A THREE MONTH HIATUS FROM THIS BLOG.
Oh the laughter and sides splitting like a watermelon slugged with a metal bat.
But anywaifer, I've been doing some settling down after a literal year of living nowhere for more than 2 months at a time (including a full 5 months spent somewhere new in the country every night), and I'm somewhat in shock. There are a load of nauseatingly graspable comforts abundant - comforts that kick pursuits such as this here blog's dick into it's torso - and as such, it's been a huge struggle trying to balance personal projects, work, and getting myself out of the house. I'm pretty down.
BUT HEEEEYYY, HOW ABOUT THEM TUNES?
I'm going to hesitate to call this a sign of maturity, but its occurred to me as of late that I'm becoming pretty sick of pop punk. Actually, "embittered" might be the better word for it, as there's still a great deal of music in that field that I'll likely take with me to the grave. Like, the master tapes. And all existing copies of the albums in question so the last remaining artifacts will be gradually deteriorating, lossy mp3s copied across generations. I don't think I can use cliches anymore without summoning a tidal wave of extended mockery. Anyway, here's band number one of many that adequately summarize my current gripes:
This was a slowly broiling pot of contempt. Really slowly. I even made an effort to see this band live a few months ago. Here's what you need to know: they're a 4 piece from Minneapolis who take influence from Jawbreaker, The Lawrence Arms, and Dillinger 4. They're signed to Fat Wreck. They're ex-Off With Their Heads and Rivethead. They play fewer chords than Screeching Weasel at half the tempo. Their song structures are about as complex as a map drawn in crayon from "here" down a squiggly line to "X", but drawn out into infinity. Their lyrics are actually pretty decent.
Everyone loves them.
It's that last bit that actually kicked off the musical purge I'm currently experiencing (if you couldn't guess by the dramatic paragraph break). I've admittedly spent a lot of time doubting myself when it comes to debasing critically hailed bands I'm not particularly fond of. For whatever reason, it's hard for me to trust my response outright, and I end up revisiting garbage like this again and again and agayne, typically under the pretense that I'm "missing something" or "haven't given them a fair chance". Of course, recently this waft of horseshit has battered my sinuses into fighting back, and here I am, laying a blow down on a band just because.
Well, not "just because". Writing a music blog is obvious ego masturbation. Also, Banner Pilot aren't really horseshit, but they certainly are boring and stupefyingly same-y. Like, really.
Make a mixtape featuring the three aforementioned influences and pop it in a teeny, shitty stereo. Then lay a king-size mattress on top and hit play (assuming you jerry rigged this so that you could somehow operate the stereo without being beneath the mattress). That's pretty much what this band sounds like - like a cover version of the muffled surface noise of those three bands, almost completely castrated of nuances, originality, and hooks you haven't heard ad infinitum. Originality's not the issue, though. I like lots of bands that aren't re-inventing the wheel (...wheel made of little solid music notes and instruments...). I mean, The Broadways are probably my favorite band ever, and they're pretty clearly indebted to Jawbreaker. It's the songwriting that bores up the joint. No one needs to hear the exact same mood repeated 10-13 times in a row with the same speed and delivery. Similary, no one needs to hear a 3 minute song with almost nothing in it 10-13 times in a row. It's the I was about to say their main problem is their adherence to pop song structures, but then I remember the song "48 Double Stack":
That's the real problem with Banner Pilot - they're faceless. They have a likeable sound, but nothing about them really grabs me like the band's they stemmed from. Dear Landlord included. It's kind of a shame, because if you noted that incongruous statement in the first paragraph under the logo, I happen to enjoy Nick Johnson's lyrics. Sure, they're kind of overstated, and the perspective is that familiar white, middleclass manchild prose, but well, I'm a 23 year old white male from a lower/middle class upbringing.
That was probably obvious, though.
