Okay, let’s just dive right into this one, comrades! The lineup for 1234Fest was announced seemingly from out of nowhere today, and we’re here to tell you that it rules. If you’re unaware of 1234Fest – as many of us here at DSHQ were until this afternoon – it’s a two-day festival that is slated […]
Okay, let’s just dive right into this one, comrades! The lineup for 1234Fest was announced seemingly from out of nowhere today, and we’re here to tell you that it rules.
If you’re unaware of 1234Fest – as many of us here at DSHQ were until this afternoon – it’s a two-day festival that is slated to take place in September. The first installment is in at an old auto salvage yard in Denver at The JunkYard on September 9th, and day two is going down September 23rd across the country at Philadelphia’s Freedom Mortgage Pavilion (which is actually in Camden, New Jersey, which is kind of if an old auto salvage yard was a city, but it’s right across the river from Philly so I guess it counts). The lineup for both days appears to be the same, and it’s a pretty great one.
Near as I can tell, Jawbreaker first came through Boston as a band in the Summer of 1990 on their “Fuck 90” US Tour. That show took place at the legendary Rat in Kenmore Square (RIP) and found Jawbreaker playing alongside Rise and Chinchilla Whiplash (lol) and Full Nelson Riley (LOL). Here’s the show flier. […]
Near as I can tell, Jawbreaker first came through Boston as a band in the Summer of 1990 on their “Fuck 90” US Tour. That show took place at the legendary Rat in Kenmore Square (RIP) and found Jawbreaker playing alongside Rise and Chinchilla Whiplash (lol) and Full Nelson Riley (LOL). Here’s the show flier. Oh, and no, that is not from my personal collection, sadly, as I was not there, because even though I like to think that I was a cool kid growing up in southern New Hampshire, the reality is that I was not cool, and even if I was, “cool” meant that I had a pretty gnarly rat tail and could do a mean tight roll on my acid washed Bugle Boy jeans and I actually had a Champion pullover sweatshirt and oh by the way I was ten years old.
I didn’t really start making my way to Boston for shows until April of my junior year of high school, which if you’re keeping score at home was 1996. Jawbreaker were on their Dear You tour and I really liked Dear You because I wasn’t old/cool enough to know that you weren’t supposed to like that album if you were “a punk,” but also funds were limited so there was a bit of a coin-flip situation that found me going to the Bad Religion show that month instead of the Jawbreaker one, because the former was during school vacation and the latter was on a school night, and remember I was not what you’d call “cool.” Plus, it was still close enough to 1994 that punk was still in and so punk bands came around semi-regularly and so we’d just catch them next time around. If you’re still reading this, it means you’re probably familiar with Jawbreaker and so you know how that decision to catch them next time would be a colossal tactical decision on my part. (For the uninitiated; they broke up in rather catastrophic fashion the following month and didn’t play together again in public for another twenty-one years. Oops.)
And so fast-forward essentially a generation and a sold-out reunion tour show at Boston’s House Of Blues in 2019 and another on the Dear You 25th anniversary tour last year, both of which I had to miss for what we’ll call “reasons” and we get to last Friday, when the band returned to the Kenmore Square area for a date at the cavernous new MGM Music Hall at Fenway or whatever the official title is. Not only could the House Of Blues fit comfortably inside MGM with plenty of room to spare, I’m pretty sure The Rat (R.I.P.) could fit in the men’s room (which is super conveniently located on the second floor of the 5000-capacity theater but that’s another conversation for another time).
