When I entered the 7th grade I was only a baby.  I knew nothing of covert lunchtime dumpster smoking. Shit, it took me half of the year to figure out why everyone was posing so much; I didn’t see any cameras. I wore tight, pure white Levi’s Silvertab jeans the first day of school. My musical tastes consisted of listening to the 5-disc “Classical Music From Around The Globe” set that was part of my parent’s CD collection and every once in a while threw in Genesis’ We Can’t Dance when I was feeling really sassy. 

Eventually I picked up the mandatory mid-90′s punk and ska bands (NOFX, Operation Ivy, Pennwise, Bad Religion, etc.) that Cincinnati suburbanite youths clung to in the hopes of appearing cool. For a while I skirted with the concept of  hip; I could ollie over two stacked skateboards, I had JNCOs with 30 inch pipes (big enough to flip them upside down and wear them as a ridiculous skirt for comedic relief at family reunions), and I even carried a pocket knife to class. So tuff. 

Despite my greatest effortsI was always miles and miles away from true cool, figuratively and literally. The really cool kids were the ones doing heroine and listening to Unwound in some Seattle warehouse loft their older brother Crust rented out. They had piercings, real tattoos, real VD and were over Kurt Cobain even before Courtney blew his brains out. They were accomplishing real feats of cool 24/7 while I was trying to learn the lyrics to The Aquabats’ “Captain Hampton & The Midget Pirates” 3000 miles away in West Chester, OH. 

Before I picked this album up I had never heard Unwound. Not once in my entire life. I’ll admit I know nothing about the Post-Hardcore scene or even the regular Hardcore or curious Pre-Hardcore scene. I just don’t look good in black jeans. However, I feel like I should have heard about them at least once since this retrospective was released over 10 years ago. I mean I’ve been first mate on Black Bart’s MP3 Submarine for a while; from Napster to Bearshare to Limewire to modding a DC++ hub in college to my current venture as peddler of cheap vinyl smut. But I never heard Unwound. 

Well, after running multiple scenarios through my head about how this could be I finally came up with a solution: I simply wasn’t cool enough to pick up the Unwound wavelength. It was a long-lasting punishment for attempting to rock an undercut despite my superhuman cowlicks (I bore an uncanny resemblance to a Bighorn Sheep) 

You skate?

I’ve finally served my time for my crimes against style and now can be as angsty as I wanna be all throughout the twilight of my 20′s. I choose to do that by throwing on Unwound when I have houseguests over and saying, “Oh yeah I really got into this band in, like, the 5th or 6th grade. It kind of changed everything for me after I ran away. Kind of gave me a voice for all the shit I was going through. You’ve never heard of them? Wow, where are you from again?” 

 It’s going to be so awesome. 

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