The first and easiest thing to talk about was all the shows I got to see. I got the chance to catch almost literally every single one of my absolute favourite bands this summer. The only thing that would have taken away that "almost" would have been an Ergs! reunion. But still, seeing the Descendents on my birthday after an extended hiatus from them, Lifetime back in Canada for the first time in four years, my habitual bi-yearly Less Than Jake experience, seeing Anthrax for the first time, an incredible set by Against Me! near the end of August, Title Fight and The Menzingers ripping up Sneaky Dee's, Hot Water Music and A Wilhelm Scream two days after The Descendents was easily the best summer music-wise I've had.
Most of all though, I managed to catch Bomb The Music Industry! at the end of July. The band played an absolutely killer set and the crowd was going crazy. They came out for the encore and let a kid play "Stuff That I Like" with them on guitar. The last song they played was "Syke, Life Is Awesome!" which is my personal favourite from them and definitely one of my all-time favourites in general. It was a big deal because I hadn't seen the song live before and it is really, really special to me personally. I had a pretty shitty time in high school and wasn't a huge fan of life. One of the things that made things seem not so shitty was To Leave Or Die In Long Island by this band. I would time it on my walks home from school so that "Syke" would be the last song (I've posted all the lyrics to this song on this blog before). So naturally I went bananas and somehow screamed louder than I already was when they played it.
The last part of the song is a giant climax with Jeff screaming a bunch of lyrics that really hit home for me. Now, I know I spew a lot of bullshit all of the time but I am being 100% real and serious when I say this: There are two people who I look up to and try to be like in my life. One is my Dad, he works his ass off for essentially nothing in return and never says anything about it or complains. He encompasses everything the word "father" could possibly mean. The other is Jeff Rosenstock, the singer of Bomb The Music Industry! and the former singer of the Arrogant Sons of Bitches. He's a phenomenal lyricist, a songwriting genius and extremely down to earth and friendly and is pretty much everything right with punk rock and music in general. He is "my guy" when it comes to the music I like. Less Than Jake may be my favourite band and stuff, but nobody's music really hits home and helps me out like his does.
That being said, during this last part I figured it would be a good time to stage-dive. I did and ended up being in the position of on my stomach at the front of the crowd so that my head was more or less level with Jeff's. During this climax he grabbed the back of my head and pulled it down to scream all the words along with him.
And seriously, that was the coolest thing that has ever happened to me.
Here's the song if you want to check out what I'm talking about:
So yea, it was a really awesome summer for music.
I also worked a whole bunch this summer. At my job I can essentially work as much as I would like to, so that is more or less what I do. At first it sucked because I would wake up at 7, get to work at 9, leave work at 9 and get home at about 9:45, then go to sleep around 11 to do it again the next day. As a result of this, I didn't really get to do anything except work. Then I realized that not seeing my friends all summer is no fun, so I just didn't get very much sleep for the next two months. I ended up having a ton of awesome times with my friends and more than a few hungover Wednesdays at work because of "My Friends Over You".
The upside of working so much was that there was a completely awesome crew of people at the waterpark this year. Not only did they make work bearable, but they made it fun. I've worked there a long fucking time and everyone I got to know this summer were hands down my favourite staff we've had there.
I listen to a ton of music on the way to and from work because my commute on the gotrain takes more or less an hour, so more so than any other time, in the summer I really have a "soundtrack" to that short phase of my life. I figured I'd close this up by posting a "greatest hits" of what I rocking out to for the last 3-4 months.
First I started listening to Saves The Day because their first album is basically a 14-song Lifetime cover. Then I got into Through Being Cool because it's an awesome pop-punk record. I wanted to hate the band for so long because "THEY'RE EMO AND SHIT BRO", but goddamn Stay What You Are is a phenomenal combination of punk, rock and pop. Pretty much every day I would leave the house, look at my ipod and think "Am I going to listen to Stay What You Are or something else?"
Probably my other most listened to album this summer was Good For Me by The Swellers. I loved My Everest because it was a poppy skate-punk shredfest. They slowed it down a tad for Ups And Downsizing and I wasn't as much of a fan. I had pretty much written the band off, but checked out their newest after a friend recommended it and I heard it described as "alt-pop-punk". It is so fucking good. I know I already described it on here earlier, but the way they combine good 90's alternative and pop-punk is just divine. I had seen the band talk about those influences on twitter and I'm pretty stoked that they evolved their sound in that way, as opposed to pumping out skate punk record upon skate punk record, which they totally could have done.
For awhile this summer I really wanted a solid rock/pop album to listen to that I hadn't heard before. The one I used to scratch that itch was No Traffic by The Stereo. The band actually just recently reunited to play Fueled By Ramen's 15th anniversary show, which is how I got turned on to them. I'm paraphrasing, but someone on punknews.org said that The Stereo were the band that all the huge bands that the label is known for were trying to sound like. Poppy rock songs about girls? I'm down.
Like I already mentioned, The Sidekicks were also a go-to this summer. I also apparently only listened to bands that start with S. What I like about The Sidekicks is that they are (maybe) the best example of having a wide range of influences (punk, rock, folk, soul), but not just mishmashing a bunch of genres together. For example, the song "Looking" which I put up a few posts ago. It starts with some nice chimey open chords and then rips into a great guitar lead. They pause before the verse for some absolutely Phil Spectoresque "bum babum"s and then start a folky (more open chords!) poppy punk love song. THAT'S HOW YOU DO IT.
This song really rules too though:
And House Boat just totally ruled the second half of the summer for me. Holy fuck, what a pop-punk record they put out. Perfect mix of fast poppy punk, nasally vocals and awesome love-lorn somewhat depressing lyrics. They do it fucking right and this record is definitely going to be up there as album of the year for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment