Running Playlists

One of the most awesome features I like about my iPod is that I can craft a playlist that has precise timing. I have two playlists for my morning, pre-work runs, one at 20 minutes and a 30 minutes, depending on how much time I give myself in the AM. I was thinking of making a new playlist and I wanted to get peoples' suggestions. Leave them in the comments, please. Here's what I currently have:

Playlist 1 (20 Mins)
Fireworks, "Show Me Your Vanishing Act One More Time"
Four Year Strong, "Heroes Get Remembered, Legends Never Die"
Brand New, "The Shower Scene"
Big Pun feat. Fat Joe, "Twinz"
Comadre, "I Think We're Alone Now"
Broadway Calls, "Get at Me"
Capone and Noreaga, "TONY"

Playlist 2 (30 Mins)
None More Black, "Oh, There's Legwork"
Modern Life is War, "D.E.A.D.R.A.M.O.N.E.S."
The Lawrence Arms, "Great Lakes/Great Escape"
Shook Ones, "Order Form"
American Nightmare, "am/pm"
Kid Dynamite, "Heart a Tact"
Silverstein, "Vices"
The Bled, "Dale Earnhardt's Seatbelt"
Hour of the Wolf, "Taking Out the Trash"
Crime in Stereo, "I Stole This for You"

HxC Kind of Summer

I don't know why, but I got bit by the hardcore bug again. I'm working on doing songs with my long dormant Blown to Eliot Smithereens project and I've listened to the new Comadre records three times in a row today. At some point I put on "Takin' it Ova!" the record by the International Superheroes of Hardcore (aka New Found Glory).

Surprisingly, the album was much better than I remembered and I kind of wished that more hardcore bands were this fun. Oh well.


International Superheroes of Hardcore, "ISHC Theme Song/Back to the Future"


Comadre, "New Noise (Refused cover)"

Shake the Sheets: Another List of Shit 2009

I've been pretty lazy at updating this thing. I've probably updated Backed With more recently. Eh, what are you going to do?

Here are my midyear picks for 2K9 (again, in no particular order):

Kevin Devine, "Brother's Blood"
Method Man and Redman, "Blackout 2!"
Raekwon, "Blood on the Chef's Apron Mixtape"
Narrows, "New Distances"
Shook Ones, "The Unquotable AMH"
Manchester Orchestra, "Mean Everything to Nothing"
Sister Cities, "Demo"
Tigers Jaw, "Tour EP"
The Loved Ones, "Distractions EP"
Like Bats, "Demo"
Chase Pagan, "Bells and Whistles"
A Loss for Words, "Whatever the new album is called"
Fireworks, "All I Have to Offer is my Own Confusion"

Video: Kevin Devine and Jesse Lacey, "Tomorrow's Just Too Late"

Redux: The Ataris, "End is Forever"

Almost everyone I know who's met Kris Roe, the singer and guitarist for The Ataris, have told me he's kind of a douchebag. Actually, that's an understatement. I've definitely heard from one person that he's the biggest douchebag from Indiana and a former roommate tell me that he's a fucking asshole. And I can kind of see that, but the two times that I've spoken to him he was polite, so I have nothing ill to say about him on that level.

The Ataris are probably one of my favorite sophomoric pop-punk bands from the 90s, particuarly their watershed album, "Blue Skies, Broken Hearts...Next 12 Exits," which served to be my personal soundtrack for the latter part of my high school years.

In my freshman year of college, they released "End is Forever," which was their "serious" album of sorts. There were still some fast pop songs and most of the songs about love were boiled down to a middle school-level, but songs like "Fast Times at Drop Out High" which covers the topic of an adopted child (a lost brother Roe later found out about) and "Road Signs and Rock Songs," which addresses the polarizing effects of being a band on tour and being away from the ones you love. Through these weighty themes, and for better or worse, The Ataris started branching out as a mature band (for lack of a better term).

It's interesting that The Ataris were pretty much castigated because of this (and moreso over subsequent releases, "So Long, Astoria" and "Welcome the Night") in 2000, yet other contemporaries like Sum 41, Blink 182, New Found Glory, and Alkaline Trio followed this pattern in the years to come and while they were not without their critics, they didn't seem to get hit as hard as The Ataris did.

In the last few years, The Ataris sort of fell apart on the weight of their own "vision" (releasing an indie rock album for a crowd of teenagers who know you for a Don Henley cover will do that) with Roe doing solo acoustic tours of "Blue Skies..." and selling off his possessions via eBay. Though the band has always pretty much been Roe, many longtime collaborators, like John Collura, Mike Davenport and Chris Knapp, have been shown the door. A new version of the band has a new record coming out soon, promising to recapture the "End is Forever"-era, so it'll be interesting how this all pans out for them.

"Summer Wind Was Always Our Song"

Video: Descendents, "I'm the One" and Lifetime, "Airport Monday Morning"

Descendents, "I'm the One"

Lifetime - Airport Monday Morning


Lifetime, "Airport Monday Morning"

This weekend I was jamming out to "Everything Sucks" by the Descendents. It's one of their later-era albums and it seems to be the one that is largely ignored (along with "Cool to Be You"). It's a little bit more polished than the rest of their catalog, but it still holds up. The same could be said for Lifetime's self-titled album, which took me a long time to get into. In fact, I probably didn't really care much for it until after I saw them on their reunion tour almost two years ago. Yeah, it's a little overproduced but it still knocks. I guess for a lot of these older punk rock dudes that's the goal: putting out a solid record that even the most jaded of fans can appreciate.

Video: None More Black, "Oh, There's Legwork?"

Easily one of my favorite Schevchuk bands, None More Black is far more melodic than Kid Dynamite, but has all the clever lyrics that makes Jason Schevchuk one of the most quotable lyricists in punk rock. This is my favorite NMB song, chiefly because (other than being ridiculously catchy) contains the following lyrics: "We are the brand new beatniks/We are the down and out/We are the bleeding hearts beating syncopated broken rhythms/Our speed is all too breakneck, we need to slow it down/Tired of being sleepless/Tired of being broke and broken." Fucking genius.