Baby, do you like my sweater?
Here's the kick-off
Hope you're not sick of
Relient K
Or all the songs we play
Cause then you'd wanna throw our CD awaaaaaay!
Soooooo I decided that I need to write an entry to reminisce over all things Relient K. BECAUSE I'M A LITTLE BIT OBSESSED AND HAVE BEEN FOR YEARS.
Yeah, I used all caps. I DID IT.
First of all, I'm not entirely sure how I first learned of them. It was circa 2001, so I was a freshman or sophomore in high school, and OH YES, NOW I REMEMBER. I was in the shower one night (I took showers at night then, which resulted in really yucky hair, but THAT'S ANOTHER STORY), listening to our shower radio (which barely worked (oh mannnn, this takes me back)) and since it was ridiculously late apparently, ZJam was on. For the unfamiliar, ZJam was (is? Is it still on?) a radio show thing that was on late at night on weekends (or just Saturdays? Wow, I'm old and this was a while ago.) that played Christian rock music on our channel, PulseFM, which typically played boooooring Christian music (which at the time, I kind of liked). And they played the song "My Girlfriend". Yep, that's right. The song about Marilyn Manson. ("A song about Marilyn Manson will never, EVER, be on a CD put out by Gotee Records. PERIOD." (True Relient K fans will get that!))
For some bizarre reason I guess I liked that song? And decided to look them up online. Because this was pretty close to around the time where our internet was fast enough to actually USE. Yeah, I know. INSANITY!!!! :)
Soooo I found their website. Which was all black and the design was TERRIBLE (but who would know the difference then? They were ALL terrible.) and it had a huge picture of cartoon guys, with one Marilyn Manson character. I believe he had a knife and fork.
And then I clicked through and found what was at the time called their "tour journal". It basically consisted of Matt Thiessen joking around about robots and other random things. And it was HILARIOUS. And I even saved some excerpts... which is good, because they are now lost forever except in the hands of crazed lunatic fans like me.
So yeah. Hilarious. And I became an eensy bit obsessed. (Which of course means TOTALLY obsessed.) I joined the online forum. The OLD one. The original. And people on there knew who I was. And I ate slept and homeworked Relient K. (And somehow managed to get all A's still. So I guess I'm exaggerating. haha) And I read about how certain people on the forum had actually MET THEM OMG!!!! and took pictures. But they all lived on the east coast, and I was a lame-o Indiana-ite. And I thought of how cool it'd be to ACTUALLY SEE THEM IN CONCERT!!!! And maybe MEET THEM.
And then their 2nd album, The Anatomy of the Tongue In Cheek, came out, and I got THOUSANDS MORE TIMES OBSESSED. I bought it, and it played constantly for like a year and a half in my car. I jammed on the way to youth group and back, and I forced all of my friends to listen to it (and they liked it), and I even so much as took it in to school because my history teacher let us play music while we worked on our projects. So the CLASS jammed to Relient K. Boo-yaaaa! Did I mention I was a superfan? Because I WAS A SUPERFAN.
I also bought up a crapton of merch at one point or another. I probably have every t-shirt design they ever had. Alright, I wasn't THAT much of a superfan. But somewhere I know I have the 7-11 design t-shirt that I bought back in my hayday. (And I bought up more LATER, around their 3rd album, which I still have stowed away somewhere.)
I got Busso SUPER into them as well, and we both decided that we had a major jones for Matt Thiessen. He was just so FUNNY!!! And what a cutie, w/ that crazy blond fro thing. Love it. (He still has it, which is awesome... although, not dyed blond like it was then). She decided to write him an e-mail, because I was too shy to do that. So she did, and lo and behold, MATT THIESSEN E-MAILED HER BACK. And she printed it off and brought it to school, and I gushed and oohed and aaahed over it. It was a beautiful moment. It pretty much said, "Hey, you're rad. Thanks for liking our music." or something.
And FINALLY they came to our area!!!!!! And I was so excited. It was a FREE SHOW in some random small town in northern IN. I convinced my mom to drive us (as I did with EVERYTHING we wanted to do; she's seen a lot of old school Christian rock shows because of me and my friends... haha) and a group of 4 of us went, including: Busso, Chels, Anne, and me... and I think we ran into Meesha there. Or she came with us. I don't remember, I just remember that she got caught in the mosh pit and was COVERED head to toe in mud. I have pictures. It was pretty fantastic.
Not a picture of the mud-covering, but here's Anne, Chels, and Busso, preparing for the show with earplugs...
hahahaha
Busso yanked me up through the crowd to the front, and I took a thousand pictures of Matt Thiessen (with my old school camera; yep, I used a lot of film) and it was so dark and dusty that you can barely even see him. BUT IT WAS MATT THIESSEN. And they sang every song that I cared about from The Anatomy... and a few from the self-titled (SOFTER TO ME!!!) and I screamed and sang and danced and we had an AMAZZZZZING TIME.
