I spotted the following meme on the subject of comic books over at SamuraiFrog‘s last night and thought it’d be fun to do it today, in honor of Free Comic Book Day. If you’re unaware of it, Free Comic Book Day is held annually on the first Saturday in May, and it’s exactly what the name suggests: Participating comic shops nationwide give away free comics to anyone who sets foot through the door. The idea is to try and draw new readers — and customers — into the somewhat insular world of this hobby that, quite honestly and sadly, is in decline.
Unfortunately, I ran out of time before I had to leave the house for the day, and the moment of maximum relevance has now passed. That’s pretty typical for me anymore, I’m afraid. Always a day late and a dollar short. I’m going to do the meme anyhow, though. Hope nobody minds.
For the record, I am really just a dilettante in the world of comics. I’ve been lurking around the fringes of this particular scene off and on for years, and I enjoy reading the form, but I’ve never gotten into full-bore into the hobby. Much of my knowledge of the important characters and stories comes not from the primary source material, the comics themselves, but from the movies and cartoons based upon them, and from occasional research when something comes up in conversation.
Just so y’all know where I’m coming from…
Friday evening, Saturday morning… it’s all the same for some of us, right?
Anyhow, I received some feedback earlier this week about our musical feature here: Loyal Reader Keith expressed some dissatisfaction with the songs I’ve been choosing for Friday Evening Videos. He lamented the fact that, despite our long years of friendship, he’s never been able to drag me over to the dark side — his words, not mine — of post-New Wave/alternative music.
This is an old, old rivalry between us. The battle lines between rockers and Wavers were drawn by forces larger than ourselves way back in high school — maybe even middle school — and I picked my tribe very early. I was a rocker. Not a metal head, mind you — that’s a whole other kettle of guitar picks — but I always identified far more with the earthy, long-haired fellows in the leather and acid-washed jeans than the twee weirdos who played that bloodless synthesizer crap. At least, that’s how I thought of things back in the day.
The irony, of course, is that most of my friends and girlfriends — including Keith and The Girlfriend — were Wavers. The universe can be truly perverse at times.
In any event, I’ve come in recent years to appreciate (or at least tolerate) a lot more alternative music than Keith probably realizes; hell, I took Anne to see Depeche Mode last year, the very epitome of everything I always disliked about New Wave synth bands, and I even had a reasonably good time. My mulleted 17-year-old self would be stunned to hear that, I’m sure. But the fact is, the label “alternative” covers a pretty broad spectrum, and I started realizing at some point that it wasn’t all bad, and that I’d actually liked a fair amount of it all along, even back in my militant teen years. Without realizing it, of course. I mean, they played The Cars on Rock 103, so that made them okay, right?
If I could trace this awakening to any one song or event, I think it would probably be learning a few years ago that Stuart Adamson, the lead singer of the band Big Country, had died in an apparent suicide. Not that I was ever a fan of Big Country back in the day; if I was aware of them at all in the ’80s — and I don’t think I was — I would’ve sneeringly dismissed them simply because the radio stations on which they were played were not my stations, i.e., the rock stations. But a funny thing happened as I was perusing the online tributes to Adamson: They all referenced Big Country’s hit single “In a Big Country,” and when, purely out of curiosity, I tracked down this song, it turned out that I liked it. I liked it a lot. It wasn’t sung in that weirdly passionless style that so many British imports of the ’80s had, and which I’ve always found so off-putting. The orchestration was sweeping and dramatic, the chorus was catchy. And what was that? Was there a guitar in there? I was, quite frankly, surprised by this song:
(Apologies for the crappy video quality; this was the best version I could find.)
“In a Big Country” caused me to re-evaluate a few things about music and what was cool. As I told Keith, I don’t think I’ll ever love alternative music the way I do the more traditional varieties of rock and roll — too much of it simply fails to resonate with me either emotionally or viscerally — but I’m hopefully a little smarter now about what I’m willing to sample, and what I’m willing to let myself enjoy.
Keith, I’m not dismissing your list of suggestions; I’ll see if I can work in some of the things you mentioned in the coming weeks.
