Category Archives: saves the day

All these people understand is a gun in their face or…

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Do you remember Ludo?  He was the gentle beast in Labyrinth that helped Sarah through the maze.

He’s the inspiration for the name of a band that hails from the Midwest.  From their quirky songwriting I totally get that they are a bit into magic, mischief, mystery and fantasy, but it seems like they would identify more with someone more outgoing one way or another: Didymus or Jareth perhaps.  Nevertheless, that’s what they decided to call themselves once they recorded their first album and played their first gig as a full band in 2003.  Let’s just call it a tribute to fantasy, as in “We love Ludo, and we want you to love us too.”

In 2005 they released a rock opera EP called Broken Bride.  Originally, they had recorded a song called “Broken Bride, Part 1” and it eventually became the impetus to put together the EP and call it a rock opera. Honestly, the majority of the songs on all of their albums sound like they are about to instigate a rock opera of their own so I’m not sure what the idea was there…

But check this out… the UNLV Marching Band performed one of the tracks from that EP as part of an exhibition!

This week, Ludo released their third full-length album, called Prepare For The Preparations.  It’s all over the place.  Look, some of their lyrics are witty.  Their music is clean.  But why do they get to get away with putting out a non-cohesive album and still people love them?  When I can’t get away with being a all-over-the-place good girl and get what I want?  Life is not fair.

The guys in Ludo love to put on cool parties too.  HalLUDOween  and LUDO Shop of Horrors at the Blue Note in Columbia (Missouri).  A Very LUDO Christmas at the Pageant in St. Louis.  They’ve done mustache shows too.  I like to be random and I want to throw theme parties, and no one thinks it’s cute.  Frankly I am wondering if it’s time to hang it all up because I just don’t get it.  Every song on each of their albums are born of a random, imaginative thought and they hit you out of nowhere.  Like me! Sheesh.  So what do you see in them that you don’t see in me??  I don’t like to follow an agenda.  They don’t follow one either!  I found proof… Here’s the real explanation for Broken Bride:

Basically it is a concept album but ours is only five songs long. We didn’t originally set out to do it but Andrew Volpe, our main songwriter, wrote the first song “Broken Bride” which is about a man who goes back in time to save his wife who died in a car accident but ends up in the Jurassic period and all this stuff happens. From there it kind of spiraled out of control. Andrew wanted to keep the story going so we finished it up. We call it a rock opera, but we use that term loosely. A musical theater group in Chicago actually acted out the music which is kind of odd.

Let me try to spell out what’s going on in Preparations.  We go from zombies (again) to robots to overbearing drunk dudes; we get two nearly sappy love songs in a row which make you wonder what the punch line was supposed to be, a graveyard, and then the slow dance at a 1950’s soc hop.  Yes.  We slow it down and conjure Buddy Holly after conjuring Tim Burton. By then, you may be ready to just accept the final tracks on the album for what they are: fun.  And clean.

Like me!

The release from this album is track 3 – “Whipped Cream.”  It’s cute.  Where exactly do these self-aware drunks they’re singing about hang out?  They sound like fun.


Download Ludo – Whipped Cream

As for those love songs I referred to, I’m afraid to like them because they might be making fun of my need to hear lines like “But the best story that I could ever tell is the one where I am growing old with you” or “I’ve been hypnotized by all you are”. So I have to get through the album to the other side of 1950 and my next-favorite song is “All The Stars In Texas.” Fun and clean, as I said.


Download Ludo – All The Stars In Texas

The theme is not far off from one of my favorite Saves The Day songs, “Do You Know What I Love The Most?” Maybe I picked up on that real quick, and that’s why.

I know I know – they sound nothing like Saves The Day.  But I am a sucker for the unobvious love songs.  You already know that.

Why don’t you join in the party and check out Ludo live?  They tour like it’s going out of style.  They’re on tour NOW and there’s no way you can’t find them… Or hit the open road, see some sights, and catch their show at the Pageant on October 17.

I talk in between when you’re looking away

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I heard a song on the radio and for a moment I thought it was Saves The Day’s “Do You Know What I Love The Most?” But alas, it seems like none of Saves The Day’s songs have ever been played on corporate airwaves. Wouldn’t life be so much better if we could switch the dial and hear something like this?

[Download Saves The Day – Do You Know What I Love The Most?]

Saves The Day, headed by Chris Conley, has spent more than a decade inspiring other alternative acts and entertaining the youth of America with their pre-mathcore (you like that one?!)punk ballads and sorrowful self-loathing diatribes. But my favorite StD song is another love song, “Always Ten Feet Tall.”

[Download Saves The Day – Always Ten Feet Tall]

One of the bands that formed in the shadow of, and grew to become contemporaries of StD is Say Anything. Max Bemis fronts this band and is backed by four friends.

Max and Chris grabbed a former Saves the Day member and a current Say Anything member to form a collaboration record called Two Tongues. There’s no better way to describe the band than as Max says on their MySpace page:

“The Two Tongues record is really an expression of the yin and yang; how two “opposite” souls stimulate and battle each other in any truly loving relationship. Chris inspired me as a mentor, hero and friend, and I inspired him as someone who truly cherishes his work that he can respect in his own right. Chris sometimes looks down on himself but is inside a very strong, almost Buddha-like centered soul; I have that whole Steven Tyler/Jerry Lewis extrovert personality onstage but I’m a totally neurotic, restless soul inside. We as two people, therefore, express two sides of a coin.”

