Tour, Days Five-Seven

~ Troy Sennett ~ Leave a comment

I did daily updates here during the last tour, but this year I’ve slipped to an entry every two or three days. There’s a couple reasons for that. The first is that we don’t have Harry from Mighty Ships to do literally all of the driving on this tour, so I’ve been behind the wheel every day for the past week. I don’t mind it, but I have ended up with less time to read and write. And second, I’ve been fighting sickness and trying to rest as much as possible. My lingering cold felt like it was getting even worse last night, so I spent most of the show in Colton’s thankfully air-conditioned house in Dekalb laying the couch, listening to the bands through the walls. Fortunately, I was able to gather up enough energy to play with both City Mouth and Movies About Animals, and the sets were a lot of fun, even though it gave Normal a challenge for sweatiest show so far. Colton, Sergio, and the rest of the Dekalb kids that we’ve become friends with over the past year always show us a great time when we come through, and this was no different.

To backtrack a little bit, the preceding two days were spent primarily at my parents’ house in Bloomington, catching up on sleep, laundry, and real food. This tour would have been a lot harder on all of us if we didn’t have those couple days in the middle to relax in a house that gets cleaned more than once a year.

Bloomington is just a short drive from Peoria and Champaign, where we played for nights five and six of the tour. We caught up with some friends that we hadn’t seen in a while, like Alejandro and the rest of Arcade At Midnight, who put on a sweet show for us at a brick-oven pizza place called Mud Puddle Pizza in Peoria. We reminisced about the Modus Aurora days and then played frantic back to back sets since the show had to wrap up by nine. Another highlight of the Peoria show: Terribly Happy, whose bouncy tunes, Blink cover, and hilarious shirts brought smiles to all of our faces.

In Champaign, we reunited with The Phantom Broadcast and Ocean Glass, two bands that I thoroughly enjoy seeing every chance I get. Evan from the Phantom Broadcast is one of the most impressive guitarists and nicest guys I know, and he put together a really solid show for us at the Cowboy Monkey. But first we had to get there, a task that became non-trivial when Matt locked my keys in the trunk of my car. Fortunately, State Farm’s roadside assistance came through, and we made it to the show without too much delay. Still, I’m pretty sure he won’t live that one down for a while.

Tour, Days Three and Four: A Tale of Two Bloomingtons

~ Troy Sennett ~ Leave a comment

I’ve been playing shows for over eight years, and I’m still consistently amazed at the kindness, generosity, and enthusiasm that I see in the DIY music scene. This has never been more apparent than the third night of our tour, which we spent in Bloomington, Indiana.

Bloomington, Indiana has always been “The Other Bloomington” to me, but our experiences there have been consistently awesome. Like last year, we spent most of the day hanging around campus and eating Mother Bear’s Pizza, which I highly recommend if you’re in the area. The house we played at was called the Makeout Mansion, and it is home to a sweet band called Whale Bones, They’re the nicest guys, and they managed to make even a small show on a Monday night an incredibly fun experience. Then they impressed us even more with some awesome acoustic covers in the living after the show, one of which you can hear over at our Instagram.

Last night, we were back in Bloomington, Illinois, my hometown and the birthplace of City Mouth. Shows here are always a blast, although the scene hasn’t been quite the same since Firehouse stopped doing shows earlier this year. The lineup was packed with friends, including the always excellent Red Scarves, our emo buddies in Pine, and Marina City, a band so good that we hate playing after them because they make everyone else look bad. It was without a doubt the hottest, sweatiest show I’ve ever played. Somehow, people endured the sauna to watch us play literally every song we prepared for this tour.

The best part: Sleeping in my own bed.

Tour, Days One and Two

~ Troy Sennett ~ Leave a comment

We’re wrapping up day two of City Mouth’s summer tour, and I’m already approaching the level of exhaustion that was my mid-tour low last summer. The ashes of a party are still smoldering around me, and the cold I’ve been running from for the past two weeks is about to catch up with me.

