Every now and then I get people asking for a playlist of every song mentioned in my videos: Well here's a Spotify link for this one: open.spotify.com/playlist/5fF3DjWCue0QQ2f8lzpptN?si=ad897a608e2e478c TH-cam Music Link: music.th-cam.com/play/PLooaZ33lSaleQDVeTOcLm9abE3QhF7lp8.html&si=PrCJOlYm35wkj_Un
I love that point about Jawbreaker v Jawbox! Even kids of the era did that! Albini likely would’ve liked Jawbox. They had that Dischord feedback/ noise thing going on… Thank you as well for identifying the idea that kids didn’t want to share their emotive connection with their underground bands. That feels true to me about that era. Is it wrong for me to shed a tear at the end of this one?
When I was a teenager my band opened for Jawbreaker. My cymbals were cheap and cracked because I was just a poor nobody small town kid, and Adam (the drummer) gave me one of his cymbals. They were stressed out and probably a little bummed to be playing in some tiny community center in the dunes of Northern California, but it didn't stop them from being kind and humble.
The fact that Jawbreaker suffered both the soulless greed of the music industry AND the entitled toxicity of the "legit punk" horde, but managed to become one of the most influential modern punk bands and are a formative pillar of emo in spite of breaking up, and would later reunite and get all the acclaim they always deserved is nothing short of inspiring. But it is a shame they had to go through the ringer and wait decades to get it.
They brought a lot of it on themselves to be fair. I mean yelling on stage every night you will never sign to a major months before doing so is kinda silly
@@mikeherrera5302they did that due to gossiping and backbiting from the "scene", the whole "Legit Punk Police" boycotting them just for accepting to tour with Nirvana is even sillier.
This, 100%. I can't on the one hand decry Oasis for their unimaginative slop that sold millions, then on the other hand get annoyed when Pavement get rediscovered by today's generation.
The problem comes in when making that money means abandoning your friends and letting some guy in a suit water down your art for radio play. It's not really a problem any more, but I completely get how it felt like a betrayal back then.
I personally resonate with artists due to whats being said and how strongly i can relate to them...when i realize in an instant they can do a complete 180 and be artists id never spend time listening to, its a straight disappointment.
Albini wrote The Problem With Music back in '93 outlining all the way the majors screw artists over and it's only gotten worse since then. Most bands end up a) releasing the record their label wants and not the one they want b) in debt to the label c) breaking up or d) all of the above. Some bands (such as Jawbox), made less money on a major. Stories of label execs supplying band members with drugs (even when the artist has a serious drug problem and needs to stop) are pretty common. My definition of success is a band getting to do what they want. Defining success as making money doesn't make sense to me (especially because major label CEOs make much more money than their artists; at best all you're doing is making someone else obscenely rich). Few bands end up like Jimmy Eat World. Most end up dropped by their label, often with a finished record left to sit in some file cabinet for years. Jawbreaker's story is pretty unique, all things considered. It was either sign with a major and make one more record or break up. I'm glad they signed that deal and that we got Dear You out of it. Ditto Jawbox, ditto Jimmy Eat World. But not everyone's so lucky.
I'm so glad that as a teen in the 90s, a copy of Dear You wound up in my possession, though I had never even heard of Jawbreaker at that point. It's absolutely an album to listen to via headphones and full of teenage angst and heartache, so I'm glad to had been oblivious to the "not punk enough / sellout" kerfluffle and just enjoyed it on it's own merits.
Decisions are complicated and have consequences. Major labels at the time were ruthless, if a band wasn't performing they'd drop them in a heartbeat. They also did all kinds of dirty tricks with contract language to lock a band in and force recordings to done by their engineers with the band having no real say in it, as well as messing with venues that were vital to punk taking off in the first place. Jawbreaker did a ton of damage to the punk scene indirectly and made life really difficult for bands still on indie labels to have any success. Smash came out in 94 and there's a reason it never got eclipsed in sales for indie labels. Jawbreakers music might be good but there's a reason they got the backlash they did. Even if you just look at it purely from their contribution to music it's not out of the question to say there's at least 10 records, if not 100's, that never got made because of them.
@@pulleyfm8585 It's fascinating to hear you toeing the DIY punk line from 1994. What you say about major labels treating bands like shit seems to be pretty uncontroversial, with some exceptions I guess. But then when you talk about the "damage" Jawbreaker did to the punk scene...you're passing off casual speculation and confirmation bias as an objective narration of "what actually happened". Which I'm not a huge fan of.
@@dingdongism Dookie sold 20million and was 2nd for the year 1994. Smash pushed 12million and was the 11th best selling record and was on a full indie label. Tragic Kingdom had a good 95, Insomniac did alright too. Jawbreaker's struggles meant only really the already signed and fully proven bands like Green Day and the Offspring got to sell records for a minute, at least with punk. Epitaph had huge issues with distribution post 95 and were just pushing out old stuff the stores would take like kerplunk and offspring releases. At the end of the day Jawbreaker signed a really bad record deal that let the record company butcher their production. They could've stayed indie and kept control, it was their choice and when it backfired it hurt a lot of people not just the guys in the band.
Punk gatekeepers, we had them in the UK too. Punk gatekeeper - what an oxymoron. They used to really effing annoy me (talking very early 80's). I was a punk and dressed like one. Whenever I met a so called punk purist I'd tell them my favourite band was ABBA and waffle on about them, talking like they were the real embodiment of pure punk. It rattled their cages. I'm currently into the Japanese punk/hard rock/metal scene, they laugh at "genres" and everyone - bands and fans - are all supportive of each other. It's a breath of fresh air.
I saw them on that European tour mentioned when his voice hit the wall. Before that Dublon show they played Cork at Venue called The Village. You could seriously see him struggle through the show. The crowd got behind him though. Everyone was passing pints of lager and cider up to him inbetween songs, which in retrospect probably made it worse. They came back years later and played another show . Pure troopers.
I LOVED this one. Jawbreaker has always been close to my heart ever since I saw a kid in freshman algebra with Dear You on his desk in 1995. He let me listen to it for a few minutes. I rode my bike to Clark Baker music in El Centro, CA the same day, bought Dear You, and have been in love with them ever since. I paid for 24 hr Revenge Therapy and Bivouac with my paper route money. I love Jawbreaker and am super bummed I had to miss their show at RiotFest. Thank you for making this video, and thank you Jawbreaker.
as someone that probably watches six+ hours of youtube a day, you're my favorite creator to follow. i've never finished one of your videos without feeling so very warm and fuzzy inside. I love to learn, and your formatting, writing, and the audio clips you choose all help paint a picture that is just so skillfully done. I feel truly moved to go listen to whomever you've talked about. Every time. 💯
@@joemiller7082 You can consider it what you like, obviously. I think placing the pop punk label on Jawbreaker does a disservice to both the genre and the band.
I was lucky to have seen Jawbreaker’s warm up show for Riot Fest and the entire 8 hour drive up to SF, I kept thinking it was a prank cause there was no way they were hours away from playing a club with a 300 peep capacity. The road to Jawbreaker reuniting is almost worthy of its own video. It’s a roller coaster of emotions.
Dear You was the album that I listened to all through the second half of high school. I’m in college now so it’s not like I was around for it’s release, but it still had a huge part in giving me what I needed to start finding myself. I still have not totally found myself, and I don’t anticipate doing so for years. But on the days when depression is kicking my ass, Dear You still manages to help ground myself. “You have to learn to learn from your mistakes You can afford to lose a little face The things you break, some can't be replaced A simple rule: every day be sure you wake”
This was amazing! You absolutely nailed it here. Also so glad you put on spotlight on how influential they were especially with the Julian Baker cover.
I was hoping for a Jawbreaker doc on this channel! To me Dear You is one of the best albums of the 90s. I can sing almost every lyric from memory and honestly I could care less if they “sold out”. They recorded a pretty well-written, well-produced album that is full of anthems, and that’s what matters. Great video!
