Day After Day #201: You, in Weird Cities

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

You, In Weird Cities (2015)

I've written about plenty of old-school rock classics for this feature, but what about newer stuff? Rock music didn't just end in 1995. And yet you constantly hear people say there's no good new rock music anymore. It's definitely a common refrain among my Gen X peers, who are in their mid-40s to late-50s now, and probably older Millennials as well. To which I say: Bullshit. 

I understand why people say that, however. If you're in your 40s, you can remember a time when you would hear new music on the radio or see a new video on MTV. Rock fans don't have those outlets anymore...unless they listen to college radio or online radio stations (free plug for my radio show here). There's more good music than ever out there, but you have to work a little to find it. 

Nostalgia is powerful and a lot of the bands that people grew up on in the '70s, '80s and '90s are still touring, so it's just easier to listen to your old favorites and see them when they come through town. Just last night, I probably knew 30 to 40 people who were either at the Foo Fighters show at Fenway Park or the Phish show in Mansfield. And it's cool, I certainly have seen plenty of bands who have been around for decades and will continue to do so. But I also like to see newer bands in smaller venues. 

The artist I'm writing about today is probably considered a newer artist by most, even though he's been playing music since 1995, when he was 13. Jeff Rosenstock grew up in Long Island and started a ska punk band called the Arrogant Sons of Bitches in '95. In 2004, he started Bomb the Music Industry, a punk collective that started out as a solo project in which Rosenstock wrote and played all the music and then gradually grew into a full band. In 2006, he created the first online donation-based record label, Quote Unquote Records, allowing fans to pay however much they wanted (or nothing at all) for the music. Starting with their 2007 album Get Warmer, the band partnered with Asian Man Records for physical releases, while still releasing digital albums for free. After releasing seven albums and several more EPs and split singles, the band played its final show in 2014.

Rosenstock released his first solo mixtape, I Look Like Shit, in 2012, but his first solo album came out in 2015, called We Cool? I was unaware of anything he had done from '95 to 2014, but I heard the song "Hey Allison" on a sampler from SideOneDummy Records and was hooked. It was catchy pop-punk and a lot of fun, so I picked up the album and really dug it. It's chock full of smart, punchy, rocking songs like "You, in Weird Cities," featuring big riffs and uber-catchy sing-along choruses.

The song is about missing your friends when they move away to start families, but since they're musicians, he can still listen to their music. Written when he was in his early 30s (he's 41 now), the song (and much of his recent music) looks at making that transition from your carefree 20s to your somewhat-more-responsible 30s.

"Instead of getting high/When no one is around/'Cause nothing makes me feel/Anything's worthwhile/Nothing makes me happy/I'm like a shitty child/Nothing makes me laugh/Nothing makes me smile/But when I listen to your records/I don't need to look at pictures/It's like I'm hanging out/With you in weird cities/Getting lost and pretending/That we'll never go back/We'll never go back/You're laughing with me/Getting lost in weird cities/Like we'll never go back/We'll never go back."

Rosenstock also got married in 2015, so he was making that leap into mature adulthood even as he was singing about missing his drinking buddies. 

"Listen to your tunes/It's like I'm there with you/When I listen to your tunes/It's like I'm there with you/I wanna hang out with you."

I can remember in the distant past when I started hanging out with my friends less after I got married and we started having kids. It definitely takes work to stay in touch with people and get together from time to time. It's a little easier to connect with people who live far away thanks to the internet, but everybody gets caught up in their day-to-day business because that's right in front of them. Not to mention when you've got little kids, you're exhausted all the time. 

Since We Cool? came out, Rosenstock has steadily released five more excellent albums and toured regularly (except for that pesky pandemic time frame). I saw him live for the first time in November 2016, right after the election. It was a noticeably young crowd, way younger than me and even Rosenstock himself. I saw him again last year when he came through Boston touring his latest album Hellmode and again it was a crowd of primarily college age and younger kids. Rosenstock and his band put on energetic, hard rocking shows; highly recommended if you haven't been.

You'll never hear Jeff Rosenstock on commercial radio, but who cares? Commercial radio sucks. Go on YouTube or even just Google him. It's never too late to find good new music.