The Ataris Band • Page 6

Look Forward To Failure is finally on vinyl!

 

Fastest shipping ever? Just got my copy. Haha.

 

Super interesting podcast with John Collura mainly talking about the Ataris from the end of the So Long Astoria cycle into Welcome the Night and the decline of the band.

 

Not sure how I came across this tweet via DisTwitter just now but perhaps an interesting back story to Boys of Summer…

 

Shockingly, they both sound SUPER similar to a certain Don Henley song

 

Lmao that sounds nothing like The Ataris version

 

but like it has the same melody and stuff!

haha

 

tbf, sounds more like she's saying it introduced them to the idea of the cover than they ripped off codeseven.

 

Hey, it's 2022. Only 14 years since Kris started recording "The Graveyard of the Atlantic".

 

Post-2005 Ataris career arc is so fucking weird.

 

Absolutely wild.

The stuff he has released on eps here and there over the years have been really solid as well. He easily could make an album out of what he has there with presumably a few more equally good songs he hasn’t yet released.

 

Dear lord I have officially spent half my life waiting for Graveyard of the Atlantic. 30 in a couple weeks, it was announced in 08. Yikes.

 

Looks like Kris had to take down a ton of demos and such off their Bandcamp page recently. Glad I downloaded them all before he took em down!

 

Only one more year until it has a longer recording cycle than Chinese Democracy

 

It's pretty embarrassing to watch Kris from a distance now. I follow along with his Facebook page. All he does is perform acoustic livestreams/requests for donations and sell Cameos and handwritten lyric sheets. I'm sure the man has had his fair share of financial troubles, but it's incredibly frustrating watching someone so immensely talented get in the way of themselves for years. It's like he suddenly lost confidence in himself as a songwriter or something because he apparently can't be bothered to release a new full length for the band's fans despite the begging.

 

Well said. Such a bummer. Is he just chasing perfection to his own detriment? Or in more serious trouble?

All Soul's Day and Graveyard are such great songs. Such a return to form imo of what made me love Kris/ Ataris. 12.15.10 too.

Hopefully he can pull it together and release something proper.

 

Eh, I’d rather his unusual path than The Ataris circling the drain on any number of pop punk nostagia tours coming soon to a casino near you

In one of the John Collura’s interview he said Kris seems happier carrying on with smaller shows and DIY acoustic tours. If you watch any of Kris’s live streams or whatever he def seems like a kinda low key road dawg. It’s not that weird that he doesn’t wanna do the typical fading pop punk band thing.

 

It’s annoying that he hasn’t properly released a full length in 15 years, but across the bandcamp releases there’s a pretty excellent albums worth of songs. Possibly his best batch.

 

lmfao he announced a line of NFTs like 40 mins ago

 

True, but I guess my point is that if simply took the time to formally release these songs as an album (or two), maybe he wouldn’t be needing to sell Cameos, release NFTs, etc. I feel like signing a smart record deal, releasing an album or two with fresh merch and vinyl would be a win/win situation for him and fans of the band.

 

He’s been capitalizing on SLA for each of its milestone anniversaries (and most years in between too) but hasn’t released anything new on the major platforms or anything. So while he’s riding that nostalgia wave, he could have been releasing new albums along the way to help get all those old fans hooked on something new so his career can progress outside of SLA tour after tour after tour.

I talked to him once after a show and was like “Dude, wouldn’t it feel so good to scrap this album that’s been hanging over your head for the last hundred years and just start completely from scratch, sign to a small indie label, and just kinda start everything new?” and he was like “Yeeeah man but I just really wanna do things DIY and small right now without labels and stuff but that is really expensive to do on your own. So I’d have to keep touring anyway.” So I said “Well why not do a kickstarter then for it where fans can help you reach a price and then you can make it happen.” But then he said he wouldn’t feel right doing that. It’s a bummer. Maybe his well’s just dried up.

 

I remember in college a friend of mine said he bought cd's from Kris's collection just to get by. Seems like he's always had issues.

 

If nothing else, I'm just glad he's a pack rat and hangs onto everything he's recorded. Being able to listen to the Anywhere But Here and End Is Forever demos on bandcamp awhile ago was really cool. If we're not getting brand new music from him, at least we get to experience new old stuff from the eras when we became fans in the first place.

 

The Abilene and This is My Life Now demos on the nft site sound cool. I hadn’t heard those before.

 

Thanks for the heads up - I would never have bothered to look at an NFT collection otherwise. These are really cool. I've always loved his forays into alt-country ("Oh Kansas City" and his cover of "Horseshoe Lounge" especially).

Edit: Not sure why I thought he covered a Lucero song.