july

one of the weirdest splits i ever bought was the jerome's dream / july split. on one side, jerome's dream do their brutally obnoxious, vacuum cleaner emo violence, on the other, we have the most absurdly and crushingly beautiful bit of acousticmo ever committed to vinyl. one long long song of immense twinkling and soft, soft vocals that gradually build to breaking point. basically, if you like the ultra miserable hated shit then this will have you throwing yourself off the nearest bridge in no time flat. it is unfeasibly gorgeous. the fact that nobody has ever unearthed any other recordings by this band is probably the most criminal event in historymo. for serious. on the july insert it says "july = gabe + herb". they were from apex, north carolina. it also says "thanks to everyone who is nice", which is pretty much the most echoable sentiment of all times. check this out, and please stand clear of the sharp objects, and lock up your gun and / or medicine cabinet. click the band name at the top for the link to the song.

rocket science

i forget about this band every few years, and then rediscover them and fall in love all over again. they did two sevens in the mid 90s, one of them on simba from 1996, and the other on electrolux. this is also from 1996.

the simba 7" (if you're from the UK you will probably remember vique simba from her erotic fiction in fracture zine) actually starts off with a pretty average indie rocker called 'well known drag'. it's very straight forward and if you were to throw this seven inch on and listen to this song first, you probably wouldn't even bother playing side b. it sounds like a mish mash between brit pop and post-hardcore, so i guess it's not too far from that kill holiday lp on revelation, crossed with some sense field perhaps. i have included the mp3 anyway so that you can raise an eyebrow at it's sub-parity. luckily, i have also included 'come on to xenon', hopefully named for the amiga game. this song will, literally, kill you. it is astonishing. it makes me shiver. gorgeous indie rock that twinkles and jangles away to perfection. the members of christie front drive would have nodded sagely at each other and smiled if they had written this song. when the low guitar comes in initially, and then the vocals, oh my fucking god. i am a big sucker for the sundays best lp on polyvinyl. this song sounds like them in a way too, just much less polished. plus pylon from the UK. and mineral. it gently builds and builds and then hurtles into the perfect pop chorus with sweet, sweet backing vocals nudging the main singer from centre stage. songs like this make me want to punch indie rock in the face. HEY INDIE ROCK, MAKE SONGS LIKE THIS AGAIN PLEASE.

the electrolux 7" luckily focuses on the awesome aspect of the band. 'avalon' piles big walls of shoegazemo guitars over a strummed acoustic and buried vocals. this is truly the good shit. it's backed with 'saying things like wish or want' which changes direction again, getting all drawn out and stonermo like pot valiant and this super, muddy bass sound kind of like lumber. it again calls upon the excellent vocal combination, but this time around everything sounds a lot bleaker and less poppy. i apologise for the lesser sound quality on this single. i did it a couple of years ago through a dual cs-505 connected to my pc direct via a cheapo project phono stage, instead of the rega through my hifi and a good phono stage that i have now. anyway, you can still tell these are good songs regardless of my terrible job.

get emo here

seventh story

poor old system 2600. they shared a split 7" with city of caterpillar. and then with seventh story. i expect most people only played one side of the former, and nobody has the latter.

seventh story play two songs on this here single. opener "grouper" is melodic, moody emo in the vein of stuff like the lazarus plot. it twinkles into earshot with some van pelt guitars and drifting female vocals. you get two and half minutes of this stuff, and it's a bit good. "in stepping up" is a little poppier, hinting at stuff like pohgoh. you get a lovely thick, evergreen-esque bass sound that wanders up and down delightfully. the main guitar twinkles over the top of it. further through the song they get a bit more loud and excitable, and the vocals more desperate. i would say that this is some good stuff.

the music was recorded in 2000, i can't remember when this came out, but i think it was around the same time as that city of caterpillar / system 2600 split, as i got them both at the same time. the label is sea of dead pirates, from gainesville. i know absolutely nothing else about this band, so feel free to fill me in if you are an expert.

the inlay suggests they also have a 4 song cd. please hook me up if you have this. i'll be your best friend.

you can find two songs here.

