Coalesce, looking so reunited.

Get this: after years of obsessing over their two classic albums of brain-shredding heavy music, dealing with their subsequent break-up, and having their new album of brutal genius bestowed upon me last year, I finally get to let those motherfuckers in the band Coalesce blow my mind live and in person. Needless to say, I’m stoked to be seeing—for the first fucking time—one of my all time favorite heavy bands since my teen years this Saturday at Slim’s. The upcoming show brings a thought to mind: Coalesce is just one of many ’90s-born bands that have recently convened its disparate parts to reunite, and, for lack of a better word, capitalize on the element of nostalgia that so many music lovers (read: people) quite easily succumb to.

Sunny Day Real Estate, looking so early-’90s.

In the past months, the bands Far, Sunny Day Real Estate, and The Get Up Kids, to name a few, have all settled whatever differences there were, and hit the touring circuit to cash in on the elderly (read: 30+) and the young folks, not unlike myself, who hunger for another taste of what they once loved. Now, before I get to my shit talking, I’ll say this: I saw Far twice—once in Sacramento and once in SF—and SDRE the one night they played The Fillmore. I did not see The Get Up Kids, but I probably would have were I suffering from a severely monstrous surplus of money. However, I draw the line here: Cap’n Jazz.

Cap’n Jazz, looking so seminal.

You may be saying, “What the H, Patric? Aren’t you one of those dudes that does that emo thing at Pop’s? Aren’t you more or less required by scene law to attend the reunion of the harbingers of the now-dead genre you propagate on a monthly basis? What the H gives?!”

And you’d be right, but then I’d say, “Well, dude, here’s the thing. I grew up listening to those other bands, waiting for their new albums to come out, wishing my parents would let me go see them play live, and bumming out super hard when I found out I missed my chance because they’d broken up. Sunny Day Real Estate and The Get Up Kids were fucking huge when they were around, and any self-respecting kid in the scene would’ve given their coolest pin and a super-rare colored-vinyl 7” to go see them perform. But guess what, you never even heard of Cap’n Jazz until at least three years after they stopped being a band that no one cared about, unless you went to highschool in the fucking greater Chicago area in the early-’90s, and you probably wouldn’t have ever had the chance to hear their songs if the members hadn’t gone on to immediately join two legitimate bands that people did actually care about.”

At this point, I’d take a sip of a beer (though not PBR, sorry), then continue, “By the way, those guys were fucking children when they made that band. Do really expect a bunch of cynical dudes who are revered by many to be ‘gods’ of whatever they do, and have aged nearly 20 years since they started the band, to still have the same naive angst and frustration they did when they were teenage virgins? That was what made their music actually worthwhile! Not to mention, have you seen the clips of them on YouTube? They were terrible live! Any band nowadays trying to pull that shit at Bimbo’s on a Friday night would get the shit beat out of them. Or at least booed offstage.”

After a brief pause—allowing my words a chance to sink in—I’d conclude my long-winded diatribe, “And don’t you remember Owls? That fucking band was labeled as a goddamn ‘reforming’ of Cap’n Jazz too, but at least they wrote new fucking songs! Now, those guys are just being lazy, and ripping off your 20 bucks for some rehashed shit I’d just as soon listen to every third Tuesday of the month at Pop’s.” (<— so legit)

You may then respond, saying, “Well, shit, Patric. I see what you’re saying, but I got this extra ticket that I can’t seem to pawn off. You still wanna come with me?”

To which I would say, “Oh. Yeah. Totally, man.”