Punchlines “Just Say Yes”

You really should go buy this CD today.

First, let me state my horrible, horrible, blatant bias right now: I’ve been friends with the original guys in Punchline for about 5 years (on top of the fact that Jon and Steve are responsible for our Geekscape theme song). In mid-2003, I had recently moved to California from New York and had heard that the band had an EP coming out and had recently signed to Fueled By Ramen, along with another Midwest band called Fall Out Boy. I looked the band up on Friendster and sent a message saying roughly “I’m a film student, want a music video, cheap, etc. etc.”. I got a nice reply back from a Steve saying, “thanks, we’ll be in touch.” I sent back my number and waited for the band to tour so we could shoot our great $50 video.

A few months later I got a call from Steve out of the blue as I was driving to my lunch while working a job at the Glendale Hospital. We got along great but a video didn’t look like it was going to be on the horizon… or a west coast tour. Still, Steve sent me a press packet and a copy of the new EP. I recently found the press packet while moving to Culver City and I called Steve up and said “why did you mail me a copy of your tour schedule for the entire history of your band ever?” By that time, I had done two Punchline videos and the band had released two full-length albums on Fueled by Ramen. And the band had gone through two guitarists, finally landing on their current member, Jon “rhymes with Melon” Belan.

I’m not really happy with the videos I’ve done for Punchline. Maybe I stuttered at the start, knowing that these guys have gone from one of my favorite bands to some of my best friends. As it stands, the band wasn’t happy with their label, and turned down an offer to release a third full length on Fueled By Ramen in order to put out their new CD Just Say Yes on their own label Modern Short Stories. Well, I’ve seen the video that they got someone else to do for this album and it’s better than either of mine. And I’ve heard Just Say Yes… is it better than the previous two?

I don’t know. I’m pretty close to the band and their music and I still need to run Just Say Yes through the litmus test of an hour-long drive down the 405 with my dogs. When Action came out, a lot of people loved it. It was full of energy and had an honesty to it, and freshness, that made the album a darling of the pop-punk, “I hate you dad, stay out of my room” crowd. I felt at the time that I was just on the other end of the age of 25 from fully loving the album but the reception it got was huge and it stayed in my CD player’s rotation for over a year.  37 Everywhere came out in 2006 and it was the perfect CD for me. In early 2005, Paul Menotiades had left the band right before a west coast tour and when we shot the video for Getting There Is Getting By off of Action, Steve was frustrated about it but hopeful about the recent addition of Greg Wood.

37 Everywhere turned out to be my soundtrack to 2006 and 2007. The album was poppier, displayed more of a clean range than Action did and the lyrics were more literal and direct. The album to me will always be a running document on the feelings of abandonment, disappointment, hurt and (ultimately) determined hope that the loss of a close friend will leave you with. The band had obviously been let down but they weren’t going to let on. At least not while we were listening. I found a lot of comfort and inspiration in that album and it got me through my 2006 (what I have come to call “The Wasted Year”) and 2007 (“The Reset Year”). I don’t know if listeners liked the album as much in the end, but it sold as well as Action did and is easily one of my favorite CDs of all time. Just Say Yet had a lot to live up to.

Litmus test aside, the first half of the CD is more familiar than the second but also does the job of delivering you safetly to brand new, exciting ground. Steve laughed on the phone last week when I told him that they had followed the same structural pattern with the song selection as they had on their last two albums: come out of the gates with a solid first track, drop the single with the second track, keep the rhythm rolling into the track six ballad and then switch back and forth through the last track and leave them hanging. Steve swears that there’s a theme going on with the sixth track of each album, and I lied to him on the phone about getting it (I don’t beyond loving each song), but he says it’s there.

The majority of Just Say Yes was produced by Jamie Woolford with a couple of tracks done with Action’s Sean O’Keefe.  There is a lot more of Action in this album than 37 Everywhere but Just Say Yes isn’t a step backwards in any way. It’s definitely the band making the kind of album that they want to make on their own.

Ghostie starts off Just Say Yes in the same way that Open Up and Flashlight did the previous two albums with a driving rhythm and confrontational lyrics. It’s the wake up song that leads right into the single-sounding second track and Punchline have literalized things this time by shamelessly naming it The Hit. When I put an acoustic version of The Hit at the end of a past Geekscape episode, a few of you commented that it sounded like a song that you’d heard on the radio. That’s exactly where a song like this belongs.

