Andy Gapin

Blake Schwartzenbach’s new band, forgetters, has a new song posted and it’s pretty solid. This is a lot better than the forgettable forgetters EP from a few months ago, it sounds much more like Jawbreaker too. Nice.

Forgetters is current project of Blake Schwartzenbach, former singer of my all-time favorite band, Jawbreaker. Forgetters follows up the very shortly lived band Thorns of Life and, in some early shows, they even played some reworked Thorns of Life songs. I have no idea if they still do. Behind the drums is original Against Me! drummer Kevin Mahon. This sounds like it’d be pretty awesome, but it’s a lot to live up to. I saw an early show that was alright, not mind-blowing, but the couple bootlegs I have are solid.

So I was pretty excited for this EP…which turned out to be a bit underwhelming. I thought it was horrible at first and turned it off after the first two songs, but after a couple more listens, I’ve upgraded my opinion to “meh.” “Vampire Lessons” is kind of a catchy tune despite the lyrics being questionable. It’s still not a great song, but it does get stuck in your head about as much as that Tick Tock song by Ke$ha and since I’d rather go deaf than have Ke$ha stuck in my head, I’ll take “Vampire Lessons.” The best song of the four is the last one, “Night Accelerates,” which sounds more like a Jets to Brazil song than anything else. That’s something that I’m alright with.

I pre-ordered the 2×7″, but had I heard this beforehand, I think I would have saved my money for something else. Anyway, I’m going to go listen to Jets to Brazil now.

Last Friday, I took a trip down to Philly to see forgetters play their fourth show ever at the Barbary. Forgetters is the new band from Blake Schwartzenbach (Jawbreaker, Jets to Brazil) and Kevin Malone (the original drummer of Against Me!). Blake used to front my favorite band of all time so when he starts up something new, it’s without a doubt going to be interesting to me. His last band, Thorns Of Life, didn’t last long at all. They broke up a few months ago, having never officially recorded anything. A couple of live bootlegs are all the remain of the band. Anyway, this was the first of Blake’s bands that I’ve seen live. I wasn’t old enough when Jawbreaker broke up to even appreciate good music, let alone go to the shows–okay, I was thirteen, if I was on top of my shit, I might have been there, but I wasn’t. And I didn’t actually start caring about Jets to Brazil until it was too late.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from forgetters. I had heard that they were playing some Thorns Of Life songs, but I wasn’t really sure what that meant in terms of what to expect. They came out and started with a Thorns Of Life song…but it sounded better than what I had heard from the bootlegs. They played two other Thorns Of Life songs throughout the set including a one that was heavily re-worked as their last song. The rest of the songs seemed to be all forgetters original. Think something a little more along the lines of Orange Rhyming Dictionary with some Hum influence.

I was a little surprised to find that I held the unpopular opinion among my friends of loving it. I think it is a very positive step from where Thorns Of Life was. Thorns Of Life was pretty good, but this is a lot more interesting to me.

Good stuff. Here are a few videos from a couple of the shows. They sound horrible, but I’m hoping someone made a decent bootleg that will turn up soon.

I really didn’t think that I listened to the Sundowner that much this past week, but I guess I did. Last.fm wouldn’t lie…or would it? I also listened to a recording of The Playlist from last week while I was running yesterday and I stand by my statement that it was one of the best radio shows that I’ve ever done.

I think my music collection has officially hit the status of being a burden. I wanted to add four new albums to my iPod last night and ended up spending a half hour trying to figure out what music I wanted to take off to make room. And in that process I found like twenty albums that I’m going to force myself to listen to this week just so that I can justify keeping them on there. I guess it’s time to upgrade my 60GB iPod to a 120GB one. Though it’s hard to want to spend money on a new iPod when mine physically works fine and even the biggest ones that Apple currently makes (why did they stop making 160GB ones?) will only hold a little less than half my music collection. Sure, I don’t need to have 260GB of music on me at all times, but how am I supposed to know what I’m going to want to listen to later on?!? 

Anyway, here at the 25 bands that I listened to the most last week…

• Sundowner – 43
• M. Ward – 27
• The Jealous Sound – 22
• Husker Du – 21
• Morrissey – 20
• Okkervil River – 17
• Cheap Girls – 17
• Radiohead – 16
• Andrew Bird – 14
• Drive-By Truckers – 14
• Thorns Of Life – 14
• Mclusky – 12
• Steve Burns – 12
• Hello Seahorse! – 11
• Ben Folds – 11
• Anathallo – 10
• Brenden Canning – 10
• Let Me Run – 10
• Minor Threat – 9
• The Loved Ones 9
• Jimmy Eat World – 7
• Challenger – 7
• Jets To Brazil – 5
• Fucked Up – 4
• The Gaslight Anthem – 4

This was easily one of the best shows I’ve ever done. I don’t know what got into me, but I was really excited the whole time. So excited, in fact, that I did the entire show standing up with the chair kicked to the side. I haven’t done a show like that in a solid four years.

The mix between all the types of music that I played was pretty much perfect and had amazing flow from genre to genre. I would have liked to have a little more alt-country to play, but I don’t know when I would have had time to fit it in as it was.

If they don’t record and put something out this year, this Thorns Of Life bootleg may turn out to be the biggest and most important musical thing all year for me. It’s great to finally have something new from Blake Schwarzenbach again. A friend of mine described it as what Jawbreaker would sound like if they were playing Jets To Brazil songs and I can’t find anyway to better describe it. It’s really great stuff. And it’s interesting that the bootleg was recorded that the same venue, 924 Gilman St., as my favorite Jawbreaker bootleg was.

