Tynan's Anger

Image by armcurl via FlickrWhy the return of a once-forgotten noise rock band has the rock world crapping their pants.

Five years ago, if the Jesus Lizard had reunited, the indie rock world most likely would have shrugged it off. Never mind that, in 2003, the Jesus Lizard had only been broken up for 4 years; Pavement had been broken up for the same amount of time, but a Pavement reunion would have had music fans selling their possessions to acquire tickets back in 2003. The Hipster Handbook had just been published, a book that more or less defined the spirit the first half of the 2000s, fun, laid back, sweet but snarky hipster cynicism was in full force, and the postmodern chillness seemed like it was never going to go out of fashion. That was just 3 years into the Bush presidency, when the sentiment of the Iraq War was "Mission Accomplished" before it became an occupation. I don't need to tell you it ain't been the best 5 years since.

Earlier this year on the Electrical Audio forums, posters were forced to choose who was a better band: Fugazi or Jesus Lizard (what one poster described as Sophie's Choice.) Fugazi, need I remind you, was arguably the band that defined the indie spirit and ethos more than any other band of the last 20 years. But in a race that made Florida in 2000 seem like a landslide, the Jesus Lizard ultimately won out.

Perhaps this was shaped by a mid-poll endorsement by Steve Albini himself, who noted that though Fugazi "conducted themselves impeccably and treated everyone they dealt with generously," the Jesus Lizard "conjured up a new kind of rock music, simultaneously uglier, smarter and more perverse than anything before it. They have no peers." Albini’s sentiment summed up what ultimately swung this race among hardcore indie snobs (indie here referring to its original ethical meaning): there have been plenty of bands that did what Fugazi did musically before Fugazi and afterwards. There's never been anyone who did what the Jesus Lizard did.

In the 9 years since the Jesus Lizard broke up, the void that band left has only grown larger. The sense of danger, mixed with a strange sense of fun, intelligence, and permanence, had been replaced by a sense of permanent safety and blandness. There were noise rock bands after the Jesus Lizard, but they all had a sense of cool to them rather than danger (wasn't the point of noise to be dangerous in the first place?). None had the same sense of teetering off a 10,000-foot high brink, daring you to push them over. Over the past 5 years especially, the music scene has grown softer as the world has grown harder. By 2007-2008, with the economy no longer making apathy sustainable, the need for something urgent--something like the Jesus Lizard--had reached a fever pitch.

There's a regional element to address here too. While the Gawker culture of New York, L.A., and various other hotbeds of Yuppie allowed people to flourish in empty fun for the majority of the decade, people in the Midwest, South, and shit towns across the country still needed something to appease their never-ending sense of bitterness (Obama was more right with Bittergate than he could ever admit). In these places, and in impoverished, hopeless regions across the world, the Jesus Lizard mindset/ideal still reigned supreme. This is why come 2007-2008, we saw a slew of bands emerging from said shit towns with an axe to grind. We got the Pissed Jeans (Allentown, P.A.), Titus Andronicus (Glen Rock, NJ), The Black Lips and Deerhunter (Atlanta, GA), Jay Reatard (Memphis, TN), among others. There was also a strange Canadian contingent, helmed by Fucked Up (Toronto) and King Khan & the BBQ Show (not your Arcade Fire's Montreal). Basically, anywhere discontent in America was brewing, so was slummy, spiteful Indie Rock with a capital I-R. It was a sign that Nick Cave, who had gone soft and sweet earlier in the decade, went back to nasty mode again. It is also no coincidence that all these bands have emerged at that same time that the previously mid-American and foreign discontent has spread across the nation, coasts included.

This was the spirit that Jesus Lizard once and perhaps will always dominate. Dave Yow & co began their dominance with their Scratch Acid work (which came deep from the American Armpit of Texas), and eventually took on full dominance while in Chicago when that city's scene was exploding (backed by indie rock's greatest bittermeister: Steve Albini, a Missoula, Montana native).

In September 2006, before the economic downfall hit the nation, but when bitterness was still brewing worldwide, the Jesus Lizard briefly reformed for Touch & Go's 25th anniversary. People came from Brazil, from Eastern Europe, any little pocket of the world where spite still resonated. The mere glimpse of the greatest, most unique spite band of a generation was more than enough to justify the plane fair that five years earlier would have been spent on a Pavement reunion. With the biggest recession we've ever seen however, who gives a fuck if Stephen Malkmus and Steve West start speaking again?

Hence, with spite brewing in the world like very rarely before (certainly more than in 1992), the Jesus Lizard's finely-tuned bitterness is about to explode. Think the Pixies were big in 2004? Think Mission of Burma was big in 2006? You ain't seen shit yet, mouth breathers. The kings of bitter are back, and they're taking names.

UPDATE: Anya kindly points out to me that it was Scratch Acid, not the Jesus Lizard, who got back together at T & G 25. My apologies.

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Labels: bittergate, indie rock, Jay Reatard, Jesus Lizard, life after bush, Nick Cave, rock 'n' roll, spite, Stephen Malkmus, Steve Albini, Steve West