Jawbreaker "Dear You" reissued

I'm not buying that as a serious question unless your exposure to Jawbreaker was one song you half-assedly listened to one time.

― circa1916, Monday, March 21, 2016 9:49 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

my brother got me 24 Hour Revenge Therapy for Christmas and I've been listening to it a lot since then. I don't dislike it, it just sounds like a weaker version of Green Day circa Dookie/Insomniac. Muddy, indistinct guitar sound, lyrics don't stick for me, it's all sort of a wash. I checked out Dear You on YouTube, and yeah, Rob Cavallo's production helps a lot.

what's your take on the dickies in comparison to green day?

"I dunno, this Loveless thing is alright, I guess, but where's the clarity that can be heard in better bands like A Place To Bury Strangers?"

Shoegaze?? Apples and handbags.... Precision and clarity are exactly what I want in punk & rock music.

Not a Misfits fan, then, I take it?

what's your take on the dickies in comparison to green day?

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, March 22, 2016 1:30 PM (41 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They're alright, but again, why listen to the Dickies when you can listen to the Ramones? ...I think Billie Joe is an excellent lyricist, songwriter, and they have a fantastic guitar sound.

xp yeah I can't stand the Misfits

billie joe armstrong has always been a pretty weak lyricist imo, serviceable when he's writing songs about adolescence and body horror, but you can totally see how out of his depth he is when he's trying to absorb the kinks or dylan on warning or, later, attempting to sell a concept album.

i called jawbreaker lyrically peerless upthread not as some empty superlative but because i think they did something very distinct that no one really repeated, every image in blake's lyrics is explored and unraveled until he gets to a meaning at the heart of it, and it never feels as ponderous as that sounds (and it sort of miraculous that it functions so well as punk). also he's really funny ("i knew every drum fill")

Dookie & especially Insomniac are the high watermarks, obviously gets spotty after that, though I love Warning ("Waiting" is phenomenal and often overlooked) and a lot of American Idiot. Nimrod is ok - "Redundant" is a great song.

the dickies seem much closer sonically to green day (especially in the reedy, nigh-faux-british vocals) than the ramones if you were looking for dietary substitutes. i'm still baffled by the jawbreaker comparison.

bay area punk rock i guess

in that case wouldn't rancid be the bridge between jawbreaker and green day? also any bands also starting with the letter j like j.church?

bay area punk, also they were both victims of scene politics, Green Day came out of it very bitter but ultimately fine, while it ruined Jawbreaker's career.

is that narrative true? weren't both bands about to break up pre-major label anyway?

Green Day never came close to breaking up before they were signed to Reprise in 1993, Jawbreaker did, but that's beside the point. Both bands were rejected by their hometown and the underground community - Green Day became so popular it didn't matter professionally, it just left a bad taste in Billie Joe's mouth. Jawbreaker were caught in the middle, they didn't take off and their fanbase shunned them (that story about the Bay Area Dear You release show with half the crowd sitting down with their backs to the band during their set). Seems all so very stupid in retrospect.

what i mean is the counterfactual scenario of both bands staying off a major label doesn't seem like it would have gone anywhere, so this idea that they were victims of a scene turning its back on them (even if it did so literally!) feels a bit fishy. i do remember reading somewhere that part of green day's motivation for signing was that they were going to quit being a band otherwise.

'dear you' in particular doesn't sound like the kind of album a band might release that hadn't already come to terms with possibly alienating its former audience.

you know what band I (stupidly?) never thought of as in connection with Jawbreaker until tonight: Husker Du!!
specifically, there are a number of songs on Bivouac that put me in mind of New Day Rising -- some kind of gestalt effect of songwriting voice, singing style, + guitar tones + ??

condition flappy

Just saw them in LA after first seeing them open for the foo fighters in 1995. The circle is now complete.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uxT0z-TDEk

would kill for a Juliaw Braker covers EP

Dear You anniversary tour tickets went on sale. Presale PW is JETBLACK.