100 watt halo

fucking san diegmo! goldernrod was an awesome label and 100 watt halo is a band you should listen to if you like early drive like jehu and san diego emo bands going all haywire. this 7" is not as good as their utterly essential lp, but you would still do well to investigate it if you enjoy emo with a mathy tinge (rather than a preponderance). of course, i could just rip the lp but as earlier discussed, i am kind of slack. this 7" pre-dates the lp. please mind the crackles.

the seven kicks off with 'new youth cool', which sets the scene neatly with a peculiar sample, before in comes the piercing guitar and those oh so cool spoken / shouted vocals that will let you know what you are in for. the song rumbles and drives neatly, slowing down as required before picking it back up again. i have always enjoyed music that manages to combine muscularity and intelligence (ZO HOTT), and 100 watt halo do both of these. song spirals off into a neat finale. 'weapons for kids' continues the intensity with sweet dueling guitars and a wandering bass line. some typically disturbing mid 90s emo lyrics that appear to be "KIDS, DADDY'S DRINKING AGAIN, ALL NIGHT, HE'S DRINKING AND HE'S BEATING AGAIN", and some others that i am not certain about but they sound similarly disconcerting. the guy gets a bit wobbly like the singer from antioch arrow at this point. oh wait, i just noticed that the credits say aaron montaigne does backup vocals on this song?! WTF crazy. 'spartan masterplan' is the pick here, it totally destroys - the guitars find their groove really quickly and it's off to the races. the minimal production works great here, with the frantic vocals at the fore and everything else a melodic chaos. 'six parts of seven' wraps things up, again there is a nice groove, it's much more grungemo than the other stuff especially once it breaks away from the distorted vocals and into the chorus.

packaging design by ed templeton. skatemo. maybe i'll rip that coldwatercrane 7" with ray barbee at some point.

grab it here please.

long live / circle of us

i am clearly in the mood for reminiscing at the moment. here's a little a bit about a band who were local and very dear to me, long live. around 2003, my local scene was highly exciting. i was still massively into screamo and we were being treated to great local shows with good bands such as open letters, blue is the new black and when ghosts used knives. we weren't far off from the mock heroic, and we all really missed we closed our eyes who maybe i'll post about on here some time. then out of nowhere, klim, jop (both from we close our eyes) and tom (terms of endearment) decided that they would do a completely different band. the best band that would come out of norwich this decade. long live left us with a 5 track demo (uploaded here) and a 3 song 7" on santos that i probably sold 50 copies of from my distro, the label likely has the rest. you can see reviews of both of those here. at the time they reminded me of bands such as slint, ethel meserve and giants chair. listening these days it's a lot softer than that would suggest, but live they always turned things up a notch. the music was slightly jazzy, meandering and intricate but rarely (on the demo at least) got overly twiddly and fiddly. jop and klim's vocals are all high pitched and youthful, recalling lumber and ordination of aaron. tom's bass is delightfully full and warm, giving real depth to the songs. listening back these days i can't really think of a good comparison for them, which should tell you an awful lot. i really like this quote from joe c on zillective cone: you know boys life is pictures of sad midwestern trains.. long live is like sad norwich fields, but jazzier.

it's a crushing shame that they split up so soon as the songs they were playing live at the end were unbelievably good, but were never recorded. at one point they were going to do a record with uber flake charlie wilhoit (golden shiny wire of hope - die emperor die / toru okada split fame) but fortunately the band never committed.

anyway, here is the long live demo. pay particular attention to an overseas robbery, my personal favourite.

the guys all went their seperate ways. tom and jop did mock heroic, and they both moved to london. tom told me he was working in a sweet shop but i am never quite sure if he was making this up. he still has a bass guitar that i gave him to fix that a friend of mine who moved to japan let me borrow. i never learned to play an instrument due to this. DAMN YOU TOM.

klim produced a beautiful cdr under the name of circle of us, which hardly anyone has heard. i last saw him in sainsburys about 3 and a bit years ago, he seemed surprised to see me. you can find his cd here. it's somewhere between ida, and a stripped down long live. you should check this out for sure. it might give you some idea as to what the unreleased long live stuff would have sounded like...

