J. Beaman - The Magazine

It’s so hard to complain well. One of the reasons I don’t update my blog very often is because all I want to do is complain. I hate my job, I hate being an alcoholic, I don’t have a girlfriend, I hate my girlfriend.

I used to call myself a Luddite. Then I got a computer and a cell phone and a car and life was easier and more productive and today I was listening to June of ‘44.

In the mid-nineties I lived in San Luis Obispo, CA and shopped for records at Boo Boo Records on Monterey Street. There was no pitchforkmedia.com; there was no all music guide; there was no Kazaa.

I am not waxing nostalgic about shopping at record stores. I love sitting at home in my underwear and reading about and listening to and downloading music. The problem is that anyone can do it. It is just too easy to find good new music. When I was young you had to walk six miles in the snow to Boo Boo Records and actually make friends with the snotty people behind the counter. It was hard work. You had to not only find out who the good bands were but in order to even have a clue about it you had to know which magazines and/or rock critics you trusted. It was either that or it was Bush or Oasis or Save Ferris.

One day I walked into Boo Boo and Melissa, the girl who bought all the records, said to me, “Hey, J., I got an extra copy of the new Karate record for you. I got one for all of us, one for the store and one for you.”

“Wow. Thanks.”

And it’s not only that the music as less accessible physically then it was also less accessible musically. In the last ten years indie rock and lo-fi music has become so pervasive that it is almost not even interesting anymore. June of ’44’s third record, Four Great Points, was fucking weird. They (the record store geeks) called it math rock and I loved it. The songs were nine minutes long and the bass was loud and snare drum popped like nothing I had ever heard before. The lead singer mumbled over and over with droning, repetitive guitar forcing you to fucking listen. Take down your art, take down your art, take down your art. Dictate directions, dictate directions, dictate directions. I didn’t know what it meant but he sounded smarter than me. Connor Oberst does not sound smarter than me. Neutral Milk Hotel, My Morning Jacket, Cat Power, pretty much everything at CMJ this year just don’t sound smarter than me.

I want my heroes to impress me. Goddammit.