Thoughts on Japandroids ‘Celebration Rock’

We all want to know what nobody knows.  What nights of wine and roses hold for the wine and roses of our souls.

Everything in life is a journey.  Learning anything takes time, experience, and most importantly a genuine interest in the subject matter. Whether it’s a getting through school, a career, or just learning how to knit socks, nothing comes easy.  A craft or an interest takes dedication to allow the results to come to fruition, but is an end really ever reached?  I hope not, and you should as well because if there is, you’ve picked something that’s led you to a dead end.  If you truly love something, everlasting growth is the true pinnacle.

Long lit up tonight and still drinking.  Don’t we have anything to live for?  Well of course we do, but ‘til they come true, we’re drinking.

Musical taste is no different.  My first tape was Ace of Base Happy Nation and 311’s self-titled album.  My first CD was Mase’s Harlem World in the sixth grade.  Puff Daddy, Master P, Juvenille, BIG, and Tupac led me through my awkward middle school years up until the middle of high school.  At this point, music was a way to fit in.  But then me and my best high friends met and we starting listening to Saves the Day, The Movie Life, Alkaline Trio, Taking Back Sunday, Starting Line and every other band that played Warped Tour.  We dressed in tight band T’s and jeans and went to shows at Bogarts in Clifton.  We thought we were cool.  Life was care free, it was fun.   But this proved to be only a foot in the shallow end.

Heart’s terrain is never a prairie but you weren’t wary.  You took my hand through the cold, pissing rain dressed to the nines arm in arm with me tonight.

Next I went to college, and I met fellow ToTer Brett.  We talked music…a lot.  We took a class on Bob Marley and went to it every day with the mindset that Bob Marley would.  Music became so much more, it became an everyday talking point and something the entirety of our yearly calendars was based up.  There was always a new album to look forward to and a show to go see.  Hundreds of them to be exact.  And the best part is, there still is.  And now you all get to read about it here.

Give me that night you were already in bed, said fuck it, and got up to drink with me instead.

This is obviously not a review about the sophomore LP of Japandroids entitled Celebration Rock.  There are plenty of great ones out there that you can Google and go read.  But I will talk about why I love this album.  I can’t stop spinning this record because it’s the combination of my musical past and present.  It’s a combination of every cool thing about the bands I loved in high school: sometimes you just need to say fuck it and enjoy life.  It’s about drinking, staying up late, one night love affairs, and being young.  It’s about jumping up and down at a show and just letting loose. It’s two guys standing on stage, one beating the shit out of a guitar and the other the drums.  The simple raw emotion that is poured into it is a contagious soul lifting spirit to the listener.

One night to have and to hold.  To Let Live, but never let go.

This album represents a fountain of youth to me.  Some days, I wake up and feel old.  I’m 26 and I feel as though everything is mapped out and moving too fast.  As if there’s nothing left to even look forward too.  That youthful outlook on life has been beaten up somewhat by adulthood.  But then I throw this album on and everything makes more sense.  Live today.  Turn the volume up.  Fucking yell for Christ’s sake.  Most importantly, just go do something.

Hitchiked to hell and back riding the wind waiting for a generation’s bonfire to begin.  When the punder of the poets thunder of a punk’s guitar, beat life to my body sulking drunk at the back of a bar.

Celebration Rock is just what it says it is.  It symbolically opens and closes with fireworks because it’s an album that ultimately celebrates two people doing, and getting, what they want out of life.  But perhaps the best part about this album is that it takes a rock and throws it right through the glass window of the snobbish indie world.  Judge and critique all you want, but we’ll still be right here rocking out the way we want to.

When they love you (and they will), tell them all, they’ll love in my shadow and if they try to slow you down, tell them all, to go to hell.

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Written by Greg Dahman