girlacne.net

to my relief, i am not the only adult lady clinging on to my scene girl past. enough people seemed to relate to 5 things scene girls of the early-00's hearted [part 1] that i've now been motivated to create a part 2:

1. jones soda

i only knew of two places to buy jones soda: at the record store or at the all-ages scene venue. and for many underage, straight edge girls, sugar was our poison.

there was nothing un-scene about sodas that came in fun colors like pink and light blue, were only carried by indie retailers, had secret inspirational words under the caps and most importantly, came packaged in black and white labels featuring crowdsourced teen photography.  

you could go on jonessoda.com and submit your own photos - then surf the submissions and vote up the ones you liked best. imagine that! scene girls were evangelists in a pre-instagram, pre-reddit time. these are #nofilter unless you knew how to use photoshop...which many of us did and this brings me to the next thing on my list...

2. deviantart

picture credit 1 & 2

before they had phone apps that let you overlay pictures with filters, borders, doodles and text - we taught ourselves photoshop. we knew how to adjust greyscale and contrast. we knew how to use brush tools. we basically invented instagram and we for sure invented selfies. deviantart was the main showcase for these celebrations of song lyrics, scene fashion & teen emotions.

3. t-shirt surgery

via t-shirt-surgery livejournal community

being a scene girl meant amassing a ton of band tees. but back then, we wore our tees tight with a strip of midriff showing. before american apparel came around and monopolized the band tee shirt market with girly fit tees, obtaining the proper size could be challenging. often we took to hacking off the bottom, sewing up the sides and cutting the top into a boatneck. 

eventually these alterations evolved even further. livejournal communities were born, books were written and ideas were exchanged as band tees became miniskirts, tube dresses, halter tops with bows, scoopneck tees with princess sleeves, etc etc etc. 

props to the girls who transformed their t-shirt surgery endeavors into lucrative businesses; forever 21 ain't got nothin' on you.

alexisonfire & silverstein t-shirt surgeries via lipgloss and black

lipgloss and black is one of my fond favorites. i remember it primarily as a myspace profile where two sisters showcased their reconstruction designs. like many early pioneers of outfit posting, went on to become successful fashion bloggers - and it looks like their etsy store is still going strong today. they definitely inspired many of my own t-shirt surgeries:

minor threat skirt and scarlet halter via yours truly, circa 2003-2004 :-)

4. amélie

oh gosh, what movies was everyone sweating in 2001-2003? fight club? donnie darko? mulholland drive? the music we listened to could get very dissonant and emotional. likewise, we were drawn to movies with enough dark cinematography and entry-level themes of existentialism to leave us feeling hollow.

amélie offered a nice glimmer of contrast as it made its way around the scene circles in ~2002. it was hard not to relate to an emo story with a happy ending: shy, lonely, whimsical girl lives in her own world - but gets the guy! we also all luuuv'd audrey tatou's baby bangs.

5. chris carrabba chris fucking carrabba. he had a dark, brooding exterior with his two full sleeves and dark, deep-set eyes. but his music was that of a hopeless romantic music and his lyrics spoke to teen girls as if we'd written them ourselves:

i'm way late in reporting this but i was sort of hoping there would be a new development that i could post about...such as...actual tour dates! but good things must come to those who wait.

on august 3, cadillac blindside hinted at a reunion show via their facebook page:

then they went silent for a few months.

12 comments later...

if you aren't familiar with cadillac blindside, they were one of the BEST bands on the pop punk end of emo EVER (think sunny day real estate meets the getup kids).

love midtown & brand new & taking back sunday but they ain't got NOTHIN' on a chorus like this:

maybe if you died, i could live a little more. there'd be no teary eyes, just a body on the floor. wish i could see your face, lifeless, cold, and blue. your epitaph might say, "i was never there for you".

it's not too late to become a loyal fan. for the love of god, give this band some more likes.

a coworker mentioned to me today that his south jersey straightedge hardcore crew from high school was once recruited to star in a commercial for the partnership for a drug-free america back in 1997.