cambria

emo blogs with rips of obscure recrods are two a pennikurver these days, so i am still surprised when i can flick through my vinyl and see a record which i don't think anyone bothered to write about yet. cambria knocked out this 3 song 7" on the mighty dieselhead way back when in the 90s. dhr003 to be specific. they also have an lp, and i should probably give that the same treatment too but it's way easier to bash out a quickfire dump of a great seven inch. i believe the songs are superior to the album anyway, which is a little more one paced, less melodic and more straight forward.

this seven kicks off with an intense ripper in a style not far off mainspring or chino horde. full on crybaby vocals and punishing power are present on 'it could be for me', a dynamite song that it is about time a few more people got to hear. immediately following is 'more likely than others' which contrasts supremely. it eases off the sobbing but oh man alive oh man alive that guitar with the distant, plaintive vocals that my terrible desriptions can't really do justice to. from the utterly spellbinding twinkly intro to the final note, this type of music, just simple, repetetive, melodic guitar meandering in a truly melancholy fashion... i love it, barely a band in the world would contemplate doing something like this these days, which is supremely disappointing. 'woke up late' finishes up this seven with a spiralling, spacey three minute intstrumental straight out of the shoegazemo school. i am not the worlds greatest fan of instrumental music but it's very nice.

cambria - finally, some still gives a shit about you. go get some.

my favorite citizen

pesky kids have been throwing stones at my window for months, pestering me... "mr. malcolm, mr. malcolm! sort us out that my favorite citizen 7", go on mr. malcolm", and i open the window yell at them to get off my lawn, then close the curtains and wander off.

so finally, here it is. a two song 7" that appears to have been recorded in 1996 / 1997. it's kinda weird, but twelve years on there is all of a sudden a massive interest in reviving the classic midwestmo sound of yore. out of nowhere, boys want to play twinkly, poppy fun songs again, hopefully they are all wearing chequered shirts and buddy holly glasses but to be honest i am not spending my days looking at pictures of these guys, there are just so many of the buggers and i don't want to get a reputation. isntead, i am posting this long lost classic of the midwestmo genre for the folk who are currently getting excited about fun new bands such as piroutte and by surprise, as i am pretty sure they will swoon as much to my favorite citizen (i keep wanting to type mid carson july, who were nowhere near as good as these cats, but did have some good songs) as i did way back when. you can read my original thoughts on the band in this here review:

http://www.collective-zine.co.uk/reviews/?id=3676

and most of those thoughts do still ring true. it is a gloriously boyish clash of promise ring and get up kidsian wonder. there is so much bounce on perforated heart that these guys were actually in danger of asphyxiation as they reached the upper levels of the stratosphere. i think the flip side, 'trans hudson' may actually be the better of the songs. it is unfeasibly cute. cute as a button! you will go all squishy as the guitars jangle and roll, and gawky, uncertain emo boys squeak and whine. hee! it's a marvellous thing.

mfc also had an excellent song "kayla learns to dance" on the ill fated emo diaries series. edition #2 in fact, the only one you need to be honest. you can read more and hear more at the mfc myspace. at some point a couple of years ago, a discography cd was suggested but this never came to fruition sadly. go and post desperate appeals in their myspace comments or something. i am sure the persistent voices of 100 obsessed mp3mos will push them over the edge.

anyway, here you go. two songs from a band that should have garnered a whole lot more attention than they did at the time. i hope you like this just as much as me...

