I think there should be an annual conference where people present scholarly articles on independent music. (Maybe this already exists? That’d be cool.) Here is an example of what I have in mind:

Lagwagon, a Southern California punk rock group, went on a five-year hiatus after releasing Let’s Talk About Feelings in 1998. From ‘92 to ‘98, they released five albums: Duh, Trashed, Hoss, Double Plaidinum, and Let’s Talk About Feelings. The band’s first two efforts were their grittiest. The songs were short, raw, and, at times, borderline metal. (Kind of.) Hoss offered a significant change in the band’s sound; although the fast tempo remained, there was a noticeable shift towards catchier melodies and cleverer lyrics. (I’m thinking of the songs “Violins” and “Razor Burn,” in particular.) Double Plaidinum is the black-sheep in Lagwagon’s catalogue: after Hoss, Derrick Plourde, the drummer, and Shawn Dewey, a guitarist, left the band. Recorded with two new members, Double Plaidinum is the darkest Lagwagon album. However, along with the bleak aura came a noticeable increase in production values –- Plaidinum was, at the time, the band’s best sounding record (from a technical standpoint). Let’s Talk About Feelings is an appropriate culmination of the band’s prior work: 12 songs in 25 minutes, sing-along melodies, strong lyrics, crisp production, and the use of audio clips in two songs (“Gun in Your Hand” and “Leave the Light On”). Indeed, if you followed The Irreverent Times Journal, my co-authored, multiple-award-winning blog [Author’s note: I’m imagining that this reading occurs sometime in the future, in a time after our blog rockets to fame/stardom/infinite money-making], then you already know that I consider Let’s Talk About Feelings one of the 25 Albums I Most Enjoy/Enjoy Most.

Between the years 1998 and 2003, Lagwagon released a three-song 7” and a b-sides compilation. So to say that I was anticipating Blaze, their first studio album in five years, is an understatement. But here is my point, my thesis (finally): “Burn,” the first track off of Blaze, is the quintessential Lagwagon song. It perfectly encapsulates the band’s prior sound, while indicating the more mature direction they’ll forge in Blaze. The track opens with a quiet drum part: there’s a moderate 4-4 beat on the high hat (I think), accompanied with a subdued snare on every 3rd beat. This seems oddly similar to “Kids Don’t Like to Share,” the opening track to Hoss. Except that in “Kids,” it was the bass that had its own quiet solo. Ten seconds into “Burn,” the other instruments enter the mix: a clean guitar picking notes, the bass slinking along to the drum’s slow beat, and Joey’s hushed vocals. “You won’t find me condescending at your closed door,” he sings softly. “You won’t hear how I feel.” Very appropriate, given the quiet opening. And it seems representative of a trend that began with Let’s Talk About Feelings: Lagwagon appears to be much more aware of matching the sound of a song with its content. In the early records, there isn’t much derivation. They’re all aggressive, fast punk rock songs. But, with Feelings (and most definitely in Blaze), the band switches things up.

43 seconds into the song, the energy finally returns. The drums kick things up to a punchy rhythm, the distorted guitars breeze from power chord to power chord, the bass runs freely, and passion enters Joey’s voice. Interestingly, 43 seconds later, at the 1:26 mark, the band has already lapped itself. In the same amount of time it took them to finish one verse, they’ve completed two verses and (almost) the first chorus. Again, “Burn” is a blend of the old and the new: Lagwagon is comfortable slowing things down, but they haven’t forgotten their roots. The first chorus, in particular, has a distinct Hoss-like vibe, to me. Something about the way the guitars accent “And any fool can play. I’ll raise the stakes with another turn. We risk, we roll, we burn.” After the chorus comes the first solo. Liberally, it’s ten seconds long. Conservatively, it’s five seconds long. Regardless, it’s short. And it’s distinctly metal-sounding. A perfect fit for Duh or Trashed. After the blistering solo comes the bridge. At the 1:48 mark, I love how the song almost seems to end, but it keeps going. It’s hard to explain, but the way the guitar sustains its chord lends itself to a fade-out ending. Instead, there’s a jump-start when the guitarist strums while muting the strings. Symbolically, this is like the group itself –- which, after the first few years of the hiatus, people assumed had simply disbanded –- restarting with fresh ideas and a new sound. Indeed, the melody Joey sings after the mid-bridge reboot is completely different than any other melody in the song. “My true friend,” he says, “I’m spewing. And only one more positive. I just might spill some notable insight. I didn’t think before I purged.” Check out the internal rhyme, the slant rhyme, the linked imagery of spewing and purging. These are much more sophisticated lyrics than “Oh, beer goggles. I love to put them on” from their debut album. It’s more reminiscent of the lyrical work from “Love Story” off of Let’s Talk About Feelings: “Interstate, in debate, an impasse. Driving out the hope and gas.” One last thing I want to mention about the second half of the bridge to “Burn”: the “and only one more positive” lyric is, to me, the band acknowledging that they only have one more album (Blaze) lined up. At the time, I think everyone expected it to be the last Lagwagon record. (And if it weren’t for the unfortunate suicide of Derrick Plourde, it very well might have been.) This playful, self-referential quality surfaces four tracks later on Blaze: the song “Falling Apart” is all about the band realizing they’re getting too old to be punk rockers.

The second solo begins at 2:11, right as Joey wraps up the bridge. Solo B lasts roughly 20 seconds and has a completely different tone than the first solo. It’s less hectic, more in control. It’s less about shredding, more about harmony. And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t feel like a solo that would fit perfectly off of Double Plaidinum. I think of “Making Friends,” in particular, for some reason. After the solo, there’s another abrupt shift: the song’s sound reverts to the opening, but with an added audio sample (a heart-monitor beeping in time). The heart monitor, of course, is ripe with symbolism: the thought-to-be-dead band reanimated; the pulse of the music; the gentle, gradual recovery of life (as represented in the opening). Or, conversely, it’s the band on its last legs, on life support, all too aware that this could be their final effort. Lyrically, the fourth verse also returns to the beginning of the song: “So here I am, attempting to unlock your closed door. I wouldn’t break it down, cause you’d be gone for sure.” Again, the music reflects this sentiment: the slow beat, the clean guitars, the hushed vocals -- they’re all not the least bit menacing.

The song speeds up again for its last verse and second (and final) chorus: “And you’re sinking me while you stay afloat in the tank you built. We drop, we never learn.” The song ends (almost immediately after Joey sings those lines) in what sounds like a downward spiral, a sinking. The guitars and bass hold their final notes, then slowly slide down the necks. Also, the “we never learn” line implies a sort of recurrence, a circularity. Just as “Burn” repeated itself (quiet to fast, then quiet to fast again), so does Lagwagon, perpetuating the SoCal punk they so deftly embraced in the ‘90s, yet, at the same time, refining it, maturing it, and making it a bit more complex.


Wow, holy shit. I didn’t expect this to be so long when I began. Kudos to those of you who actually read all of it, especially since you probably haven’t even heard “Burn” before.

Can I get my I-didn’t-realize-he-was-that-big-of-a-dork badge now?