With their final release on Engineer Records, #1 Defender were in good company. I assume the band is named after the New End Original song of the same name, though I suppose they could both be named after some other source. The emo bands of the aughts almost always drew some level of inspiration from the midwest emo of the 90s, but generally speaking it was a surface-level homage, and they were much more punk pop and\or post-hardcore than any flavor of midwest. #1 Defender were definitely an emo pop band, but they wear their midwest emo on their sleeve; it's not just a distant influence, it's half their sound.
2004's The Diary Truthful EP was their last release. It was preceded by shattered dreams walking in a red moonlight in 2003. If anything, this release is even more directly midwest emo than its follow-up. Before that, there was The Lana Lang Effect in 2002, a demo that serves as a rougher companion to red moonlight.I suspect that a full length might have traded in their real emo roots for the glossier path that most of their peers took, but part of me hopes that they would have delivered an LP in the same vein as these EPs. Unfortunately, we'll never know. Still, three great EPs is a better legacy than most.
The Cotton Weary were born from the incredible Long Island emo scene, which gave birth to many other bands of note, none more so than Taking Back Sunday. It would be pointless to give a background for the band and their scene, as that was already done by a former band member on the To Live and Die on LI blog. It's a good read, so be sure to check it out. The Cotton Weary played midwest emo in the vein of Sunny Day Real Estate, laced with post-hardcore and indie rock influences. As their discography progressed, they grew increasingly spacey and moved in the direction of post-rock, a maneuver that would be completed with follow up band and future blog post candidate Satellite Lost.
Like so many underground bands, The Cotton Weary's unreleased discography is roughly the same size, if not slightly larger, than their officially released material. All the unreleased files come from the blog, but since the links are long dead, I have no way of knowing if I've assembled everything. That said, I'm reasonably certain I have at least most of it, and likely have all of it.
The band's first official release was the cassette demo The First to Come in Last, self-released in 1998. Two of its tracks would find their way to compilations. However, prior to that the band produced some other unreleased demos, including several with their original setup of two vocalists, male and female. These tracks have a pretty different feel thanks to the female vocalist, and they're an interesting look at the band that could have been. In 1999, Viva Maestro! came out, the band's most well known release and the apex of their original sound. 2000 saw Cinematic Overtones released, a short EP that showcases a band in the middle of a shift; my copy came from a band member who was kind enough to throw it in for free with another order and it lacks cover art, so the cover image comes from Discogs. The band's last official release was in 2002, taking part in a five way split. Two of its tracks are early versions of tracks from the unreleased LP.
The band was working on their first full length when the end came. The tracks for what would have been Your Three Minute Pop come from the LI blog and are unfinished, most of them lacking vocals. The album is solidly post-rock in many respects, and sounds like a dry run at what would be Satellite Lost's sound.
Erevan were a French midwest emo band active in the early 2000s. Their sound is focused on midwest emo but incorporates elements from other emo strains of the 90s, with harder passages and some screaming. Don't let the date on the records fool you—this is real 90s-style midwest emo, delivered a little late by the French emo scene, which is mostly known for its screamo bands. It's difficult to know much more about Erevan because I can't read French, so if anyone who can looks over these scans and finds something interesting, let me know.
Erevan put out a demo tape in 2000, followed a second demo CDr in 2001 and their first and only LP, Memorial, in 2003. I haven't heard the CDr, but the demo cassette showcases a band pulling as much from first wave emo as from second wave midwest emo, even opening, Indian Summer-style, with an old vinyl recording. Memorial would flip the influences around to narrow in on the midwest sound. Sadly, the LP was their last release.
Morning Before were a band from Germany, active from the late 90s to somewhere around 2002. Their sound is emo pop with strong bent towards the sounds of classic emocore, especially in a lot of the guitar work. They're interesting in that they don't sound a whole lot like the other German emo pop bands of this time period. Actually, they sound a lot like Copper. This changes somewhat on their second release, The New Romantics EP, which brings in more influences from midwest emo and sounds a bit more like their contemporaries.
Their first and only LP is Sunblind, was released in 1998 and followed by the EP in 2001. The album art on the LP is folded in a neat way, which I enjoy even though it was a real pain to scan. Their last release was a three-way split with The Miles Apart and Lights At Amber in 2002. Most of their compilation tracks are present on the albums, but they did contribute a unique song to Fight The World Not Each Other: A Tribute To 7Seconds in 1999. There's a track called 'Song 1' from another compilation, but a look at the album notes reveals it's one of the tracks from the split which was subsequently renamed.
