Those Were The Days

Nostalgia is fun. It's a great mind trip. Music, TV, movies, books, etc. are great at taking us back.

I think Happy Days was my first exercise in artistic nostalgia. Of course, I was nine when it started airing in 1974. So it wasn't my nostalgia. But even at that age I got what it was.

We're now 60-some-years into the great rock & roll swindle, which is more than enough time to create our own nostalgia. But not all "old" rock music is nostalgic.

Some of it is timeless.

Timeless music is as fresh, adventurous, and challenging today as it did when it was recorded. It still jumps out of the speaker or off the stage; it raises the hair on your neck and punches you in the eye. Nostalgic music can be really, really good but it's also still part of a certain era. It may raise the hair on your arms but more because it's evoking an earlier time.

Elvis is timeless; Bill Haley and the Comets are nostalgic. The Beatles and Rolling Stones are timeless; The Who is nostalgic.* The Clash are timeless; The Sex Pistols are nostalgic. The Replacements are timeless. And drunk. Even if they're not, they always will be (maybe that's the nostalgia taking over).

I bring this up because I expected to engage in a good old fashioned nostalgia fest today. I put on Camper Van Beethoven's "Telephone Free Landslide Victory" aiming for a trip back to college.

To my surprise, I was reminded it's a timeless album. Considering how many indie rock cliches of 2012 "Telephone Free Landslide Victory" covers, it could have come out last week and been called Pitchfork's Best New Album.

Afro-pop and world influences (I'm looking at YOU Vampire Weekend)? A lot of Check! on that.



Organ fueled psychedelic throwback? Check!



Ironic punk cover? Check!**



Violin? Check!***



Americana influence? Check!



Vaguely-positive-closing-song-that-may-just-be-ironic-but-could-actually-be-a-hopeful-look-towards-the- future? Check



Slacker anthem? Check!



In fact, "Take The Skinheads Bowling" and "Club Med Sucks" are such under-the-top slacker anthems that when I build the Slacker Anthem Hall of Fame, both songs get their own wing.

If Camper Van Beethoven had put a new wave synth-pop song on the album, "Telephone Free Landslide Victory" would truly be the Rosetta Stone of today's indie rock. Camper Van Beethoven still exists today as does sister-band Cracker. Dave Lowery is a super smart guy (mathematician) who is also a fierce advocate for artists' rights in the digital age. But in the mid-80s, they were California punks who slowed it down. We didn't really even have a concept of indie rock, let alone that this was really cutting edge material.

Hearing it today? It could have been recorded last month (but in Brooklyn, not California).

*I love The Who. Growing up my musical universe revolved around "BealtesWhoStonesKinksHendrix." The Who's music is amazing, even today. But it just isn't timeless, it remains in the era it was recorded.

**My favorite of these was the Circle Jerks lounge version of  their own"When The Shit Hits The Fan" in the movie Repo Man, leading to Emilio Estevez's classic line: "I can't believe I used to like these guys."

***OK, that's more a Colorado string music jamband thing.