Rediscovering Weezer Pre-Maladroit

[Paintballr]

Huge Weezer fan here.....

If your looking into the songs from the black hole, the Pinkerton deluxe album that came out a few years ago has some b-sides and studio versions of those songs that were suppose to be on that album (I just threw out the love of my life, longtime sunshine) and rivers has some of those songs on his studio albums, (blast off, etc.)

As much as a love Weezer, I think Matt Sharp and his departure had a bigger impact than most people realize. He left the band right after Pinkerton was released. He went on to form the band The Rentals, defiantly check them out, they sound very Pinkerton like on some songs (believe one of the girls that's on SNL use to be in that band?). When he left I Rivers was left alone (or felt obligated) to do all the writing himself, (which I think almost broke the band up if I remember correctly, one of the songs on Make Believe was an apology to Brian I believe for the way he use to act/treat the band back before Make Believe). Rivers can be an amazing artist and writer I believe, but he has his different styles, look at Blue Album/Pinkerton singing style, compared to make believe and maladroit.

You can tell that now, they are a bunch of friends that writes music and tours just to have fun. You can see this by the fact rivers plays drums on some songs live, Pat or Brian will lead sing, they invite audience members on stage to perform songs like island in the sun, or the sweater song as basically a smorgasbord high school band, they release a Christmas album, etc. Look up old videos of live performances, Rivers rarely performs Pinkerton stuff live now (or if he does he doesn't sing) due to his lifestyle choices now compared to his early days. It was a dark time for him when he wrote that album. Ex. Why Bother? Brian sings it live now compared to Rivers.

I own all their albums, even the not so big stuff (the live "indie" album they released back in the early 2000"s, to deluxe albums, to Christmas albums.) they definitely, we're the band that got me to motivate myself to learn guitar and I know most of their stuff, would love to see them live if they ever tour in charlotte. I feel like I'm rambling but they are one of my favorite bands.