I haven't written about music in a while. Hell, I haven't written about anything in a while, but that's not the point. But sometimes I feel compelled to get off my ass and actually write about something that I was once passionate about. My love of music hasn't died, but it has become complacent. I don't have the energy to go and find the new bands, new styles, new sounds that I did when I was a kid. Even as little as a decade ago I was up on the hip jams.
Now I say hip jams and know exactly how terrible it sounds. I don't care. I never wanted to be that old guy at the shows who can't bop his head to the music because of the constant neck pain. I felt bad for that guy when I was 19, and I feel worse for him now. Mostly because I recognize that that guy was my future, and I had to change it up. So I still listen to the songs of my youth. The songs that got me through the original hard times and challenges. They are comfort food. Jimmy Eat World may not be that relevant anymore, but Clarity is still a landmark album in my life. Or maybe Jimmy Eat World is still wildly popular, I honestly don't know. And frankly, I don't care. I like what I like.
Music is the soundtrack to an era. Sure there are plenty of people who revere the songs of yore, which is why The Beatles and the Rolling Stones are still considered among the best bands of all time, even though they were putting out their best product before 99% of the people that are going to read this were born (thanks for fucking up the perfect score, mom). So in that light, I use the music of my gentler years as the score of my life today. It's the music that kept me going through the original travails and triumphs. We all remember what song was playing when we had our first (insert event here), or which CD was in when we got pulled over. We all have those songs firmly planted in our minds, and you, dear reader, are thinking about some of them right now.
Back in those days, discovering new music was easy. At least I thought it was. I would go to shows at the local venues. They weren't big, but there was usually something interesting there. My friends and I would walk up and pay the door charge, the entire time speculating about the set list of the headliner. Often times, though, it was the opening acts that opened our ears. Generally, there was some local band that would grace the stage first. They were pretty shit, almost all the time. We wouldn't care or pay much attention, unless they happen to be really good, which was nearly never, and then we would just befriend them and move on with our lives. The real show began when the travelling acts would go on. We would listen, judge, and either bounce around with approval or stand in the back, arms crossed, in disgust.
We would buy new music at these shows. Record labels would release samplers for $2 and sell them at the merch booth. Here is the first place we would get to hear a lot of music. One, maybe two songs at a time from some new act. If we liked them, we would hustle to the record store at the next possible moment to get the CD. Or special order it if they didn't have it or we were so ahead of the game that the record store nerd hadn't heard of it yet. This was a rare occurrence, but when it did happen, you felt like a God.
For a few years, it was very common for these sampler discs to have a folded paper catalog inside. There you could see some of the cover art and a brief description of the music you were thinking about buying. These were like small treasure maps wrapped up in a riddle. It was a musical Choose Your Own Adventure novel. Pick the wrong one, you are stuck with crap and down $12 after shipping and handling. Choose the right one, however, and you discover something incredible, and you cherish that disc until you play it to death and have to get another one. At this point the record store nerds know you and wonder why you hadn't already had Punk in Drublic, when you have most of NOFX's current discography.
Then I became a record store nerd. I became the one who was on the front lines of new music, and I was getting paid for it. I was the one who was judging you. And I wasn't quiet about it. I was Jack Black in High Fidelity and I basked in it. I was a dick. I dressed like a dick, I acted like a dick, and I treated other people dickishly. Sorry about that...
One of the perks of being the record store nerd was seeing everything that was coming out. We would scour the new release lists to see which of our favorite bands were putting out something, anything, to quench our thirst. The best part of it all, through my entire tenure as a record store nerd, was finding the hidden gem. The band that no one, not even us nerds, had heard of, that was awesome. Something that we could listen to and support and feel like the superior dicks that we truly were.
Of course, popping in those discs and listening to the songs was most often a tragedy for the ears, but occasionally something would stick out. One song on an otherwise horrible album would catch our ears. Then it became a challenge to find that one song. These bands and albums never did well. No matter how many consecutive months "Graduation (Friends Forever)" by Vitamin C was on the in store playlist, I don't think we ever sold a copy.
Sometimes we would purposely play songs over and over again because they were awesome. "Tangerine Speedo" by Caviar was so weird yet undeniable. A bossanova rock song about a Eurotrash dude? Fuck yes. That song was a diamond in a pile of music garbage. I still love it and it's on as many playlists as I can muster.
Most of the time, these songs were not by one hit wonders, or great bands with a dud album that contained one catchy single. These were no hit wonders. Bands that crashed and burned in the early 2000's with nothing to show for it other than a job at Guitar Center and some cool stories about being on tour with Semisonic. Not that there is anything wrong with having an album pushed so hard by a major label that it ends up on record store play discs. Good for them.
Unfortunately, in that era, the late 90's and early 2000's, music was in a dark place. Glossy pop acts, the Boy Bands and Disney girl singers, ruled the day. If you weren't aligned with 50 Cent, your rap record might struggle on the East Coast. Rock was no different. The post grunge sounds were fading away, and even bands like Weezer, who were dominant in just a few years earlier, were nowhere to be found. Underground is where you had to go for good new songs. If you wanted bad new songs, you always had Nickleback and the like to murder your brains. The people I knew went underground, and I went with them.
As a record store nerd, I had the inside track. I knew what was coming out when, and who to look for on a label that we enjoyed. Nowadays, I don't do that. I still listen to those same songs, those same underground acts that I enjoyed 15 years ago. If I had entrance music, it would still be "Apocalypse WOW!" by Reggie and the Full Effect. I still know plenty of people who are early adopters of the new music. I frequent a bar that proudly plays bands I have never heard of, and sometimes even brings them in to play live. And that's fine. I still like hearing new music, I just don't want to do the work myself. I don't have it in me anymore.
Now I just reminisce. Now we say to each other: "Know who you haven't thought about in a while?" and then list off bands. Thousands of bands. We call it The Flickerstick Game. Flickerstick was a band from that era who won some shitty tour competition show on VH1 called "Band on the Run." The beat the musical juggernauts Soulcracker, The Josh Dodes Band, and Harlow (who were immortalized in a David Cross bit with the line "Wait a minute...I HATE Harlow"). They were on the fast track to being good. A full band who was not bad and won a game show? Sure. I was into it. They had an indie release. I bought it. Then came the major label re-release. I bought that, too. I was terrible. Turns out, they were more terrible than I was, as I am still around, and they are not.
So now we play this game when we are bored. There is a mountain of bands and singers to choose from, and I think we might have run out. This is sad. The end of the game is going to be a sad day, but how many 15 year old bands that didn't have a hit no matter how hard they tried or how many shows they played with American Hi-Fi.
It's okay though. I lived through those days, I saw some of those bands, and some of them were better than you might think. Not Moth though. They were just...bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVeYwB1LI_4
SD
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