Asian Man Records, 1997
Acquired: Asian Man Records Mailorder, New, 2002
Price: $1 (came in a box of myriad vinyl for $25)
Tuesday was Dan Adriano's band before Alkaline Trio and after Slapstick. I should also say that this comes before his project with Brendan Kelly of the Lawrence Arms, The Falcon, whom I have only recently discovered to be totally fucking legit. Which is great, because Alkaline Trio has gone to shit over the past couple of years and honestly, the only new Alk 3 songs I can tolerate anymore are Dan's. But, remembering the good old days of Alk 3, I always loved his additions to the records. Yes, Matt Skiba made Alkaline Trio great, but the wistfulness of Dan's song contrasted perfectly with the bitterness of Matt's. Though his songs were much more reserved than Skiba's, he exercised a great deal of stylistic diversity. Take darker songs like “Crawl,” “Smoke,” or “Maybe I'll Catch Fire” and pair them with the hopeful and pop-jam qualities of “You've Got So Far to Go” and “Blue Carolina.” Anyway, the point is, Dan Adriano is an often overlooked songwriter which is a crying shame. This is his first batch of songs and the promise is evident. His voice is a lot lower than most of the singers he's affiliated with, and it gives a certain warmth to these songs. It's in line with legit old school emo and that was always my favorite part about Dan's songs and maybe what led to the emocore tag getting firmly affixed to Alkaline Trio when From Here to Infirmary came out. Most of these songs range from pretty good to really good, and it's a pretty excellent debut LP. The best songs are saved for last, in particular the monster jam “So Awake,” which is ultimately what led to my getting into this record in the early 00s. It's a perfect mixtape song, one you sneak in for a girl you like. “It's 4am but I'm not sleeping/ My mind keeps running back to you/ I just left you and I already miss you/ Do I keep you up to?” I listened to that one numerous times for a few different girls. None of those relationships panned out, but fortunately this record is still around and getting some much needed love right now.
Somebody put tracks from this record up on youtube! Lovely! Here's "So Awake," complete with the cool groovy little jammy build up!
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