BREAKING NEWS on The Front Bottoms

So I guess I live in Portland now. If you haven't been, it's actually a lot less noxious and bordering on tactless self-parody than all the shit I grew up adjacent to (Williamsburg, Bushwick, Koreatown, NYC in general now etc.), but that might be like saying the equator isn't that hot if you grew up in the core of the earth. I don't know, but I like being here slightly more so than endlessly milling around the country like a low-charge magnet for federal trespassing warrants.

Speaking of which, this one time me and my friend were trying to get to the Pacific Northwest so we burned through the better part of month trying to hop a train going to Richmond, Virginia. I know! I thought 3000 miles NW was directly south, too! After abandoning the Selkirk, NY yard for essentially being the Excommunicate layer of social purgatory, we scammed a bus out of Albany to Bergen County in New Jersey. Multiple-pints-of-blood-lost-to-insect-life and execrations at the McDonald's later, we were finally burning to death on a gondola heading to Richmond in the middle of Summer.
Hence, The Front Bottoms.

(they're from Bergen)

To be upfront, this band's not for everyone. Actually, they're barely for me, even. Like, I've heard them described as sounding kind of like a combination of Andrew Jackson Jihad and Say Anything. That sounds pretty close to a mash up between abscessed gums and a disparaging letter from a collection agency to me, but it's actually a pretty enjoyable, original sound. While this is their third LP, the band has seemingly disowned the previous self-released full lengths, so the self-titled/untitled factor marks this as more of a "true" debut and not a pandering, "returnin to our rootz" sort of album (ie Korn, like, twice).
I guess for all INTENSIVE PURPOSES, The Butts That Are In The Front are a two piece with some detachable, touring/recording parts, but this album's filled out with lots of cheap, lo-fi keyboard/synth shit, a real, live trumpet, and a bunch of clever secondary vocal arrangements. That said, I figure the core members, Brian Sella and Mat Uychich, could mostly stick it out on their own, since the unembellished framework they provide is pretty strange and distinct. You get the tight, super dancey backbeat from Mat, and the repetitive acoustic riffs and bizarrely specific-yet-vague storytelling from Brian, and somehow their combined powers can make a song with this fucking chorus emotionally resonate:

And I will remember that summer
as the summer I was taking steroids
because you like a man with muscles
and I like you.

See, if I had done any research on this band before downloading their first proper album, I definitely wouldn't have ended up downloading it. Their approach on paper reads like something I've grown out of viciously since the olden days of attending Plan It X fest and 'guessing I'd give ska a try', but fortunately, for all their obliqueness and college-y lyricism, there's a lot to like here.
The Front Bottoms, to me, sound exactly like one of those hype bands that ruthlessly gentrify Tumblr with 'meaningful lyrics macros' for a few months or so. They're one of those bands like Beach Slang or The Gaslight Anthem where - regardless of your initial aversion - you eventually fold and check them out 'cause you can't stand wondering anymore - 'would joining the omniscient drum circle of pubic mound pounding over this shit also bring ME joy?'. Just like those two bands, though, these guys are almost exclusively prompted by their strong 'x factor' - so much so that their other traits kinda pale in comparison. TGA had the out-of-nowhere Springsteen/Replacements/Petty-filtered-through-a-pop-punk-lens thing going on, Beach Slang revived that Goo Goo Dolls-y 90's sound with super prosaic lyrics about rock 'n' roll and youthfulness, and The Front Bottoms are the weird pastiche of elements I described above.

On that note, I wouldn't say the songwriting here is anything mindblowing, and the cluttering of overdubs sometimes lends it a slightly amateurish vibe to my ears, but it's more about the aesthetics here than reinventing the songstructure wheel. There's just something so likable and infinitely re-playable about these songs. While the tracks "Flashlight", "Swimming Pool", "Rhode Island", and "Father" are definitely the stand outs for me, everything but the final two tracks are pretty close to great (#11 is just lacking in hooks, and #12 has a chorus that feels completely inappropriate to the dark, somber quality of the verses and bridge). This was one of those albums much like Common Rider's Last Wave Rockers where the first, unsuspecting listen drew me in immediately and was quickly canonized into Watchtower pamphlet territory, passing out recommendations wildly to whoever didn't respond with "Steve where have you been this band has been popular as fuck for like 5 years now don't you use tumblr". And yeah, I do, but not to look at a bunch of 16-21 year olds transposing 'meaningful' lyric fragments over Microsoft desktop backgrounds, so I guess I missed this phenomenon. I mean, look at this Louvre-tier renaissance of macros in the Graeco-Roman tradition.
Depending on how taut and sensitive your anus is, the lyrics may be the primary barrier to your enjoyment of this album. There are definitely times where they threaten to intrude on a good time (the chorus to "Bathtub", for instance), but then there are lines like this:

But you were broken bad yourself. You were mad as hell you felt if you had done anything with anyone else it would have worked out so well. But you are an artist and your mind don't work the way you want it to. One day you'll be washing yourself with hand soap in a public bathroom. And you'll be thinking how did I get here? Where the hell am I? If the roles were reversed you could have seen me sneaking up, sneaking up from behind.