And as an encore, they played "I'm Lion-O". And I like LEAPT through the air with excitement.
And the love affair continued.
The next thing Relient K-related I remember is that Busso and I were SO into them, that we had the entire The Anatomy... album memorized, first word of Kick-Off to the last word of the hidden track. So one day, we were meeting friends at Pizza Hut after a basketball or football game, and rode in her Jeep and cranked the CD. But THEN the batteries died in her CD player. (She had a discman hooked up through her car stereo... haha) So what did we do? Turn on the radio? NOPE!
We proceeded to sing the entire album, INCLUDING harmonies and guitar solos. YEAH, WE'RE THAT AWESOME.
Well, MOST of it. We stopped at whatever point we were at when we got to Pizza Hut. After Pizza Hut? We picked up where we left off, and finished the album on the way home. :)
Next would be later in high school (senior year?) when they FINALLY released Two Lefts Don't Make a Right, But Three Do. And I was pumped. I bought it the day it came out, and I actually didn't like it much.
But after a few listens, I was obsessed with it, too. It was just hard to compete with The Anatomy..., as it was PURE AWESOMENESS. But there are QUITE a few gems on Two Lefts... so it's all good.
Let's see, let's see...
Freshman year of college. Relient K's tour came to our auditorium. So I bought tickets the day they went on sale, and Busso came down for the weekend, and it was all my fellow Relient K-obsessed friends and I could talk about. (Which included Ben!!!! From my family group.)
On the way to the auditorium, we were behind a group of guys who were singing Relient K's version of "Charles in Charge" at the top of their lungs, and I was like, "YEP. I BELONG HERE."
And we went, and we rocked out. AND THEY BROUGHT DERMIKE MABADO!!! Dermike Mabado was a big statue of a buffalo that they had found in a dumpster and proceeded to take on their tour. And they would crowdsurf him. And it was majestic.
And I was SOOOO happy, because they crowdsurfed him in Reardon Auditorium. And then Matt Thiessen rode on him while he crowdsurfed. SERIOUSLY, does it get better than that? I just don't think it does.
Also, they played my 2nd favorite Relient K song, "Failure To Excommunicate," complete with backstory on what the song is about. :)
Sophomore year of college, their album "Mmhmm" was released. The DAY it came out, at midnight, I forced Trav to go to Wal-Mart with me. I was wearing my Relient K hoodie in support. He bought a fish, and I bugged the salespeople for the CD. I was like, "It's Relient K!!! Like on my shirt!" And the lady dug through some boxes and found it. :)
And then I listened to it, and then went to bed. Later that day, the president of Gotee Records came to our Music Business meeting. Darn. Right.
And what did we talk about almost the entire time? Relient K's CD release. And how talented Matt Thiessen is. And yada yada yada.
It was perfect.
And then, following the release, they toured. And they stopped in Whitestown, which I believe is near Indy somewhere. I got a small group together, including Laura (who was my roommate the following year) and Christy (one of the first times I met her) and a couple of Christy's friends.
And they were paired with MxPx.
And it was awesomeness.
The FOLLOWING year, they toured, but didn't come anywhere near here. So Christy, Kip, and Christy's friend Kristy took a trip to Chicago to see them. :)
BEST CHICAGO TRIP EVER. We went to the Sears Tower, and then walked the magnificent mile, and then stumbled upon a random pizza place (which is now closed) which was AMAZING!!!!!!!!! And then took a cab back to the show. We watched Emery open (awesome!) and then RELIENT K. Christy and I jumped up and stood next to some older guy who was probably a pastor or youth pastor, and all 3 of us jumped up and down and sang and danced. SO MUCH FUN. Then, we cut out before Hawthorne Heights played... because we didn't care. haha
They released their album Five Score and Seven Years Ago and then The Bird and the B-sides since then, both of which were awesome, AND their 2 Christmas albums, the 2nd of which contains all of the first one and then some new songs, and then FINALLY toured again. And it was a Halloween-themed tour in October (my favorite month), and it was at the Murat Egyptian room. With House of Heroes, who I had always wanted to see!!! And, as it turned out, the other opener was Ludo, one of Christy's favorite bands. And she had played their music for me the summer prior, while on our trip to Illionois to see Rooney. And I had loved it. So I got to experience them firsthand!!! And they were ALSO awesome, and TOTALLY a perfect fit for Relient K.
And Matt Thiessen came out in a dracula cape and pranced around the stage. And their instruments were covered in fake spider webs. And Matt performed a song he wrote about The Office. And they played Deathbed as their encore.
And everything came full-circle.
And NOW... I am just waiting for their Oct. 6th release of Forget And Not Slow Down. AND HOPEFULLY the ensuing October tour. Because CLEARLY they love October just as much as I do. :)
Hope you're not sick of
Relient K
Or all the songs we play
Cause then you'd wanna throw our CD awaaaaaay!
