COI008: We've only got one choice
So let's keep making it and making it, making it and making it
I’ve followed Motion City Soundtrack’s career since before its members would probably even consider it a “career” — here’s my earliest MCS clipping, a review of their Back To The Beat EP from 2001. I’ve seen them literally countless times (the actual total is somewhere around 40, scattered across a half-dozen or so states and far too many festivals held in parking lots). Some of my closest friendships exist specifically because Motion City existed.
They always tell you that if you’re a music journalist, no musician is ever truly your friend, a lesson I’ve learned myriad times. But the members of Motion City always treated me with respect and kindness, and the feeling was mutual.
Motion City had a solid decade where they were one of the biggest bands in the contemporary punk scene, and they managed to sell a few hundred-thousand CDs at a time when the whole industry was being blown up due to file-sharing. The music was still excellent (MCS’s final work, 2015’s Panic Stations, is in my top three Motion City records), but the fans had largely moved on. So in 2016, they broke up. It was sad, but it was necessary. I, along with many friends from all over North America, made the pilgrimage to Chicago to witness their final set at the Metro. It was 36 songs and 2.5 hours long. It felt right.
Now, here we are, less than three years later, and Motion City is reuniting. (Well, technically, they won’t be reuniting until December 31, as the above cryptic teaser video states, so technically it will have been a little bit more than three years off.)
While the band members’ social media accounts have not elaborated on this video, I have confirmed with multiple sources that this is, in fact, a reunion show of the band’s classic lineup (Justin Pierre, Josh Cain, Jesse Johnson, Matt Taylor and Tony Thaxton), the same lineup that spent all of 2016 putting the band to bed.
Why is this happening???
If there’s one thing that’s been made abundantly clear in recent years, it’s that no band ever breaks up. No final tour ever matters. If you just wait three years, or five years, or 10 years, or 20 years, there’s a chance a festival promoter will have the same music taste as you and shell out way too much money for some old musicians who hate each other to learn 15 songs before someone threatens to sue someone else.
It’s the same with professional wrestling, an artform of which I consider myself a huge fan. No old wrestler stays retired. Wrestling legend Ric Flair had a massive in-ring retirement ceremony in March 2008 — he was back in the ring (against Hulk Hogan, natch) by November 2009. Terry Funk has had more than a half-dozen “retirement matches” dating back to 1997. (He’s now 74, and he wrestled as recently as September 2017.) Just last week, Bill Goldberg — a WCW icon who already came out of retirement once for a big WrestleMania payday a few years ago — came out of retirement again to fly halfway across the world to Saudi Arabia and wrestle the Undertaker (who himself has non-verbally indicated his retirement numerous times, but here we are) for the enjoyment of a murderous prince in a blood-money event the WWE called Super ShowDown. The match was terrible, with the 52-year-old Goldberg cracking his skull open and concussing himself early on. But hey, anything to make a few mortgage payments, right?
Many bands take three or more years off between releases. This is not unusual for larger artists who can live off back catalog royalties while returning to civilian life and recharging their batteries. MCS never hit that plateau, so instead they pulled every band’s ace in the hole — a “final tour” — likely knowing somewhere in the back of their minds that this was nothing more than some time off. This move is getting to be as predictable as a band leaving the stage for 90 seconds before a perfunctory encore, and I’m starting to tire of it.
I hate not being more excited for this reunion, because there’s a part of me that is totally thrilled. I love this band. I don’t know if it will result in new music, but I’m confident that if it does, that music will be strong, given how good Pierre’s 2018 solo album In The Drink was and how talented each of the players are on their own merits. But to come back this early just feels cheap — and had the reunion originally materialized in 2018, like what a source told me was the initial plan, it would have felt even cheaper.
I dunno. It’s probably pretty selfish of me to say to anyone, “Hey, you know that thing you’re really good at? Well, you don’t get to do it anymore.” But at the same time, this was self-imposed: The band broke up — not just with themselves, but with their fans. These same fans are the ones who bought pricey VIP packages to Pierre’s recent solo tour to keep supporting the musicians they love, regardless of what songs they’re playing.
In 2015, as the editor in chief of Substream Magazine, I had the opportunity to put Motion City Soundtrack on our cover. It was a thrill for me, as well as sort of a full-circle moment, as one of my first interviews for Punknews.org was with MCS when they were still unsigned back in 2002. I traveled to Indianapolis to interview the band on the last day of their Commit This To Memory 10th anniversary tour, which had stretched on for the better part of eight months. They were tired and burned out — and Panic Stations wasn’t even out yet. Even though I did my best to put a hopeful slant on the band in my in-depth cover story (readable in full here, and legitimately one of my favorite things I ever wrote), it was clear this was going to be their last album. I asked the band point blank if Panic Stations would be their final missive. Their responses weren’t exactly reassuring:
MATT TAYLOR: Probably not.
JOSH CAIN: I don’t think we’re done yet. I think we got more music in us. This could end tomorrow; I have no idea. But at this point, I don’t think any of us are thinking like it’s done. I think if we were going to end, we would have to have our Mineral EndSerenading album. I do love this album; I think it stands strong as an MCS album, and I think it’s going to be viewed that way.
JUSTIN PIERRE: I hope people find out that it exists.
If you’ve never listened to Panic Stations, it’s never too late to start. Here’s my favorite song off the album, “Gravity”:
The opening couplet still hits me in the gut: “I didn’t want to be the anchor in your heart/I only wanted you to notice me.” Motion City, not only were you noticed, but you were an anchor for thousands of people, myself included. Please don’t toy with that responsibility.
Today’s subject line is a lyric from the song “We Can Never Break Up” by Alkaline Trio, a band who took three years off before coming back strong with a new album and headlining tour in 2018, with nary a mention of a breakup or even an “indefinite hiatus” in the interim. (See? It can be done!) Listen to the song below, and if you dig it, you can buy the record it’s from on Amazon (and by clicking that link, there’s a chance I may make a few cents):
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