Joe's weekly reflections on the greatest teenage rock 'n' roll cover
band to ever come out of Rockledge, PA in the mid-'00s, covered on the blog one song at a time.
"Cute Without the 'E' (Cut from the Team)"
originally by Taking Back Sunday
Here's what this song and this video feel like to me: a celebration.
It's just another song played by just another side project of just another garage rock band made up of just a few other nondescript teenage boys who are base-level competent enough to play those instruments, and the fact that we're watching it now is more coincidence that the bassist's dad had a digital camera and the motivation to use it than any proof that this is worthy of any sort of local teen garage rock cover band canon.
And yet: here, witness four close friends, bashing away at the third-wave emo du jour of that time period, kinda killing it (from my unavoidably subjective viewpoint), just having a great-ass time up there on the Church Hall stage. Yes, okay, the moment in the song that I consider its best ("you're such a sucker / you're such a ...ssssssucker") is missed, and those backing mics don't do Kev's sharp backing vocals justice (this is one of those songs that the second vocal part is pretty essential), and Dave is still ensconced in shadow, and not front and center in the spotlight like he should be for Pearl and the Redeemer's final (video recorded) song. The joy still radiates throughout.
I personally feel a kinship with this song, because it represents a step in my own personal music journey. Not drumming (which is fine here), but more so listening to and appreciating music. A tale as old as time: at first, I was dismissive, because I was a self-centered teenager. But gradually, I got older, and learned to appreciate that which I had previously dismissed. I chalked Taking Back Sunday up as a "dumb emo band" in high school, but by the summer after graduation, and by the time we played their best song one last time, it was one of my favorite songs of all time. It's like when they say to smile if you're sad, and how the muscle movement in making yourself smile can literally make you happy. I smiled, I played the drums for "Cute Without the 'E'" countless times, and eventually, I became happy.
I can only speak for myself, though. This was pretty standard shit for my three pals who are up there. Just last night, I was hanging with Dave and with Kev at the local Fort Washington bar, along with some other pals who were absolutely in the crowd that night in August 2007. Dave was back from his sojourn on the open sea. As soon as he touched land on Monday, I emailed him about Pearl and the Redeemers. I'll get him to write something eventually, but I think the main takeaway from his was: holy shit, I can't believe these videos still exist. They do! We are watching them right now!
It's just another song played by just another side project of just another garage rock band made up of just a few other nondescript teenage boys who are base-level competent enough to play those instruments, and the fact that we're watching it now is more coincidence that the bassist's dad had a digital camera and the motivation to use it than any proof that this is worthy of any sort of local teen garage rock cover band canon.
And yet: here, witness four close friends, bashing away at the third-wave emo du jour of that time period, kinda killing it (from my unavoidably subjective viewpoint), just having a great-ass time up there on the Church Hall stage. Yes, okay, the moment in the song that I consider its best ("you're such a sucker / you're such a ...ssssssucker") is missed, and those backing mics don't do Kev's sharp backing vocals justice (this is one of those songs that the second vocal part is pretty essential), and Dave is still ensconced in shadow, and not front and center in the spotlight like he should be for Pearl and the Redeemer's final (video recorded) song. The joy still radiates throughout.
I personally feel a kinship with this song, because it represents a step in my own personal music journey. Not drumming (which is fine here), but more so listening to and appreciating music. A tale as old as time: at first, I was dismissive, because I was a self-centered teenager. But gradually, I got older, and learned to appreciate that which I had previously dismissed. I chalked Taking Back Sunday up as a "dumb emo band" in high school, but by the summer after graduation, and by the time we played their best song one last time, it was one of my favorite songs of all time. It's like when they say to smile if you're sad, and how the muscle movement in making yourself smile can literally make you happy. I smiled, I played the drums for "Cute Without the 'E'" countless times, and eventually, I became happy.
I can only speak for myself, though. This was pretty standard shit for my three pals who are up there. Just last night, I was hanging with Dave and with Kev at the local Fort Washington bar, along with some other pals who were absolutely in the crowd that night in August 2007. Dave was back from his sojourn on the open sea. As soon as he touched land on Monday, I emailed him about Pearl and the Redeemers. I'll get him to write something eventually, but I think the main takeaway from his was: holy shit, I can't believe these videos still exist. They do! We are watching them right now!
I like the idea of spending a lot of time examining the same night over and over for months (Nick cracked wise last night when I told him there were at least two months of Burholme Tapes left—"two months of this shit?!"), and yet it's important to remember that it was just a moment in time. No different than any other night that summer, and no different than any other summer night in the seventeen years since. In one sense a chapter was ending, but it's hard to think that way when I'm still meeting up with the same goddamn people when I'm 35 years old and we're making the same inside jokes and still shooting the shit on a random-ass Tuesday night. Dave broke up with his ex-girlfriend two weeks after the Burholme concert, he told me last night. So that means she was there! I don't even remember her name! Just a fucking night in the bucket, man.
And yet: again, witness these four lads, having the time of their lives, just living it up on that stage. It wasn't that important, not in the scope of a full life already lived and hopefully decades more to go. But it felt important at the time, and because there was a video camera, we get to witness what the idea of "importance" looks like to a bunch of fucking eighteen-year-olds in real time. I think it's okay to celebrate that.
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