I never got to see Jawbreaker live. Always bums me out when I think about that. I heard the singer/guitarist Blake had a new band and we're playing their debut gig in NYC so I purchased a train ticket and headed east. The new band #jetstobrazil sounded amazing and pretty much where his old band had left off. Not long after the show the band released this debut in 1998.
While I've always absolutely hated this fucking album cover and "orange rhyming dictionary " is such a forced wordsmith title, the actual music it contains is really great. Plenty of guitar hooks and a rock solid rhythm section. It's the sort of album that pundits would refer to as "mature" coming from the band's punk roots. Dashes of accent keyboards precede the instruments more central role on the band's later releases, but here it is still regulated to flavoring the songs rather than carrying them.
I got to see this band again on this tour cycle as the played Discovery Records in a suburb of Buffalo. I had brought a demo cd of the band I played in and wanted to give it to Blake. I didn't want to give it to him with any motives of "helping my band" I just wanted him to hear some music that his work helped inspire. Pay it back sort of thing. I mean if he wrote me and said he loved it I would have been super into that, but honestly I just wanted him to have it. Even if he never listened to it I got to stammer a quick "thanks for all your inspiration" and know he received the cd because I handed it to him. I do wonder if he ever popped it into a player, or if it got trampled in their van. The secret life of that cd.
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