The Get Up Kids play live tracks for Last.fm

View interviews and live renditions of Automatic, Shatter Your Lungs, Pararelevant and Regents Court, at Last.fm Discover.

New Get Up Kids Video - Automatic

From There are Rules

Album Review: The Get Up Kids - There are Rules

Initial Thoughts Album Review

The Get Up Kids - There are Rules

3 out of 5 stars

After a first listen, I am a bit lot for words.  If I didn't recognize Pryor and Suptic's voices, I would not in a million years have known this was a Get Up Kids album.  Portions sound heavily influenced by some of the grittier keyboard-based sounds of Dewes' Reggie and the Full Effect.  The track "Birmingham" would fit well on a Japandroids release.  "Shatter Your Lungs" seems out of place - fitting better with the likes of "Fountain of Youth" from Pryor's side-project New Amsterdams' album, At the Foot of my Rival.

There are Rules is dominated by lots of fuzzy distorted bass, distorted effects on vocals and electronic noise - none of which are elements familiar to longtime TGUK fans.  In addition, the timbre and tone of the guitars is strikingly on the treble end - little bass-end distortion on the guitars - little traditional punk palm-muted rhythms.

This is one of their more consistently noisy efforts since Woodson or Four Minute Mile.  The more pop-oriented sensibilities of more recent releases make appearances, but they are fleeting and isolated to a few tracks.  A lot of noise here.  It sounds a bit like a band, now reunited, wanting to reemerge with a new and evolved sound.  This would be par for the course, as each of their previous releases signaled significant departures in sound.  However, this new effort sounds like that evolution was a bit forced.  It sounds like they are trying to NOT sound like their previous albums (and they succeed), but the result lacks a consistency that most of their other big changes (On a Wire, in particular), did maintain.  I get that this isn't the same old Get Up Kids - they have made that point loud and clear.

I am left asking myself, however, what then is this?  I hear a bunch of fractured sounds, ideas and approaches thrown together.  It is not that I don't like it.  In fact, I rather enjoy all the noise, angst and gritty vocals.  But, I am not sure how well it all holds together... Perhaps after a few more listens things will start to gel and make sense...we'll see...

Out January 25th 

Shatter Your Lungs - Another new Get Up Kids track

From the upcoming Regents Court.  This is perhaps the most UN-Get Up Kids song I have heard!  Not bad, but very different.

New Get Up Kids album announced - These Are Rules

 Head over to stereogum.com's Progress Report for a full report on the new Get Up Kids album, due early 2011, which reportedly will be "bizarre and unlike anything [they have] ever done before."

The write-up also does a good job of explaining TGUK's odd position of having been at the forefront of a genre that in later years has taken some HORRIBLE turns.

The Get Up Kids - Regent's Court [mp3]

New Get Up Kids 4-song EP, Simple Science, due soon (Early April)

For those of you living under rocks, the Get Up Kids did a great reunion tour last year, and are now releasing a series of 3 EPs. 

The 1st, Simple Science has the following tracks:

1. Your Pretty Pretty Things
2. Keith Case
3. Tommy Gentle
4. How You're Bound

 Simple Science is already up on iTunes and physical copies are available for preorder!  I think they should be shipping soon.  Go forth!  Buy!

Preorder at the Get Up Kids

Preorder at Amazon.com

New (but old) Unreleased Get Up Kids demos (non-album songs)

Back during the On a Wire sessions, the Get Up Kids recorded quite a few tracks that never saw the light of day.  A few of these have circulated around the internet, most prolifically from The Unofficial Get Up Kids Bootleg Archive.  "Dreaming Underwater" has been available (if you dig) for a quite a while, and has long been one of my favorite tracks with Suptic on vox.  The others will likely be new to most of you, even Get Up Kids enthusiasts.  There is a lot of church-organ on these tracks, which leads me to believe many of them were recorded in close succession to one another.  If you listen to the lyrics, you will find elements and imagery that appear in other released TGUK tracks, especially those on On a Wire.

Technically, these are "demos," but their production value is a LOT better than what you traditionally think of when you hear "demo."  And, a lot better than many other Get Up Kids demos.  So . . . enjoy! 