yes, by the power of the internet, this still exists for us all to see:

seth cohen (who i think of as the OG on-screen emo) from the oc almost cuts it by repping atom and his package but mostly he just evolves into a college radio / comic book nerd.

picture credit

according to the veronica mars movie, the hardcore scene in neptune exists via converge and alkaline trio bumper stickers.

picture credit

troy the chilled-out older friend from my life as liz has a legit bane hoodie layered over what is probably a marvel tee shirt. more comic book nerds into scene music! 

craig was the OG emo on degrassi but he left the little guys behind to tour with taking back sunday and be bff with pete wentz. crazy eli is the new dark scene kid in town. how many scene band posters can you make out in his room? note: also really into comic books.

how come almost all the scene tv show kids are also comic book nerds?

is hollywood getting lazy and just combining high school misfit stereotypes?

who's your favorite scene tv show character? 

are there any others not featured on this list? lemme know! i have a love for teen tv shows and a lot of free time. 

when i was in high school, opportunities to see my favorite bands were extremely few and far between. the bigger bands rarely came through my town and when they did, i had to hope that it wouldn't be an 18+ situation. 

finally i became resourceful enough to lurk makeoutclub for cool people in neighboring cities in hopes of finding a couple of buddies to meet up with should i ever decide to travel to see a show.

karl was several years older than me and seemed cooler than anyone i had ever known. he was so chill and lived a life that i envied and aspired to have. he gave no shits about his job, liked to go out and have fun, played in a band, looked how he wanted to look and had a bunch of cool, like-minded friends. the recipe for a happy life appeared so much simpler when i was 16.

karl was always down to chat about pop punk bands, cool shows and tattoo ideas. karl had a friend that worked at universal music and said if i ever wanted cd's he could send them to me for free. i thought this was the coolest fucking thing ever (fun fact: a decade later i, too, would work at universal music). on top of that, he lended an ear whenever i wanted to complain about my trivial high school issues and he said we could for sure hang out should i ever trek down to atlanta for a show. 

finally, in november of 2002, i made secret plans to sleepover at a friend's house when in reality we were going to drive down to atlanta to see a new found glory, something corporate and finch.

i was ready to go and karl was ready for me to arrive.

but the trip never happened. as you can see from the journal entry, there was a lot of drama in the air at the time. i've forgotten what the fuss was about but highly likely it was stupid. my friend bailed on me at the last minute and i didn't have the balls to go to atlanta alone. 

karl was expecting me and disappointed when i didn't show. i wish more than anything that i'd gone and gotten a taste of the perceived life that i'd wanted. 

there are numerous journal entries bemoaning this missed opportunity. i'd like to think that i've done enough in my adult life to make up for this but i think i will always be a little bit sad that i didn't get to experience it when it mattered the most.

as for karl, i have no idea where he is now. we haven't spoken in any internet capacity in well over a decade. 

i hope he is well!

there was a time in my life when a boy caught my eye not with his hairstyle, the music he was into or the tightness of his pants, but with his band tee shirt.

the band tee shirt meant a lot. it represented a boy's commitment to music - his willingness to travel, to step outside of his suburban comfort zone to see his favorite band play...an experience awesome enough to commemorate with a tee shirt. this very legit way was pretty much the only means of acquiring band tee shirts back in places & times of no cool shows and no hot topics and no credit cards for mail order.

the only other way (that i can think of) was to beg friends to bequeath their swag to him...but then it just meant he had mega cool friends. i can't begin to describe my admiration for the boy who had enough shirts to rotate them daily for months.

here are some memorable shirts and the crushes that wore them:

1. norma jean "support southern rock" rifles tee

  remember when guns were iconic in scene fashion? the first i ever knew of this was via this shirt, worn by southern christian (and usually straightedge) metalcore qt's who rolled en masse. that's right, entire crews of qt's. see also high school boyfriend: the scene king.

2. bane logo tee

omg, a true classic. everyone had this shirt. everyone. no matter if your tendencies were metalcore, fashioncore, emotive hardcore or tr00 hardcore, a bane logo tee was essential. for a long time, it felt like at least one member of one band would be wearing a bane shirt at any given show. see more about the bane merch legacy here and here. 

