Prompt: "The song you think of when you hear the word 'emo'"
Selected by Allison
"A Drug Called Tradition"
The Progress
The Progress EP, 2003
The Progress was a local band made up of Cherry Hill High School East students. The bass player, lead guitarist, and drummer were seniors when I was a freshman, and the other guitar player was in my grade. They performed at the 2003 Battle of the Bands, and I was low-key smitten. I couldn't find a video of their performance (or the results, I don't think they won). I did, however, find a video from the same Battle of the Bands of Cristin Milioti (THE Mother from HIMYM) singing "Heartbreaker." Looking back, I think she won. This has nothing to do with the Progress; it's just another high-school name-drop.
I snagged their CD after the show. I don't remember how much I paid, but I remember being incredibly awkward about purchasing one. Ignore the fact that Eric and I had a class together, and Evan was in the boys' a cappella group Casual Harmony. My fellow students were now transformed into indie emo icons, and I was not worthy. This song made it onto MANY mixtapes/CDs in the following years. I can imagine it sandwiched between "Passenger Seat" by Death Cab for Cutie and "Belgium" by Bowling for Soup on a disk titled ~*So you can sleep and have beautiful dreams*~. It's a great line.
I was pleasantly surprised to find them on Spotify a few months ago when I was wallowing in nostalgia. I was equally unsurprised to read they broke up in 2008. I also found an article about bass player and lead singer Evan Weiss, who went on to lead the "emo revival," according to Vice. I haven't heard any of his other projects. I guess I'm a Progress purist.
No comments:
Post a Comment