When I lived in Portland and Brendan lived in L.A. I would fly down for shows or whatever and we would drive around buying blank tshirts and french fries and try to play each other new CDs. I'm really drawn to the car as a place to hear music for the first time, and imagining him rushing around the city these days brings this immediate jolt of nostalgia and excitement. Add to that this autumn coolness and all I want is super energetic, sincere, smart music. Like back to school.
If I were in L.A. right now I know exactly what CD I would play for Brendan. Harbor Lights. When I think of the number of people who grew up on Matador and Merge and Drag City I'm shocked at how few people remember what a riot that music is. Go read reviews of the Pavement reissues, everyone talks about how they were record nerds and pranksters and sarcastic and standoffish. Everyone uses the word "funny" and no one uses the word "fun." And it kind of kills me because in this hurry to elevate [1] all our favorites to all of our parents' favorites (you know, Berman as the new Parsons, Pollard as the new McCartney, Lou Barlow as the new Richard Thompson yes I really did find all of these on the internet) there's this distance built, everything goes into the museum and then you can't touch it.
Harbor Lights are on an opposite program. They only remember the fun, they find it everywhere. The way Eric Gaffney would jump and stumble like he was in the Chili Peppers or something. The ear-to-ear smiles and hi-fives when Polvo would kick into "Bend or Break." The way a lead guitar line could scoop up your heart like a owl with a mouse, soaring and diving and your breath caught as you helplessly follow. Even the way the "failed experiments" and "sonic meanderings" of, like "Chelsea's Little Wrists" feel like a celebration if you're not going to be so stuck up about it. None of this music was ever a riddle to unlock, it was always a different way to have fun. Not everyone's going to like Kiss.
And so there we are in high school, with white corduroy pants and notebooks covered in band names and maybe mad at a ex-girlfriend. And there's times when it's important to feel sad and listen to Lois but a lot of the time it's better to tell them all to fuck off and just jump on the bed and drive too fast and throw snowballs and laugh until our chests hurt. And there's no way we're doing that without a soundtrack.
"It Won't Be You" isn't even a minute-and-a-half long, but during that 76 seconds it cartwheels and dips and explodes more time than half the indie-rock records I heard this year total. The entire vocabulary for this song would have to be borrowed from excitable post-MC5 rants, linking together words like "blazing" and "bombast" and "incendiary" but without any of those rocknroll references. There's none of the huffing/puffing of The Stooges, none of the posturing of the Small Faces and none of the excess of Blue Cheer. How do you say "explosive" without making people think of Van Halen? I guess you remind them of how breathtakingly fiery and ruleless a song like "Jackals" (then) or "It Won't Be You" (now) is.
The entire Harbor Lights CD is available free at Power Records.
In addition, the members of Harbor Lights will be playing a show as Copperheads this Saturday, November 17th at Cake Shop. Details HERE
[1] yes of course on purpose
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