This is a preview of a post that you can view in full by contributing to my Patreon. I’d really appreciate it if you’d consider it.
The early work of Say Anything— a band that, at one point many years ago, I probably would have described as something like “the most East Coast band on the West Coast” because I had just read Andy Greenwald’s Nothing Feels Good— endures. They were one of many in a cottage industry of bands who formed in the direct aftermath of Saves the Day’s Through Being Cool, and announced a hiatus in 2018. Within those eighteen years, which a much more talented writer would not compare to the length of time it takes an infant to mature into a legal adult, Say Anything metamorphosed from your average, everyday amalgamation of five bored teenagers into something of a genre-bending collective revolving around the idiosyncratic songwriting tendencies of central figure Max Bemis; the Warped Tour equivalent of Bomb the Music Industry!, if you will.
…
Say Anything’s early work— which, for the sake of clarity, I’ll define here as the material contained on the All My Friends Are Enemies collection, Is A Real Boy, and the Was A Real Boy EP— just feels… distinct, even compared to the band’s sonic and social contemporaries of the time. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what separated Say Anything from their peers, what made them more special to me in that intangible little way. A huge part of me just wants to say it’s because I identify with how Jewish they are, and leave it at that. But that’s really just an informing factor. Because the fact of the matter is, the material from Say Anything’s first five or so years as a band persists in popularity because they were just a little bit darker and weirder than any of the bands you would have wanted to lump them in with.
To see the rest of this post, please consider contributing to my Patreon, or hit up my Venmo at xyoudontneedmapsx if you’d prefer to show your support with a one-time donation! If you’re interested in a band bio or some freelance writing, email me at xyoudontneedmapsx@gmail.com to hash out the details. If you’d just like to read dumb jokes, follow me on Twitter. Thank you so much for reading.
-xoxo, Ellie