This is the website of Joey Arak.

The season finale of the New York Knicks’ ‘07-’08 season, and thereby the season finale of my 20 or so pairs of tickets, was most notable for the free food and drinks for the crowd during the entire game. Needless to say, it was an absolute madhouse. It was as if a season’s worth of frustration was being vented through the acquisition of as much free junk food as possible. The hungry fans especially wanted their pizzas, damn it, causing the pizzaiuoli to rush their delicate craft. This is what my last MSG pizza of the NBA season (probably my 15th overall) looked like. And you know what? It was absolutely delicious. The pizza may have mirrored the entire Knicks season—soft around the edges, a little rotten at the core and hard to swallow—but it was free, and free is yummy. Thanks, Knicks, for an entertaining season of blowout losses, half-hearted efforts, European tourist-loaded crowds, D-level celebrity sightings and one free pizza. Section 402, Row A, Seats 1-2—I’ll miss you.

EARLIER FAST-FOOD PIZZA COVERAGE: War of the Worlds: The Subway Pizza [ja.com]

My 5 favorite quotes/sentences from the AP’s account of last night’s Toronto Raptors-Miami Heat game, in which the Heat scored 54 points (the third-lowest total in the shot clock era) and lost by 42:

5) “The Raptors would have won by four points even if they didn’t score in the second half, but that didn’t mean Bosh felt bad for the lowly Heat. ‘You don’t get anywhere in this world by having sympathy, especially not in the NBA,’ Bosh said.”

4) “Miami is without guard Marcus Banks (right hamstring), forward Udonis Haslem (left ankle), forward Alexander Johnson (right knee), Alonzo Mourning (right knee), guard Dwayne Wade (left knee) and forward Dorell Wright (left knee).”

3) Pat Riley, legendary head coach and motivational author: “Every time a shot rimmed out, we got more and more frustrated. Like the good team they are, they had no mercy, they just put us away. We’ll have our day again. I don’t know when, but we will have our day again.”

2) “It was a tough night for Heat rookie Daequan Cook, who scored eight points on 3-for-19 shooting.”

1) Pat Riley, legendary head coach and motivational author: “I feel real bad for (the players) that they couldn’t make a few shots and just get out of the record books but that’s the way it goes.”

Eighteen paragraphs in:

Lovell was last in the news in 1998, when Ol’ Dirty Bastard, the late rapper, helped lift a car off his daughter, Maati, after an auto accident.

This guy needs a book deal and a movie-of-the-week stat!

BANK: TAKE THE $$ [NYPost]

Artist: Joan of Arc
Song: “Post Coitus Rock”

What, I was going to end this little nostalgia trip without another Tim Kinsella video? Of course not. Immediately after falling in love with Cap’n Jazz in 1998, I began seeking out the members’ new projects. I went to Uncle Sam’s, one of the few indie record stores in South Florida at the time, and bought Joan of Arc’s How Memory Works. Joan of Arc had C’nJ singer Tim Kinsella (who apparently learned how to play guitar—barely—in his off time between bands) leading the way and his brother Mike (the cute Kinsella bro) on drums. How Memory Works had just come out, and it was the band’s second album. I rocked it so hard that first day that I immediately ordered JoA’s debut, A Portable Model Of, from Jade Tree later that night.

What didn’t I love about Joan of Arc? The sound was way more arty than the Promise Ring, therefore making me feel cool that I “got it.” The lyrics were oh so emo, right in my tortured-teenage-boy wheelhouse of the time. The band’s initials were my initials. It was a match made in heaven, and I pretty much dedicated my life to all things Kinsella, even driving up to see Joan of Arc play in Orlando and Gainesville. There’s a picture of Tim and I posing together floating around this apartment somewhere. I stuck around through five albums and a handful of more live shows, but then Joan of Arc got too weird, then too prolific, then too on-again off-again. Tim Kinsella’s music was always love-it-or-hate-it, and in the end we agreed to break up but remain friends. Unfortunately, there’s not much by way of live videos from the band’s Golden Era on YouTube, but it doesn’t get much more appropriate than the band playing the legendary Fireside Bowl in Chicago in 1997, pretty much ground zero for everything I loved from 1998-2000. And with that, I’m still waiting for my goddamn T-shirt.

An Emo Video Every Day This Week: Day 1 [ja.com]
An Emo Video Every Day This Week: Day 2 [ja.com]
An Emo Video Every Day This Week: Day 3 [ja.com]
An Emo Video Every Day This Week: Day 4 [ja.com]

Artist: The Promise Ring
Song: “A Picture Postcard”

In the way-too-long Cap’n Jazz post, I mentioned the C’nJ guitarist who harbored his own frontman desires and who had a more pop sensibility. That dude was Davey von Bohlen, who formed the Promise Ring after the break-up of Cap’n Jazz. For some reason, I could never get into the Promise Ring with the same passion and fervor I had for Cap’n Jazz, or Tim Kinsella’s follow-up band Joan of Arc. But the Promise Ring had some hits, and they were huge. Well, huge in terms of emo bands in the mid-to-late-’90s, which basically means they made a proper video. The Promise Ring successfully shifted emo from the post-hardcore sound to a more pop-rock structure, and therefore is the major influences of the “emo” (yeah, I fucking air-quoted that shit) bands of today.

