Jeff Rosenstock
POST-

Quote Unquote/Polyvinyl, 2018

In her non-review this time last year of Jeff Rosenstock’s WORRY(1), my friend and Ibiza-Bombing associate Em wrote of her concerns as she found herself uninterested in much new music.  Man, do I feel and fear that.  It didn’t occur to me until trying to do my own review, but the irony is that Rosenstock is someone around our age speaking to many of the same concerns she mentioned.  His surprise, New Year’s Day album has a title that alludes to a thousand fractioned rock and punk genres, struggling to make a continued impact on some of us in the wake of their ancestor scenes.  He’s too distracted, exhausted and depressed by adult life to do the things that used to bring him satisfaction.  And he might well be something of a workaholic: POST- is his third LP in three years, including the 17-track Worry (you get one ugly capitalisation per album, Jeff) and various side releases.  No wonder three quarters of the thing are about sleep.

When you’re an adult, bedtime approaches as a spectre tapping at your to-do list, encouraging a workaholic mindset as you seem to fall ever further behind.  You have to sleep when responsibility dictates or allows, and if you can’t, that’s your foundation for getting things done right down the shitter.  “You’re not fooling anyone when you say you tried your best,“ wails Rosenstock on the insomnia dirge All This Useless Energy. “You can’t be your best anything when you can’t get any rest.”  You measure productivity tomorrow against productivity now.  I will stare this paragraph down until every word is meaningless, wondering how it might have flowed better had I made decisions that got my brain a better night's sleep.

JR knows the energy he has at night is not so much useless as deployed at the wrong moments.  On following track Powerlessness he writes as if wishing to be an activist, but one who doesn’t have the resources due to personal issues, nagged constantly by well-meaning Chomsky quotes(2).  He feels self-involved, unaware and tokenistic.  “How can you solve all the problems around you when you can’t even solve the ones in your head?”  On Yr Throat -- a track as wonderfully euphoric in its misery as Nausea off We Cool? -- there’s an unexpected second-half veer discussing the infamous Access Hollywood Trump tape.  Otherwise the song is an all-too-relatable one about creative block.  Rosenstock does this on a number of occasions, mixing the personal with the political, again, as if a wannabe dissident who feels guilty for not devoting more of his efforts to it. 

Another persistent theme is longing for childhood.  It goes well with the sleep centrepiece.  When you’re a kid, you hate bedtime because it means the fun is over for a while, but now all we want is to sleep like babies.  In the opening minutes of the epic USA, Rosenstock bounces through emotions akin to the five stages of grief regarding some obvious subject matter.  Overwhelmed, he huddles into a mantra, “we’re tired, we’re bored,” searching for comfort.  In come soft, colourful keys of a calming, womblike retreat.  Soon the repetition of “tired and bored” becomes a childish, celebratory tantrum, a “Here We Are Now Entertain Us” for the dragging-on capitalist age.  Even the cheerleaders from the Smells Like Teen Spirit video are here, chanting “Et tu USA!”  Clearly Jeff feels that we need to reach out to some punk heavyweights in our current landscape, with allusions to The Clash as well (“I fought the law, but the law was cheating,” I’m So Bored With The U.S.A.). 

To go back to Nausea, I think that video -- where Jeff is vomiting confetti on stage amidst other oddities -- is part of the reason that I picture his songs performed in a friendly living room atmosphere.  No matter how down the subject matter might be on this album, clapping, tambourines and back-up vocals come in strong to give it a uniquely intimate, all-inclusive party vibe.  When I hear the musically upbeat parts of Post I imagine the singer has the sort of punk support network that I have often craved. Given how defeated the guy still seems to feel, perhaps that concept is more mythical in its magic than we all imagine, but I bet his gigs are something at least a little like that.  Or perhaps considering that we seem to be slowly accepting that our societies are spawning widespread mental health catastrophes, it’s no wonder that punk rock is looking more and more like a giant self-help group where we all wallow together.  

If you aren’t bummed out a lot, don’t let my yammering about how torturously engaging the record is put you off.  It’s very much fun and enjoyable to listen to, irrespective of subject matter and pace.  The first half that I have already detailed gives me a number of dance-about goosebumps, and while the latter, generally more subdued half doesn’t quite manage that, it’s still pretty decent.  Beating My Head Against A Wall is the most traditionally punk in structure, Queers-like in its simplicity and length.  It’s also one of many tracks where a bit of well-used keyboard adds levity, like a sincere Reggie and the Full Effect or underground Andrew W.K. (with whom Rosenstock also shares those loveable amateur high notes).

