II

Around my junior year of high school I went to a show at Montclair State University which I had forgotten about until a conversation I had the other night with someone else who went, though I didn't know them at the time. Alkaline Trio and Piebald were headlining. The stage was outside and it was a beautiful day that we spent sitting on the grass watching the openers, and eating at the Six Brothers, a diner down the road. That meal resulted in me being introduced to the wonders of Tums, which I now swear by.

For some reason during Alkaline Trio's set, a fight broke out, by which I mean the MSU rugby team had all jumped one dude. That was my first introduction to Charlie Shelton, then singer of AllxHell ("we kiss, you spit, we kiss").

Amidst the chaos, a romance had budded that day, one which produced many mixtapes. The first one was the best though, and it included the song "December 27, 1990" by Appleseed Cast, a song consisting of a few sparingly plucked notes and a vocal track that sounds like a drunk wandering the streets and trying to piece together the lyrics to a Tom Waits song. Here's the album in which said song is contained, "End of the Ring Wars." It's their first, and admittedly the only one I've actually listened to.

Stay tuned for an America Rules post this weekend in recognition of Memorial Day.



Appleseed Cast - "The End of the Ring Wars" (1998)