1/17/05: Something to Du

I wonder if down the road at some crappy-ass little club, we're missing something like this today.  I doubt it.  I can't get enough of old concert posters like these.  Imagine seeing the Replacements for 88 cents, while knocking back 25 cent Special Exports from 9-10, then chasing 'em with some 88 cent wine coolers?  What a time, what a time.  These came from a Husker Du fan page, and it amazes me that all that art still exists.  Who was saving it? Well done by whoever it was.  It put me in a Mid-80s Minneapolis state of mind, and I tracked down a must-see for diehard Mats fans: Twin Tone's site has added some really high quality video files of a Replacements show at the 7th Street Entry in Minneapolis from September 5th, 1981. Amazing how focused and un-sloppy they were.  They clearly wanted to make a name for themselves and they were taking things quite seriously. I guess they hadn't developed their whole bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you ethos yet.  I wish there was video like this from a few years later, once they had written their great songs and perfected their mess of a live show.

Husker Du was part of the whole super-serious 1980s hardcore scene, where everybody had such staunch principles about selling out and staying pure and all that.  Of course, to me the scene becomes completely lame once there are an entire set of rules that everyone must follow to be members of the scene. For instance, maybe you joined the scene because you were an outcast in high school. Maybe you dressed different and looked different and people made fun of you for it.  So you join a scene full of other outcasts, and you find acceptance in each other's arms, and it's a beautiful thing.  But then one day you decide you don't want to dress the same way as the other outsiders, and maybe you want to play some different kind of music that's not approved by the scene governing body.  All of a sudden you're an outsider among outsiders, and you realize that in a way, not selling out is another way to sell out.  Meaning, if Bob Mould wanted to wear Gap khakis and start his techno career in 1983, and his whole hardcore community said he'd be a sellout if he did it, he'd actually be a sellout if he DIDN'T do it.

Selling out can mean many things, but usually, it has a financial implication. It can mean taking money from McDonald's to use your song in a commercial advertising crappy food that kills people. To some, signing to a major label is signing out.  To many people, the minute you start making commercial concessions in your art, you've sold out.  Like, if the record company wants you to use a certain producer, because he had a hit with so and so, and you say yes, you've sold out.  If you try to write a song that will make tons of people buy your record, you've sold out. 

But in the most basic sense, selling out simply means not staying true to yourself.  You'll often hear a musician say, "We're gonna write the songs that we like, and if people buy 'em, great. If not, that's OK.  Because once we start trying to write songs to please other people, we're finished."  It sounds like such pretentious "artist" boolshit when they say it, but it's sorta true.  And you can apply it to every part of your life.

I know I sell out all the time.  Allowing douchebags to have their way because I want to avoid a confrontation. Refusing to write about farts on this site because there are several people that read it who I know for a fact don't think farts are funny.  Overtipping in restaurants. Not calling fouls in pickup games. Little stuff like that.  I'm working on it, though.

Anyway, there's no real point to any of this, except that I want to point out what I believe may be the ultimate sellout, the one project in which commerce triumphed over art every step of the way.  I don't believe I have ever seen a cornier, more mass-appealing movie than Sleepless in Seattle.*  It was on the other day and I couldn't help thinking: this movie has absolutely no soul whatsoever.  Every scene is calculated so as not to offend a single person. What an incredible piece of shit.

Sorry, I'm a little out of it here and don't have the patience to edit this into something that makes sense.  Let's move on to a quick round of Wheredat. Today's picture is at right and comes courtesy of Deion Sandals.  Be as precise as you can. We will turn it over to the judges and the winner will receive (only if they want) a pair of underwear inspired by Michelangelo's David.  They look sort of like this.

Well, we've got lots of new content today. A new stumpah. A new review. A new list that should have been much better. 

We have a new empeetrey from Richard Ashcroft. It was on one of those promotional CD's that come with magazines.  This guy made such a perfect rock star.  He had the looks, the voice, and the swagger.  And, when he ripped off that obscure Stones ditty and wrote a song around it, he had a huge hit.  Of course, lawsuits followed and it came crashing down around him and the band received next to nothing from it. So now he slugs it out on his own year after year, playing to audiences who of course want to hear the big hit. Which kind of gives this performance a little more poignancy.

Tomorrow, assuming I can get my scanner working again, we will have a brand new recurring feature for your enjoyment.

* Granted, I never saw You've Got Mail, which looked to be even more of a purely commercial endeavor, complete with AOL tie-in.