In the wake of the overwhelming success of Nirvana’s Nevermind, major labels in the early/mid-’90s began signing any and every cool indie band they could in hopes of a similar payoff. One such outfit was Jawbox, a Washington, D.C., post-punk quartet that had issued two promising albums on the indier-than-thou Dischord label. The band—guitarist/vocalist J. Robbins, guitarist Bill Barbot, bassist Kim Coletta and drummer Zachary Barocas—signed to Atlantic and released the excellent For Your Own Special Sweetheart in 1994. (Though MAGNET named it the fifth-best album that year, Sweetheart was far from a commercial hit.) In 1996, Jawbox issued a slicker self-titled LP, which also failed to catch on beyond the indie-rock crowd, and the band broke up the following year. Dischord has just reissued For Your Own Special Sweetheart with three bonus tracks, and to celebrate, Jawbox reunited for a one-off performance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday. Barbot is also guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Barbot: It’s that most wonderful time of the year, when bloggers and Facebookers and Twitterers near and far upload attractive, wistful, post-ironic photos of their children, their pets, their tacky sweaters, their sarcastic Christmas trees. I decided instead to write about what I think is the most touching emblem of the season I’ve seen: the FestiveBlaster from the DC USA mall across 14th Street from my office. Or should I say, the Blaster Formerly Known As The FestiveBlaster, as someone took off with it a week before last Christmas, and it was never replaced. We ended the 2008 holiday season in morose, aching silence. I try to imagine: Who was responsible for making the mall more festive? Who chose the (eventually stained) table cloth, the music (among many others, the Jackson 5 and Perry Como), the ribbons? Who took the long ride up the escalator to buy the not-yet-unwrapped candle and scented pine cones from Bed Bath & Beyond? How did they decide upon the perfect arrangement? The perfect location: right next to the front door of the mall, by the fire-alarm annunciator, within easy reach of—and easier escape for—an ill-intentioned teen intent on making his or someone else’s Christmas a little brighter with a five-finger discount? This is as close as I have ever come to photographing the True Spirit Of Christmas. And then somebody stole it.