http://www.collective-zine.co.uk/emo/obscuremo/13/

(apparently the tags are screwed in itunes, but figure it out for yourself, techno wiz)

tin kitchen

sometimes i potter around on the internet, desperate to find a new band that sounds kind of like the bands i listened to about 8 or 9 years ago. i don't really have much luck. fortunately, one or two blogs do post about new music that i actually am interested in, particularly sound as language. that is where i found out about tin kitchen. tin kitchen were a very short lived band from brooklyn or something. they recorded this 3 songs cdep with kyle fischer from rainer maria, and i guess that's appropriate, as the band kind of fit in with R|M and bands from back then. "f sharp" opens things up with some nice, rolling emo / indie. it's all endearingly lofi, guitars push things along, lindsay's vocals are a little off-key but then that's part of the charm with bands like this. the title track is the answer to the question "what would mineral have sounded like if they had female vocals?". linday lingers over words for ages, like simpson at his most miserable. superb. the guitars are like early promise ring, simple but pushing things along. things speed up and get messy after two minutes, with squealing mineral-esque feedback. final song "archibald alexander" is the pick for me - very repetitive musically and lyrically (a song about rain and clouds and leaves), with evergreen style bass and soaring moments of wonderfulness as the song builds up. so, so good.

i guess overall the band is somewhere between very early promise ring, lazarus plot and mineral. if that doesn't make you want to check them out straight away, then i'm sorry. too bad this is all they recorded, but folks from the band have other things going on, including the singers new band lindsay minton and little lungs

go here for tin kitchen: http://www.myspace.com/tinkitchen

stella

there are many and various bands that folk in ribbon fix played in before ribbon fix. the general fact that links these bands is that they were any good. mark allen rodgers played in driftwood and shroomunion. brian gathy played in savalas and amber inn (and later the shivering). mike roberts, i have no idea about him. and andi camp played in underside and stella. the underside 7" is worth tracking down and maybe it's one i will get around to writing about on here in 2010, along with the black jack action 7" (post julia). anyways. this 5 track cdep is quite similar to the band that ribbon fix became, lots of melodic twinklings, and of course andi's vocals. it's a fair bit rawer and less polished than the 'Fix, but well worth a listen nonetheless, the progression is interesting in itself, the fact that the music is good quality too is a fine bonus. opening song "p.s.e". is killer and perhaps the pick of the bunch, diving around wonderfully. no, wait, "fire" is maybe the best song, with a mid 90s hardcore emo feel to the guitars, which is not surprising, as these songs are from 1995. the songs definitely lean towards the shoegazemo sound for the most part, a style that wasn't tackled very often sadly. swirling guitars and airy vocals, always a fine combo for me. if you are into crash & brittany or ribbon fix, then i am pretty sure you will love this ep. "ledge" is the only track that kind of deviates from the template, a bit of a more "rock" track, again with riffs that fit with stuff like indian summer, but a lot cleaner. it's my least favourite of the 5 songs on here. they drift on out with "moods" though, which is a fine finale, all towering guitar parts and soaring vocals, ready to crush you into the ground with the beauty of it all.

you can download this here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/pmkz8f

but really you should buy it, because it's actually still available from grafton. your best bet to get in touch with grafton is to message andi via her current band's myspace site. everything on grafton is still in press, so cough up the readies and help shift some space in andi's residence. you'll improve the quality of your cd collection and help out a great label into the bargain.

the brightest comet

this band is actually active right now, but who gives a shit. one of the great, overlooked bands of the mid to late 90s emo / indie boom was ribbon fix. they produced several records, all of them well worth tracking down. once they split up, vocalists andi camp and mark allen rodgers went off in different, and enjoyable directions (rodgers is currently in whiskeycore country boys, the devil's own). andi camp though can now be found in the brightest comet, which sounds like ribbon fix reborn, which will surely warm the hearts of many old bastards who yearn for the good old days. there are three songs on the myspace site, and they are all utterly, heartbreakingly beautiful. check them out.