Funny, I was in the punk scene in the early 90s and remember Jawbreaker from then, but their stuff wasn't doing it for me, so I just ignored it and moved on. I never heard about them getting big and making it onto a major or any of the controversy surrounding it. Didn't know they were an influence on later emo. It's weird hearing about a band you thought had faded away into local obscurity actually had enough going on to make a mini-doc about them.
Same. Although I admit I didn't know much about this scene. Other than Chesterfield Kings, Devil Dogs and Supersuckers I didn't listen to many American bands (of the time). I used to listen a lot of Aussie punk in the early 90s.
@@jal051 The 90s was pretty hit 'n' miss. Go look at my playlists for "Underappreciated 90s Punk/Alt" for a very incomplete list of some of the better stuff that never really got big (the Devil Dogs are on there btw).
I'm in a similar boat. Trash Theory's "How Emo Became Emo" video was stuffed full of my favorite 90s and early 2000s bands, but somehow Jawbreaker was totally in my blind spot. 90s me really missed out!
Everything is youtube now. It's entirely possible for some shitty high school band put out a recording on youtube and it could blow up anywhere and then could be considered "highly influential" without selling anything ever
I'm forever in debt to Mitch Clem and his punk webcomic Nothing Nice to Say in the very early 2000s for introducing me to Jawbreaker and the whole hardcore/emo scene where I finally found my niche.
"Hi do you have a dictionary." "Sure what kind do you want." "Uh...." "Oh you started listening to Bad Religion, didn't you? I think we have a Bad Religion dictionary here." "...."
Schwarzenbach is honestly one of the best lyricists of the 90s, especially when you look at his work with Jets to Brazil. Dude's got a way with words that is really, really, really impressive. Big fan of Jawbreaker, big fan of Jets, big fan of all these guys. Absolutely essential parts of my late 90s musical education that I would never give up for anything.
One of my all-time favorite bands. To this day I can remember where I was when I first listened to Unfun, or Dear You, or 24 Hour… they really blew my mind. And speaking of Kerouac, Jawbreaker got me into the Beats back in the day. Anyway, I could go on, but suffice it to say that I owe a lot to messrs Schwarzenbach, Pfahler and Baumeister.
That show in Chicago for Riot Fest was Brutal. The crowd surged forward so hard I thought I would be crushed to death. It didn't let up until 4 or 5 songs in. It was the ultimate reunion and Jawbreaker deserved every minute of love that came from the soul of every person there. The next day I met Blake at the airport. He graciously signed a dozen or so records for a fan as I waited to speak with him. Our conversation was brief but meant the world to me.
I loved this band when I was younger back in the 90s, and was fortunate to see them many times and hang out with them as well when I was living in Olympia and Berkeley. Super friendly guys. It was a long time ago but I remember not really caring that they signed to a major label; I wanted success for them since they had worked so hard for so long. I hated that it turned into more dumb "sell out" drama, I think a lot of people were just really jealous.
I love your videos! I would love for some videos on artists like Tears For Fears, Glassjaw, At The Drive-In/The Mars Volta, Big Star, Phoebe Bridgers or maybe even Boygenius, etc. I’d also like to see a video on the history of the Bay Area Punk scene and how much it has grown over the years. Keep up the good work, man! I really enjoy your channel! 🤘
Another banger of a music doc (despite the fact I never did get into Jawbreaker). Just brings me back to the 90s when punk had so many gatekeepers and rules. It's just interesting to see what happens after people grow older and realize that the actual music being made at the time had merit, whether it was released on Septic Pig Records or Atlantic. Speaking of Wipers, there's a band that could use a Trash Theory doc! I still listen to them as much, if not more than I did back when I first heard them in the late 80s. (They were on the Rivers Edge soundtrack, right next to a bunch of Slayer tracks)
Another fantastic one. I'd been heavily into hardcore punk in the 80s & grunge in the 90's - 2nd wave emo and pop-punk were on my radar, but not my scenes - I'd heard of and heard Jawbreaker and I've been digging into emo (I know, I know, they all say they aren't emo) - and discovering a ton of great music there. Thanks for the deep-dive, I always learn a lot from your vids.
I love the second wave bands, I don't know if you've checked out Time Spent Driving, Elliott or Penfold, but they were part of that scene and they were criminally underrated.
No one really liked the “emo” label. It was meant to be derogatory in the first place. Most of the bands that got called emo just thought they were punk/hardcore bands.
Kiss the bottle makes me well up every single time. I love Jawbreaker so, so much. They've been with me musically through good and bad since i was a much, much younger person.
I used to suffer from the same confusion as Albini back in the day. Like, all the time. I still do, apparently, because I spent the first 14:30 minutes of this video wondering, “When do they move to DC?”
Another absolutely killer video! I love Jawbreaker and your videos. Have you ever thought about doing one for your fellow Brits in LEATHERFACE? Talk about a band that has such a massive influence on punk rock while being criminally underrated. Something to think about...
I saw Jawbreaker a bunch of times in the early 90s. They were an incredible force live. Now I'm old and it's almost painful to listen to them because the sound and the lyrics try to activate old parts of my heart that just don't work anymore.
Gotta lot of love for Jawbreaker and glad to see them getting recognition these days. Great songs, great lyrics, and able to cover everything from poppy 3 chord wonders to more complex and intense stuff like Parabola. I always through they hit a real sweet spot in that they were hyper-melodic, but at the same time they kept just the right amount of grit and rawness of the underground with them. Also, there's plenty interviews with Jim Ward where he talks about Jawbreaker being a huge influence on him and by extension At the Drive In and Sparta.
trash theory is the only channel I can't watch at 1.5 or 2x because of the music clips peppered throughout. would be a great engagement strategy if intentional though I'm certain it isn't. love these vids 🤘
It's so striking how much "selling out" was a toxic fan base epitaph but now in 2023, Gen Z at least, doesn't seem to care much about chasing "the bag" and getting paid; not chasing opportunities is seen as dumb. There's less stigma about being yourself but wanting to make a living. Only time I've heard the same level of negativity is when an artist or group is an "industry plant". Thanks for the video. I feel bad because I never heard of this band although I was big into the emo scene in high school (the My Chemical Romance era) but I quickly moved onto the growing metallic hardcore & new deathcore Myspace scene. So I never really looked back at the progenitors of the sound.
Nice call back! face to face ‘Don’t Turn Away’ & Jawbreaker ‘Bivouac’ were in constant rotation for me back in the mid-90’s. Bivouac is still one of my favorite albums. Just a masterpiece
As a millennial who discovered punk in the 2000s, I’d never even heard of Jawbreaker until Riot Fest. Being there was something special, seeing punks in their 40s desperate to see a band they thought they’d never hear from again. And yeah, Jawbreaker blew the roof off it.
@@markgaydosh4249 Believe me, its coming. I'm into the old school punk bands and those that have managed to stay alive are in their 50s/60s/70s, and most don't have good insurance. There's a lot of gigs to pay for chemotherapy and surgeries and such.
So glad you got to see the influences that influenced your favourite bands When we were kids we checked the "thanks" bits of cd inlays, we didn't have the algorithms chucking stuff at us There's ups and downs to both sides, but yeah still glad you got to see
I wasn't into jawbreaker back in the 90s. It was Lucero that brought them to my attention with their cover of Kiss the Bottle, and the rest is history. Great vid.
Man I got to see Jawbreaker live at Jabberjaw in LA with an amazing band called Slug opening some time around 92 and they were awesome. Those were the days. Thanks for bringing that memory up from cold storage.
Wow. This was a trip man. I loved Jawbreaker back in the day. But as a kid in the north of England scene politics meant shit all to me. I just loved them. Dear You is a classic. Thank you for this video. Top work.
The scene of their little junky van aside Nirvanas tour buses was crushing. To me, Dear You isn’t a sell out album, it’s an all time great masterpiece of music. I hope the three of them look back with smiles now about the hard road they’ve travelled and what they’ve accomplished in spite of it. When I get old I’ll still be a Jawbreaker fan.
