Nobody Writes About: Bridges Fell

Seriously, I can't even find a picture. One of the only working links Google's able to provide me leads to this playlist at mixtape collective, which quips -- probably accurately -- that Google has more information about the playlist's creator than it does about Bridges Fell. This, then, is me jumping to take advantage of an excitingly rare opportunity: to remind the Internet of something that it used to know (bridgesfell.com used to exist), but has long since forgotten.

Formed at the University of Rhode Island just before the turn of the century, Bridges Fell was, for a short while and at least in my own estimation, a phenomenon. In fact, it's not an exaggeration to state that hearing them make the impossible leap from late-night local music showcase to daytime rotation at 95.5 WBRU with "Little Leah" was the reason I became interested in working at said station in the first place, and the reason I spent so much of my time in that city championing The Ocean State's local talent (and why I still do...cough, cough).

The first time I saw Bridges Fell play, it was on a giant stage in front of the Providence Place Mall, in an opening slot at a free outdoor concert headlined by Guster. They'd already been receiving some radio play, and although it was a decidedly Guster crowd, many of the local fans were familiar enough with the hometown heroes to pay attention. Those that did, I imagine, were all as impressed as I was by the 5 not-even-21-year-olds from URI exhibiting an impressive display of poise, talent, and style on what surely was the biggest stage they'd ever played at the time.

The man behind the whole deal was a URI student and RI native named Andrew Mook, a soft-spoken and gracious young songwriter with great melodic and dynamic instincts, and a real nose for like-minded, super-talented bandmates. I had a chance to meet him a few times in my local music role at BRU, and always ended our meetings musing to myself about how much more together he was than most "national" artists I came across. He just came off as a really nice, genuine guy.

When all was said and done, Bridges Fell gave us two good records -- Without A Call and Innocence Again -- and then they just sorta disappeared. The writing had been on the wall, I guess. There were rumors of label interest and band member cold feet. As together as Andrew was, his lineup kept changing, the way the lineup of a band made up of college students is wont to do, but the purity of the whole thing seemed diminished with every new iteration*. In the end, everybody involved just appeared to let it go. One of the saddest radio shows I ever did was the one during which Andrew came by to officially announce the end of Bridges Fell. I think I have that on tape somewhere.

As stated above, there's not much to be found anymore on the Web about Bridges Fell, but Andrew's not hard to find at all. He now directs an alternative service called "Sanctuary" at a church in Rhode Island, and keeps a blog. The blog has a few links to other musical projects Andrew's been involved in, and one Bridges Fell song streams on one of his myspace pages ("Against the Wall" here), although there's no direct mention of the project.

Perhaps Mr. Mook would rather not relive the past. I don't especially blame him, if that's the case. But I can't be the only one out there that still puts on my Bridges Fell records once in a while, I can't be the only one that types the name into Google once in a while, and is disappointed in the lack of results.

So...there. There's this now.

* I don't say this from the standpoint of an early fan that bemoans every change a band makes. It just seemed to be a very palpable change in stage chemistry. The twinkle, I guess, just sorta went away. When a band has some success, and then some members leave, it's tough to find new members that don't expect something more than just being in a band that's pretty good. I guess. I don't really feel like fleshing this out further. That's why it's a footnote.

Nobody Writes About: Shootyz Groove

Brilliant sticker placement in High Fidelity* reminded me last night of a band that I haven't spent much time thinking about since high school. Like pretty much everyone that went to high school in Connecticut in the mid-late 90's, I had a brief and ill-advised love affair with rap rock at that time: my beloved Rage Against the Machine provided a gateway into winding, seemingly never-ending couloirs stacked high with ill-advised guitar/emcee combinations. Still, not all of it was bad, and there are a few bands that I still remember fondly, when I have occasion to remember.

Shootyz Groove had one semi-national semi-hit in the summer of '99 (I remember this because it was played on at least 3 different radio stations as I made my way up the Taconic State Parkway to Woodstock '99, a shitshow if there ever was one), but I knew and loved them prior to their short-lived radio fame because of an opening slot they tore apart at the Webster Theater in Hartford before 2 Skinnee J's, a band I'll continue to defend as long as I shall live.

