Saves The Day Band • Page 75

I have this same misprint as well haha

 

Oh and yeah Sound The Alarm is absolutely fantastic.

The trilogy is incredible all around. It’s a shame the records that followed after are mostly disappointing.

 

My personal take across the board is that everyone has their own limits in regards of separating the art from the artist.

If someone can’t still appreciate/enjoy the music because of X then that’s 100% in their right.. it’s only when they actively call people out for still enjoying the music that I’m not into. For example; I can no longer listen to Kanye cause he’s just too toxic but do I still enjoy Saves The Day? Yes. Do I approve of Chris’s actions? Of course not - dude needs help - but I still enjoy his past records.

 

Bingo

 

Maybe the Sound The Alarm diss is a bit much, but to me, to see the growth from Can't Slow Down through In Reverie, it was a thing to behold in terms of musical sophistication and honestly, lyrical sophistication as well. I was very interested to see where Chris (and Dave, Eben and Pete) would go next. And to me, it seems they went backwards. Well not Eben, as he's alluded to since he left the band, he basically didn't feel like playing music to 14 year old scene kids was his thing anymore. Not that there is anything wrong with that. But he wanted the band to grow. And I'm sorry, but to see Sound The Alarm as much else other than a big ol' "sorry" to the so-called "fans" who were alienated by In Reverie is a bit much for me. While the music was still interesting to a point the lyrics were an obvious attempt to cater to those who wanted the blood 'n guts of Through Being Cool.

As far as the dying the hair pink, I think it speaks to the whacked out state of mind. He was a recently married man with a little girl. And me and most of my friends at the time were a few years younger than Chris and nearly all of us were either amused by what a goofball he looked like or kinda horrified that the leader of one our favorite bands was going through a quarter life crisis or were slightly embarrassed that this adult man whose whole appeal was just being real was resorting to schtick like dying his hair to show us how punk he was? Why was he singing with a British accent and a bit of lisp? He never had a lisp on the earlier work. What the heck was going on with this guy?

I don't know. I think as I said earlier that I think STA was a bit of a contrived attempt to show his old "fans" that he could still make angry punky music. It was almost comical in a way to hear some of those lyrics on that album. Under the Boards and Daybreak didn't seem as contrived to me, but I think they were hamstrung by the fact that he kinda wrote himself into a corner by declaring it a trilogy. Some of the stuff on Daybreak is decent, and his singing had definitely improved back to where it was was around In Reverie, but then you have lyrics about red dresses and whatever the fuck and instead of "tying it all together" for me it came off as a bit of schtick once again. I think one concept album is tough, even for writers like Pete Townshend or Ray Davies. Chris Conley at his best is very good, but he ain't them.

I will also say by Under the Boards and Daybreak and then definitely by the self titled record he showed signs of losing lyric writing prowess. Yes, he could still write a pretty good lyric like "Bye Bye Baby" or "Living Without Love" but a lot of the stuff became super literal, like "Undress Me" and it hit me the same way that I would feel when John Lennon would write about Yoko. Maybe it's super important to the writer, but its hard for me to latch onto. And one again, things became comical by 9. There was a quote from Gabe from Midtown from probably around twenty years ago where he said something like "once you start writing songs about the road, you've really lost that plot," and that sums this album up. Purportedly an album about Saves the Day and whatever, it's really just super narcissistic. Lyrics about us going to his shows and him on the road and dissing former band members who hadn't been around for over a decade and had not said a bad word publicly about him? Yeesh. It was sad. And I thought there was nowhere to go but up after that album.

Then while other artists used Patreon to get closer to their fans and reward them with unreleased and rare music and content, at first Chris couldn't be bothered to even make the unreleased content available to fans who were paying him a pretty penny. Finally, he did. And even as nice as some of the re-recordings were, it was just that, re-recordings. Why not share demos from the earlier eras of the band? Where was "Zebra"? "Sticky 500"? Whatever other unreleased stuff? No, that stuff is guarded like they are national secrets because of what I assume is that same inflated sense of self importance that led Chris to do what he did to that poor fan. He basically did the least he could do with the Patreon which then trickled to nothing. Many were left probably thinking, "how much more pathetic could Chris and this band get?"

Little did we know...

