A New Generation From the Teenage Nation: Beat Happening
The legend goes something like this: It's the Summer of 1990, and Calvin, Bret, and Heather continue to traverse the extremely difficult terrain of the then extremely narrow underground music scenethis time on the coattails of Fugazi. The place is the (now defunct) Country Club of Los Angeles, California. The setting is extremely bleak. This is the quintessential Beat Happening moment.
Fugazi, still reaping the benefit of MacKaye's Minor Threat heyday, netted a sold out crowd of L.A.'s most meat-headed hardcore fans--an audience not quite open to a three-piece from Washington with no bass player, a girl, and, well... Calvin. as the set continued, the heckling turned violent--with audience members heaving drinks and refuse at the band. At some point, a laser-eyed lout connected with a direct hit, with Calvin taking the business end of an ashtray. He immediately launches into a word-perfect Darby Crash spiel from the Germ's What We Do Is Secret (a ref. lost on that band's home turf hardcore audience)--ignoring the evident damage to his nose. With blood streaming down his face, he finished the set as insolent as ever, taunting the audience the way that only Calvin can--then simply dropping the mic, walking Moses-like off of the front of the stage through the audience, and out the front door without a word.
And that is why the Beat Happening has always served as my most apt definition of the Punk Rock sensibility. In spite of the impossibly limited options presented by the American underground music scene of the 1980s, the Beat Happening battled alongside (and occasionally against) bands like Black Flag and the Minutemen--falling on deaf, confused ears throughout the country, and selling nary enough records to survive. They represented a noble, uncompromising alternative to the orthodoxy of what punk rock should be at a time when its definition was its narrowest, and offering a still unmatched suggestion of what punk rock could be.
Knowingly innocent, sexually frustrated, perpetually teenaged, and oppressively minimal, Beat Happening put its last song to tape in 2000, after the eight year absence that followed their final LP, You Turn Me On. Survived by five full lengths, a rarities compilation, a box set, a mountain of cassettes, and 18 years of public service, Olympia's chosen sons (and daughter) deserve every accolade thats ever had lavished upon them--including this title, that of The Greatest Band of All Time.
I'm one of those mofos who caught onto Beat Happening only after reading about them in Our Band Could Be Your Life. They were actually the last band covered in that book that I bought anything by, due to the fact that while I liked the band's story and dug their incredibly punk rock stance (too punk for punk itself apparently), I figured the music would suck and not be worth my time (and hard earned/scavengered $$$).
Well, it only took one listen to Dreamy to convince me that they were a great band and the subsequent albums and songs I've heard since have only cemented that. Are they for everybody? Nope. My girlfriend, for one, hates them because, as she puts it, the playing and singing is pretty wretched. From a technical standpoint, sure (though the later stuff is much more tight, focused, and feature superior musicianship), but my stance has always been this: those who look at music (or anything really) from a purely technical standpoint can't see the forest from the trees, so to speak. Great music isn't just about technicality or production values, though those things make a difference. Great music is emotion (and not neccesarily "emo" style emotions, mind you) and good song-writing, things that Beat Happening had and excelled at in spades.
For anyone who doesn't believe me, take a listen to "Indian Summer" (even my girlfriend likes it...kinda).
beat happening became one of my passions. i had just one song, which was bad seeds, and then my boyfriend recorded the whole discography. at the beginning is a bit weird and so, but after you get used to it (mainly calvin's voice), it is simply GENIUS.
i guess my favourites are pinebox derby, not a care in the world, don't mix the colours, what's important, you turn me on, i spy... etc etc (:
and i thought the 80s really sucked before i knew them, like my boyfriend said.