Yale's Pilgrimage to San Pedro

I'd gotten laid off from my job a couple weeks ago, and I was laying in bed one morning, hungover as hell from the layoff party and the Dirtbombs show. I have a map of the US hanging above my bed so I started thinking of places I could drive to with all my newfound free time. Then I remembered that I've always wanted to go to San Pedro, CA, where my favorite band the Minutemen got started, and where Mike Watt and George Hurley from that band still live. I don't feel too terribly strongly about much of anything in the world, but I have a very intense and deep-seated love for the Minutemen. There is no possible way to understate my love for that band. And the loss of D. Boon (died in a van accident in '85) of that band is, I think, on par with your James Marshall Hendrixes and your John Lennons in terms of the hugeness of loss. Even your Jim Morrisons or your Kurt Cobains, if that suits you.

I sort of forgot about the idea for the rest of the day. Then the next day I was doing laundry and thought to myself, "Yale, you got a modest pile of money and a bunch of free time. When the hell else are events gonna line up like this? When else will you have the freedom to do shit like this? I think you (meaning me) would be a damn fool not to do it!"

So I folded my laundry, threw it all into a duffel bag, restocked the tape caddies and pointed the truck toward the Pacific. It was about 6:30 pm, and starting to get dark, so I figured I'd just drive as far as Grand Junction this night. I ended up going as far as Green River, Utah.

The drive out there was not too exciting, nothing really worth mentioning. Except during the drive, I kept thinking of this thing that my buddy Scout did that made me laugh so fucking hard: when we were flying back from Missoula a few weeks ago, we were late in boarding the plane, so we were about the last people on it. When we got to our seats, there was a large potted plant in the seat assigned to Scout. We both just stood there, kinda dumbfounded for a while. Eventually, this fat guy came over and grabbed it, looking fairly annoyed that he had to move his plant. Whereupon Scout launched into this hysterical rhetoric. "Would the plant like the window seat or the aisle? Could I get the plant a snack, or something to drink?" And then promptly fell into a deep sleep. I don't know why, but I can't stop laughing about it. So that made the miles go by pretty fast.

So anyway, I got to LA (well, San Bernardino anyway) around 10 the next night. And right as I started to get into the sprawl, the truck started doing this thing where the engine kind of misses a couple strokes while driving down the freeway. It was pretty startling, and scary too, since if I broke down, I wouldn't have the slightest idea what to do. So I decided I'd better get that beast off the road and get a motel room.

The one I got was called the Angel Inn, and it was fairly run down. But it did have a free porn channel. Also, I walked down the street to a 7-11, and there were all these sketchy-looking dudes congregated around a phone booth. A couple were riding those low-rider bikes. I was really terrified to walk past 'em, being kind of a country bumpkin and all that. So I walked all the way around the block to make my approach to the 7-11 from the other side. Once inside, I decided that my junk food dinner for the night would consist of Grandma's Cookies and 7-11's famous nachos, featuring pump-it-yourself cheese product. Mmmm. The cheese product was running low, so the clerk came over and said he'd take care of it. He returned from the back room with this clear cellophane bag full of gelatinous cheese, cut open the spout, and placed the entire bag in the dispenser. It's like they don't even bother pretending it's real cheese anymore. "Sanjay, we need another cheese bag for the nachos!" They also have a chili dispenser right next to the cheese one. I'm here to tell you that watching chili ooze out of a little spout is a little less than appetizing.

The next morning, I returned to the 7-11 for some of their famous Dark Mountain Roast coffee. I wondered where in the world Dark Mountain is. Back at the Angel Inn, I laboriously plotted my trip into San Pedro and hoped that the engine problems from the previous night were just a fluke. With older cars, it's very common to have some weird aberration that will just go away if you ignore it.

Was this my first time to LA, you ask? No, I came here once in 1987 with one of my uncles (to visit yet another uncle). I was 14 at the time. We went to a Lakers game (Kareem's last season) and all the beaches and all that shit. That was the first time I'd ever seen the ocean, unless you count Puget Sound as the ocean. Then my whole family drove here in June of 1990. My sister and I went to see Soundgarden and Danzig at the Santa Monica Civic Center, where all those storied Black Flag riots when down in the early 80s. That was memorable because the Danzig drummer (which would of course be Chuck Biscuits) was on a 20-foot cow skull with eyes that lit up purple. And then Glenn Danzig came out and high-fived the whole front row and ripped his shirt off with one hand. He's a bodybuilder, you know.

