Curmudgeon
Part of the media frenzy lately has been a renewed interest in music. Once upon a time, I could recall the names of most of the members of the bands I liked, and could recite discographies or lyrics at will. Much of that is lost, pushed aside by an avalanche of reading. For the first time in my life, I think my book collection actually outweighs my collection of audio media (in sheer poundage). Moving is a really scary concept.
Earlier in the week, I was reliving Contemplating the Engine Room by Mike Watt. Today it was Double Nickels on the Dime by the Minutemen. Musically, changing eras always seem to be centered on deaths— Hendrix in 1970, D. Boon in 1985, Cobain in 1994. Watching an uncut version of Nirvana unplugged a few days ago, I thought of a weird connection. Pat Smear was a founding member of the Germs. “Drove up from Pedro” pretty much credits the Germs with the inspiration for the founding of the Minutemen. My how things come around. I never was a fan of British punk like the Clash or the Sex Pistols; punk rock for me always had the Minutemen and the Meat Puppets at the center. As the eighties turned, it seemed to me like the Minutemen were the new Dylan, and the Meat Puppets were the new Hendrix. But the real difference was that fame was local, and taste was individual. I never met another punk who agreed with me. Everyone had their own centers.
After Nirvana, it seemed like the discord died, and the great diversity of music which was the 80s (at least for me, I never listened to hair bands) went with it. Corporate rock remerged stronger than ever— packaged and processed, shrink-wrapped for your pleasure. Freaks on parade didn’t cease, of course, but it just has seemed to me as if most of them are marching in lockstep to some new tattooed and pierced drummer, pounding out the rap’n’roll beat. It’s nice to buy some new records by people who aren’t marching to anyone’s beat except their own.
The new Eyes Adrift isn’t a masterpiece, by any means. But at least it doesn’t sound like Nirvana, Sublime, or the Meat Puppets. Of course, it’s easy think that I’m living in the past, happy to hear from the same people that I grew up listening to. There are unavoidable issues, as Curt Kirkwood explains:
“If you’re getting old, you’re getting old,” Kirkwood, the 43-year-old former leader of the Meat Puppets, continues. “This is America. We shit on our old people here. We shit on our failures. And we shit on our heroes as soon as we can find a place to shit on. The rock-and-roll thing is like ‘Go ahead and die.’ And it’s not ‘Leave a good-looking corpse’; it’s like ‘Leave a corpse for everyone to shit on.’”
I haven’t got a copy of the Cobain diaries yet, and I can’t say I’m rushing after it. Like most diaries, I’m sure it has moments of brilliance and moments of trite self-involvement. It’s just an artifact, an artifact that people will line-up to adore or shit on. I was really happy to read Kris and Curt’s take on their strange song about JonBenét Ramsey:
“It really has nothing to do with the little girl,” Novoselic says. “No disrespect to her or the Ramseys. That whole thing was such a tragedy. And all those news investigators made money off of it. People used to go to watch executions for fun. Or they slow down for car wrecks. And this sniper now. Do we really need to have such saturation coverage? Man, do they milk it.”
“JonBenét and Cobain were kinda similar,” Kirkwood adds. “They were both cute little blondes. It’s necrophilia. It’s kind of a heavy thing, so we made it a triumphant song. And you know what lives on? The absolutely mind-numbing beauty of the little girl.”
The entire article on Eyes Adrift is a good read. I think the Grateful Dead references explain why I’m not hopping up and down over the record— I’ve never been a deadhead. But it’s a good record, and I’m really looking forward to seeing them at Juanita’s in December. I was also watching a bootleg video of Nirvana in Rio last night, where Cobain was playing in a dress. It’s funny how things converge:
In Kirkwood’s perfect world, Disneyland would have a virtual transgendered reality.
“My theme park would have, like, Female Land for the dudes,” Kirkwood says, “where you can go in and experience what it’s like to be a chick. Instead of the jungle-boat ride, it’s like, this chicks’ gate riot.”In another perfect world, writer Michael Azerrad would have given the Meat Puppets an entire chapter in Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground, his lengthy tome about the American indie underground. “That’s why his book failed,” Kirkwood snaps. “Meat Puppets were D. Boon’s favorite band. Period. And [Azerrad] wants to call the fuckin’ book that and not have a Meat Puppets thing? Whatever, dude. Go ahead. He better be writin’ a book about me, that’s all I can say. ‘Cause D’ll flop over in his grave. That’s fuckin’ crap.”
Now I remember why I quit reading music books and magazines. I just never agreed with any of them anyway. To me, you couldn’t write a history of the indie scene without mentioning the Meat Puppets, or for that matter, The Psychodaisies— who amazingly enough, just put up a brand new web site. I guess I’ve just become to curmudgeonly to be hip. I’m also really enjoying Steve Earle’s Jerusalem too, but I’ve already rambled far too much for one day.
* Oh, and for anyone who may have e-mailed me, my server has a severe case of constipation, and I’m not able to send or receive anything at the moment.
