By Stewart Dowouis
Katrina anniversaries are a bit of a bummer. One short retrospective video clip of the storm’s devastation on the local news can instantly dredge up memories that are often best left buried deep in the floodwaters of the past. Time somewhat lessens the blow with each passing year, but we never really forget, do we? Katrina was a monumentally transformational event. We all have a story to tell.
This August 29th, rather than wallowing in the trauma of the experience yet again, I spent a few moments reminiscing on and listening to the music that served as my personal soundtrack back in 2005. I’ve been musically obsessed since birth, so I have a tendency to mentally catalog periods of my life by the albums that I was spinning at the time. Songs and album covers are basically time machines to me. I suspect this is a particularly common behavior for others within the vinyl community as well.
Remember “Orgcore”? I wouldn’t fault you if you didn’t. The digital music revolution, iPods and Web 2.0 had totally taken hold by ‘05, and Orgcore was just one of many niche musical corners of this new pop cultural frontier. It happened to be my corner. My obsession of that era. My way through Katrina recovery.
Punknews.org was a heavily interactive website launched in 1999 that served as one of the…if not THE…biggest online punk rock communities near the turn of the century. Users, record labels, artists, promoters and the like were able to submit news, opinion pieces or reviews to potentially be posted to the site’s newsfeed. Each of these posts were ultimately accompanied by its own active comment section. Punk fans around the world were able to contribute to or talk mad shit about punk rock with hordes of others even if they lived hundreds of miles from scenes like Gilman Street or Gainesville. The site basically became a giant gumbo pot of fashion and musical stylings from around the world ranging from melodic skate punk to Anarcho-crust to third-wave emo. This created a pretty interesting phenomenon.
Within a few short years, all of these elements began to give birth to a new distinctive attitude, fashion sense and crop of bands that seemed intrinsically linked to the Punknews website itself. This stuff could be melodic and poppy, yet drunk and gruff. It was introspective and kinda depressing, but resilient and confident. Shout-along choruses were found in damn near every song. Everyone grew beards (before beards became indie hip). Cheap beer and heartbreak was mixed with progressive politics. Black t-shirts and flannel were standard uniform. It was punk rock for working class, grey-collar suburbanites…Mellencamp and Petty for dudes that also loved Leatherface and Descendents. It was the first truly notable underground punk rock movement of the new century. I was totally wrapped up in the excitement of it all. Music journalists jokingly dubbed it “Orgcore.”
If I had to settle on an Orgcore “big four,” I’d almost certainly go with Hot Water Music, Lawrence Arms, Against Me! and Dillinger Four. These bands were, in my estimation, the most universally respected on the org. Most of them predated Punknews and had a level of success before the launch of the site, but the renewed energy and relevance they experienced as a result of it was undeniable. I still to this day recommend these artists to folks who are new to the world of punk rock. Consider diving into each of their extensive catalogs if you haven’t already. It’s all great, legendary stuff. Other lesser-known personal favorites of mine worth checking out are Gunmoll, Latterman, RVIVR, Red City Radio and Iron Chic. Perhaps the most commercially successful group to emerge from it all though was The Gaslight Anthem.
Roughly two years after Katrina (and many years before the term “gaslighting” absolutely exploded into popular lexicon), New Jersey’s Brian Fallon and The Gaslight Anthem released their debut album, Sink or Swim, to virtually no advance hype. Punknews visitors, however, quickly took note of it with many declaring it to be the best album of 2007. Imagine Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender” from the Born in the U.S.A. album played aggressively in a shitty dive bar by young homeless kids drunk on Blue Ribbon. That’s The Gaslight Anthem in a nutshell. It sounds like it shouldn’t have worked, but it did. They were the ultimate incarnation…the final Boss…pun intended…of the Orgcore ethos. Their reputation quickly spread throughout the underground, ultimately leading them to a major label record deal (Universal/Mercury) for their third album a few years later. They would go on to release multiple records over the following several years with varying levels of success, culminating in an appearance from Springsteen himself on their final album, History Books. Public awareness of the band has sadly seemed to fade over time. The same can be said for Orgcore in general, I suppose.
Gaslight frontman, Brian Fallon, will be releasing his fifth solo album, ‘Not Bad for New Jersey’ next week. The three singles he’s released from the record so far are all solid. I particularly love the subtle Bryan Adams vibes/production qualities on the song “Better Before.” I’m really looking forward to hearing the full record. The fact that it’s an enduring touch of Orgcore all these years and Katrina anniversaries later isn’t lost on me.
Many years have passed since my days exploring Tampa, Florida as a storm “refugee” while listening to Hot Water Music. The past couple decades haven’t always been easy. The scenery is a bit different these days, but we’re still here. I’m a dad now. There’s more life to be lived.
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