I have no idea where this was filmed, and it's a bummer that the vocals are so low. But everyone in the video -- from the band members to the audience -- is having so much fun, I had to post it. These are emo pioneers the Promise Ring from November 1997, venue not listed, circa the classic Nothing Feels Good . Makes me wistful, since the later era of the band (ca. 2002's Wood/Water ) was such a disappointment. -- Annie Zaleski

Topics discussed with Jason Gnewikow include: -The legendary band's greatest achievement -Reason for demise -Emo homophobia -Fall Out Boy -Gay rights Read the full piece here. MP3: The Promise Ring - Electric Pink

i dont know where you live, but down here summer sure as hell seems to have sprung. that means the hyundai's windows are coming down with even greater frequency even when its 90 plus degrees, but even sometimes i puss out and put that air on. i cant deal with africa hot. in any event, here is round one of two of my top 20 summer records for the '08. the avalanches. since i left you i dont know much about dj records, but i [...]

SIDE A 1. Sunny Day Real Estate - In Circles 2. Knapsack - Hummingbirds 3. Mineral - Parking Lot 4. Texas Is The Reason - Johnny On The Spot 5. The Appleseed Cast - Marigold & Patchwork 6. Jets To Brazil - Morning New Disease 7. Saves The Day - Freakish 8. Jimmy Eat World - Crush SIDE B [...]

Straight, Gay, BI...whatever you are, valentines day usually ends in some sort of penentration...here are some songs to help you in your mining. This is like the indie jock jams for getting to third base. 1. Delays "Long Time Coming" 2. FischerSpooner "Megacolon" 3. The Promise Ring "Pink Chimneys" 4. The Blood Brothers "Peacock Skeleton with Crooked Feathers" 5. Breakwater "Release The Beast" 6. Muse "Plug [...]
Today is Valentines Day and I am dedicating this post to my wonderful girlfriend Alex. Think of this as a playlist to play while eating dinner that you cooked for your loved one. Or while preparing it. Or while getting ready to go out. Perhaps you might want to make a mix cd for the car. I've sort of started with songs that I associate with my girlfriend and it moves into songs that more deal with the topic of love more than the singer professing love for [...]

I've been meaning to post about this for awhile now, but one of my favorite CDs (and CD concepts, and CD covers) lately is the new compilation Home Schooled: The ABCs of Kid Soul , which came out last fall on Numero Group. A couple of other blogs talked about it months ago, but what can I say? I'm slow. Inspired by the likes of the Jackson 5, the Osmonds, and Little Stevie Wonder, the CD features seventeen soul tracks sung by kids who wanted to be the next Michael. [...]
Derek's review of Maritime's Heresy & the Hotel Choir touched upon their historical lineage to one of emo's most talked-about and loved bands, The Promise Ring. It was almost inevitable then, that I dug up my old Promise Ring records for a round of nostalgic listening- and as their work continues to age, it is [...]

N ot only is today Halloween, it is also my beautiful wife Amy's thirtieth (30th) birthday. That's a milestone that means, "Damn we are gettin' old!" At least I have a year to go. Anyhow, since I already had this post basically done prior to the death of my computer, all I have to do is hit the "publish" button and I'm done. Lucky me. Sometimes a little planning is a good thing. Anyhow, here are thirty songs for thirty years. All specifically for my wife and all with some [...]

You Should Know Born in Arkansas, raised in Texas, and film schooled at the North Carolina School of the Arts, young director David Gordon Green has a firm grasp of Southern culture. His slow-paced films have drawn comparisons to Terrence Malick, who actually helped produce Green's 2004 gothic thriller Undertow . Green's films exhibit the same keen eye for location as Malick's while being more character driven. Green's first film, George Washington , was shot during a Winston-Salem, North Carolina summer in 1999, [...]
Who's that smokin' girl to the left you ask? That my friend is my beautiful girlfriend Katie. For the past 3 years we have loved, fought, and experienced everything a working relationship experiences. Recently we celebrated Katie's 22nd birthday at her favorite Italian restaurant, Massimino's . After the night was over, she expressed her gloom over the fact that that I have not tagged her on these blog posts I've made. So in light of that conversation (and a few others); I have dedicated this weeks blog to Katie. At this point of our relationship; [...]

Two disruptive things have happened since my last post: I've had surgery, and my iPod died. Both have given me cause to think more than usual, but Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind, which is one of the best books I've read, ever, has saved me from doing too much of that. And I always have my laptop and portable CD player for the music. Here are a couple of songs from Numero's latest offering, Home Schooled: The ABCs of Kid Soul. [...]

T his mix is appropriate for the afternoon after a night out or just a lazy sunny afternoon. After being at the BlogHer conference all weekend, Amy met me at the Vans Warped Tour yesterday afternoon. We saw old friends and made new ones. It was pretty awesome... but exhausting. I've spent most of the morning trying to go through all of the pictures I took yesterday, and I'll get them up all this week. I've included a few here [...]

THIS CLOSE, an ongoing series of posts about bands that were THIS CLOSE to being huge. (photo cred .) This week, we feature the Promise Ring , a band from Wisconsin that, in my opinion, could have been as big as the Shins or even bigger had they released their records a few years later. A great post punk band with a lot of pop parts and great melodies. Check out some of the fun lyrics and unusually poppy songs from the Promise Ring [...]

MP3: Husky Rescue - Summertime Cowboy (Serge Santiago Version) MP3: Esthero - Breath From Another MP3: The Promise Ring - A Picture Postcard MP3: Cibo Matto - King Of Silence (Dan The Automator remix) MP3: Bright Eyes - Lover I Don't Have To Love [...]

The little bean sprout and I are home alone this weekend while Amy is off at an out-of-town wedding shower. So far Hailey has tried to put sunglasses on the cat, she has hit him with a plastic baseball bat, and fetched plastic practice golf balls for me. We've been having a good time. Anyhow, here are a few songs that remind me of her or remind her of me. Some of them go back to the first mixtapes we made each other almost ten years ago. Enjoy. MP3 | The [...]

It was you know. Good that is. Once emo wasn't a dirty word, a disgusting, filthy, badly applied word used to describe bad pop-metal bands. Once it was a rather silly name for a very wide spanning and interesting scene that overlapped with the post-rock scene in America and throughout the world to embrace a number of bands who wanted to make a more cerebral and affecting version of punk rock than the more masculine exponents of the genre were so badly making. Yes it was a bit silly, a bit self involved and sceneish, but some of [...]
Way before what teens today think of as emo, the term was shorthand for emotional hardcore. It was not a dirty word that referred to the lifestyle that gets so much negative press these days. Originating in the Washington, DC music scene of the mid-1980's, some so-called "first-wave" emo or emocore bands included Rites of Spring, Embrace, and Moss Icon. Then came Fugazi (featuring ex-members of Rites of Spring and Embrace), Jawbox, and so on from there... This is (according to me) a brief history of emo in music only. Yes, it will be incomplete in some [...]