Rock of Mine Youth!

Five o'clock and Running


Mourning After seems to have one foot in the grave, one foot on the stage. A few years back they called it quits, or at least stopped playing shows regularly. But once a year they dust off the old tunes to make Spokane remember the good ol' days of epic emotional rock and roll that filled up Fat Tuesdays and the Big Easy on the reg.

Ben's dreads have grown a little, but not much else has changed. Same dudes smashing the same beers smashing the same tunes smashing your faces.

Saturday April 4 at the NEW BLVD: Mourning After, Pour Soi, Geoff Johnson, Sanctified Sin. 9pm for ages 21 and up.

Sunny Days

Jeremy Enigk. Sunny Day Real Estate. I wasn't ever blown away by the importance of Diary, the proclaimed "first emo record." But I did happen to get into their final record the Rising Tide, which I still think is a beautiful rock and roll album, with Jeremy's lovely falsetto and crunchy guitar riffs blaring in my Ford Tempo on the way out to Cheney.

His new solo record moves into a lighter direction than my experience with his projects. I first heard the song Cannons on KEXP, and instantly recognized Enik's voice. A few days later I picked up the record World Waits, again full of falsetto, lush textures and tales of love.

Here's the mp3:
Jeremy Enigk - Cannons

Jeremy Enigk plays at the BLVD on Monday November 17.

Automatic

I really loved Less Than Jake back when I was 14 or so... Their album Losing Streak was one of my favorites. I was young, ska was huge, and that angsty punk ska really did the trick for me.

I lost touch after that album, and a few years back I heard they ditched the horns after ska fell off the long cliff of trendiness. But as I perused their myspace page, I hear they've got horns (again?).

Dopeman wasn't really my favorite song from Losing Streak, but video-wise its quite superior to the others....

Less Than Jake plays with Rancid at the Knitting Factory on September 13.