No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: American Football

Episode Date: May 6, 2018

We continue our conversation on the origins of emo music with a look at 1999 self-titled album from American Football. Stepping away from the punk-rock influence entirely, American Football's unique sound introduced elements of jazz and math-rock into the emo repertoire. The album has since achieved cult-status and is widely considered one of the greatest and most important releases in the history of emo music. For more info, check out our show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/ep-11-jimmy-eat-world-clarity#sidetrack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And this is our sidetrack episode for the week. You are listening to No Filler Music Podcast. So, Q, what did we talk about last week? Just briefly give us a little overview. We spent a lot of the episode diving into Emo

and yeah dude i learned a hell of a lot man like i didn't realize that emo you know went as far back as mid-80s that's for sure also i didn't i didn't even really think of emo as as a genre that had been around long enough to have first second third waves you know what are we at the fourth wave now yeah so apparently there have been a few ban well a lot of people think that it's because Panic at the Disco just released a new album. So that's like bringing in the fourth wave. Because there are other newer bands out there that are starting to kind of write and and sound like those email bands that we remember.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. And the thing that really got me from our discussion last week is just how little I knew about what bands could actually fall under that category. Yeah, I think the main thing that people get, you know, as we kind of talked about, people from, in our age group at least, like, emo music is closely tied with bands like Fall Out Boy, taking back Sunday, or, you know, if you go Screamo, you've got like the

used and under oath. So that's what we think about when we think of emo music. But since it goes all the way back to the mid-80s, branching off of hardcore punk, right? Emo music is just another tag that gets added onto the genre is that the band also would fall under. You know what I mean? Because it's like- Right. So Emo is really what the term indie is.

Yeah, sure. You want to think about how many bands would be classified as a quote-unquote indie band. Right. Throw a spoon in indie. Throw foals. You know, throw half the bands that we've covered so far on this. podcast throw them under that category right and think about the the wide range and sounds yeah yeah yeah exactly but yeah for me like I I didn't really think that I mean and it's so

obvious now I didn't think of emo as something that branched off of punk you know yeah I just I don't know why I didn't think of that all it's obvious now but right um being an early 30 something you know, I just didn't realize that Emo was just everywhere. Pretty much when we were in high school, dude, emo was what was mainstream. Every band that was popular in our age group in the early Oates,

that's most likely an Emo band. In the rock mainstream. You know, that's probably why we just use words like punk to describe Newfound Glory because compared to Jimmy, Newfound Glory is punk, right? But compared to Fall Out Boy, like, you know, Jimmy is not anywhere close to Fall Out Boy.

You know what I mean? But they're all under the umbrella because of, you know, just a few things. Yeah, and Jimmy World isn't punk either. No, but they were. But that's the thing. Jimmy goes back to the second wave emo. So I started out as more the punk.

So anyway. So, so. the band we're talking about today, American football, I'd never heard of them. That little clip, our intro, what song was that? I really liked it. That was the opening track off of their self-titled debut album. That was called NeverMent. So here's this, here's that, that came out.

That came out in 99. So this came out the same year that Clarity came out. Yeah. So again, these guys. These guys are smack dab in the, well, they're not in the middle. They're right at the end of second wave emo. And what's interesting about these guys, so it's three guys. And they had, the lead singer, at least, his name is Mike Kinsella.

And he came out of this other early email band called Cap'n Jazz. Cap'n Jazz? Cap'n Jazz. Like Captain Jazz. Like Captain. You know how you spell Captain Crunch? Captain Jazz. Oh, yeah, dude.

So anyway, the story behind this album is that essentially it's a breakup album. But he wanted to sort of step away. If you listen to the Cap and Jazz stuff, it's more fast-paced, more punk-based. This is a breakup album, and all of the songs are super low-key, and the lyrics are obviously, like, you know, what you'd expect a young person to be writing about, you know, after coming out of an intense breakup. You know what I mean?

Like, anybody remembers their first breakup. Oh, yeah. And that's kind of, again, this is why this is one of the things that makes something, an emo song or an emo album, is the lyrics, you know what I mean? Look, dude, I think the best description that I've heard yet for what makes an emo song, emo, is what you said last week, it's what you would expect to find if you were reading someone's live journal entry. Yeah, no, yeah, I can't take claim for that. I read that somewhere else, but yeah. Okay. Yeah, that's the best way to describe it. It's extremely personal. It's like reading someone's, diary.

Yeah. And that's kind of the thing. It's like when you go back to the origins of it in the mid-80s, punk rock was about rebelling against society, you know, rebelling against the system. Yeah. It was aggressive. And the last thing that punk rock was about in the 80s was self-reflection.

Yeah. So basically the early emo- personal reflection. Yeah. The early emo band took their journals and started, you know, singing what they read in their journals. If you think of it that way. They took it from like outward aggression to like inward aggression.

You know what I mean? So a breakup album is like just like prime pickings for that kind of stuff. You know what I mean? Especially when you're a young, a young person and somebody breaks up with you, you never ever think about, you know, why that person might suck.

