The band I Hate Myself aren’t terribly fond of themselves. They feel about themselves how you might imagine Al Sharpton feels about unstraightened perms. They hate on that shit. But sometimes raw misery and awkward self-awareness is what you want out of your music, when you’re so inundated by songs contemplating on the vagueries of relationships it’s refreshing to hear songwriting that admits to its own problems. Call me a misanthrope, but this is usually the music that I find myself clinging to and finding the most honesty in.
Based primarily around Jim Marburger and his brother Jon Marburger, I Hate Myself recorded a series of splits leading up to a single LP for No Idea Records out of Gainesville, and disbanded shortly after, leaving a ton of people wondering about their true intents. The pervasive depression of all their songs in the fallout of the emo scene in the late 90’s have gotten people to wondering if this was all their big joke, a parody on the sad vogue of self-pitying bands who drew out elaborate dramatic conclusions about their lives based on mundane relationships. I Hate Myself’s inclusion of the word “Kame-hame-ha” in one of their songs (one of the first signs of Dragon Ball Z’s influence on hardcore music) and aching yet tongue in cheek song “Urban Barbie” about a hip-hopper ex-girlfriend of Jim Marburger’s who “shot up his heart”, show a streak of humor throughout their discography. The tone of Jim Marburger’s voice definitely betrays no sense of irony though, and his repeated pleading on “Drama in the Emergency Room” for the doctor to turn off the machine and let him “lay back and drip” is definitely no Weekend at Bernie’s.
