Jawbreaker

Tiny Moving Parts, “Warm Hand Splash”

This is good! I bought this on Bandcamp, and I don’t remember listening to it. I still can’t decide if that’s sad of me or not. It probably is.

Yo La Tengo, “Barnaby, Hardly Working”

The first Yo La Tengo song I ever heard! I read about them and eventually picked up a combo CD of President Yo La Tengo/New Wave Hot Dogs, and from the moment I heard Ira Kaplan’s calm, peaceful vocals married to that little repetitive figure of guitar squall, I was hooked. That push-and-pull, between noise and peace, is at the heart of Yo La Tengo, and it’s kind of all here in capsule form.

Uncle Tupelo, “Looking For A Way Out (Demo)”

This comes from the deluxe reissue of Uncle Tupelo’s second album, Still Feel Gone. And, you know what? I’m just going to get sentimental here. I really miss Uncle Tupelo! I know that we ended up with plenty of great music from Tweedy and Farrar, so it’s not some tragedy or anything. And maybe their partnership breaking down is one of the things that unleashed their creativity, sure, sure. But, their alchemy was special, and Uncle Tupelo was brilliant and still touches me. I miss ’em.

The Aislers Set, “Chicago New York”

No, this isn’t some Belle & Sebastian tribute band. Chicago’s Aislers Set do play pop very much in that vein, uh, obviously. But there’s more variation on this album than this song might suggest, as this is probably the most B&S song on the record. It’s a solid set of tunes, so if you’re looking for some new pop, it’s worth a go.

Rilo Kiley, “A Better Son/Daughter”

Turn of the millennium indie bands represent!

Less Than Jake, “Automatic”

As the majors decided that ska, and especially ska-punk, was Really Hot, a bunch of bands signed contracts even though it probably didn’t make a ton of sense. But, honestly, Less Than Jake wasn’t a bad bet by the labels. There’s enough catchiness in their songs that you could see Green Day’s audience becoming interested, and ska was also pretty trendy. It made some sense, and given that there were some pretty huge hits from similar bands, there’s no reason one of those couldn’t have been LTJ. But, it didn’t quite work out, so only two records came out on Capitol Records before they moved back to smaller labels. Good record, though.

Jawbreaker, “Boxcar”

After Jawbreaker broke up in the wake of their sole Geffen record, there were a couple more releases to tie up the band’s catalog. In addition to a live record we got Etc., a collection of rarities, outtakes, and singles. Jawbreaker were great enough that even though this collection of stuff isn’t coherent, it’s still a good overall release. Some things I could probably do without, like this alternate take of “Boxcar”, but I’ll forgive those sins to have the rest of the material all in one place.

The B.U.M.S., “When She Walked”

We’ve had this record show up before, but In Wanna Smash Sensation should have been an absolute classic pop punk record. Cheerful and breezy, great tunes, great production from Kurt Bloch behind the boards, it’s just a delight all the way around.

Hum, “Pinch & Roll”

This comes from the second Hum LP, but the first one that really started to get them attention. Electra 2000 was distributed by Cargo Records, getting it into a lot more hands. It would lead to a major label deal, a couple of well-recieved records, and eventually an outstanding reunion record after 23 years. But going back to this album, it’s a very good indie rock record, a good picture of where the underground was in 1993, and worth a listen to see where a long-lived band really got rolling.

Some great songs today.

Wilco, “ELT”

You know, this might be the first time I’ve had a song come up on Five Songs after I had listened to it by choice earlier that day. This is not an interesting fact.

Anyway, Summerteeth is fantastic. Tweedy made a basically clean break entirely from the alt-country that had been present on all of his albums up to this point, and made just a straight up pop record. And it’s so good! Lush and orchestral at times, slow and contemplative at others, it’s a tour de force.

Hey, the AV Club’s “The Year In Band Names” is out! Oh, and we have music for today.

Two Fingers, “High Life”

Side project of Five Songs favorite Amon Tobin, Two Fingers is a collaboration with another producer named Doubleclick, along with some assorted MCs. In particular, Sway appears on most of the tracks here, including this one. And, damn, but it all works great. Stuttery and spastic in all the right ways, with some fun vocal work, this is a very entertaining album.

I think this is my longest writeup yet. Sorry about that! Here’s the music for today.

Jawbreaker, “Face Down”

During the 90s, there was a gold rush as major labels were suddenly hunting down every underground rock act they could find and trying to sign them to contracts. The major labels figured they could all find the next Nirvana or Green Day, somewhere, and the upside for the major label was obvious. Pop punk, in particular, was a hot sector after Dookie sold a billion records.