pennikurvers

if you're the kind of dork who can't get enough of non-produced, obscure female fronted emo from 1995, then you are going to love this one. pennikurvers play 3 songs, very much in the spirit of bands such as crash & brittany. the 7" is on dieselhead records too (home of the much under-rated cambria, who none of the mp3mos ever name drop). curiously enough, this band features bobby from honeywell, which is not going to be your first thought upon hearing it. anyway, there are three songs on this. two of them are shorter and fill side a, they are daredevil and halo. it's all gently swaying guitars and soft vocals, clearly recorded on a boombox in someones garage after an evergreen show. well, not quite. recorded on 8 track using half inch tape in april and may 1995. things occasionally up the volume, but not too often. flip the single for autumn in february (emo), and one long song that fills 7 inches on 33rpm. it kicks in with nice repetitious guitars, and distant distorted vocals that are barely audible. around two minutes, emily's vocals join in. the repeating guitars and the vocals get louder and louder, building up to the end, when it just squeals out into feedback and guitar tones. emo. i miss this kind of shit - no production, simple structures and melody... always effective but no bands are interested in sounding like this any more, partly because bands are too obsessed with having good production, and partly because about 4 people would buy their record, the kids into this sound only want the authentic real deal from back when they were 5 years old.

basically if you like the idea of a female fronted evergreen then you ought to try and find this 7". but good luck, you'll damn well need it. it's taken me years.

for now, you can download the 3 songs right here: http://www.mediafire.com/?epyldltwbbd

breaker morant

going to the well with the old 'ex-member' tag in hand, i yanked out the bucket and there was breaker morant. ex-prozac memory, you have to have high hopes in that instance. and rightfully so. breaker morant drive through 5 songs of tense, taut, jagged emo of the kind perpetuated by bands such as griver and sleepytime trio. yelled vocals (but not shouted) over aggressive guitar play and sparse production. it has a very "live" feel which you pick up in a lot of great emo music, like these guys just went out and bashed away for an hour and came up with some good music somehow, no planning involved... addiction solilloquy has a particularly awesome bit in the middle where it drops out and goes all pretty, before bombasting back recklessly. killer. menchu is very much a timid build up and then combusts in an all-action rock out to follow up. i am floored.

the songs that i have here are from a split cd with amputee set, released on BMAS, and they were recorded in 1998 in kansas city, so you have the midwestmo lineage present there too. one song from this cd also appears on a comp cd featuring 40 bands from columbia, missouri. this comp cd is still in print i believe.

sadly i can find no info on what these guys got up to after they finished breaker morant, but it was probably awesome. so if you know, please let me know!

check them out right here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ouig45

anklebiter

that's torn it, i've gone and written about a band that isn't even that emo. well, kind of. i guess if the promise ring is emo then anklebiter sort of can sneak in there too. this is rough, tuneful indie rock that comes in between the wedding present and archers of loaf. short-ish songs, repetitious guitars that jangle and buzz, shouty off-key vocals and pretty much all the elements of noisier indie rock that get me excited. anklebiter also produced a quality full length lp that is perhaps even better realised than the 7" here. the best song is the final track "dynamic ribbon device", which builds up through the non-existent production and fizzes to the finale. love it.

this 7" is on vinfiz and plow records, and probably quite cheap if you ever find it, i doubt many people want it these days, which is kind of sad. this is a great style of music that is completely neglected.

members of anklebiter now parade in the slightly mediocre beat buttons (although the demo songs up there sound superior to their previous cd). i'd point you in the direction of watson (ex-clairmel) if you want to hear a modern band taking up the mantle.

here is the 7" until the link expires: http://www.sendspace.com/file/2kuyen

manneqvin hand

now here's a highly obscure band that have elements that fall under the emo bracket. and others that don't. the 7" was the first release on shakefork records. the label itself is intriguing as the sound of the early releases such as this formed the basis for the sound of the later, and far better known, releases from bands such as gauge, friction and cap'n jazz. i can't really give you much info about manneqvin hand, but this single features two tracks. "the other side" is a fun blend of east-bay pop punk and rites of spring style emo. the verses are fast and simple with shouty vocals, before it breaks down into the rumbling, chunky chorus that owes a debt to revolution summer. toss the single over for 'black day (JOW)', which opens with a chuggy edgemo sound reminiscent of early still life or the current lp. it's not my favourite style of emo to be honest, but given that this single came out in 1990, it's a very interesting example of protomo as it handily pre-dates many other bands that went on to "popularise" this particular sound.

the band also featured on a 4 way split 7" on shakefork ("no punks in the pit") but i am not aware of any other releases, nor have i heard this comp.

