If you know The Promise Ring, then you know that it was Davey von Bohlen’s side project from Cap’n Jazz, and that it got much more popular than the original band, and it put the pop back into the overwrought emo scene. And it felt like a breath of fresh air.

But this isn’t about The Promise Ring. This is about Cap’n Jazz. Though really it’s about Jason Gnewikow — the man who gave Jade Tree Records such a unified look, who designed some of the best album covers from this era, who mixed retro and modern, tying great typography and art design magazine layouts together in a way that doesn’t look dated, like so many of that era’s art design magazines now look.

He did all of the The Promise Ring full lengths you love and the Joan of Arc that everyone remembers and, of course, the first Jets to Brazil. When New End Original put out their first EP you could see his mark. When that Counting Crows best-of album was released you were surprised to find something familiar about it. It was Gnewikow. He was suddenly mainstream, if only for a second.

In a genre that could get messy and mathy, Gnewikow’s album covers gave us something interesting to decipher. The chaos of Analphabetapolothology is perfectly represented in its multi-colored text; its impossible to read layout. Very Emergency promised goofy fun. This Afternoon’s Malady was jangly ferns and late afternoon tea. Electric Pink was pure pop, just as Wood/Water was a muddy, impossible mess.

Gnewikow’s art defined a subset of emo aesthetic that was able to weather the storm to come. When emo became over-commercialized and insincere, we still had Gnewikow. We still had the music; the art over emotion; the fun, the clinging-to-art-school fun. There was the music, and then there was the man who helped people visualize it. Covers filled with squares for squares who loved art but couldn’t be bothered to take it seriously. Give him an art installation, already — I’ll be first in line.

Cap’n Jazz — Analphabetapolothology was originally published in Kallax 365 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

A remora is a suckerfish, and the myth was always that they would stop a ship from sailing — in Latin, “remora” is translated to “delay.” But the real interesting thing is that it always looks like it’s swimming upside down.

Part of it is because fish are naturally bilateral, and that makes it less of a stretch to think of it as biradial — not just side-to-side, but up-and-down. The weird jaw doesn’t help, either. It’s equipped with that upside down smile our grandfathers give us when they are trying not to laugh.

Most of it, though, is because they often are upside down. They’re attached to the bottom of a boat, or to a fish, and they trail along, sucking nutrients off of their host while their host looks for a way to casually suggest that the party is over and it’s time to go home because the remora drank all of the beer.

I don’t know why By the Grace of God named their best song “Remora,” and finding a lyric sheet seems to be impossible. All I know is that the lives of most punk rock bands two decades down the line have been dragged down to the bottom, delayed from being more than what they were, halted before they reach their stride. By the Grace of God wasn’t that — they were a Louisville supergroup that was put together for fun and fun alone. That they took this fun so seriously (in their own words, “By the Grace of God is not a joke project, it is a serious band”) and produced a handful of the greatest hardcore music of the mid 90s is a testament to what a great crew and scene can create.

But it never lasts. The remora — be it real life or jobs or moving friends — latches on and pulls every band down, until all we can do is give up, move on to something else, and keep the good times locked inside, learning a bit more about how to stay away from that sucker fish and make it work better the next time.

By the Grace of God — For the Love of Indie Rock was originally published in Kallax 365 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It was 2005 when Bad Religion’s Greg Graffin put out a folk record, and so that means it was 2005 when I finally asked why the hell all of my punk heroes were slowly turning into Kris Kristofferson.

Let me preface this: I didn’t mind. Avail’s Tim Berry and Hot Water Music’s Chuck Ragan had already made the splash, and their records were soon to be released, not counting that amazing Rumbleseat discography. Graffin himself had put his first solo acoustic record out in 1997, when I was still fresh from graduating high school, when I wasn’t aware punk could cross waves with anything, to be honest.

It all makes sense. It’s the music of southern punk — acoustic beer drinking music for dudes who like to fish, but also like to get loud in shitty Floridian bars. It was bound to happen.

