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"mEMOries" Part 11 feat. Flight Mode

8 years ago, back on the old site, we did start a series called mEMOries. It was all about asking new Emo-bands or other scene affiliates about their all time favourite (Midwest-)Emo-record. It was about nostalgia. And it was about connecting the new with the old. I had big plans for this series, wanted to collect 20 parts and then release some sort of a sampler with an XL-booklet attached, that features all of the text pieces...


...after 7 parts the series was buried, when the end of borderline fuckup 1.0 was on the horizon. I'm still in love with the idea and tried my best to start a relaunch in 2021, but it mainly was a chore. However, I got back on track somehow, with a lot of support by some lovely people. Now, here's part 11 for your reading pleasure!

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// The band // Flight Mode


Despite being a relatively fresh band, FLIGHT MODE out of Oslo, Norway already made a name for themselves within the community. Their EPs "TX '98" & the brand new "Torshov '05" can be ranked among the best Midwest-Emo-releases of recent years. Their singer and songwriter Sjur Lyseid told us a lovely story about a friend that opened up a new world for him...

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// The record // Appleseed Cast, Planes mistaken for Stars & Race Car Riot - Split

Release: 1999 // Label: Deep Elm Records

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Sjur Lyseid on the Appleseed Cast/Planest mistaken for Stars/Race Car Riot-Split

There's this guy called Jeff. I don't even remember his last name, but Jeff was dating one of my newly acquainted high school friends after I had moved to Texas as an exchange student. I was 16, Jeff was probably 20, which at the time made it seem like we were different generations altogether. He lived in his parents' basement next to a golf course in a Houston suburb. That may sound like a sad existence, and I'm sure it was. But Jeff was in a band.

I had slowly been finding my feet in what could best be described as an alternative scene of kids in the years prior. We had skateboards, spiky hair, baggy jeans and punkster sweatshirts, and were drawn to the outcasts and misfits we, as middle class European kids, were not. We had bought electric guitars and DigiTech Grunge-pedals, our hands all sore from trying to learn barre chords. Me moving to Texas was like a giant magnifying glass for all this. Strange how finding an identity is so reliant on emulating someone else's.

But Jeff's band wasn't playing those barre chords, and they weren't portraying themselves as cool misfits, more like a bunch of nerdy college dropouts who had just woken up in their parents' basements. They had odd time signatures, jangly open chords, long instrumental sections interseeded by wailing, sad vocals. Their Epiphone Les Pauls and JCM's somehow buzzy and claustrophobic sounding all at once. I saw them open for this band called Appleseed Cast at a house show in Magnolia. Their name was Race Car Riot, and I didn't get it. But then I did.

It was a different kind of cool. One I could so much more identify with. An identity I would emulate to the extent that it became my own in the years to come.

As I was leaving the States to go back home, Jeff gave me a copy of the EP they had just released. A split with Appleseed Cast whom I had seen that night in Magnolia, but not really heard elsewhere, and Planes Mistaken for Stars. On a label called Deep Elm Records.

To this day I would have to name that split EP as my favorite Emo record. Not because it's the best (although it's awesome!), just because it opened up the world for me. A world of Emo Diaries, The End of the Ring Wars, of Braid, of Nothing Feels Good, of American Football. A world where being smart and sad was the new cool. A world for me, and a world of me. All thanks to Jeff.
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