anyways, here's the 7" until the link expires : http://www.sendspace.com/file/aftlbu

spirit

australian emo (aussiemo) really does delve into the obscure depths of the genre, as there are relatively few examples of the beast. spirit was one of those.

spirit released little material (a pre-requisite for this shit, naturally), but the 'in memory of...' 7" on penfold / spiral objective should find a niche in the record box of any self-respecting emo hoarder. in addition they have a split 7" with canadian mathmo band, blake, which isn't as essential, but still worth a listen or two. the single 'in memory of...' was recorded in april of 1998, and spirit pounds out four sobbers that immediately bring to mind native nod and bob tilton. 'i am the locus' starts the single off impressively, yet there is room for improvement. the guitars clang around and the screamier vocals are all particularly reminiscent of native nod. entirely forgiveable though, as it's a style that has been tackled all too infrequently down the years. 'the philosopher' jazzes into earshot next, hinting at mohinder initially before they really ease off the accelerator and glide into the spot on spoken vocals and more native noddery. but just wait for the bit where they lay on the twinkles and get all pretty. totally great shit.

over on the flip we up speeds to 45rpm and, coincidentally enough, get dealt the faster side of the band. 'singing in your ears' piles on the desperate vocals over the native nod riffage, and really kills when they drag the pace down and drive up the guitars towards the end, and if you're anything like me you'll be rocking back and forth violently in your chair to this one. 'tin can virus' winds things down with a top notch twinkly intro and more of those spoken vocals. by now you know what you're in for and it all is hitting the right spot, over and over.

the packaging scores highly on the emo points scale too, with a screen printed cover, lyrics printed in an unreadable font, a little envelope containing a picture of a tree and some words from penfold records, and some mclard-esque ramblings from spiral objective on nature and spirituality.

you may be able to buy both spirit records here:

missing link records

i hope you can.

but for now, until the link expires, you can download the whole 7" here:

http://www.collective-zine.co.uk/emo/obscuremo/22/

enjoy.

lonely broken radio

fine choice of band name right there, it tells you everything you need to know - i.e. these guys are emo bastards. they released a solitary 7", featuring 2 songs recorded in may '96, on chrysanthemum records (more emo bastardry out of san francisco.

hey, i am dragging this bit out as that's about as much information as i have on the band. there is no insert and i have stumbled across little useful information in web searching. however, this 7" delivers an absolute killer song in 'bigger miracles', a free falling, slow burning effort that nudges aside the more theatrical elements of indian summer and borrows a touch more from slint, barring the vocals. it builds up into a massive roar in mid-song before dying down and twinkling out of sight at the end.

i am fairly certain that this band in fact involves at least one character from indian summer, although i have no real evidence for this. search for them on google, you won't find shit.

download: Lonely Broken Radio - Bigger Miracles mp3

days in december

for a long while i was under the impression that days in december had no output other than a split 7″ with sweater weather (http://www.polyvinylrecords.com/ although you would do well to find mention of this release on their website), which featured a song entitled ‘main in vine’, a song which fused sunny day real estate and the midwest emo style to great effect. so, i made do with that one song, rediscovering it for mixtapes every now and again, and rarely ever considering that there were other recordings out there.

until march of this year. someone unearthed a days in december live set, the ‘WEFT radio sessions’. 5 songs (including a version of ‘main in vine’) and almost half an hour that suggests that days in december would have been more than capable of producing one of the great mid west emo lps. and we should be rather upset that they didn’t. the songs are lengthy, often quite simple and repetetive in structure, and lean heavily on the sound boys life generated. this is a band still finding its feet, but they were truly onto something, a style which lay dormant for quite some time until rockets and blue lights blundered on in. the music here features gentle twinkles and vocals build into energetic bursts of noise and urgency. my pick of the bunch is the sublime ‘ad free radio’, which meanders elegantly and winds down into the final two minutes of waltzy repetition that will leave you on the floor. wow.

of course, there is probably a demo too. most bands have a demo. it’s just not been rediscovered yet. but for now, you can always make do with these songs. here comes the autumn.

download: Days in December - 5 song radio session