Speed Of History

Blake Schwarzenbach (Jawbreaker), Aaron Elliott (Cometbus, Crimpshrine) and Daniela Sea (The L Word) have a new band and I saw them play their second show last night.

I, unfortunately, seem to be one of the “hundred bloggers [that] came to the punk show and left after the first band”.  Fuck it, I have no real excuses, save that I am old. tired and get bored really easily.  I just didn’t have it in me to stand around for a few more bands that I knew nothing about.  Maybe they were great.  I don’t particularly care.  Sorry.

What I did care about was what this new band actually sounded like.  I was intensely curious, because despite how old and jaded I may now be I still have a place in my heart for that very specific romantic side of JAWBREAKER and CRIMPSHRINE.

They played to a packed room in a punk house in Crown Heights.  My initial impression was that they were incredibly tight and had really well written songs for only being together for a month or two and only playing out once before.  There were at least two “ballads”, one of which reminded me of “Runaway Train” (for real!) in the beginning before morphing into something more abstract, atmospheric and JAWBREAKER-ish.  There was a stand out track about Magritte, that reminded me more of later period JAWBREAKER.

What really surprised me and what I honestly was not expecting, was that the majority of their songs were of that nostalgic, bittersweet East Bay pop punk variety, with short breakdowns and bridges of JAWBREAKER style drone.  There was a speed and energy to them that took me by surprise, and nowhere near the slower, softer and bleaker sound I was expecting because of Dear You and JETS TO BRAZIL.

If they stay together this band is going to be huge.

Videos follow.