Tonight: Destroy Yr Sweater (With Some Emo Tributes)

Okay, y’all. So anybody who’s read this here site for more than a few days knows that I (meaning Jeremy) loves me some emo. The second-wave, post-hardcore emo surge hit just as I was nearing the end of college, playing in a band, and writing a lot of ultra-depressed/bitter songs with plenty of distortion and a fair amount of yelling. (One of our past drummers actually emailed me a few years ago to ask, “Uh, were we emo?”)

Bands like Mineral and Braid and Jimmy Eat World and The Promise Ring and Jawbreaker pretty much defined my love of music for the decade that followed, right up into the mid-2000s. It was like an addiction, where I was constantly searching for the new best-ever fix of loud, raw guitars, melodic vocals, and melancholy lyrics, trying to find that sound that would perfectly mirror the way I felt.

Obviously, life moves on, and I fell in love again — for real, this time — then got married to the love of my life, changed jobs a couple of times, and then became a dad. I don’t have much to be unhappy or bitter about, at this point in my life, y’know? I probably couldn’t write a depressive song if I tried, these days.

Still, there’s a bright, warm spot in my heart for all that emo I loved in that crucial period in my life. I still listen to a lot of that stuff, and I love it. Anybody who hates on it can get fucked. I cringe when I hear people refer to more contemporary, guyliner-wearing alt-metal dudes as “emo”. Like the video man says, it’s still real to me, dammit.

Which is why I dig stuff like the crop of “emo nights” that’ve popped up around the country these past few years. A cool group of folks called the Houligan Collective have established one right here in H-town, the monthly Saves The Tuesday, which I’ve been meaning to check out for a while now.

Tonight, though, they’ve got something else going on, called Destroy My Sweater: A Night of Emo Tributes. It’s a bunch of excellent locals playing covers as classic emo bands, which I happen to think is pretty awesome.

Badass post-emo dudes {Valens} plays as The Get Up Kids, cool outfit {The Medicine Years} plays as Saves The Day, and local Weezer tribute supergroup Weezhur plays as, well, Weezer (and okay, so I’m not sure I’d call Weezer “classic emo,” but hey). There’re a few other names I don’t recognize, like Color Tonite Red, who are playing as Taking Back Sunday and Brand New, and Last 2 Weeks, who are playing as The Movielife (a wholly underrated band, btw).

The whole thing happens at the Satellite Bar on Harrisburg, and it’s $10, which ain’t bad. Stop by, listen to some awesome back-in-the-day tunes, and remember to look jaded but sensitive. Let’s do this, y’all.