Jawbreaker "Unfun" LP DGC (US)

Vinyl is NM, Jacket is NM

Pressed on Baby Blue Marbled Wax!!

Original Press!

Out of Print!

Track Listing:

A1 Save Your Generation
A2 I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both
A3 Fireman
A4 Accident Prone
A5 Chemistry
A6 Oyster
A7 Million
B1 Lurker II: Dark Son Of Night
B2 Jet Black
B3 Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault
B4 Sluttering (May 4th)
B5 Basilica
B6 Unlisted Track

Jawbreaker was an American band active from 1986 to 1996 and considered one of the most influential acts of the early-1990s movement. Lead vocalist and guitarist , bassist Chris Bauermeister, and drummer Adam Pfahler formed the band while students at , later relocating to where they released their debut album (1990) through Shredder Records. Relocating again to the following year, they released 1992's through the Tupelo Recording Company and The Communion Label. Schwarzenbach's charisma and personal, frustrated lyrics helped to establish him as a , even as he underwent surgery to remove painful and voice-threatening from his throat. Jawbreaker toured with in 1993 and released in 1994, attracting the attention of major labels. They signed a 1 million contract with and released 1995's , but the album's polished production and smooth vocals resulted in a significant backlash from the band's core audience. Internal tensions led to Jawbreaker's dissolution in 1996.

Following the breakup, the members of Jawbreaker were active in other projects including and . Pfahler continued to issue previously-recorded Jawbreaker material through his label, and public interest in the band continued due in part to nationally-charting and emo acts openly indebted to Jawbreaker's sound. In 2004 Pfahler licensed the out-of-print Dear You from DGC's parent company and re-released it to positive response. He has since issued a version of Unfun, and plans to remaster the rest of the band's catalog. In 2007 Jawbreaker briefly reunited in the studio during the recording of a about the band, but rumors of a full reunion have repeatedly been dispelled by the members and the film has no projected release date.

1986–90: Formation and Unfun

Prior to forming Jawbreaker, and Adam Pfahler were childhood friends in and classmates at Crossroads High School. In 1986 they moved to to attend and decided to start a band. Seeking a , they responded to a posted on campus by Chris Bauermeister. "It wasn't just this Xeroxed thing", Pfahler later recalled, "It was something he had drawn, like a poster. It was all colored and it named all the right bands." The trio began practicing together at Giant Studios on , with Schwarzenbach on and Pfahler on . "It was just us, trying to figure each other out in that hourly room for a while", recalls Schwarzenbach, "We went through a lot of incarnations before we sounded anything like the band we became. I am glad we didn't play live [very much then], because I had to go through my phase." They practiced with several singers and went through several names during this time, eventually settling on the name Rise.

In the fall of 1987 Schwarzenbach, Pfahler, and Bauermeister took time off from college and moved to to pursue Rise, adding Bauermeister's childhood friend Jon Liu on lead vocals. This changed, however, when Schwarzenbach wrote and sang "Shield Your Eyes" for the band's . It was the first recording on which he sang, and he later noted that it "kind of defined where we would go as a band". According to Liu, "That was the song where everything worked. The vocal arrangements. The lyrics. It was a perfect piece. But to my detriment, I kind of bristled against it. I was like, 'This is amazing, and I dont' think I can do anything like this.'" The band soon changed their name to Jawbreaker and Schwarzenbach, Pfahler, and Bauermeister decided to continue as a trio with Schwarzenbach on vocals. Bauermeister was given the task of informing Liu that he was no longer in the band, which proved awkward since the two were roommates. "I am cool with it now," reflected Liu in 2010, "It was to everybody's benefit. But at the time, there was some bitterness.

"Shield Your Eyes" was the first Jawbreaker song to be released, on the 7" vinyl The World's in Shreds Volume Two on Shredder Records. This was followed by a for "Busy" and the Whack & Blite E.P. in 1989. In total Jawbreaker wrote almost 20 songs in 1988 and 1989, many of which appeared on compilations and over the next two years. The band played their first show March 16, 1989 at Club 88 in Los Angeles and recorded their debut album, , in two days in in January 1990. Released through Shredder, its sound was distinguished by Schwarzenbach's lyrical and vocal intensity.

