1. American Nightmare American Nightmare! American Nothing! The Sun Isn't Getting Any Brighter! Give Up The Ghost! The real reason they decided to disband was that they couldn't agree on a name. Seriously, their name changed more often than Oprah's weight. Since their breakup, vocalist Wes Einsold had taken on vocal duties in Some Girls, while a few other members created the disappointment that is Bars with members of The Hope Conspiracy. So while sometimes a break-up is a good thing, this one seems to be leaning the other way.
2. Glassjaw Of all the band losses of 2004, this is the one I dreaded hearing about the most. Reading the accusations of the various band members leads me to believe that there were some definite ego problems going on within Glassjaw. It appears they got the best of them. So I can either wait for Todd's solo effort, which I am anxiously awaiting, or I can watch Daryl do his best Mick Jagger impersonations in Head Automatica. Lets not forget the grind-core band with Daryl and Geoff from Thursday; I guess they changed the date of April Fool's Day.
3. The Beta Band Like many of my generation, I'm sure their fondest memories of The Beta Band are Rob Gordon selling 5 copies of their EP to unsuspecting customers in High Fidelity and watching them as direct support on Radiohead's Amnesiac tour. I joke, but in all honestly, those really are my only memories of them. No matter how hard I tried to delve into their catalog of releases I couldn't ever bring myself to actually buy anything. Perhaps they broke up due to lack of sales. My bad.
4. Cursive In a mid-year interview singer/songwriter Tim Kasher admitted that he was putting Cursive on indefinite hiatus. To many that means that there is hope of a return, to those of us inside the music community that means farewell. If you disagree you are probably still waiting for At the Drive-In to return. And while all hope of Cursive's return may be lost, at least we still have Kasher's super-group The Good Life, which is supposed to be a good thing, or so MTV told me.
5. Denali I always find it odd when band's break up just as their popularity is beginning to grow. Denali had just wrapped up supporting spots for 'The Plea for Peace Tour' and The Deftones, when out of nowhere they decided to break up. Perhaps the increase in attention resulted in a pressure that they could not handle. But I think it was Keeley Davis' undisclosed jealousy that his little sister Maura and Denali were getting more attention than his main project, Engine Down. But in the end, you can now enjoy Keeley in Engine Down and Maura's new project Bella Lea.
-Michael
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