3. thursday full collapse-era white dove tee

this shirt was worn mostly by approachable emos - nice guys with mainstream rapport. my realest memory of this shirt was via my emo manager at junky food service job i had when i was 16. he would layer it underneath his work uniform. he was cute, wonderfully friendly, loved talking about alternative press buzz bands and didn't get mad at me for stealing food.

4. the locust locust tee

this shirt reminds me specifically of a skinny, black-haired dude who looked fashioncore but was too legit to get called a poser. he had a really cool dgaf attitude - he was straightedge one minute, experimented with drugs the next and didn't bother trying to explain himself. extra crush points for anyone who had the camo version (sup) or the holy grail of scene point apparel, the belt buckle.

5. underoath dripping pink cross tee

by the time every scene dude was sporting this shirt, it was a thing to be a vain myspace webcam whore. myspace replaced the tightpants livejournal community, various scene message boards and makeoutclub as my main source for hot scene boy p0rn and oh man was there a lot of it *insert 3 praying hands emojis*. the hot pink cross on this tshirt was a nice fashioncore detail which i think paved the way at an early stage for zany neon scene merch. 

i estimate roughly 2005-2010 as the years when myspace music really carved its legacy. 2005 because that's when i remember first hearing about bands (mainly panic! at the disco) making it big through myspace and when i used myspace as a reliable source for discovering new music...and new scenester boys. 2010 because that's when myspace had blown up so much that it was no longer a credible niche community. it was as if the more it became polluted with glitter graphics, tweens & spam users, the more the music followed suit. soon the site would fold but the style of music it inspired would live on. 

pulling inspiration from emo, screamo, metalcore, dance punk, electroclash and pop punk, myspace brought previously underground music styles to trendy, commercialized, youth-infested levels. following its demise, it had distorted the word "emo" into one that makes you picture people like this.

myspace drove a total disconnect between o.g. scene people and the tweens they'd eventually influence. after all of this, it's quite nice to see a few post-myspace era bands pay tribute to their forefathers!

fall out boy covering "save your generation" by jawbreaker

fall out boy's success preceded their identity as a "myspace band"  but it's highly likely that every person still caught living the myspace life regards fall out boy as frontrunners of the genre. 

hellogoodbye covering "a picture postcard" by the promise ring

i don't know anything about hellogoodbye except that they emerged on drive-thru records just around the time drive-thru folded and were waaay too tumblrcore in a time when tumblrcore didn't exist yet.

hit the lights covering "snowbirds and townies" by further seems forever

i have never heard this band before but i have seen tweens wearing the tee shirts and they were once signed to the major label i worked for back when i had my ~*dream job*~ in the music industry. solid choice of song to cover though. 

the material covering "red letter day" by the get up kids

based off of my 2.5 song listen, the material seem like a more serious version of paramore. this song is actually part of a get up kids tribute album put out by pacific ridge records - a pop punk label inspired by the movielife and probably some myspace-related stuff.

also, for good measure, this memorable owl city tweet:

In an Ampere, Refused, Melt Banana, Orchid, Frodus, At The Drive-In phase. @Amperepunx will always be one of my favorite bands.

— Owl City (@owlcity)

January 10, 2012

who were your favorite post-myspace era bands? do you think they were inspired by o.g. emo bands?

do you know any other good myspace band covers of emo classics?

i guess when i say "acoustic versions of your favorite songs from high school", i really mean "acoustic versions of MY favorite songs from high school" but just as long as you had high school grade emo-punk tendencies in the years surrounding 2003, you'll appreciate this playlist.