Given that travel to – and parking at – the venue is tricky at best on Red Sox home game days (the MGM shares a common wall with the bleachers at Fenway Park), showgoers were very much still filling in the lower GA bowl when Grumpster got the evening kick-started promptly at 7:00 sharp. If you haven’t seen Grumpster live, you’ve been doing yourself a disservice. The band is fronted by Donnie Walsh, a Massachusetts native who headed west to the Bay Area in search of the sort of melodic pop punk rock sounds that that scene put on the map thirty-plus years ago (so, in the time of Jawbreaker). Walsh is a human pinball on stage, frantically bouncing around the massive expanse of a stage while still maintaining bass and lead vocal duties (at least when he’s not given a reprieve by the band’s newest member, Alex Hernandez, who was officially added to the original three-piece lineup of Walsh, guitarist Lalo Gonzalez Deetz and drummer Noel Agtane over the summer to add depth on guitar and vocals). I can’t really say enough good things about Grumpster and their performance on this show and, I imagine, this whole run. They’re fun, funny, energetic, inspiring, at times painfully honest. They made a large and potentially intimidating setting feel a bit like an Elks Lodge punk rock show in all the best ways. Check out tracks like “Crash” and “Better Than Dead” and “Misery” off their latest record, Fever Dream, and you’ll get it.
The California punk rock party continued with Joyce Manor hitting in the number two spot in the order. Joyce Manor’s history dates back to the very early days of Dying Scene; near as I can tell, they were one of the very first bands we covered pretty extensively a dozen-or-so years ago, and I remember writing a lot about Of All The Things I Will Soon Grow Tired and Cody upon their respective releases, and yet in digging through the annals of DS/JM shared history, I couldn’t find another instance of us shooting them live. Strange!
Appearing as a five-piece on this run (with the one-and-only Neil Hennessy still manning the drum kit!), Joyce Manor tore through a twenty-song set that leaned heavily on their 2011 self-titled record and 2014’s Never Hungover Again. The crowd, which had by now filled to a respectable level, was primed and ready to go from the first notes of set opener “Gotta Let It Go.” We had ourselves not only a circle pit (in fairness, not a California-style circle pit, but still a pit in the shape of a circle so it counts) but enough crowd surfers coming over the abnormally tight barricade that a few backup security guards were called in from the front of the house to serve as backup. If it provides any context to how amped-up the crowd was for Joyce Manor, from my perch in the photo pit before and in between sets, I overheard more than one conversation that centered around showgoers being surprised that Joyce Manor was opening for Jawbreaker and not the other way around and that it must have just been a Jawbreaker show because they were the OGs. Kids these days…
And so finally, at 9:00pm sharp, after a thirty-minute wait for set changeover but really close to a thirty-year wait, it was Jawbreaker time. The foursome (Blake and Adam and Chris plus Mitch Hobbs, longtime guitar tech, on second guitar) hit the stage and dove into “I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both.” Like much of Dear You, it’s a song that resonated in a particular way when it came out the week I turned sixteen. But when you add to it the context that Dear You became the last album before Jawbreaker self-destructed and then when you add to THAT the context that I’m now forty-four, it’s a song that hits like a sledgehammer.
From there, the band plowed through about a dozen-and-a-half songs that leaned heavily on the once-maligned-but-now-adored Dear You, but still managed to cover the duration of the band’s five-year history of recorded material. (Side note: think about that…as influential and genre-defining a band as Jawbreaker was, their entire output of recorded full-length records was released in a five-year span from 1990 to 1995.) It seemed like it took the band a couple of songs to hit their stride, but once they locked in at probably the “Seafoam Green” or “Condition Oakland” part of the set, they were as tight and focused as ever. The gravel and snarl in Blake Schwarzenbach’s voice, which people for years lamented had disappeared, seem to have returned only in a more weary, road-worn fashion.
Bass player Chris Bauermeister stayed pretty well rooted in place in his place at stage right, his focus firmly placed on his Antigua Fender P bass. Fitting, I suppose, since his playing style always served as a pretty solid foundation from which the traditionally single-guitar attack could wander. Adam Pfahler, as always, provided the gas pedal for the whole thing. This is a bit of a rudimentary comment to make, but on more than one occasion, I couldn’t help but think “damn…Adam is a REALLY good drummer.” It’s one thing to hear his playing on recordings that are 25-30 years old, but it’s another thing to see it live circa 2023, and to gain a new respect for the sort of groove and feel created and to see how his influence has carried forward in myriad bands since.
