1848 - demo + self titled 7"

Ok, another post about old Seattle emo.

I started going to shows at places other than teen centers (Ground Zero, Old Fire House) and rock clubs (RCKNDY, Auburn's Best) around 1997. One of the first that I went to was the Velvet Elvis, which was a collectively-run performance space in Pioneer Square. There was also Framework Productions, which put on shows at various art galleries and community centers. And of course, there was also shows at houses. Around 1997 and 98 is when I started to get really into hardcore, which thrived in Seattle at these non-traditional spaces, and it was in these environments that I started to get exposed to artists that approached their music from different paradigms and pushed the boundaries and limits of what was acceptable in art.
I became less and less interested in punk and rock music, and I became enraptured by two different paths - harsh noise, grind, and powerviolence on one side, and emo on the other. The former of these felt like an expression of cynicism and cathartic destruction - negative and brutal music that wholly rejected any appeals to mainstream standards and decency. The latter often expressed an outlook that engaged the audience like an academic lecture (for better or worse), either by confronting a specific issue, or by turning a critical eye to how we engage in the world as individuals or a community. This kind of approach is more akin to the (admittedly cliche) feminist credo of "the personal is political," which challenges us to demonstrate in our personal lives a microcosm of our hopes and desires for what we want to see in the broader world.

1848 is my friend and old roommate Matt's band, and it squarely fits into the aforementioned definition of "emo", with the band consisting of principled activists and anarchists who both worked on large-scale causes like the efforts to shutdown the WTO in 99' as well as bringing radical theories into their daily lives (veganism, polyamory, communal living, etc). They handed out photocopied lyric/song explanation sheets to their shows to help ensure that their music wasn't just passive entertainment, which kids like me would take home, read, and put up on their wall. It was bands like this that politically challenged me far more than bands like the Dead Kennedys - I was encouraged to not just have opinions about the world, but to actively and intentionally live out my beliefs and ideals with how I interact with myself, others, and the world at large.
I'm crossing my fingers that I might start seeing bands approach music in a similar way again. We're due for another Revolution Summer, for sure.



download!