And then it started happening in Sioux Falls. The punk kids I grew up with all picked up their acoustic guitars and their Townes Van Zandt and now, suddenly, the city is lousy with talented folk singers and it’s the good punk bands who are impossible to find. It’s a far cry from the late 90s, when even the shittiest punk bands were tapped to open for Napalm Death at the Pomp Room.

It’s great. I love it. I think it’s fitting that everyone grew old. But, still: when did all the punk get so old?

It’s a silly question, because it didn’t. It stayed where it was. Where it belonged. And we slowly shifted toward something else.

I figured this out a few months back, when I saw my friends and contemporaries settling down for a punker-gone-folk show recently, and the grey hairs started showing and the “we’ve got kids” curfews were set up and we all sat down and relaxed. Life changed. Punk got old. And we’re not weirdly co-opting folk and country — we’ve just finally learned how to grow into it, because while punk got old, we got older.

Smarter. Better.

Burlap Wolf King — “You Can’t Be A Byrd If You Can’t Fly” / Ryan Kickland — “The Valley” was originally published in Kallax 365 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The bizzaro version of me is probably going to vote for Donald Trump because the bizzaro version of me doesn’t like Donald Trump … but understands his platform is necessary for the future of the Republican party.

So I don’t pity or stand outraged or shake my head in disbelief when my family refuses to admit they’re voting for them (when, of course, they’re totally voting for them). It’s embarrassing and it should be embarrassing. But I get it. I understand the thinking. The process. The fright in seeing your chances for a candidate up in smoke before anything even starts.

This is me in reverse — backing up and figuring out the reasoning behind the craziness, because, despite their political leanings, I love and cherish the few friends and family members I have who are totally voting for Trump (or are so totally against Clinton that they feel they have to vote for Trump), or are so defeated by the entire cycle that they’re not even going to vote at all. I love them and cherish them and I don’t pity them and I don’t have any outrage.

Because me in reverse understands. And me in normal speed, looking forward at a strong candidate, one who is more than qualified to lead the nation, also understands, because if the tables were turned and my liberal candidate was a mess and embarrassing but could promise four more years of social acceptance and Supreme Court stability … I’d definitely be doing the same thing.

See, I know there is nothing I can say that will change their minds. And I get that, because there’s nothing anyone could say to change mine. That’s the crux of the discussion — we argue and we push but those of us on the decided sides are just trying to smash up concrete with a plastic hammer.

So, instead, me in reverse thinks about both sides and empathizes. Wishes no ill will. And is secretly relieved that my candidate is the one that’s way ahead.

Built to Spill — You In Reverse was originally published in Kallax 365 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Isaac was just three when we went to a TJ Maxx and he tried to run away. He didn’t run far, but he hid as well as he could, ducking behind aisle displays and eluding my sight. He was upset as any three-year-old can be, assuming I’m there to levy vengeance, to bring the hammer down.

He was angry at me, in as much as anger can lead to hiding can lead to running away inside a building where short people can be easily lost within racks and racks of discount clothing, and I couldn’t find him.

And I freaked out.

And I know it’s because I’m a caring father. And I know it’s because I can’t imagine life without him, and I need him safe, and I know he doesn’t even know what he doesn’t know, and he needs to be by me.

Because he’s my son, and because he’s a part of me and I’m a part of him and he’s one of the few things I’ve pledged my life to protect.

So.

#

As a kid, my mom was horrified that I might be kidnapped. I couldn’t leave the block. I wasn’t a reckless kid traipsing through the neighborhood; instead, I was the kid who spent too long being naive about what happens outside of Central Sioux Falls.

I don’t blame her for this, because I, too, grew up in the chaos of the 80s. I grew up in the People Magazine and “hey we have cable!” proto-tabloid era of fear, where a single instance made a epidemic. Today’s overprotective parents are a result of those times. We grew up assuming something horrible was going to happen and we have never shaken that feeling.