And of course, at the front of the operation, is the inimitable Blake Schwarzenback. Schwarzenbach has always been known for his emotionally honest, drunken poet lyrical style, and his vocal stylings lent authenticity to his words. Thirty-plus years of experiences paint many of those songs – like set-opener “I Love You So Much It’s Killing Us Both” and “Save Your Generation” and “Unlisted Track,” the latter of which Schwarzenbach performed solo accompanied by only his trademark white late 80s Les Paul Custom which has yellowed with age – in a different light and provide newer, deeper context. What had sounded like high school or college-age scorned love songs take on more gravity with the passing of time and adult relationships and societal dysfunction in the years since the words were first sung. Much of the set felt cathartic in a way a lot of shows haven’t in a while, but the post-“Unlisted Track” three-song closer of “Basilica,” “Kiss The Bottle” and “Accident Prone” was just about perfect. And so do I wish that my first Jawbreaker show occurred on that infamous “Fuck 90” tour? No…I was 10 and it was at The Rat and I probably would have died. And especially no, because I think it means more now that I saw them for the first time after just turning 44 and Blake’s words and the band’s sound have carved such a deep and indelible path in my brain. Thanks, Blake and Adam and Chris (and Mitch!). More than you know.
Check out photo galleries from each band’s set below!
Greetings, and welcome to the Dying Scene Record Radar. If it’s your first time here, thank you for joining us! This is the weekly* column where we cover all things punk rock vinyl; new releases, reissues… you name it, we’ve probably got it. Kick off your shoes, pull up a chair, crack open a cold […]
Greetings, and welcome to the Dying Scene Record Radar. If it’s your first time here, thank you for joining us! This is the weekly* column where we cover all things punk rock vinyl; new releases, reissues… you name it, we’ve probably got it. Kick off your shoes, pull up a chair, crack open a cold one, and break out those wallets, because it’s go time. Let’s get into it!
Check out the video edition of this week’s Record Radar, presented by our friends at Punk Rock Radar:
17 years after its original release on CD, Frenzal Rhomb‘s Forever Malcolm Young is getting its first ever vinyl release. SBÄM Records has three snazzy splatter variants on their US and EU webstores. Our Australian readers (or anyone willing to pay a slight premium for shipping) can get the record on “Goon Wolf Red” colored vinyl from Artist First and/or very cleverly marketed “Johnny Ramone Punk Rock Black” vinyl from JB Hi-Fi.
Strung Out‘s Twisted By Design is the latest record in Fat Wreck’s 25th Anniversary reissue series. The original mix/master of this album has been out of print since 2010, so that’s notable as well. As always, Fat divulges absolutely nothing about the color variant because they know we’ll buy it regardless. So head on over to their webstore to grab a copy and find out what color the rekkid is when it shows up in the mail.
Needless to say, there were a lot of awesome reissues announced this week. Next up to bat is Asian Man Records with new pressings of both Link 80 albums, 17 Reasons and The Struggle Continues. Both are limited to 800 copies; the latter is back in print for the first time since its original release 20+ years ago. Get ’em here.
New release! Yes, we sometimes have those on the Record Radar. Matt Skiba attempts to steal the spotlight from his ex-Blink 182 bandmates with an announcement of his own. Alkaline Trio will release their 10th album Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs on January 26th, 2024. They’re pressing like 30 color variants for this fuckin’ thing and they’re all exclusive to different retailers… someone on Reddit was nice enough to make a post aggregating links to all the places you can buy each variant, so check that out.
Here’s another new release I’m really excited about; one of my most anticipated records of 2023, actually. Bri’ish skate punks Making Friends just launched pre-orders for their new album Fine Dying, which is due out November 3rd. Check out the new single “Broken” below and pre-order the record at one of these places: Punk Rock Radar (US), High End Denim Records (CA), Cat’s Claw Records (UK), Pee Records (AUS), Waterslide Records (JP).
Known for their recent reissues of some classic Pulley records, DustyWax Records adds another feather in their cap with a first ever vinyl release of 88 Fingers Louie‘s 88 Fingers Up Your Ass. Not much more to share on this right now; stay tuned for pre-orders coming soon on the label’s webstore.