Well said. Having been a fan since the late 1900’s, and still a fan at 47 years old, I suspect I’ll be playing their records til the day I kick that bucket.
@@erik198 yeah I’m 48 so same vibe here. Heard Dear You in ‘99 at age of 24. Knew I was late to the Jawbreaker party but I didn’t think that should thwart an honest appreciation for the music. To this day I think they have their very own sound and Blake is one of the best lyricists ever.
My mom showed me Dear You when I was a sophomore in high school. I loved it so much that hearing Bivouac the first time only blew my mind that much more. it was really disappointing hearing about how they'd broken up so long before I had the chance to know them.. and then as a junior I got diagnosed with a brain tumor, spent four months in the hospital with some fucked up surgeries and a coma thrown in there, and one of my nurses wrote to these guys to tell them about this kid who said they were his favorite band. they ended up mailing me a signed vinyl of Dear You with a bunch of "get well soon"s sharpied in inside the cover. And I got to go see them at the Wiltern a couple years later, when Adam told me through facebook they'd put on the best show they could, you know. It fucking rocked. Jawbreaker's the best. forever and always
I first heard of Jawbreaker in the early 00's because of The Ataris (both the Boxcar cover, and name dropping them in Song for a Mix Tape). At that time 24hr was my favorite, but as i got older Dear You has become my favorite
Love the content, and the fact that you’re exposing people to Jawbreaker (and Jets To Brazil). So much artistry and soul that goes under appreciated. As a former professional writer and editor, I’d like to offer a piece of advice I received early in my career and was always grateful for: stop framing past events as things that “would” happen. They happened; address them that way.
Cool of jawbreaker to shout out this video! The 90s really were the best for music and you’ll hear so much of it in younger bands now. I always preferred the post voice change material as Blake sounded strained before. With Jets to Brazil you have one of the best lyricists ever.
I wound up with a copy of Bivouac somehow as a trash metalhead in 1994 and I couldn't stop listening to it. Although I thought punk was crap, those ripping guitars and that bouncy bass and that throat slicing vocals were undeniable.
I was there when then reunited at Riot Fest. I had no idea who they were but I was blown away from note one. I have been a huge fan ever since. I've seen them four times now.
I've called jawbreaker my favorite band for over 10 years now. finding them was like finding kindred spirits. they make me happy, they make me sad, put them on when I'm happy, put them on when I'm sad, put them on when I feel nothing in particular. while I love each project it's impossible to not consider dear you the opus. would it have been better with slightly different production, more input from the rest of the guys, and more chris going nuts? probably - but all the performances are still insanely good. they aren't phoned in, that would have been something to really lament. I love having distance from the scene drama, something that barely existed at all when I was growing up and definitely didn't exist when I found jawbreaker in my 20s. I think we were too busy trying to salvage emo's reputation from the embarrassing myspace era and besides nobody actually needed major labels anymore thanks to the leaps in technology. funny how something so serious can become a non-issue so quickly, kind of like privacy, antiwar movements or human rights LOL anyway this is a really well done video. I'm a little bummed it wasn't around back when I was ravenously looking for stuff like this as I checked if Don't Break Down was finally released but hey now it is. I know people are going to keep discovering this band until the wheels fall off of this whole thing, this kind of documentation gives rich context and makes it all that much more rewarding here's hoping every frame a painting comes back
I have an ex and some friends that listen to the watered down caricatures of Jawbreaker. Some of those bands were mentioned in this video. I tried to introduce them to Jawbreaker, but they never seemed to appreciate their greatness, or even show the slightest interest. You can lead a horse to water....
The influence Jawbreaker and Blake had on latter day emo simply cannot be overstated. If there was any justice in this world, this video would already have 500K views.
There is *zero* objective value or worth to "emo as a whole so if there was any justice in this world it would never have been a thing🤣🤣 it's the most vacuous talentless wannabe "subculture" to ever exist and emo bands make the compositions of pop twats like Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift look like Prince 🤦♂🤦♂
I do flip flop between Dear You & 24 hour - condition Oakland is my favourite Jawbreaker song but…. I think dear you is my favourite album. Despite all the punk hierarchy telling us to not listen at the time, I did - it’s their best! it’s just so great!
I had the luck and pleasure to see Jawbreaker several times between 1993 - 1996. Fantastic band, great chords and message, true giants in the industry.
Thanks for making this video. Jawbreaker saved my life more than once. 24 and dear you and not to mention jtb's orange rhyming dictionary mean more to me than i know how to express..
Forgot to mention this, but one of the things that I always appreciated most about underground bands, is that they actually play their new songs before they’re recorded. This can lead to a lot of heartbreak (especially when you’re a fan of Schwar… Shwors… Blake’s songs) You’re either left hanging with gems like Black Art, and Afterhour perfection, or you get something slightly disappointing with “I love you so much…” but thankfully we at least got the demo version …like 15 years later. BTW, I didn’t even like Jawbreaker until I heard “condition oakland”, that was a life changing experience, whenever I think about it, I’m immediately transported back to sophomore year art class. I asked my friend Justy what he had in his walkman, he said the new Jawbreaker, I probably said “Eh” and waved it away. Then he handed me the headset just as CO was starting… “Uhh, you mind if I borrow this till the end of the day?” - I was sneaking 30 seconds here and there, then the entire gym class, and that was it for me. Even started liking the older stuff after that… it’s so weird how that works.
early 90s bay area "real" punks were the most annoying kind of punks in punk history. "Wahhh, wahh, green day made money" grow up LMAO, impossible to care about in hindsight
When keeping it real goes wrong. I work with a dude that makes zines (I think he stopped doing them about five years ago) and he'd always tell this story of how he told Brighteyes to his face that he was a sell out. In my mind I'm thinking "dude, you work in a grocery store and drive a 15yo car. Why you gotta hate on someone who wants to make money and somehow think their music is only meant for you?"
They still care about it, you act like the bay area scene has changed. Even though Green Day donated money to save 924 Gilman Street and played a one off gig to raise money to save it, as soon as that one of gig was over, they immediately let Green Day know they were still banned from the Bay Area scene and they didn't want them to play anywhere near the place again.
@@medes5597 LMAO, that's wild! Tbh I seriously doubt that any punk that can afford to live in the bay area these days haven't sold out themselves in some way
I wasn't even alive when this band formed, and their music reached me in a really miserable part of my life. Being a twenty year-old cruising thru life barely knowing what should I do and barely scraping money to survive, this band put my thoughts into songs. But it's so lonely knowing that these people exist but was miles and decades away from me. I live in the Philippines and was barely making money for myself so it never crossed my mind that there would be any chance that I would ever see this band play. Aside from them being at the other side of the world, they split up years before I was even born. I'm in a better place now, physically, mentally and even financially. And knowing that they're together again just was one of the plot twist of the century for me. I might still won't have the chance to see them anytime soon lmao, but them being together again alone made it feel like I'm somewhat closer to them than I was years ago. Things are looking up for everyone it seems.
Loved the hell out of this band growing up in my mid-20's in SLC Utah. They left a huge impact on me. And I know people hated it, but I loved "Dear You" when it first came out and its still my favorite album from them. The guitar work on "Save Your Generation" and "I love you so much its killing us both" is stunning and slamming. I would love to see them do a reunion show near me.
Awesome video. Unfortunately, I was hostile toward bands that sold out. I cared about the music, but not the humans performing it. It's a mentality that lends itself to the naive side of our youth. Ironically, Dear You had an impact on me that lives on to this day. I guess I didn't know Jawbreaker enough to realize I wasn't supposed to like that album. I saw Jets to Brazil at a small club in '99... if my memory serves me right, they performed a Jawbreaker song.
Selling out is kind of a term used incorrectly by the hardcore punk kids. Selling out literally means doing something you wouldn't normally do in order to make money. Yeah sure Blake's voice was higher, but that was wayyyy before Dear You. 24 Hour Revenge Therapy was THE 1st post-surgery album, but information wasn't widely connected back then. I hate people attacking bands just because they signed to a major label. There's so much more to life than just their punk righteousness, something that was based on punk has one of the biggest rule books in the world.