You're always like, God, I fucking suck. Or at least. Yeah. Yeah, dude. If you're. Especially at that age,

your middle school and high school years. Right, that's what's what I'm saying. A lot of times I think that's what you're inclined to go down that rabbit hole. You know what I mean? Well, let's listen to some tunes, shall we? Yeah, we've got a couple of them today. Let me just, so let me preface this again. So this is considered one of the greatest emo albums of all time, again, according to Rolling Stone.

This is number three, no, I'm sorry, number six on the list. Okay. Of top 40, so it's in the top 10. and what's interesting about this album is that there is absolutely no distortion whatsoever the drumming almost borders on jazz drumming at times and there's even a trumpet in a couple of the songs on this album when have you ever heard a trumpet in an in an emo song you know what I mean

never I mean we heard a violin with yellow card remember them unless plot twist foals is an emo band uh no But interesting that you said that because what you're definitely going to hear with the guitar work is some math rock. Interesting. You're going to hear some definite math rock because that's one of the genres that these guys fall under. Also worth noting. Really?

They fall under math rock. Yeah. But they are considered, you know, early second wave emo. Are these guys still around? No. This is their one album. Oh, shit. They came back.

I think you said that earlier. I take it back. They reunited years later and came out with another album. But this is like, you know, the album, they put this out, and then the band kind of dissolved and that was it. And like it picked up the popularity like later on. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So anyway. Yeah, let's just go into the first track. So this is, this song is called Honestly. And it just kind of ends. It kind of goes into this extended outro that kind of sounds like that. But, Q, what are your thoughts? I loved it, dude. I had a feeling you would.

And I wish I knew about this band. Well, you do now, dude. Yeah. That's what no filler is all about. So, okay, so here's the thing. Let's talk about this for a second. This came out in 99, right? Yep.

So this was right before emo went mainstream. Right? Dude, we were only 12 years old. this came out, man. Yeah. We were clueless. I mean, think about it. We were only, well, I mean, Bleed American came out in, in, like, 2001.

So we weren't, you were 14. Yeah, but we reached those teenage years. That's true. But yeah, so if you listen to this compared to other emo bands, kind of we touched on, I don't know if we mentioned Hey Mercedes last week. But. I did not. Are they on that list?

Yes, of course they were, but yeah, I would put Hey Mercedes in the same group. Well, they're in third wave. But I mean, right on the beginning of it, kind of with Jimmy. Dude, we want to talk about nerding out, man. Like, they're on third wave, but I put them in this guy. Yeah, I know, right. See, once you go into the history of email music and start to realize all this stuff, like everything starts to fucking make sense,

dude. I feel like Russell Crowe with the whiteboard and shit. Did he have a whiteboard or was it just a... I think it was a chalkboard. Chalkboard. Are you talking about... No, no, no. You're talking about Robin Williams and Goodwill Hunting.

Or no, no, no, shit. It was actually Matt... What are we even talking about right now? It was Matt Damon's character with the whiteboard, the chalkboard. And, uh, yeah, yeah. Russell Crow was in a beautiful mind. and he either had a white board or he was doing the string with the pictures and shit and the pins or whatever but whatever you know what i'm

dude i never even watched that movie man to this day i've seen it i've seen it once yeah anyway cool you know what i'm saying like everything starts to line up yeah it's like oh yeah it's it's dude man let's just let's just get a little excited again man this is the kind of this is what i love about music um it's a rabbit hole man yeah there's so much to learn and to discover. Especially when you when you dive back into music that was out, you know, when you were, you know, in middle school, high school years when, I mean, right.

For us specifically, you know, that was around the time that we just started getting into music on our own. Right. And appreciating. We were too young to, well, for one, at that time, you know, the internet wasn't what it is today so music wasn't just readily available for you to to dive into and discover uh you know so we we get to do that now um in our 30s and dive back into this stuff i fucking love it dude yeah yeah exactly there's nothing better than um rediscovering an album that you used to listen to they used to like love you know i mean putting it on because it takes you it takes you right but

back there, you know. It's, you know. Yep. Yeah, we, and we touched on, like, you know, hypnagicadic pop and all that stuff early on. But as far as, like, how... Episode two. Well, and just how, like,

hearing certain songs and sounds, like, can bring you right back to a particular moment. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. So, anyway, let me read you some of these lyrics, Q, from this song. Okay.

Honestly. And, actually, Let me preface it by saying this. I'm just going to quote the Rolling Stones article. Their little snippet, their little write-up on this. They say, so Mike Kinsella, as I mentioned, he was the former Cap and Jazz drummer. So, here's what they say. If there's one thing that nobody ever tells you about young love, it's that your days are numbered from the start.

Mike Kinsella learned this the hard way. before graduating high school at 17, prompting one of the most devastating breakup albums in the history of breakup albums, pulling lyrics straight from his old journal. And then it goes on. So, as we were saying, like literally, emo albums were,

lyrics were lifted straight off of, you know, a journal after somebody broke up with his girlfriend. I mean, if that's like textbook emo, you know what I mean? Right. And then you listen to these lyrics, dude. Honestly, I can't remember all my teenage feelings and the meanings they seemed too see-through to be true. All the whs are there, but the whys are unclear. Picture this, the long-awaited, sickening kiss, how does it feel? Explain.