And people always talk about what a shithole LA is, but I've always had kind of a healthy fascination with the place, mostly brought on by watching CHiPs as a kid. Sure, it's polluted and crowded as hell, but I could definitely see myself living there.

San Pedro, in case you're trying to find it on a map, is technically part of the city of Los Angeles, even though it's 30 miles south of downtown LA. It's the Port of Los Angeles, where huge freighters unload thousands of Japanese cars every day. It sits across the harbor from Long Beach, and right next to Rancho Palos Verdes.

The truck behaved pretty well, right until I pulled into San Pedro and it started heaving and missing again. So I found a mechanic quickly and told him I need a tune-up. He said he could do it in three hours, and I was welcome to hang out in the waiting room. Well fuck, since I was already in San Pedro (pronounced "Pee-dro," by the way), there was no way I was gonna sit there and read Car and Driver and drink Cragmont all afternoon. So I told him I would hoof around town and be back in four hours.

As soon as I got outside I was greeted by the most pleasant sea breeze and waft of fresh air I think I've ever encountered. I walked up this hill

and looked around at all the tall palm trees and savored the ocean breeze and thought, "Where the fuck am I, Corsica or something? The French Riviera?" I was beset by positive stimulus at every turn.

At the top of the hill I was greeted thusly:

Right as I got to the top, I had my first view of the ocean in over a decade (again, unless you count Puget Sound), and I remembered instantly how striking it is when you only see it once every ten years or so. Especially those huge ships off in the distance. I walked 22 blocks to the marina and then looked across the harbor at all the freighters being unloaded. The magnitude of everything going on around me was slightly overwhelming. And then thinking of the Minutemen growing up here, and wondering how their physical environment must have shaped their music; I must say that it makes even less sense to me now.

Also striking is the fact that, although it's right on the ocean, San Pedro is still very much a working-class town. I had assumed that any real estate within five miles of the ocean was devoured long ago by rich folks, but it looks like an ordinary joe like myself could even live here if he wanted. Fuck, what a beautiful place. Very Mediterranean.

I had also read in some Mike Watt interview about how San Pedro was first settled predominantly by Italians and Croats. And it's true! Everywhere I looked were signs with names ending in "-ich" and "-ic". And lots of Balkan-looking women, or at least what I perceived to be Balkan-looking women; I don't really know.

I also kept seeing things that Mike Watt or the Minutemen mentioned in their songs, like Point Fermin, Fort MacArthur, Vincent Thomas Bridge, Paseo Del Mar, Ports o' Call, even Peck Park, where according to legend, D. Boon jumped out of a tree and landed on Mike Watt when they were 12 or 13, and they became best friends and eventually started the Minutemen.

I went back and picked up the truck, and was still doing the missing and heaving thing, so I was pretty bummed out. So I decided to go put my feet in the ocean, which was where I took these two shots:

Cabrillo Beach looking out at the pier

The town of Rancho Palos Verdes on the cliffs, seen from Cabrillo Beach

As I stood there knee-deep in the surf, all I could come up with was, "Ocean, huh?" It was a powerful good feelin'.

Here's a couple more San Pedro shots:

This is the LA Harbor (or part of it) taken from Ports o' Call, and that's the Vincent Thomas Bridge that leads to Long Beach.

This is the San Pedro Post Office, perhaps the only Art Deco post office I've ever seen.

I got a room at a Motel 6 and decided I'd wait until the next day complete my mission, which was to go pay my respects at D. Boon's grave.

How did I know where he's buried? I read it in a Mike Watt interview a long time ago and always remembered that bit of info. And then also I got that book "Our Band Could Be Your Life" last week where that information is confirmed: Green Hills Memorial Park. Then I just looked it up in the phone book, and when I got to the cemetery, they had a guy who could look up the name and tell you where it is, 'cause the cemetery is very immense.

Here it is. It's also kind of weird that he died at the traditional rock age of 27.

This is the view from his grave; you can see the Vincent Thomas Bridge and the harbor and everything.

