Seaweed - Spanaway

Label: Hollywood

Year: 1995

When Seaweed came through Atlanta on the tour for this record, I had kinda given up on them, thinking their glory days had past them by, and their brand of catchy-hardcore-grunge-whatever was passe. I'm sure you too were quick to champion and then abandon your favorite bands of the era...things were very black and white, you either "ruled" or "sucked", not a lot of wiggle room in between. As it were, Into Another, also recently signed to the nefarious Hollywood Records, was the opening band, and as any self-respecting "post hardcore" dude would do, I went to see Into Another in hopes that they would play "Underlord".

Turns out Into Another did play "Underlord", and that a couple friends and I decided we would head down to Florida with the two bands to see their next couple of shows, Sarasota and Pensacola, Florida respectively. I'm sure the bands were real stoked to have these strangers join their caravan, but they were plenty nice to us, and one of those buddies that made the trip ended up working for Into Another as their live sound man for a few years afterward.

Also, there was a funny sidebar incident when the four of us Atlantans decided to start the morning with a dip in the Gulf of Mexico, but being without proper swimwear felt it would be wise to just run into the water nude (which is about as disgusting an image as I'm sure you're imagining). Let me state, the beach we were visiting was a state park, it was super early in the morning, and there was no one else on the beach. So, we all go sprinting from the car to the water and dive in, only to have someone yell, "jellyfish!", and realize that we are nude, and surrounded by thousands of softball sized jellyfish. Shit. Surprisingly, we all escaped the water with nary a single sting, but, just to add insult to our non-injury, as we are all (again, nude) standing at the edge of the water, staring into the sea of jellyfish, a woman comes jogging by with her dog. The look of horror on her face as she took in the splendor of these four specimen in the sand made the whole trip worth it.

The shows were pretty good too.

Seaweed was excellent, and they were nice to boot, so, I stood corrected in my assertion that they "sucked". They in fact, "ruled".

If you need a descriptor, they sound like Superchunk playing Bad Religion covers. This was their final record until they reformed in 1999.

DL