Autumn Lee

 Autumn Lee were a band who were, according to Louisville Hardcore, "at least mostly" from Shelbyville, KY. They were active for an unknown segment of the late 90s, and played jangly, indie rock-inspired emo pop. The first song off their self-titled EP is called "Poppy Song," which is appropriate. The rest of the EP is a bit more sedate.

If you look only at Discogs, the band's discography is very simple, consisting of a self-titled EP in 1998 and three comp tracks, two of which are the same song. However, this Soundcloud page complicates things tremendously. There are two Autumn Lee releases on that page: one called 8 Track Recording which was either literally recorded on an 8-track or is missing a song, since there are seven songs total, and one with six tracks purporting to be Autumn Lee / Arise Records Release. 

This is not true. I have the Arise Records EP in hand and there are only five tracks on it. Furthermore, only four of the six songs are actually on the physical EP, and three of them are incorrectly titled. The other two tracks aren't on the album at all. This motley assortment of music raises all kind of questions. Most of the tracks from 8 Track are attributed to "Final EP" while the rest are named; is this an actual EP that saw release? Are the named songs not part of it? Where are the non-album tracks attributed to the S/T EP from? I had originally thought that one of the tracks, "More," was put on a compilation, hinting that perhaps others from the collection were as well, but this turned out to be only half-right: Upon tracking down the compilation, I discovered it's a completely different version of the song. This makes me think that perhaps the version of "The Poppy Song" from another compilation is also different, but I haven't been able to find this one yet.

In short, I can't attribute the majority of the band's discography to any particular release, nor say with any confidence that this is all of it.

autumn lee + Soundcloud Tracks

Blue Letter Days

 Blue Letter Days were a band from Boston, active around 2004 to maybe 2006. They don't sound much like their emo pop peers of the time period, kind of doing their own thing with the basics of emo pop\pop punk. Aside from a self-titled EP in 2004, they also released a split with Dead Ellington that I haven't been able to procure. There's very little information about this band around and that's not helped by their website being unavailable through the Wayback Machine; every archive of the site is defunct, even in the same year as the release of the EP, so either the archive just never caught the site when it was up or the band never finished making it.

The track listing differs slightly for this release between the back cover and the information on the CD. Since the cover has a spelling error and the CD doesn't, I'm treating the track listing from the CD itself as correct.

Blue Letter Days

8-bit Revival

8-bit Revival are a band from Dayton, Ohio, active from 2001 to the present. Initially, they were called The 8-bit Revival, but shortened it after their debut EP. Despite being around for over twenty years, their sound has been fairly consistent, always being some mixture of emo pop, post-punk, and indie rock with plenty of influences from pop punk, post-hardcore, and math rock, though the post-punk would become increasingly prominent in time. After releasing an EP and two albums between formation and 2010, the band would change their name to Oh Condor after getting tired of being mistaken for a chiptune outfit. As Oh Condor, they put out an EP in 2012 and then went dark for almost a full decade before releasing another LP in 2021. Despite the name change, the band still lays claim to all their former work as 8-bit Revival, rereleasing the albums under the Oh Condor name with slightly altered artwork.

Since the band is still active and their music is readily available, I'm putting up only one of their albums, 2006's Under the Fairweather, their first full-length. Everything else can be had through Bandcamp.

under the fairweather

Oh Condor on Bandcamp

B-Side Diaries

 B-Side Diaries were an emo pop band from Philadelphia, active in the early 2000s. The band's Bandcamp page appends 'the' while the original demo I have does not, but according to the band's drummer, Mike, they were just B-Side Diaries. It's difficult to find any online material because the band's vocalist wrote a YA novel which uses the same name as the band; however, according to Mike the band was inspired by "bands like Jawbreaker, Lifetime, Jets to Brazil, Kid Dynamite, Get Up Kids, Hot Water Music, Alkaline Trio, Saves The Day." While their first demo has the most in common with pre-Something To Write Home About The Get Up Kids, the other influences are more apparent on their second demo.