It took me about twenty minutes to find it, but when I did, it was kind of startling. I expected to be overcome with emotion, but I didn't really feel anything at all. More than anything, it was just kind of freaky to think about what was underneath me, the remains of someone I only knew through records and photographs. And the graves seemed awfully close together, which is strange, because D. Boon was a big fat dude. I also wondered how many other people I looked up to had stood where I was standing, such as the other two Minutemen, and Black Flag dudes and so forth. I wondered what it would be like if he were still alive. And of course, I expected there to be copies of Minutemen records and guitar picks and shit to be strewn around the grave, like you see in photos of Jim Morrison's grave, but nothing at all. It wasn't until I got in the truck and popped in "Double Nickels on the Dime" that I got all sad. That album, by the way, has 43 songs on it, all of which were recorded in two nights, mixed in one night, and the whole thing cost under $1500. Quite remarkable when you consider that it is unarguably the best album ever made in the history of music.

Above is one of my favorite shots of the man, taken shortly before he died. There's a real good account of the Minutemen's existence in the new book I mentioned above called "Our Band Could Be Your Life," which of course, takes its title from the Minutemen song "History Lesson Pt. II," which is, in retrospect, about the saddest song you could ever hear. D. Boon gets all wistful and sings about him and Mike Watt being "fucking corndogs" but then discovering punk rock at a Wire concert. Then the last line is "Me and Mike Watt just playing these guitars." Gets me every time!

Here's a picture of the man from 1980 and one of the Minutemen from 1985. By the way, I got all of these from Mike Watt's Hoot Page. I hope he doesn't mind...

I have this Minutemen concert video where D. Boon starts frantically pogoing like a derelict mid-song. At first glance it's kind of off-putting to see this huge man pogoing and flailing his arms about like he's drowning, but only after a few seconds you start to feel very inspired by it. I also read that one time when he was pogoing, he crashed right through the stage!

After I'd paid my respects, I drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to Venice, remembering that as being a cool place to check out. It seems like it's turned into a haven for chain stores, just like all cool places in the world. Lots of jiggling boobs around though. And I'd heard that there are in fact canals here, just like the real Venice, so I was determined to find those.

Venice Beach Boardwalk

Venice from the pier

Here's the canals


I kept asking myself, "My god, who the fuck lives here?"

They go on forever...

That night I called my mom and got the phone number for my uncle Rick, who lives in Downey, where the Carpenters were from, as you know. He was home and I said I'd be over, but first I wanted to check out UCLA. Jesus Christ, I don't know if you've ever been to UCLA, but it sits right in between Beverly Hills and Bel Air, two of the most exclusive parts of LA. Needless to say, it's a beautiful campus, but I don't think I saw more than 1/10th of it.

I figured by Saturday (I'd left on Tuesday) that I'd spent enough money and that I should probably head back. But the truck was still giving me problems. I decided to just go for it and hope I didn't break down in the middle of the desert. That is a fucking hellride, that drive from LA to Las Vegas. And I couldn't enjoy it because the fear of breaking down was constant. All the things you've heard about the desert being hot, well, they're all true. It was pretty unbearable, especically since my rig has no A/C. But at least I didn't break down. What a long drive. America is one big fucking country. Remind me to bring more Meat Puppets tapes next time I drive across the desert...

Discussion section:
Q: Did you see Mike Watt or George Hurley while you were in San Pedro?

A: Unfortunately I did not. If I'd had the foresight to look at the little video montage that is on Mike Watt's "Contemplating the Engine Room" CD before I left, I'd have known exactly where he lives. But I didn't get to that until I got home. And neither of them were in the phone book. Well, there was an M. Watt, but that could be one of his sisters Melinda or Marilyn. And it didn't have an address anyhow. Oh, but I thought I was so clever because I knew that Mike Watt has a next door neighbor named Tony Platon, and if he was in the phone book, voila! But he wasn't.

Q: Yale, have you ever met your idols Mike Watt or George Hurley?

A: I did meet Mike Watt once in 1992. His band fIREHOSE (comprised of George Hurley, Mike Watt and Ed fROMOHIO and who are awesome also but can't touch the Minutemen) was playing in Missoula. I was so excited about it that I almost made myself sick. I rode my bike down to this really cheesey bar called Trendz that they were playing at and right as I got there, Mike and George were piling out of the van. I got all butterflied up like a little girl, but figured I shouldn't bother them while they're unloading. Then I saw the promoter Tim Bierman and he told me there'd be a BBQ at his pad in a couple hours and fIREHOSE would be there.

