American Football

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 3:50 am

American Football were a truly great, somewhat math-y band from the late 1990s. Their songs were generally very subdued and featured poetic, emotive lyrics.

They only ever did two records, a self-titled full length and an EP which to the best of my knowledge is named "EP".

Give them a listen, if you're in the mood.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV0LJ0Dnl7A "Never Meant"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVDAXNO5frU "Letters And Packages"

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Sat Apr 07, 2012 8:19 am

omg

i looooooooooooooove American Football so much.

I do not have their EP, though. I would love to hear it sometime.

Seriously, American Football the album is one of my top 10 favorite records of all time.

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 5:32 am

turquoise70 wrote:I do not have their EP, though. I would love to hear it sometime.

I'm digging up ancient history for a moment to point you in the general direction of this YouTube upload:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC1ygJ5XKr0

Enjoy!

OverTheHorizonRadar · Post by **OverTheHorizonRadar** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 5:51 am

I learned one of their songs just the other day on guitar, it had a nice alternating pattern that made it interesting.

fujee · Post by **fujee** » Tue Jul 24, 2012 11:02 am

This is SO awesome !

Treefingers · Post by **Treefingers** » Wed Jul 25, 2012 9:15 pm

One of my friends is really into this band. Really like what I've heard so far, and now have an excuse to look further thanks to this thread!

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 7:46 am

Here is an incredibly interesting Instagram photo/post/whatever from Polyvinyl Records, AF's label:

http://instagram.com/p/QqEKQLBtHk/

Just got a package from Steve Holmes (American Football) w/ 7 old cassettes full of AF gems. Some songs are unreleased, some are boom box practices. Let the digitizing begin!

Holy. Fucking. SHIT! An AF boombox demo? :shock:

edit: punknews did a little blurb about this - http://www.punknews.org/article/49280/u ... gs-surface

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Sun Nov 04, 2012 8:01 am

pianoforte wrote:Here is an incredibly interesting Instagram photo/post/whatever from Polyvinyl Records, AF's label:

http://instagram.com/p/QqEKQLBtHk/

Just got a package from Steve Holmes (American Football) w/ 7 old cassettes full of AF gems. Some songs are unreleased, some are boom box practices. Let the digitizing begin!

Holy. Fucking. SHIT! An AF boombox demo?

I have just emailed Polyvinyl Records to ask nicely for any further information about these tapes and whether or not they may see a release in future. I will keep this thread updated if/when I receive a reply.

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Wed Nov 07, 2012 2:20 am

pianoforte wrote:
pianoforte wrote:Here is an incredibly interesting Instagram photo/post/whatever from Polyvinyl Records, AF's label:

http://instagram.com/p/QqEKQLBtHk/

Just got a package from Steve Holmes (American Football) w/ 7 old cassettes full of AF gems. Some songs are unreleased, some are boom box practices. Let the digitizing begin!

Holy. Fucking. SHIT! An AF boombox demo?

I have just emailed Polyvinyl Records to ask nicely for any further information about these tapes and whether or not they may see a release in future. I will keep this thread updated if/when I receive a reply.

Well, I received a reply a few hours ago;

Thanks for your interest in the AF tapes. We're super excited too! We're actually in the process of getting them digitized right now. We're gonna take a listen at what's on there and then figure out what we're gonna do with them. We should have more info on it sometime next year.

Thanks!
Andy

I'll see what I can do to hold my excitement until next year. I am REALLY excited about this

turquoise70 · Post by **turquoise70** » Mon Nov 12, 2012 5:31 am

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

OH MY SWEET SALLY

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NOTIFY ME BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE IF THIS BECOMES A THING

i love american football too much to say, and this must be a thing I hear <3 <3 <3

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Wed Nov 14, 2012 6:19 pm

turquoise70 wrote:WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

OH MY SWEET SALLY

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NOTIFY ME BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE IF THIS BECOMES A THING

i love american football too much to say, and this must be a thing I hear <3 <3 <3

agreed 100%

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 1:49 am

I just received a DVD of an American Football performance at the Fireside Bowl in Chicago. Anyone who wants a copy, please feel free to send a private message in my general direction!

Screen captures:

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Sun Dec 30, 2012 6:46 am

For those of you who are able to use BitTorrent, I have uploaded the DVD to ZOMB.

http://zombtracker.the-zomb.com/details.php?id=44798

From the description:

My heartfelt and eternal thanks to michaelish and j.scott at the Joanfrc forums.

American Football
Fireside Bowl, Chicago, IL (USA)
199x.xx.xx

1. The One With The Tambourine
2. Letters and Packages
3. Five Silent Miles
4. I'll See You When We're Both Not So Emotional
5. ??? (Unreleased)

Neither the video or audio is particularly great, but both are serviceable. I think we can certainly put aside the not-great quality given the pure awesomeness that was captured here.

I cannot specify the exact date of this performance with much confidence at the moment; I would place it to be circa 1998-1999. Someone suggested to me that it may have been April 30th, 1999 and as a result I am marking it as such until I find out otherwise through my active research on the subject.

This is the only American Football live video that I know of. If you have or know about something else (audio or video), please contact me! I'm also interested in live audio/video of Mineral and various other indie/emo bands of the 1990s and early 2000s.

You'll need an account with ZOMB in order to download the torrent. Please feel free to ask any questions which you may have; I will do my best to answer them.

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Fri Feb 08, 2013 4:51 am

pianoforte wrote:
turquoise70 wrote:WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

OH MY SWEET SALLY

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NOTIFY ME BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE IF THIS BECOMES A THING

i love american football too much to say, and this must be a thing I hear <3 <3 <3

agreed 100%

the project seems to be coming along nicely. i emailed andy from polyvinyl recs and he wrote back and said that they are currently trying to work out a viable tracklist for the release.

as turquoise said: oh my sweet sally

powershoes · Post by **powershoes** » Wed Feb 13, 2013 11:45 pm

i used to play the drums in an 'emo' band, which feels like a lifetime ago. we often listened to american football between rehearsals.

good work is happening here.

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Thu Feb 14, 2013 4:48 am

powershoes wrote:i used to play the drums in an 'emo' band, which feels like a lifetime ago. we often listened to american football between rehearsals.

good work is happening here.

WAAAAAAAAIT A SECOND

what band were you in?

powershoes · Post by **powershoes** » Thu Feb 14, 2013 10:14 am

pianoforte wrote:what band were you in?

the michael quilling project. pm sent.

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Sun Sep 15, 2013 6:08 am

Those AF rehearsal tapes need to come out ASAP.

pianoforte · Post by **pianoforte** » Sun Nov 10, 2013 8:05 am

some news on those demo recordings: http://joanfrc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=18446#p18446

also, mike's new project is called their / they're / there and it's good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTWqHgjVuX8

North by North · Post by **North by North** » Mon Nov 11, 2013 7:23 am

Haven't pulled out AF in a long while. Overdue.

Their / They're / There sounds good.

Love the Kinsella clan.

Good posts, thx.