nyone who is familiar with Kris Roe’s baby, The Ataris, knows that something is very, very bizarre when a recent press document pertaining to the band states, “…So Long, Astoria…the group’s eagerly awaited Columbia Records debut…debuted at number 24 on the Top 200 Album Sales chart with first week’s sales SoundScanned at more than 44,000 copies…and [The Ataris] have a radio single with a ‘buzzworthy’ video on MTV.”

See, The Ataris is not an ordinary band and while the above figures might fit well with any number of the manufactured radio-friendly acts polluting the airwaves today, The Ataris never really achieved such success. To those familiar with the band, these numbers stick out like a sore thumb.

The Ataris’ band was started by Roe in 1997, when he passed a demo tape of himself and a guitar in his Anderson, Ind., basement to The Vandal’s frontman, Joe Escalante (Kung Fu Records), thus fulfilling every aspiring punk rocker’s dream of making it.

The band is special because it started from scratch and cried its way to a record contract. Roe was the everyman for a subculture of kids who hadn’t had an everyman since Jawbreaker split up some time earlier. The band is special because they cared…because fans cared…because there was a whole lotta carin’ going on.

Well, that and it was one of the first bands to pave the way for the tear-soaked emo lyrics of such pop heavyweights as Dashboard Confessional and make it socially acceptable to cry along with songs.

Indeed, as a band, The Ataris has forged a deserved reputation as romantically attached emotional punk rockers. Lyrics from the 2001 release End is Forever, are about as jarring and sincere as they come, and when Kris screams, “It’s like every wish I ever made came true/The day I woke up lying next to you…will you be my best friend if I offered you my heart (’cuz it’s already yours)?” listeners, on the verge of breakup-memory derived tears, feel a very eerie connection to the band.

There is no doubt that the bleeding, heartfelt content of The Ataris’ four previous records is deserving of praise. Roe was a pioneer. The Ataris will forever be remembered as a seminal emo punk-indie band. The question begging to be asked, now with So Long Astoria available to the public, is, “Can The Ataris still hit my heart like a freight train?”
It would be myopic to not acknowledge that there’s a distinct possibility that The Ataris may have now gone the way of The Get Up Kids—the way of a previously important band flailing helplessly in the wake of their recently mended hearts. Hard times are devastating, but they also produce some intense music and when love becomes prevalent, it seems that happiness often comes at the expense of musical ingenuity.

The sound quality of So Long Astoria as a record is fantastic. Its production team is superb and the studio quality is significantly better than the phone booths in which Roe was previously known for recording songs. Columbia Record’s presence is felt on every track. The thing is, that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Many of the songs on So Long Astoria could easily have been recorded by Trust Company or Papa Roach, with cookie-cutter song subjects like compromised childhood and unearthed memories.

The Ataris—and Roe in particular—seem to have lost what made them such a significant band: sincerity.

Roe disagrees.

The RED Interview
“There was no need to write anymore relationship songs,” Roe said. “There are plenty of bands out there writing those kinds of songs. We like to keep fans guessing, we like to move forward.”

Roe also says that his previous records, the ones which forged so many fans, were shortsighted and contrived—a sentiment which may be hard to swallow for those who broke down along side him some four years ago.

“[So Long Astoria] is a lot like the yin to ‘End is Forever’s’ yang,” Roe said. “...Kung-Fu records were limiting and Joe [Escalante] was a backstabber...I was asking a lot of questions of my first albums, and they were recorded so quickly that I didn’t have any time to answer them…this record is my answer. This record is extremely personal, and any fans who don’t see that might not know [The Ataris] as well as they thought.”

Regardless of the content of the new record, the members of The Ataris still live up to the lofty expectations fan’s have for their live shows. With a surprising amount of old favorites mixed in with new songs, Roe and Co. are still a great live act. As his voice cracks and fades near the end of the set, the Roe of old is almost visible and—for diehard fans— it’s almost possible to forgive the trespasses of late and remember The Ataris for what they used to be…an indie band with strong ties to NOFX and The Vandals, not a corporate, radio-friendly punk group forced to defend their legitimacy on a daily basis.

Almost…

eryn@red-mag.com