I have a hard time getting used to touring life. Long drives are no problem, but I’m not wired for late nights and dingy basements and fast-food diets. I get anxious about my bass and my backpack and sketchy electrical wiring in old buildings (The outlet exploding when Reece plugged in his amp in at Ashbary Coffee House is a story I’ll tell for a long time). I get antsy when shows run behind schedule. I even wondered after our week on the road with Mighty Ships last summer if I ever wanted to tour again.

This is a cliche among musicians, but I still find that it rings true for me: All of those things go away when step on stage. That part of the tour has been incredible. In two days, we’ve already played to more people and sold more merch than we did in an entire week last summer. Most of all, people are responding to the songs. They sing the lyrics to songs they know and dance to the ones they don’t. I’ve never been in a band that people cared about this much before, and it never gets old.

This was a short blog since I’m about to fall asleep on a couch in Muncie. We’re off to Bloomington, Indiana in the morning to play at a place called Makeout Mansion and do our first full-band interview.

My Favorite Chords: Looking Back On The Weakerthans

~ Troy Sennett ~ Leave a comment

It was anything but love at first sight.

Discovering the Weakerthans was a long, slow journey that started with a mix CD in 2008. “Aside” was one of twenty or so songs that Molly put together for me, probably because my ribs really do show through my t-shirts and I am actually terrified of knives. I liked it well enough, but it took almost two years for me to dig any deeper.

In January of 2010, The Wonder Years released The Upsides. This is a monumental album in my life for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the Weakerthans reference in the second verse of “Everything I Own Fits In This Backpack.” It’s a quick line (“Nothing made me feel further away than Left and Leaving through a blown car stereo”) in a fast song, but it piqued my interest, so I downloaded the album.

I did not enjoy it. I already knew and liked “Aside,” and I think “Watermark” was an early favorite, but the rest of the album was not at all what I was expecting. It was too slow, too methodical to have been a major influence on the urgency and anxiety of The Upsides. Even so, I kept coming back, like I knew there was something I was missing. Slowly, almost one song at a time, Left and Leaving revealed itself. I’d catch a lyric or a guitar line, and an entire song would make sense and become a necessary part of the album’s journey.

The rest of the discography worked its way into my life in much the same way. Nothing was immediate, but the songs started attaching themselves inextricably to moments and places and people. I think that’s a product of the way John K. Samson writes. His songs aren’t grand proclamations. They are quiet, vulnerable moments in the lives of people on the fringes of society. Nowhere is this more apparent than on Reunion Tour, the band’s last record and of my personal favorite albums. Each song addresses a different facet of Canadian life, and each subject is lost and broken in their own way. The songs tend to capture them at their lowest moments, but together they form a picture of a nation “proud and strange and so hopelessly hopeful.”

It was apt that the Weakerthans confirmed their breakup this week through a simple, passive tweet from drummer Jason Tait that simply said, “Word is getting out that the Weakerthans are done.” The band had little fanfare in life and even less in death, and while I think they deserved much more, in a way it’s okay. It allows their four albums to stand alone as monuments at the crossroads of punk and poetry. If you find yourself there, I hope you listen.

Happiness Is In the Doing, In the Making: My Favorite Albums of 2014

~ Troy Sennett ~ Leave a comment

I’ve had a hard time boiling my year in music down to a couple paragraphs. It’s not because I don’t feel as strongly about the albums on this list as I have in years past – the opposite, in fact. I think this year saw some of the most powerful pieces of art to come out of the punk/emo world in years. And it’s not because I didn’t have awesome musical experiences in 2014. I went on my first tour, released my first full-length album, and I saw Jimmy Eat World play “23” on my twenty-third birthday. It really doesn’t get better than that.