Eh, you were just doing your part in preserving what was real. Nothing tastes as it's intended to when it's heavily watered down. You simply preferred the regular flavor over the diet, and that's what the world needs more of.
@@ligmaballs2022 unfortunately if you have any contempt for Green Day, you turned all your PR points in a long time ago and need to start going to underground shows to get back into punk, cos green day hasn't been it for over two decades at least.
@ultraslang I do not have any contempt for Green Day at all because their success is well deserved and they should make their own decisions for their own band. We, as the audience, should not decide their career.
This is what I hate about punk, especially its fans: pulling a quote from Sum 41's guitarist Dave Baksh: "We just call ourselves rock... It's easier to say than punk, especially around all these fuckin' kids that think they know what punk is. Something that was based on not having any rules has probably been one of the strictest fucking rule books in the world." Money dictates how you live your life. Even Trash Theory puts it in his Husker Du video: punk rock save your life, but seldom did it pay the bills. I rather be unhappy and rich rather than be poor and happy.
It's more complex than that. The concern isn't making money, the concern is being used by a major label to make _them_ money and/or compromising your sound for the money. If you make a million dollars putting out an uncompromised album, no one with a brain would call you a sell out. With that said, there is a streak of people in the punk scene for which nothing is pure enough for them. I once knew a guy that looked down on Warsaw (early Joy Division) for not being punk enough. You just learn to ignore those types.
The most punk thing a band can do is to do everything everyone tells them NOT to do. If signing to a major label is bad, then that is easily to most punk move you can make. Fuck the street cred, I'd rather get paid to do what I love for a living rather than travel the country in a tiny van, living off t-shirt sales and gas station food for basically fuck all reward.
@@seanmckelvey6618 *"The most punk thing a band can do is to do everything everyone tells them NOT to do."* No, that's nothing more than contrarianism. Not saving all the starving artist bullshit was much better than contrarianism, because it's not far from it, but their is a middle ground of staying true to the art without selling brainless dance records. The original punks were for the most part street intellectuals and art school dropouts. If you know the references, their music is full of references to classical literature and philosophy and art. They weren't stupid people giving into the whims of a kneejerk reaction.
@@LividImp I'd add there's been enough history of movements getting co-opted to understand the gatekeeping mentality (although, ironically, a lot of the co-opting is done by the gatekeepers themselves), most famously in "Flower Punk", and there is a certain betrayal to people who helped before you ascended. It's essentially the same arguments used against gentrification, which, right or wrong, does have a point that with all the money sloshing around, you destroy what originally made things noteworthy in the first place.
24 Hour Revenge Therapy and Dear You are some of the best rock (not just punk, ROCK) records of all time. Some of the greatest lyrics ever written, fantastic instrumentation. As somebody who grew up in the East Bay in the 00's, these guys were my heroes in high school
Saw them in ‘96 playing with Ween opening for Foo Fighters at the Hollywood Palladium. Jawbreaker was the first band I’d seen play live and I got caught in the eye of the mosh pit on their first song Boxcar. I’ll never forget that moment and I’ll never forget Jawbreaker. Bought Dear You that night at the merch table.
In the summer of ‘88 they debuted their 1st 7” Busy record. They traveled promoting it. When they got to UCONN they were booked to play for 1 week, the overwhelming fan support, held them over there for 1 month!😎.
I'd love for you to make a video on The Offspring and how their 'Americana' brought what was probably thousands of kids into punk rock. I was one of them (exclusively listening to rap before that) and several of my friends too. 'Americana' lead me to their earlier albums ('Ignition' remaining my favourite) and to other SoCal bands, and from there on to Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, Sex Pistols, New Bomb Turks, etc. Who knows if I'd be listening to Circle Jerks and Reagan Youth today if it wasn't for 'Americana'...
I love Jawbreaker, and I think dear you is a masterpiece. It’s honestly a shame what happened with Dear You, the fans were too elitist, but then again Jawbreaker did feed into their superiority complexes by always preaching about how they would never sign to a major label, only to betray that trust. Although I think it’s more of the fans fault for trying gatekeep the band and many other punk bands.
My first concert was Foo Fighters / Ween / Jawbreaker April 1996 San Francisco. Blake was playing a baby blue fender mustang like Kurt. Amazing first show, I’ll never forget it. Only time I saw Blake play a Fender.
Every now and then I get people asking for a playlist of every song mentioned in my videos: Well here's a Spotify link for this one:
open.spotify.com/playlist/5fF3DjWCue0QQ2f8lzpptN?si=ad897a608e2e478c
TH-cam Music Link: music.th-cam.com/play/PLooaZ33lSaleQDVeTOcLm9abE3QhF7lp8.html&si=PrCJOlYm35wkj_Un
Hi TT, do you do interviews for other people's podcasts?
Great documentaries!!
I love that point about Jawbreaker v Jawbox! Even kids of the era did that! Albini likely would’ve liked Jawbox. They had that Dischord feedback/ noise thing going on…
Thank you as well for identifying the idea that kids didn’t want to share their emotive connection with their underground bands. That feels true to me about that era.
Is it wrong for me to shed a tear at the end of this one?
I know you’re not American, but I’d say that Arkansas could very easily be in the Midwest.
Thank you for making a YT music list. I will never use Spotify.
@@kaydgamingit isn't tho? it's below the Mason-Dixie, come on now...that's the South, dude.
When I was a teenager my band opened for Jawbreaker. My cymbals were cheap and cracked because I was just a poor nobody small town kid, and Adam (the drummer) gave me one of his cymbals. They were stressed out and probably a little bummed to be playing in some tiny community center in the dunes of Northern California, but it didn't stop them from being kind and humble.
Sweet! Do you still have that cymbal? Did your band record anything?
Dope story. Lucky.
That’s why we play! Hope you get some more live experience out there from either side of the stage. It’s all great
saw them couple months ago adam got me into the anniversary tour for free and gave me a free pick very down to earth guy
What was the name of your band?
The fact that Jawbreaker suffered both the soulless greed of the music industry AND the entitled toxicity of the "legit punk" horde, but managed to become one of the most influential modern punk bands and are a formative pillar of emo in spite of breaking up, and would later reunite and get all the acclaim they always deserved is nothing short of inspiring.
But it is a shame they had to go through the ringer and wait decades to get it.
Blake said in ‘92, “I think scenes are very dangerous and you should do your best to destroy all scenes. Specifically your own.” Too self aware.
"Formative pillar of emo". Spoken as a true post-90s child. Naive and clueless and finding inspiration in what is truly the bottom of the barrel.
They brought a lot of it on themselves to be fair. I mean yelling on stage every night you will never sign to a major months before doing so is kinda silly
@@mikeherrera5302they did that due to gossiping and backbiting from the "scene", the whole "Legit Punk Police" boycotting them just for accepting to tour with Nirvana is even sillier.
Got it from both ends, really.
I detest how so many people don't want bands they like to actually make some money. I WANT bands I like to be successful.
This, 100%. I can't on the one hand decry Oasis for their unimaginative slop that sold millions, then on the other hand get annoyed when Pavement get rediscovered by today's generation.
I can’t agree with bands and artist taking taking partnerships in commercials, but I don’t see a problem with bands taking bigger record deals.
The problem comes in when making that money means abandoning your friends and letting some guy in a suit water down your art for radio play. It's not really a problem any more, but I completely get how it felt like a betrayal back then.
I personally resonate with artists due to whats being said and how strongly i can relate to them...when i realize in an instant they can do a complete 180 and be artists id never spend time listening to, its a straight disappointment.
Albini wrote The Problem With Music back in '93 outlining all the way the majors screw artists over and it's only gotten worse since then. Most bands end up a) releasing the record their label wants and not the one they want b) in debt to the label c) breaking up or d) all of the above.
Some bands (such as Jawbox), made less money on a major. Stories of label execs supplying band members with drugs (even when the artist has a serious drug problem and needs to stop) are pretty common.
