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Jawbreaker was a San Francisco Punk band with roots in Los Angeles , where members Blake Schwarzenbach and Adam Pfahler were students at Crossroads High School together, and New York City where Schwarzenbach and Pfahler met bass player Chris Bauermeister at New York University in 1988. The band's DIY, self management style became a model frequently used and cited by other bands, including Screeching Weasel. STYLE The band's music is characterized by raw vocals, a driving rhythm section, and grinding guitar--a palette used by many punk bands--but also features complex song structure, melody, instrumental interludes, and obscure sampled recordings. Jawbreaker's lyrics, written largely by Schwarzenbach, are imbued with a literary drunk's melancholy along the lines of early Charles Bukowski and late Anne Sexton fusing personal longing and love-sickness with animistic fetishization of objects both public (boats and boxcars) and private (books and bottles). Lyrics for "First Step", an outtake from the ''24 Hour Revenge Therapy'' sessions, are a good example:
Other songs reflect on post-college depression, social criticism, and youthful aspiration, and embody much of the same style. ''UNFUN'' Jawbreaker's first LP was recorded in Venice, California , and released in 1990; it is a combination of slightly poppy punk and grating hardcore. The album has been characterized as a pop-punk album with bite, a description that fails to account for the subtle poetic/artistic nature of Jawbreaker's early work. Unlike what is described today as "pop-punk", '' Unfun '' had a sad darkness to it and a maturity with literary aspirations. In "Busy", Schwarzenbach sings: ''"When nothing seems to be quite worth it and sleep becomes your only sure thing/I'm here to help you out of it/Come and see me for a lift"''. ''BIVOUAC'' Jawbreaker went on hiatus from late 1990 to early 1991, while members of the band finished college. Upon reforming, they relocated to cover), it also had lush dark songs featuring instrumental breakdowns and an infusion of call-and-response interplay among the instruments. Almost a period piece, the instrumentation and record quality has the watermark of late '80s/early '90s indie music. Largely, this was a very ambitious recording and writing effort for the band and, according to critics, was too early in their career and largely fell short of its ambitions. ''24 HOUR REVENGE THERAPY'' After touring relentlessly, ''. This album was largely heralded as their masterpiece and defining moment; crowning achievement. The songs capture a range of emotions and experiences (particularly depression), into short song capsules that was largely relatable to their high school and college-aged fanbase. ''DEAR YOU'' Jawbreaker signed with Geffen Records and worked with producer Rob Cavallo , who had received success producing Green Day 's breakthrough album '' Dookie ''. '' Dear You '' was a stark departure in that Blake's singing and the guitar sound were cleaner; the album had been given a "radio-friendly" polish which their previous albums lacked. This seemed to be the final straw for many fans, who felt the band had betrayed them. Adam and Blake had also both talked extensively about the benefits of self-managing their band and how major labels spelled financial death for many bands, particularly in the Maximum Rock and Roll major labels issue. These well-publicized stances made for the signing to Geffen Records quite shocking to many fans, who felt a certain ownership of a band who had released their albums up until that point on labels based out of bedrooms. Blake has stated that this album kept the band alive, as they were on the verge of breaking up after ''24 Hour Revenge Therapy''. Despite a vigorous marketing push by Geffen, album sales were anemic in the wake of a post-Green Day market, and failed to come close to those of their previous albums. However, the album was a critical success, bringing Jawbreaker's artistic maturity to a new audience. In 2004, the members of the group reacquired the rights to ''Dear You'' and successfully put the long out-of-print album back into circulation, with additional tracks including a more polished version of "Boxcar", their only music video ("Fireman"), and updated liner notes that include a picture of Kurt Cobain wearing a Jawbreaker t-shirt. Their hit "Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault" was released posthumously on EA Sports video game NCAA Football 06 After ''Dear You'' was released in September 1995, the band soldiered on for another year before calling it quits. One of their last tours was opening for the Foo Fighters including a San Francisco show contained on the posthumous release; ''Live 4/30/96''. The LP version of the live album was a mailorder only offer limited to a few hundred copies from Allied Records. CULT STATUS The band's cult status as the definitive nineties post-"'' was released on Dying Wish Records , and featured covers by 18 bands including Fall Out Boy , Nerf Herder , Sparta and Face To Face . Another tribute album, ''So Much for Letting Go'', was released on Coptercrash Records. Also, a character in the punk rock Webcomic '' Nothing Nice To Say '' continually refers to Jawbreaker as one of his favorite bands. An east coast band, Jawfaker, formed in 2006 with the purpose of performing Jawbreaker songs live. Author Dave Roche frequently cites Jawbreaker as one of his favorite bands. POST-JAWBREAKER Singer Blake Schwarzenbach went on to form the New York City-based band Jets To Brazil , which has since broken up. Between bands, he found work as a freelance writer, even writing a few game reviews for GameSpot . He is now an adjunct English professor at Hunter College in New York City . Drummer Adam Pfahler lives in San Francisco and currently runs Lost Weekend Video and Blackball Records , which primarily keeps the Jawbreaker catalog in print. He has played drums in Bay Area pop punk band J Church and played in Whysall Lane with Richard Baluyut, the lead singer for Versus . Bassist Chris Bauermeister briefly played with Horace Pinker while he was working on a doctorate degree in History at Purdue. He has since moved to the state of Washington and plays bass for a band called Shorebirds with singer/guitarist Matt Cannino from the band Latterman . TRIVIA The voice-over on the song "Condition Oakland" from "24 Hour Revenge Therapy" is from Jack Kerouac 's book "Lonesome Traveller," in a passage entitled "The Railroad Earth". It begins with: "...everything is pouring in, the switching moves of boxcars in that little alley..." The voice-over on the song "Jet Black" from " Dear You " is spoken by Christopher Walken , from the movie " Annie Hall ", and begins with: "I tell you this because, as an artist, I think you'll understand {Link without Title} Sometimes when I'm driving..." DISCOGRAPHY Albums
EPs / 7 inches / splits
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