t the end of an arduous and dispiriting day, especially one which involves unrequited obsession, music that echoes the pounding of my feeble heart finds itself in a position of inescapable playability. None of this helps. None of this protracting of misery can possibly help. If I really wanted to transcend my closed-bedroom-door dejection I would immerse myself in my sisters CCM collection. But that’s an entirely different point, for an entirely different article: does gospel music really comfort? Alas, I’m in too deep. A boy can’t go from Joy Division to Michael W. Smith. Oh, God I wish I could. I really do. But I can’t. So I listen to others who share in my misery and languish: the Morrisseys, the Ian Curtises, the Patrick Fitzgeralds, and the Josh Caterers.


But like the CCM question: does mope music comfort ? I would have to say, yes, in its own way, it does. I don’t know anyone who puts on, say, Lords of Acid, or uh, N.W.A. when they’re feeling down. No, people put on Galaxie 500, or Nick Drake, or Nico. The reasons are obvious: people, me, you, I -- we put on voices that are in our position. Voices that understand. When Nico sings “Please don't confront me with my failures / I have not forgotten them,” when Morrissey croons “I’ve changed my plea to guilty / Because freedom is wasted on me,” when Ian Curtis cries “Mother, I tried, please believe me...I'm ashamed of the person I am” or when Josh Caterer quavers “Each day is darker than the last / They lead me lonely into the night and sink into the past,” you can’t help but feel something. Even if that something is reassurance of your agony. Misery. It loves company.


I sit here, listening to Born to Quit, trying to forget something that never was. A relationship that was gone before it even began. I always gave a cockeyed look to those who tore themselves up over someone, burying their head under the covers and turning up the stereo. But to steal a line that Moz probably stole himself: prudence never pays, and I’ll never make that mistake again. I know Josh Caterer of the Smoking Popes has shed his share of futile tears, and so I trust him. Sifting through my melancholy music, I seem to have found the perfect message for the moment; Morrissey is too ambiguous, Curtis is too bleak, Fitzgerald is too male-centric, but Caterer’s Sinatra-esque tone, trilling over melodious punk riffs, full of naive optimism just feels right at this epoch.


Maybe it’s because Caterer is a suburbanite like myself, but at times he seems so much easier to relate to than the aforementioned Englanders. It seems that I reach for Born to Quit before Hatful of Hollow at these junctures -- and the current one is surely not to be the last.


The three Caterer brothers (Josh, Matt and Eli) joined up with Mike Felumlee and started performing all ages punk shows around the Chicago suburbs quickly building an earnest following. They independently released Get Fired which attracted Capitol Records’ attention. Capitol re-released Born to Quit and booked the Popes to tour. Two soundtrack appearances, “Gotta Know Right Now” on Boys and the Popes’ super-hit “Need You Around” (which reached #35 on the Modern Rock chart) on the Clueless soundtrack put the Popes’ begrimed faces into the mainstream. The latter track is a slice of Buzzcocks-esque punk. The drums kick start and a not entirely creative punk riff bursts forward; but what makes the track, and the Popes stand apart is Caterer’s voice. 40 seconds in, his lounge singer tone slowly creeps forward: “If I could see into your heart / Then would I know just where to start? / Because I'm lost and I need to be found / Crazy as it sounds / I need you around.” The beauty lies in the delivery more than anything else. When Caterer croons “Crazy as it sounds” it conjures up equal parts “I Get a Kick Out of You” and “The Way You Look Tonight” Sinatra laid over The Muffs-like riffs.


On “Adena”, Caterer yelps “I don't care about anything!” He voices an opposite conviction on the mild measles titled “Rubella”: “I'm inflamed with desire and its spreading like wildfire / She doesn't know it but she'll soon be mine.” He goes on to compare his love with the contagious disease by detailing how his amorousness has led to his weight loss and burning. Trust me -- it’s much more romantic than it sounds. The Popes’ pop sensibility and ear for memorable melodies shine through characteristically on “Mrs. You and Me”. The grunged-out guitars reverberate behind Caterer’s declaration of readiness for commitment: “They say, we're too young / But I never listen to what I've been told.”


If I ever somehow miraculously find myself with an inamorata, and I (God-forbid) break up with her, “Just Broke Up” will find itself on repeat in my bedroom. Instead of forthrightly asserting that he will never love again, Caterer instead sings “She's not the one I'm looking for / Will I ever love again?” This is a crucial element to Caterer’s song writing -- his unworldly sanguinity. It’s most evident on “My Lucky Day” in the lines “And I still don't know what it's all about / But without a doubt today I just don't care.”


The last two tracks contain some of the more poetic and mature lyrics of the perfectly terse 28 minute album. The only acoustic guitar on the album picks itself into the hail of electrics on the confounded love tune “Adena”: “Unwhispered promise lies between the lines behind your eyes / But I can't make it out.” Recalling The Smiths’ “Death of a Disco Dancer” with its extended instrumental coda, “On the Shoulder” plods along with Caterer yearning to end his emotional atrophy and press on: “My life passes me on the shoulder / And leaves me nowhere / I know a place that I can go / Please take me there.”


Now don’t say it, I know what you’re thinking: “How is this a classic?” To answer you simply: because I deem it so. It may not constitute as “classic” for others, but it’s significant and enduring to me. And isn’t that all that really matters? I think Caterer sums up the feeling that music so often has on us, and I can safely say, definitely myself: “I was at the lowest point of my life / I couldn't talk to anyone / Truly alone / There's no telling what I might have done / If it hadn't been for you / You pulled me through.”


“I don't know if you actually saved my life / But you changed it that's for sure.”