Jawbreaker: Unfun (green vinyl) [BLACKBALL]

Why you'll love it

This green vinyl edition is the 20th anniversary remaster from the original analog tapes, issued by drummer Adam Pfahler's own Blackball Records, with a lyric inner sleeve. Unfun is where Blake Schwarzenbach's sharp, literate songwriting first hit wax.

This edition

• Green vinyl
• 20th anniversary edition
• Remastered from the original analog tapes
• Lyric inner sleeve
• Download card included

About the album

Jawbreaker started the way a lot of good bands do, with a flyer in a university cafeteria. Adam Pfahler and Blake Schwarzenbach, school friends from Santa Monica, answered it at NYU, met bassist Chris Bauermeister, and played their first rehearsal in November 1986. They went through names like Thumb and Terminal Island before Jawbreaker stuck. A demo sent to Maximum Rocknroll caught the ear of Shredder Records' Mel Cheplowitz, and most of these songs were written in Schwarzenbach's New York apartment.

They cut the album with producer Richard Andrews at Radio Tokyo in Venice, California, in January and February 1990. It's punk, pop-punk and hardcore all at once, with nods to the Descendents and Hüsker Dü: "Want" kicks the door in, "Busy" and "Seethruskin" race along, and "Imaginary War" and "Gutless" show off Schwarzenbach's gift for a sharp line, and "Down" and "Drone" bring it all home.

Shredder reissued it on CD in 1992 and 2002 before Pfahler brought it home to Blackball. It's the drummer's label now, which in punk rock is the equivalent of being handed the keys to the van.

Also at Kops: more Jawbreaker on vinyl · browse Punk

Tracklist

Listen

On Blackball (cat# BB-007-LP), a reissue of the 1990 album.