I’ve been on a Jawbreaker kick for the past week or so and just last night I stumbled on the notes to “Outpatient” (off 1994’s 24-Hour Revenge Therapy) while messing around on the bass. So, I was pretty excited to come across this current interview at Rolling Stone with Blake Schwarzenbach (guitars/vocals) and Adam Pfahler (drums), who are promoting the reissue of Unfun, Jawbreaker’s 1990 debut. In it the guys discuss looking back on the state of the scene when Unfun first came out, how they view these songs with so much time between them now, and the chances of any reunions. I’ll just quote the part where Schwarzenbach addresses the reunion:

“I could see us spontaneously playing a party, but doing a huge tour would be kind of distasteful and it would do a disservice to the mystery of the band that’s some how persisted.”

So, pretty much a no go on that, which is unsurprising given all the shit the band took for signing with a major label prior to the Dear You-era back in 1994. God, they’d be crucified for a reunion. Read more about Jawbreaker’s tumultuous relationship with its fans (and itself) in this comprehensive timeline piece over at Exclaim.

And stream “Gutless” off the remastered reissue of Unfun:

Jawbreaker – Gutless.mp3

My wallet is certainly happy that I have a conflict with attending Record Store Day on April 17th, but now that a new Blur single might be in the mix I could be in trouble. Granted, the source is The Sun, so take this with the appropriate amount of salt, but Blur has reportedly regrouped and recorded a new single to be released on 7″ format for Record Store Day. Quoth Blur singer Damon Albarn: “We want independent record stores to continue – they’re an important part of our musical culture.” Only 1000 copies will be available and only in record shops in England. With only 1000 copies being pressed, the ones that end up on eBay will not be cheap. So that’s from whence my wallet pain may stem. But on the bright side, Blur might be releasing its first new single with Graham Coxon in over a decade.

Cursive covers Starship

In the latest edition of The A.V. Club’s Undercover series, Cursive attempts Starship’s “We Built This City” and belly flops the fuck out of it. Wow. I’m a pretty big Cursive fan, and this is just painful to listen to, much less watch. I loathe the original, but, my God, I was yearning for it compared to this. I’m not wholly convinced this wasn’t some sort of elaborate prank, but I just can’t figure out what Cursive might have against The A.V Club to back up my theory. Without a hint of irony, vocalist Tim Kasher begins the segment explaining why his band chose this song, saying that it is far and away the best on the list. I took a gander at the list again, and I must respectfully disagree. In fact, I’d say this is the worst choice, excepting maybe “Kokomo” by The Beach Boys. If you want to know what suck sounds like, watch this.

Vivian Girls with Male Bonding on Sound Opinions from WBEZ on Vimeo.

“Compliments” is the first single off Band of Horses’ third long-player, Infinite Arms, which is due out May 18th via Fat Possum/Brown/Columbia. The music is thicker and busier than anything they’ve done previously. Bridwell’s vocals have always been double-tracked and drowning in reverb, but now he’s harmonizing with himself on multiple levels, which is interesting, but it takes away from the clarity of his tone. I’m curious to hear what the rest of this new record sounds like.

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Every time I hear this song on Sirius XMU, I kick myself for not having bought the album yet, especially since I’ve known about it for a year. This Welsh trio plays a tense strain of shoegaze-inflected indie rock led by Ritzy Bryan’s piercing vocals. They’re bringing the show stateside at the end of the month, sticking to the Northeast and Canada this time around.

April 30 – Full Moon Resort – Big Indian, NY
May 1 – Mercury Lounge – New York, NY
May 2 – Bamboozle Festival – E. Rutherford, NJ
May 4 – Horseshoe Tavern – Toronto, ON
May 5 – The Green Room – Montreal, QC
May 6 – Harper’s Ferry – Boston, MA
May 7 – Kung Fu Necktie – Philadelphia, PA
May 8 – Jillian’s – Albany, NY

One of my favorite albums of all time is getting the deluxe treatment, so, in spite of my distaste for anything The Cure has done in, oh, about twenty years, I’m actually looking forward to this. The Cure’s 1989 masterpiece, Disintegration, will be released as a three-disc set, remastered and sequenced by Robert Smith himself. The first disc will reprise the original album but in remastered form. Disc two compiles all the outtakes and b-sides from that era, while the third disc features an extended version of the Entreat live album, which chronicled the band’s legendary stay at Wembley Arena in July of 1989. If I could pick a time to have seen The Cure at any point in its career, it would be from July of 1989. The live version of “Disintegration” at Wembley may be the band’s finest moment ever captured on tape. Truly unbelievable. Naively, at the time, I believed Robert Smith during all the promotional rounds for Disintegration when he swore that Disintegration would be the band’s final album. What a legacy it would have been had he kept his word. Instead, we got two decades of rehashed rubbish.

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