The only track I take particular issue with is Let Them Win.  It’s a pleasant enough closing singalong, almost as simple as Beating My Head Against A Wall seven times over.  Between this and the lovely, sad ballad 9/10, however, the last two songs on his third album, it makes you wonder if Jeff is going the way of Wood/Water and Jets to Brazil, increasingly peeled of punk influence.  I like Wood/Water and Jets to Brazil, I just would rather he went somewhere less well trodden.  I get that he may be trying to transcend the subculture, à la broad movement building, but this is just too close to the simplistic, boneless McResistance(3) offered up by power-hungry, Russiagate-bollocks Democrats to be all that compelling.  Let Them Win and its repetitive chants strike as something of a hollow defiance after so many preceding tracks detailing debilitating personal demons, the title hinting again that Rosenstock might rather be passive.  Maybe that is the point, and weary defiance is better than nothing.  Perhaps he was worried his best lyricism isn’t easy for casual listeners to notice, but there has to be somewhere between total opaqueness and Twisted Sister.  The second act of the song is if anything practical, a series of sleepy, stargazing tones for any listener who has trouble settling down at night. 

It’s not too surprising to learn that Rosenstock is working on a Cartoon Network programme named Craig of the Creek, about a “kid utopia of untamed wilderness.”  This is someone who wants to be wild and free, but is no longer sure how.  With the soulless, distinctly un-wild trinkets of modernity that Jeff continues to glumly criticise on Powerlessness and 9/10, we’re constantly made to feel that we’re living in the aftermath of something that must have been superior (music movements, quality of life, our own childhoods).  It’s the Post-everything age, where it’s hard to imagine the future being an improvement; in that context, it makes sense that this isn’t a great musical departure from Jeff Rosenstock’s previous solo material.  Fortunately, his style is relatively unique to begin with, and his attempts to deal with the present are earnest, often amusing and welcome.  We’re tired, we’re bored, and there’s no going back.  Thank goodness we live in interesting times.

Like all of his releases, POST- is available for free download from the Quote Unquote website.  Portions of donations, however, will benefit hurricane relief through Defend Puerto Rico -- those un-citizens of the American project -- so consider slamming down a few bob, bitcoins or benjamins.  Physical copies will be available in March from Polyvinyl.

1. Why I haven’t reviewed Jeff Rosenstock’s ‘Worry’ - Emily Johnson, Apathy & Exhaustion, January 10th 2017.
2. "If you go to one demonstration and then go home, that’s something, but the people in power can live with that.  What they can’t live with is sustained pressure that keeps building, organisations that keep doing things, people that keep learning lessons from the last time and doing it better the next time."
3. Dem Support For Trump Surveillance Powers Proves “Resistance” Is Bullshit - Caitlin Johnstone, Medium, January 12th 2018.

Rehasher/Weak Knees/The Antidon'ts
Friday, January 5th 2018
Lucky You Tattoo, St. Petersburg, FL

Originally published at Apathy & Exhaustion 

Lucky me.  As Ice Cube once said, today was a good day, including easily finding this parlour slash venue that’s been putting on regular punk gigs for a couple of years (extra bars from a remix).  If I wasn’t in such a positive mood I’d punch myself in the face for not having come here sooner.  Lucky You Tattoo has a similar aesthetic to the missed Odessa Goathouse, with its cosmic bright-on-black art, anti-oppression guidelines, and general implication of a friendship with the same interior designer (and exterior designer, being casually slotted into a typical strip mall).  Even better, they and Robot House promotions round out my day with a brilliant and efficient gig, presumably due to the immediate lack of alcohol.  It’s easy to be cynical, to consider whether our standards for a “good day” in this age are low, but I think we’re all due some arbitrary calendar optimism.  Are we ready to stop harping on about how shit things are?  It’s probably been healthy in moderation, but ‘16 and ‘17 had enough of that.  Let’s actively construct that PMA, Bad Brains style.

