AsterTracks 308: A walk down memory lane with Craig Owens

Over the years Flint, MI’s Craig Owens has been frontman of many bands and projects and lent features to a lot of artists as well. Now, on his solo Velocity records debut, he’s celebrating that career with Volume 1. On Volume 1 Craig is taking songs from his various past records and reimagining them as piano or acoustic ballads. I myself have been listening to Craig’s music since I was about thirteen or fourteen and wanted to look at these new versions of the tracks with a critical eye as well as walk you down the lane of my own memories in the same way he does by sharing what comes to mind from my own life when I listen to each and every one of these.

We of course open with the classic; the first single to this project was Chiodos’ “Baby, You Wouldn’t Last a Minute on the Creek,” their best-known song and maybe Craig’s as well. To be honest there isn’t much to analyze on this new recording, it’s the original played on a piano, you and I both knew it would be on a record like this and I’m glad it’s here. To me this is the song that started it all for my gateway into post-hardcore. A friend of mine in high school showed me the music video for this and I remember being fascinated by the visuals, people in animal masks taking part in some sort of romantic tragedy. I also remember totally falling in love with the song itself, it sounded like the gritty music I already liked as a ninth grader but was piano tinged and had a certain soul to it I wasn’t quite used to.

The second single here was Isles & Glaciers’ “Cemetery Weather” and I’m less hot on this new recording. Isles & Glaciers was huge to me, I remember sending my then girlfriend to the record store to get me this and the Of Mice & Men debut while I worked at my dad’s appliance repair shop. I also remember one of my friends loving this song in spite of not liking ballads and making friends with a girl in my English class because I had their shirt on. Which, at twenty-nine years old, I still have. I think when you boil it down this song does work really well as a piano ballad. If I’m being more critical; this performance feels a little butchered. There’s a lot of lyrics missing here, which I do understand in context are missing because they’re sung by one of the three other vocalists of the band, however a lot of those missing lines are the ones that sell the song to me. If we die then we die, and I’ll leave here buried with you as a high school kid was a gut punch and instead what I get here is awkward pauses and stretching lines out that really don’t need to be stretched out. Still, I recognize that all of this is because it’s an old classic and I do think there’s a lot of good here and after a few listens I even started to take it in for what it is.

After that comes another Chiodos cut; “To Trixie and Reptile, Thanks for Everything.” I don’t have a specific memory that comes to mind this time, but this vocal performance is a real showing of how much better a vocalist Craig is in 2023. He did not sound this smooth on the original 2005 recording and the way his voice pitched in those days was really the standard for a band like this and I think the reason Craig remains above so many of those old bands is because he continues to just get better with age. This also has to be my favorite rendition on the record where it's presented as a sort of emo acoustic version with a folk punk attitude to it. Usually, I stay away from comparison but in this sense, Craig sounds like he’s going for something similar to The Wonder Years or Spanish Love Songs and I think it works really well on a song like this.

“Graveyard Dancing” is the first DRUGS song on the record and translates quite well to the sonics of Volume 1. The keys on this track shine here in a way they didn’t on the classic self-titled album with the piano passages having a certain eeriness to them. The chorus here really pops, and Craig enunciates these lines in a way that even all these years later I understand them better than I did in 2011. One thing I always think about when it comes to DRUGS is seeing them perform at the Massachusetts Warped Tour date the only year, they were together before their recent return. They got to play three songs, this being one of them, before a huge thunderstorm cut the show off entirely. I wouldn’t get a chance to see them again until 2022.