Real Gone Music adds to their recent run of Donnas reissues with new pressings of Get Skintight and Turn 21. Each has an Indie variant (not so limited) and a webstore exclusive variant (very limited). These join the recently reissued self titled LP and American Teenage Rock ‘N’ Roll Machine, bringing all of The Donnas’ Lookout! Records catalog back in print for the first time in over a decade. All of the records are available here.
New Orleans ska-punks Joystick have a new record coming out November 14th on Bad Time Records. It’s a 12″ EP with four new songs on Side A and a “20 minute mystery side” on the flipside. Check out one of the new songs down there and get the record here.
Minneapolis’ Partial Traces (members of Banner Pilot, the Soviettes, Dead Landlord, Riverhead, etc.) just released a new record. It’s called Stay Dreaming and it sounds absolutely nothing like any of those other bands. Listen below, buy the record here.
Cal-gary, Alberta’s Territories have a new record out now on Pirates Press Records. Check out the latest single below and get it on neon orange (700 copies) and/or neon violet (300 copies) here. Only $18! (that’s USD, not CAD).
Revelation Records has an exclusive variant of the new Youth Brigade – Sound and Fury reissue from Trust Records. 1,000 copies on yellow colored vinyl; get it here.
Joyce Manor covered a Tigers Jaw song. Tigers Jaw covered a Joyce Manor song. Hopeless Records released a 7″ containing both of these cover songs and you can buy it here. There’s a tour variant, too, so if you’re one of the rich MFs at that When We Were Young Fest this weekend you can probably pay $20 for it at either band’s merch tent.
Speaking of When We Were Young Fest, during their performance at that very Las Vegas festival yesterday, New Found Gloryallegedly announced their 2004 album Catalyst will be getting its first ever vinyl release, with pre-orders going live this coming Friday. These NFG reissues always sell out fast as hell, so keep your eyes on the band’s social media for an official announcement.
In a last minute addition to this week’s column, Chase the Glory Records has announced a big time repressing of SNFU’s 1996 FYULABA LP. There are 1,000 copies spread across four beautiful color variants. Pre-order just went up today; get your copy here.
Last order of business this week, I wanna give a quick shoutout to a longtime supporter of the Record Radar, Dan Jones aka @punkrock_vinyl on Instagram. Dan’s account was actually one of the main sources of inspiration for me starting this column. He recently launched his own distro with a bunch of awesome records (such as Love Equals Death‘s Nightmerica, which I snatched up with no hesitation, alongside the new Contra Code record Friday Junior). The prices are great and even though he’s based in the UK, shipping to the states is very reasonable. Head over there and check it out!
Well, that’s all, folks. Another Record Radar in the books. As always, thank you for tuning in. If there’s anything we missed (highly likely), or if you want to let everyone know about a new/upcoming vinyl release you’re excited about, leave us a comment below, or send us a message on Facebook or Instagram, and we’ll look into it. Enjoy your weekend, and don’t blow too much money on spinny discs (or do, I’m not your father). See ya next week!
Wanna catch up on all of our Record Radar posts? Click here and you’ll be taken to a page with all the past entries in the column. Magic!
Greetings, and welcome to the Dying Scene Record Radar. If it’s your first time here, thank you for joining us! This is the weekly* column where we cover all things punk rock vinyl; new releases, reissues… you name it, we’ve probably got it. This week’s column is our biggest yet, as we’re highlighting a grand […]
Greetings, and welcome to the Dying Scene Record Radar. If it’s your first time here, thank you for joining us! This is the weekly* column where we cover all things punk rock vinyl; new releases, reissues… you name it, we’ve probably got it. This week’s column is our biggest yet, as we’re highlighting a grand total of 20 newly announced records! So kick off your shoes, pull up a chair, crack open a cold one, and break out those wallets, because it’s go time. Let’s get into it!
Check out the video edition of this week’s Record Radar, presented by our friends at Punk Rock Radar:
If you’re catching a show on Less Than Jake‘s 25th Anniversary Hello Rockview tour, be sure to hit the merch table for this brand new 2xLP reissue of the record. The second LP features demos (including a previously unreleased song called “Honest Answers”), live tracks, and what I think are newly re-recorded takes on “All My Best Friends Are Metalheads” and “History of a Boring Town”.
