Review Summary: nothing's forever dude
Dear Jeff,
Cheers. You’ve been good to me. From me carrying
Vacation through pretty much every early spring since it came out, to me resting my head on my partner’s shoulders throughout
We Cool?, you’ve been very good to me.
I discovered your older band,
Bomb The Music Industry!, amidst the stormy anxieties of fitting in amongst a first year of university freshers. Your new album, Vacation, was the first on my list, and it satisfactorily passed by me, me noting it down as ‘a fun album of pop songs about being tired of writing pop songs’. But as I listened back to albums like
Scrambles and
Get Warmer, I started paying attention.
Vacation clicked around March 2012, perhaps the least happy year of my life. Hearing you scream “the winter never kills me”, it was a moment.
Because it’s a ***ing cliché, but with you I felt less weird. Less alone. You felt like a mate, someone who’d slap me on the back and buy me another pint to cry into. All across the board, your music had one message to me: that things suck, and it’s okay to feel bummed about it, just try and have a good time. You exemplified that with your DIY approach, putting your music online for free and not charging more than $10 a show; everyone should be allowed and everyone should be allowed to feel safe. Anyone can do what you’re doing, anyone should do what you’re doing. In fact, you let kids at shows up on stage to play the songs that meant the world to them. Bomb The Music Industry! were your “rotating collective of friends who happened to play music”, so everyone was your friend.
Bomb The Music Industry! were special as, for the duration of their albums, you felt okay to be a ***ing loser. It made me care more about punk and wanting to document it, because Bomb The Music Industry! were able to make me truly understand how affirming it was for someone to yell about how much of a waster they were while still being in the best band on the planet. Songs like “Future 86” and “Syke! Life Is Awesome" comforted me because they made me realise sometimes you just don’t realise your dreams. And that’s okay. Chill. The name meant to leave your mark and not do things the traditional way; you don’t have to follow the set narrative, because you sure as hell didn’t.
It wasn’t going to be the end of the world when the band split up, because that’s what you taught. Songs such as “All Ages Shows" reminded us that, while you were the best band on the planet, you were just like us, with crushed dreams and tendencies for alcohol reliance. I wasn’t there for your last show in Brooklyn, January 2014, but a lot of my American friends at that time were and it felt like a moment, even just experiencing it through the medium of Facebook posts.
A lot can happen in a year and lot has happened in a year, and with your new album
We Cool? you’re still singing about being a ***ing loser bum watching your friends succeed and pass on by to new avenues in life while you’re still sitting in the garden surrounded by empty beer cans. But it resonates even more so because you’re a bit older, and I’m a bit older. But we both understand things a bit more now. I can somehow twist your obviously highly personal lyrics to fit my life as a queer, gender-confused recent-graduate, ***ing scared of whatever’s next. But I know that whatever happens next, you’ll always be there to write songs that make me feel a little less alone. For the three minutes of my time they occupy, the likes of “Get Old Forever” and “I’m Serious, I’m Sorry” are the best things to happen to me.
I’ve only known your music for about four years but it feels like my lifetime and that’s because I know for a fact you care about every single one of the people who listen to your music. We’re your friends, you’ve accidentally become the figurehead of DIY punk for the Facebook generation and yes, I hate that term. But as I turn on my Pro-Ject record player, load up my copy of Jeff Rosenstock’s
We Cool? from SideOneDummy Records, hear it play out of my Wharfedale speakers, and sit back with a can of Fanta Fruit Twist and Mayfair cigarettes, I’m reminded that corporate rock is for suckers.
