Olympic Year were a band from San Jose, active in the early 2000s, possibly from 2001, when their website came online, to 2005, which is the last year it was updated. I don't have much more information than that, their name makes them difficult to search and their website archives are incomplete. Their sound was a combination of indie rock and emo pop, sometimes leaning more towards one than the other, depending on the song. I think they sometimes sound like a more indie rock-focused version of Filmmaker.
Between their formation and 2003 the band had a single or demo called Binary with two songs on it, one of which was rerecorded for the LP. In 2003 they released their first album, Smile. That rerecorded track, "Turn Around," is the best song on the album, so they made the right call in carrying it forward (I'm calling it rerecorded, but that's an assumption—it could be the original version from Binary). In 2004 the band put out an EP, What Makes A Home, and called it quits sometime in the following year.
The What Makes A Home EP is made available courtesy of Cornelius Smithington.
Dave Cohen(?) from Freeto Boat was in Olympic Year…if I remember correctly. I had moved away from the Bay Area around 2001, but was in a ska band that played with Freeto Boat a few times around town. 🙃
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info! I found Freeto Boat on Bandcamp and indeed, Dave Cohen was in both bands.
DeleteThis band was great. They were probably the best local band around the San Jose area for that time, and scene. Really nice folks too. I still have all their material. They were big Jimmy Eat World fans from early on, so that probably informed a bit of the asthetic. They all kind of got back together for a more recent project called Bylines. I am not sure how active they are though.
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