Eventually, I grew up and I left and I looked back and wondered why I never pushed harder. Why I never

But I’m not sure I ever would. Because I was scared of being kidnapped too. This was the 80s, after all.

And then there was Jacob.

#

For the past week, I’ve read a couple of stories a day about Jacob Wetterling. It’s a name I’ve known for as long as I have known names: a ghost from my childhood, when my parents would watch the evening news as anchors breathlessly reported updates on people and situations that seemed more like characters. Oliver North. Kirk Gibson. Ted Bundy. The Exxon Valdez.

Jacob Wetterling.

Jacob Wetterling was abducted on October 22nd, 1989, and it was instantly both personal and local. He was a kid, and he was from just a few hours away in Minnesota. He was a kid from the midwest who was kidnapped and that made every kid — and every parent — from the midwest afraid of the unknown.

We all held out hope, because to root for Jacob — that he was alive, somewhere, confused, hiding, soon to be released, soon to be discovered and saved — was to believe that we, ourselves, if something so horrific happened to us, would be discovered and saved, because this kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen in our small rural communities.

And so I grew up with Jacob Wetterling’s story. For a year, I remember it being on the news all the time. Then every few months. Then, the name faded away, until it was mentioned, and everything flooded back.

We nodded in approval as a bill in his name was passed that required each state to register sexual offenders in a public place. We shook our heads as his mother, Patty Wetterling, one of the most sympathetic figures ever created, managed to lose two Congress races. We held hope in 2010 when a farm was torn up to find his remains, ultimately failing.

And we held our breath a few weeks ago. When it was floated that he was found. When his abductor was given a name.

And now. We can’t do anything. It’s over, I guess.

#

Jacob was born in 1978, just like me.

He was a white male. He rode bikes. He had friends. These are vague, but they aren’t trivial. He was a kid, just like I was.

He was was a kid when he was abducted. He was a kid when he was shot twice in the head after being sexually assaulted. He was a kid when he died. He died two days before I turned 11, and he never stopped being a kid, and I grew up.

He never had that chance.

#

There’s something empty about this, and that’s the most heartbreaking part. The case is solved and everyone has closure and, still. It was the worst possible ending. We pretend to be okay with things. We pretend that at least *we know* and we pretend that that’s okay and…

And, jesus, it’s not okay. This isn’t closure, in the way that finding out your spouse cheated on you isn’t closure, in the way that knowing that, yes, learning the cancer is inoperable isn’t closure, in the way that having the worst happen to you is never closure.

In the way that, after the news has passed, after we’ve taken account of reality and logged it away, after we’ve decided that life is going to continue — during that short time before it’s okay to acknowledge the horror — and we stick our hands in our pockets and we look around, sheepishly, and say to ourselves …

…So.

Now what.

Because nothing has changed. We’re still afraid for our lives, afraid for our children, afraid for those we love. Because life will always be filled with the kind of people who don’t care, because they don’t have the love that we hope everyone will have, and there are a million reasons that they don’t have that love, and all of them are valid reasons for feeling upset and vulnerable, to be honest.

Because evil will always be there and kindness doesn’t fix every wound and Jacob Wetterling was found but he was dead.

We held hope. We turned on our porch lights. We honor his memory from here on to eternity. But he was found dead. And there’s no time, there’s no made for TV movie, there’s nothing that will restore the innocence. The innocence of the past few decades. When we fooled ourselves into thinking he was okay.

When we still thought life wasn’t cruel enough to cut this deep into our hearts.

When we still had the hope of Jacob being alive. When we still could be kids, running around at night. Flush with discovery and freedom. Pushing the limits with only ourselves to blame, unconscious of the fact that the world is chaos and we need apprehension to save us, and even then it might not be enough.

We still have to be scared. And that sucks.

So.