"Flashlight" is another good example, and while the lyrics sound like they were written without concern for the listener's desire to instill order in a lawless world, that's what really strikes me as appealing: there's something so nebulous and collage-like about them, yet somehow they all seem interwoven, like a collection of brief glimpses into an intensely personal network of memories. Saying this may go down as the most publicly embarrassing thing I've ever done, but I guess the Tumbleez haranguing their 14 year old peers about complex sexual politics and embroidering The Story So Far lyrics on kitchen towels are right this time.

I don't expect to change anyone's mind on a band everyone's embraced or reviled for half a decade already, but sometimes you just need to get excited about stupid shit on your hopelessly out of date blogging operation.

Ramshackle Glory and some folk punk rambling

Folk punk's one of those niches that I figure'll end up filed in the forever-out-of-vogue bin, right next to third wave ska and that vaguely metallic brand of skate punk that was really big in Southern California. Y'know, the kind of music there's likely too little irony left on Earth to resuscitate once the decade closes on it. That said, folk punk was really my gateway into the world as a late teen. For most of my sheltered, white adolescence, I had all the necessary tools at my disposal to form obnoxiously strong opinions on things that didn't affect me perceptibly (crust punk, grindcore, powerviolence, hardcore, etc.), but something about the whole affair just struck me as inaccessible. A bunch of loud slogans on police brutality, western imperialism, and totalitarian rule don't have a lot to do with growing up sad in a tiny middle-class commuter town, no matter how worldly I may have wanted to seem.
Also, the incomprehensible vocals. I will never have the dedication to learn whatever the lyrics are to those gurgling and screeching noises.

Folk-punk, however, came into my life at just the right time. It's perfect blend of existential angst, cries from the queer gutter, and radical politics hooked me hard, and labored under a much more relatable, sensitive guise than the stone faced relatives in my regular agitprop-auditory diet. Bands like Defiance, Ohio, Mischief Brew, early Against Me!, This Bike Is A Pipe Bomb, and Andrew Jackson Jihad won me over to varying degrees of obsession, and even, uh, Ghost Mice was involved at one point. They may trigger my gag reflex, but Europe is still a pretty cool storytelling album, and it definitely inspired me to travel when I finally gave up on normal shit.

Nowadays, I have little to no interest in the scene nor the music, but there's still a few bands out there that catch me off guard every once in a while, namely Days N' Daze, Songs For Moms, Wildebeest (yeah I know, [genre argument]) and Ramshackle Glory, with the latter crowning the whole heap. Or well, their debut does, at least. Let's get going before further analysis unravels the whole thing:

Remember Pat The Bunny? And that awful, nihilistic shit he released under the Johnny Hobo And The Freight Trains moniker? And how dumbass train kids still talk shit over the fact that he never really hopped trains at the time? Because that's a form of thriving currency to anyone with actual concerns? Because Ramshackle Glory is his most recent project following a few year absence for personal reasons, mostly involving rehab, I'm pretty sure. I've never really cared for the aforementioned band or almost any of the Wingnut Dishwashers stuff, so I was really surprised when Live The Dream dropped in 2012. Standing in for the cringeworthy REAL TALK bullshit and shrill, preachy politics (with a dash of Plan-It-X cutesiness, of course) was a far more relaxed, optimistic, yet bitter approach, and where the earlier material was either entirely solo or sounded like the it was written solo, then later embellished upon by studio musicians, Live The Dream has the tr00 full band feel. While Pat's immediate approach is still the core of each song, the addition of regular percussion, horns, accordion, piano, violin and singing saw feel completely natural and up the emotional impact significantly without ever getting soggy or smirk inducing. I mean, for folk-punk standards.

It's hitting me again just how difficult it is to critically assess albums that hold such emotional weight for me (which is why I've spent three blogs talking up The Broadways yet have never reviewed Broken Star), but I suppose there's nothing to do but harp on that angle. What strikes me again and again, despite having flogged this for the past three years, is just how emotionally affecting these songs are. "We Are All Compost In Training" hits me like a train every time. It's a much fuller (and superior, imo) re-recording of the last song Pat wrote under the Wingnut Dishwashers Union name before he entered rehab, and it sounds painfully caught in the moment. The themes here fit distinctly into the timeline, with lyrical concerns revolving around recovery, sobriety, reflection, looking for meaning, and of course, the standard anarcho-critiquing we all know and make love to, all passionate and deeply consensual. While I feel a creeping desire to hail this as a 'perfect album', it's really just testament to the strength of the best material on here. Otherwise, there's "Of Ballots And Barricades" and "Bitter Old Man" to contend with. The former of which is just kind of unmemorable but the latter is a lethargic Voltron of No Hooks, Changing Into A Totally Different Song At The End For No Reason, and Too Great Of A Running Time For So Few Ideas.