Easier said than done, so for a start we have a societal antidote in The Antidon’ts.  There aren’t enough instrumentals in punk, and there’s something welcoming and classy about the quick standalone intro here.  Furious heavy skate punk is then punctuated with the occasional flash of guitar flair or impressive drum fill from Anthonydon’t (no real surnames are forthcoming, so what the hell), and topped off with the contrasting voices of bassist Mikey and guitarist Zac.  To get a further picture, let’s go to our merchandise table correspondent for a word on their inspirations.  The band, while in no way goofy onstage, seem quite fond of cartoon depictions of themselves, including a shirt where Zac’s face has been imposed on baby Milo’s body, given booze, and is remarking that he does not want to throw up.  Shout out also to Mikey’s “If God hates fags, I hate God” attire.  Not content with Descendents-admiration credentials these young blighters from Port Charlotte have actually gone and done a 7” split with MDC, after apparently impressing Dictor and co on tour.  It’s soon to be repressed on black and white vinyl.  The Antidont’s (ever consider losing the apostrophe, guys?) seem poised to get ahead of the evening by closing out with ‘Bro Hymn,’ but it’s just a naughty little tease before packaging up the set with another voiceless vignette.

With all the peer-reviewed backing of a viral health meme on Fedbook, I’d like to propose a theory: in certain subgenres such as emo, band names are getting longer.  It’s not just the obvious examples like The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die; the general impression I get is one that suggests Western rock music is so passe and out of ideas that we’re running low on shorter potential names.  Maybe the ability to search the title of any musician that ever existed is the problem, or maybe with social media we all just don’t know when to shut up anymore [is there a point here, you self-aware rambling asshole?].  This observation has little bearing except to note that if Weak Knees took their sound from a more recent interpretation of emo they’d probably be called something like Weak At The Knees or Kneeling Timidly In A Puddle Of Weak Urine, which would be, well, weaker choices.  Your other option is to not obsess over originality, and not care that you share a name with indie bands in both Oklahoma and Oregon, and a supposedly “crap” act from Leeds.  I’m getting strong tones of brevity dons Far and Braid from them tonight, powerful yet vulnerable, with Chuck Ragan guesting here and there on vocals.  Quite a combo.  If emo-rap is apparently a burgeoning scene confounding old heads on all sides, then why not?  Throwing a spanner into my theory, the guitarist/singer is wearing a Flux of Pink Indians shirt, but you could get away with it back then (well… till they changed their name to Flux).  The crowd is treated to another loud outstrumental that is more extended this time, but overall the set is tight and to the point, leaving me, uh, wishing it was longer.

If you’d have told the 15-year-old me that he’d be here tonight, he would have said “obviously.”  He would wrongly imagine going to see a band of Roger Lima’s in your thirties to be as physically exuberant and mind blowing as he finds watching Less Than Jake, but he would still see the appeal.  Rehasher play catchy-as-fuck skate-pop with all the vigour of a hornless LTJ.  Their melodic bounce is fun on its own merits, but it’s hard to look at them outside the context of Lima’s more famous outfit.  When he asks who is here without knowing a single song, about a third of the hands in the room go up, and the average age suggests that most were drawn by the same mixture of nostalgia and reliable expectation of a decent time as I was.  And despite a hint of grumpiness on this front (“no, NOT ska dude.  Wrong show…”), Lima seems to enjoy the role.  He jokes repeatedly about this “really” being the best show of the tour (it’s day 2 of 3), and in general welcomely blathers between songs with bassist Tony, who does a fine job of holding his own.  Besides, it could be worse: his legacy could be like Bodyjar, the Australians who never got big at all here because they “don’t speak good English” where they come from.  Unfortunately, Rehasher’s cover of ‘Not the Same’ by the band is very much the same as their own sound, adding little diversity to the set, with ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ by Blondie/The Nerves being more useful in that regard.  ‘Sinking’ and ‘Lift!,’ conversely, also get some of the crowd moving for at least 3 seconds.  It was by no means a roof-shaking performance, but it was good.  I’ll take what I can get for the time being.  Here’s to 2018.  We couldn’t possibly make that much of a hash of it.

Car Bomb Driver/Chris Barrows Band/Kevin K Band

Saturday, December 23rd 2017

The Bends, St Petersburg FL

Originally published at Apathy & Exhaustion 

If a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged, a liberal is a European radical who’s been living in Florida for a decade without a car.  “I’ll stop telling people that green capitalism has no hope in hell of saving us!  I’ll stop jaywalking in a vain attempt to reclaim public space!  I’ll support the biofuel processing of workers who have starved to death because they have no way of getting to their unfulfilling jobs!  Just put more buses out on this shithole road!  ARRRGH!” 