Built to Spill — Untethered Moon was originally published in Kallax 365 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you haven’t been camping in Yellowstone, or if you haven’t spent the night at an acreage a few miles out of town, or if you haven’t lived in a place where cities are still barely a notion — where the mountains keep the Targets at bay and the farms space everyone out enough that it’s a mile walk from mailbox to mailbox — then you probably haven’t really seen the moon.

You’ve seen the moon on its own, sure. It’s bright enough to get through the hazy glow of town lights. It’s always first on the call list. But you’ve never seen it with its friends. With the stars you know, yeah, but also with the stars you don’t know. The ones that hide behind Orion’s belt. The ones that fill in the Big Dipper.

You’ve never seen the Milky Way — a faint cloud of millions — and you’ve never struggled to count, because counting is impossible when everything you see can be counted.

This isn’t a mushy rumination on the power of the sky or the beauty of outer space. It’s just a reminder that getting out of town is amazing, and seeing the stars is amazing, and it’s not hard to do. At all. You just need to look up when everything else seems distant and dark.

Built to Spill — Ultimate Alternative Wavers was originally published in Kallax 365 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My first car was a 1969 Volkswagen Beetle. It was gold, except for the front driver side fender, which was primer black, which I never knew was a color, to be honest.

It was small. It was an automatic stick shift — an experiment in the late 60s from Volkswagen called Autostick that allowed you to manually shift an automatic transmission through an electric clutch. It required a quart of oil every few weeks. The gas gauge was broken, so I began filling the tank up every Friday just to keep ahead of it.

It smelled like gas, and when it didn’t, it smelled like crayons. The defroster was fueled by the heat of the engine block, and so during times of freezing rain I could barely keep up. It was always cold.

I drove that car for about six months — from the fall of 1996 through the spring of 1997, my senior year of high school. I installed a tape deck three years after tape decks ceased to be a thing you install in a vehicle, and I plastered it with enough stickers to make the back window nearly impossible to see through, and I marveled in its puttering, in its ability to turn sharp corners, in the very idea that I could be transported on my own, with my own car, on my own accord, to wherever I want without any ties.

I was late to cars, and that was my first, and one day it stopped working. I figured things out. I had it towed back to my house, where it sat forever, or so it felt, unable to move me.

It was the worst car I ever owned, looking back at it. It was frustrating and impossible. It was often broken. I had it a much shorter amount of time than my memory holds on to, its legend as my FIRST and a VOLKSWAGEN and a BEETLE and insanely cheap and weird and noticeable lived on long after it was serviceable.

I hated it. And I loved it. And that’s what cars are. Frustrating. Impossible. Memorable. And remembered long after they’re gone.

Built to Spill — There’s Nothing Wrong With Love was originally published in Kallax 365 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At my first communications related job — a copywriter position at a local advertising agency — I was introduced to the concept of an unused plan. This is commonplace, the agency owner told me — a group, like ourselves, comes in and makes recommendations for the year’s marketing, or the organization’s branding. And a client, like the one we were talking about at that time, would take the plan, thank us for our time, and place it in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet.

We’d keep moving forward, and the plan would keep coming up again. They’d ask for detailed tools, and we’d do our best within the plan that we had tried to implement. And, finally, they’d move on, ask another advertising agency to come up with another plan, and that would end up in the bottom drawer of another filing cabinet.

The plan means nothing. It stays the same. It’s not a way to improve communication — instead, it’s a way to vet the new advertising agency, to see if they’re paying attention. There is never any real intent to follow the plan.

The plan means nothing. It stays the same. Except for one thing: following plans is hard. Very hard.

For example, here’s the plan for this project: one record a day, one post a day, for 365 days.

And here’s the reality: I went on vacation. For 10 days. And never wrote a post.

For the first few days, the plan keeps coming up again. I fret and worry that I haven’t written my words. That I’ve let the project down. That the five people who subscribe to this Medium publication are going to GIVE UP and GO AWAY.

