JagBytes

Issue date: 2/27/08 Section: Entertainment

Album cover of Maritime's newest effort, "Heresy and the Hotel Choir."

Davey Von Bohlen, formerly of the Promise Ring, Vermont, and Cap'n'Jazz, most recently of Maritime - does not belong to me, he never has. Von Bohlen belongs jointly to my younger brother and my old roommate Jim Gator. I'm not saying that they literally own him, but they totally do. Maritime recently released their third album, "Heresy and the Hotel Choir."

My brother and Jim forced me to like the Promise Ring, and now I too am hooked, largely against my will. Von Bohlen intentionally or not writes very nostalgic songs. They are typically about very specific and often universal moments in relationships.

Not the moments you would expect, like your walk in the moonlight on a beautiful spring night, although, he is certainly guilty of those. But more specifically moments like that time the two of you drunkenly drove to Taco Bell at 2 a.m., singing Belle and Sebastian songs loudly, wholly realizing that this is the wrong way to do it.

Musically, Maritime evokes everything from the Smiths to those late '90s greater Chicago emo/post punk bands like Braid and American Football. This can be expected as every band to ever come out the Chicago metro area is tangled in a bastardized Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon sort of way.

For example, Von Bohlen was in Cap'n'Jazz with Mike Kinsella, who later started American Football. I got drunk with Jim Gator, who was wearing an American Football shirt, and we watched "Footloose," starring Kevin Bacon.

Because these bands write about such specific moments in time, and do it in a very universal way, they lend themselves well to nostalgic memories. Maritime, and more specifically, "Heresy and the Hotel Choir" is no different.

My brother for instance always thinks about high school when he listens to the Promise Ring's "30 Degrees Everywhere." He thinks about spring, and Davey Von Bohlen's baldhead. My memories associated with that record are pretty much limited to an uneventful drive from Indianapolis to Panama City Beach, Florida, which ultimately leaves me restless about halfway through the record, and makes me think of my brother passed out in the back seat, like a corpse wearing a seatbelt, head swaying with the bumps in the road.

One common criticism of Von Bohlen's is that just about everything he's done since the Promise Ring's "Wood Water" sounds the same. My brother disagrees.

Continued...

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