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"mEMOries" Part 16 feat. Against Realism

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 16 for your reading pleasure!

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// The band // Against Realism


Born in Australia, with roots in the Netherlands and now residing in Tokyo, Japan - as wild as this sounds, as wild is the music of AGAINST REALISM. The mysterious solo-project started with some crude artworks by creator Jordan, and soon after got its footing in form of a Demo. An EP called "The End of the Beginning" was finished a few months later and with the initiation of the "Bedroom Skramz"-Server on Discord Jordan brought together a lot of like-minded music aficionados. It wasn't for the fun alone, cause in July the community put out a massive charity compilation via Hunkofplastic Records. In "mEMOries" Part 16 Jordan aka AGAINST REALISM goes back to the origins of his Emo love and on the way he finds something to write home about...

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// The record // The Get Up Kids - Something to write Home about

Release: 1999 // Label: Vagrant Records

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Jordan on "Something to write Home about" by The Get Up Kids

(Note: Some of the dates or sequences I write might be a little off or out of order, but I am writing as I remember them! Sorry in advance).

I grew up during the first real mainstream success of Pop-Punk and Emo, in the 1990s.

Most of my nostalgic Emo memories happened before Emo had an official name in the mainstream. It was all called Punk-Rock back then. Then people started calling it Pop-Punk. Then Emo eventually emerged out of Pop-Punk and became the preferred term. I’ve never been able to really distinguish them.

The first concert I ever went to was The Ataris & The Vandals in 2003 when I was about 15, in Australia. That show was pretty Punk. The singer of The Ataris lit his guitar on fire and threw it into the crowd. It was an underage show. It was awesome. (It must have been staged or made ‘safe’ somehow now I think about it, but at the time I didn’t think about that). But The Ataris are definitely an Emo band.

So, when I was asked to contribute to this awesome series I first had to try and figure out what the heck type of album I could write about. Then it was trying to choose JUST ONE!!! An impossible task for a genre that I have been in love with, on and off, for over 20 years now, and has changed so much in that time.

I decided to choose a record that I feel was heads above its contemporaries at release and still stands up well today. That is "Something to write Home about", by The Get up Kids. When I feel like listening to a nostalgic album this is usually one of the first I go to. I don’t know if this is the best album of the period, but for me it is tied to really strong, visceral memories. In particular, I remember how I got my first The Get Up Kids song and why I liked it so much.

I got my first The Get Up Kids song through Morpheus, the p2p program after napster, before Kazaa, Limewire, soulseek etc. I loved Punk at the time. Sex Pistols, The Ramones, The Clash. I also liked Green Day and Blink 182 who were already huge.

I always preferred the slightly heavier more ‘serious’ sounding songs in the older Punk stuff, less about love, more about society and anger, so a lot of ‘Emo’ music in the early days were a little bit soft for me, or I just didn’t relate enough to dating and getting dumped to really enjoy it. The exception, and my first real involvement with emo as a distinct entity was through The Get Up Kids. They used the same themes of Emo that I didn't really get, but they did it so well that I completely forgot about it, and I was able to get fully into emo from there.

I used do russian roulette in Morpheus to find new music. I used to type ‘Punk Song’ and download whatever was popular. We got a lot of viruses. Also, this was on dial up internet, so it would take a day or more just to download 1 mp3, and people would often troll, mis-label songs, or do other crap that would mean you might not even end up with an actual song. It was a wild time. We did what we had to. I found most of the bands that I really fondly remember and still love to this day in this manner. I got tracks from At the Drive-In, The Ataris, NoFX, Guttermouth, Jimmy Eat World… etc. I would then save for months to buy a CD from the ones I really liked (I was very poor at this time so didnt end up getting many). All of these artists I seriously considered putting up as my choice for this article. At the Drive-In in particular are the act that have influenced me most, and I still like the most to this day. But I got more into them later, and they were the foundation of my interest in heavier music, so it is a bit of a different story.

Anyway, the song I found from "Something to write Home about" was ‘I’m a loner dottie, a rebel’. And I was immediately hooked. What I remember most clearly about it is how it was so well made. It felt crafted. Both in the recording, and the overall songwriting. The intro with the drums and hook, a kind of synthy sound and drop into the first line ‘Come the morrow, I’ll be on my way back home…’ goosebumps still 25 years later. I had mostly been drawn to very simple musical arrangements (still am). But this was revolutionary to my pea brain. (Can you imagine what it was like hearing Math-Rock for the first time!? I almost died).

This led me to get the full album and I was obsessed with it for a few years. The album overall is a masterpiece of the time. The songwriting, and recording quality absolutely destroy albums recorded at the time, and even a lot of the stuff made today. The other point of quality that set The Get Up Kids above their contemporaries was that "Something to write Home about" has great hits, but it is an overall great album. This was a bit of a rarity in the Pop-Punk/early Emo days (in my opinion). A lot of artists had a hit or two, but didn’t make very complete albums (of course there are exceptions). I think this is why this album has lasted so long and is still so fondly remembered, by me, and people I talk to, to this day.

This started about 5 years of Hardcore/Emo fandom. I started getting a bit bored as the genre became a little stale, and repetitive for a while after that. Then At the Drive-In really took over my interest, and I moved into slightly heavier stuff. I was heavily into Touche Amore, La Dispute, and The Hotelier, but I also got into electronic music and some other types of Alternative Pop. My return to Emo proper came about 10 years after "Something to write Home about" though with "What it takes to move forward" by Empire! Empire! (I was a Lonely Estate) which was another close call for my "mEMOries"-choice, as it really rekindled my love of Emo and set me back on that path in my 20s. But, once again, there are just so many choices so I had to go with the origin story.

More than anything, I love all types of Emo. I still don’t know what Emo is, or, as my friend My Hair is a Rat’s Nest said to me the other day “Everything is kinda Emo, that’s what they don’t tell you in school”. These days I’m mostly into Screamo and heavier Emo. I am also loving a lot of the new so-called ‘Fifth Wave’-stuff, but whenever I want to get nostalgic I put on "Something to write Home about" by The Get Up Kids and get emotional.

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