I’ve been meaning for some time to write about the album currently listed on the right, The Format “Dog Problems”. I am very fond of The Format, their first full-length CD was essentially the soundtrack to my summer of 2004… actually they’ve been a big part of the soundtrack of my life ever since the summer of 2004. Some lyrics that really hit close to home from that album are..
“Old classmates please drop all your pens,
Don’t write a word,
cause I won’t reply.
And I’m not bitter, no,
It’s just I’ve passed that point in my life.”
I’m Ready, I Am
and
“And these last three years,
I know they’ve been hard.
But it’s time to get out of the dessert and into the sun…
Even if it’s alone.”
On Your Porch
It’s not that I hated anyone from High School really, I just felt like everyone was traveling in a different direction than I was. I look back on that now and realize how much of a judgmental asshole I was towards a lot of my friends for about a year after I moved out to Utah. It’s amazing what BYU can do
with your feelings towards friends, even some of your very close friends. I’ve now learned it’s not ok to judge, and you should always be there for your friends no matter what happens… Even if you do have to kick their ass back in line every now and then, you shouldn’t totally shut them out.
With “On Your Porch”, that one hit home mainly because of my relationship with my father. I haven’t had the best relationship with my father growing up, but who has? Everyone has their ups and downs, it just seemed ours came during the toughest times possible. My Dad was never happy with me quitting football in high school, which happened during a time I needed him the most. Tim was on his Mission in Nicaragua, Robert was getting married soon, and it was mom and I home alone 90% of the time.
It HAS been really hard these past 3-4 years, sometimes it seems like all I can do is fail in my dad’s eyes. I know deep down inside he doesn’t intend it to be that way… even more so now that he has turned 90% gay after the birth of Maci. Sometimes it just makes you feel better to know that you aren’t the only one who has had a hard time talking with/feeling loved by their Dad. Sometimes it seems like the music KNOWS how you’re feeling and how to cheer you up in that moment of need, or even 2 years after the fact. Music always helps the healing process in my opinion.
I really don’t have a bad relationship with my father at all, don’t take it that way. Avoiding a long tangent… back to the music.
The Format’s first release “Interventions and Lullabies” is a top 10 album of mine all time, and I could listen to it over and over again anytime, anywhere. “Tune Out” will always bring back good memories of Trevon, Eli, Nathan, and me driving on I-15 to a family picnic and seeing the looks on people’s faces when we arrived in a 1988 Mercury “Bat Mobile” (custom paint job, thanks to spray paint) without the doors on it. “Career Day” Will always remind me of driving past Provo Canyon on the way home from work everyday. “The First Single” will always remind me of Trent dancing around like a monkey in our crazy ass apartment… In other words, it will be really hard to find an album that would strike up more good memories than “Interventions and Lullabies”.
That being said, I was expecting a mediocre 2nd release from The Format. I’m glad to say that I couldn’t be wrong… not exactly IaL part 2, which they said it wouldn’t be from the start… but still a great album. I sometimes feel guilty for finding humor in the emo lines. I guess that may be what they intended. This is after all, the break up album.
“I’m gonna sleep with the next person I meet”
Excellent… Keep up the good work boys.
1 response so far ↓
kelly // Jun 13, 2006 at 1:44 pm
good post, here.
i basically love Dog Problems… there isn’t one song i could pick as a favorite. i think that Interventions was a good one too, but in a different way. i know you said this is the break up album, but i think that the record is pretty complex, maybe an anomaly for what i would hold as that stereotype. i guess i don’t really know; i’m no expert and don’t know very much about the band beyond their songs.
anyway, i liked when you said “sometimes the music KNOWS how you’re feeling”. i think that maybe the reason i love DP so much is because it is like a pinata full of feelings that, as people, we can all relate to. the brass instruments, the interludes, the sorta mood-swings within songs, the lyrics… they all work together to let you be okay with being complicated. some of the lines are so personal, like in “if work permits” when he talks about the girl’s brother being hit in the head with a phone and that’s why she is afraid of love. and then there are lines that are more universal, like when he says he wants to pay his mom back for all that she’s done, but can’t because love can’t be taxed. and then when he talks about how she’s somewhere in the sand and he wishes he could be an ocean so that he can see her again. everyone feels these ways sometimes. everyone has times when they think “i love love, i love being in love, i don’t care what it does to me.” and everyone has “it’s a bitch” feelings when they get their hearts hurt.
i feel like i’m rambling but i could probably talk about this for a few hours. and i couldn’t with other breakup albums, like james blunt’s. that one is a real pity party, to me, whereas DP is more like, hey i have bullshit, you have bullshit, let’s party. or not. maybe we can not party, maybe we can just get through our lives a little easier with some friends and circus music.
does that make sense?
one more thing, i guess- one of my favorite favorite lines of DP is “boys in swooping haircuts are bringing me down, taking pictures of themselves”. i couldn’t agree with this more. i sometimes wonder if the validity of truly sad people is decreased when 30 million young adults are running around being philisophically depressed because it’s cool. i wonder if this trend is on its way out.
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