No word from the band (or Smartpunk Records) on whether this is a tour exclusive variant, or how limited it is. I think it’s a safe bet this 25th Anniversary reissue will get wider distribution at some point, and will keep you posted as more details are announced. For now, the only way to grab a copy is at one of Less Than Jake’s upcoming shows.
There are a couple classic splits with new represses on the way, with the first being Ten Foot Pole‘s 1995 split 10″ with the almighty Satanic Surfers. Due out this September on La Agonía de Vivir, it’s limited to 200 copies on transparent red vinyl / 300 black vinyl. Pre-order here.
The other split getting a much needed repress is The Ataris / Useless IDLet It Burn. The LP has been repressed on split blue/red colored vinyl; they don’t specify how many copies, it’s just “limited”. This one’s due out next month; get it here.
Here’s a repress of a more recently-released record. The Flatliners‘ Inviting Light is back in print on two new color variants; the “black inside yellow” variant pictured is limited to 200 copies, while the coral colored wax (not pictured) is limited to 300 copies. You can get both here.
Let’s take a little detour from all the reissues / represses and highlight some of this week’s new releases, shall we? Up first are pop-punk mainstays the McRackins with their fantastic new album Wake the Fun Up!, out now on Mom’s Basement Records! I’m going to give this record 2023’s Most Unique Color Variants Award™ as well. 100 copies on each of the following variants: Watermelon Gushers, Dunkaroos Frosting, Orange Melted Creamsicle & Spitting Blood Gladiator. Get your copy here.
Also available from our friends at Mom’s Basement Records: two new live records from the Huntingtons and the Proton Packs! Both were recorded at Italy’s favorite Ramonescore festival Punk Rock Raduno, and both can be purchased on Mom’s Basement’s webstore. Our European friends can grab these from Punk Rock Raduno’s Bandcamp.
Here’s another new release! It’s a new* three-song* 10″ from everyone’s favorite hip-hop/punk band Codefendants! For $18 you get a song that was already released on the band’s LP, as well as an acoustic version of that song, and one new track called “Cinematic”. You simply cannot beat that value, folks! Fork over your money here.
Alright, back to some more reissues! The Bouncing Souls‘ How I Spent My Summer Vacation is getting repressed on “red with white swirl” colored vinyl, limited to 500 copies. My fellow true believers can get it here.
Dead Broke Rekerds has given Hickey’s highly sought after self-titled LP its first reissue since 1995. They pressed 222 copies on red vinyl, which have already sold out, and 800 copies on black wax (still in stock!). Get yours here. Chocolate pudding filled trumpet not included.
Joyce Manor‘s 2011 self-titled debut LP gets its 14th(!) pressing, with 1,000 copies on pink colored wax. Long live Mike Park and Asian Man Records! Buy it here.
Dutch skate punks Drunktank will be crossing the Atlantic to play some shows in Canada this September. To commemorate the voyage, Thousand Islands Records is repressing the band’s most recent album Return of the Infamous Four with Canadian themed artwork and color variants. Pre-order here.
The Beatnik Termites‘ long out of print sophomore LP Bubblecore gets its first reissue since 1996. 500 copies on pink colored vinyl, get it here.
Late last year, Westbound Train surprised everyone when their first new record in over a decade popped up on Spotify. Now Dedication is getting a physical release! Get it on transparent blue marble colored vinyl here.
Jeff Rosenstock‘s new album Hellmode is due out September 1st. Check out the lead single “Doubt” below. There are a trillion color variants; links to where you can get all of them can be found here.
Ramonescore up-and-comers the Zoanoids and Bad Secret have combined forces for a new Split 7″, out now on Hey Pizza! Records. Available on three color variants here.
Boston’s Rebuilder have announced their new album Local Support will be released on August 11th. Check out the new single “Another Round” below and pre-order the record here. Shoutout to Dying Scene contributing photographer Brittany, who took the picture featured on the album’s cover!
