Nobody Writes About: Saves the Day

I've been thinking a lot lately about the vast landscape of bands that remains largely uncharted by the music blahgosphere. I've been thinking that something should be done. And so I humbly introduce to you a new feature on wealsoran.com. "Nobody Writes About:" will cover bands that...nobody seems to write about. It will be updated only as regularly as I feel like updating it, and the entries will be sparsely researched and fueled almost entirely by arrogant conjecture. Hope you like.


The evolution of a cultural phenomenon is a funny thing. Emo, like a snowball rolling down the side of a scowling, guyliner'd mountain, has ballooned into much more than a musical genre. It's an exclamation, it's the butt of jokes, it's an identity. The way things are going, by this time next year it may evolve into an election-year stump issue. But it started with the music.

If you've ever wondered how we got from the relative obscurity of Rites of Spring* to the ubiquity of Fall Out Boy and cautionary news segments, part of the answer is Princeton, NJ's Saves the Day. And the pinnacle of Saves the Day's output to date is unquestionably their 2001 release Stay What You Are, recorded not long after the band members had graduated high school.

As far as emo goes, Stay What You Are has it all. I'll-gloat-when-you-die songs, I-am-powerless-against-you songs, fast songs, slow songs, bloody metaphors, whiny vocals. Not to mention the fact that "At Your Funeral" might be the greatest opening track to ever appear on an pop-punk-emo record:


Taken out of historical context, Stay What You Are plays like a more enjoyable version of the same old same old. But the context here matters. In 2001, everyone wasn't doing this yet. Saves the Day paved the road down which countless emo copycats would carry the torch. And whether you think that's a blessing or a blight on the world of music, you gotta admit it's worth mentioning.

[savestheday.com]
[myspace.com/savestheday] (Download "At Your Funeral" there.)

Note: The only constant member of Saves the Day throughout their career (which is now approaching a decade long) is singer Chris Conley. The picture at the top is the current lineup, not the lineup responsible for Stay What You Are.


* Probably not an official site

Pete Wentz: "He started it!"

Pete Wentz tells the decent-looking-now-that-it's-html-again mtv.com that his latest throwdown was in self defense:

"The truth is on the way out the door I had to pass directly next to the guy and I knew it, so I kept my head down and walked out. As I did, the guy reached out and grabbed me and said something I couldn't really hear — it was a glorious use of the English language, though," he continued. "As he grabbed me, I punched him. Yell all you want at me, say whatever, but in a situation like that I will defend myself. After that, of course, it got chaotic, [but] we have several independent witnesses that gave statements saying he grabbed me first ...

Of course when Pete says "it got chaotic" what he probably means is "I got the F out, and our security guys took care of him." A nameless concert-goer tells mtv:

"They did their last song, walked off the stage and headed toward a side door to go out onto the sidewalk. But that's when the scuffle happened," the concertgoer told MTV News. "The crowd surged back, then snapped forward. From my vantage point, I could see Fall Out Boy security was pounding on the guy. The guy was down on floor, shirt ripped, bleeding from ear and nose. There was a lot of blood."

What ever happened to security just breaking up fights, and not always finishing them? Twist the guy's arm or something and drag him away. There's just a lot of blood in that picture, is all.

Is there anything more emo than a bloodstain?

I'm being led to believe that the bloodstain pictured over at Chicagoist is the result of Pete Wentz's latest public tantrum. It's unclear from the account whose blood we're really looking at here, but does it matter?

From what we could see, Pete decided to have a “word” with a heckler who teased him about his relationship with Ashlee Simpson on his way out, and the shit (and a well-aimed beer bottle) then promptly hit the ‘fan.’ It wasn’t immediately clear what Wentz down, but we caught a glimpse of Pete on the floor with the other dude on top of him

Really great punnage from Chicagoist's writing staff, no?

Fall Out Boy - Carpal Tunnel of Love

They're streaming it over at absolutepunk.net, but you've gotta be registered to listen. Clever, huh?

Apparently, this won't be the first single from Fall Out Boy's upcoming release. It's just something they decided to throw up on the web without permission of their label. That is so punk rock. Next thing you know they're going to wear their shoes in the house and track mud all through the kitchen and when their mom yells at them they'll just be all like "Whatever."

Thankfully, there are no new pictures of Mr. Wentz in negligee to accompany this "leak."