Squirrel Bait
Skag Heaven

"Probably come to die in this town, live here my whole life"

The other day I was listening to Kerosene and thinking about rusted sheets of metal hanging in an indefinite point in the sky, infinite, and I was trying to imagine the noise they would produce if thrown from two hills facing each other; a clamor and immediately after, the victory of nature over everything anthropic. Albini hated Chicago, but he couldn't help but love it; I believe he felt a cathartic need. Louisville is not too far away. I was listening to Kerosene and I thought about Tony Molina, I was thinking about Molina but nothing serious.

"I've got to leave this town, cause all my friends, they like me more when I am not around"

Cities are left and found again, cities are loved unconditionally, cities are beautiful; people are hateful. I love being alone but when there are people around me, I feel like talking, telling stories, being listened to and bringing back to life now invisible and unknown characters, faded stories that exist only thanks to me. I thought about Molina and I listened to Molina and everything returned to a balance from that twisting of my synapses.

"I don't no pig stomping on my buzz"

When industrial peeked into the music world, we entered the gorge of post-consumerism, ruins of the future without blip or woom. Post-hardcore was that way to move forward while continuing to look back: childhood and hazy adolescence, beers in the most remote corners of the country and still believing in something that could naively change the world.
Louisville is born here, with Squirrel Bait. Skag Heaven is the mausoleum of post-rock, it's the tombstone of old-school hardcore, Skag Heaven is one of many but above all, I'm not the first nor the last to say it, it's New Day Rising that looks beyond the dawn and takes us towards dusk, they are the Replacements with only electric ballads, but also leaner Black Flag and balanced Meat Puppets; the first of the new hardcore songwriter generation along with J Mascis, Pixies, and Dischord.

"I'm not playing with you"

But like the big bang, magic happens later: David Grubbs forms Bastro and Gastr Del Sol and participates in sessions with Codeine and Bitch Magnet, Brian McMahan forms Slint and The For Carnation. From the Bait, certainly the Fugazi and the entire melodic part of the core took inspiration: from melodic hc to emo. Grunge and related noise are indebted, in short, Squirrel Bait are not just a band of unruly youngsters who had too much luck; Squirrel Bait are THE most central nerve band of hardcore, not the best, not the most innovative but the most centralized.

"And now all the brave are in the grave"