Daily Jam - Grendel

Over the last several months, i've been going through old CD's, LP's, and downloads and listening to a bunch of music i haven't listened to in years.  To be honest, Sunny Day Real Estate's "Diary" has never been too far from my ears for over 30 years now, but a few weeks ago, i listened to it from start to finish for the first time in a long time, and i was immediately a shy, insecure 15-year old all over again.  I don't want to be so maudlin as to say that the album "saved me" or whatever...but it was certainly a life raft of sorts for those days.  Here's the penultimate track "Grendel," our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - How It Feels to Be Something On

I saw that Sunny Day Real Estate are about to go on tour next month.  To celebrate, here's the title track from their third LP.  Listen to "How It Feels to Be Something On" below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Seven

Oh, to have come up in the 90’s, a time before the term “emo” was kind of a bad word. It was okay. Honestly, there was just as much bullshit to contend with back then as there is now. It was just different. But to come of age during that time and to really get into music then, the nostalgia runs hard and deep, the songs and bands and styles and genres forever cementing themselves to my psyche. They are forever running through my veins, my ears, and my heart. I was young, and so was emo. It hadn’t morphed into the…thing…it would later become. It was just a style of melodic music indebted to hardcore punk, but skewing personal rather than political, dwelling on private feelings and interpersonal relationship commentary rather than social themes or mores. There was still anger, but there was hopelessness as well, and enough self-doubt and insecurity to rile up any teenager within listening distance. Which worked out well and good for me, as I was 15 the first time I heard Sunny Day Real Estate’s Diary, and fell head over heels for it.

Opening with “Seven,” a song that would go on to pretty much define the band, if not the entire emo sub-genre, for the next couple of decades, Diary flows through it’s 11 tracks with a quiet/LOUD/quiet/LOUD panache, a swirl of dark and sweet moods and obtuse, (maybe) confessional lyrics. It’s like reading the journal entries from some mysterious teenage outcast, the quiet, brooding genius sitting by himself at the lunch table. The whole thing felt instantly relatable, despite any lack of understanding of lyrical thematic meaning or content on my part (i'm kind of an idiot). It didn’t matter. The album felt like anguish, thanks in no small part to Jeremy Enigk’s swoon and wail. It was perfect for a shy, insecure teenager like me, and while I may have moved away from it while growing up, I always find myself coming back for more “Seven.”

Being the first song I heard from the band, probably on 120 Minutes or something, “Seven” seemed to belong just to me. At the time, none of my other friends had any idea who Sunny Day Real Estate was, and as far as I knew, I owned the only copy available in Midland, Texas. That was certainly not the case, but I felt like they were my band. Growing up, you attach yourself to plenty of different groups and artists that belong to your group of friends, or your generation, or whatever, but it was wholly different and wonderful to have something that seemed like it was mine entirely. In a lot of ways, that feeling is what has made me actively seek out and discover new and interesting music over the last 30 years, like some junkie trying to relive that first high. I want to feel that way again.

The craving never subsides, but I guess I’m okay with that.

Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Sunny Day Real Estate

In honor of the album's 30th anniversary, Sunny Day Real Estate are releasing a live studio version of their wonderful debut, "Diary."  And they've included a new song to boot, originally written during the sessions for "How It Feels to Be Something On."  Check out new tune "Novum Vetus" below and pre-order the "Diary Live at London Bridge Studio" LP here.

Daily Jam - Friday

I miss going to shows.  But the combination of parenthood, moving out of the city, and then later the pandemic, has turned seeing live music into a rare occasion.  I used to go all the time.  That was one of the big allures when i first moved to Austin in the '90s.  Growing up out in Midland, Texas, there weren't a whole lot of artists that passed through.  Or at the very least, there weren't a lot of artists that i was interested in that passed through.  So when i arrived at UT, it seemed like the city was just exploding with live music.  Very quickly i learned to love venues like Liberty Lunch and Emo's.  And over the next couple of years, i got to see bands like Blur, Mercury Rev, The Flaming Lips, and so on.  I also vividly recall catching Sunny Day Real Estate a couple of times too.  Anyway, let's pull out of this memory rabbit hole and just listen to some Sunny Day instead.  Here's "Friday," our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Faces in Disguise

While we continue to try and rid our house of pestilence over the weekend, here's a track from Sunny Day Real Estate's swan song "The Rising Tide."  Listen to "Faces in Disguise" below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Shade and the Black Hat

Sunny Day Real Estate were one of my favorite bands in high school.  At the time, short lived and defunct, they felt like one of those bands that belonged only to me.  Of course this wasn't the case, especially given the excitement when they reunited a couple of years later when i was in college.  I was stoked alongside the rest of the crowd watching the band perform at Liberty Lunch in Austin, and i greedily bought up everything they deemed worthy to release, both as a band and as solo artists.  One of those solo releases was Jeremy Enigk's "Return of the Frog Queen," an alt-rock record recorded with an orchestra that may or may not be about Jesus.  I don't know.  I do know that it's a lovely record, and that the dramatic penultimate track "Shade and the Black Hat" is our Daily Jam.