My definition of success is a band getting to do what they want. Defining success as making money doesn't make sense to me (especially because major label CEOs make much more money than their artists; at best all you're doing is making someone else obscenely rich).
Few bands end up like Jimmy Eat World. Most end up dropped by their label, often with a finished record left to sit in some file cabinet for years.
Jawbreaker's story is pretty unique, all things considered. It was either sign with a major and make one more record or break up. I'm glad they signed that deal and that we got Dear You out of it. Ditto Jawbox, ditto Jimmy Eat World. But not everyone's so lucky.
That bassline in "want" from the "Unfun" record is so iconic. Love Jawbreaker pure 90s punk-rock
Totally with you on that 🙌
Early samiam is the shit .
I'm so glad that as a teen in the 90s, a copy of Dear You wound up in my possession, though I had never even heard of Jawbreaker at that point. It's absolutely an album to listen to via headphones and full of teenage angst and heartache, so I'm glad to had been oblivious to the "not punk enough / sellout" kerfluffle and just enjoyed it on it's own merits.
The not punk thing was such a big bag of b@llocks. A clique deciding what does and doesn't count is the antithesis of punk.
kerplunk u mean
Decisions are complicated and have consequences. Major labels at the time were ruthless, if a band wasn't performing they'd drop them in a heartbeat. They also did all kinds of dirty tricks with contract language to lock a band in and force recordings to done by their engineers with the band having no real say in it, as well as messing with venues that were vital to punk taking off in the first place.
Jawbreaker did a ton of damage to the punk scene indirectly and made life really difficult for bands still on indie labels to have any success. Smash came out in 94 and there's a reason it never got eclipsed in sales for indie labels.
Jawbreakers music might be good but there's a reason they got the backlash they did. Even if you just look at it purely from their contribution to music it's not out of the question to say there's at least 10 records, if not 100's, that never got made because of them.
@@pulleyfm8585 It's fascinating to hear you toeing the DIY punk line from 1994. What you say about major labels treating bands like shit seems to be pretty uncontroversial, with some exceptions I guess. But then when you talk about the "damage" Jawbreaker did to the punk scene...you're passing off casual speculation and confirmation bias as an objective narration of "what actually happened". Which I'm not a huge fan of.
@@dingdongism Dookie sold 20million and was 2nd for the year 1994. Smash pushed 12million and was the 11th best selling record and was on a full indie label. Tragic Kingdom had a good 95, Insomniac did alright too.
Jawbreaker's struggles meant only really the already signed and fully proven bands like Green Day and the Offspring got to sell records for a minute, at least with punk.
Epitaph had huge issues with distribution post 95 and were just pushing out old stuff the stores would take like kerplunk and offspring releases.
At the end of the day Jawbreaker signed a really bad record deal that let the record company butcher their production. They could've stayed indie and kept control, it was their choice and when it backfired it hurt a lot of people not just the guys in the band.
Punk gatekeepers, we had them in the UK too. Punk gatekeeper - what an oxymoron. They used to really effing annoy me (talking very early 80's). I was a punk and dressed like one. Whenever I met a so called punk purist I'd tell them my favourite band was ABBA and waffle on about them, talking like they were the real embodiment of pure punk. It rattled their cages. I'm currently into the Japanese punk/hard rock/metal scene, they laugh at "genres" and everyone - bands and fans - are all supportive of each other. It's a breath of fresh air.
Punks a state of mind not just a genre of music.
@@denislemieux4915 Indeed
It's just the way it was , you couldn't get into a nirvana show for 3 bucks anymore .
I saw them on that European tour mentioned when his voice hit the wall. Before that Dublon show they played Cork at Venue called The Village. You could seriously see him struggle through the show. The crowd got behind him though. Everyone was passing pints of lager and cider up to him inbetween songs, which in retrospect probably made it worse. They came back years later and played another show . Pure troopers.
Class! Never knew they played Cork.
Got to see jawbreaker on Monday, never thought I'd ever be able to see them. I'll never forget that gig
hey i was at that show too!
I LOVED this one. Jawbreaker has always been close to my heart ever since I saw a kid in freshman algebra with Dear You on his desk in 1995. He let me listen to it for a few minutes. I rode my bike to Clark Baker music in El Centro, CA the same day, bought Dear You, and have been in love with them ever since. I paid for 24 hr Revenge Therapy and Bivouac with my paper route money. I love Jawbreaker and am super bummed I had to miss their show at RiotFest. Thank you for making this video, and thank you Jawbreaker.
as someone that probably watches six+ hours of youtube a day, you're my favorite creator to follow. i've never finished one of your videos without feeling so very warm and fuzzy inside. I love to learn, and your formatting, writing, and the audio clips you choose all help paint a picture that is just so skillfully done. I feel truly moved to go listen to whomever you've talked about. Every time. 💯
Dear you is a great album in retrospect even though it is often gruesomely dark for “pop punk”
Don't kid yourself you know it's an emo album.
I wouldn't call it a pop punk album at all.
I think it’s a record that was probably made 5 years too early. If it came out in the early. 2000’s, they’d have blown up.
@@dingdongismI totally would. But it depends on what you call pop punk. There are like 10 different kinds of pop punk.
@@joemiller7082 You can consider it what you like, obviously. I think placing the pop punk label on Jawbreaker does a disservice to both the genre and the band.
I was lucky to have seen Jawbreaker’s warm up show for Riot Fest and the entire 8 hour drive up to SF, I kept thinking it was a prank cause there was no way they were hours away from playing a club with a 300 peep capacity.
The road to Jawbreaker reuniting is almost worthy of its own video. It’s a roller coaster of emotions.
Dear You was the album that I listened to all through the second half of high school. I’m in college now so it’s not like I was around for it’s release, but it still had a huge part in giving me what I needed to start finding myself.
I still have not totally found myself, and I don’t anticipate doing so for years. But on the days when depression is kicking my ass, Dear You still manages to help ground myself.
“You have to learn to learn from your mistakes
You can afford to lose a little face
The things you break, some can't be replaced
A simple rule: every day be sure you wake”
Jawbreaker have saved my life on more than one occasion. Blake is a lyrical genius.
Be sure to listen to all of his work. It’s truly amazing
This was amazing! You absolutely nailed it here. Also so glad you put on spotlight on how influential they were especially with the Julian Baker cover.
Played the hell out of this album. Also enjoyed Blake's later band Jets To Brazil
yeah Jets were great saw them live in 2000 so good.
You should check out THE FORGETTERS. Blake kicks ass in that also
😮 I learned so much! I'll admit I knew nothing about Jawbreaker but Jets To Brazil's Orange Rhyming Dictionary got me through a tough period.
I was hoping for a Jawbreaker doc on this channel! To me Dear You is one of the best albums of the 90s. I can sing almost every lyric from memory and honestly I could care less if they “sold out”. They recorded a pretty well-written, well-produced album that is full of anthems, and that’s what matters. Great video!
Funny, I was in the punk scene in the early 90s and remember Jawbreaker from then, but their stuff wasn't doing it for me, so I just ignored it and moved on. I never heard about them getting big and making it onto a major or any of the controversy surrounding it. Didn't know they were an influence on later emo. It's weird hearing about a band you thought had faded away into local obscurity actually had enough going on to make a mini-doc about them.
Same. Although I admit I didn't know much about this scene. Other than Chesterfield Kings, Devil Dogs and Supersuckers I didn't listen to many American bands (of the time). I used to listen a lot of Aussie punk in the early 90s.
@@jal051 The 90s was pretty hit 'n' miss. Go look at my playlists for "Underappreciated 90s Punk/Alt" for a very incomplete list of some of the better stuff that never really got big (the Devil Dogs are on there btw).
there is a proper doc about them called 'Don't break down'.
I'm in a similar boat. Trash Theory's "How Emo Became Emo" video was stuffed full of my favorite 90s and early 2000s bands, but somehow Jawbreaker was totally in my blind spot. 90s me really missed out!
