Emo Night Is Okay (I Promise)
Emo Night Is Okay (I Promise)
I went to the only emo night I ever enjoyed, and it was in my living room. Also, I'm still trying to be less of an insufferable snob.
Finally, an emo night from the comfort of home. If you drink every time I write the word “emo” in this blog, you will die.
Honestly, I’ve only ever been to one official “emo night,” and I didn’t really like it. I didn’t have anything against emo nights or anything, it’s just that every night when I have a couple beers and access to an aux cable becomes emo night. So you don’t need to buy the cow when you get the milk for free, you know?
It was last year at Kung Fu Necktie here in Philly. I went with a few friends and (stupidly) expected to hear plenty of Saves the Day, Jimmy Eat World, Get Up Kids, etc. I figured I’d also hear quite a few things from all the bands that people would think of when you say “emo night”—your MCR’s, your TBS’s, what have you—and even some capital P Pop Punk bands that get lumped in—your Green Days, your Sum 41s, your Blink 182s, etc.
Anyway, what I, a learned scholar of emo music (read: asshole), didn’t expect was to not know like 75 fuckin percent of the songs. To me, it was all those bands with the hair and exclamation points in their names that I skipped when I’d go to Warped Tour as a teenager (I was seeing bands with much more prestige, like *checks notes* Less than Jake).
They also always play that HORRIBLE Say Anything song that’s ostensibly about Max Bemis’s grandparents falling in love and being together during the Holocaust, but the first line is “When I see you / Wanna do you right where you’re standing.” Like what the FUCK dude. Maybe my relationship with my grandparents was different (I’m Catholic), but when they were alive I tried not to think too much about their hypothetical youthful lust, much less use that to set the stage for a story of them surviving the most horrific tragedy of the last century. When you think of your grandparents suffering through the concentration camp and only having each other, why is that where you go? When your grandparents told you about it, was that really your primary takeaway? “Oh yeah they wanted to FUCK dude.” Why is that song so fucking popular? I know it has that “Last Night” rhythm that everyone went nuts for in the 00s but I just CANNOT get over that line and I never will.
Sorry, back to that emo night at Kung Fu Necktie: I felt like I was on the outside of the subculture I had spent so much time digging myself into as a kid. But I felt better that it wasn’t my fault, it was everyone else’s fault for not actually knowing emo music well enough to play it or get mad at the fact they weren’t playing it. I was immediately that 14 year old trying to explain why Hawthorne Heights is actually quite bad and why Jimmy Eat World is ever so much better.
I didn’t have that much fun. But other people did! But I don’t care about them. They were having fun to the wrong songs, and therefore their fun didn’t count.
But last night I got to go to an emo night that actually seemed appealing. I could keep on my basketball shorts, I could drink my own beer in the fridge (or my own water from the tap). My cat was there. I didn’t have to feel awkward by dancing or feel awkward by not dancing.
It was mostly appealing because I trusted the DJ’s.
I’ve been reading Ian Cohen’s writing all over the place for a while now (including this definitive ranking of emo songs, which he contributed to). Mostly he’s been the guy who’s made me feel better about my own taste when he gives a pop punk or emo band a good review on Pitchfork.
He and cohosts Arielle Gordon (the night’s first DJ with a very on-brand Hot Topic Zoom background) and Keegan Bradford tweeted about their virtual emo night. Gordon and Bradford have also been champions of emo in print. And with the promise of real music, I tuned in. Didn’t have anywhere else to go, after all.
When I hopped on around 10 a few people had their webcams on (I was not among them), and “Shoulder to the Wheel” (on a lot of days, my favorite Saves the Day song) was playing, followed by Thursday’s “Cross Out the Eyes”
So, I was in the right place.
Side note, it was a little weird just seeing a bunch of people with their webcams on looking at it like they’re following along with a powerpoint presentation for an online class. Like, in a lot of ways it was worse than being at a too-crowded bar drinking too-expensive beer drinking a too-poppy song that I don’t know, or worse, don’t like. Maybe turn your webcam off if you’re just gonna sit there, man. But also that’s kind of a stereotypical emo kid thing to do maybe?
I skimmed it for a few minutes just to in the off chance that anyone I knew was in there, the same as I would at a bar. Not sure what I’d do if I did see someone. Someone used the name Topher Grace, and I wondered if it actually was him. Who knows? Maybe Topher Grace is super into Braid. That’d be cool.