 

Those are basically my thoughts on STA. I have no comments on the pink hair stuff.

 

Also, just in case anybody has beef with me and Sound The Alarm, its not that I think it was a bad idea to go heavier or even darker after the relatively lighter In Reverie. It was the fact that it sounded so freaking trite. Not to compare them (especially in light of what both did), but Jessie Lacey managed to do troubled a heck of a lot better for an adult man on the later Brand New records on such a higher level than whatever it was that Chris was attempting on Sound The Alarm and parts of Under the Boards. Jessie still sounded like a grown adult dealing with life, whereas Chris somehow sounded more like a whiney teenager on those records than he did on the actual records he made where he actually was a whiney teenager (Can't Slow Down, I'm Sorry I'm Leaving and Through Being Cool).

Maybe you guys are right about the pink hair, maybe I overrate the importance. But just Chris' whole reemergence in the Sound The Alarm period felt contrived to me, and that's what I guess I was trying to get across.

 

STA > IR

And I love both albums, but that pink hair stuff is just you projecting.

 

How dare someone have pink hair and kids! What kind of DESPERATE person would ever do that?!

 

C'mon though. You don't think the first signs that this guy was a bit nutty were starting to creep out? Forget the hair. Why was he singing like Sid Vicious? I don't think there's a person out there that preferred that vocal style. Even if one didn't like the In Reverie vocal style, surely we all probably would've been happy with something closer to the way he sounded like on Stay What You Are.

 

I do have a vivid memory of leaving a Saves show during the Sound the Alarm tour and dudes hanging out flyers asking if Chris sang the old songs in his old style and is saying yes and them being fairly upset about it.

 

I did like the In Reverie vocal style. I also liked his on Through Being Cool, Sound The Alarm and Stay What You Are. I think it works for certain songs and certain albums. I think it he goes way too nasal in Under The Boards and 9.

But no, I don't think he was coming off as nutty. I think anyone can have mental problems and I think anyone can dye their hair. I don't think those two things are mutually exclusive.

 

I really hope Chris is taking this time to better himself and not just hiding out hoping for everyone to forget

 

No matter the age, a person in a rock band coloring their hair is one of the most basic things on earth. Lol what

 

So, I admit you guys got me. Chris Conley’s decision making is beyond reproach, as his actions of the past few years have proven.

I do think it’s interesting the obsession with defending his hair color and not defending his weirdo British sneer and lisp on certain records. Or his disgustingly narcissistic last album.

 

I feel like the fake British sneer is indicative of punk music in general. It didn’t feel as put-on as you’re describing, in my estimation. I don’t think hair color is as offensive either, so many artists go with a different aesthetic during each album cycle (I.e. Arcade Fire, Lady Gaga…) and he’s leaning towards the concept album in this past half of the band anyways. I just don’t think it’s as bothersome or horrible as anything he’s done in his personal life that we know about.

 

I think you just want more reasons to hate Chris @James V.

 

We get it, you think he's been a weirdo pathetic loser since Sound The Alarm who doesn't make the music you want

 

This thread is so bizarre

 

Agreed

 

Well, I think he’s given us some good reasons to dislike him lately, no?

 

James, time to go outside my dude.

 

Yet you’re focused on his pink hair and singing style.

 

I don't think we should try and diagnose mental problems in people we don't personally know. Of course it's natural to notice certain changes in appearance and behavior in celebrities/musicians/etc. but drawing conclusions about their mindset because of this crosses the line into parasocial territory

what we can do is criticize the music, and again I do agree with James about the strange vocal tics /sneer on STA. To me it reeks of trying too hard / fakery / trying to recapture old fans who didn't like IR.

anyway, aside from the diagnosing I appreciate James's posts in this topic about the music. it's really hard to be critical on this board.

 

I pointed out that the hair made him seem immature and contrived. I never said that this, or singing in a fake British sneer made him a bad person. All I said was that it made him feel artistically inauthentic to me. Contrived. Basically I found him to be a sell out to the scene. I feel like he was so beaten down by the response to his more “grownup” work that he worked up a mall-punk response to it, which in the process lost Eben. The whole era rang hollow to me. But hey, if but that faux-punk helped you get through fourth grade, then more power to ya. Seriously.