We were beat to shit. We broke up at the end of the tour because, well, why wouldn't we? We were driving around in Chris' van, with a couch sliding around in the back, with no air conditioner in the summer. By the end, we were pretty much at each other's throats. So it was like, "Fuck this, let's call it quits. This is insane."

–Pfahler on the band's breakup following the "Fuck 90" tour

In the summer of 1990 Jawbreaker embarked on the "Fuck 90" tour with , which proved to be a grueling experience that briefly broke up the band. "It was roughly two months, in the summer, for a totally unknown band", according to Schwarzenbach. "Of that tour, we probably had six rad shows. Then there were maybe 25 utterly forgettable metal-club-in-Florida-type shows." Bauermeister stopped speaking to Pfahler and Schwarzenbach when the tour reached Canada, with several weeks still to go. By the conclusion of the tour, tensions between the members had risen to the point where they announced the band's breakup. Schwarzenbach and Bauermeister returned to New York University to finish their degrees, and rarely spoke to each other.

1995–96: Dear You and breakup

Jawbreaker began recording their major-label debut, , in February 1995 at in with , who had Green Day's breakthrough album the previous year. Recording sessions lasted two months and resulted in disenchantment and tension within the band, particularly between Bauermeister and Schwarzenbach. After a week of recording drums and bass guitar, Bauermeister and Pfahler were largely absent from the rest of the sessions while Schwarzenbach continued to work on the album with Cavallo. "I didn't even go", recalled Bauermeister in 2010, "I just hung out at home with my wife. I was already trying to separate myself from the band, while Blake became more of the major force." With a large recording budget at their disposal, Schwarzenbach and Cavallo spent much of their time polishing the record's production value, making the vocals and guitar clear and bringing them to the forefront of the . According to Cavallo, "Blake really wanted to be heard. I think he wanted his voice to be heard for the first time. He also decided to sing differently. Then, to me, I thought those songs could benefit from some precision."

Producer gave Dear You very polished production value in comparison to Jawbreaker's previous albums.

In the months leading up to the album's release, a number of music publications positioned Jawbreaker as the next stars of the punk scene, sometimes referring to them as "the thinking man's Green Day". When Dear You was released in September 1995, however, its polished production and clear vocals strongly divided the band's fanbase. "[Dear You]'s production glistened and gleamed," says Greenwald, "Schwarzenbach's voice was sanded and smoothed, and the songs were mellow, introspective affairs. The reaction was harsh—those who had entrusted their emotional lives to Schwarzenbach, had viewed him as a tattered, secular priest to lay their burdens on, felt betrayed." Ben Weasel was so displeased with the album, particularly the sound of Schwarzenbach's singing, that he wrote Pfahler a letter detailing his complaints with it. Despite a in rotation to support the "Fireman", sales of Dear You were poor.

As the band toured in support of the album, audience reaction toward the new material was either lukewarm or outright negative. "I have never seen anything like that—before or since", said Kates, "There was a point where they were headlining the and there were kids sitting on the floor, with their backs to the stage, when they were playing songs from Dear You. I'm not making that up. If you were to try to explain that to somebody now, it would make no sense." Jawbreaker continued touring in 1996, opening for the that spring, but audience reception did not improve. Samiam's Sergie Loobkoff cites a show at in San Francisco as a turning point: "That is when I knew they were definitely going to break up. It was their hometown; they had put out the big major-label record. But then you're looking around and it was like no one cared."

Attitudes between the band members continued to sour, particularly between Bauermeister and Schwarzenbach, who took to traveling in separate vans. Tensions came to a head in , culminating in a fistfight between the two which spilled out of the van and onto the sidewalk. "I remember just calling Blake a 'fucking ' and a 'stupid son of a bitch who thinks it's all about him.' Just letting it all out", says Bauermeister, "It definitely put a wedge between us." On returning to San Francisco, the band called a meeting and decided to break up, though Pfahler was resistant to the idea.

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