Everything I Have Ever Written About Weezer and the Rentals, Including Things I Wrote in College, 2000-2015
What is it about Rivers Cuomo and Matt Sharp that makes my word count runneth over? I'm not sure I know any more. At first it was because I loved their music, and now maybe it's because I measure myself against the way I used to feel about their music, the changes and gaps between now and then. Anyway, here is a list of sixteen pieces I have written during the last fifteen years. I can't promise this list is finished, either. I keep hoping that one day I will be able to wash my hands of this whole business. But I kind of doubt it.
Weezer: Our Hope for the Future
(2001)
Written as Weezer was beginning to emerge from their 1997-2001 hiatus. This was the height of my obsession with the band, obviously, and a setup for the anguish and heartbreak that was to come. I really believed that Weezer was going to save popular music. I was wrong.
Review of Weezer (the green album) (2001)
The disappointment begins. Waited in line at midnight to buy with record with Gwen and Sarah at Sonic Boom in Fremont (RIP), even though I had already heard the mp3s and gotten a promo copy of it. Saul really was singing "Island in the Sun" all the time.
I bought Maladriot at an HMV in Bath, UK the day it came out. I kind of fell in love with it during the rest of my trip, even though I also thought it was pretty bad. My friend Brian and I sat at the back of the our study-tour bus and belted out the lyrics to "Take Control." We were also really into Andrew WK for a few months, so it kind of fit in with the whole feel of the trip.
Matt Sharp: From Weezer to Quiet Troubadour (2003)
I interviewed Matt Sharp for Paste during his super-low-key comeback tour. The music was really long, slow, and boring, but I liked it. This was the first of three times I have interviewed Sharp. To be diplomatic: it is not easy to pull out coherent quotes from these interviews.
Review of Make Believe (2005)
I don't know who I wrote this review for, but it was never published except for on this blog.
Please Let that Be You: The Return of the Rentals, Seriously
(2006)
Not unlike the piece I wrote during the Weezer hiatus, this piece for the Portland Mercury (from a phone interview with Sharp after the first reunited Rentals tour began) is mostly me thinking that maybe a band that made two of my favorite records is going to make some great music. Once again, I may not have been entirely right.
Review of the Last Little Life EP (2007)
I'm pretty sure this is an accurate assessment of the first recording by the Rentals mk II, who disappeared almost as quickly as they were assembled.
Last Little Life (2007)
This show preview for the Inlander is similar to the
Mercury piece, except I was more skeptical. Again based on a phone interview. Their show in Spokane was the last one I went to before moving to China, and also the time I realized that rock and roll shows were no longer as important to me as they used to be.
Review of Rivers Cuomo's Alone (2007)
Yes, I am the totally cliche Weezer fan who hates Weezer, and only likes obscure unreleased things they did between 1994 and 1998.
"Three Simultaneous Single from Weezer" (2008)
Trying to figure out if the red album was going to be the mythical "return to form" everyone had been expecting for 10 years.
Review of Weezer (the red album) (2008)
A review of Weezer's almost good third s/t album.
Review of Songs About Time (2009)
The Rentals are getting better, I think -- I haven't listened to the thing as a whole record yet, but I'm liking many of the individual songs. Songs About Time is also an interesting look at what happens when the music industry implodes and you resurrect a band that existed during the height of the CD era.
Notice I have not even really tried to make a value judgement about the latest Weezer record. The single is fantastic, but the rest of the record, well ... I simply can't evaluate it. It's beyond "good" or "bad."
She Says It's All Right (2009)
A short personal essay about (what else?) being a teenager, love, girls, ambivalence, and the Rentals, which I started writing almost five years ago, now up at Good Letters.
"From 'Only in Dreams' to "The Angel and the One'" (2014)
Tracing Rivers Cuomo's yearning from high school romance to enlightened meditator.
An Absurd, Elaborate, and Imaginary Alternative History of Weezer, 2000-2014 (2015)
An ill-advised attempt to re-imagine Weezer's career if the cranky fans had gotten their way.