Soooooo I decided that I need to write an entry to reminisce over all things Relient K. BECAUSE I'M A LITTLE BIT OBSESSED AND HAVE BEEN FOR YEARS.
Yeah, I used all caps. I DID IT.
First of all, I'm not entirely sure how I first learned of them. It was circa 2001, so I was a freshman or sophomore in high school, and OH YES, NOW I REMEMBER. I was in the shower one night (I took showers at night then, which resulted in really yucky hair, but THAT'S ANOTHER STORY), listening to our shower radio (which barely worked (oh mannnn, this takes me back)) and since it was ridiculously late apparently, ZJam was on. For the unfamiliar, ZJam was (is? Is it still on?) a radio show thing that was on late at night on weekends (or just Saturdays? Wow, I'm old and this was a while ago.) that played Christian rock music on our channel, PulseFM, which typically played boooooring Christian music (which at the time, I kind of liked). And they played the song "My Girlfriend". Yep, that's right. The song about Marilyn Manson. ("A song about Marilyn Manson will never, EVER, be on a CD put out by Gotee Records. PERIOD." (True Relient K fans will get that!))
For some bizarre reason I guess I liked that song? And decided to look them up online. Because this was pretty close to around the time where our internet was fast enough to actually USE. Yeah, I know. INSANITY!!!! :)
Soooo I found their website. Which was all black and the design was TERRIBLE (but who would know the difference then? They were ALL terrible.) and it had a huge picture of cartoon guys, with one Marilyn Manson character. I believe he had a knife and fork.
And then I clicked through and found what was at the time called their "tour journal". It basically consisted of Matt Thiessen joking around about robots and other random things. And it was HILARIOUS. And I even saved some excerpts... which is good, because they are now lost forever except in the hands of crazed lunatic fans like me.
So yeah. Hilarious. And I became an eensy bit obsessed. (Which of course means TOTALLY obsessed.) I joined the online forum. The OLD one. The original. And people on there knew who I was. And I ate slept and homeworked Relient K. (And somehow managed to get all A's still. So I guess I'm exaggerating. haha) And I read about how certain people on the forum had actually MET THEM OMG!!!! and took pictures. But they all lived on the east coast, and I was a lame-o Indiana-ite. And I thought of how cool it'd be to ACTUALLY SEE THEM IN CONCERT!!!! And maybe MEET THEM.
And then their 2nd album, The Anatomy of the Tongue In Cheek, came out, and I got THOUSANDS MORE TIMES OBSESSED. I bought it, and it played constantly for like a year and a half in my car. I jammed on the way to youth group and back, and I forced all of my friends to listen to it (and they liked it), and I even so much as took it in to school because my history teacher let us play music while we worked on our projects. So the CLASS jammed to Relient K. Boo-yaaaa! Did I mention I was a superfan? Because I WAS A SUPERFAN.
I also bought up a crapton of merch at one point or another. I probably have every t-shirt design they ever had. Alright, I wasn't THAT much of a superfan. But somewhere I know I have the 7-11 design t-shirt that I bought back in my hayday. (And I bought up more LATER, around their 3rd album, which I still have stowed away somewhere.)
I got Busso SUPER into them as well, and we both decided that we had a major jones for Matt Thiessen. He was just so FUNNY!!! And what a cutie, w/ that crazy blond fro thing. Love it. (He still has it, which is awesome... although, not dyed blond like it was then). She decided to write him an e-mail, because I was too shy to do that. So she did, and lo and behold, MATT THIESSEN E-MAILED HER BACK. And she printed it off and brought it to school, and I gushed and oohed and aaahed over it. It was a beautiful moment. It pretty much said, "Hey, you're rad. Thanks for liking our music." or something.
And FINALLY they came to our area!!!!!! And I was so excited. It was a FREE SHOW in some random small town in northern IN. I convinced my mom to drive us (as I did with EVERYTHING we wanted to do; she's seen a lot of old school Christian rock shows because of me and my friends... haha) and a group of 4 of us went, including: Busso, Chels, Anne, and me... and I think we ran into Meesha there. Or she came with us. I don't remember, I just remember that she got caught in the mosh pit and was COVERED head to toe in mud. I have pictures. It was pretty fantastic.
Not a picture of the mud-covering, but here's Anne, Chels, and Busso, preparing for the show with earplugs...
hahahaha
Busso yanked me up through the crowd to the front, and I took a thousand pictures of Matt Thiessen (with my old school camera; yep, I used a lot of film) and it was so dark and dusty that you can barely even see him. BUT IT WAS MATT THIESSEN. And they sang every song that I cared about from The Anatomy... and a few from the self-titled (SOFTER TO ME!!!) and I screamed and sang and danced and we had an AMAZZZZZING TIME.
