Rites of Spring - For Want Of

This is a little bit, well, quite a bit heavier than most of what gets posted on this blog and I don't expect it'll be to all readers' tastes. Maybe I'll post something ultra twee tomorrow, just for balance, like.

Rites of Spring anyway were sort of the original "emocore" band, bursting out into the US (specifically DC) hardcore punk scene in the mid-1980s with performances that allegedly left their audiences in emotional smithereens. Their lyrics were unusually personal and introspective and it's hard to imagine your average combat-boot-wearing spikey-Mohawk-head getting much out of them, but somehow they managed to spawn the development of an entire punk subgenre - quite unintentionally, I'm sure.

This was always my favourite of theirs and plus, it contains what is probably the defining emo lyric: If there's nothing here, then it's probably mine. Genius.

 

SOA - Public Defender

Been a while since I've posted any '80s punk, so here's a classic bit of harDCore from an early Dischord band featuring one Henry Rollins on vocals. He was still going by Henry Garfield then.

This isn't an official video, if you couldn't guess.

 

Lunch Meat - Under the Glare

Here's another DC punk band from the mid-1980s. I could refer to this as another in the "roots of emo" series, but since I don't really like the concept of emo, I won't.

Lunch Meat were a young and briefly quite popular group (locally) who later changed their name to Soulside and developed a bit of a reputation on the national punk scene. Most of Soulside later became Girls Against Boys, who've had a reasonable amount of success in the US indie-rock scene, although I can't say they've ever done much for me.

This is from a split 7" they released in 1985 with a band called Mission Impossible, who were so emo they actually apologised on the sleeve for the overwrought lyrics. The most notable thing about Mission Impossible was their drummer, a certain Dave Grohl.

The 7" was originally titled Thanks and then reissued as Getting Shit for Growing Up. It's the original that I have (of course), but my scanner is banjaxed and the only sleeve I can find online is the reissue. Both were released in extremely limited quantities, so it would certainly be a good investment if you happened to stumble across one anywhere.

Gray Matter - Fill a Void

I don't know much about emo, and have been pretty underwhelmed by most of what I've heard. But some of the original, DC-based "emocore" bands (although none of them would have ever described themselves as such) were pretty good. Rites of Spring were of course the quintessential example, but their music, if not their lyrics, was fairly straightforward hardcore punk; most of the other bands had a much poppier sound and it's at least arguable that they, more than Rites of Spring, are the ones who paved the way for the radio-friendly adaptation of the genre that followed. But, whatever.

Nowadays when you read about the DC "emocore" scene (sorry, I just can't use that word without scare quotes) it's usually Rites of Spring and Embrace who are identified as the key players but my own memory of the era is that Gray Matter were the #2 band. Their music hasn't aged as well as Rites of Spring's has, but I still like this one a lot.