Chicago’s Sincere Engineer will be releasing their new album Cheap Grills on September 22nd through Hopeless Records. Check out the new single “California King” below and pre-order the LP on “steak + sauce” colored wax here.
Last but not least we’ve got some new releases from Rad Girlfriend Records! Tokyo’s What Goes Up gets a running start on their debut LP Laws of Gravity. Killer orgcore / Midwest punk, recommended if you like Banner Pilot, the Dopamines, Rational Anthem, etc. Get it here (US), here (UK), or here (Japan).
Well, that’s all, folks. Another Record Radar in the books. As always, thank you for tuning in. If there’s anything we missed (highly likely), or if you want to let everyone know about a new/upcoming vinyl release you’re excited about, leave us a comment below, or send us a message on Facebook or Instagram, and we’ll look into it. Enjoy your weekend, and don’t blow too much money on spinny discs (or do, I’m not your father). See ya next week!
Wanna catch up on all of our Record Radar posts? Click here and you’ll be taken to a page with all the past entries in the column. Magic!
The Gaslight Anthem finally brought their History Books album tour through Boston, Massachusetts on August 18, 2024. Joyce Manor and Pinkshift were in tow for what turned into a tight, no-nonsense rock-and-roll soiree at the cavernous MGM Music Hall at Fenway. Baltimore’s Pinkshift kicked off the evening, by my math, a couple of minutes early. […]
The Gaslight Anthem finally brought their History Books album tour through Boston, Massachusetts on August 18, 2024. Joyce Manor and Pinkshift were in tow for what turned into a tight, no-nonsense rock-and-roll soiree at the cavernous MGM Music Hall at Fenway.
Baltimore’s Pinkshift kicked off the evening, by my math, a couple of minutes early. I’ve made repeat mentions on these pages about how the MGM is a massive facility, but it’s not to be understated, particularly for an opening band who’s playing at a comparatively early time on a Sunday night as the crowd is filling in. Not to project, but I can imagine that might be a daunting task. That said, this marks the second time that I’ve seen a “smaller” band grab this sort of opportunity by the throat and make it their own on this very stage (the first was Grumpster opening for Jawbreaker/Joyce Manor a year ago). If you’re later to the game than I was, the core trio – Ashrita Kumar on vocals, Paul Vallejo on guitar and Myron Houngbedji on drums – formed in the halls of the prestigious Johns Hopkins University – and put their respective careers/educations on hold to make a go of the band thing. The older I get, the more infrequently I see bands for the first time whom I think feel “important.” Pinkshift feels important. With a live sound filled out by Kirby the Immortal1 on bass and Michael Stabekis on guitar, the band plowed through a 35-ish minute set that included “nothing (in my head)” and “Trust Fall” and of course their breakthrough single “i’m gonna tell my therapist on you”. Super fun stage presence, emotional and cathartic vocals, powerful – nay, punishing – hooks. What a trip.
The one-and-only Joyce Manor provided direct support on this Gaslight run. Much like they did at the aforementioned Jawbreaker show a year ago at the same venue, Joyce Manor not only came ready to play but brought a had a sizeable portion of the crowd singing along with every word from the anthemic opening notes of “Heart Tattoo” that set the tone for the rest of the set. From there, the quintet (core trio of Barry Johnson, Chase Knobbe and Matt Ebert joined by Neil Berthier on acoustic guitar and Jared Shavelson on drums for this run) blitzed through nearly two dozen songs over the course of a tight forty-five-minute set. The set was heavy on tracks from the band’s ten-year-old full-length Never Hungover Again, including the above-mentioned opener, and closer “Catalina Fight Song.” Other highlights included “House Warning Party” and “Beach Community” and of course “Constant Headache.”
