I can’t link this blog to my Spotify (now available in Australia!) because it isn’t my default tumble log. Fuck that would’ve made things so much easier. I wish tumblr would modify their API to allow us to target our non primary tumble logs. I assume it’s their issue because everything wants to link to my other account, which of course is a themed, never update, log ilk this one. Fuck all things. Only The Used can understand my pain.
Motion City Soundtrack have announced that they have signed with Epitaph Records, who will release their upcoming album. You can check out the tweet from the band below:
We are very excited to announce that we are teaming up with our good friends @EpitaphRecs on the release of our new LP #SXSW
A Day To Remember at Perth Soundwave. If you look really closely you can see me, front and centre on someones shoulders clapping my hands to the beat. One of the best moments of my life! Who can spot me? And who was there? My good friend Harley made this for me, all credits go to him. Thanks, Harley from Bali!
A Day to Remember played a fantastic set at Soundwave although I think I missed I’m Made Of Wax, Larry, What Are You Made Of? because I’m a cretan. Anyway. I will continue with a recap of Soundwave bands when I’m done saving the galaxy on Mass Effect 3. Shit like that can just come up in my life and I’ve got a very lol deep interpretation of the ending if you’ll indulge me. But that’ll be posted on another blog. I run a few, can you collect them all?
So I’ll start with Bad Religion. They’re such an interesting band to see live because they just have so much going on. Six members, but only five tour internationally, fifteen studio albums over 30 years of playing together owning the largest independent record label. If Bad Relgion aren’t the most influential punk band in history then they’re easily the most influential still together and still recording new material. Greg Graffin offhandedly confirmed a new album for this year during the set.
Graffin himself is an amazing frontman because he’s not. These days we’re used to frontmen who are charismatic, big stage performers who electrify the road with their antics and enthusiasm. Graffin isn’t that. Balding, out of shape, wearing polo shirts with a phd in evolutionary biology, Graffin isn’t just uncool now, he’s never been cool. Even after thirty years of performing he still walks about the stage awkwardly with mannerisms that wouldn’t be out of place in a dorky dad sitcom. For him though- and for a lot of us really - punk rock was always about a sense of not belonging. And it’s through this that Bad Religion remain the most genuine of punk bands.
If you still need a frontman to watch and admire though, which we must confess is a big part of any live show for lots of us, bassist Jay Bentley steps up. When Graffin joked about taking the main podium jutting out form the stage, Jay warned him that that space was reserved for Marilyn Manson. Everytime Graffin looked awkward, Jay looked cool. When Graffin mucks up (or did he?) by suggesting we not listen to London Bentley is there to correct him that we’re under Canberra’s thumb. At 47 years of age, he’s just made the evolution from sexy rocker to silver fox, sporting touches of grey like it’s a sign of sexual experience. No other bassist has ever been as desirable as Jay Bentley
Oh but the show! Yeah. See, with so much material and no recorded history of selling out or breakthrough mainstream success, Bad Religion can open nd close a song with literally any song in their repertoire. I once saw them play an hour and half set and it still felt like were holding back on us. Soundwave only gave them 55 minutes, but they went overtime, cutting into Limp Biskit’s set because they’re just that cool. Mainstays Along the Way, Generator, Suffer and Punk Rock Song all featured along with a number of tracks off their latest LP. Just because they can, they closed with Sorrow although the crowd seemed to resonate most strongly with American Jesus. My personal favourites Modern Man, Let Them Eat War and I Want to Conquer the World weren’t heard but with such a huge pool to choose from, I can’t complain.
The pit was pretty intense, I came out of it with a sprained shoulder and had to sit out a couple of songs when the circle got well beyond my weight range. Despite the sweltering 36°C conditions, it was good to see a few of the tougher girls fight their way through the pit too. Also of note was the great spirit with people attempting to help up fallen comrades or return dislodged shoes. Bad Religion fans proved to be just as experienced as the band, knowing that while we want to fight, we don’t want to actually get hurt.
In all Bad Religion delivered on a main stage that was poisoned by the self indulgence of Marilyn Manson, irrelevance of Bush and all round shitness of Limp Biskit. But no one expected anything less from the band that gave us a song like Heaven is Falling - a guaranteed closer for any other band - and can’t even fit it into their set.
So Soundwave was pretty great. I saw and took pictures of Bad Religion, A Day to Remember, Madina Lake, Dashboard Confessional, River City Extension, Strung Out and more. I’ll actually update this blog with stuff and a big talk about the whole show. maybe I could separate it into multiple entires for each band so that clowns who just search their favourite band on tumblr all day won’t have to read a bunch of shit about how cool A Day to Remember are before reading my thoughts on Matt Camargo leaving Madina Lake or that Jay Bentley finally looks his age but is still sexy. Wow then I could line them out and string them over a week and make it look like loldeep.com is super productive and shit.
I’m not writing anything tonight though because fuck I’m tired.
So Farewell Continental are the cool new post-emo-punk-pop-core band that all the kids are into. Well kinda. They’d been going under pseudonymous even though Justin Pierre’s high pitched vocals were pretty easily identifiable especially since they said they were from Minneapolis, home of Motion City Soundtrack. Anyway, so I’ve just ‘discovered’ these guys via the MCS Facebook page and being the trendy neo emo hipsters they are they have a tumblr account, which you can find and follow from somewhere in this post.
As for this song itself, it’s pretty catchy. There’s a little interlude where they wish upon a star because it’s so lol deep.
Sorry I haven’t been updating lately. It’s because I’ve been listening to Amity Affliction full time now.
If there was ever an album where I’d want to save all the music and have new lyrics written for each track, World War III by Madina Lake is it. It sounds great; symphonic guitar driven electronic crescendos; thumping baselines, it’s a varied and rich music journey. Unfortunately all the good work done in composition and production was ruined by handing all the songs over to lead lyricist Nathan Leone who scrawled down some of the worst lyrics you’ll ever hear recorded to compact disc. His delivery is for the most part very good and sounds exactly like you’d expect from a nu-wave-power-pop-punk-core music but when you’d handicapped yourself by putting too many syllables in a line or words that don’t quite rhyme, you run into problems.
What are some of those lyrics? I’ll post examples.
I’ll watch some porno girl
I’ll take a pill or two if I wanna chill
Now I don’t have a problem with lyrics talking about watching porno or doing drugs, I have a problem with cramming extra syllables into a line with the same number of bars.
