The kids today will never know the joy or mystery of a CD sampler. Back in the early 00’s, they were every scrappy young band’s best hope of getting discovered – CDs, often with homemade covers, containing a band’s best 2-3 songs. You might find band members handing them out at their shows, college parties or festivals. If you were someone like me, who could be found at many of these, you might end up with a large collection of these CD samplers of so many bands who may have long-since disbanded.
While looking through my old collection of these CDs, I found one belonging to a band called My Life Story. The home-printed cover announced they were playing the Warped Tour (in 2004), and also printed on the cover was the name of one of the band members (Chris Shepard) and their phone number.
Popping the CD into my DVD player (the only machine I currently have that plays CDs), I was soon being time-traveled back twenty years. The sound of “Our Summer Blockbuster Went Straight to Video” (a title in itself that was reminiscent of early Fall Out Boy) had all the elements I loved of bands at that time. Energetic guitars, snotty vocals, lyrical bite, and an anthemic chorus that makes you want to pogo.
Our tracks like “Texas” and “Is That a Knife In My Back Or Are You Just Happy to See Me” had equal bite. This was a band that didn’t deserve to be lost to time. So I took a chance and texted the phone number on the CD, with a picture of the sampler.
Yep, the number stilled belonged to Chris. And man was he surprised to hear from me.
Starting with that text, I managed to get in touch with all four members of My Life Story. Along with playing Warped Tour, the band had toured with the likes of Violent Femmes, Sugarcult and RX Bandits, and in 2005, they released Hoping for the Best, the album which contained those three song I had, along with three other memorable, classic pop-punk jams.
While the album has been lost for over twenty years, it finally became discoverable again last Friday, September 4th, as I released it on all streaming services through Indy Review Records! Click here to Play the album now!
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