Streetlight Manifesto

Streetlight Manifesto

Keasbey Nights

[3/5] Before we get to the music, let’s sort out the back-story: Keasbey Nights is technically Streetlight Manifesto’s second album, which is a reinterpretation of the first album by the mid-’90s ska band Catch 22. Streetlight Manifesto’s Tomas Kalnoky used to sing for Catch 22 back when ska was looking like the new grunge, but not long ago, Kalnoky chose to re-record Keasbey Nights with his current bandmates because he hated the original recording. And now he’s begun to shy away from promoting the album’s release. Yeah, we don’t get it, either. But at least the music isn’t as confusing. With its giddy horn arrangements and distorted mosh parts, Keasbey Nights sounds like a ska record from 1997, but with a 2006 studio makeover. Admittedly, Catch 22 were often more tuneful than many of their contemporaries, but the downside to covering almost any band’s debut is that you have to accept the sort of mistakes young artists are prone to making. “Riding The Fourth Wave,” for starters, condenses every then-era ska cliché into a totally forgettable instrumental track, and lyrics like “In my room with a bucket full of phlegm/I don’t need a music scene to tell me who I am” (from “Day In Day Out”) are even more embarrassing nine years on. By the time some of Catch 22 formed Streetlight Manifesto with Kalnoky, a more eclectic group of influences had been embraced, but you’d never know it from the immature and derivative tracks here. Makes you wonder, maybe it wasn’t just their recording budget? (PROSTHETIC)




Rock’s Like:

Less Than Jake’s Losing Streak • Skankin’ Pickle’s Sing Along With Skankin Pickle • Buck-O-Nine’s Twenty-Eight Teeth




IN-STORE SESSION With Streetlight Manifesto frontman Tomas Kalnoky




You’re not doing a lot press behind this version of Keasbey Nights, and you’re not advertising it on the Streetlight Manifesto website. It almost seems like you don’t want this record to come out.

No, that’s not it at all. The whole situation is so complicated. I do want it to come out. I’d prefer if it weren’t as touted as [it is].




You always said you hated Keasbey Nights’ original recording. Now that the record sounds more to your liking, how do you feel the songs have aged?


It is what it is. It’s a record written by high-school kids. It was fun going back and re-recording it-but there’s a very slight connection between what we do now and what Keasbey Nights is. It’s an evolution. [Laughs.] But I like to think it’s a pretty big jump.




Keasbey Nights came out at a time when it was really exciting to be in a ska band. Bands like Reel Big Fish and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones had legitimate hits on commercial radio. How do you remember the mid-’90s now? Do you feel nostalgic for it?


Not really. It was so “cool” at the time that you didn’t know who was into it for the songs and the music. Now, the tides are so different. I actually prefer the fact that we’re one of the few bands out there doing this kind of music [now]. It kind of goes to show who was into for the actual songs and who doesn’t give a shit what the masses are doing. Now, I think it’s more honest.




In the past year, it seems like the band have gotten robbed on tour at least a dozen times. How many actual robberies has Streetlight Manifesto gone through?


The number is two. We’ve been lucky enough to have been robbed twice. We lost everything [in Florida in October 2005] except for one piece of equipment, which was a hard-drive-based recorder. We were actually documenting every night’s show so that we could mix it down later and do a live CD. That wasn’t stolen, because we brought it into the hotel room. When we went to Europe about a month later-then it was stolen. [Laughs.] They kind of followed us to Europe and finished off the robbery.




So, you have no equipment, and someone in Europe has pawned off your hard drive. What exactly are you writing the next Streetlight Manifesto record with?


Oh, I have acoustic guitars. Everything I write is written on an acoustic guitar. We haven’t actually started the actual recording process. I’m going to need to save up. I’m actually working a construction job right now.



Is it safe to assume you’re not going to be touring behind this version of Keasbey Nights?

No, we’re not even going to mention it. I don’t want to do any press for it. The reason I’m talking to you is because I feel bad that [Victory] has been trying to get a hold of me.
–Trevor Kelley

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