The things you find looking through photos on your phone. All credit to the dudes from the playbook haha.
THE PLAYBOOK - ALL JOKES ASIDE
Being a teenager was great. Life used to be this excellent mix of angst, fearlessness and fun and my only real concerns revolved around chasing girls I was too afraid to talk to, skateboarding with One Dollar Short blasting through my Discman headphones, and getting the few mates that I did have to ask their older siblings to buy us beer so we could get drunk in a park somewhere at midnight. I hated teachers, I hated security guards, I hated jocks and I hated girls that broke my pubescent heart. Then I graduated. I started working bullshit hours to study a bullshit Uni course that left no time for nighttime skate sessions, I started playing in ‘serious’ bands, my Discman had become a small rectangle with a light up screen that froze all the time and all of a sudden my priorities became caffeine, steady long-term relationships and paying bills. Thankfully, Melbourne pop-punk battlers The Playbook will take you back to a simpler time, a better time, a time before we all sold out.
The Playbook have been riding an ever-swelling wave of local success over the past year. They released their debut EP ‘All Jokes Aside’ earlier this year, and have been just about non-stop since, landing supports with a ton of killer local and overseas supports and scoring time on the national radio airwaves. The band have built a reputation for their super fun and energy-filled live show and have found themselves picking up a strong and loyal fan base spanning all over the country.
All Jokes Aside checks all the boxes in terms of pop-punk pre-requisites. It’s punchy, it’s upbeat and it’s as catchy as scurvy is to a sailor. There are songs about girls, friendship and the melodrama of everyday living all fused together in a frat party of memorable guitar riffs, super slick vocal work, an in-your-face rhythm section and yep, there are even some gang chants thrown in for good measure, featuring the Playbook’s very own ‘Bro Choir’.
The great thing about The Playbook, and something that really stand out on this record, is the level of sincerity the band put into what they do. All Jokes Aside is 6 songs written by a bunch of dudes who prefer their pop punk the way it used to be, before breakdowns and silly arm-swings made their way into the equation. There is a definite feel of nostalgia on the EP (Carl Jackson from Wishful Thinking even chucks a sneaky verse on ‘Don’t Look Back’) but The Playbook still manage to pull it off with a maturity and relevance that a lot of modern pop-punk bands seem to completely miss the mark on while putting the focus on over the top production and which angle they prefer to wear their baseball caps on.
If you miss Sunday arvo all-ages shows at The Arty as much as I do, and are looking for something a little less trendy, but a little more honest, listen to The Playbook. It’ll be your soundtrack for the summer.
Rating: 22/28 Days