High Definition (purchased at the show) was...fine. Okay, at the time I thought it was amazing. Not all of it sounds good still, but the aforementioned hit (download it or watch the video below) still sounds as good as it ever did, the live cut "Faithful" continues to satisfy, and when album opener "Mad For It" fades in, I'm taken right back to driving around town in the first car I ever owned, playing music louder than I ever could anywhere else. What a feeling.

But Shootyz Groove was a better band to see live than their records let on. I've seen a lot of bands since then, but they still have a special place in my heart as one of the greatest opening acts I've ever seen. Ironically, on the day that I decided to write about them, I checked around the web for them (figuring they'd long since broken up) to find they were playing the Highline Ballroom AS I WAS TYPING ABOUT THEM. I'm buried too deeply in Brooklyn to have been able to make it, but believe me when I tell you that I would've jumped right on a train if I'd had a chance to catch them.

So not only are they still together and performing occasionally (spent the summer on the road with 311, hitting The Living Room in Providence soon), they're putting out a new record, One, this year. I'd be lying if I said I expected to be blown away based on what I've streamed at their site, but I'd also be lying if I said I wasn't still going to check it out anyway.

If there's even a shred of fondness for well-done rap rock left behind the hardened indie rock husk in which you currently dwell, check out what Shootyz Groove has been up to at shootyzgroove.com, or at myspace.com/shootyzgroove.

Shootyz Groove - L Train (video below)



* The "WHAT FUCKING IAN GUY!?!?" scene: Rob goes into his back office and closes the door behind him so Marie DeSalle (Lisa Bonet) doesn't hear him flip out, and there's a Shootyz Groove sticker behind him on the right. I used to have the same sticker on my first car.

Nobody Writes About: Third Eye Blind

It should be noted before I even get started that after I decided to write this piece, someone at Blender did in fact write about 3eb (disappointing knee-jerk backlash here). So I figured I'd wait a few days, and then have a go at it anyway.


Maybe it's just because I was on the downhill side of high school and had a car for the first time in my life. But I consider the summer of 1997, when "Semi-Charmed Life" hit the radio, to be the high water mark of the 1990's oft-bemoaned brand of pop-friendly rock and roll.

The music business was good in 1997. People still listened to the radio. CDs were still selling (Third Eye Blind's self-titled debut has sold 6 million records worldwide). Although the mp3 was already beginning to rear its shadowy head, an iron grip on distribution would continue to make insane amounts of money for the majors for years to come.

Third Eye Blind was able to sign to a major label (Elektra, now defunct) and maintain more than a modicum of artistic freedom: "Semi-Charmed Life," of course, is quite explicitly about meth and blowjobs. That dirty, dirty, disgusting, dirty little song (as Stephan Jenkins has introduced it in the past) blew the doors open for 5 top-notch singles from the band's debut to soundtrack the summer of '97.

4 more singles would be released from 3eb's follow-up Blue, to no shortage of toe-tapping (especially to "Never Let You Go") but to slumping album sales. Many hardcore fans (and the band had many) were alienated at the very ugly dismissal of lead guitarist (and prominent second songwriter) Kevin Cadogan almost immediately after the record release. In all fairness, 2 million (which Blue sold) is hardly a small number, and almost any band that sold 6 million units of its debut will resignedly tell you it's all downhill from there.

The song "Slow Motion" appeared on the record only as an instrumental; apparently "artistic freedom" has its bounds and songs about gunshot wounds and heroin cross a line songs about blowjobs and meth do not.

(Here's a completely random video of Panic! at the Disco performing a cover of "Slow Motion" (lyrics intact) to an audience that's was probably in diapers when Blue was released. Watch it if you aren't familiar with the lyrics that accompanied the instrumental version that ended up on the album.)


Elektra was imploding by the time Stephan Jenkins & Co. began work on Out of the Vein. 2 singles were released, and I'll not-so-guiltily admit I think "Blinded" is among the best 3eb's ever done. In fact, although I remember being unimpressed at the time, listening to that record now is a good reminder of how far pop-friendly rock has fallen: 3eb's least-liked effort blows contemporary counterpart pop-chart rockers out of the water (I'm looking at you, Linkin Park). Regardless, hardly any promotion was done, practically nobody bought the record, and although they continue to tour to this day, 3eb has all but disappeared from the public's eye.

