SF Music Club, Take Two - The Albums

[Jekyll]

That is a cool story, bro.

 

[indesertum]

shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit. chronic. have not listened in awhile

 

[StephenHero]

Give me something.

 

[Jekyll]

Forgot about this. Will put something up shortly.

 

[Jekyll]

http://rs475.rapidshare.com/files/16...Away__1972.rar


Couldn't really find much written about it online.

Here's Amazon...

Odd man out in California's early-'70s panoply of singer-songwriters, Randy Newman didn't play guitar, refused to confess specific personal dreams and sins, and sidestepped the countercultural trinity of sex, rebellion, and self. Newman dared to be a neoclassical pop survivor, narrative guerilla, and prankster, and no album summarizes these gifts better than this 1973 classic, which found the singer, songwriter, pianist, and arranger spreading his wings to fuse the economy of his songwriting with his lush talents as a composer. The classic title song mingles its elegiac orchestral bloom with the devastating, deadpanned sales pitch of its slave trader protagonist, while elsewhere Newman wraps his whiskey drawl and laconic piano around acerbic meditations on God ("He Gives Us All His Love," "God's Song"), celebrity ("Lonely at the Top"), nuclear Armageddon ("Political Science"), and sex ("You Can Leave Your Hat On"). Sail Away captures funny, tragic, moving American pop at its zenith.

...and the AV Club

If the best evidence of genius is the ability to hold two contradictory ideas at once, few of Randy Newman's songs fail to offer evidence of genius. Take, for example, "Dayton, Ohio-1903," a track from Sail Away, one of three Newman titles inaugurating a set of Rhino reissues. On the surface a celebration of simple afternoon diversions, the song has a devil in its details. "The air was clean and you could see / and folks were nice to you," Newman sings, in the guise of a character recalling an idyll that looks all the better for the intervening years of change. In America, as everywhere else, the only paradise is a paradise lost, and the song works at once as a heartfelt tribute to times past, a poke at free-floating nostalgia, and an examination of how history can lay waste to those in its path, all within the Trojan-horse confines of a simple pop song. Newman's characters don't always come by their divided consciences so honestly. The charming sales pitch of "Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear" has a grim echo in Sail Away's title track, a recruitment ad for the slave trade sung with a smile that hides the whip. Sail Away dates from 1972, the heart of a fruitful early period in Newman's career that revealed his ability to write songs of biting wit, novelistic complexity, and deep understanding. It's easy to laugh at the guy stage-directing his own debasement in "You Can Leave Your Hat On," but it's hard not to feel for him and maybe wish him luck, too.

 

[AntiHero84]

Quoted from the other thread...

Originally Posted by AntiHero84

I also didn't post mine, which was due a few weeks ago. I knew that I wanted to do Jawbreaker, but I couldn't decide on an album. This is probably cheating, but considering the thread has been abandoned...what the hell.

Let me know if the links don't work.

Jawbreaker's info on AllMusicGuide:

"Independently minded and adhering to the old-school D.I.Y. punk mentality, West Coast punk-pop trio Jawbreaker's street-smart -- yet poetic -- lyrics, spirited musicality, and marathon live shows put them a cut above contemporaries like Green Day and blink-182. After a series of EPs and singles, guitarist/singer Blake Schwarzenbach, bassist Chris Bauermeister, and drummer Adam Pfahler released the band's debut album, Unfun, in 1989. Independent label San Francisco Tupelo/Communion signed the group the following year, releasing Bivouac in 1991 and their breakthrough record, 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, in 1993.

As 1995 saw the first in a three-record deal with DGC, fans were split over the band's newfound success and move to a major label. But Jawbreaker were undeterred, releasing the influential Dear You, a powerhouse collection of punk, grunge, and emo that paved the way for groups like Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional. Sadly, the group disbanded in the late-'90s, leaving 2002's Etc., a collection of all of the group's non-album material, as their last will and testament. Dear You was reissued by Blackball in 2004."

This album is my favorite...

Download here.

AMG:

"More trials and tribulations than an average episode of Melrose Place, Jawbreaker continues to explore their personal struggles on their third album, fittingly titled 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. Continuing on the Jawbreaker tradition of poetic lyrics that provide a mental image to each song, the band deals with their endeavors through music instead of wallowing in them, making this record not entirely bleak. "Do You Still Hate Me," for example, has the persona dishing out the friction of a relationship gone sour through talking to the person in question: "I wrote you a letter/I heard it upset you/How can I do this better/We're getting older/But we're acting younger." Being critiqued and ostracized from their scene during the height of their popularity was another headache singer/songwriter Blake Schwarzenbach dealt with around the time this album was released (their previous album, Bivouac, provided them with a huge cult following). This no doubt inspired the song "Indictment," which talks about not caring what anyone thinks of their songwriting ("I just wrote the dumbest song/It's going to be a singalong/Our enemies will laugh and be pointing/It wont bother me, what the thoughtless are thinking"). Providing the perfect flow of temperamental pop to go along with these stories is proof enough that 24 Hour Revenge Therapy is the pivot of Jawbreaker's creative output."

But this is probably the most accessible to those unfamiliar with the band:

Download here.

AMG:

"1995's Dear You finds Jawbreaker cleaning up and streamlining their punk-pop sound and coming up with a sleek, slick punk-grunge classic that relies as much on clever songwriting and restrained emotions as it does on the group's trademarked high-energy attack. From the opening chords of the anthemic "Save Your Generation," Blake Schwarzenbach's vocals are the star. He was coming off of throat surgery that robbed him of a lot of his vocal power but gave him a smoky intimate sound that gives the feeling that he is whispering right in your ear. On songs like "I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both" or "Jet Black," he sounds wounded in a way that screaming could never convey. The album is a powerful mix of jumpy punk-pop like "Bad Scene," "Everybody's Fault," "Fireman," and the aching "Chemistry" and mid-tempo tracks like the amazing "Jet Black," "Million," and "Basilica that escapes being tied to the time of grunge-by-the-numbers by being melodic and heartfelt without going over the top, by being just punk enough to be real and just epic enough to rise above the often boringly earnest approach of too many punk bands. Along with Weezer's Blue Album, Dear You is one of the cornerstones upon which emo and late-'90s punk-pop were built. Certainly Jimmy Eat World wore out their copy, as Bleed American sounds like a less produced younger brother, and Dashboard Confessional's whole oeuvre sounds like a lesser version of Dear You's acoustic "Unlisted Track." Depending on how you feel about emo, there is either a lot to blame Jawbreaker for or be thankful for here. Either way, Dear You is one of the best rock records of the '90s and a fitting last testament to a great band."

 

[Dedalus]

Hell yes, Jawbreaker! How timely, I've been thinking about all the early/mid 90s emo lately since that Cap'n Jazz show. Fuckin' Jawbreaker, SDRE, Braid, Lifetime, really my favorite era of rock music.

 

[AntiHero84]

Originally Posted by Dedalus

Hell yes, Jawbreaker! How timely, I've been thinking about all the early/mid 90s emo lately since that Cap'n Jazz show. Fuckin' Jawbreaker, SDRE, Braid, Lifetime, really my favorite era of rock music.

I only discovered Jawbreaker and Lifetime a few years ago, but they've easily become a couple my favorite bands. I'll have to investigate Sunny Day Real Estate a little further. Never heard of Braid, but I'll check them out too.