American Football - S/T

Release Date: September 14, 1999

★★★★★ Tracks:
Never Meant
Honestly?


When Cap’n Jazz broke up each member began a new project that furthered the spread of 2nd-wave emo. Of those spin-offs, the instrumental outfit Ghosts + Vodka was created by guitarists Victor Villareal and Sam Zurick, The Promise Ring, created by Davey von Bohlen was the poppiest and most successful of the spin-offs, Joan of Arc, created by Cap’n Jazz frontman Tim Kinsella, the most pretentious and avant-garde, and American Football, created by drummer and brother to Tim, Mike Kinsella, has the sound that most closely resembles late 90’s/early 00’s emo. Not quite as eccentric, Mike enjoys and excels at writing luscious guitar melodies (further evidenced by his later solo spin-off project, Owen), and as the drummer in Cap’n Jazz, Mike shows how multi-instrumentally talented he is by combining those intricate guitars with math rock time signatures. This might sound a bit pretentious, but I’d say good musicians simply enjoy the challenge of writing complex material. And the hooks are still hooks. The opening track on American Football’s self-titled album is its best; “Never Meant” builds upon some technically savvy hammer-on and finger-slide electric guitar picking with oddly syncopated drums and Mike’s signature soft tenor, drummer Steve Lamos speeds it to half-time for good measure halfway through. Through the opening four minutes of the album you can hear the makings of 100s of emo bands to follow. “The Summer Ends” follows with a long instrumental interlude before Mike comes back in with youthful love and the insecurities that always come with it. Then comes “Honestly?” with the album’s best lyrics:

Honestly I can’t remember
All my teenage feelings
And the meanings
They seemed too see-through
To be true

A long instrumental passage follows after the second verse, closing out the other strong highlight on American Football. Kinsella and Co. were highly influential to a lot of music most people never listened to, this is true. But other than the two highlights listed above, I rarely find myself revisiting American Football’s only full-length; I’m a pop fan by nature, and my inclination keeps me fully entrenched in Davey von Bohlen’s camp. His interpretation of this underappreciated genre with The Promise Ring is the paragon of the Cap’n Jazz spin-offs, Cap’n Jazz included, actually.

Texas is the Reason - Do You Know Who You Are?

Release Date: April 30,, 1996

★★★★★ Tracks:
Back and to the Left

Along with the likes of Sunny Day Real Estate, The Promise Ring, and Jawbreaker, Texas is the Reason are co-founders of a brand of rock that would eventually become synonymous with edgy black hair, tight pants, Rivers Cuomo glasses, and overly-sensitive douchebaggery. But unlike the Saves the Days and Jimmy Eat Worlds of the emo universe, Texas is the Reason has always been one of the more respectable groups to like from the genre. While that might not be saying much due to emo's stigma, Texas is the Reason is without a doubt a very influential group. They combined power-pop, punk rock, and post-hardcore with mid-song tempo changes, drop-D tunings, monster breakdowns, and a more earnest brand of vocals and lyricism than your typical rock band would allow. Followers (mostly forgettable) from Sparta to Taking Back Sunday to most the Deep Elm and Revelation Records bands that would follow would point back to groups like Texas as foundations for their music.

Oddly enough, out of the countless emo bands I listened to throughout the course of the mid-to-late 90’s, Texas is the Reason is a group I never got in to all that much. Most of my friends did, and I know all about them. There isn’t any particular reason for my lack of fandom other than that I never owned their full-length album. As I listen to these somewhat familiar tunes now, there are a few that definitely catch my ear. "Johnny on the Spot" is a rollicking opener, setting the tone for the rest of the record, and "Back and to the Left" is a phenomenal hard rock anthem. Texas is at their best when they rock the fast-tempoed power chord jams, mixing distorted octaves and off-kilter drum beats. The downfall for most will be Garret Klahn's vocals, as his somewhat high-pitched yelp has me thinking Texas would have been better with with a different frontman as well. And while I do enjoy most of these songs, the slower, more "emo" tracks do feel dated at this point, and overall it feels like I missed the Texas boat by about fifteen years; it might be too late for me to jump on board now.

Vermont - Living Together

Release Dates: September 28, 1999

★★★★★ Tracks:

Living Together

Often grouped in with divisive late 90’s emo-rock acts Texas Is the Reason, Jimmy Eat World, Get Up Kids, Saves the Day, and countless others, The Promise Ring are sort of misunderstood -- they are first and foremost a pop band. Davey van Bohlen is even on record as saying that they had no idea 30° Everywhere was going to come out so ...emo, so they came in to the recording of Nothing Feels Good with the intentions of making one of the poppiest records ever in order to change that perception. It definitely succeeded in being more upbeat, but it wasn’t quite enough for Davey, and a few years later they recorded quite possibly one of the poppiest records on the planet in Very Emergency.

It might have been pop-overkill, because there’s no getting around the obvious emo-core intentions of Vermont; a side project created by van Bohlen soon after Very Emergency’s release in the fall of ‘99. All those indulgent lyrics on troubled relationship Davey van Bohlen had bottled up for the aesthetic purposes of the Promise Ring are unleashed here on Living Together in all their self-loathing glory. They’re accompanied by sappy acoustic guitars, weepy arpeggio guitar leads, and the occasional software string instrument via keyboards.

Living Together has survived in my collection for over a decade, moving from apartment to apartment and city to city. However it’s showing its age, no longer holding up all that well. I’ll always have an affinity for Davey’s music, but Vermont is an example of both emo’s immaturity, and my immature tastes in music as I was approaching my twenties. It’s a good thing van Bohlen kept the Promise Ring churning in the right direction, by doing so he was able to use his little known side project as a means for indulgent escapism. The title track will continue to travel with me however; sure it has all the qualities listed above, and I’m pretty sure the drums are probably produced by some generic Yamaha keyboard, but the melody is too damn good to ignore.

“You look so happy now
It’s true, you really do
You look so happy now
I would hate to be compared to you”