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.
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 beast 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, their 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@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.
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
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 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.
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 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?”
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.
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 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.
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!
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.
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 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”
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 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! 🤘
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.
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)
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.
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 was one of the zine people in Los Angeles. I'm best known as a columnist in Flipside fanzine; my best work was in Censor This zine. At Flipside we didn't give a f*ck if someone sold out; we only cared about the music. And I had serious misgivings about Jawbreaker signing to a major label for the simple reason that a corporate label would usually wuss out the music (Exception: ALL). Alas I was correct. Dear You is weak, I was horrified. Prior to their signing I had a short, sharp argument with Blake, and it broke my heart that he seemed determined to defect. I didn't know the hell he had gone through, and I am sorry he suffered so much. But he screwed up big time. One more remark: to hell with you Bay Area people at Gilman and MRR. Their signing to a major was probably revenge against you guys. -Ed "ShitEd" Dawson, ex-Flipside fanzine
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.
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....
@@willydee1983 We in Arizona do like to claim them since Greg Sage moved to Arizona at some point in the 90s (I think). Regardless, Wipers are one of the greatest bands no one quite remembers.
@johnchedsey1306 Greg still lives in Phoenix. And no sorry you cannot claim them lol (jk claim whatever you want) The Wipers are literally all Portland has
@@JammerAma I associate Sleater-Kinney with Portland and they're awesome! Also, Powells Books, which is still the most amazing book store I've ever been in.
@johnchedsey1306 LOL, but Sleater-Kinney is literally a street in Lacey here in Washington. Ok fine if Portland can claim a piece of Sleater-Kinney, Phoenix can have a piece of The Wipers. That sounds fair to me
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.
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.
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 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'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'...
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 🤦♂🤦♂
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'm from the east coast and have worked underground venues for years (so take this like a grain of sand) from what I might remember Gilman street either decided on what bands aren't allowed to play based on popularity or if they were on a record label... Though that could have just been a rumor. If someone reading this could correct me, I'd appreciate that.
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
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!
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 🤘
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.
I can’t stand elitist hipsters who have no appreciation for song craft or technique. Punk is all just posturing and costuming to them. I’m glad Jawbreaker evolved, that’s what real artists do.
All this “punk” attitudes of banning “sellout” bands etc. is absolutely ridiculous. Like they don’t pay taxes or buy food at the supermarket. They’re part of the CAPITALIST MACHINE anyway. So this attitude of “we’re better than you cause we stick to being poor and angry though we don’t do anything to change it” is so childish and absurd to me. Jawbreaker should’ve had the right to become big and do whatever they wanted without all that BS. Green Day and Nirvana did it, good for them.
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.
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.
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 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
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.
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.
16:07 Never thought I'd say this, but the Ablini version is better. Anyway, I don't understand how I lived in San Francisco when these guys lived there and NEVER heard of them. And I spent a lot of my time going to every gig of every tiny band, also had a job putting up fliers for a tiny club where unknown punk bands played (The Covered Wagon)
I moved to a different part of the country in my freshman year of high school, and met new punk friends. I remember one of my new friends told me he wrote Jawbreaker a letter and him showing me the handwritten postcard Blake wrote him in return with some buttons and patches he sent thanking him for liking Dear You. Didn't seem like a sellout thing to me at the time. Combine that with never seeing them get any radio/MTV play nor have any of the punk-adjacent kids at school give any shits at all about Jawbreaker (much less the poser/mainstream cool kids), it seemed to me the whole sellout thing was way, way overblown.