It’s slightly unfair of me to post a video for the sappiest song the Promise Ring ever recorded, but c’mon, it’s Valentine’s Day! There are actually two big reasons I went with this particular clip, even though there are countless other clips of the band performing this song recorded at much better quality. 1) This one was from a show in Florida, my home state. 2) According to the “About this Video” notes, this show was in 1998 when the Promise Ring was touring with Jimmy Eat World, meaning this show featured two of the three biggest emo bands in the world at that time on one bill (the other being the Get Up Kids, of course). The Promise Ring has since broken up, reunited, broken up again and moved on to other bands like Vermont and—currently—Maritime. A lot of history, but the 1996 debut album, 30-degrees Everywhere, will always be the best and most important tear-maker von Bohlen ever records.

An Emo Video Every Day This Week: Day 1 [ja.com]
An Emo Video Every Day This Week: Day 2 [ja.com]
An Emo Video Every Day This Week: Day 3 [ja.com]

Artist: Mineral
Song: “Gloria”

I remember sending away $10 to Crank! Records for a Mineral T-shirt in 1999. It was navy blue, with an illustration of a little boy’s and little girl’s faces and “mineral” (all lower case, ‘natch) on the bottom. I’m pretty sure my buddy Robyn only befriended me because the first time she met me I walked into the cafeteria of Warren Towers at BU wearing that shirt. Man, that shirt was awesome. I think I can admit that having that shirt actually made me like Mineral more than I probably actually should have. I wore it until about 2004, and now I have no clue where it is. Lost during the chaos of a T-shirt purge, most likely.

Ah yes, the band. Mineral was different than a lot of the other emo bands I was listening to, because they weren’t from the the Midwest or Gainesville. They were from Texas, making them forefathers to the Teemo scene. I just made Teemo up, but it sounds legit, right? Mineral were masters of the loud-quiet-loud songwriting scheme, and Chris Simpson’s voice definitely tailored to the whole emo thing. It was like pure mope translated to soundwaves. And those lyrics! There are only a couple of live Mineral videos floating around YouTube, both shot at Emo’s (har!) in Austin in 1998, which would put the timing of the show just before the band broke up. The quality looks like something smuggled out of Czechoslovakia during the Cold War, but for some reason, I feel like Mineral wouldn’t have it any other way. Also, please note that—once again, in typical emo fashion—the bassist again does not face the crowd during the performance.

An Emo Video Every Day This Week: Day 1 [ja.com]
An Emo Video Every Day This Week: Day 2 [ja.com]

Artist: Cap’n Jazz
Song: Que Suerte

In 1998 I was at an all-ages hardcore show at Club Q in Davie, Florida, the redneck pool hall that doubled as ground zero for the South Florida hardcore scene. The shows also served as punk rock swap meets, with various vendors selling records and patches and the like. I don’t remember what bands were playing that night (probably Hot Water Music, whom I saw four or five times at Club Q in some of the rowdiest shows ever), but I remember walking up to a guy with a huge beard selling CDs out of milk crates. I had just really started getting into indie music, and I was looking for something to take home to expand my education. He recommended Analphabetapolothology by Cap’n Jazz, mostly because it was a double-disc for $10. A value buy! I had heard about Cap’n Jazz from a friend, so I bought the CD and listened to it on the way home. And on the way to school the next day. And pretty much every day for two years straight. The CDs were the complete collected discography of the band, a bunch of Chicago-area high schoolers who released only one proper album before breaking up in 1995. The Delaware-based emo powerlabel Jade Tree compiled that album and all the band’s 7″ and compilation tracks on Analphabetapolothology, which was released in 1998 and is probably the best-reviewed emo album in Pitchfork history.

I could go on and on about my favorite band of all time (sorry, Modest Mouse)—about birthdays spent wishing for a reunion over cake candles (I’m a loser), the album-art poster that was on my wall in college, the letter I gave to lead singer Tim Kinsella (a story for another day)—but meh. In hindsight, the band’s breakup was the most obvious band breakup in band breakup history. High school bands never stick together. Tim Kinsella was a singer who couldn’t really sing, whose primary focus was cramming puns and wordplay into heart-wrenching lyrics (just check out the lyrics to Que Suerte). One guitarist had a more pop sensibility and harbored his own frontman desires. The other was way more experimental and didn’t really mesh. The drummer was Tim’s little brother. Etc., etc. The family tree of bands that sprung from Cap’n Jazz is a good enough expression of all this conflict.