That hasn't stopped them from working on new material, and an album tentatively titled The Hideous Strength may be released this year:

"I think this album is going to be more political, but there's nothing worse than a political song," Jenkins says. "Over the last few years, I realized I've been personally so oppressed by government and the way so many people in our country have been silenced and duped. It's had a personal effect on me and I had to write about it."

In 2003 to promote a Third Eye Blind concert WBRU was holding and the impending release of Out of the Vein, I interviewed Stephan Jenkins on air 3 times. Some things I remember:

• The man is huge. In person he looks a lot more like a Heisman Trophy candidate than a musician.
  
• He came into the studio for our first meeting with a few records he was into at the time that he wanted to play. I can't remember all of them, but they included the first record from The Streets, and a Cat Power record. Another DJ who happened to wander into the studio saw the Cat Power CD in his hand and asked him "Are you in Cat Power?" He was gracious about it.
• Towards the end of the first interview, a girl called the station saying that she was the hugest fan and asking if he would wait for her to get there so he could get a picture with him. He seemed a bit put off, but obliged.
• Being a big fan myself, I insisted on playing "Tattoo of the Sun," the b-side to "Semi-Charmed Life." He told the story of a meeting in which he was trying to get signed by his first manager. He played "Tattoo of the Sun" acoustically, and the guy started crying. That story may have been embellished.
• There was nothing remarkable about the 2nd interview. It happened on the phone and I don't remember any of it, other than that he asked me to play a song from his record other than the single, and I didn't have anything but the single.
  
• The third interview happened in the band's hospitality trailer behind the stage for the outdoor concert. That remains the only time I've ever been into one of those trailers and I remember the decor in the kitchen was a little outdated.
• The best way I can explain the dynamic shift was that now I was on his turf, backstage before his show, but it wasn't anywhere close to as warm and personal an interview as the first one. Maybe we'd just run out of things to say to each other. I couldn't wait for it to be over because I couldn't shake the feeling that I was wasting his time.
  
• He told me in that interview that 3eb was only playing the show because they liked us, and that there was no way our station could really afford to pay them their going rate. That happened on air and at the time it felt a bit dickish. Other people at the station were much angrier than I was about it.
• The show was, unsurprisingly, pretty good.
  

[myspace.com/thirdeyeblind]
[Third Eye Blind @ Wikipedia]

Nobody Writes About: Saves the Day

I've been thinking a lot lately about the vast landscape of bands that remains largely uncharted by the music blahgosphere. I've been thinking that something should be done. And so I humbly introduce to you a new feature on wealsoran.com. "Nobody Writes About:" will cover bands that...nobody seems to write about. It will be updated only as regularly as I feel like updating it, and the entries will be sparsely researched and fueled almost entirely by arrogant conjecture. Hope you like.


The evolution of a cultural phenomenon is a funny thing. Emo, like a snowball rolling down the side of a scowling, guyliner'd mountain, has ballooned into much more than a musical genre. It's an exclamation, it's the butt of jokes, it's an identity. The way things are going, by this time next year it may evolve into an election-year stump issue. But it started with the music.

If you've ever wondered how we got from the relative obscurity of Rites of Spring* to the ubiquity of Fall Out Boy and cautionary news segments, part of the answer is Princeton, NJ's Saves the Day. And the pinnacle of Saves the Day's output to date is unquestionably their 2001 release Stay What You Are, recorded not long after the band members had graduated high school.

As far as emo goes, Stay What You Are has it all. I'll-gloat-when-you-die songs, I-am-powerless-against-you songs, fast songs, slow songs, bloody metaphors, whiny vocals. Not to mention the fact that "At Your Funeral" might be the greatest opening track to ever appear on an pop-punk-emo record:


Taken out of historical context, Stay What You Are plays like a more enjoyable version of the same old same old. But the context here matters. In 2001, everyone wasn't doing this yet. Saves the Day paved the road down which countless emo copycats would carry the torch. And whether you think that's a blessing or a blight on the world of music, you gotta admit it's worth mentioning.

[savestheday.com]
[myspace.com/savestheday] (Download "At Your Funeral" there.)

Note: The only constant member of Saves the Day throughout their career (which is now approaching a decade long) is singer Chris Conley. The picture at the top is the current lineup, not the lineup responsible for Stay What You Are.


* Probably not an official site