I showed up and only Mike Watt was there from fIREHOSE, but the dudes from Run Westy Run (who were opening) were all there too. Oh, and Jeff Ament from Pearl Jam, big whoop. I finally summonsed the courage to go up and talk to Mr. Watt. He was a lot taller than I pictured him being, and a lot weirder. When he talks, he refers to himself in the third person, e.g., "Watt likes your town." And he's very brusque, like you might imagine an 1890's prospector to be. I asked him about the Masons, which he mentions frequently in song, and he pulled out a dollar bill and pointed to the pyramid thing, and then went off on some bizarre stream-of-consciousness spiel that left me kind of slackjawed.

And then just last September he played here in Denver. He had just had surgery on a cyst that formed on his, um, undercarriage, and now was forced to wear underwear after years of free-ballin'. (I had read all this in his tour journals, which, by the way, are fucking fascinating reading if you're interested. They're on the hootpage.) After the show (which was a mindblow), he slings merchandise from the stage. I bought a record and said, "glad to hear you're wearing underwear!" He kind of growled and said, "yeah, it's fascism!" by which I assume he meant the doctors ordering him to wear underwear.

Q: Yale, didn't you stop in Vegas?
A: No, I'm not really a big fan of that sort of shit. That kind of hyperreality mostly just makes me feel more insignificant than I do already. And then seeing a bunch of white trash tourists waddling around pointing at stuff is pretty off-putting as well.

And did you know that Las Vegas is one of America's fastest-growing metropoli, if not the fastest? That boggles me because when I drove through it, it was about 104 degrees, dusty and dirty, and about the ugliest place I could imagine living. Why are so many folks moving there?

Dirtbombs! Disappointments! Two bands that would be right next to each other in the record bins! As well as two bands I saw in the space of a week!

Scout had been talking up the Dirtbombs for weeks, saying it was Mick Collins' new band. You know, Mick Collins from The Gories! I'd only heard The Gories but once or twice, but what I heard treated me real right.

I had been at a layoff party at Denver's Goosetown Tavern (what the fuck is a Goosetown?), and so I was pretty well lit up by the time Scout and Brad showed up at 9:30. We drove the thirty blocks or so to the 15th St. and I may or may not have smoked mota with Brad on the way. I'm not saying I did or didn't, just saying the possibility was there is all.

The openers were the Down-n-Outs, who were like 70% better than I remember them being, perhaps owing to the fact that there was a possibility of mota smoking going on. Here's the Down-n-Outs:

...followed by another local band called The Volts, who I've also seen a time or two, and even the herbal augmentation going on didn't help me appreciate 'em anymore. It's essentially uninspired, mid-tempo English pub rock with this guy spazzing out and breaking beer bottles on his head and shit. Visually satisfying, but not aurally. But they look like this:

By the time the Dirtbombs took the stage, I was pretty much lit up like a dang ol' Christmas tree. I was, however, able to retain enough my critical faculties to know that the Dirtbombs fucking rule the earth. Two drummers. A little fireplug Italian street thug playing bass. And Mick Collins is a master showman. It looked a little like this. I only got two photos on account of my camera battery died on me:

Missoula heartthrobs The Disappointments rolled into Denver on August 19 to play a show at the 15th St. Tavern. It's always a unique pleasure to see Missoulians outside of Missoula, plus I still feel really bad about missing the Int'l Playboys when they came to Denver some months back.

When I got down there, Richie needed to go find a fuse for his amp, so in the interest of feeling useful, I offered to drive him to whatever places were open at 10pm on a Sunday. That pretty much means Target and K-Mart. We found the fuse, but it didn't fix the problem.

Zack made me chortle mightily by introducing the Disappointments as "a self-help band straight outta Canitoba." It sounds like those boys have had a pretty eventful tour, almost playing Red Lodge, MT for fuck's sake. That would have been unprecedented, but I guess they broke down and couldn't make it. Here's some shots of the Disappointments and the next band the Applicators, an all-girl revue out of Austin:

I had seen Mudhoney the previous night, but I think I should put that under Interesting Fact of the Week. That's the hardest part of doing this site is thinking up that shit every week.

Then the goddamn Volumen showed up a couple nights ago, but I think I'll save that savory goodness for next week.

This week's Royalty-Free Band Names come to you courtesy of Sheridan, Wyoming's favorite son, Mr. Nate Jorgenson, who spent the weekend reroofing a house, hence the construction themed names. And I'd be overjoyed to get your contributions, person. Your name in lights!