Anywho, they played “Emergency” by Paramore during this thing and I liked that. I didn’t really know that song too well, since I for some reason felt the need to keep the fact that I liked some of the very popular Paramore songs of the early 00s quiet for a while in my asshole teen years.
I checked in on the thread, and someone else noticed its rarity, too.
“I feel like every emo night I’ve been to plays every major Paramore single other than this one. I love it .”
Look at this! Playing things other than the big hits!
Bradford, the second DJ, played mostly midwest revival emo and bands from Asia. He played this song by this band Falls from Japan and it was really good. Cohen started his set with Dogleg’s “Kawasaki Backflip.” Following him on Twitter, this didn’t shock me a lot. That album crushes and it’s getting much-deserved hype.
While I sat there listening from the comfort of my couch, I was thinking a lot about this particular brand of emo’s place in the world right now, and how I still have a lot of my bad judgmental tendencies.
I also thought about how 2004 was 16 years ago. That’s fucking insane. “Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge” can drive this year, and thanks to changes in laws right now it doesn’t even have to take its driving exam. Its parents can just say it’s good enough at driving and let it loose on the road.
Anyway, back to my little analysis of emo in 2020. Is it still within the mainstream? Is it a thing of the past that people like me are holding onto? Is it still fashionable at all, or is it wholly lame? There are still incredible bands carrying the torch (which Cohen focused his whole time to ), but does something like emo night relegate it to “nostalgia genre” status?
And that made me think about the way we talk about it, or whether it’s worth this much intellectual thought and mental energy. For a lot of people emo was silly from the start. A fun, “spooky” outfit to try on. For a lot of people it was the most important music of all time. For me, it depends. I’ll stand there and argue the importance of The Promise Ring and how American Football’s new albums are still sick and not boring and how “Bleed American” is a perfect album, but I’ll also kind of chuckle when I hear something by All American Rejects or something. And, wow—*lightbulb*—the fact that it’s still popular but not the main popular music genre in America anymore is probably why emo nights exist.
Yes. I came to that realization all by myself. (Brendan, you asshole.)
It’s almost like emo had momentarily breached mainstream culture, ebbed in popularity, and then a dedicated audience kept paying attention as very good bands and very good labels put out very good music, just to less fanfare and fewer bands bastardizing the sound for the sake of fashion. And because of that, it still has a place within culture, and people want to listen to it at bars, but playing The Used every single night at a normal bar probably wouldn’t work from an economic standpoint. But, obviously, there’s still enough of an audience that bars still host emo nights (well, they did, when we were allowed outside), and this virtual emo night hit capacity on Zoom.
And, for my own self-reflection, I think what I’ve also settled on is that even though I thought I had outgrown all of my youthful insecurities, I didn’t. I came into this thinking, Oh, finally, an emo night with good taste. I wasn’t wrong, but that’s still an asshole elitist thing to still think.
It’s OK to acknowledge when something has a hook that just won’t quit, but that it’s not gonna be in any music history books. Nor is it always worth debate. Sometimes fun is just fun. Jokes stop being funny when you describe why they’re funny. I came into this experience ready to listen to “good” stuff, and as the night went I realized that I’m still just doing the same stupid shit that I did in middle school and high school, like not saying I liked bands like Paramore or MCR. Just shut up and have fun sometimes.
Certain people will be historians bout things and trace the waves of emo and the geographic strains of it, and that’s great. I’ll do that with you. And sometimes it’s fun to just listen to “I’m Not Okay (I Promise)” because it still rips, then go about your day and pay your bills on time.
I was wrong to cast so much judgment at Kung Fu Necktie that night. It’s all just a bunch of millennials who probably work 9-5 jobs just like me, looking to blow off a little steam on a Friday night. Is that such a crime? Why should I make it some personal affront to me that they’re enjoying the songs they loved during their formative years with friends, or feel the need to tear it down with some upturned-nose comment about how Yellowcard isn’t as good as Cursive? The answer is: I don’t. That’s what assholes do. And I was being an asshole.
And part of growing up is realizing that. I don’t have to be mad whenever Pitchfork doesn’t give an album I really liked a good score, or even review them at all. There’s a time to talk about the importance of Cap’n Jazz and hold this music to a high cultural esteem worthy of discourse. And there’s a time to get drunk (or not, you do you) with your friends and just listen to “Cute Without the E” and drop your guard for a fuckin minute.
But you could give me another two decades of looking inward and self discovery and analysis of my own insecurities and one thing won’t change:
That Say Anything song is the fucking worst. Thank god they didn’t play it.
Today’s Snakes and Sparklers musical guest is I’m Glad It’s You