Last year I was driving around with Erin's nephew Tristin (who was 17 at the time) and we were talking about music and I made the comment that "some people consider Avril Lavigne to be Emo" and he looked at me and said "she is Emo". I was shocked...If you don't know what Emo rock is then take a gander at Wikipedia. The first "wave" doesn't really have much surviving music left (it's hard to find a Rites of Spring CD) but I listened to a lot of the second "wave" in high school and college and it's still a staple of my music diet even today. But nowadays they call any pop-punk band Emo without knowing what it originally was. And I do admit that that last sentence makes me feel old...
Anyway, I decided that Tristin needed to hear what real Emo was, so over Thanksgiving I made him a mix cd. Actually I made him 2. The first was an Emo sampler and the 2nd was a Head Bangin' mix just so he wouldn't feel like I was trying to be too nerdy :)
The Emo mix contains some songs from Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate, Mineral, Jawbox, The Get Up Kids, Engine Down, Jimmy Eat World (their older stuff is more Emo), Hum, Further Seems Forever, and others. Some of the songs are also from Emo related genres like Math Rock and Space Rock, but I think they still get the point across.
The Head Bangin' mix contains some songs from At The Drive-In, Brand New, dredg, Failure, Hot Water Music, Jawbreaker, Pilot To Gunner, Strike Anywhere, Thursday and others. All good thinking man's rock bands.
If any other friend or relatives would like a copy of these mixes, please feel free to ask. We'll be making the rounds to visit just about everyone this Christmas (we'll be in PA, VA, SC, KY and TN) so it should be easy for me to hand them out.
Stephan Here. Fugazi is NOT emo. I was at a concert of theirs back in '95 or '96 and I would classify them more as middle-of-the-road punk. Anyway, I'd like a copy of what you made.
ReplyDeleteSorry. I'm totally wrong. Disregard that last comment. I didn't read the article first.
ReplyDeleteI'm on the fence about Fugazi too Stephan. I consider them to be inventive punk but they were very influential to a lot of the early Emo bands (Sunny Day Real Estate, Christie Front Drive) and you can hear a lot of similarities in there.
ReplyDeleteSo I included them on the mix as the first song to just get things started :)