Well, if you can’t beat them, join them.  That attitude seems to explain the existence of thousands of punk Christmas parties the world over every year, of which tonights is just one.  As if by seasonal miracle, and despite flabbergasting ideological incompetence, I arrive in time to see most of the Kevin K Band.  Their one-note, repeated riff rock & roll is so gloriously loud that you’re forced to firmly plant your feet shoulder-width apart, lest you fall over like the singer’s drink (the first of many casualties).  Although it might be in part due to the volume, Kevin's voice comes across relatively timid, and combined with the simple guitar it’s an inspiration for an even more simple bastard like me who has only recently begun to learn how to play.  These Kids of the K Band remind me of some of the old school stuff that the BBC might stick on around this time of year while giving 75% of their staff the week off.  It’s not too surprising to learn that K shared stages and was friends with the likes of Dee Dee Ramone and Johnny Thunders, and the performance is so stripped down that you can make out some Johnny B. Goode-era sounds too (R.I.P., 2017).  Just as I have this thought, the set ends, I go to the toilet, and an appropriately placed poster of Elvis has had the face scratched out and replaced with the words Chuck Berry.

Minutes later I am stood outside same toilet (The Bends is a really small venue, but nicer than the olde toilet circuit) and in friendly conversation am told that the next act, Chris Barrows Band, are punk rock led by an intellectual.  Barrows is best known as the singer of Tampa staples Pink Lincolns and The Spears.  His self-titled ensemble start by blasting through five songs without much intellectualising, preferring homespun wisdom: topics include beer, feelings, being human and being a loner.  So almost needless to say, it’s hardcore goodness.  Then Barrows requests that the hoity chandelier above us be turned off, in preparation, it would turn out, for their cover of ‘Transmission.’  Despite being a hefty interpretation it is still as affecting as all self-respecting versions of the track should be -- I wonder if it’s existence has anything to do with CBB’s Peter Hook association at 24 Hour Service Station, their Tampa label.  The band also slip a Devo number in I think.  On the topic of interesting musical clothing, I’m glad to see that the infamous Warped Tour Jesus has come out for his season, almost as glad as I am to see drummer Scott Brazil’s refreshing “This City Sucks - St. Pete” t-shirt.  My complaining about transit at every chance is really only part of the story: I’ve also gone out less often in recent years because certain local residents are engaged in a perpetual and irritating circle jerk.  There are some cool things here, but there are also wank things, and fermentation and gentrification will only allow a place to be so interesting or ‘weird,’ mate, so get your head out of your arse.  Barrows Band end on ‘Fuck the World,’ a thirty-year-old song that they feel might be more appropriate as 2017 comes to an end.  Coincidentally, days after this gig I found a copy of Pink Lincoln’s Sumo Fumes 3 EP, which also features a few proper fine covers and more unflattering images of one Mr. Presley.

Finally to rock around the pagan tree we have a band that actually remembered to name themselves.  Car Bomb Driver, like the other acts tonight, keep holiday references to a minimum in favour of frills-free punkin’, but the brief statements that frontman Car Bomb Dave does make are designed to smirkingly bewilder.  “This one’s dedicated to those who serve.”  Ah yes, the minimum-wage masses!  “It’s called Vietnam Vet!”  Oh.  Well, they have my support too.  “This one’s about Marlon Brando, which means it’s about getting fat and old.”  The world’s myriad problems?  Female empowerment?  Combatting sexism on all levels like an Oi Polloi song?  Shaking babies, chick fights and streetwalkers.  Maybe their track ‘Sympathy Hug’ is about the Gillman’s misunderstanding with Julie Adams depicted on this gigs flyer; this guy also had a hard time with explanations, being a hideous rubber fish-creature and all.  I normally like politics in my punk, but frankly this sort of approach/line-up was a more enjoyable after-dinner mint to a year in which shit both personal and global finally got too unbearable to pay closer attention.  Perhaps appropriately Car Bomb Driver finish off with a song about blues musician Jimmy Johnson (or something to that effect), which has a tune reminiscent of Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘Feel Good Hit of the Summer’ (which I think ended here last week).  Jesus presses CBD into a quick encore before I order my rideshare home, see the Saturday night bill (what happened to the billion dollars Google just gave you Lyft?!), and get back into wanting to bomb a few driverless cars myself.