It is 2024, and I am in my apartment in West Town, playing Tony Hawk Underground once again. I can hear the constant hum of helicopters and the rumblings of Ashland Avenue. It is a neighborhood that has people either flaunting extravagant wealth or Latinos who have lived there for decades. I know every crevice of the game. I can probably speed-run it if I am bored enough. When I was younger, each crevice of the game felt endless. It was the first time you could come off your skateboard. I look through the playlist and see a smattering of songs that bring me back to some time that doesn’t exist. As I listen, I remember Armageddon is on the soundtrack, one of the singles from Alkaline Trio’s album From Here To Infirmary. I now know the context around that record. It was their vagrant record and one that would catapult them. But then, it was just a song I would hear while on Fuse and video games.
For several months, I have been trying to get myself to like their newest record. Even the name itself makes me cringe. What in the hell made them decide Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs was a good name? When it came out in January, I stopped halfway through. I was not about to waste my time any longer on something that gave me no joy. I found absolutely nothing redeeming in it. One song (Hot For Preacher) was awful, sprinkling in some cheap chorus. I am usually pretty opposed to using whoa ohs as part of the main hook. It strikes me that you are out of ideas or are just lazy. I was again faced with the inevitability that every band I once loved would disappoint me. Just give it enough time, and even Jeff Rosenstock will become a little corny and hard to listen to at times.
Alkaline Trio’s issue of the last twenty or so years of middling records is not special. It has become normal as punk continues to get older and older. When I discovered the genre in 2003, it was only twenty or so years old. There were simply no bands that had existed for almost 30 years. Now, many of the founders are either embarrassing to claim or have died in recent years. Becoming a legacy band is an oxymoron. In my idealistic worldview, every band should have an expiration date. Most canonized punk records were made by teenagers or people in their 20s. While everyone is welcome, it is not about some old punks holding on to something that has long faded. It should be egoless to some extent, eventually letting a younger generation carry it forward. But that is just not the case, as we see with NOFX taking every ounce of money possible in their “final” tour when they haven’t made any relevant music since 2004, when Fat Mike led rock against Bush, which was an awful era for punk, in my opinion.
I was still going to keep trying with Alkaline Trio, though. I had been listening to them in some way for most of my conscious life. I still remember my college roommate showing me the Asian Man Records era stuff when I was 18. It was a period of music discovery I look back at fondly. Hearing Goddamit was revelatory; I am aware that I am being hyperbolic. It was something I could identify with closely. I think of them in tandem with Lawrence Arms—their songs, while about relationships, connected me to Chicago punk’s past. “Goodbye Forever” mentions Fireside Bowl and US Maple, a band I tried to like because of the mention. I would then etch certain lyrics into my skin. I still remember belting the words to 97 with my roommate while those around us looked confused.
As I continue to revisit Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs, I still struggle to connect. Those early years of the band when they didn’t exactly know what they were doing still linger with me. It feels silly to be nostalgic for a period I wasn’t there for. I watch old Fireside clips and watch them play Cooking Wine and try to place myself in 1998. Am I just searching for some part of me that can never return? The early years of Alkaline Trio are full of imperfections. ‘97 itself is full of weird decisions. It starts with an impromptu jam that the band usually cuts out now when performing. It makes me emotional every time I wait for the buildup to “I’ve got it now/thorn in my side the size of a Cadillac.” The lyrics are also funny, given that it’s about Matt Skiba being busted for weed. That initial charm would slowly chip away, and I don’t mean that negatively. Skiba would learn how to write compact pop songs that make it possible for them to be a band still.
As I am on listen five or six of the album, I wonder if the problem is me. Am I better than some comic book or Star Wars nerd who gets annoyed that some adaptation doesn’t fit my standards? If this record had been released by someone else, would I think it would have been good? I feel possessive, wanting more from musicians who have given me so much. This frame of mind extends to every band that reunites, hoping that no album comes out of it. I don’t want some built-up legacy to be tarnished. It is some sickness that comes with thinking about art way too much, with most conversations with friends revolving around music. But there is very little mention in these conversations that there are people behind these things we love. If you make things for long enough, you will eventually have fallow periods or eventually hit a period where your art is just fine or okay.
I once again put on Blood Hair and Eyeballs. I am reaching masochist levels of torture. Why am I trying so hard to find something that has long vanished? I try to recreate the environment of my youth two decades ago. I idly play story mode in Tony Hawk while listening to the album. All I want to do is punch Eric Sparrow in the face again. I had some help slowly opening myself up to the possibility of liking Blood Hair through As You Were: A Podcast About Alkaline Trio. The hosts were very positive about the record from the start. It gave me hope that I was missing something. As I played on my PS2, I heard what others were saying. There was some Stockholm syndrome, of course. I could hear the band that I once adored. If I closed my eyes, I could convince myself that some songs fit alongside anything on their Vagrant-era records. All that was asked was some acceptance that the band that I envisioned in my head in my youth was no longer there, and that was fine.
There is one moment that sticks out on Blood Hair and Eyeballs. It is on the title track near the end of the album. In a quick aside, Skiba says, “Cut me some slack; I almost died.” There are some clues as to what that could be about. He has very publicly been fucked, most notably at Matt Skiba and the Secrets. There was a post two years ago speculating whether he was sober or not. That context doesn’t matter; it is why I appreciate the album. I haven’t read the press, but it wasn’t positioned as a record about trauma or a return to basics. There is some vulnerability, but it allows the listener to discover it for themself. It is partially a relief because the Skiba in Blink-182 period was hard to watch as I found him unrecognizable from the musician who taught me many riffs I would steal for years.
In that one line, I can see myself in Skiba. As I get farther and farther away from that initial day I choose sobriety, the pull to return can become stronger. Going through life and seeing things clearly fucking sucks. In 2020, I was hospitalized for some light psychosis and such. I do not want to go into it too much. It showed that I still had some work to do even two years into sobriety, and I still do. There are still times I want to turn off my brain for a night. I have been close to breaking a few times. I met some of my best friends because of beer and alcohol. Self-medicating is a lot cooler than taking some anti-psychotic pills. I am more aware of how much the state pushes me towards addiction, forcing me to work to live and having to find somewhere to relieve all the tension I have in my body. None of this is present explicitly in Alkaline Trio, but in some ways, it is implied.
It is five months since Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs was released. I cannot stop listening to it. I love the terrible whoa oh chorus. Yeah, the recording sounds sterile, but who cares? Yeah, the art is silly. It's like some X-swatch that came to life. All of those things you can criticize rock. If there isn’t any corniness, then it is not Alkaline Trio. It makes it more interesting. It isn’t some masterpiece. It isn’t some garbage to throw away. There are some great songs and some bad ones. I’m never going to get back that feeling of hearing them two decades or even a decade ago when my brain was still developing. That is just how it goes. Everything you once adored will disappoint you, and if you’re lucky, they may surprise you if you stick around.
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