A spoonful of emo (vol. 2)

Posted on 1 September 2005 | 5 Comments

Filed Under: Emo, Old Posts

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In this post (as well as in future posts) you might notice that much of the emo that I really enjoy is really lo-fi or raw sounding. I just like stuff that you know was recorded on the cheap or in someone’s bedroom. Not necessarily poor recordings, but bands on a shoestring budgets, singing and playing their hearts right off their sleeves regardless of the setting.

I would be willing to bet that after the last 4 years of mainstream dominance on the radio airwaves and MTV, the majority of Americans under 35 know who Jimmy Eat World is. They are what happens when emo goes pop. I can even recall hearing a bar full of drunken “townies” from my wife’s hometown in the hills of Pennsylvania singing along to “The Middle.” Point proven.

From their humble beginnings as a pop-punk group in Arizona, they somehow became pop-rock superstars. Between points A and B though they left some very memorable music that changed my life as well as countless others. I first heard Jimmy Eat World on a free sampler featuring them and Less Than Jake and just passed them off as another major-label rock band. The first time I heard Clarity was from a shitty cassette playing in Boxer’s van as we rode along with them to Stevie Ray’s House of Wax in Muncie, IN to see a most memorable show that was my first introduction to At The Drive-In (but that’s another story for another post).

The guys from Boxer had an advance copy playing on the stereo over a year before it actually was released by Capitol Records (you may recall the huge delay in the release of the album). When I was told that what I was listening to was Jimmy Eat World I couldn’t believe it. I was floored. They had grown in leaps and bounds since Static Prevails and produced a sonic masterpiece (thanks in part to the skills of Mark Trombino). Clarity still remains one of my favorite records mainly because every time I listen to it I seem to “discover” some little part that I hadn’t heard the time before. Simply amazing.

Jejune (from San Diego) sadly called it quits in 1999. I had the opportunity to see them live only once (in Anaheim, CA with Jimmy Eat World), and while they were an amazing band, they never got a whole lot of recognition during their existence. That might be (in part at least) due to the fact that their songs were spread out all over the musical map. “The Early Stars” is (however) a focused burst of emo-pop-rock with one of the best choruses that the genre has ever produced.

In 1997, Jimmy Eat World released a split 7” with Jejune on Big Wheel Recreation. Both songs featured below are from this record. I love the dirty/distorted sound of this record a lot and it just happens to feature my favorite songs from both bands.

MP3 | Jimmy Eat World – What I Would Say To You Now JEW/Jejune Split 7”
MP3 | Jejune – Early Stars Jejune/JEW Split 7”

We look out across the sea Walking on sunshine