At promptly 9:00pm and accompanied by the dulcet tones of Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun,” the Gaslight Anthem strode to the stage and immediately broke into the familiar buildup that is the intro to “American Slang.” From my vantage point in the photo pit, it sounded as though the band ground the gears of the ol’ big rig a little bit before finally getting up to cruising speed, although I’ve gone back and watched a few of the videos floating around YouTube and it seems like that might be more a result of a reverb issue at the front of the house than anything else, as they sounded dynamite from further out in the crowd. Crowd-favorite singalong “45” followed, a one-two punch that did a more than exceptional job of picking up the gauntlet that had been thrown down by Pinkshift and Joyce Manor. The last of the “photo pit three” that started the set was “We Came To Dance” from 2007’s Sink Or Swim, a song I hadn’t seen the band perform since pre-hiatus, so probably nine or ten years ago.
The setlist that followed, I have to say, was pretty great. The four History Books tracks – “I Live In The Room Above Her,” “Michigan 1975,” “The Weatherman” and “Positive Charge” fit in nicely with the comparatively deeper cuts. Much of the back catalog was well represented – although the only Get Hurt song to make an appearance was “Helter Skeleton,” a fact I thought was a little interesting given that we were just a couple days past the tenth anniversary of what is a desert island for yours truly. But I digress. Other highlights from the main set were “Bring It On” and “1930” and the Boston Bruins’ radio anthem “The Patient Ferris Wheel” and the left-right combo of “High Lonesome” and “Here’s Looking At You, Kid.” (Side note: if you haven’t read our recent interview with Benny Horowitz which talks about weaving the new tracks into a setlist of staples and also hints at the epic show closer, what are you waiting for?)
The band sounded pretty finely tuned; dare I say as good as ever. Frontman Brian Fallon’s voice had a little more growl in it than normal, a byproduct of the road (and being only 48 hours removed from a massive sold-out show on their home turf at the Stone Pony), and he was noticeably much less chatty than as has become standard. Less chatty, but no less having fun, and he frequently wore a wide smile across his face and seems genuinely happy to still be doing this with the same guys – Alex Rosamilia (not to get all “Fashion Police, but who was not only not wearing a hoodie but was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and playing a Gibson Flying V and looked like rock and roll personified), and Benny Horowitz and Alex Levine and of course the mighty Ian Perkins and the more recent touring addition of Brian Haring – again nearly two decades down the road. Karina Rykman, who appears on the studio version of Gaslight’s cover of Billie Eilish’s “ocean eyes” joined the band on second bass (“two bass players for the price of one!) and vocals on that song and stayed out on stage in the same role for the remainder of the set. And what a remainder of the set it was: “ocean eyes” into “Mae” into “Great Expectations” into normal closer “The ‘59 Sound,” a foursome that was worth the price of admission in and of itself. But it was capped off by a return to the stage from Pinkshift, who joined Karina and the rest of the Gaslight crew for a rousing rendition of the Nirvana classic “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It’s a song that has a different sort of cathartic energy than it did thirty years ago, less of a dangerous catharsis and more of a “hey, we’re still here and still kicking and still a vital force” catharsis.
Jawbreaker is going on tour. Joyce Manor and Grumpster open the show. It kicks off September 12 and runs through most of the month. You can see the dates below.
Joyce Manor have announced a Southern California show with Tigers Jaw, AJJ and Smoking Data Guns. The event will happen on October 19th at Riverside Municipal Auditorium in Riverside, California. Tickets are already on sale for this event. See below for the announcement.
Joyce Manor have released a live video for their cover of “I Saw Water” by Tigers Jaw. The song originally appeared on Tigers Jaw’s 2008 self-titled album. The video was recorded during their September 30, 2021 show in Central Park. Tigers Jaw have also released their cover of “Constant Headache” by Joyce Manor. The song originally appeared on Joyce Manor’s 2011 self-titled album. The covers are available digitally as well as on 7-inch vinyl via Epitaph Records. Tigers Jaw and Joyce Manor will be playing two shows together in California starting tonight. Joyce Manor released 40 oz. to Fresno in 2022 and Tigers Jaw released I Won’t Care How You Remember Me in 2021. Check out the covers below.
Joyce Manor have released a video for their song “NBTSA”. The video was filmed and edited by Adam Papagan. The song is off their album 40 oz. to Fresno which was released in 2022. Joyce Manor will be going on their American co-headlining tour with PUP in March. Check out the video below.