Dreaming Underwater [mp3]

Take the Fall [mp3]

Wings and Wheels [mp3]

The End is in Sight [mp3]

My Photographs [mp3]

Through the Haze [mp3]

The Get Up Kids do Daytrotter

the Get Up Kids offered up some great songs on Daytrotter.com
Among other things, they revealed that they wrote and recorded 9 new songs this summer.
Here are the songs they put in the session, along with their explanations. They include a couple new tracks.


1.

Welcome to Daytrotter [download mp3]

2.

Sharin' Stone [download mp3]

- unreleased
Originally written and performed by Vitreous Humor. It appears on their 1998 posthumous release entitled "Posthumous". A really great band that never really got their due but were a big influence on us early on. When we reunited and played a show in Lawrence, KS that we were filming we got Danny Pound (the singer and songwriter from the band) to come on stage and play this song with us. It wasn't until we rehearsed the song with Danny that we learned that the lyric to the chorus was "Smile like you used to...you were stupid and bald". Up until that point we'd been singing along to the song "Smile like you used to...you stupid whore!" There is a big difference there I think. I still don't know what the line means though.

3.

Your Petty Pretty Things [download mp3]

- unreleased
One of the 9 new songs that we wrote and recorded over the summer. Tried to balance the poppy, peppy-ness of it by having the lyrics be pretty dark. We had our friend Wayne Propst come in to do a voice over on the ending. He's a really cool local character with a great gravely voice and an interesting take on life so we just asked him to come in and riff over the ending. All we told him as that the song was about "failure". He came in with an old 15 second cassette that was a loop of William S. Burroughs doing what I would call a self help mantra. Wayne and WIlliam's idea was that whenever you were feeling "a little nuts" you could just listen to this loop instead of going to a shrink. The loop is just William saying "does it seem to be persisting?" over and over and over again. This version only has the Burroughs sample but the version that we recorded over the summer also has Wayne going back and forth with the loop and getting more intense as the song climaxes. It's kinda nuts.


4.

I'm A Loner Dottie, A Rebel [download mp3]

- original version appears on Something To Write Home About
We originally recorded this song in 1997 for a split 7" with Braid and then again for our "Something To Write Home About" record. I think we recorded it for our live record as well. So, this will be the fourth incarnation of this recording and by far the best.

5.

Overdue [download mp3]

- original version appears on On A Wire
This is one of my favorite songs we've ever written. We didn't really play it very often back in the day so I'm glad to we're bringing it back. I like the way the acoustic guitar sounds through the amp. Jim really likes his own guitar playing. He's a big fan.

Get Up Kids reunite!

Holy wow! Don't get too excited though - its only for one show, this Sunday night, in Kansas City. I took the Mrs. down to their last farewell show back in 2005, but don't think I'll be able to swing this one.

Read more HERE

and HERE

Better Half - The Get Up Kids (new version)

Better Half - The Get Up Kids.mp3

Better Half was one of the best tracks off the Get Up Kids' 1997 LP debut Four Minute Mile. However, as the entire album was recorded over 2 days, the sound quality has always bothered me. Yes, yes, I know they remastered it in 2001 - but still pretty rough.

On this note, I recently stumbled across a newer recording of Better Half. And, as I always loved the music and lyrics, but chaffed at the low sound quality (and the fact that Matt Pryor's vocal skills were still in their early developmental stages), I was excited for this more polished version. It was labeled as an iTunes Exclusive Sessions acoustic track, but I haven't been able to find it on iTunes. I also read somewhere that it was at one time for sale as part of a digital EP from their label, Vagrant. But, Vagrant's website is not currently selling it. In anycase, I have the whole EP, recorded during their Guilt Show era. Enjoy the track, and let me know if you find where this is actually available for purchase.

"Better Half"

i saw my better half, the better half of a decade
slip through my hands inside her hands inside my pockets
when she reached for her advatages i should have done something
i saw my baby boy digging his own hole, keeping alive family traditions
when he lied about intentions i should have done something
well, i blame myself for everything it keeps my conscience clean -
i've got bandages to prove it