Sounds From The Junkshop #105 - The Ataris
"And when this hourglass has filtered out its final grain of sand/I raise my glass to the memories we had" - The Ataris - So Long Astoria
By 2003, with fratpunk dying on the vine, the more astute pop-punk bands were quickly looking for a twist on the formula to stop the wave smashing their house to pieces. The overriding memory of the Ataris here in the UK, for those who remember them at all, is that band who did a pop-punk cover of Don Henley's Boys Of Summer and scored a minor hit with it (I think it just to say breached the Top 40 but it was a rock club staple for a few months around the time). And to be fair, it's not a bad cover either - I know that it's not exactly a "cool" song to like (anyone remember Mojo Nixon's brilliantly funny Don Henley Must Die song?) but it's got a good chorus and with that extra oomph behind it, the group put enough of their own stamp on it to make it an enjoyable listen.
The truth is though, there was always so much more to the Ataris than that one song. Similar to Lit and Bowling For Soup with fratpunk or One Minute Silence and Grand Theft Audio with nu-metal Less Than Jake with ska-punk (actually hang on a sec, how come I haven't covered LTJ here on SFTJ? Must put that to rights), they were a group who were part of a much-maligned genre, in this case emo, who you kind of wished some of the lesser lights of the genre would take a few more cues from.
However...the Ataris' So Long Astoria was an album I found myself liking despite myself. It wasn't trying to be something it wasn't - it was the sound of a group of guys in their late twenties looking back at their younger years and wishing the good times had lasted a bit longer. The old school references to the Goonies and Queen came across as wistful rather than cringy and the whole thing has more of a feel of realising your youth is slipping away from you than a hopeless attempt to try and relive it ten years too late. Songs like Radio #2, In This Diary and The Saddest Song actually came across as genuinely honest which was a bit of a rarity in those times while the title track and Takeoffs And Landings showed that they could do anthemic as well.
Unfortunately it wouldn't last - the album (their first on a major label after a long spell on the minors) was a decent seller but not the mega hit that someone at their label (Columbia) had clearly envisaged and the band went into a tailspin with the membership going into full on revolving door mode and frontman Kris Roe being the only constant in the years that followed. By the time of their follow-up, 2005's Welcome The Night, all the comings and goings had left them a shell of their former selves. It was still a decent effort but with the group no longer a priority at Columbia, it slipped out to very little fanfare and the group would leave the label soon afterwards.
Roe has continued to plug away with the Ataris to diminishing returns ever since albeit with the revolving door membership not showing any signs of slowing down which has hampered their productivity a bit - their proposed post-major label album The Graveyard Of The Atlantic ended up seeing the light of day over the course of about three different EP's in the end I seem to remember and I think eventually they just quietly dropped off my radar. It's a shame because I still regard So Long Astoria as one of my favourite albums of 2003 and it holds up well all these years later. Give it a listen and see for yourself.
PS - Should it interest you, Roe has put the majority of the Ataris' back catalogue up on Bandcamp and, fair play to 'im, made a lot of it available free, gratis and for nowt. It's worth a look.
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