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.
as a my chem and overall music nerd, i love to talk about jawbreaker because in addition to being a great band in their own right, their fingerprints are all over my chem. in give em' hell kid, they lifted half a chorus from fireman directly, and frank quoted that same lyric later in his solo career. they also lyric check save your generation in party poison and the black parade was produced by rob cavallo, largely because he did dear you
Had an instant bootleg of their first EP shortly after limited release & it was strikingly different. I do recall other bands aping them immediately w/o any natural finesse, honour or sensibility. That had to be extremely frustrating for them as sonic pioneers
![ได้เวลา! พาน้องแฝดฉีดวัคซีนครบ 1 เดือน🫣 [cc] แดนแพทตี้ SS2 | EP.52 |](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IzeLtaXBLNE/mqdefault.jpg)
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 including a YTMusic playlist as well as Spotify ❤
Thank you for making a YT music list. I will never use Spotify.
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
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 beast 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, their 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.
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.
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'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.
That bassline in "want" from the "Unfun" record is so iconic. Love Jawbreaker pure 90s punk-rock
Totally with you on that 🙌
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.
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.
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
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
Saw Jawbreaker with Seaweed. Fuck, I’m old.
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 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.
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 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 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?”
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."
"...."
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
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 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.
I fucking love Dear You.
Me too, and I was sort of anti major label back then. I made an exception for Jawbreaker though :)
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!
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.
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 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
Besides a few Soviet punk bands, I don't think anyone ever had it harder than Jawbreaker.
Thanks for this, I love Jawbreaker so much. And 2 J Church references, I'm looking forward to the J Church vid! 😊
😮 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.
It is massively ironic that punk, of all genres, every had rigid rules of belonging
Jawbreaker shared this on instagram 😳
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 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! 🤘
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.
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)
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.
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.
“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.
Definitely one of the things I have in common with Steve Albini, mixing up Jawbox & Jawbreaker more than once.
I was one of the zine people in Los Angeles. I'm best known as a columnist in Flipside fanzine; my best work was in Censor This zine. At Flipside we didn't give a f*ck if someone sold out; we only cared about the music. And I had serious misgivings about Jawbreaker signing to a major label for the simple reason that a corporate label would usually wuss out the music (Exception: ALL). Alas I was correct. Dear You is weak, I was horrified. Prior to their signing I had a short, sharp argument with Blake, and it broke my heart that he seemed determined to defect. I didn't know the hell he had gone through, and I am sorry he suffered so much. But he screwed up big time. One more remark: to hell with you Bay Area people at Gilman and MRR. Their signing to a major was probably revenge against you guys. -Ed "ShitEd" Dawson, ex-Flipside fanzine
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.
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....
Folks still wear Jawbreaker shirts over here in Santa Cruz
I have a Jawbreaker tattoo.
The Wipers are a Portland band from Oregon
I came here to say the Same:Wipers=Portland OR
@@willydee1983 We in Arizona do like to claim them since Greg Sage moved to Arizona at some point in the 90s (I think). Regardless, Wipers are one of the greatest bands no one quite remembers.
@johnchedsey1306 Greg still lives in Phoenix. And no sorry you cannot claim them lol (jk claim whatever you want) The Wipers are literally all Portland has
@@JammerAma I associate Sleater-Kinney with Portland and they're awesome! Also, Powells Books, which is still the most amazing book store I've ever been in.
@johnchedsey1306 LOL, but Sleater-Kinney is literally a street in Lacey here in Washington. Ok fine if Portland can claim a piece of Sleater-Kinney, Phoenix can have a piece of The Wipers. That sounds fair to me
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.
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.
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 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.
Never heard of them before. Thanks. Getting some At the drive-in vibes.
The singer kinda looks like Homelander from The Boys…
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.
My man! A Jawbreaker vid just makes you that much more impressive.
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? 😂
Normally trash theory introduces me to bands. But for once I knew about this great band prior.
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'm from the east coast and have worked underground venues for years (so take this like a grain of sand) from what I might remember Gilman street either decided on what bands aren't allowed to play based on popularity or if they were on a record label... Though that could have just been a rumor. If someone reading this could correct me, I'd appreciate that.
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
Still jamming to Jawbreaker and Jets on the regular!
What a nice surprise!
Always will Love jawbreaker! Amazing video!
Wasn’t J Church the postscript to Cringer?