As far as this particular video is concerned, I have a history with it. In college, I bought a copy of a live Cap’n Jazz show on eBay. It was a show filmed at the Daily Grind in Kansas City in 1995, and at the time it was constantly popping up on eBay, the only known live video document of Cap’n Jazz. Until last week. On February 7, someone uploaded a couple of live Cap’n Jazz videos from an undated show “allegedly in the Chicago area” to YouTube, including another performance of this same song. I still like the one above more, though. They look so young, and Tim Kinsella is at his awkward and spazzy best. His Reese’s T-shirt is burned into my brain after years of repeat watching. I remember the first time I popped it into my TV/VCR, wondering how these scrawny little kids could write music that would eventually change my life forever. Such is the power of emo, friends! The whole Kansas City show is up on YouTube in bits and pieces, so nary a tear need be shed over my long lost VHS copy. Perhaps you’d also like to take check out “Yes, I am Talking to You,” featuring the most emo lyrics of all time (”I’M DYING TO TELL YOU I’M DYING!”)? Every now and again I still hope for a Cap’n Jazz reunion, but it would probably be a little depressing to see dudes in their 30’s singing these types of songs, like a more embarrassing Blink 182. And imagine what the crowd would be like. Yeesh.

Bringing it all back to the broader topic of the emo genre, the stereotypical emo trait to watch for here is an easy one to spot if you ever attended to these kinds of shows: the bassist never looks at the crowd.

Cap’n Jazz [joanfrc.com]
An Emo Video Every Day This Week: Day 1 [ja.com]

The white whale has been captured. For six or seven years, I’ve had a saved eBay search for “cap’n jazz shirt.” And while it may be weird to dedicate a portion of one’s life to acquiring a T-shirt from a short-lived and obscure ’90s emo band from the Midwest, it’s even more weird that in all that time, not one Cap’n Jazz shirt has been listed on eBay. But last week, I got the eBay e-mail alert, and of course I expected it to be another Promise Ring shirt with “Cap’n Jazz” added in the subject line to lure in suckers like me, kind of like this one being auctioned right now. It wasn’t. First, shock, then disbelief. I immediately e-mailed the seller, explaining I had been searching for a Cap’n Jazz shirt for years and I had come to believe that they didn’t exist. He said the shirt is legit, and he got it while he and the band were in high school together. He was from Chicago and he had a good eBay rating, so I bit. A few days and about $16 later (w/ shipping), the elusive Cap’n Jazz T-shirt is mine. Sure, the shirt is kind of ugly, and there may or may not be sweat stains in the pits, but I had to have it. Even if it doesn’t fit and smells like asparagus pee, it will sit in the museum that is my T-shirt drawer forever and ever and ever and ever.

Which leads me to this. Immediately aboard the nostalgia train, I started dialing up old live emo performances on YouTube. All the favorites that turned me from a 15-year-old Ben Folds Five/They Might Be Giants fanatic to a 16-year-old post-hardcore obsessive who believed that girls would do nothing but break your heart and make you write weepy (but awesome) songs were immortalized forever, it turns out, via the power of VHS. And some blessed angels have taken those performances and put them on the Internet, free to be dialed up whenever you buy a T-shirt on eBay and are reminded about a specific time in your life when you actually “felt” the music. Now that “emo” is a dirty word and weekday bands (Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, etc.) have entire armies of teenage female fans, it’s especially weird to look back on some of this stuff and remember the days when indie sub-genres were so underground that when the Get-Up Kids sold out Axis on Lansdowne Street my first semester of my freshman year at BU, I thought the world was ending.

All that being said, I thought I’d share some of those video finds this week, along with my own personal anecdotes and thoughts regarding each band/song. So put on your sweatervest, tack on some 1″ buttons, and join me. Don’t deny your Jadetree past. (Warning: Those who don’t know what that means may get bored real quick.)

Artist: Rites of Spring
Song: “For Want Of”

It would have been too obvious to kick off this week-long cry fest with Cap’n Jazz, so I’ll hold off on that (until tomorrow). Rites of Spring were most likely not the first emo band, but many consider them to be, including me. I believe the originator tag came about because lead singer/guitarist Guy Picciotto was asked to describe the band’s sound in one of those awesome ’80s punk/hardcore zines, and he said “emo” for emotional hardcore. None of this is probably true, but I’m trying to relive my glory days here, so I’ll revise history any darn way I choose! Anyhowsers, after RoS broke up, Picciotto and drummer Brendan Canty want on to join a little band called … hmmm, what was the band called? Oh yeah, motherfucking FUGAZI. “In Silence/Words Away” was always my favorite Rites of Spring song, but the only live video of the band playing it floating around is this sped-up version I’m not really digging. The video above was recorded in the old 9:30 space in the band’s hometown of Washington D.C. in 1985 (they broke up in ‘86), and it’s pretty remarkable quality for 1985. Even if Rites of Spring weren’t really the first emo band, Guy Picciotto nearly breaks down in tears about three or four separate times during this one song, so that would at least make them the first EAF* band.

*Emo As Fuck