Filed under: Etc.
I finished reading John Sellers’s Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life a week or so ago. The decision to start reading it was based solely on this quote by Chuck Klosterman on the back cover:
“Perfect From Now On is clever and interesting and sincere, and I completely disagree with everything the author says.”
It’s a statement that matches my reaction to nearly everything I’ve read by Chuck “I do not own a record player” Klosterman. So I figured Perfect would be right up my alley.
While Sellers makes a sharp wrong turn right before my alley—first sentence: “I hate Bob Dylan”—he does end up making an incredibly convincing argument as to why he hates our country’s greatest living songwriter. We can agree to disagree on this point, Sellers. And to be honest, as far as first sentences go, it’s not terrible, especially if he’s looking to piss off/shock his readers in that snarky-dude style of rock writing popularized by Klosterman and his forebears, which I’m pretty convinced is what he is in fact looking to do.
A few pages in, however, Sellers wins me back for real. He’s from Michigan (+5 points!) and I think I remember reading something about Vernor’s (bonus!), plus references to the pop vs. soda debate (my vote’s for pop!) and Michigan State University (my alma mater!) And according to the description of where he currently lives in Brooklyn, we are neighbors! See you on the train!
The first two-thirds are actually quite entertaining. In addition to all the Michigan stuff, his “origin story” of how he came to be a music geek is compelling and includes just the right amount of self-effacement. A highlight is an 11-page-long footnote detailing how he spent the 25th anniversary of Ian Curtis’ death honoring the Joy Division singer—creepy, yes, but also touching and surprisingly informative considering his “personal” approach.
The final third [not including a hefty appendix consisting of lists that are relatively amusing, and a ridiculous (yet, again, amusing) formula to rank musical preference, including such variables as whether the band sounds better when turned up very loud (if yes, value = 3; otherwise, -1)] is devoted to time he spent hanging out with his musical hero, Bob Pollard, of Guided By Voices, around the time of the band’s final shows. Maybe it’s because I’m not as into GBV as I am Joy Division, but this marathon fanboy section paled next to the bloated footnote previously mentioned. Sure there’s drama (which I won’t get into here) and the intrigue of a love-affair between a band and its fan, and lots of fun, drunken good times, but it’s here where Sellers treads the line between geeky in a good way, and just plain geeky.
I actually think it’s fine when music writers and musicians are friends, and writers who claim not to be are kidding themselves or total jerks that no one wants to be friends with, musician or otherwise. Knowing a musician as a person can even inform an article from time to time (works of criticism are typically excluded from this theory).
On the other hand, fanboys and girls should probably be steered away from writing about their heroes. Case in point: My 5-stars-out-of-5-stars review of the Blake Babies’ one-off reunion album God Bless the Blake Babies.
Exhibit B: A photo I will post here (once I find it) taken a year prior to writing said review, during a stop on Juliana Hatfield’s tour supporting Beautiful Creature. I distinctly remember following her into the bathroom. And I’m pretty sure the excellent question, “Remember when you were on My So-Called Life?” was posed …
But back to Perfect … you know, I enjoyed reading it. And that’s because it’s well-written. Content-wise, it lacks the heft of a Klosterman work, but that’s because most of his books have some side point, some “big lesson” or whatever in addition to just talking about cool/uncool music. Perfect offers an interesting take on fandom and a decent story, but it still felt a little superficial to me, which, admittedly, is what a lot of fans of music writing want. Still, at the end I was left wondering, how did this music save his life? Was that just some catchy pop-culture reference? From what is written, it sounds like indie rock made the writer go on some trips and made him get drunk and have awesome times, but lots of things do that.
In any event, I enjoy a drunken, superficial good time as much as anyone, and in this spirit, I’m going to pull a super-superficial move here and just end this already-too-long post with a list.
Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life is recommended if you:
a) are from Michigan and like indie rock.
b) are reeeally into Guided By Voices.
c) are reeeally into some other band, and want to know that there’s someone out there nerdier than you are about a different band.
d) like reading about drinking and seeing awesome bands and being hung over, but like, in a way that’s totally worth the totally awesome night you just had.