Everything is youtube now. It's entirely possible for some shitty high school band put out a recording on youtube and it could blow up anywhere and then could be considered "highly influential" without selling anything ever
“You’re not punk and I’m telling everyone” was the wry, knowing wink my friends and I gave one another in high school. An amazing video, as always.
I'm forever in debt to Mitch Clem and his punk webcomic Nothing Nice to Say in the very early 2000s for introducing me to Jawbreaker and the whole hardcore/emo scene where I finally found my niche.
Mitch wound up printing his comics, wish is still had my copy.
NNTS was the best. I've been looking for another WWHRD sticker for a while.
"Hi do you have a dictionary."
"Sure what kind do you want."
"Uh...."
"Oh you started listening to Bad Religion, didn't you? I think we have a Bad Religion dictionary here."
"...."
i saved a copy of his website cuz why trust a wayback machine
Schwarzenbach is honestly one of the best lyricists of the 90s, especially when you look at his work with Jets to Brazil. Dude's got a way with words that is really, really, really impressive.
Big fan of Jawbreaker, big fan of Jets, big fan of all these guys. Absolutely essential parts of my late 90s musical education that I would never give up for anything.
In a way he's touching and tragic. But on the other hand I can also see how someone might think he was corny and morbid.
Eh he's far from the best of the 90s imo.
@@slack3021 One man's magic is another's plastic
Thanks for this, I love Jawbreaker so much. And 2 J Church references, I'm looking forward to the J Church vid! 😊
One of my all-time favorite bands. To this day I can remember where I was when I first listened to Unfun, or Dear You, or 24 Hour… they really blew my mind.
And speaking of Kerouac, Jawbreaker got me into the Beats back in the day.
Anyway, I could go on, but suffice it to say that I owe a lot to messrs Schwarzenbach, Pfahler and Baumeister.
That show in Chicago for Riot Fest was Brutal. The crowd surged forward so hard I thought I would be crushed to death. It didn't let up until 4 or 5 songs in. It was the ultimate reunion and Jawbreaker deserved every minute of love that came from the soul of every person there. The next day I met Blake at the airport. He graciously signed a dozen or so records for a fan as I waited to speak with him. Our conversation was brief but meant the world to me.
Like, I was just saying how much I enjoy your content, and now you cover one of my favorite bands? You might be the greatest of all time.
I loved this band when I was younger back in the 90s, and was fortunate to see them many times and hang out with them as well when I was living in Olympia and Berkeley. Super friendly guys. It was a long time ago but I remember not really caring that they signed to a major label; I wanted success for them since they had worked so hard for so long. I hated that it turned into more dumb "sell out" drama, I think a lot of people were just really jealous.
My man! A Jawbreaker vid just makes you that much more impressive.
Still jamming to Jawbreaker and Jets on the regular!
Saw Jawbreaker with Seaweed. Fuck, I’m old.
I love your videos! I would love for some videos on artists like Tears For Fears, Glassjaw, At The Drive-In/The Mars Volta, Big Star, Phoebe Bridgers or maybe even Boygenius, etc. I’d also like to see a video on the history of the Bay Area Punk scene and how much it has grown over the years. Keep up the good work, man! I really enjoy your channel! 🤘
Another banger of a music doc (despite the fact I never did get into Jawbreaker). Just brings me back to the 90s when punk had so many gatekeepers and rules. It's just interesting to see what happens after people grow older and realize that the actual music being made at the time had merit, whether it was released on Septic Pig Records or Atlantic.
Speaking of Wipers, there's a band that could use a Trash Theory doc! I still listen to them as much, if not more than I did back when I first heard them in the late 80s. (They were on the Rivers Edge soundtrack, right next to a bunch of Slayer tracks)
Another fantastic one. I'd been heavily into hardcore punk in the 80s & grunge in the 90's - 2nd wave emo and pop-punk were on my radar, but not my scenes - I'd heard of and heard Jawbreaker and I've been digging into emo (I know, I know, they all say they aren't emo) - and discovering a ton of great music there.
Thanks for the deep-dive, I always learn a lot from your vids.
I love the second wave bands, I don't know if you've checked out Time Spent Driving, Elliott or Penfold, but they were part of that scene and they were criminally underrated.
No one really liked the “emo” label. It was meant to be derogatory in the first place. Most of the bands that got called emo just thought they were punk/hardcore bands.
Kiss the bottle makes me well up every single time. I love Jawbreaker so, so much. They've been with me musically through good and bad since i was a much, much younger person.
I used to suffer from the same confusion as Albini back in the day. Like, all the time. I still do, apparently, because I spent the first 14:30 minutes of this video wondering, “When do they move to DC?”
Another absolutely killer video! I love Jawbreaker and your videos. Have you ever thought about doing one for your fellow Brits in LEATHERFACE? Talk about a band that has such a massive influence on punk rock while being criminally underrated. Something to think about...
Seconded
I saw Jawbreaker a bunch of times in the early 90s. They were an incredible force live. Now I'm old and it's almost painful to listen to them because the sound and the lyrics try to activate old parts of my heart that just don't work anymore.
It is massively ironic that punk, of all genres, every had rigid rules of belonging
Gotta lot of love for Jawbreaker and glad to see them getting recognition these days. Great songs, great lyrics, and able to cover everything from poppy 3 chord wonders to more complex and intense stuff like Parabola. I always through they hit a real sweet spot in that they were hyper-melodic, but at the same time they kept just the right amount of grit and rawness of the underground with them. Also, there's plenty interviews with Jim Ward where he talks about Jawbreaker being a huge influence on him and by extension At the Drive In and Sparta.
trash theory is the only channel I can't watch at 1.5 or 2x because of the music clips peppered throughout. would be a great engagement strategy if intentional though I'm certain it isn't.
love these vids 🤘
It's so striking how much "selling out" was a toxic fan base epitaph but now in 2023, Gen Z at least, doesn't seem to care much about chasing "the bag" and getting paid; not chasing opportunities is seen as dumb. There's less stigma about being yourself but wanting to make a living. Only time I've heard the same level of negativity is when an artist or group is an "industry plant". Thanks for the video. I feel bad because I never heard of this band although I was big into the emo scene in high school (the My Chemical Romance era) but I quickly moved onto the growing metallic hardcore & new deathcore Myspace scene. So I never really looked back at the progenitors of the sound.
Face to Face made a great cover of Chesterfield King on their 2001album, Standards and Practices.
Nice call back! face to face ‘Don’t Turn Away’ & Jawbreaker ‘Bivouac’ were in constant rotation for me back in the mid-90’s. Bivouac is still one of my favorite albums. Just a masterpiece
Definitely one of the things I have in common with Steve Albini, mixing up Jawbox & Jawbreaker more than once.
Been listening to these guys since the 90s. Glad to see them back together and touring
As a millennial who discovered punk in the 2000s, I’d never even heard of Jawbreaker until Riot Fest. Being there was something special, seeing punks in their 40s desperate to see a band they thought they’d never hear from again. And yeah, Jawbreaker blew the roof off it.
Now we go to their fund-raisers to pay for their hip reconstruction surgeries.
@@LividImp I’ve seen them twice since and I will gladly help fund their medical bills lol
@@markgaydosh4249 Believe me, its coming. I'm into the old school punk bands and those that have managed to stay alive are in their 50s/60s/70s, and most don't have good insurance. There's a lot of gigs to pay for chemotherapy and surgeries and such.
So glad you got to see the influences that influenced your favourite bands
When we were kids we checked the "thanks" bits of cd inlays, we didn't have the algorithms chucking stuff at us
There's ups and downs to both sides, but yeah still glad you got to see
I wasn't into jawbreaker back in the 90s. It was Lucero that brought them to my attention with their cover of Kiss the Bottle, and the rest is history. Great vid.
Man I got to see Jawbreaker live at Jabberjaw in LA with an amazing band called Slug opening some time around 92 and they were awesome. Those were the days. Thanks for bringing that memory up from cold storage.