Nate's Contributions:
Nail Gunz
The Shims (not to be confused with the Albuquerque SubPop band The Shins)
The Tar Papers
Galvanized Steel Gauntlet
The Lochabers (sort of a medieval battle axe, with a two foot blade and a four foot handle, supposedly could "shuck a knight out of his armour like an oyster")
The Chamber Pots
Muttonmen
Lordsquire
Blacksmith Burk and the Sword-Oilers

...and then when he used the word reroof in his message, I thought that'd be a great name for a straight-edge band. Reroof

ARCHIVE OF ROYALTY-FREE BAND NAMES
SEND IN YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS HERE

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Interesting Fact of the Week:

Yale Finally Sees Mudhoney

When I was a senior in high school, I was completely and totally apeshit for Mudhoney. My buddy Charlie laid their "Touch Me, I'm Sick" single on me, and then I got the "Boiled Beef and Rotting Teeth" CD, which, by the way, has the distinction of being the very first CD I ever bought. I also got the "Superfuzz Big Muff" EP, and my very first band the Skaggs Alpha Beta Band (which was me on guitar and my friend Jake Gotcher drumming on a phone book) covered "Chain That Door" from that record during our inaugural (which was also our farewell) concert.

Then me and this girl Virginia deigned to write to Mudhoney every day for a month to get them to come play Missoula. They never did, probably because we never got around to writing them.

And a couple years ago my band Humpy decided to cover "In & Out of Grace," one of the best Mudhoney songs ever committed to tape. It turned out to be a perennial favorite at our live shows, and I never ever got tired of playing it.

Then that "March to Fuzz" retrospective CD/LP came out, and when I got it, I realized that I still really really really really really like Mudhoney a really lot. To add to this, my friend Jefferson Davis Vanek, a fickle music connoisseur if I ever met one, said that Mudhoney was the best live band he'd ever seen. So I was more'n happy to shell out 15 or so clams to go see 'em at the Ogden Theatre here in Denver.

Right as I walked in the door, they were counting off "In & Out of Grace," to my great excitement. And in that middle part I finally got to see how Dan Peters does the drum thing, because I always suspected I was doing it wrong when Humpy played it. When I saw how he does it, all I could do was bonk myself on the forehead and go, "Duh!". Also in that drum part, Mark Arm announced that Dan Peters, the youngest member of Mudhoney, was 34 tonight, which I suppose puts the other dudes closer to 38 or maybe even 40!

Even though the sound in a huge theatre like the Bluebird is pretty cavernous, I declared during the third song that I was in fact getting my ass kicked, sonically speaking. Their new bass player is Guy Maddison from Lubricated Goat (I think), and he was doing an admirable job, and so were his ample sideburns. Mark Arm plays more guitar than I thought he would. I thought he would just kinda let it dangle there so he could more effectively summons up one of his trademark guttural screams. But he plays almost the entire time, and even does some of the leads!

They played all my favorites including "You Got It," "Suck You Dry," Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More," "This Gift," "Let It Slide," and of course "Touch Me, I'm Sick" and "Hate the Police," the Dicks cover. Oh, and "You Stupid Asshole," which is what, a Germs cover? Angry Samoans maybe? But no "Burn It Clean," which was my anthem in the summer of '90.

People always say that Mark Arm looks like the son of Iggy Pop, but it really is true! On "Hate The Police" he jettisoned his guitar and just did the lead singer thing, and everything he does looks like Iggy. All the stage moves, the hair, the fact that he's rail-thin, all that.

But I'm going to go ahead and say that Dan Peters is Mudhoney's secret weapon. The guy is very talented for one thing, but then he uses his talent along with his power and endurance to come up with some deeply inventive shit. Don't get me wrong; I think they write great songs, but it's Dan's drumming primarily (followed closely by Mark Arm's voice) that makes Mudhoney so readily identifiable. To me, anyhow.

I'd also like to add that the Ogden seemed to be more than amply stocked with rock sluts this night. Way more so than usual. By the way, you're probably wondering where the fuck the photos of Mudhoney are. Well, the Ogden has thugs at the door that frisk you and don't let you bring cameras and stuff in there.