To know how we've rewritten history, these things change, despite the complicated beginning to all of this. and then he ends it with honestly with a question mark as in like like this when you read these this is the classic like after you break up with somebody you just replay conversations and like situations over and over in your head

trying to figure out like what were it wrong you know what I mean oh yeah trying to figure out like what did I do did I miss something oh blah blah blah that's what this is you know what I mean yeah but anyway Um, it's no wonder emo music, um, teenagers connect with email music so much, you know what I mean. Yeah, dude. I should have been listening to American football in a high school man. How did I miss these guys? Um, because they just didn't have much popularity. I mean, like this album came out and then Bleed American came out and, you know, emo music, mainstream music was this whole other thing.

You know what I mean? I don't think this ever even made it to mainstream. So, okay, so yeah, so I don't know if, so yeah, we kind of talk about how these guys are math rock. A lot of their guitar work sounds a lot like, you know, the stuff that the L-10-11 guy does. I think we played them on the Foles episode. We did. Yeah, so. It's all coming back around. Yeah, so let me quote this, the Rolling Stone article again.

That says, he and fellow guitar. Steve Holmes remain in constant dialogue through calculated trills and seamless repetitions. Yeah, that sounds like Math Rock right there. And what's funny is there's no bass player on this album. It's just... What? It's just two guitar players and a drummer. And then they throw on a trumpet and there's an organ too on some of the songs.

But it's just those three musicians. Awesome, man. Thanks for sharing, dude. I feel like I knew that American football was the name of a band. Like, I feel like that, you know, I'd heard that somewhere, but I never listened to them. And yeah, man, I'm just so, it just makes me so happy to hear music that I missed, you know? Yeah, that is, yeah.

This is one of those albums that right when I clicked play on track one, I was like, I'm going to like this whole album, and I just knew it. And like, it is one of those albums, dude. Like I've been listening to it on like heavy repeat like for the last two weeks. Awesome, dude. Man, yeah, I need to give, I need to give it a good, a good listen then. Yeah, the whole album is really, really well done. So another thing that's really cool, and this is going to be our outro song,

there are a couple of tracks on here that are instrumental, just pure instrumental. And one of them is what we're going to close on. It's called, you know I should be leaving soon. And again, This is where, like, their math rock and sort of, like, jazz vibes really kind of shine, you know, because there's no singing. Right. So, anyway, we'll close on that. But let's, uh, let's tease next week.

Uh, we're going to do our second, um, album in our, uh, spoon series. Uh, we're going to talk about our spoon athon. Our spoon athon. Our spoon fest. Yeah. And we're going to talk about girls can tell, which is my, my God, man. One of my. I cannot fucking wait.

Yeah, this is up there as probably one of my favorite spoon. Just like as a whole, I think this is my favorite album from theirs. Well, let's just say that girls can tell, and I'm with you on this, dude. I feel like this is Spoon's best album. Yeah, there's something really special about the way these songs sound. Really figured it out. And I don't like to say it that way. You know, because it's not like there's something that they're that they're striving for because it's a band.

And it's like we, you know, like that quote from his fucking name, escape to me at the moment, but the lead singer for Foles. Kind of like what he was saying. You know, when you listen to an album, you're seeing, you're listening to a photo, like a snapshot of the band at that time. Yeah. It's very organic. Like there's no goal that they're striving for, that they're reaching for.

But I feel like this is, the album, girls can tell encompasses what Spoon is to me. Yeah, right. We're nerding out on Spoon again, because like we've said, Spoon's our favorite band of all time. And man, I can't wait, dude, for that episode. Yeah, it's going to be good. All right. So like I said, this is one of the two instrumental songs on American football's self-titled record. Came out in 99 again.

So we're going to just let this song play out. Hang on, dude. Hang on, brother. As per yuge, we almost forget to do this every goddamn time. Hop onto our website, my friends. No-fielderpodcast.com. Pretty much everything that you need to know and anything that you'd want to know. is on our website.

We've got extensive show notes on each of our episodes, including the sidetracks, where we've got track listings. Well, actually not for the sidetracks, but, you know. We've got links to videos and interviews. We've got all of our sourced material linked on that website. So if you want to dive a little deeper, chances are you'll find way more information on our episodes on our website, no filler podcast.com.

You can stream our episodes on our website through SoundCloud. You can also subscribe to us on iTunes. Pretty much anywhere that you listen to podcasts, including Stitcher, you'll find us on there. And yeah, so that should do it for this week. Again, Travis, what are we closing out with? Okay, so this song is called You Know I Should Be Leaving

Soon And again, it's one of the instrumental tracks And it's pretty damn sweet The song is called You know I should be leaving soon So let's hear it So again, my name is Travis And you're Quentin

And that's who I am My name's Quentin We will see y'all next week Take care Le Le Leigh I love that you said Lele dude Grab holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to lux beauty and fragrance sets,

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