To the loyal Square Circle community,

 

As the years pass, I find fewer and fewer opportunities to reach out to you, and so on occasions like this one I find myself almost embarrassingly excited, caught up afresh in the events of an era past. Every good rock'n'roll fan has, in her heart of hearts, her one true band, and usually it was the band that defined her adolescence, the one that soundtracked the arms-flailing angst of early high school. Funny, then, that I happened to discover mine when I was an ancient twenty-five. It was 2004, and I had been living for six months in happening Williamsburg. By day I worked as an editorial assistant for a now-defunct newsletter called L.E.S. Miserables; by night I maintained a music blog, Dream Home Heartaches, where I would channel my greatest anxieties and most impassioned dreams, all under the heading of indie rock. If it weren't for that blog I never would have been granted a lifetime of free entry to The Monkey's Paw, where one fateful July night I would see a band that would definitively change the course of my life. I would become their official historian and unofficial #1 fan. I literally followed them across the globe.

 

Four years have past since Square Circle's final concert, and twelve have passed since that fateful first night at the Monkey's Paw. They took the world on a journey, and I had the unique privilege of following them on theirs. Those years were marked with joy and anguish, with subversion and silliness, with harmony and mystery, with loss and love.

 

With that, it is my great pleasure to introduce this compendium of the most memorable write-ups, the most insightful interviews, the most scathing critiques the Band Without a Sound ever received. Stay tuned for more updates... In the meantime, take a look back at the earliest days of indie rock's true icons.

 

Yours truly,
Dan Ahn
Biographer & archivist for Square Circle, reporter, and (former) music blogger

 

3/25/2016