01 absinthe party at the fly honey // minus the bear 02 cute without the 'e' // taking back sunday 03 nobody puts baby in the corner // fall out boy 04 knew it all along // midtown 05 the best of me // the starting line 06 woe // say anything 07 view from heaven // yellow card 08 masterpiece // bayside 09 the middle // jimmy eat world 10 i want to hear you sad // the early november 11 junesong provision // coheed & cambria 12 giving it away // mae 13 i was a teenage anarchist // against me! 14 shallow // unwritten law 15 san dimas high school football rules // the ataris 16 from california // the new amsterdams 17 all downhill from here // new found glory 18 you vandal // saves the day

listen to “high school goes acoustic” on spotify »

were you into realscreamo™/"skramz"/emotive hardcore/whatever you want to call it?

i feel like most screamo bands kept pretty low profiles. i didn't think i'd have much luck with googling where they are today - but i was wrong! and all i can say is daaaamn, guys from screamo bands sure cleaned up nice.

alex suarez // kite flying society ⇒ cobra starship

i love kite flying society and think of them as a young protégé of saetia (the quintessential screamo band, imo). like greg drudy of saetia, alex suarez was also a man of humble floridian origin who would eventually find his big break in new york city - via meeting myspace renaissance man gabe saporta (aka gossip girl coke dealer, gap jeans model, also midtown frontman for street cred) and joining his fashionable "emo pop" band cobra starship. 

(you can actually stream kite flying society's entire discography online. it's all up on bandcamp thanks to init records. <3)

photo credits: 1 | 2

nicholas sadler // daughters ⇒ fang island

i remember a heated thread on the scene forum of my hometown about whether or not girls should attend the daughters show. daughters' shows were known for being prettttty chaotic and lyrics like "if every woman was a continent, i would be napoleon" didn't make them the most favored band among the girls (case in point heard in first 10 seconds here - "you're an asshole - stop talking about fucking women"). anyway, the guitarist went on to attend risd and start an indie rock band - fang island - who have been described as "majestic" and "giddy" and incidentally, have also made it to the gossip girl rotation.

photo credits: 1 | 2

erik ratensperger // jerome's dream ⇒ the virgins

i once thought jerome's dream got their biggest claim to fame via having tim heidecker as a fan...but apparently their drummer erik ratensperger went on to be the lead designer for mishka in addition to joining the virgins, a stylish band in the vein of the killers or phoenix that were also in heavy rotation on gossip girl and good friends with chrissie miller (dj, clothing designer and girlfriend to leo fitzpatrick). whew. much fame and glamour. 

photo credits: 1 | 2

marc bianchi // indian summer ⇒ her space holiday

both indian summer and her space holiday have been top favorite bands of mine at one point or another - i had no idea the two were related until this week! this blog explains indian summer perfectly and this interview is a great story of marc bianchi's transition from post-hardcore to synthpop. and this re-pressing of the indian summer 7" by german label adagio830 is very beautiful. i own it; you should too.

oh, her space holiday has not been featured on gossip girl to my knowledge. 

photo credits: 1 | 2

i guess i should mention that gossip girl was one of my favorite teen drama shows of all time. like i was one of those people that still secretly followed it in 2012. it was the screamo link. it all makes sense now.

once upon a time, it was edgy and sophisticated to be a scene girl. scene girls of the early-00's revolutionized alt fashion and knew how to use the internet to their advantage before the rest of the world did.

1. e.c. star

(photos via ecstar.net cache and 2003 issue of alt press)

e.c. star was an indie clothing company that made cardigans embroidered with all the requisite scene motifs: cherries, nautical stars, skulls, spiderwebs and guns. 

2. shotgun blast haircut 

(photo via count the stars album cover)

the prototype for myspace hair, the shotgun blast was short, asymmetrical, spiky and v authentic and fresh for its time. 

3. angelfire

(via random girl's amazing scene website that i found)

before facebook, myspace or even livejournal, scene girls took the initiative of keeping everyone looped in by putting show listings, pics and other scene info up on their own personally-run websites, often hosted on angelfire. 

