What in the hell …

Punk bands I mean. I talked to my friend Brian today on the phone as I drove cross town to pick up moving boxes. Brian and I were in a band together that broke up 7 years ago. He lives in Los Angeles now, and runs a small electronic music label out of his apartment, his pocket, and his love for music. He’s a super talented drummer, piano player, and, well, just all-round musician.

I called him because Screeching Weasel’s “How To Make Enemies And Irritate People” cd was in the car cd player. Angelica bought four of the Screeching Weasel cds that I didn’t have from Asian Man Records recently. I got into Screeching Weasel right before graduating from high school. A friend and I actually gave each other copies of their excellent cd “Wiggle” as birthday gifts (our birthdays are very close to each other, it was funny when we opened up the presents. When I met Brian I got him into Screeching Weasel, and he got me into Sludgeworth, and we started a band. I later lost interest in that stuff, and was kind of an uptight depressive jerk, and our band gradually fell apart. I remember when Brian got “How To Make Enemies…” though. It was a great record. Mike Dirnt from Green Day played bass and sang some back up vocals on it.

Brian and I started talking about midwest bands. I have repeatedly forgotten how much I like Screeching Weasel, and repeatedly in my poor recollection mistaken the fact that they sound sorta like the Ramones for the idea that they’re somehow a joke band. They’re actually really good at handling some of the sadder parts of getting older, losing touch with people, realizing that some of the things one is confused about remain confusing for most of life. And they’re great at describing the weird condition of feeling both misanthropic and lonely without people around at the same time.

Brian told me that he’s met a lot of people who play in bands in LA that are very image consciousness, and who are trying hard to “make it” with their bands. He said he hasn’t met any bands like Chicago bands. Not soundwise, but attitudewise. The idea that playing music is something one loves to do and wants to do and just does, not because there’s money in it, but most likely something that one loses money and time as a result of while still really enjoying it. I’ve fallen out of most of those circles these days, but there are a number of people in my life who I met through those circles who are super important to me.

In any case, Brian also talked about how strange it was to be in LA where people hadn’t heard of bands like Naked Raygun, the Bollweevils, Screeching Weasel. (Though Mark knows about Los Crudos, an excellent old-ish and now defunct Chicago hardcore band, this is clearly a sign of distinction.) Bands that are at least as good (better!) as more widely distributed East and West Coast bands. Brian tells me that he’s met a lot of people in LA who think the midwest is all rural, which is quite funny. I think the neglected character of the place (and the brutal fucking Great Lakes winters) is part of what gives the music here it’s beautiful angry bleakness. And the fact that it’s just kind of an excessive thing, done more for its own sake than for much “making it big” kind of ideas.

My friend Tony said something similar about studying English literature, of which he’s a professor. It’s beauty is its uselessness. That’s perhaps a bit dilletantish (sp?), but also true. And Tony wins all arguments because he plays a flying V guitar.