All for one

Jejune make music not emo-core

by John O'Neill

It isn't a pretty sound on this side of the phone when I finally make contact with Jejune. Guitarist Joe Guevara croaks a phlegmy "hello" into the receiver and is understandably out of it, having played out the night before. After a half hour to properly caffinate and locate drummer Chris Vanacore, two-thirds of Jejune (Arabella Harrison rounds out the trio on vocals and bass) calls back chipper and ready to chat.

"We're supposed to be at work for 11:30," says the now cognizant Guevara, "but we're goin' on tour, and we don't give a fuck! I can't wait to get out tomorrow and start."

Jejune will fly from their home in San Diego to start the tour in Boston, where it all began for them two short years ago when Vanacore and Guevara, both native Californians, met as students at Berklee.

"I was walking from class and saw Joe with an Unbroken T-shirt on," relates Vanacore. "At first, I thought he was gonna kick my ass because he thought I was making fun of him. But when he realized I was from California, too, we hit it off. We were the only two (at Berklee) who thought alike. I had met Araby, and we had been hanging out, and there it was."

Jejune began to write and practice in 1995, while still in school, and went into the studio almost immediately, turning out a demo tape that caught the attention of CMJ Weekly (August '96) as well as several record labels. They then went back into the studio to record a session with Brian McTernan (Cast Iron Hike, Texas Is the Reason, the Promise Ring) for inclusion on a compilation from Boston's Big Wheel Recreation called They Came from Massachusetts, and again later that summer to complete tracks for what would become their first full-length release, Junk (Big Wheel).

Loaded with hooks and lush harmonies, Junk mixes melodies into churning noise and back out again for a sonic wash. Although textured in sheets of crash and clatter, it's never at the expense of the music's basic appeal-- it's pop catchiness. Dealing with the subjects of loneliness, frustration, and abandonment, Junk is essentially broken-hearted love songs for a new generation. Sometimes threatening to careen out of control, other times as soft as a kiss, Jejune's music always wears the band's sentimentality, no matter how sarcastically masked, firmly on their collective sleeve. It's also a sound that gets them lumped into the increasingly meaningless genre of emo-core.

"That's why I had it tattooed on my ass." jokes Guevara. "Now when people come up to me at shows and ask what we are, I just drop my pants."

"When I read old reviews that used emo-core, I'd get stoked," elaborates Vanacore. "Its a stigma now. If you play pretty and slow, and then rock, that's what they automatically call it."

Emo or not, Jejune's sound has taken them far in a short time, including a move back to California in late '96. They've split a 7" with Garden Variety (Montalban), a second with Jimmy Eat World (Big Wheel), and appeared on two compilations. Beside undertaking their third national tour (they hit the Space this Saturday), they'll also record a new album's worth of material while in the Bay State, with Steve Revitte (Helmet, John Spencer Blues Explosion, and the Beastie Boys) producing.

"The new record will be more expressive overall," says Guevara in a passing moment of seriousness. "I'm gonna take my thoughts and concentrate them into molecules and breathe them on the microphone."

"Our last album was three different sessions," adds Vanacore. "This time it will be a whole body of work, so it will be one process, one idea. The impetus is really three people who love music and understand each other musically. That's the focus. We want to play music that's satisfying to us."

"I want to make music to satisfy girls," offers Guevara. As if there were other reasons why a guy first picked up a guitar.

Carl Wilson

It was a high-school football stadium in Altoona, Pennsylvania, on a sweltering summer day. By the time we got the stage up it was well over 100 degrees on the field, and the truck carrying the stage awning was 10 hours late. Two days without sleep or change of clothes and a blistering case of "gig butt," I knew it was shaping up to be a worse-than-usual production experience.

Like Chinese water torture, David Cassidy turned in a mind-numbing opening set, and as the moon came up, Mike Love led the Beach Boys through soulless hit after hit while old ladies in loungers chair danced.

Then, during the encore, Carl Wilson stepped up to the mic and sang "God Only Knows." Maybe it was the afternoon's sunburn turning into the chills, but every hair on my arm and neck stood on end. It was a heartfelt and beautiful moment that stood out in an otherwise painful jaunt. It's my only memory of Carl Wilson, who passed away last week at the age of 51. I wouldn't trade it for anything.