Slipping Down the Nineties Wormhole
Friday, March 9th, 2007Most of the time, I bring this onto myself — a night at home with the ol’ 7” collection, hanging out with friends and swapping stories, etc. But in the past nearly two weeks, the 1990’s showed up at my doorstep and started banging on the door. Loudly.
You can look at this two ways — a stroke of sheer cosmic coincidence or proof of the well-oiled machine that is publicity — but we’ve got not just one, but two memoirs from thirtysomethings (Rob Sheffield’s Love Is A Mixtape and John Seller’s Perfect From Now On) about their life in, and around, indie rock. Honestly, the timing’s kinda creepy. Depsite the different approaches to their books, both attempt to wrangle sense out of it all through fragments — Sheffield’s mixtapes that wildly segue all over the place, Sellers’ footnotes that wind up becoming whole pages unto themselves — but I suppose there’s no other means to tackle it.
As enjoyable as Sheffield’s book was, somewhere along the way it started sounding too much like the memoirs that flooded the market after 9/11 insofar that you knew the whole plot long before cracking it open. And if you ever hung out with a rock critic or nine, Sheffield’s ordeal was the stuff of legend: guy meets loud awesome woman, they get married, woman dies unexpectedly, guy has to cope, music is a salve. Chances are you probably bought the book to read about how her untimely death all went down just to satisify the rubbernecking part of you.
There’s a fair bit of rubbernecking in Sellers book, too, though its more of the Punk’d variety. Have you ever met a rock critic who has admitted to their lack of music knowledge, or, having missed out on something? Chances are you have, but they managed to fake their way out of it, with you ever knowing. So when Sellers admits to having missed out on a shit-ton of music, especially when he was a working rock journalist and had access to it, it’s instantly relatable.
[A couple weeks ago I had a discussion with a fellow writer about the need to know about every bit of music that’s out there right now, the very moment it leaks, we both agreed that the whole thing is overwhelming, so in that respect, I’m intrigued by this aspect of his book. And to all who read this: how do you keep up? Do you?]
As is his recollection of the time he hung out with the object of his obsession, Guided By Voices’ Bob Pollard, and the ensuing fallout that occurred between him, the artist, the artist’s handlers/”yes men” and the community of fans (most notably the denizens of the Postal-Blowfish/Disarm The Settlers – never have I thought I’d see Jonesy’s name in print for something besides petty crime). I won’t go into details, as it would ruin the best part of this book, but the way it plays out is fascinating to me, mainly because not only do I have a history with the PB listserv, but that I came into my own musically thanks to online music forums. As thankful I am for them, I’m also the first to admit that these places might have ruined music in a lot of ways, rewriting the rules for “fandom” nearly overnight. Case in point, footnote 136:
It vexes me when people claim to love a particular album yet never bother to check out anything else by the band.
It’s a valid complaint, but assumes that to appreciate something, you have to consume everything. Good for the manufacturer, but is it good for the consumer? It’s not that far off from parents telling their children to finish everything on their plates at dinnertime. (And in the particular case of GBV, let’s face it — one, maaaaybe two records is all the average person really needs. And those records are Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes.) Hypothetical situation: Just because I haven’t seen every image that [Insert one of my favorite photographers here] has taken in their lifetime, does my opinion mean less because of this? It might bite me in the ass as a critic, but as a fan, it shouldn’t matter. But in the land of music listservs, it does. You either have it, or don’t and if you don’t, you begin to get the impression that you just might not be a true/authentic/worthy fan.
To clarify: I don’t think Sellers advocates the purist approach to fandom, because as he admits, he missed the boat on the first coming. It’s just fascinating to think about, especially since my own musical history was the reverse — I experienced a lot of these bands, but eventually grew out of them. (When Pavement’s demise was announced, I was sad for all of five seconds, then quickly realized it was a good thing because their live performances were getting dreadfully boring.)
Speaking of teenage consumption, and because things happen in threes, Kara Jesella & Marisa Meltzer’s How Sassy Changed My Life landed on my desk today. Told you this shit was knocking loudly at the door, like an angry neighbor! No, I haven’t read it yet (I took a moment or two to flip through the pages, then got back to work), but I’m already having weird feelings about it. My uncorrected galley proof is almost the same size of an issue of Sassy, but in my hands, it felt flimsy, insignificant. This is the book an entire generation of women — my generation — have been waiting for, and it made me think: this is the best we can do?
I don’t think we’ll ever see a memoir like Sheffield or Sellers penned by a woman, thanks to the lovely double standards of the world. Its seems perfectly acceptable for dudes to write these memoirs that are one step short of sounding like the plot to a Lifetime made-for-TV movie, but women? Nope. We’ve got to turn our meaningful moments into cultural research and analysis. Maybe we’re just better like that, but it sure would be nice to read about how indie rock, or anything, managed to save some girl’s life.
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