Jawbreaker: Demos

Blake Schwarzenbach has a new band called Thorns of Life with 'zine master Aaron Cometbus. Way back in 1989, Blake began his career with Jawbreaker (with Adam Pfahler on drums and Chris Bauermeister on bass). Jawbreaker, like the SST bands of old, became standard bearers of a musically innovative, hard-touring, staunchly independent brand of punk (despite Blake claiming "I never was one"). Then, however, following a slew of tours, stickers, photocopied flyers, t-shirts, seven-inch singles, comp tracks and albums, Blake had throat surgery and the band signed to Geffen. That move, and subsequent change of sound, alienated most of their audience (this author included) but planted the seeds of a new one.



As for me, back in 1990 I found two then-recent seven inches in SK8 ( a skate shop that racked a bit of cool vinyl) ; Christ on a Crutch's You Crack Me Up and Jawbreaker's Busy. The former said that punk, of the hardcore variety, had present while the latter promised punk, of the rough but smart and melodic variety, had a future. Some of the tracks from that first seven inch (as well as future comp tracks and split singles) came from their first demos. A few of thsoe demo tracks were remastered for inclusion on their odds n' sods comp, Etc. Now you can listen to those first two demos in all their muffled, boxy-sounding glory.

Jawbreaker - Equalized (demo version)