(insert title here) - Volume 1 Issue 1

Before I get too far into this, I would just like to say, for the record, that I love emo music. In fact, of all the music I listen to, emo is probably the one that I get sick of least often. With every other genre, I can usually reach a point where enough is enough, and I'm fed up and can't stand it anymore. But emo, like my best friend, is always there for me, I'm never fed up with emo, and emo's never fed up with me. But it must be said that, although I love the genre, I have an admittedly paltry knowledge on the subject, I am not an emo kid and I listen to mainly punk rock.

Okay, so as far as I can tell through sheer exposure to emo music, the one thing that sets "emo" apart from other music is that it is 1) emotional (thus the name of the genre) and 2) written by people who are (or pretended to be) entirely depressed. The lyrics are a sure giveaway, we'll hear things like "I wish that I could make you see, the way you wanted me to be is just as easy as one, two, three." But I have heard tell, as any student of emo should, of instrumental emo. The kind put out on the newer Don Cabellero records. Well, as a non-musician, I cannot go into what it is that makes an emo band, instrumentally an emo band. I can say nothing of chord progressions or provide any insight upon tempo. All I can say is that, even without lyrics about girls who left them or summers spent in love, an emo band must maintain, if only through their instruments, that sound that "makes you want to go home and slip into a nice warm bath." Testosterone must not be present and the music cannot inspire you to mosh or pump your fist, emo kids don't dance, they're too damn depressed.

But where is the line drawn, then, between emo and that other staple of college radio, indie rock, when indie rock has decided to be depressing? Well, the line is decidedly vague. Like is Sunny Day Real Estate emo or indie? The question, for the longest time perplexed me. I assumed that since the line is so blurred that emo was based in indie rock (which, when you take indie to mean independent, rather than to denote a certain sound, it most definitely is, but we wouldn't be involved with college radio if we didn't see indie as denoting a sound). However, when I started listening to it more and more, I found that emo is an offshoot of punk. On offshoot of punk? Well, yeah, if you take punk, add a keyboard and depression and subtract testosterone, you have emo. It's hard to imagine a punk band that fits that description, so you call it emo.

So all of the above is strictly my own opinion, and to try and figure out if I was off-base, I embarked upon some street research of my local emo scene. However, the depressed little bastards were of no help at all. Ask any "emo-kid" to define "emo" and they'll just avoid the question, say "Man, I don't know what emo is" or run off crying. I don't blame them. If someone asked me to define punk, I'd probably do little more than scratch my head. But regardless, it was a pain in the ass trying to nail this down with the "emo-kids" and in the end the statement that told me the most about "emo" came from a friend of mine, a metal-kid who I'll call "Mr. Metal." I was in a conversation with Mr. Metal, when the subject of emo came up. Now Mr. Metal does his best to project a hard-core image, but there are some cracks in the faade, and on this particular occasion, I discovered one that ran rather deep. I was talking offhandedly to him about my love for The Get Up Kids, and he kept avoiding the topic. I'd mention GUK and he'd find a reason to switch to talking about Incantation or Exhumed. I noticed right off that every mention of GUK made him more uncomfortable, so I finally asked him outright, "How do you feel about GUK?"

"A day isn't complete for me if I haven't heard Mass Pike at least once," he said, (or something similarly pro-Get Up Kids that made his hard-core personae look like just so much posing).

"Really?" I asked, taken aback, "Aren't they a little wussy for you? Aren't you too metal for emo?"

Much to my surprise, he came back with the most amazing insight into emo I've heard yet, "I like metal because it's ridiculous" admitted Mr. Metal "I like emo for the same reason."

So what does this tell us about emo? More importantly, after Mr. Metal's statement, are we any closer to figuring out what emo is? Well, there is a lot of weight to Mr. Metal's statement. For one thing, after listening to emo for awhile, one starts to wonder if these guys are actually serious. I mean a lot of the lyrics and even the album art are so extravagantly emotional, so completely ridiculously depressing that we find ourselves wondering if, perhaps, these guys are exaggerating.

Take, for example, the picture of the band that we find in the insert for that hilariously titled emo album by Piebald, "If it Weren't for Venetian Blinds it Would be Curtains for Us All." The band is sitting on a couch, all of them with their heads bowed, trying to look as depressed as possible, one of them even has a phone he's using as a prop. The picture reminds me of a KISS album cover. It's a pose, intended to make us see the band the way they want us to. The difference is that while KISS wanted to look scary and ghoulish, Piebald wanted to look emotional and depressed. The effect in both cases, though, is more cartoon-ish than impressive.

I think I'll leave it there.

Emo?

by Androo Wellner