These docos are fantastic. Thanx for the effort team.🤘
This took me back.
Today, I felt something.
Thank you!
Jawbreaker has been one of my favorite bands ever since high school and i was finally lucky enough to see them a few wks ago in Cincinnati
Wow. This was a trip man. I loved Jawbreaker back in the day. But as a kid in the north of England scene politics meant shit all to me. I just loved them. Dear You is a classic. Thank you for this video. Top work.
The scene of their little junky van aside Nirvanas tour buses was crushing. To me, Dear You isn’t a sell out album, it’s an all time great masterpiece of music. I hope the three of them look back with smiles now about the hard road they’ve travelled and what they’ve accomplished in spite of it. When I get old I’ll still be a Jawbreaker fan.
Well said. Having been a fan since the late 1900’s, and still a fan at 47 years old, I suspect I’ll be playing their records til the day I kick that bucket.
@@erik198 yeah I’m 48 so same vibe here. Heard Dear You in ‘99 at age of 24. Knew I was late to the Jawbreaker party but I didn’t think that should thwart an honest appreciation for the music. To this day I think they have their very own sound and Blake is one of the best lyricists ever.
Outstanding. My favorite jawbreaker album is all of them
Awesome video! I have always been a huge Jawbreaker fan but I have to say.. Jets to Brazil is the real deal. Those songs are magical.
My mom showed me Dear You when I was a sophomore in high school. I loved it so much that hearing Bivouac the first time only blew my mind that much more. it was really disappointing hearing about how they'd broken up so long before I had the chance to know them.. and then as a junior I got diagnosed with a brain tumor, spent four months in the hospital with some fucked up surgeries and a coma thrown in there, and one of my nurses wrote to these guys to tell them about this kid who said they were his favorite band. they ended up mailing me a signed vinyl of Dear You with a bunch of "get well soon"s sharpied in inside the cover. And I got to go see them at the Wiltern a couple years later, when Adam told me through facebook they'd put on the best show they could, you know. It fucking rocked. Jawbreaker's the best. forever and always
I first heard of Jawbreaker in the early 00's because of The Ataris (both the Boxcar cover, and name dropping them in Song for a Mix Tape). At that time 24hr was my favorite, but as i got older Dear You has become my favorite
Love the content, and the fact that you’re exposing people to Jawbreaker (and Jets To Brazil). So much artistry and soul that goes under appreciated. As a former professional writer and editor, I’d like to offer a piece of advice I received early in my career and was always grateful for: stop framing past events as things that “would” happen. They happened; address them that way.
I was about to watch the other video you mentioned jawbreaker in and this popped up
perfect timing
I fucking love Dear You.
Me too, and I was sort of anti major label back then. I made an exception for Jawbreaker though :)
Cool of jawbreaker to shout out this video! The 90s really were the best for music and you’ll hear so much of it in younger bands now. I always preferred the post voice change material as Blake sounded strained before. With Jets to Brazil you have one of the best lyricists ever.
I wound up with a copy of Bivouac somehow as a trash metalhead in 1994 and I couldn't stop listening to it. Although I thought punk was crap, those ripping guitars and that bouncy bass and that throat slicing vocals were undeniable.
I was there when then reunited at Riot Fest. I had no idea who they were but I was blown away from note one. I have been a huge fan ever since. I've seen them four times now.
Absolutely well spoken doc. Blake Schwarzenbach's lyricism is Absolutely timeless and is absolutely amazing.
One of my favorites! Thank you❤
Hell yes! More channels like this need to feature Jawbreaker!!
Albini hoped for Jawbox, got Jawbreaker, and that's just the way she goes.
I've called jawbreaker my favorite band for over 10 years now. finding them was like finding kindred spirits. they make me happy, they make me sad, put them on when I'm happy, put them on when I'm sad, put them on when I feel nothing in particular. while I love each project it's impossible to not consider dear you the opus. would it have been better with slightly different production, more input from the rest of the guys, and more chris going nuts? probably - but all the performances are still insanely good. they aren't phoned in, that would have been something to really lament. I love having distance from the scene drama, something that barely existed at all when I was growing up and definitely didn't exist when I found jawbreaker in my 20s. I think we were too busy trying to salvage emo's reputation from the embarrassing myspace era and besides nobody actually needed major labels anymore thanks to the leaps in technology. funny how something so serious can become a non-issue so quickly, kind of like privacy, antiwar movements or human rights LOL
anyway this is a really well done video. I'm a little bummed it wasn't around back when I was ravenously looking for stuff like this as I checked if Don't Break Down was finally released but hey now it is. I know people are going to keep discovering this band until the wheels fall off of this whole thing, this kind of documentation gives rich context and makes it all that much more rewarding
here's hoping every frame a painting comes back
I have an ex and some friends that listen to the watered down caricatures of Jawbreaker. Some of those bands were mentioned in this video. I tried to introduce them to Jawbreaker, but they never seemed to appreciate their greatness, or even show the slightest interest. You can lead a horse to water....
Great documentary. I grew up downloading punk in the 2000s and jawbreaker was never really my thing. Now I know why they were great. Cheers.
Great video... After hearing them the first time in 1993, finally got to see them at a show in Phoenix in August of 2023, 30 years later...
Yo... also a Ben Weasel shoutout? Nice!
Edit: AND a Braid shout-out?!? My man!
Edit edit: BEAUTIFUL ending to the video fren... new sub
The influence Jawbreaker and Blake had on latter day emo simply cannot be overstated. If there was any justice in this world, this video would already have 500K views.
There is *zero* objective value or worth to "emo as a whole so if there was any justice in this world it would never have been a thing🤣🤣 it's the most vacuous talentless wannabe "subculture" to ever exist and emo bands make the compositions of pop twats like Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift look like Prince 🤦♂🤦♂
@@beowulf1417 Why so bitter?
I just overstated it... Right now.. Wannafightaboutit? 😂
I do flip flop between Dear You & 24 hour - condition Oakland is my favourite Jawbreaker song but…. I think dear you is my favourite album. Despite all the punk hierarchy telling us to not listen at the time, I did - it’s their best! it’s just so great!
I had the luck and pleasure to see Jawbreaker several times between 1993 - 1996. Fantastic band, great chords and message, true giants in the industry.
Thanks for making this video. Jawbreaker saved my life more than once. 24 and dear you and not to mention jtb's orange rhyming dictionary mean more to me than i know how to express..
Forget the hype, if you don't love jawbreaker check your pulse
Besides a few Soviet punk bands, I don't think anyone ever had it harder than Jawbreaker.
Forgot to mention this, but one of the things that I always appreciated most about underground bands, is that they actually play their new songs before they’re recorded. This can lead to a lot of heartbreak (especially when you’re a fan of Schwar… Shwors… Blake’s songs) You’re either left hanging with gems like Black Art, and Afterhour perfection, or you get something slightly disappointing with “I love you so much…” but thankfully we at least got the demo version …like 15 years later.
BTW, I didn’t even like Jawbreaker until I heard “condition oakland”, that was a life changing experience, whenever I think about it, I’m immediately transported back to sophomore year art class. I asked my friend Justy what he had in his walkman, he said the new Jawbreaker, I probably said “Eh” and waved it away. Then he handed me the headset just as CO was starting… “Uhh, you mind if I borrow this till the end of the day?” - I was sneaking 30 seconds here and there, then the entire gym class, and that was it for me. Even started liking the older stuff after that… it’s so weird how that works.
Always will Love jawbreaker! Amazing video!
Just came to say thank you for the Spanish subtitles it makes it really helpful to share with my friends
Jawbreaker Dear You, Sponge Rotting Piñata and Catherine Sorry. Three of the era’s greatest albums.
i don't even have an entire year hearing Jawbreaker and they're already one of my all time favorites.
early 90s bay area "real" punks were the most annoying kind of punks in punk history. "Wahhh, wahh, green day made money" grow up LMAO, impossible to care about in hindsight
When keeping it real goes wrong.