What I realized in the process of making this list was that my 2014 was defined less by what I was listening to and more by what I did. This was a better year than the one before it because I made it that way. I forced myself to step out of my comfort zone, to take chances, to have new experiences. Some of those were small, like eating new kinds of food that I wouldn’t have touched in the past, and others were much, much bigger, like the aforementioned first tour, a nine day trek around the midwest with City Mouth and Mighty Ships. Most importantly, 2014 was the year I finally left my hometown. Moving to Chicago has been the biggest step I’ve taken in adult life so far and huge source of personal growth. Compared to this time last year, I’m more confident, I’m happier, and I’m downright excited about what’s to come.

Albums:

  1. The Hotelier – Home, Like NoPlace Is There
  2. Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties – We Don’t Have Each Other
  3. Counting Crows – Somewhere Under Wonderland
  4. Against Me! – Transgender Dysphoria Blues
  5. Copeland – Ixora
  6. Fireworks – Oh, Common Life
  7. Bleachers – Strange Desire
  8. Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) – You Will Eventually Be Forgotten
  9. Hostage Calm – Die On Stage
  10. La Dispute – Rooms of the House
  11. Antarctigo Vespucci – Soulmate Stuff
  12. The Menzingers – Rented World
  13. Seahaven – Reverie Lagoon (Music For Escapism Only)
  14. Braid – No Coast
  15. Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness – Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness
  16. The Gaslight Anthem – Get Hurt
  17. You Blew It! – Keep Doing What You’re Doing
  18. Restorations – LP3
  19. Noah Gundersen – Ledges
  20. Chris Farren – Like a Gift From God Or Whatever

EPs:

  1. Beach Slang – Who Would Ever Want Anything So Broken?
  2. AM Taxi – King of the Pond
  3. Beach Slang – Cheap Thrills On a Dead End Street
  4. The Appreciation Post – Slip Away
  5. Hailey, It Happens – Under the Brilliant Lights

Shows:

  1. Mineral – Double Door – 9/13
  2. The Wonder Years – Castle Theatre – 10/1
  3. Beach Slang – Township – 10/10
  4. Guster – World’s Largest Block Party – 9/13
  5. Jimmy Eat World – Castle Theatre – 10/11

Rediscovering ‘People and Things’

~ Troy Sennett ~ Leave a comment

There’s something very satisfying about returning to an album you didn’t like when it was released and discovering that it’s actually pretty great. Whether it’s due to changing tastes, distance from the expectations and excitement of the release cycle, or a new perspective on life, you’re able to find value in something you dismissed before. You wonder how you didn’t see it in the first place. You get to say “I told you so” to yourself.

I had that experience yesterday with the third Jack’s Mannequin record, People and Things.

Like nearly everyone else I know, I adore Andrew McMahon’s first release as Jack’s Mannequin. Everything In Transit is a perfect union of powerful songwriting and pop sensibilities, and songs like “Dark Blue” and “Holiday From Real” will be mix CD (or playlist) staples for generations to come. McMahon started to lose me on The Glass Passenger. I could never pinpoint what I didn’t like about the project’s sophomore album, but it never resonated with me like McMahon’s previous work. When People and Things was released in 2011, however, I hated it, and I knew exactly why.

To understand such a strong, negative reaction to the artist who wrote “Konstantine,” one needs only a cursory glance at my music taste in 2011. Pop punk dominated the year for me, with new releases from The Wonder Years, The Swellers, Man Overboard, Transit, and The Story So Far forming the vast majority of my listening. I wanted personal and passionately delivered (read: yelled) lyrics over fast and loud music. Sure, there was some indie-folk as well, but if the electronic elements in a song extended beyond the occasional synth line, I probably wanted nothing to do with it.

While I was diving deeper into punk and its related sub-genres, Andrew McMahon was pushing the pop side of Jack’s Mannequin harder than ever. People and Things is a shiny album. The arrangements sparkle with synth lines, strings, and other flourishes, and the eighties influence is palpable throughout. In other words, it was everything I didn’t want to hear in October of 2011.

