Buckets Full of Emo (or) I Might Be Wrong (Part 1)
Posted on 18 April 2008 | 9 Comments
This (these) post(s) is (are) actually an updated and much more comprehensive repost of this one and this one and should hopefully satiate everyone that’s been asking for these to be reposted. It also serves as a reminder that way before what teens, tweens, and over-protective parents today think of as emo, the term was shorthand for emotional hardcore. It was not a dirty word that referred to the lifestyle that gets so much negative press these days. It did not mean faux-depression, eyeliner, bad haircuts, and just plain ridiculousness.
Originating in the Washington, DC music scene of the mid-1980’s, some so-called “first-wave” emo or emocore bands included Rites of Spring, Embrace, and Moss Icon. Then came Fugazi (featuring ex-members of Rites of Spring and Embrace), Jawbox, and so on from there…
This is (according to me) a brief history of emo in music only. Yes, it will be incomplete in some areas and too
inclusive in others depending on who you ask, but that’s life. There is the mid-80’s stuff that sounds more like straight-ahead punk, there’s indie emo, mathy emo, and even screamo. And while I could have written about my feelings for all the bands, all the factual stuff has already been said and I’d just be rehashing much of what you can find here, here, or even here. This is also much of what will be covered in an upcoming book called Post by this guy. Anyhow, much of this music is out of print, so dig in, enjoy, and let the hate mail begin.
MP3 | Gray Matter – Oscar’s Eye
MP3 | Rites Of Spring – For Want Of
MP3 | The Hated – Words Come Back
MP3 | Embrace – Give Me Back
MP3 | Moss Icon – Guatemala
MP3 | Fugazi – Repeater
MP3 | Iconoclast – Wits End/Nevermore
MP3 | Monsula – Firecracker
MP3 | Jawbreaker – Want
MP3 | Nation Of Ulysses – Today I met The Girl…
MP3 | Samiam – Clean
MP3 | Jawbox – Static
MP3 | Heroin – Indecision
MP3 | Hoover – Two Down
MP3 | Evergreen – Constellation
MP3 | Floodgate – 6 + 5 + 4 = 3
MP3 | Still Life – Truth
MP3 | Lincoln – Bench Warmer
MP3 | Cap N Jazz – In The Clear
MP3 | Friction – Squelch
MP3 | Gauge – 38 Cinder
Filed Under: Emo
Comments
This is the first time I comment on your blog and I’ve been following it for quite a while, more than 6 months actually. Anyway, I got here looking for Against Me!‘s New Wave songs in the Hype Machine, and I thank god for that.
Through your blog I got to know what emo is really like and I couldn’t agree more with you on this “…way before what teens, tweens, and over-protective parents today think of as emo, the term was shorthand for emotional hardcore. It was not a dirty word that referred to the lifestyle that gets so much negative press these days. It did not mean faux-depression, eyeliner, bad haircuts, and just plain ridiculousness.”
Thak you for reposting these songs.
Long Live Can You See the Sunset.
Miriam (Mexico).
being now 31 i grew up when “emo” wasn’t a bad word actually no onw know what it was …. saying that now you have forgot some of the best and first ….. #1 of all time of course SUNNY DAY REAL ESTATE..THEN sensefield, texas is the reason, jimmy eat world (1st 2 albums) the get up kids(1st 2 albums, mineral, at the drive in, oh the list goes on with great “emo” bands. unfortunatly it’s now got a stigma attactched to it now all emo bands are just radio pussy bands. but in the begining wow! you don’t know what your missing, seriously.
As always, thanks for the plug. The manuscript is at the publisher now. Hopefully I’ll have a printed copy soon. Stay tuned!
thanks for all these ‘buckets’; I already know and love most of these artists already but I hadn’t heard any Gauge before – member(s) were in Radio Flyer with Hoover’s Alex Dunham, made one of very favourite ‘emo’ records, In Their Strange White Armour. Really good.
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As a member of the Shakefork Army and as a person who’s band was on Further Beyond, I can’t be pleased enough with the additions of Friction, Cap’n Jazz and – of course – Gauge.
So far ahead of their time. So good, so young and they didn’t even know it.