Maritime at Mohawk on Sunday night

The musical journey that has been my life has not been a route through flat grounds, it's been hilly and windy and you would have great difficulty in predicting where I've gone based on where I've been. One of the great winding paths I've taken can be traced via my interaction (through speakers and headphones) with Davey von Bohlen. Davey was the singer of seminal "emo" band (god I still hate that term so much, it's starting to get that way with indie too) The Promise Ring, and is currently singing with his new group Maritime. I started listening to The Promise Ring when I was 18 and had just started college. Moving into the dorms and having a dedicated high speed Internet connection for the first time was a pretty huge moment in my life, because it's when I really started getting deep, deep, deep into music. Being able to fire up Audiogalaxy and just download everything I wanted or had any interest in introduced me to hundreds and hundreds of bands that I would grow to love. One of these bands was The promise Ring. Something about these quirky, poppy, guitar filled songs really appealed to me and I had a Promise Ring button on my backpack for several years. The Promise Ring were also one of the first bands from that most hated of all genres that I witnessed slowly morph into something else other than emo. Their final album Wood/Water remains a personal favorite of mine, and was a big departure for the band. Instead of upbeat and playful, the album was contemplative and a bit morose. Like most bands whose sound matures, most of their fans saw this maturation as change, and not for the better, and so, unsurprisingly, the album sort of flopped and I imagine it led in some ways to the bands eventual demise. I still think of it as one of the better albums I have in my collection from that period, and consider it a forgotten treasure. Obviously, now Davey von Bohlen has moved on and is in a new band, Maritime. Maritime recently released their third album, the splendidly titled Heresy and the Hotel Choir on Flameshovel, and they are coming through town this Sunday to play at The Mohawk. I'll be there and so should you. Tickets are 6 bucks and the show starts at 9pm.

The Promise Ring - Stop Playing Guitar

Buy Wood/Water here

Maritime - For Science Fiction

Buy Heresy and the Hotel Choir here