Sat 19 Jan 2008
Everybody has that band, that special, special, band that summed up their adolescence, their angst, their heartbreaks. Some of you may think, for me, that would be Skiploader, the Portland based indie band I pursued with origami, or maybe you’re remembering when Courtney and I gave the lead singer of Guttermouth a ring to give to his girlfriend back home (he gave us tickets to his next show, backstage access, and beer in return). ‘Wait,’ some of you are saying, ‘weren’t you into really weird bands, like Big Daddy Meatstraw? Karen Black? Didn’t you see Tribe 8 before you really knew who they were?’ (Yes, and Lynn Breedlove really did perform shirtless, wearing a strap-on dildo). But none of those bands compare to The One:
Jawbreaker.
I love Jawbreaker. I was very lucky the first time my high school boyfriend leaned over and flicked on his cd player for some make out music, (specifically the terrifyingly sexy “Want” off of their first album, Unfun). Perhaps because of the make out association, the music of Blake Schawrzenbach became the narrative of my youth. It could have been anything, I suppose, Metallica, Sonic Youth, (Pearl Jam, according to Josh’s recollection of early make out music), but the language of Jawbreaker was so heartbreakingly well written that it stuck.
I had never been a ‘lyrics’ kind of person, preferring the poppy sounds of Erasure and Pet Shop Boys for their dancibility and maybe a little practical REM from time to time. With the introduction of a bad boy in my life, my music shifted specifically to his taste. Suddenly NOFX (which I embarrassingly pronounced Noff-ix), Bad Religion, and Screeching Weasel blared out of my station wagon. My bf moved to Japan for a stint in the navy and I was left with nothing but a bunch of cds; my loneliness made me reach for reminiscent music and the impact of Jawbreaker began. What better music to listen to on a rainy northwest afternoon wearing long underwear, doc martins, and a sundress? Jawbreaker remains the only band that I truly love inside and out to this day. From the popular “You’re not punk/and I’m telling everyone/save your breath/I never was one” to the obscure and painful “Beneath the neon sky/ Our moonlight/ Six a.m. the floor comes alive with lice/ The pan’s dried up so tight/ With hardened beans/ We’re hungry/ So I lean on you sometimes/ Just to see you’re still there/ Your feet can’t take the weight of one/ Much less two/ We hit concrete.”
I used to have every single song on every single Jawbreaker album memorized. Each song had special meaning to me, a special inner-narration, a deep reflection on my life at the time. I listened to Jawbreaker on the bus, on the train ride from Seattle to Portland, at home while wallowing in self-pity. It’s as if Blake Schwarzenbach reached inside and rewrote my inner brain dialog better then I could write it myself. I also thought it was incredibly sexy that he had a degree in Creative Writing. I actually found a guy in the English department who I dubbed the “Sensitive 70’s Shirt Wearing Guy” and lusted after him in a way a girl can only lust after a Creative Writing major. (He must be so in touch with his feelings! He must be so tortured and in need of my help! He must write in a journal! Every night!) I saw Jawbreaker twice in concert: once in 1995 (they opened for the brand new Foo Fighters) and again in 1996 (after Dear You, their major label release). The second time I was so distraught in my personal life that I cried during the entire concert.
So obsessed with this band, I would write down the lyrics to certain songs (Chesterfield King) and create crude illustrations for them, (later publishing them in my zine “Well, I Swan”). 
If MySpace had been around or any sort of social networking device I’m sure I would have been all over Jawbreaker’s page. So impressed was I by the idea of a man being able to capture his feelings in such gorgeous text that I shared his music with anyone who would listen (when Courtney had her car broken into the first thing she told me was, “they even stole all my Jawbreaker cds”). I may have succeeded in getting the attention of the lead singer of Skiploader but I was never bold enough to even write a letter to my favorite song writer.
I thought my love for Jawbreaker was because I really loved Blake , (my high school boyfriend said his friend, Christina, claimed to love Blake so much she wanted to ‘marry him,’ a sentiment that I realized I shared and jealousy recall saying, ‘well, I want to marry him too’), but I could never get into his second band, Jets to Brazil. As much as I wanted to love this band, I found it lacking. Perhaps, like myself, Blake had grown from the angsty, heart-wrenching, writer to a more grounded individual…by the time Jets came around I was no longer a pioneering, single, twenty-something living in the U District on $500 a month. My high school boyfriend was long gone, having abandon me for hard drugs in 96,’ and subsequent guys couldn’t really match those feelings.
Sure, the lyrics of heartbreak, betrayal, and tragedy still helped narrate the harrowing events of my early 20’s. But as those difficult times dissipated, my clinging dependency on this band softened, and when they quit in 1996 I barely noticed. Sure, I still dragged out the old albums from time to time. Recently, I sat in front of Wikipedia and thought, “What is one my favorite things?” I pulled out an old favorite: Jawbreaker. I looked them up, reading anything I could find about the band, and found a picture of the lead singer. Oh my gosh! He’s aged! (All that sexy emo smoking) I found a link to a tribute album that came out in 2003 and purchased it off of Amazon. I’ve been driving all over Seattle with this cd in my car, listening to all of these classic Jawbreaker songs sung by other bands. “None of these other singers have the heart,” I thought to myself, “They can’t be TRUE fans, listen to how badly they’re singing ‘Boxcar.’” The remixed version of ‘Want’ is so terrible I have to skip it every time it plays. I went home and pulled out the originals, playing them, writing about them…(maybe channeled my high school boyfriend a tiny bit). Back then I didn’t have a real job, stayed out until 4am, and entertained dangerous men. Life was so exciting back then!
“I love you more/then I ever loved/anyone before/and anyone to come/someone said your name/I thought of you alone/I was just the same/twenty blocks away.”