Get The Fuck Back Together, Idiots: The Ergs!

So a couple weeks ago, I got to attend one of the handful of farewell shows The Ergs! put on as a result of their surprising disbanding. And though it was incredibly memorable, I think it seriously didn't do their important career the justice it deserved... Specifically, due to having to stop the set two or three times to take care of a faulty stage rig that was falling apart (the show was put on at an old brewery/grain warehouse [fucking sick.], so everything seemed just thrown together to appear as a venue... but not in a bad way) and as well as being the direct support for Dillinger Four's release show/party for their much-anticipated long-overdue new album, the Ergs boys and their tipping of the hat to their legacy seemed greatly over-shadowed.

Fuckin' A, interweb. This was a travesty! ... We here at the Belly have three commandments that we live by, and three only: Drink, Fight, and Fuck. And sometimes we bend the rules and throw Rock, a second Drink, and a Get Radical into the mix as well.. But that's only on special occasions, which are pretty much any days that end in "-day". BUT a band like the Ergs! told us that it was ok to relish in the emotions we beat to a pulp and jammed back deep into a spooned-out divot in our spinal column just below the cavernous blackness that resides in our chests... By taking the good parts of heavyweights like Descendents and Screeching Weasel, then throwing them into a concrete mixer with self-deprecating nerd culture, a nasaly singer/drummer, and a penchant for broken-hearted love songs on meth, The Ergs! packed a hell of a wallop. Seriously, these guys made me believe again that there was a right way "pop-punk" could be done with merit and maturity, intensity and emotion. Not just the beat-down garbage old horse paraded around on TV and the radio for a bulk of the past 15 years.

Annnnywho, so Jeff was leaving the band and the other two Ergsdudes thought it wouldn't be right trying to keep the band alive without him. Noble. But there is a tiny bit of a silver-lining in this, us as fans of Jersey's best prancers get two posthumous releases from the boys in nerd frames. One coming by way of 7", of the songs they were working on right before the split, and the other as a massive 33 song collection of all rare tracks, split tracks, 7" tracks, and such of yesteryear. So go out and pick that shit up, listen to some of the old stuff while remembering that broad that took a massive shit on your life... oh, and tell the Ergs! if you see them, get the fuck back together, idiots.

The Ergs! - Most Violent Rap Group/Pray For Rain (live)