And then, I put the plan in the bottom of a filing cabinet. Because discarding the plan doesn’t mean I’m not aware of the plan. It doesn’t mean I’m ignoring the plan. It just means that I know the plan is … fluid. That a plan is just that: a plan for a perfect execution. Which never happens.

It needs amendments. It needs to allow for life.

And so I took a break. And now I’m back. But the remedy cannot be found, ’cause it’s so well hidden. So I’m sure I’ll lapse. Won’t stop me from finishing the project, but it might make things bumpy along the way.

Built to Spill — Keep It Like A Secret was originally published in Kallax 365 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The greatest hits album is nearly dead, thanks to “top listened to tracks” lists on Spotify and the click-bait nature of listicles. Now, if you want to learn about an artist through their biggest hits, like, say, I dunno, U2 … you go online and search “top u2 songs” and you get a playlist and a Pitchfork article and an old blog post from 2005 still hosted on Blogger.

You don’t need the greatest hits album, anymore.

It’s dead.

Funny I mention Pitchfork — they just wrote about the dying art of the greatest hits album a few months ago. Funny, also, that I scoffed, because I was raised a little differently: the entry point for an artist isn’t their greatest hits, but their live albums. If you want to know what their fans love, what their newest album sounds like, and what they enjoy playing and releasing, the live album is where it’s at.

My first exposure to Rush was with Chronicles, their two-disc greatest hits album, but I didn’t like them until I heard Exit … Stage Left, which grabs a few hits and mixes them in with a few album cuts. For the fans. When I was a dumb kid that liked dumb music, I still chose live over all: my favorite Poison and Van Halen and Ozzy Osbourne and even one of my favorite Metallica records were all live albums. Later on, Death to the Pixies’ live bonus disc taught me more about the Pixies than the greatest hits disc, while Live Rust taught me about Neil Young.

My first Built to Spill record was Live. It taught me everything I needed to know about Built to Spill. Their jams. Their Neil Young cosplay. Their complete shift from early 90s short noise to mid 90s space jamming. I fell in love because they had a little of everything. Because they played what should be boring indie dude jam rock and made it sound electric and fun.

Yeah, the greatest hits collection is slowly fading away. That’s good, if you ask me — it used to be that we fell in love with bands because they opened for someone we knew on a weird tour, or because we wandered into a show we weren’t supposed to be at. And they wouldn’t play their greatest hits.

They’d play what they loved. They’d play what they could make magic. They’d do it live, damn it, and they’d leave the singles for some other time.

Built to Spill — Live was originally published in Kallax 365 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

When I’m sick, I have dreams of the impossible.

I’m in a factory and I’m tasked with building an enormous steam-powered machine with no directions. And no time. I’m lost. I’m scared. I’m exhausted before I begin.

The first time I read the lyrics to “Randy Describes Eternity,” it gave me a bit of a jolt. It was my fever-dream nightmare. It was an unbearable task, enough to give me shakes. It was, as labeled, a description of eternity.

Every thousand years
This metal sphere
Ten times the size of Jupiter
Floats just a few yards past the earth

You climb on your roof
And take a swipe at it
With a single feather
Hit it once every thousand years

’til you’ve worn it down
To the size of a pea

Yeah I’d say that’s a long time
But it’s only half a blink
In the place you’re gonna be

I don’t know eternity might feel like. I feel like it might be worse than death; the concept of never moving forward, only existing, only serving one single purpose, never to shift toward the etherial, no longer feeling the necessary pain and sadness and change that make the high points so high.

In my dream, I never make an attempt to start fitting that machine together. I just give up. I always wake as if I’ve forgotten something. As if I’ve failed.

And I shake it off. And I shake. And eternity shows up again in my dreams, because I am still sick, because I haven’t gotten that fear out of my head. Because I still can’t explain eternity as well as Randy.

Built To Spill — Perfect From Now On was originally published in Kallax 365 on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.