Jawbreaker Day with Adam Pfahler at Giant Robot
Jawbreaker Day has evolved further than we ever imagined. Years ago, we coined "Jawbreaker Day," when we had multiple shops in LA, SF and NY, and challenged customers in all three cities to visit with a Jawbreaker mixed CD or a Jawbreaker tattoo. In exchange, we gave them a discount, and thanks to the band's "sponsorship", we passed out free Jawbreaker stickers, buttons, shirts, and albums.
Today, Jawbreaker Day is whatever and whenever drummer, Adam Pfahler says it is. This year, it fell on Saturday, October 18th, a day he'd be in town. The occasion was the 20th anniversary of their album, 24 Hour Revenge Therapy, and he showed up armed with limited edition, red vinyl records. One of the best reasons why Sawtelle works as a perfect location is that they played a backyard gig just houses away on Beloit Avenue in 1992. As Adam said, "you can throw a baseball there from here," and you literally can.
On January 5th of 2013, Adam kicked off our year with his first slide show and talk. Instead of coming to only sign albums and shake hands, I insisted he tell stories and show rare photos because people would care. It went well.
This year, he did it again and focused a bit more on stories related to 24 Hour Revenge Therapy. A line stretched down the block and perhaps double the amount of folks from last year, attended the, second live talk of his life. He focused on the photography session by "Wild" Don Lewis, the creation of the album art, liner notes and his own photography, to the process of recording in three days with Steve Albini. Did you know, it's practically a live album? Perhaps two takes by Adam on drums and Chris on bass were played nearly in sequence all the way through, and then the rest of the time was with Blake for guitars and vocals. He insists the album isn't perfect in terms of musical timing, but it's how it was intended.
The stories wandered into Blake's amp which was once owned by Fugazi, and after Blake didn't need it, he sold it to a member of Nerf Herder, and it continued to a few more hands and then it recently ended up back in the hands of Jawbreaker. He also brought up the feature length documentary, which is still in the works, and he revealed the title, Don't BreakDown, and showed a video clip of each of the band members. It was great to see, and as of now there's no release date.
I'm not sure what a "Day" for a band is supposed to be. Is it a talk, is it a listening session, or are they supposed to play? The latter will never happen, but for the folks who came, including one who drove two hours up from San Diego, they said it was great. I saw smiles at the end of the over 90 minute talk and I walked away with even larger understanding of everyone's favorite band.
Adam insists Jawbreaker Day 2013, and the Jawbreaker Day 2014, are his only two speaking engagements of his career, and he's already planning on an event at GR2 for 2015, the 20th anniversary of their final album, Dear You. Are you ready for more Jawbreaker stories? Adam has them.
For more photos of Jawbreaker Day, see this link.