Yes!
I absolutely love J Church! Top stuff!
I would love to see a J Church video
@@hobokoala2623I saw them live in a small bar in Liverpool in the 90s. Insanely good concert.
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!
Love Jawbreaker.
Minor errata: it's New York University
Is this a re-upload or have you just talked at length about Jawbreaker in other videos @_@;
They are in one of the emo ones.
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 🤘
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.
24 hour revenge therapy…used to listen w my little sister… died of a heroin OD a year or so ago.
❤
Dear You is their best album. There, I said it.
I can’t stand elitist hipsters who have no appreciation for song craft or technique. Punk is all just posturing and costuming to them. I’m glad Jawbreaker evolved, that’s what real artists do.
All this “punk” attitudes of banning “sellout” bands etc. is absolutely ridiculous. Like they don’t pay taxes or buy food at the supermarket. They’re part of the CAPITALIST MACHINE anyway. So this attitude of “we’re better than you cause we stick to being poor and angry though we don’t do anything to change it” is so childish and absurd to me.
Jawbreaker should’ve had the right to become big and do whatever they wanted without all that BS. Green Day and Nirvana did it, good for them.
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 discovered jawbreaker by lucero’s cover of kiss the bottle.
Outstanding. My favorite jawbreaker album is all of them
I have 24 hour revenge therapy and etc on vinyl I love both of them hopefully I can get dear you on vinyl
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.
Jawbreaker Dear You, Sponge Rotting Piñata and Catherine Sorry. Three of the era’s greatest albums.
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.
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
Absolutely well spoken doc. Blake Schwarzenbach's lyricism is Absolutely timeless and is absolutely amazing.
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
18:42 the Wipers were from Portland, OR
I’ve just been on a jawbreaker kick and this comes out lol
Albini hoped for Jawbox, got Jawbreaker, and that's just the way she goes.
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.
to anyone watching this,,,,the older the Fidler the sweeter the tune...dont give up.
Forget the hype, if you don't love jawbreaker check your pulse
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.
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
16:07 Never thought I'd say this, but the Ablini version is better. Anyway, I don't understand how I lived in San Francisco when these guys lived there and NEVER heard of them. And I spent a lot of my time going to every gig of every tiny band, also had a job putting up fliers for a tiny club where unknown punk bands played (The Covered Wagon)
This took me back.
Today, I felt something.
Thank you!
I fucking love this band.
I moved to a different part of the country in my freshman year of high school, and met new punk friends. I remember one of my new friends told me he wrote Jawbreaker a letter and him showing me the handwritten postcard Blake wrote him in return with some buttons and patches he sent thanking him for liking Dear You. Didn't seem like a sellout thing to me at the time. Combine that with never seeing them get any radio/MTV play nor have any of the punk-adjacent kids at school give any shits at all about Jawbreaker (much less the poser/mainstream cool kids), it seemed to me the whole sellout thing was way, way overblown.
Nothing to do with selling out, Dear You is vastly inferior to their previous records
Whenever I think of Dear You I hear the lyric about sticking a fork in a salad and then groan.
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.
as a my chem and overall music nerd, i love to talk about jawbreaker because in addition to being a great band in their own right, their fingerprints are all over my chem. in give em' hell kid, they lifted half a chorus from fireman directly, and frank quoted that same lyric later in his solo career. they also lyric check save your generation in party poison and the black parade was produced by rob cavallo, largely because he did dear you
Frank also has Jinx Removing tattooed on the side of his neck
What about Sunny Day Real Estate
The bass player works at the Thurston County Food Bank that my Team has worked at several times, it was years later I found out who he was.
Had an instant bootleg of their first EP shortly after limited release & it was strikingly different. I do recall other bands aping them immediately w/o any natural finesse, honour or sensibility. That had to be extremely frustrating for them as sonic pioneers
I love your videos I would love to see some videos about artists and bands from my country Mexico there are many interesting bands.