>>Nostalgia For Infinity

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There’s a good discussion in the comments thread of a post in Nick Mamatas’s livejournal. (If you’ve not figured this fact out already, Nick’s blog is equal parts funny and intelligent – both the posts and the comments.)

I figured out when I was in my mid teens that ‘getting’ music was about familiarisation, or “acclimatisation” as I put it at the time (I used to scuba dive). That is, you needed to hear something enough times, hear enough variations on a theme, get sufficiently intimate with the conventions of a genre in order to get where it was coming from… to be able to parse the structure and language and aesthetics and so on. When I was younger and someone gave me the first Deftones album I just didn’t understand it. It was so loud, so distorted, that all I heard was noise – everything just smushed together into a mess. But I persevered because so many people said it was good, and eventually I got used to it, heard some more metal bands, and it all began to make sense to my ears. It didn’t take long to realise this didn’t only apply to music.

I guess this is part of the reason why I’ve always been so enthusiastic about trying out new things since then. Once you realise that not liking things is often just a result of not understanding it, it’s hard to walk away. I’m sure a lot of smarter kids figured this out when they were much younger, so I figured I had (and have) a lot of catching up to do. Besides, once you know all the rules it’s time to break them, right? That bit of received wisdom was drummed into me by a hundred how-to-write guides.

An unfortunate side effect of keeping an open mind is you can be too forgiving of mediocrity, purely through trying to see if there’s something more in there, buried deeper than you’ve gotten. Genuine awfulness is easy to spot, yet it’s tempting to keep trying with something that seems to promise more than it offers. But no, some songs, books, films etc. are just too average to be worth much of your time.

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I just got done watching We Jam Econo, the 2005 documentary about 80s San Pedro punk band the Minutemen. It’s a superb film, packed full of interviews with dozens of punk and hardcore veterans enthusing about one of the most enduring and treasured bands of the US hardcore and punk scenes. Interspersed with this are fifteen or so live performances of songs from the band’s career, brutally truncated by guitarist/singer D. Boon’s death in 1985.

The Minutemen are a powerful band for me for many reasons. The close friendship between Mike Watt and D. Boon that’s at the core of everything they did. The way in which the pronounced treble of Boon’s guitar, the hooky funk of Watt’s bass and George Hurley’s top-focused drums interacted in a truly unique and deliberately democratic band dynamic, a dynamic that was fraught with tension and yet never snapped. The lyrics that fused the political with the personal in a way that most lyricists can only dream of. The boundary-pushing songwriting that sounds as casual as it is structurally and conceptually revolutionary. The way in which the band celebrated, through action and simple existence, estrangement and acceptance. Their desire to make music and play shows for the everyman, the working man. That they never spoke down to their audience, despite being in many ways a deeply enigmatic and private band that could be difficult to comprehend. That the constant misinterpretation of their music, lyrics and even band name was just part and parcel of what they did. Fundamentally unpretentious and yet with each album, each song brimming with more ideas than most of their contemporaries could imagine. In so many ways they epitomised the concept of do-it-yourself.

This band could be your life. There’s a lot to learn from what the Minutemen accomplished, and I’m still enjoying learning. We Jam Econo is a shining tribute to the band and is essential watching for anyone who seeks to understand why punk rock is and continues to be a significant force in art and music.

our band could be your life
real names’d be proof
me and mike watt played for years
punk rock changed our lives

we learned punk rock in hollywood
drove up from pedro
we were fucking corndogs
we’d go drink and pogo

mr. narrator
this is bob dylan to me
my story could be his songs
i’m his soldier child

our band is scientist rock
but i was e. bloom and richard hell,
joe strummer, and john doe
me and mike watt, playing guitar

A real quick post as it’s late on Sunday evening, and cider is calling (dog bless my punk rock household): over at the inimically contrary and acerbic SF Diplomat, Jonathan McCalmont has put up an alternative shortlist for the Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) Hugo award. My vote? Well, I’ve not yet seen Sunshine, 30 Days of Night or even heard of [Rec], but I’ve no qualms placing my vote for the superb The Host, and unlike many people I also thought very highly of the stunning Beowulf.