Keeping Quiet Is Not That Hard

The first Texas Is The Reason 7" is still one of my favorite records ever, and their split 7"-ers are pretty great, too... which made it even more annoying when their CD ended up sucking so bad, but whatever. Around the same time, a band from Michigan, Empire State Games, started doing something that similar and just as awesome, though they stayed sorta local to their area and quickly broke up before most people knew about them. I posted the second Empire State Games 7" ("100 Years of Baseball" or the "yellow" 7-inch) a while ago-- Makoto sent it to me back in '98, otherwise I might not have ever heard of 'em myself-- but I'd never even heard their first 7" (the "white" 7-inch) until a few years ago, when I was lucky enough to find a copy of this CD EP through a guy that runs a record label in Michigan. The CD collects the four songs from the first Empire State Games 7", plus adds a couple of extra songs, "You Said So Yourself" and "Circus Strongman". None if this is all that special if you have the Discography CD, which came out on Elkion within the last decade and has everything on it, but it's still a neat thing to have the booklet with all the lyrics and stuff. Plus, if you were ever really into the '90s emo/indie thing and bands like Sunny Day Real Estate and Texas Is The Reason, these songs are close to being perfect.




Empire State Games -

"You Said So Yourself"

"The Wrong Way To Hold a Microphone"

Problems Come From All Directions

In 1998, back when I was still working on another issue of Brushback zine (but just barely), a box showed up in the mail from Makoto with three singles in it-- a Gondolier 7", the Jihad "New Testament" EP (a great record, plus there's a really scary-looking picture of the singer on the inside of the sleeve), and this Empire State Games 7". I still have all three records, although the Empire State Games one is easily my favorite out of the three of them, which makes me some kind of indie rock dork I guess.

When I first listened to this single I thought to myself, "Wow, these guys are gonna be big", because the songs were totally in the style of the driving emo rock which was pretty huge at the time. I figured these guys were going to be the next Sunny Day Real Estate or Texas Is The Reason, because I got the same feeling listening to this as I did listening to the first Texas Is The Reason 7" that I ever bought. It never happened, though, because it turns out that Empire State Games broke up almost as quickly as they started, which is too bad.

Empire State Games have a few other singles and EPs besides this one, plus a discography CD which came out on Elkion Records a few years ago and collects everything together (I don't own it, but I'm sure it's worth hunting down). The Elkion web site hasn't been updated in a couple of years, but it still has a couple of mp3's on it and they're pretty good songs-- maybe even better than the songs that're on the single I have-- so I'll tack them onto this post.




Empire State Games -

"100 Years of Baseball"

"Dialogue (from a movie)"

(these files are now listen-only)


From the Elkion web site:

"The Evil Song"

"Wrong Way To Hold a Microphone"

(these files are now listen-only)