Rehashing

"I used to be with "it", but then they changed what "it" was. Now, what I'm with isn't "it", and what's "it" seems weird and scary to me. And it'll happen to you."

-Grampa Simpson

Lately, I haven't been buying all that much in the way of new music. I'm sure there are more than a few reasons for this. One big one is that I am slowly moving away from prime marketing age (generally 18-35, but for music usually 14-21) and therefore no one in the industry cares what I think (as opposed to the internets), so no one is trying to promote music that they think I would listen to. People were trying to market to me in the 90's, and it worked; between 1994-2001 I could listen to the radio or watch MuchMusic and be almost guaranteed to hear or see something I would like.

Now, having been stamped as a non-consumer by the powers that be, it's up to me to do the research to find bands that I like. Lately, I can't be bothered. In the last six months I've discovered two bands that I really like (not counting artists that I met at my own shows): The Do (check out "Stay Just A Little More") and The Bird and the Bee, and both of those have come from other people (Krista and Mandie, respectively).

So what, you may ask, am I spending my music money on?

Something I always said I wouldn't.

Compilations.

In the last couple of months I've bought both the Beastie Boys and Matt Good anthologies and they're in my car's player pretty much 24-7 (ask Krista, she knows). I also own the Barenaked Ladies' anthology and would shell out for best-of's by Green Day, Radiohead, and almost any other "classic" band of the 90's (except the Tragically Hip). I'm actually ashamed of being this guy. I remember working at Sunrise Records and judging the people who came in to buy all the 80's compilations, or who could sing every Prince lyric but had no idea who Bradley Nowell was and why it was such a big deal that he was dead (at the time, it was because Sublime could have done so much more: Now it's because the Long Beach Dub All-Stars probably would never have come to pass). A real music fan, I thought, would remain "in the loop" and would appreciate something that was current.

I have definitely become the person on the other side of the counter. To paraphrase Homer Simpson in "Homerpalooza" (the same episode that spawned the quote above), rock attained perfection in 1994. It's a scientific fact: Green Day's Dookie, Nirvana's Unplugged, Moist's Silver, Our Lady Peace's Naveed (the only less-than-craptacular album they have ever done), and so on.

I like (but am saddened by the fact) that I get the same rush listening to "Everything is Automatic" driving to work in my Focus as I did busing to school with my Discman. I can't remember what I read in almost any of my classes, but I totally remember the lyrics to "Sure Shot". Am I totally analogous to the dude who would come into the store and tell me about how Metallica or Slayer hadn't released anything good since the eighties (he was right about Metallica, at least)? No, I am not! The 80s had SO MUCH to be ashamed of: Flock of Seagulls (and the resulting haircuts), Soft Cell, Newcleus, Hall and Oates, Tiffany, glam rock in general, etcetera. The 90's were cool (as long as you discount Lou Bega, the Macarena, Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Butt Trumpet, and everything that came out of Seattle except Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden). To this day we look cool, with our flannel shirts, Doc Martens and carving "Kurt" into our arms in 1994. We started emo, and our dudes didn't need to dress like girls to make it happen (although our girls did kind of dress like dudes).

So to conclude, I'm cool with being pegged as a 90's guy 'cause the 90's were awesome. All the kids will think I'm cool because of it. For serious.

I wonder if being OK with this now will make it OK for me to give up on new music altogether later. My dad was totally like that. He knows every song written in the 50s and 60s. There are forty or so songs he likes from the seventies. The eighties were unkind to him. He liked some stuff, but not The Smiths or the Cure or anything like that: he more went for "We Built This City" by Jefferson Starship and "Sunglasses At Night" by Corey Hart. By the nineties he couldn't be bothered to listen to anything except "Tubthumping" by Chumbawumba and anything that would appear on a "Jock Jams" compilation. Is this the natural and inevitable progression of my musical interest? I don't think so. What's the double-naught version of Chumbawumba? I don't think it's the White Rabbits.

Eventually, I'm sure it will come to pass that my brain will be too full of music and I will wave the white flag. It happens to everyone, and quite frankly it seems like it happens to most people before the age of 28. So please think kindly of me if in ten years you catch me in my basement hunched over a discman in my flannel instead of listening to the computer chip in my brain (yeah, YOU think it won't happen). I wasn't always that way, you know.

In honour of today's topic, here are the 5 best bands you don't remember from the 90's (no particular order):

1. Rusty
2. Glueleg
3. Econoline Crush
4. The Killjoys
5. Royal Crown Revue (remember the swing revival?)
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IN OTHER NEWS!
Played a bunch of shows last week and will probably post about them on Friday. Also, I was in Toronto last Thursday and picked up not only a man purse MESSENGER BAG, but also broke down and picked up the Will Currie album when I found it in Sunrise. To be honest, I'm not quite sure what to think yet and I'm kind of not digging it. I have to sort out if I don't like it because I don't like it OR if it's because I already have most of the songs OR if it's because the old songs were remastered and I don't like that, and so on. I'll let you know when I've figured it out.