It... it doesn't have legs because I ran out of things to fit into the metaphor.

CONCLUSION: 8 fantastic, endlessly re-playable sing-a-longs of surprisingly posi ex-junkie/nihilist songwriting goodness and two clicks of the fast forward button. I realize it's kind of an obvious choice for an example, but this has to be the most immediately catchy song on here, so check it out:

This is where things get a little sour for me.

Pat in the beginning of Intro: "We think it's important to mention that this album contains stories about people's experiences, including suicide, racism, sexual assault, addiction, and violence."

Me: Alright. *takes headphones off*

Is it possible for something with no thinkable comparative to become the ultimate cliche in one stroke? Because while I've never heard an album begin with a spoken trigger warning before, it's undeniably the most folk punk-y thing I've ever heard. Who Are Your Friends Gonna Be? kicks things off with a nearly formless, 4-and-a-half minute instrumental introduction over which a quasi-comprehensible woman's voice speaks of personal reflections on rape and peer suicide in the radical and traveler communities. Why wasn't this relegated to the album's insert or a .pdf on their bandcamp page? I have no fucking clue, but hopefully you like the merger of these two things because this album is littered with them. There is over 11 minutes on here entirely comprised of that one shitty instrumental and various people telling muffled stories over it. This album isn't even 30 minutes long. Hmm.

The thing that sucks even worse is the fact that the actual *songs* on here are pretty good. They might even be great, but it's sort of hard to tell since the production here is literally the least sympathetic I've ever heard. I spent a big chunk of my life listening to shit with the auditory finesse of a 4-track held up to megaphone, but at least with all those goregrind demos from the 90's, the sound quality actually suited the griminess of the music. Here, though, it sounds like the band may as well have recorded their parts on different continents for how little this sounds like a convincing full set. For instance, the drums sound like they were recorded on an early 2000's cell phone, encrypted several times, and then played through another cellphone sitting in a metal bowl so to amplify the sound a little while you wash dishes alone in your dive-y apartment. Have you ever heard the first Suicide album? Pat totally sounds like Alan Vega on here. Which is to say: a ghostly, echo-y voice significantly cleaner and louder than the rest of the instrumentation. No weird breath shit and "HOO" noises. If you need an example, try this:

Skip to the 1:20 mark. This is a pretty good song, but it's also keen how the acoustic guitar sound practically unaccompanied despite the crashing symbols. I realize I've only really focused on the production and filler tracks here, but this has to be one of the most challenging albums to enjoy I've heard in a long time.

CONCLUSION: some pretty solid songs on here, but they're almost all ruined by the samples and worst production ever. Give it a go if you love Live The Dream, but don't be afraid to hit skip, either. I don't want to diminish the weight of the experiences spoken here, but I kind of listen to this band to hear Pat articulate these issues with lyrics and melodies, not randoms reciting Tumblr posts over one drone-y, recurrent instrumental for a third of the record.

Here's a kyewt little somewhat relevant story you can skip if you want:

Back in real early 2011, I'd started to pick up the socially crippled, directionless shards of my life and began confronting all my insecurities head on. I'd been socializing with strangers for the first time in my life, and ended up in a collective of likeminded kids who did the whole weekend social justice thing I was warming up to. Sometime in March, they'd organized a benefit show for the local Anti-Fracking (hydraulic fracturing, if you're not from the NE) committee, and I attended to great affect with my typical wingmen (ur, adderall and booze. I was really anxious and awkward otherwise. Enough to italicize "really"). Somewhere in the night I met up and chatted with this cute, sad-eyed tomboy who sidled on the sidelines, but exuded a lot of confidence when we spoke.

When I went home that night, the encounter made me pull out my journal for the first time in months, and I wrote something along the lines of "Dear diary, I'm a lightly reverbed, disembodied voice narrating this entry for the viewers and tonight I met someone for the first time in three years who I felt anything for in my cold, rotting cabbage-like heart. I can't imagine anything coming of this, but it's good to know I'm still alive in there".

A few meetings later, and I ended up at my first house party with the denizens of our collective and some random free radicals (fnar fnar). One 40 oz in, I found her sitting alone, sipping a little too lightly to socialize with the teeming mass of ineligible drivers. I sat down next to her and the ragged old Ghost Mice patch on her hood sparked a long, rambling conversation where we swapped our favorite folk-punk bands and talked until the party cleared out. A few days later she invited me to hang out and blah blah blah we traveled and lived together and helped each other turn our lives around.

I still don't know if I'd recommend hitting the folk punk trails in 2014, but hey, sometimes you get a long term partner and a series of life altering events out of it. Good luck.