Each week The Hard Times looks back on a classic album from punk history. This week we reviewed Knapsack’s landmark emo masterpiece “Silver Sweepstakes” because Rebecca left us again.
And yes, we did say “again.” Not that it really matters anymore – particularly as we have the hyper-depressed caterwauling of Blair Shehan to comfort while she goes to stay at her mom’s house for a couple of weeks. Hey, at least she took the kids with her this time.
This debut record from the ‘90s emo pioneers has gotten a lot of sadsacks through their sad crap. It certainly was that way for us the first time Rebecca changed all of the locks and threw our vintage band shirts all over the lawn. Do you think Elliot shirts just go on trees? I can tell you, they don’t. At this point, however, it’s more like comfort food for us. This will all be over soon, and then we’ll get our shirts back.
Back when it was new this album used to make us want to lay in bed all day, softly sobbing into a heap of plush blankets. Now, we just want to see if GrubHub will deliver to our bedroom but only so we don’t have to bother putting on pants.
Now that we think of it, “Silver Sweepstakes” might have been the only record we really come back to every time this happens. We wonder if there’s some kind of a connection there or if this album just really slaps that hard that it works in this context every time. Whatever, we’re not gonna bother calling again.
So Knapsack is pretty cool. It’s maybe not an ideal situation going on now as Rebecca has also blocked our phone numbers, including the secret one we thought she didn’t know about. But in any case, can someone out there try to get our shirts back?
SCORE: 7 out of 10 restraining orders