And as an encore, they played "I'm Lion-O". And I like LEAPT through the air with excitement.
And the love affair continued.
The next thing Relient K-related I remember is that Busso and I were SO into them, that we had the entire The Anatomy... album memorized, first word of Kick-Off to the last word of the hidden track. So one day, we were meeting friends at Pizza Hut after a basketball or football game, and rode in her Jeep and cranked the CD. But THEN the batteries died in her CD player. (She had a discman hooked up through her car stereo... haha) So what did we do? Turn on the radio? NOPE!
We proceeded to sing the entire album, INCLUDING harmonies and guitar solos. YEAH, WE'RE THAT AWESOME.
Well, MOST of it. We stopped at whatever point we were at when we got to Pizza Hut. After Pizza Hut? We picked up where we left off, and finished the album on the way home. :)
Next would be later in high school (senior year?) when they FINALLY released Two Lefts Don't Make a Right, But Three Do. And I was pumped. I bought it the day it came out, and I actually didn't like it much.
But after a few listens, I was obsessed with it, too. It was just hard to compete with The Anatomy..., as it was PURE AWESOMENESS. But there are QUITE a few gems on Two Lefts... so it's all good.
Let's see, let's see...
Freshman year of college. Relient K's tour came to our auditorium. So I bought tickets the day they went on sale, and Busso came down for the weekend, and it was all my fellow Relient K-obsessed friends and I could talk about. (Which included Ben!!!! From my family group.)
On the way to the auditorium, we were behind a group of guys who were singing Relient K's version of "Charles in Charge" at the top of their lungs, and I was like, "YEP. I BELONG HERE."
And we went, and we rocked out. AND THEY BROUGHT DERMIKE MABADO!!! Dermike Mabado was a big statue of a buffalo that they had found in a dumpster and proceeded to take on their tour. And they would crowdsurf him. And it was majestic.
And I was SOOOO happy, because they crowdsurfed him in Reardon Auditorium. And then Matt Thiessen rode on him while he crowdsurfed. SERIOUSLY, does it get better than that? I just don't think it does.
Also, they played my 2nd favorite Relient K song, "Failure To Excommunicate," complete with backstory on what the song is about. :)
Sophomore year of college, their album "Mmhmm" was released. The DAY it came out, at midnight, I forced Trav to go to Wal-Mart with me. I was wearing my Relient K hoodie in support. He bought a fish, and I bugged the salespeople for the CD. I was like, "It's Relient K!!! Like on my shirt!" And the lady dug through some boxes and found it. :)
And then I listened to it, and then went to bed. Later that day, the president of Gotee Records came to our Music Business meeting. Darn. Right.
And what did we talk about almost the entire time? Relient K's CD release. And how talented Matt Thiessen is. And yada yada yada.
It was perfect.
And then, following the release, they toured. And they stopped in Whitestown, which I believe is near Indy somewhere. I got a small group together, including Laura (who was my roommate the following year) and Christy (one of the first times I met her) and a couple of Christy's friends.
And they were paired with MxPx.
And it was awesomeness.
The FOLLOWING year, they toured, but didn't come anywhere near here. So Christy, Kip, and Christy's friend Kristy took a trip to Chicago to see them. :)
BEST CHICAGO TRIP EVER. We went to the Sears Tower, and then walked the magnificent mile, and then stumbled upon a random pizza place (which is now closed) which was AMAZING!!!!!!!!! And then took a cab back to the show. We watched Emery open (awesome!) and then RELIENT K. Christy and I jumped up and stood next to some older guy who was probably a pastor or youth pastor, and all 3 of us jumped up and down and sang and danced. SO MUCH FUN. Then, we cut out before Hawthorne Heights played... because we didn't care. haha
They released their album Five Score and Seven Years Ago and then The Bird and the B-sides since then, both of which were awesome, AND their 2 Christmas albums, the 2nd of which contains all of the first one and then some new songs, and then FINALLY toured again. And it was a Halloween-themed tour in October (my favorite month), and it was at the Murat Egyptian room. With House of Heroes, who I had always wanted to see!!! And, as it turned out, the other opener was Ludo, one of Christy's favorite bands. And she had played their music for me the summer prior, while on our trip to Illionois to see Rooney. And I had loved it. So I got to experience them firsthand!!! And they were ALSO awesome, and TOTALLY a perfect fit for Relient K.
And Matt Thiessen came out in a dracula cape and pranced around the stage. And their instruments were covered in fake spider webs. And Matt performed a song he wrote about The Office. And they played Deathbed as their encore.
And everything came full-circle.
And NOW... I am just waiting for their Oct. 6th release of Forget And Not Slow Down. AND HOPEFULLY the ensuing October tour. Because CLEARLY they love October just as much as I do. :)