A lot has changed in the last three years. Four months after People and Things left my iPod with barely a second play, Fun. released Some Nights, an even more unashamedly pop record, and I loved it. Fast forward another year and a half, and I’m hooked on The 1975. Then there was Bleachers, then Smallpools, then Andrew McMahon’s solo album.

The last entry in that list is what finally made me revisit People and Things. Following the retirement of Jack’s Mannequin in 2012, McMahon adopted the moniker Andrew McMahon In the Wilderness and released the most electronic, synthesizer-heavy record of his career. On paper, I should hate songs like “See Her On the Weekend” and “Cecilia and the Satellite,” but I can’t get enough of them. I saw a few people calling it a continuation of People and Things, and after playing the latter a few times today, I agree wholeheartedly. In a way, it’s like a circle completing. I understand exactly why I didn’t like People and Things when it was released, but my changing tastes led me back to it at a time when I could appreciate it for what it is.

It would be easy to write all of this off by saying, “Oh yeah, everybody’s tastes change over time,” but I want to dig deeper than that. In some ways, my tastes haven’t changed at all – I still listen to new pop punk albums every week – but they certainly have expanded. From the pop records mentioned previously to the alt-country of Jason Isbell and Cory Branan (but never, ever pop-country), my iPod is full of albums that I would have scoffed at just a few years ago. It’s a trajectory that reflects (in my mind, at least) a slow realization that the kind of songwriting I value most can and does exist outside of the confines of two guitars, bass, and drums played at maximum volume.

It makes me wonder what else I’ve missed.

“Although It Wasn’t Changing the World, It Was the World To Me”

~ Troy Sennett ~ Leave a comment

To all the friends I saw at the Wonder Years show yesterday (and of course the ones didn’t see as well), thank you for making it one of the most fun nights of my life. Thank you for caring and buying a ticket and stage diving and singing along.

Last night felt like a triumph. The Wonder Years have been my favorite band for at least three years, and they’ve been an inspiration and a force in my life for even longer. I’ve laughed and cried to them, and their records have been the perfect soundtrack to my highest and lowest points. They are the band I want to share with every single person I meet because I realize that some people might not have ever felt like I have while listening to “New Years With Carl Weathers” in a freezing cold Toyota Camry or yelling the words to “Woke Up Older” when it mirrors your life all to closely or being moved to tears by the emotion in a live performance of “The Devil In My Bloodstream.” Everyone deserves to feel that deep, visceral connection with an album. It’s what music is all about. To see so many of my friends, some of whom I introduced to The Wonder Years and many more of whom I met through their shows or because we were both fans, experiencing that connection in the moment last night was truly incredible.

But that isn’t the only reason last night felt like a victory. It wasn’t just who was there, it was where we were. Since attending my first local shows during my freshman year of high school, I’ve worked as hard as I could at building the music community in Bloomington-Normal. At first, that meant inviting all of my friends to every show I went to, but then I started a band (and then another and another and…), and then I started putting on my own shows. With every step of that journey I wanted to grow the scene meant so much to me, and the fact that a few pop punk bands can sell over eight hundred tickets in the middle of Illinois is vindicating in some small way and proof that our scene can still be the powerful, important place of community and self-discovery that it was for me.

I’ve never been more proud of where I’m from

The Gaslight Anthem, Pianos Become the Teeth, and the Art of Reinvention

~ Troy Sennett ~ Leave a comment

There was a lot of talk about reinvention in the buildup to the Gaslight Anthem’s new album, Get Hurt. Brian Fallon called it the New Jersey band’s “weird album,” comparing it to stylistic left turns like U2’s Achtung, Baby, and freely admitting that it might alienate longtime fans.

Then they premiered the first single, and it was immediately recognizable as a Gaslight Anthem song. In fact, the raucous, energetic “Rollin’ and Tumblin’” is the closest thing to their beloved debut album, Sink Or Swim, that they have released in years, and I loved it. I wasn’t going to complain that one of my favorite bands had a great new single, but part of me wondered if the band had really branched out as much as Fallon claimed.

