NOFX - The Man I Killed
May 23rd, 2009
Bruce Springsteen with Mike Ness
April 21st, 2009
Kurt Cobain
April 14th, 2009
Kurt Cobain
It was reminded to me the other day that on April 5 it was 15 years since Kurt Cobain died. That seriously seems like a long time, long enough to re-assess what his legacy and that of Nirvana was and means.
I’ve written about Cobain`s death before, I just don’t remember who for, but if I find the link I’ll update this post because I have no interest in rehashing any of that same ground.
I was just starting out in music journalism then and it was one of the biggest stories I ever had to deal with as an editor, student media or no, and I don’t think I did a good job. In fact, I was a little snarky about it because I was going through my douchebag scenester period and thought cracking wise about the whole thing was the thing to do.
My previous story was about the adventure we had trying to confirm the story when it was just rumour and all the crocodile tears myself and many of my colleagues in the music press shed when his death, although a surprise, kinda wasn’t, if you know what I mean.
The truth was that I really did like Nirvana.
What I hated was the grunge movement as a whole. To me, it was more of the invasion of metalheads and other assorted rednecks who latched onto punk rock and drained everything out of it except stupidity and aggression. First it was the HC-metal crossover of the mid-`80s, now it was skids who were into fag bashing while blasting Zepplin in their Cameros trying to be edgy and cool by playing classic rock licks and calling it alternative.
My position since then has since mellowed. With the benefit of hindsight, bands back in the late ’80s, early ’90s were doing the same thing the rockabilly bands were doing a decade earlier and the new wave bands were doing five years ago.
Part of the problem is that I saw it through a punk rock lense, and it wasn’t until much later that I realized that Nirvana had little to do with punk rock. Sure, “alternative” music of that era encompassed a lot of that music, from jangly REM bands through to the rattiest thrash. The scene back then wasn’t nearly as large or segmented as it is today, and it was common to see a bunch of different styles of bands being reviewed in magazine’s like the major punk zine Maximum Rocknroll.
What I don’t see mentioned very often is that Nirvana’s success was a surprise. The Sub Pop bands were gaining attention in the late ’80s and there were rumours that some were planning to jump to a major label, but the names that were flown around were usually Mudhoney or The Fluid. And when it was Nirvana I remember thinking “Nirvana? Really?”
I picked up a copy of Nevermind on cassette so I could listen to it on a long bus ride and I did really like it. I kept that a bit to myself because back then, in the circles I traveled, admitting you liked Nirvana was a bit like admitting you like Nickelback today. But I thought, like many other alternative bands who took the major label leap, they would see limited success and either break up or go back to some indie to recover (see: Husker Du).
But we all know what happened, Nirvana became the biggest band in the land, changed the music industry forever, blah blah blah. While that is all still pretty debatable, what I will give them credit for is that they were primarily responsible for tearing down the myth of the iconic rock star, placed on a pedastel to be worshipped.
26, the Man Formerly Known as Doc Dart
January 20th, 2009
I’m not sure how to start this post. I originally wanted to say that Doc Dart and his iconoclastic punk band, The Crucifux, were one of the more interesting stories in the US hardcore scene in the 1980s. But they were also pretty marginal. Dart’s screechy vocals, although tame by today’s standards, were definitely an acquired taste at the time. A guy I went to high school with kept comparing him to Jello Biafra, and I guess I could see the comparisons, with the, ahem, unusual vocal stylings. But in the end, The Crucifux were not nearly in the same class as the Dead Kennedys, either musically or philosphically. Despite all the craziness that surrounded the Dead Kennedys, there was always an underlying intelligence behind everything they did. The Crucifux just seemed crazy. But having said that, they were a band I wished I liked more, because, even to my teenage ears, there was a sadness to them that was compelling.
Sam McPheeters captured all this in a huge article on the man formerly known as Doc Dart. McPheeters, a veteran of the scene himself, having been the frontman for the highly influential hardcore band Born Against in the early ’90s, and a columnist for Maximum Rock N Roll and the former editor of the fanzine Dear Jesus, is an excellent choice to tell Dart`s story. Having been an important and controversial voice in the scene himself, McPheeters is one of the few writers from the scene that could relate to Dart, now given himself the unusual name 26, in a perceptive, yet sensitive and unjudgemental way.