If you followed the Say Anything link to the blog post I wrote about them back in August, you would know I love the two bands almost equally.

So I should love Two Tongues. I’ve tried so many times. It’s been out for three months, and I am just now writing this. (Well, that’s mostly because of the whole false excitement over the radio thing this morning.) [edit][update]By the way, it’s the intro to Blink 182’s My Girlfriend. I like that song, but I hate that the local “eggstreeeeeme” station thinks that is has to be played every single morning.

The album starts out with Max’s powerful voice, a lead guitar and percussion with the strength of an angry Say Anything album, and the haunting background keys reminiscent of a Saves the Day song. Then Chris joins in on vocals, and it sounds like the perfect blend of two soulful sounds. But then Track 2, with the two trading off lines as if they are singing to each other, causes sufficient creepiness as you wonder just what the hell is going on? Listeners are just plain confused. Is Conley playing the part of some girl who dumped Bemis? Is Bemis consoling Conley over the demise of Saves the Day? Or is this just an internal dialog and a wildly experimental song?

The album doesn’t lose the creepiness factor as it moves along, unfortunately. Believe me. I said it before; I want to love it so much. It’s moving to imagine two artists, whom I respect so much, getting the opportunity to be creative in this way. But I really could live without hearing Chris Conley singing “Hey there boy, you’re beautiful.” In case I haven’t already protested ad nauseum, I love the sensitivity these two have been able to convey on all their previous music. But this just went too far for me; maybe I just need my men to err on the side of The Beast With Impenetrable Feelings.

Just kidding.

Kind of.

Well, here. Listen for yourself. This is one of the tracks that those who enjoyed the album claim “saves it” from the rest of the weak second half. Listen to Wowee Zowee:

[Download Two Tongues – Wowee Zowee]

I can’t say anymore. I’ve said enough. You know how I feel. Tell me what you think. I’ve seen both bands live. I love them. I’ve got all the old stuff and rare stuff and unreleased stuff. I’m just not smellin’ this record.

If they catch us, and dispatch us to our separate work camps…

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I’ll dream about you… I will not doubt you…

It’s possible you’ve heard of the band Say Anything by now. Their release “Alive With the Glory of Love” enjoyed some decent circulation on TV Shows and throughout video channels, such as FuseTV. “Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too” was an instant teenage sensation since it repeated the thrillingly provocative “called her on the phone and she touched herself” line, not to mention an appearance by Henry Winkler in the video. If you missed these, maybe you heard “Baby Girl, I’m A Blur” which did receive national airplay.
Here is one of my favorite tracks from their first major abum, “…Is A Real Boy”. Check out “I Want To Know Your Plans”:

“You don’t think I’d say those words to you today?”

This blog is being written because I want you to meet the Say Anything from before “…Is A Real Boy” or “In Defense of the Genre”. You see, the band as a whole and their songs are very special to me and I am missing someone quite a bit right now. The day this blog goes live will hopefully be the day I get to see that person again. The way we had to go about discovering the band, tracking down early recordings, and what we went through to finally see them live makes it all the more important.

As I write this blog I am listening to some of these old tracks, and this is what I hear:
It’s always been for you
I sing every song for you
And every single day I’m falling down
I never want to say you’re mine “right now”
A tear rolls down your cheek, it hits the ground
I’m falling down

Max Bemis is the lead singer and songwriter of the band. He began penning tunes after a bad breakup in the year 2000, and fortunately for us, at least a hundred (and counting) articulately written songs about love, loss, society, school, the music scene, and hypocrisy followed.

Unfortunately, Bemis’ past decade has been full of ups and downs related to his mental disorder. At least one tour has been cancelled as a result of his paranoid delusions, quite possibly stemming from his decision to replace prescribed meds for Bipolar Disorder with illegal drugs. But a string of successful tours (currently on Warped Tour) and recordings have followed those harrowing times and Bemis and Co. are working on not only recording another Say Anything album, but several side projects with well-known industry pals as well.

It’s still difficult to find these earlier recordings on standard music purchase sites. But there is plenty to find on P2P sites. I suggest you check it out… Or purchase their new albums below.

On the EP “Menora/Majora” in 2002, Say Anything recorded one of my favorite tracks, and one that thankful fans were overjoyed to hear played live on the last tour. Please enjoy “A Walk Through Hell”:

Even earlier still, the band produced a self-released album called “Baseball”. Now tell me, whatever happened to the rock and roll in your eyes? Check out “Shameless”:

It didn’t kill me to be shameless. Is anyone getting a toothache from this post yet?

If you’re not sappy like I am and you enjoy witty observations of society, there is still plenty for you in the music of Say Anything. Throughout all their albums, they’ve been able to convey distaste and disillusionment, whether through the use of metaphor or an outright calling-out such as in the track “Admit It!” off “…Is A Real Boy”. But until then, the video that still gives me chills: Watch “Alive With The Glory of Love”:

All this time… It’s my favorite pastime, chasing after you.