Get Hurt does have its fair share of fresh ideas. The opener, “Stay Vicious,” is the grungiest entry in The Gaslight Anthem’s catalog and probably the most off-putting moment for old fans, while the title track and “Underneath the Ground” explore the softer sides of their sound without slipping into the well-trod territory of acoustic ballads.

By and large, however, the songs on Get Hurt are not that much different from those on Handwritten and American Slang. “1000 Years,” “Selected Poems,” and “Dark Places” are likely to become fan favorites simply because they show, once again, that The Gaslight Anthem are one of the best rock and roll bands making music today.

As a result, the strongest criticism that can be leveled at Get Hurt is that it fails to accomplish the reinvention on which Fallon seemed so intent during the production process. Sure, there is less Springsteen influence and more Rolling Stones and Pearl Jam, but the shift is nothing compared to Fallon’s foray into “nighttime music” with his side project, The Horrible Crowes, in 2011. I wasn’t expecting a dance record, and more great Gaslight Anthem songs are never a bad thing, but I can’t help but think Get Hurt is a bit of a missed opportunity for a well-established band to try something different.

That feeling came into sharper focus this week with the announcement of Keep You, the new full-length from Pianos Become the Teeth. Over the course of two albums and numerous split releases, the Maryland group has come to be defined by dense, hard-hitting instrumentation and, above all, vocalist Kyle Durfey’s ragged, tortured scream and emotionally ravaging lyrics.

All of these elements were perfected on 2011’s The Lack Long After, which found Durfey examining death and loss so closely that the album can be hard to listen to without tearing up a little bit, even when you know what’s coming. It’s the sort of work that defines a band, that sticks with them for the rest of their career. It’s the one against which all of their future releases will be measured.

The easiest way for a band to let fans down and lose the passion evident in their early work is to stay stagnant and try to replicate exactly what made one album so special. The Gaslight Anthem certainly understand that much. They have been slowly shedding Springsteen comparisons for years and continue to push themselves as songwriters despite fans clamoring for The ‘59 Sound Part 2. It just wasn’t until Get Hurt that they made it a central part of the promotional push, but even then it felt like a half-measure.

Pianos Become the Teeth have taken reinvention even further than The Gaslight Anthem. On the two songs released since The Lack Long After – “Hiding,” from a 2013 split with Touche Amore and Keep You’s first single, “Repine” – Durfey doesn’t scream once, the distortion is dialed back, and there is more melody than ever before. On the surface, this might seem like a totally different band, but despite huge stylistic changes, Pianos Become the Teeth have managed to preserve the intensity that has become their calling card.

For instance, it’s easy to imagine how Durfey’s scream would underscore the emotion in a line like, “There’s no good in your eyes anymore, and it makes you want to drive home drunk and alone, curse the faces in the wheat, drown yourself in the gold because you can’t let it go,” from “Hiding.” Instead he sings it, and the shaking, vulnerable delivery sells it better than any yell ever could.

According to Noisey, the band has fully embraced this new style, leaving Keep You with no screaming at all. There will undoubtably be some backlash from fans, but it’s exactly the kind of bold move that Brian Fallon was talking about in the months leading up to Get Hurt. I can’t wait to hear it for myself and find out if they actually pulled it off.

Tour, Day Nine: A Recap

~ Troy Sennett ~ Leave a comment

Tour’s over, and that’s a bummer.

After nine days on the road with City Mouth and Mighty Ships, I’m back at my parents’ house. I move to Chicago tomorrow, and I have a lot of packing to do today, but I want to take this morning while Matt is still sleeping in the basement and before my responsibilities for the move kick in to look back on one of the coolest experiences of my life.

Ten days ago, I had a friend named Tyler who played in Mighty Ships. I didn’t know him all that well, but I liked his music. I don’t think I had ever formally met his bandmates. Now, Tyler, Harry, and Charlie are among my best friends, and leaving them to drive back to Bloomington after our show at Rozz-Tox in Rock Island was a lot harder than I expected.