It’s amazing to me how well “Destiny” works as a lowkey, and bluesy track given how huge it is on its original version from the DRUGS comeback record. The performance really shines on this rendition and the instrumentation almost feels harsher especially around the chorus section. Also, I’m especially impressed with the translation of the breakdown here. This song will always remind me of when I actually did get to see DRUGS live, in 2022, a month away from moving out of the east coast. I’ve spoken sort of harshly about this night and that’s because the headliners of that show deserve it. However, I have to also point out that I did have a lot of fun that night, especially during the DRUGS set. As a teenager, clearly, I was a huge fan of any band this man was in, but I had to experience all of that as a teenage boy where I got a bit of ridicule about it. Now I got to go to this show as an adult with no sense of shame for things I enjoy, I’m also a woman now so that gives me a different experience as well. I bounced around, I danced, I had a blast. I also went with two internet friends and had a lovely time meeting both of them. When things started coming out about those headliners, I was really upset with them, and I’ll formally apologize for that here because I really did enjoy the evening and sort of understand their position better now.

“Mr. Owl Ate My Metal Worm” brings me to an interesting headspace in that it’s apparent just how angry Craig is here. He really captured the emotion in a way that I don’t even think was there on the original recording. The blues chords, the pounding percussion and every vocal tic all paint a picture of a subject of rage. When that bridge hits it's almost so tense that I can’t breathe. The thing that this song does is make me confront that while these songs bring me back to all these places in my mind I can only imagine if I was the one to write them.

“Gold” was never a favorite of mine, but I remember when it dropped as a single it felt like DRUGS were really back. Everyone was so into this one and it felt, in that moment online at least, like the band had arrived and it wasn’t just talks and demos anymore. I will say too, I like this new version quite a bit more. I understand why it was a gritty, full band, alternative song on release. Something about this new raw performance of just piano and vocals makes the feeling and message being conveyed much louder and clearer. It didn’t occur to me before, but this song is about us, the audience, the one’s listening. In a way he’s reminding us that while we know him, he doesn’t know us. Craig is acknowledging that the best he can offer us is songs to get through our day to day.

The following two songs weren’t ones I was familiar with going into the record. “It’s Easy” feels like it’s in theme to the record in looking back at people you used to know and wondering what crossing your path did to theirs. It makes me think of everyone I’m talking about in my recollections as well. I look back on those times fondly, but I also understand they are just that, times past. As for “I Wanna be Alone” I know it’s a badXchannels song but I’m going to be honest in saying it does nothing for me. I was never a badXchannels fan and honestly remember none of their songs they just never hit for me and this one is no different.

“3 AM” surprised me as the closer to the record, not only because I didn’t see it on any of the track lists that were posted, but also because it often feels like Devil is overlooked in the Chiodos discography. Here, as opposed to trying to make a grand new rendition, Craig keeps the spirit of the original and even tries his hand at creating what I imagine to be the tension of the night the song narrates. The ticking clock in the background absolutely steals the air from the room and makes the whole thing a nerve-wracking experience. I view Devil as an old favorite record and “3 AM” a highlight so this really worked on me here.

“Intensity in Ten Cities,” which I’ve skipped over until now, also has a special place in my heart from when I was in high school. Me and my friends used to listen to Bone Palace Ballet in my backyard quite a bit when it was new and again when it was reissued. Every time this song came on though we had to skip it. Not because it was the sad ballad on the screamo album, but because it was too sad. This one girl we hung out with always made us skip over it, telling us it made her too emotional and that she would shut down if we listened to it. Whenever I listened to it on my own, I never skipped any tracks, but “Ten Cities” always did hit me in a way I couldn’t explain. When I heard it on this album, I was totally fine, in fact it made me smile. In a way this song and all the others bring me back to those times and is like seeing all of those people all over again.

I loved Volume 1

1. Isles & Glaciers' "Cemetery Weather"
2. Chiodos' "To Trixie and Reptile, Thanks for Everything"
3. DRUGS' "Graveyard Dancing"
4. Chiodos' "Baby, You Wouldn't Last a Minute on the Creek"
5. DRUGS' "Destiny"
6. Chiodos' "Intensity in Ten Cities"
7. DRUGS' "Mr. Owl Ate My Metal Worm"
8. DRUGS' "Gold"
9. "It's Easy"
10. badXchannels' "I Wanna be Alone"
11. Chiodos' "3 AM"

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