Also, I think you owe it to yourself and your family to get your shop on at the new Dan Engler-designed WantageUSA page at:
here

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Album of the Week:

Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad

This is a book, not an album, just in case there was any confusion. I pretty much devour any volumes on the topic of indie or punk rock that I can get my hands one regardless of their integrity or quality. Because I know that, no matter how shitty the book is, there is a nonzero chance of me learning something I didn't already know about my cherished -ahem- indie rock bands of the 80s. To me, there was no more fecund time frame in the history of music than the period 1981-1994.

So when I saw this book at my local Bordersâ„¢, I knew that I was gonna buy it no matter what. But I saw the author was Michael Azerrad, whom I know to be the author of several books on such heady subjects as The Year Punk Broke and various Kurt Cobain tell-all biographies and so forth. So I expected this book to be on the pappy side. Even so, the cover indicates that there are chapters on bands such as Minutemen (I dig them, you may have heard), Black Flag, Husker Du (you get the scoop on Greg Norton's handlebar mustache!), Dinosaur Jr, Mudhoney, Minor Threat, and Sonic Youth &emdash;all bands that I'm pretty much ga-ga over. And chapters on bands I'm not too concerned with, such as Mission of Burma and Beat Happening.

Now be forewarned that this book doesn't really forge any new trails. No real insight is gained; it's pretty much straight factual and anecdotal information. But Mikey Azerrad very obviously did a lot of legwork on this, traveling all over this great land of ours to interview Mike Watt, Ian MacKaye, members of Black Flag and Dinosaur Jr, among many others. And mind you, I fancy myself a veritable encyclopedia of 80s indie rock trivia, but there was plenty for me to munch on in this book.

The best chapter for my money was the one on Dinosaur Jr. I'd known that there was enmity betwixt J Mascis and bassist Lou Barlow from the get-go, but I had no idea the degree to which they despised one another! There's one anecdote about how Lou hated being under J Mascis' thumb so much that he would start playing intentionally horrible wrong notes at shows, and I guess J pretty much attacked him with his guitar, swinging it at Lou like a (what's that medieval weapon with the spikey ball attached to a chain? Is it a mace?) mace, and Lou using his bass as a foil.

Oh, and there was another part of the Dinosaur Jr story that had me giggling uncontrollably for almost half an hour. Allow me to quote directly from the book:

"...Barlow had his own irritating quirks. 'I would put things in my mouth,' he says, 'just random things, and chew on them.' This led to the famous Cookie Monster episode. Mascis says, 'I bought this Cookie Monster doll on the tour and I looked in the van once and Lou was there sucking on its eyeball. Something about that disturbed me to my core. I couldn't handle it. I had to throw the thing out. It was weird.'"

Fuck, I read that at about two in the morning and just about shit myself from laughing so hard. Oh, here's another funny quote from the Black Flag chapter. Henry Rollins is talking about the communal squalor in which Black Flag existed:

"That's not the way I was raised. I was raised with clean white underwear, three square meals, a bed with Charlie Brown blankets..."

And then a really disturbing Mike Watt anecdote, one that I'd read about before about the Minutemen's 1985 tour with REM:

"No doubt about it, it was a tough tour. In Florida Watt got food poisoning and suffered from chronic diarrhea for days afterward. 'It got useless to keep changing my pants,' Watt says, 'so I tied a shirt around my waist and rags around the bottoms of my pant legs and just said fuck it. After three days my pants were full to the knees...'

Oh, goodness.

The Butthole Surfers and Replacements chapters had some major shockers in them as well. Something about Gibby from the BH Surfers touching his penis to a suitcase belonging to Jimmy Carter's daughter. And to think, he was named Accounting Student of the Year during his time at Trinity University!

I gotta say I was a bit disappointed with the Mudhoney section. It was more like a history of SubPop than anything, and that's interesting and all, but I think we've all heard the story before.

Here's a fun game if you're bored. Whenever you're reading an article about J Mascis or Dinosaur Jr, see how long it takes before the writer uses the word "laconic." I don't think there exists a single article on the subject that doesn't use that word. It gets used twice in the Dinosaur Jr chapter of this book! Though 'tis true, there is probably no better word to describe J Mascis.

I haven't bothered reading the Beat Happening or Mission of Burma sections yet. I never really liked Beat Happening (and when I saw them live it turned me off even more), and I can't say I've ever heard a single Mission of Burma song. Does anyone out there dig on them? I always thought they were a UK band...

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