Cap’n Jazz — Analphabetapolothology

2 × Vinyl, LP, Compilation, Reissue

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.