The Get Up Kids
photo: conman33 · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗The Get Up Kids formed in 1995 in Kansas City and became a leading act of the mid-1990s Midwest emo movement, the so-called 'second wave' of emo. Their 1999 album 'Something to Write Home About' — full of chiming guitars, earnest heart-on-sleeve lyrics, and big singalong choruses — is regarded as one of the movement's quintessential records and a template for the pop-punk and emo bands who followed. Fronted by Matt Pryor and Jim Suptic, the band toured widely before a 2005 breakup and a later reunion.
The Get Up Kids have named Jawbreaker among their influences, and you can hear it in the way they wed rough, fast pop-punk to diaristic, plainspoken lyrics.
listen forPlay Jawbreaker's 'Boxcar' and then 'Coming Clean': listen for the same raw-throated melody and gang-shout momentum, hooks scuffed up rather than polished.
Sunny Day Real Estate is among the bands The Get Up Kids have cited, and their imprint shows in the dynamic swings and ringing, interlocking guitar parts of the Kansas City band's fuller arrangements.
listen forSet Sunny Day Real Estate's 'Seven' beside 'Ten Minutes': notice the octave-laced guitar figures and the lift from a restrained verse into a soaring, wide-open chorus.
The Get Up Kids count Fugazi among their influences, drawing on the D.C. band's taut, dynamic post-hardcore even as they steer it toward pop melody.
listen forPlay Fugazi's 'Waiting Room' and then 'Holiday': listen for the springy, stop-start rhythmic push and the sudden shifts between tension and release.