4. tightpants livejournal community

photos via not-quite-defunct tightpants community (posts 1 & 2)

this is a place where boys posted pics of themselves in girl jeans purchased from the juniors section of jcpenney or kohl's (example of specific styles mentioned: "size 2 zana di", "size 1 paris blues") for girls to gawk at and comment with things like "sex" "hawt" "**purrrrrr**".

community mantra: boys in tight pants wearing tight shirts their pelvic thrusts their mic stand sex they know just how we like it. and look good while doing it. post pictures. share news. give us your bodies.

what it must have felt like to be a teenage boy starved for the approval of hundreds of scene girls across the country :-P

5. gauged ears / facial piercings

photo saved from hot-fashion 10ish years ago (rip, but points if you were a member! more points if you remember this person.)

scene girls made something perceived as daunting and uncouth into an elegant and feminine look that even clean-cut, vanilla sorority girls eventually adopted - i knew two in college that had side lip studs! i think they copied me:

really old selfie, i know i look the same *teehee* but this be 10 years ago -_-

once upon a time 90's-influenced emo and thrashy metalcore were cut from the same cloth and this 2001 dreaming of the fifth / evelynn split is a great example. bigger bands didn't pass through my hometown a whole lot so, as a music-obsessed teenager, i held out a lot of hope for lesser-known bands to fill the void. when dreaming of the fifth and evelynn (from texas) toured together in 2002, they played the skate park where i worked and i felt like it respectively fulfilled a void for bands like the appleseed cast and zao.

of course, dreaming of the fifth and evelynn both shine on their own. this was a long-anticipated, memorable show and the split album is definitely worth a listen. the split was released through pluto records, a texas-based label responsible for a couple more notables in metalcore, namely luti-kriss/norma jean. someone had the graciousness to upload what might be the entire label discography to bandcamp for you to enjoy here.

&amp;amp;lt;a href="http://plutorecords.bandcamp.com/album/dreaming-of-the-fifth-evelynn" data-mce-href="http://plutorecords.bandcamp.com/album/dreaming-of-the-fifth-evelynn"&amp;amp;gt;Dreaming of the Fifth / Evelynn by Dreaming of the Fifth / Evelynn&amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;gt;

sidenote: evelynn is not to be confused with this newer myspace-core band from illinois. the OG evelynn comprised members of between the buried and me and put on an amazing show. i had the privelege of seeing evelynn a couple more times before they broke up in early 00's. while there aren't a whole lot of traces of their existence on the internet, i did come across this old bootleg...check it out:

1. braid got back together. and they're signed to topshelf records and a new album is underway. topshelf = the new deep elm / equal vision, if you haven't heard. 2. owls released a new album.

owls was a great transition band for me as i evolved from emo teen to indie pothead. now i'm some confused amalgamation of the two so this is release is pretty perfectly timed. 3. onelinedrawing released a new album.

<a href="http://jonahmatranga.bandcamp.com/album/me-and-you-are-two" data-mce-href="http://jonahmatranga.bandcamp.com/album/me-and-you-are-two">Me And You Are Two by Jonah's onelinedrawing</a>

once upon a time ago, a guy named jonah matranga fronted a band with members of texas is the reason and chamberlain and they put out great music and then vanished. jonah used kickstarter to put out a new onelinedrawing album this year. 4. fairweather released a new album.

my fav song from the new album, love it. despite not releasing any music for what, 10, 11 years? these guys haven't missed a beat. 5. sunny day real estate put out an unreleased track.

it arrived in the form of a 7" split with circa survive...best record store day treat ever. 6. american football are playing some reunion shows.

We're playing a few shows later this year! 9/28 - Champaign, IL @ThePygFest & 10/11 - New York, NY @WebsterHall. Tickets go on sale this Fri

— American Football (@americfootball)

April 21, 2014

tickets on sale tomorrow at noon EST. 7. the jazz june released a new song.

emo band "emo"-ji! use them to explain your favorite bands to millennials.

also, help me expand this glossary by tweeting me what you come up with!

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1. sunny day real estate 2. hot water music 3. death cab for cutie 4. american football 5. bright eyes 6. alkaline trio 7. knapsack 8. cap n jazz 9. minus the bear

this playlist is for the girls who hung around the not-to-be-forgotten hxc scene of the early 00's. at one point or another, a boy probably mansplained to you, "xx track on this album is the one that the girls like", with xx track referring to the album's one melodic interlude - slower, softer, often with acoustic guitar, often with vocals sung rather than screamed.

basically the non-hardcore track on a hardcore album. the interlude.

lol. thanks, boys!

