If you think of music in a family structure, Emo is the gay cousin of punk rock. When it first came out, it confused the rest of the music world, who often lumped the two together, confused fans, and stole a few bands (looking at you AFI). From the end of the 1990's through the middle of the 2000's it was nearly impossible to find good new punk bands, too many were out chasing the Emo golden teat. It wasn't until Emo lost influence on the pop charts and kids stopped dressing goth to express inner pain, that most punk fans were able to even listen long enough to see what the music really was. What we found was that most of it was pure shit, but in that shit there were a few nuggets of decent old fashioned pop punk, those nuggets tended to take the lyrics a little softer than we would like, but they kept the 3-chord, repeat, rule of basic punk.
I have spent way more nights at bars discussing the beginnings of musical styles than I care to admit, one that has taken more space in the debates than most is Emo. In that debate it was always more of an issue of who to blame than giving credit to the deserving parties. I suppose that every band we brought up could be considered an early influence, these bands were among the first to take basic pop punk and add in Cure-ish lyrics. When it began, it was a nice change of pace from traditional punk without going far from our comfort zone, and now that Emo has returned to that role, we can enjoy it again. Like our gay cousin, when he came out over thanksgiving, was "hey sailor" gay by Christmas, it was just too much, when he settled in to being himself, we grew accustom to him and no longer even think about that fateful thanksgiving day.
That brings us to Smoking Popes, tonight they played at the Riot Room in Westport. As soon as they took the stage, I was thrown back to mid 90's, listening to a band that was, at best, on light/medium rotation on 105.9. They had a few near hits, and more than a few songs that I remember from the fringe of that time period. The Popes never hit it big commercially but did well enough to get signed to a major label and develop a small following in the alternative/punk scene of the mid 90's. When they started in on a set that would last over an hour, I realized what I couldn't have known 15 years ago. This was one of the first Emo bands I had ever heard.
The Popes have always blended 3-chord pop punk with catchy rhythm, and emotional, bordering on whinny, lyrics. If they had released Need You Around 6 years ago, they would be hugely famous. They were ahead of the trend, but now could boast to being one of the Godfathers of Emo.
Joe Caterer sounds as good today as he did when they opened for Green Day in 1994, the simplicity of the music made the few mistakes hardly noticeable, and they managed to get a crowd of less than 40 involved and energized. His voice has always reminded me of half of Morrissey, just the higher pitch of Morrissey's range. After 15 years, he still sounds good on the high end of range, and has tailored his songs to fit his talents. Midway through the set, Joe mad a joke about his sobriety, his conversion to Christianity and cleaning up had broken the band up in the late 90's.
The order of the set list was great, starting with some of their lesser known songs, the Popes mixed in older tracks but avoided their "hits" for the first 40 minutes they played, all the while getting the crowd involved. They started on their more popular songs right when the crowd was at it's pitch. They included a near tear jerking rendition of Pure Imagination from Willy Wonka (maybe it is my personal state of mind that led to the near tears). While loosing points for doing an encore (it is so cliched in music today that it is just an insult to all of our intellect, we know you are doing it, you know it, so just do it. See the Supersuckers for a how too.), the encore itself was very good. They played 3 crowd picked songs, as seamless as a DJ would have mixed them.
While not a pop-punk band, Smoking Popes is a good Emo band. Worth taking a night off to see.
The Also Rans opened for Popes, they are a local band that dances between rock and roll and punk. They played a good set, but unfortunately my son called in the middle of it so I have no real thoughts. His phone call set my mind to other things for a few minuets.
Sundiver opened the show, another local band, this trio is the only pop punk band of the night. They appeared new to each other and playing live, but there is some promise and talent. They have a raw sound, that will be refined as they play more, but hopefully not to a point that they loose it.
Up next: Pixies November 15th, 2011 Oklahoma City.
Current high rotation cd: Ashely Raines, One Trick Mule. Singer song writer with a local connection in the Lenard Cohen, Towns Van Zandt vein.
