In 1998, after releasing EndSerenading - arguably the most influential emo album after Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary - Mineral, that favorite Texas-based band of my youth, broke up. To say that I was crestfallen would be the understatement of my adolescence.Ever fortune's fool, Chris Simpson then started his own side project, and oh, was it glorious. ...That is, it was The Gloria Record. TGR kept the dissonant sounding vocals that made Mineral a standout amongst shoegaze followers, but - with the help of Saddle Creek producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley) - incorporated a light-electronica feel that elevated Simpson's lyricism to prophetic diction, as illustrated in songs such as "A Lull in Traffic" where he cautions:
[You] don't want to find yourself alone at thirty-five /
Spending half what you make on your car (and hating that drive).
But listening to them after attending Sunny Day Real Estate's reunion show last week draws an immediate parallel and finds a direct influence. Both feature singers with off-key vocals and a penchant for heightened observational reflection, each was instrumental in establishing the genre, and all of their albums have songs featuring an array of moods varying from brooding to transcendent. But in 1994 - as Mineral/TGR's inception was still a year or so in the making - the formulas and now ubiquitous stylistic conventions associated with "emo" were directly traced to SDRE, giving them the awkward position of being one of the genre's "pioneers."
After last week's show, it's hard to argue that as anything but fact. Jeremy Egnik still sings with a post-grunge feel of the changing scene of mid-90s Seattle, and bringing the original members into the mix made this comeback appearance all the more special. Remaining shows are tomorrow night in Spokane (Knitting Factory) and their homecoming appearance Friday night in Seattle (Paramount Theater).
[You] don't want to find yourself alone at thirty-five /
Spending half what you make on your car (and hating that drive).
But listening to them after attending Sunny Day Real Estate's reunion show last week draws an immediate parallel and finds a direct influence. Both feature singers with off-key vocals and a penchant for heightened observational reflection, each was instrumental in establishing the genre, and all of their albums have songs featuring an array of moods varying from brooding to transcendent. But in 1994 - as Mineral/TGR's inception was still a year or so in the making - the formulas and now ubiquitous stylistic conventions associated with "emo" were directly traced to SDRE, giving them the awkward position of being one of the genre's "pioneers."After last week's show, it's hard to argue that as anything but fact. Jeremy Egnik still sings with a post-grunge feel of the changing scene of mid-90s Seattle, and bringing the original members into the mix made this comeback appearance all the more special. Remaining shows are tomorrow night in Spokane (Knitting Factory) and their homecoming appearance Friday night in Seattle (Paramount Theater).
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