archGFX

since i've been disconnected from the internets, and life in general (via being in kentucky and working 20 hours in 2 days), here's a post about nothing at all. this is not to prove i was into emo before anyone else (i wasn't). nor is it an attempt to supplant fourfa's rightful place of authority on how emo came to be. this is just a list of things that led me to my current list of favorite bands.

How I Became Such a Whiny Emo Bitch

• sunny day real estate - 8 the first emo song i heard, and i didn't even know it was emo. like everything else on the batman forever soundtrack it was really weird and dark and cool.
• roadside monument - sperm ridden burden this is the first time i actually heard the word emo (in a review by hm, back in my good churchgoing boy days). i couldn't figure out what the word meant, so i went and listened to the album. most of it was to whiny for me to deal with, but SRB is like hardcore with clowns. i liked the song briefly, in spit of it being emo
• low - whore this is one of the first bands ben (toam) got me into, albeit unintentionally. he told me it was emo, that he was bringing it for his friend dave, and that it was terrible. i loved it, at least half because of the band's name. i asked what emo was, but the explanation he gave was waaaay to vague to be any use
• jimmy eat world - blister while josh was showing me this, marie walked past and said something about it being "good emo". after listening to this and low several times i noticed the weird chord similarities, and i was impressed that a genre could be based on a songwriting style, not an aesthetic
• onelinedrawing - all go down when i moved out of my parents house and had my very own broadband connection, i busied myself downloading everything i could. this included the band far, on an old recommendation from pete (from chevelle). i stumbled on this song by accident, since it was listed as being by far, not onelinedrawing. jonah's voice was so weird and intense, i had to show it to ben. this is when i got a real rundown of what emo is (was). not only did ben show me other onelinedrawing stuff he'd downloaded for dave, he showed me everything from atom and his package on through how water music (which he'd been showing me for years, i just didn't like it). this is back when you could browse genres on allmusic.com, so i learned that this was all descended from that weird cool band, sunny day real estate, as well as rites of spring.
• cursive - some red-handed sleight of hand cursive's "the ugly organ" was the first 'DC sound' album that actually had something interesting enough to get me to overlook the vocal style. between the emo game and understanding that connor oberst had a hand in bringing this amazing album to my ears, i had to check out...
• bright eyes - a bowl of oranges and figure out why everyone liked this stuff so much. this is when i started thinking of myself as a person who listened to emo.
• hot water music - loft in a huge mea culpa, i had to admit to ben that i was wrong, and hot water music was actually good. the complete conversion. after listening to lots of cursive and glassjaw, chuck reagan's vocals no longer annoyed me. these days i find them comforting.

conversion complete. i am that whiny emo bitch.