Motion City Soundtrack, Cartel, and Beauty School

Motion City Soundtrack’s story is an absolutely heartening tale of sticking to one’s guns in the face of trends, fashion and bandwagons. Their brand of punky pop-rock (or poppy punk-rock, delete as applicable) was never going to set the charts alight and make them the biggest band in the world but it did make them an absolutely adored cult band, and that suits them like nothing else they could be. Like many other bands, the genesis of Motion City Soundtrack began with two other local bands disbanding.

They were Joshua Cain’s Saddest Girl Story and Justin Pierre’s Slide Coaster, and soon after those bands feel through, Cain got in touch with Pierre with the intention of forming a new band together. The band were originally a quartet formed with Cain on the lead guitar and Pierre on lead vocals but their rhythm section didn’t last until the end of the year, this wasn’t the only reason that the nascent Motion City Soundtrack couldn’t play shows, however.

Weirdly enough for a city with a rock and roll pedigree to put most of the world’s countries to shame, there were barely any venues for a new band to perform in. So Cain and Pierre knew that in order to spread the word about their band they’d have to tour and tour hard. Fortunately, they found a rhythm section willing to tour with them and nicked the name Motion City Soundtrack off a name Justin’s brother was using for one of his musical projects. By 1998 they’d played their first show, and big things were still to come.

Their first recorded release came in the form of a seven inch released in 1999, but the band were still in a sort of flux, without a truly fixed line-up to their name. It wasn’t until three years later that Pierre and Cain found Jesse Johnson and Matthew Taylor, who to this day play as their keyboardist and bassist respectively, and Tony Thaxton, who was their drummer until 2013. By the time they’d joined they already had two E.P’s to their name, and were hard at work self-releasing their debut album “I Am The Movie”.

Awesomely enough, the original release of the album had the album housed in a floppy disk case with the CD inside, which the band members assembled by hand. However, it was the album itself and its stunning quality that got the band signed to legendary punk label Epitaph. Not, unfortunately, the novel way it was packaged. With the proper release of “I Am The Movie”, Motion City Soundtrack finally had some genuine buzz behind them, and they capitalised on that with the release of “The Future Freaks Me Out”, their debut single and concert closer to this very day.

Since then the band has become one of the most beloved cult acts in American rock, with two albums produced by Blink 182 legend Mark Hoppus and record sales in their home country of around half a million. They still tour as heavily as they’ve ever done and in their nearly twenty years together, it means that their live shows are some of the best in modern rock. Truly they’re a band that can reaffirm your faith in rock, honest-to-God good music and the power of a devoted fanbase. Highly recommended.

The original quintet that made up Cartel grew up together in Rockdale Country Georgia, but their story gives hope to every teenager around that can’t seem to find band mates for neither love nor money. They might have all known each other, but they would only get around to forming a band together in late 2003 after they started attending college together at the Georgia State University. The band started touring as avidly as they could while still attending their college courses, but they began to build up a fervent local following with only their first few live shows. It was then that the band had to make the decision all young musicians dream of having.

In 2004, the band were forced to choose between their education and their burgeoning musical career. Their live shows had not gone unnoticed, and they had gotten to the point where their debut, self-produced E.P was picked up by the independent label The Militia Group. For the benefit of every fan of punk shaped music everywhere, the band chose to continue playing together. Upset with the personality clashes that he had with the band their rhythm guitarist, Andy Lee, chose to leave around this time. However, the band still continued with a new member in the form of Nic Hudson and released their debut full length album “Chroma” in September 2005.

Ever since then, the band have been the connoisseur’s choice of American pop-punk. Since the success of their first album, they’ve signed to Epic Records, toured with everyone from Cobra Starship to All Time Low, and took an album that was written and recorded in 20 days to top 20 of the Billboard 200 albums chart, selling 28’000 copies in its first week on sale. They might not enjoy the success that some of their peers might see but they honestly don’t need it, they have their devoted cult following, and anyone looking for something a little deeper in their pop-punk. Because of that, Cartel come highly recommended.