I’m feeling kinda bummed today for no particular reason. Sure, the weekend’s over and work is waiting but it goes a little deeper than that. I was out for a little stroll around sixish tonight and there was just something that got to me. The sun was out but it was cloudy as well, neither cold nor warm. Indecisiveness in the air and it just felt like nothing at all. Summer’s around the corner but it’s only gradually taking little peeks, not ready to make a full appearance yet. And then I just got carried away thinking about summers long gone. In those days I felt like absolute shit and I guess that’s a good thing when you’re younger ‘cause I really really miss those days. I’m missing days of feeling like shit, go figure. In all my nostalgia I still realize it’s impossible to revive the past but there’s nothing wrong with getting yourself tangled up in its glow, right?Luckily enough, I’ve collected so much music over the years that I pretty much have a tune for each particular mood I’m dealing with. What I do is I pick a record that stimulates said mood and strikes all the right chords. This may seem like a pretty depressive thing to do but it actually has an uplifting effect on me as it is very comforting in the process. I never understood why people take pictures and keep dozens of albums but I guess I’m using music for the same purpose. Just snapshots you look at every once in a while, providing a smile or a tear before you continue going through the motions of every day life. Right now SOMETHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT by THE GET UP KIDS perfectly sums up the feeling I was having earlier today and I’m loving every minute of it before I have to go on with every day life again.
I still vividly remember the first time I heard this band. I came across the action & action vid and it just kind of stuck with me. Nerdy looking characters playing an undeniably catchy tune with nerdy girls playing out a disposable background story. Still one of my favourite vids to this day. After some online research on the band I kazaa’d SOMETHING TO WRITE HOME ABOUT and burned myself a copy. Even though I felt really guilty about listening to a CD-R it still took me about six years to finally score an official copy. Until that time it definitely made the top 3 of most listened to CD-R’s in my collection.
Despite their instant catchiness these are the kind of songs that evoke the feeling of being down but not the whole suicidal type of being down if you know what I mean. They’re just sad in the uplifting way I explained. And I’m just glad they’ve aged well unlike most of the other bands I was listening to in those days. I would actually go as far as saying that this is the last emo classic to ever see the light of day. Most people that know what’s up will beg to differ but I’m ranking these guys alongside the revolution summer bands (EMBRACE, RITES OF SPRING,…) or the Midwest pioneers (SPLIT LIP, FALLING FORWARD,…). Sure, the link with hardcore is practically non-existent and they sound a lot sappier than the bands I mentioned but still… The line between sounding cheesy or sincere is very thin when playing this style of music and THE GET UP KIDS just pull it off. They still sound as fresh and inspiring as the first day I got into them. Or is that just the nostalgia talking…
I’ve only just realized now that I spent my late teens looking up to early twenty-somethings that wrote songs about broken relationships. I guess I must’ve been impressed by the fact that they even had relationships to write about considering these kids were rocking thick-rimmed glasses, faded shirts and moogs. This type of stuff influenced me to the extent that my teen romances were doomed from the start due to my overly dramatic outlook on love. I was desperately trying to be the desperate emo kid and I always had this notebook with horrible poetry on me. It meant the world to me back then and sometimes I wish it still did.
“It’s all you get from me…”
I am so going to regret this post in the morning.
Peace.