Anyway, here’s the playlist:

Source: 90.3 The Core

This one comes from Mitch Clem, the creator of the Nothing Nice To Say and My Stupid Life comic strips. It’s the same shirt that one of his characters wears. I really love it. It just works on so many levels for me. For a long time in high school and college, a lot of people used to openly take note of how I was one of those guys who always wore band t-shirts and hardly anything else. I don’t have too many band shirts left anymore, but this feels like a throwback to those times. That and anyone who recognizes it from Nothing Nice To Say is definitely going to earn some points in my book.

Anyway, head on over to www.mitchclem.com and check out his comics. I think I’ve posted before about how sometimes it feels like My Stupid Life is about my own life and Nothing Nice To Say has a few strips about Jawbreaker that are responsible for getting me hooked on both comics.

Sometimes when I’m driving… on the road at night… I see two headlights coming toward me. Fast. I have this sudden impulse to turn the wheel quickly, head-on into the oncoming car. I can anticipate the explosion. The sound of shattering glass. The… flames rising out of the flowing gasoline.This is the sample at the end of “Jet Black” by Jawbreaker. It’s spoken by Christopher Walken in the Woodie Allen movie Annie Hall.

Even without this sample, this song is one of the most depressing ever written. On some days, it can be enough to completely destroy any positive outlook you may have on life. But that’s not enough for them, they then go and throw this in at the end to really cut you deep. I’ve found that this especially hits me hard when I’m in a similar situation, driving late at night. It’s usually enough to make me think about what would happen and run through the events in my head a few times.

Kind of makes me feel like there should be a psychological evaluation that must be passed before listening to this song. I could easily see this pushing a suicidal teenager over the edge.

I really can’t think of any other sample in a song that is more fitting to the lyrics and vibe of the song than this one. When you get up to it, there’s little doubt left that Blake hadn’t been thinking of taking part in a similar head on collision when he wrote the song.

By the end of the song, I’m usually left there kind of speechless, feeling much the way that I did after the first time that I watched Requiem for a Dream. Just kind of like “damn” and partially rethinking my entire life. And let’s not forget that Dear You is my favorite album of all time. I’ve easily listened to this song hundreds upon hundreds of times. Still gets me each and every time.

Intense.

I was listening to Jawbreaker’s Etc last night and instantly fell in love with Into You Like A Train. I’ve heard this song tons of times, but something about it last night just really clicked with me and I got way more into it than I’ve ever been.

I always find it fun to have a new found love for an old song by a band that you’ve been into for years.

I also was reminded of just how much Sea Foam Green singlehandedly accomplishes everything that Alkaline Trio has taken five albums and two collections discs to do. Not to knock on Alkaline Trio, they are one of my favorite bands, but seriously, the band’s entire existence rips off a single Jawbreaker song. And the Jawbreaker song does the whole morbid and gruesome lyric thing without sounding cheesy and forced.

A ’63, 10,000 miles.
What was I thinking?
I drove myself insane.
No small getaway.
Asleep with both hands on the wheel.
White knuckle weekend.
Chewing ephedrine.
Going to an unnamed end.
Unending…

We met in rain, you asked me in.
Seemed like a good sign.
Now I need a guillotine
to get you off my mind.
I brush my teeth until they break.
Until I start bleeding.
So when I smile I’ll know
I’m almost good enough for you.
And would you…

Follow me to the end of the dare.
Raise your eyes, return the stare.
Become your words. Your words so becoming.
On any Sunday I’ll be there.

I tried to drink you off my mind.
I just got wasted.
It only made the pain
that much more acute.
But cute isn’t strong enough a word.
Unintentionally gorgeous.
An accidental charm.
A graceful drinking arm.
Disarming…

Follow me to the end of the dare.
Raise your eyes, return the stare.
Become your words. Your words so becoming.
On any Sunday I’ll be there.

I was listening to Jawbreaker’s Etc last night and instantly fell in love with Into You Like A Train. I’ve heard this song tons of times, but something about it last night just really clicked with me and I got way more into it than I’ve ever been.

I always find it fun to have a new found love for an old song by a band that you’ve been into for years.

I also was reminded of just how much Sea Foam Green singlehandedly accomplishes everything that Alkaline Trio has taken five albums and two collections discs to do. Not to knock on Alkaline Trio, they are one of my favorite bands, but seriously, the band’s entire existence rips off a single Jawbreaker song. And the Jawbreaker song does the whole morbid and gruesome lyric thing without sounding cheesy and forced.

A ’63, 10,000 miles.
What was I thinking?
I drove myself insane.
No small getaway.
Asleep with both hands on the wheel.
White knuckle weekend.
Chewing ephedrine.
Going to an unnamed end.
Unending…

We met in rain, you asked me in.
Seemed like a good sign.
Now I need a guillotine
to get you off my mind.
I brush my teeth until they break.
Until I start bleeding.
So when I smile I’ll know
I’m almost good enough for you.
And would you…

Follow me to the end of the dare.
Raise your eyes, return the stare.
Become your words. Your words so becoming.
On any Sunday I’ll be there.

I tried to drink you off my mind.
I just got wasted.
It only made the pain
that much more acute.
But cute isn’t strong enough a word.
Unintentionally gorgeous.
An accidental charm.
A graceful drinking arm.
Disarming…

Follow me to the end of the dare.
Raise your eyes, return the stare.
Become your words. Your words so becoming.
On any Sunday I’ll be there.