Had Carmen Perry known her haphazardly formed rock band was fated to gain widespread attention, she might’ve chosen a better name than Sports. The quartet quietly self-released their debut full-length, Sunchokes, just for the hell of it; this was 2014, when Perry and her bandmates Catherine Dwyer, Benji Dossetter, and James Karlin were all still enrolled at their liberal arts college in Ohio. They expected little more from the album than a time capsule to share with friends, but instead, Sunchokes spread by word of mouth until it caught the ear of Father/Daughter, the label that would release Sports’ next album, All of Something, a year later. But that celebratory moment ended up being anticlimactic: Sports broke up shortly after. Dossetter pursued medical school and Karlin relocated to Arizona, while Perry and Dwyer moved to Philadelphia together. Sports never toured All of Something, and had no plans to make music together ever again.
That is, until last year, when Sports returned with a new lineup, a new album, and new name to differentiate them from the Oklahoma synth-pop trio they were often mistaken for. Slow Buzz marked the first record for Remember Sports as they exist today, with their current lineup of Perry, Dwyer, guitarist Jack Washburn, and drummer Connor Perry. The updated name pokes fun at the band’s jinxed past, but it has a new resonance now that Father/Daughter has reissued a remastered deluxe edition of Sunchokes to commemorate its fifth anniversary. It’s a timestamp to testify how far Remember Sports have come, but also a salute to their beginnings that made them beloved in the first place.
Remember Sports make punky indie pop, combining scrappy guitar shredding with Perry’s brazen vocals, which often border on flat-out yelling. They’re most immediately reminiscent of Camp Cope’s Georgia McDonald, fiercely evocative and angrily bereft. Sunchokes showed her in a more lovelorn place: “I’m always wishing you good luck when you’re gone/And I keep trying to fit in with you where I don’t belong,” she admits on “When Morning Comes.” “When did you stop missing me?” she inquires on “Liked You Best,” before confessing that it took “three long years” to stop missing her subject on the title track. She’s self-deprecating, calling herself a jerk and arguing that she’s not worth getting attached to, but even her most crude put-downs are wrapped up with a tongue-in-cheek spunk that confirm she doesn’t need your pity. “So what if I’m lazy?/I like it that way,” she asserts on “Clean Jeans,” following it up with a kiss-off to flame all Instagram gym rats: “I could be at crossfit like you/But I’d rather be dead!”
But it’s impossible to talk about the origins of Remember Sports without mentioning Addie Pray, Perry’s solo project. This reissue includes five original recordings of Addie Pray songs that would later be fleshed out for Sunchokes or All of Something. The best of these—and most emotionally revealing—is “Get Bummed Out,” an ode to a romantic interest she’s trying to get over before they’ve even made it official. She originally uploaded the track to Bandcamp in 2012, and there’s a clear shift in her sentiments between this and the gutsier Sunchokes: “I’m in love with how you make me feel like I’m not so alone,” she sings, suggesting she might be more smitten with the idea of the relationship than the person.
The final moments of “Get Bummed Out” bring forth one of Remember Sports’ best lyrics: “Just make a mess of me, I’ll always clean it up,” Perry confides, as her solo acoustic guitar goes silent. Stark moments like these remind us why we listen to indie pop: Music made without the intention of necessarily being heard can yield the type of songwriting that needs to be heard most.
Buy: Rough Trade