Together, we put 2485 miles on my parents’ minivan. We traveled through eight states and played shows in six of them. We got noticeably better as musicians and as bands. We learned each other’s lyrics and sang them back, filling in new lines as we picked them up. Even if we didn’t play for big crowds or make much money, it still seems like we really accomplished something. I’ll never forget how this feels.

Could I do it again? I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about that a lot over the past few days. For years, my dream was to be in a band that toured full-time. I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything, but I learned that there are a lot of aspects of touring that I doubt I would ever really get used to. I struggle with the inherent disorganization of DIY touring, and the late nights and bad diets wear on my body easily. I can see so clearly how relationships and friendships at home suffer, especially on longer tours.

At the same time, I see exactly why people make those sacrifices. There is so much thrill and excitement in putting your art out there for the world to see, in exploring new cities, in pulling up to a venue you’ve never heard of and hoping the shows goes well (or hoping they know there’s a show that night), in watching how other local scenes function and meeting small bands from other areas. I could keep listing things for a while, but the point is that nothing else I’ve done or will do is quite like touring, so I’m glad I got to do at least one.

Also, some thanks are in order:

My parents, for letting us use their minivan. Tyler, for booking this tour. Harry, Charlie, Tyler, Matt, and of course Dan Bretz, for being the best tourmates. Sami and her family, Dan, Gabe from Cinci, Matt Kennedy, Josh from the Turncoats, Zach, the Sovereign States dudes, and Tyler’s for giving us places to stay and hang out. Josiah from Lions, for opening up his house for a sweet show in Knoxville even if City Mouth couldn’t play. Liesi, for being awesome. I’m sure there’s more. There’s always more.

If you read along this whole time, thanks. These little updates have been really fun to write. Now, I’m on to the big transition into “adulthood.” See you soon, Chicago.

#mightymouth2014 forever.

Tour, Day Eight

~ Troy Sennett ~ Leave a comment

I’m glad Lawrence, Kansas was at the end of the tour instead of the beginning. Yesterday will be a hard one to live up to.

We played at the Bottleneck, serving as the opening acts for Sovereign States’ farewell show. I hadn’t heard the emo quartet’s music before this tour, so the breakup doesn’t mean as much to me as it does to Tyler and Harry, but it didn’t take me long to realize that “Tired” is one of the genre’s best songs.

The crowd didn’t really show up until after City Mouth and Mighty Ships played, but for once, that hardly mattered. I spent the time between sets catching up with Rachel and Joan, and then we watched in awe as Baiowolf took the stage. Baiowolf happened to be the seven-hundredth band I’ve seen live, but even without the milestone I would have remembered their set for a long time. They invited the crowd on stage to share their crazy samples (background music from Big and “Our God Is An Awesome God,” for instance), live drums, and over the top, truly ridiculous lyrics, and it was more fun than I ever would have expected.

After Baiowolf, Sovereign States played their brief but incredible final set. Tyler and Harry sang on “Tired,” and the members’ old bands, My Brother, The Vulture and Coronado Left For Dead, even made appearances, but the best part of the night was yet to come.

In addition to playing in Sovereign States, the members moonlight as Taking Back Monday, a pop punk cover/karaoke band. They play the hits from Taking Back Sunday, Brand New, Saves the Day, and the like, inviting everyone up on stage to sing and dance. It’s a brilliant concept, and they were blast to see in action. I almost didn’t mind staying up until past 2:00 AM for that, and I’d really like to attempt a similar thing with Movies About Animals in the future.

I haven’t even hit on the rest of our day in Lawrence, which included one more record store stop, where I found a Jimmy Eat World single and some great dollar bin CDs, and a great ice cream cone, which was made even better because there was a Whopper at the bottom.

Today marks the final day of tour, and for as much fun as I’ve had over the last eight days, I’m glad. I miss home and I miss Liesi, and I can feel myself getting sick, plus I’m just ready to finally move and get settled in Chicago.