01 gorgeous // eighteen visions 02 shevanel take 2 // between the buried and me 03 red shift // hopesfall 04 i still dream (pt 1) // falling cycle 05 absence of purpose in the succession of events // evergreen terrace 06 doraematu // dead to fall 07 the opinionated are so opinionated // poison the well 08 until the day breathes and the shadows flee // 7 angels 7 plagues 09 segue 1 / until your heart stops // cave in 10 tyrant meets his maker // fear before the march of flames 11 the fiction we live // from autumn to ashes 12 blue // remembering never 13 some will seek forgiveness, others escape // underoath

listen to 'hxc for girls' on spotify >

remember when ups & downs came out? it was like a little glimmer of light in every teen fan's fear of saves the day's irrevocable maturation from can't slow down. 

one treat was the inclusion of "the way his collar falls", a track previously available only on vinyl and otherwise unbeknownst to me. lyrically, it made me think of "handsome boy" - with chris singing longingly but vaguely about a dude:

Leif and I are on the train to New York, car 1399. There's a guy with a quarter in his ear and I've seen Leif only once in the past two months. His hair is sticking up a little in the front. He's losing it just a bit. When I get home tonight I'll miss him in Hampshire. His glasses. the way he writes in purple pen. the way his collar falls to the left. Have you seen his ankles lately? I know he's next to me. I feel his sweater here, but when I'm sleeping it's only green sheets and the hair down my legs. I think I'll write to Leif, when I'm near Tuesday, sometime before you go and I'm back on the train.

("the way his collar falls" - saves the day)

chris rarely seems to discuss his personal life so it's hard not to read into these lyrics for a greater glimpse into what one of my biggest musical inspirations is all about. 

here's my favorite answer, via songmeanings.com:

can't slow down was the defining album of my teen angst years and saves the day has remained one of my highest-in-rotation bands since i first discovered them in '99. i never got the chance to see saves the day play when it mattered so i'm cherishing this 1999 full set concert bootleg real hard. they play nearly all the songs from can't slow down (though not my two favorites - "obsolete" and "jodie" - oh well, i ain't complainin'!)

please take note of the wonderful band choreography sprinkled throughout. despite the depressive themes in their music, a teenage chris conley had the most heartwarming stage presence. 

the setlist: 1. the choke 2. sometimes new jersey 3. seeing it this way 4. deciding 5. handsome boy 6. blindfolded 7. the vast spoils of america 8. nebraska bricks 9. shoulder to the wheel 10. houses and billboards 11. always ten feet tall

watch the show:

fyi - this video was uploaded by youtube user livecoretv; i strongly recommend checking out the rest of his channel. if you like late-90's emo and hardcore bootlegs then this is a total fucking goldmine...with shockingly low view counts. 

if there's anything i can't resist, it's guys who cut their teeth musically in the hardcore scene. 

although...i think i feel resentful when dudes graduate from hardcore and are all, "it was a high school phase." and then they go on to pursue indie. or alt-country? or...in some cases...electronic ::insert wailing emoji::

that's not to say i don't support artistic growth. i just...wish all hardcore boys could stay hardcore. lol. 

anyway, chad gilbert is the real fuckin' deal: he started out as vocalist for shai hulud when he was 14...

[watch the 1996 bootleg from where this gif was possible]

and, merely two years later, he became the still standing guitarist for a new found glory.

(fyi- that's two legendary bands that are still widely adored nearly 20 years later)

despite carving most of his career in pop punk, he never really abandoned hardcore. he can rock both argyle and jerseys and totally gives a nod to his hardcore upbringing in his new 50's inspired pop punk band:

she said there's not even a melody to this song i said it's fun at the show when you scream along she said it's not music she said it makes her sick i said oh no this is where i came from ("thinkin' bout her" - what's eating gilbert)

aaaaaand...he's still handsome as hell.

i guess i should mention that he's got a girlfriend but that's also something kind of wonderful. and #psa, i'm modelling my future husband after chad gilbert.