The band's first release is the 2001 demo EP The Search for Megan Gelkes. Though released in 2001, this is emotive late 90s-style emo pop punk and it has little to nothing in common with the emo pop wave that was swelling up at the time. Album highlight 'Grayhound to Rabbit' could have been on Four Minute Mile. In 2002, the band would record a second demo, Still Searching…, which features a more aggressive vocal and musical style, still emo pop but displaying much more influence from melodic hardcore and midwest emo. Following the band's end, two of its members would join Late Night Television, while the other two formed My Morning Radio.

The Search For Megan Gelkes

Still Searching…

1000 Travels of Jawaharlal

1000 Travels of Jawaharlal were a band from Kita-Kyushu, Japan, active from 1999 to 2004. Their sound is what is often described as 'emo punk,' in that it's far too melodic to be hardcore and not poppy enough to be pop punk. Think screamo, but without the emo dynamics and quiet\loud structure, like a rough emo pop version of Yaphet Kotto: that's emo punk. You might call it 'melodic emocore.' 1000 Travels were a superlative example of this particular sound and their sole LP is fantastic from start to finish.

The band's first release was a 1999 demo tape that I haven't been able to find. They followed it up with a self-titled EP, also known as 'Letter.' In 2000 they released a split with Minority Blues Band, and three years later put out their masterpiece, owari wa konai. Their last release was a 2004 split with Aghast, though in 2016 a compilation called Oware Wa Konakatta was put out that compiles the EP, the first split, and the album. There are no new tracks on it and it unfortunately does not include the demo tape, but I'm offering a download of it as it has higher quality files for the pre-album tracks.

Splits + Letter + owari wa konai

Owari Wa Konakatta

While They Slept

 While They Slept belonged to the rare subgenre of 'screamo with strings,' along with such luminaries as Pansori, vowel, and I Would Set Myself On Fire For You. They were from Minneapolis and active in the early 2000s, with their last release being in 2002. They were too short-lived to release a full album, and their discography is commensurately small.

Combining screamo with the instrumental aspects of emo, While They Slept don't use hardcore vocals exclusively, making them even more of a hybrid band. They also have a fair amount of piano in there as well. The ratio of the genres they mix changes between their releases, and on their final EP they almost sound like a hardcore version of something like Utah! or Pompeii. 

They band had three releases in total: A split with Tora! Tora! Torrance! at an unknown date, the Where? There Is No Life There EP in 2001, and their final EP, Parade the Circus Around the Silhouette in 2002. For download I have the final EP, though I only have the booklet and the CD, so it's missing the back tray artwork.

parade the circus around the silhouette

While They Slept at This Endless Breath

Park

 

Park are a legendary emo pop band from Springfield, Illinois. I say 'are' instead of 'were,' because despite forming in the 90s and not having released any material since 2014, the band still pops up on the bill for various live events, usually local. Park's sound changed quite a bit over the course of their releases, but this post is focused on their early discography, from formation to the 2001 release of their second album. During those years, Park played the emo pop of the late 90s, catchy punk not too far off from the early work of bands like Northstar, Hot Rod Circuit, or Four Minute Mile-era The Get Up Kids. The sound of the band would shift towards post-hardcore\alternative over time; of course, given how many different lineups the band has gone through, it would have been more surprising if their sound hadn't changed.

Park's discography is extensive, but I've amassed everything they released (as far as I can tell) between their formation and 2001. Their Wikipedia entry says they formed in 1996 but I have a demo that's supposedly from 1995, so one of these things is wrong, but I don't know which one. The demo aside, the band's first official release was the Blue Screen EP in 1996, followed by the Mood Ring 7". 1998 saw the release of the first album, Scene 14, as well as a split with Civic. In 1999 they put out the Random and Scattered EP, and in 2001 released their second album, No Signal, which features a big jump in production values compared to the first. In between all these releases were multiple unique compilation tracks.

Unofficial Early Discography: 1995-2001