Steve swears that Punish or Privilege was written before they entered the studio with Jamie Woolford, but when I first heard the song a few months ago it had a lot of Woolford’s bands The Stereo and Let Go in it on my first listen. Jamie’s possible influence aside, the song is clean and has a lot of straightforward writing but about halfway through it starts to get back to the familiar Punchline sound. Track four is Maybe I’m Wrong, which is probably the first song that will jump out at you. Chris Fafalios’ bass just chugs along for most of the song and the lyrics are the most heartfelt so far. This is where the band starts to show just how far they’ve come from the Action days and 37 Everywhere. The comparisons to Action have already started to creep up online and they’re half accurate. This song blows that entire album away in how earnest it is. You’re going to hum this song to yourself while kicking a can lonely down the street. And you should.

I want to make Somewhere in the Dark a hit in the worst possible way. A while ago, the band registered the domain name www.BenFolds.me and joked that they would hold it ransom until Mr. Folds took them out on tour. People will definitely put a lot of comparisons between this song and Ben Folds’ music but when I first heard the song driving around Hollywood shooting the band’s Christmas Rap video, it sounded a lot more like a Death Cab for Cutie demo and I gave Steve a look like “I like this… but are you nuts?” The song is a bit different now and I’m working hard to make sure it becomes the next jingle that causes you to turn off your TV set because you can’t risk it getting stuck in your head further. It’s okay. Let it live there. It deserves to be stuck in your head. You’ll be happier for it.

So now we have the mysterious sixth track: Just Say Yes, and with it, you say goodbye to all of the Action comparisons completely. This song starts out as a PJ Caruso drum track that goes in a couple different places, none of them you’ve heard on an earlier CD, while showcasing each of the other band members. Steve has taken on a lot of the vocal responsibilities head on with this album, and this track shows it more than others. We don’t have the harmonies from Action or the vocal hand offs from 37 Everywhere. This song will make you realize that Just Say Yes is its own monster and this iteration of Punchline are a new, fresh band, and all comparisons are best left at the door. To push the point further, How Does This Happen pops up and takes the differences even further with its Green Day style marching rhythm.

Get Off My Train! is a synthesized and crunchy rock song that offers a few more sing along moments. It contrasts a lot of what’s been on Just Say Yes so far and you get some good Jon Belan high pitched vocals in the background. You even get some harmonizing and Chris Fafalios signature gang vocals.  Developing You Camera… what a sweet little song. It gives me the same feelings you get from watch old Super 8 millimeter family films or sitting through a long sunset. There’s some guitar noodle-ing going on but none of it detracts from the sweetness of the song. It’s not one of the tracks that will come out and hit you on the first listen but it’s one that will become a heavy favorite as time goes on.

My White Collared Shirt is the kind of song I wouldn’t expect on a Punchline album. It’s a chorus song that reminds me of the senior year of college, when you know you’ve got a while to say goodbye. There’s some regret and hope wrapped together in the song and the sound is a dance between them that culminates in the last chorus “so misguided that where I’ll go nobody knows”.  I would think that that lyric describes the band as much as it does the album so far.  Where it goes is The Other Piano Man, a song that brings in a jingling piano bar feel but then lets it down here and there for some more pensive, softer moments. Then the song cuts loose into a mad sing along of a party. You can see women swinging from chandeliers and the band leading a marching parade through a burning town, Chris acting as the carnival barker. The band has completely cut loose from what you previously expected them to give you and now they are jumping on the casket of their old sound until it’s closed for good. The Other Piano Man is that festive funeral procession out of town.

So with one track left, where does that leave things? Where does the band go from here? Castaway flows out of The Other Piano Man seamlessly and right into a softly orchestrated apology and goodbye. It feels as much like a soft bedtime story as it does the sound of the storyteller quietly crawling out the window and disappearing into the night. If there is a song to catch stars to, Castaway is the soundtrack. “I don’t want to be the last one to know/even though I know what’s coming and it’s typical”. If 37 Everywhere was the rejection of something comfortable and the excitement of what comes before, Castaway is the acceptance of where you’re headed and the setting of the sails at the end of the reinvention and years of preparation.

And ultimately, that’s what we’re left with: a band that has restructured and retooled itself and has now gone further down the road than many would have predicted when they set off on their own. By the end of Just Say Yes, the signs that lead back to Action and 37 Everywhere can’t even be seen from where Punchline is standing. Faithful listeners might find it unsettling at first, and I’ll admit that it took some getting used to for me. But in the end, I prefer Just Say Yes. The excitement of what’s at work here and the energy with which Punchline are pushing forward doesn’t leave any room for doubt about the high quality of this album. Let go of your uncertainty and Just Say Yes.