He traces 26`s roots from when he was a young bank executive working at his family`s bank, to his dismissal and starting the Crucifux in his late 20s. What it most striking is the juxtaposition between the descriptions of the notoriety of being in a popular punk rock band and the life he subsequently fell into, which, frankly, sounds about two degrees removed from Unabomber territory.
If nothing else, this article made me depressed. This is a story of a man who is clearly unhappy, possibly mentally ill, with an unhealthy need for confrontation for its own sake.
Rest Assured We Will Be Heard
January 9th, 2009
One of Canada’s best punk rock bands, Problem Children, perform “We are the Children” from their 1985 debut LP, The Future of the World is Up to Us. During their time they released three records that were simply head and shoulders above their contemporaries. It’s a shame they weren’t better known.
Favourite shows of 2008
January 5th, 2009
It’s Sunday night and I don’t know how much energy I have to get through this. I like to think of it as an exercise in discipline, something I’ve been lacking in many areas of my life lately. But I thought I would write about a few of my favorite musical memories from the past year, like I usually do.
As many people who read this blog know, I moved to Montreal from Toronto this past spring. As part of this change I noticed that I began going to shows that I would probably never would have in Toronto. Like Rancid, who played down at Metropolis, for example. I used to love Rancid but after And Out Came the Wolves, they became a little too ska for my tastes and I lost interest. I went to the first of two shows they played here probably because I was bored, not knowing very many people here and everything. But I enjoyed myself, and thought it was kinda funny that they played material mostly pulled from Let’s Go, and the aforementioned Wolves.
The first show I went to in Montreal was Les Breastfeeders at Le Divan Orange, which was a freakin blast. It’s a shame they aren’t well known in english Canada. They’d give all the other ’60s influenced rock n roll bands a run for their money.
Two other local shows that stood out for me was Bad Religion at Metropolis, which was, of course, awesome, and the Kelp Records showcase at Les 3 Minots during Pop Montreal. The big reason I went to this one was to see Camp Radio. I’m a fan of singer Chris Page’s solo work and his work with The Stand GT. See my article on Chris Page on the old Shred site here. A pleasant surprise was singer-songwriter Andrew Vincent. Although he had guitar troubles throughout his set, I was impressed by the quality of his songs and made a mental note to check his stuff out further. His voice reminds me of someone and it’s been driving me crazy who.
Just before I moved, I went with a friend to a criminally under-attended show with Seattle’s Cave Singers. “Helen” is one of the best songs I heard all year.
But when it comes down to it, there is nothing like a pure rock n roll show. The Drive By Truckers blew the roof of the Opera House back in March (I made a note of it here) and in September The Supersuckers destroyed the Horseshoe, playing the best set I’ve ever seen them play.
Montréal 2008
December 17th, 2008
My neighbourhood in Montréal.
This year went by extremely fast for me. I simply can`t believe it is the end of the year and that I have been in Montreal almost eight months. I doesn`t seem like four months ago that I saw GBH at Foufounes or five since I dated that weird chick from St Léonard, or eight since I spent the month of May in a disoriented haze. It`s like someone flipped a switch and moved time into fast forward.
My French is coming along slowly. I`m still at the stage where I can understand what someone is saying to me but I don`t have the vocabulary to respond.
There are lots of things I like about Montréal and they include:
- Inexpensive public transit
- Schwartz’s Deli
- Foufounes
- Big cans of beer from the deppaneur. And that you can buy beer at the deppaneur
- The Lachine Canal and Atwater Market
- The architecture
- Pizza Steve (my favourite cheap slice, sorry, pointe, in Montreal)
- The awesomely weird stuff you can stumble into just by hanging out downtown on a Saturday night.
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Instead of writing a list of things I don`t like about Montreal (items 1 through 5 would be anti-Anglo assholes, particularly the ones who run the building I live in), I would say that most of the problems I`ve had mostly come from my difficulty in aligning myself with the energy of the city. There`s times where I feel like I`m standing outside a merry-go-round that won`t stop and I`m and trying to latch on as best I can.
A consolation is that I felt similarly when I moved to Victoria and it took almost a year to acclimate. I think that moving here in late spring had something to do with it. I tend to hibernate in the summer and come out in the winter so coming here when I am usually in withdrawal mode may have had something to do with that.
At any rate I chose the adventure I am on and I know it`s up to me to make the future I want for myself so I look forward to seeing how 2009 plays out.