karaoke song ever made, given the right performer, i.e., me.

The Specials; More Specials

Particularly, I Can't Stand It.  Breaks me up every time.

The Smashing Pumpkins; Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness

It would really be disrespectful of me to address a band that had such an important impact in my life in the last entry of a subdivided blog post.  They deserve about three posts of their own, but I can't finish this particular post without at least mentioning Billy Corgan's excessive emotional outburst.  

Ghostface Killah; Strawberry

Some things are best left unsaid.