Gem
Hexed
1995, Restless Records
Happy September, folks.
August will probably always be a slow month on this site. I write everyday, but in the drag days of late summer in Texas, my brain takes a vacation. I won’t repeat my rant from the beginning of my Jill Cunniff piece from last year, but I always spend the 100-plus degree days of August annoyed at everything. I make notes and write fragments for new articles for this site, but in my cranky, sweatball state they rarely feel like anything worth pursuing. If this was my job, I could work my way through this misery, sure, but this is not my job, so I can say “fuck it” with impunity and just not update for a few weeks.
Now, it’s mid-September and it’s still fucking hot (Texas), but the nights are getting more pleasant. The supermarkets have Halloween displays up. Changes are happening, however slowly. The leaves here haven’t yet changed color, but as the world around me slides back into routine, I feel myself receiving good energy again.
What I’m trying to say is that I’m in the mood for some for some killer back-to-school rock and Gem’s shotgun blast of a debut album nails it. Maybe none of these guys had been in school for awhile when they made it. Maybe main songwriter Doug Gillard had been in bands for about fifteen years at this point. Nevertheless, they still kicked up the kind of blare and had the kind of songs that, in a better world, would have shouted out of high school parking lots in 1995.
From the cynical, misfit kids, at least. The kind of kids who could hear a song like “Your Heroes Hate You” and it just confirmed what they suspected about the world already.