I work with a dude that makes zines (I think he stopped doing them about five years ago) and he'd always tell this story of how he told Brighteyes to his face that he was a sell out.
In my mind I'm thinking "dude, you work in a grocery store and drive a 15yo car. Why you gotta hate on someone who wants to make money and somehow think their music is only meant for you?"
They still care about it, you act like the bay area scene has changed.
Even though Green Day donated money to save 924 Gilman Street and played a one off gig to raise money to save it, as soon as that one of gig was over, they immediately let Green Day know they were still banned from the Bay Area scene and they didn't want them to play anywhere near the place again.
@@medes5597 LMAO, that's wild! Tbh I seriously doubt that any punk that can afford to live in the bay area these days haven't sold out themselves in some way
@@RudeMyDude
So then it's a bunch of rich kids that aren't punks, but merely rebelling with daddy's money?
@@waterandafter Possibly! That or they just got lucky and found a guy to pay the rent
I wasn't even alive when this band formed, and their music reached me in a really miserable part of my life. Being a twenty year-old cruising thru life barely knowing what should I do and barely scraping money to survive, this band put my thoughts into songs. But it's so lonely knowing that these people exist but was miles and decades away from me. I live in the Philippines and was barely making money for myself so it never crossed my mind that there would be any chance that I would ever see this band play. Aside from them being at the other side of the world, they split up years before I was even born.
I'm in a better place now, physically, mentally and even financially. And knowing that they're together again just was one of the plot twist of the century for me. I might still won't have the chance to see them anytime soon lmao, but them being together again alone made it feel like I'm somewhat closer to them than I was years ago. Things are looking up for everyone it seems.
Loved the hell out of this band growing up in my mid-20's in SLC Utah. They left a huge impact on me. And I know people hated it, but I loved "Dear You" when it first came out and its still my favorite album from them. The guitar work on "Save Your Generation" and "I love you so much its killing us both" is stunning and slamming. I would love to see them do a reunion show near me.
I got into Jawbreaker because of Screeching Weasel. I met Blake too back in 2013 and he was a really sweet person.
'Two grades below, she pireced her nose. Way before it was cool. Some older guy, with a motorbike, picks her up after school' - its timeless
This is what I’ve anticipated!
Awesome video. Unfortunately, I was hostile toward bands that sold out. I cared about the music, but not the humans performing it. It's a mentality that lends itself to the naive side of our youth. Ironically, Dear You had an impact on me that lives on to this day. I guess I didn't know Jawbreaker enough to realize I wasn't supposed to like that album. I saw Jets to Brazil at a small club in '99... if my memory serves me right, they performed a Jawbreaker song.
Selling out is kind of a term used incorrectly by the hardcore punk kids. Selling out literally means doing something you wouldn't normally do in order to make money. Yeah sure Blake's voice was higher, but that was wayyyy before Dear You. 24 Hour Revenge Therapy was THE 1st post-surgery album, but information wasn't widely connected back then. I hate people attacking bands just because they signed to a major label. There's so much more to life than just their punk righteousness, something that was based on punk has one of the biggest rule books in the world.
Eh, you were just doing your part in preserving what was real. Nothing tastes as it's intended to when it's heavily watered down. You simply preferred the regular flavor over the diet, and that's what the world needs more of.
@@ultraslang but when it comes to punk, that mentality and backlash to bands like Green Day is tiring to people like me
@@ligmaballs2022 unfortunately if you have any contempt for Green Day, you turned all your PR points in a long time ago and need to start going to underground shows to get back into punk, cos green day hasn't been it for over two decades at least.
@ultraslang I do not have any contempt for Green Day at all because their success is well deserved and they should make their own decisions for their own band. We, as the audience, should not decide their career.
Shoutout to Adam for keeping the bands legacy alive!! Don't think that gets mentioned enough
Edit: 30:18 holy shit this here
This is what I hate about punk, especially its fans: pulling a quote from Sum 41's guitarist Dave Baksh: "We just call ourselves rock... It's easier to say than punk, especially around all these fuckin' kids that think they know what punk is. Something that was based on not having any rules has probably been one of the strictest fucking rule books in the world."
Money dictates how you live your life. Even Trash Theory puts it in his Husker Du video: punk rock save your life, but seldom did it pay the bills. I rather be unhappy and rich rather than be poor and happy.
True. There's so many elitists and hypocrites in 'alternative' cultures.
It's more complex than that. The concern isn't making money, the concern is being used by a major label to make _them_ money and/or compromising your sound for the money. If you make a million dollars putting out an uncompromised album, no one with a brain would call you a sell out. With that said, there is a streak of people in the punk scene for which nothing is pure enough for them. I once knew a guy that looked down on Warsaw (early Joy Division) for not being punk enough. You just learn to ignore those types.
The most punk thing a band can do is to do everything everyone tells them NOT to do. If signing to a major label is bad, then that is easily to most punk move you can make. Fuck the street cred, I'd rather get paid to do what I love for a living rather than travel the country in a tiny van, living off t-shirt sales and gas station food for basically fuck all reward.
@@seanmckelvey6618 *"The most punk thing a band can do is to do everything everyone tells them NOT to do."*
No, that's nothing more than contrarianism. Not saving all the starving artist bullshit was much better than contrarianism, because it's not far from it, but their is a middle ground of staying true to the art without selling brainless dance records. The original punks were for the most part street intellectuals and art school dropouts. If you know the references, their music is full of references to classical literature and philosophy and art. They weren't stupid people giving into the whims of a kneejerk reaction.
@@LividImp I'd add there's been enough history of movements getting co-opted to understand the gatekeeping mentality (although, ironically, a lot of the co-opting is done by the gatekeepers themselves), most famously in "Flower Punk", and there is a certain betrayal to people who helped before you ascended.
It's essentially the same arguments used against gentrification, which, right or wrong, does have a point that with all the money sloshing around, you destroy what originally made things noteworthy in the first place.
Crazy, I was just thinking about Jawbreaker earlier today at work.
24 Hour Revenge Therapy and Dear You are some of the best rock (not just punk, ROCK) records of all time. Some of the greatest lyrics ever written, fantastic instrumentation. As somebody who grew up in the East Bay in the 00's, these guys were my heroes in high school
Saw them in ‘96 playing with Ween opening for Foo Fighters at the Hollywood Palladium. Jawbreaker was the first band I’d seen play live and I got caught in the eye of the mosh pit on their first song Boxcar. I’ll never forget that moment and I’ll never forget Jawbreaker. Bought Dear You that night at the merch table.
In the summer of ‘88 they debuted their 1st 7” Busy record. They traveled promoting it. When they got to UCONN they were booked to play for 1 week, the overwhelming fan support, held them over there for 1 month!😎.
I'd love for you to make a video on The Offspring and how their 'Americana' brought what was probably thousands of kids into punk rock. I was one of them (exclusively listening to rap before that) and several of my friends too.
'Americana' lead me to their earlier albums ('Ignition' remaining my favourite) and to other SoCal bands, and from there on to Dead Kennedys, Minor Threat, Sex Pistols, New Bomb Turks, etc.
Who knows if I'd be listening to Circle Jerks and Reagan Youth today if it wasn't for 'Americana'...
They had an even *bigger* impact in 1994. It would basically be the same thing but on a much smaller scale.
I love Jawbreaker, and I think dear you is a masterpiece. It’s honestly a shame what happened with Dear You, the fans were too elitist, but then again Jawbreaker did feed into their superiority complexes by always preaching about how they would never sign to a major label, only to betray that trust. Although I think it’s more of the fans fault for trying gatekeep the band and many other punk bands.
My first concert was Foo Fighters / Ween / Jawbreaker April 1996 San Francisco. Blake was playing a baby blue fender mustang like Kurt. Amazing first show, I’ll never forget it. Only time I saw Blake play a Fender.
Never heard of them before. Thanks. Getting some At the drive-in vibes.
The singer kinda looks like Homelander from The Boys…
Never really got into Jawbreaker. Loved Jets to Brazil though. One of my absolute favorite bands.