Ladies and germs! May we present Ronen Givony who will pen the 33 1/3 on Jawbreaker’s 1994 album 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. Give it a good long listen!
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0Ivu6fZzdg]
We caught up with Ronen to learn more about his listening and reading habits…
33 1/3: What was your favorite book or record store growing up?
RG: Whitlock’s Book Barn, New Haven, Connecticut.
33 1/3: What is your favorite book or record store in the world?
RG: Tower Records Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan.
33 1/3: What are you listening to right…NOW?
RG: Elvis Perkins, I Aubade; Floating Points, Elaenia; Ana-Marija Markovina, C.P.E. Bach: Complete Piano Music; Cat’s Eyes, Duke of Burgundy OST; Ensemble Signal, Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians
33 1/3: What are you reading right….NOW?
RG: Emmanuel Carrère, Limonov; Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows; Joshua Cohen, Book of Numbers; Laurent Binet, HHhH; Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation
33 1/3: Where do you live?
RG: Brooklyn, NY
Want to know more about Ronen? You can find him at wordlessmusic.org & ronengivony.com. We love twitter, follow Ronen here: @WordlessMusic
What to expect from Ronen’s 33 1/3:
Two decades on, Jawbreaker’s 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (1993-94) is the rare album to have lost none of its original loyalty, affection, and reverence. If anything, today, the cult of Jawbreaker–in their own words, “the little band that could but would probably rather not”–is now many times greater than it was when they broke up. Like the best work of Fugazi, The Clash, and Operation Ivy, the album is now is a rite of passage for any young person learning for themselves what it means to be independent, alternative, or punk.
Why, when a thousand other artists came and went in that confounding decade of the 90’s, did Jawbreaker somehow come to seem like more than just another band? Why do they persist, today, in meaning so much to so many people? And how did it happen that, two years after releasing their masterpiece, the band that was somehow more than just a band to its fans–closer to equipment for living–was no longer?
Ronen Givony’s 24 Hour Revenge Therapy is an extended tribute in the spirit of Nicholson Baker’s U & I: a passionate, highly personal, and occasionally obsessive study of one of the great confessional rock albums of the ’90s. At the same time, it offers a quizzical look back to the toxic authenticity battles of the decade; ponders what happened to the question of “selling out”; and asks whether we today are enriched or impoverished by that debate becoming obsolete.
Say Hello to Ronen!
when the fuck is this book coming out already.
seminal album. Kiss the Bottle was anthemic for the times too. I remember all the “selling out hype” – in the context of the music industry today, I wish Bret hadn’t taken it so personally -Dear You is more produced, maybe a little less raw than BIVOUAC and 24 Hour Revenge Therapy but packs a punch nevertheless (and at least they could actually play instruments). I for one am glad the band got a major label deal – Jawbreaker was one of those bands that made me love being in a punk band and heavily influenced The Mortal Nuts. I saw the Jawbreaker show in Hollywood with WEEN and Foo Fighters (first tour? Dave Grohl out front with Pat Smear on 2nd guitar) – awesome…weird… but awesome, then they were gone…