Justin Pierre: My Favorite Minnesotan

Music, rock music in particular, is one of the few art forms I have a great passion for as a consumer but not as a creator.  I’ve written comics and short stories, directed and performed in my material on stage, and even made some short films but I’ve never been in a band.  The closest I’ve come is performing in musicals, singing songs I didn’t much care for.  The exception was 1776 but I couldn’t even hit my harmony part in “The Egg”.

There are several bands and performers I’ve put on a pedestal starting in high school (Public Enemy, REM, They Might Be Giants, Social Distortion) to college (The Beatles, Green Day, Elvis Costello, The Ramones, The Replacements) and into adulthood (The White Stripes, Ben Folds, Chuck Berry).  I could keep going but once I start lists, it’s hard to stop.

Since late 2008, I’ve been laid off, looking for work, starting my own sales business supporting three clients, getting up to speed as an independent recruiter (with my old client as a partner), continuing to work on being a writer when I grow up, and maintaining the dad/husband thing.

While music has always been important to me, those experiences made it vital to my being.  It’s always playing when I’m working (and not on the phone).  I listed some all-time greats above but there’s an artist I’ve listened to more than any of them in the last four years: Justin Pierre.  Justin is best known as the lead singer and songwriter of Motion City Soundtrack.  He’s also in the band Farewell Continental and is recording with a third, The Company We Keep, right now.  I think he’s trying to beat Jack White in the “How Many Bands Can I Be In?” contest.

I discovered Motion City Soundtrack by accident.  I was flipping through On Demand music videos on my TV and misread their name as “Motor City Soundtrack”.  I hit play thinking they must be a new Detroit group (they’re from Minneapolis).  The song was “LGFUAD”.  The reason the name is spelled in letters is because the “F” stands for a word you can probably guess.

I’m glad I discovered that song first because it’s a good example of the tightrope Pierre walks in his best songs.  This is how it opens:
Let’s get fucked up and die!
I’m speaking figuratively of course.
Like the last time that I committed suicide.
Social suicide. 

I love how he starts with two over-dramatic statements then backs off them right away.  The song is all about insecurity and not being able to find your footing in life.  I’ve been there and remember all-too-well bluffing with fake bravado (“I’m a crazy rebel, but not really”).  Frankly, that’s what most of the songs on that album, Commit This To Memory, are about.  That’s not an uncovered area in popular music, especially during the pop-punk years MCS came up in.  A lot of the post-Green Day bands sang about misery or being screwed up because that’s the template they were filling.  The difference here is Justin seems to be expressing his actual feelings.  There’s an air of authenticity to MCS music missing in many of their peers.

I should also mention, in deference to the entire band, that the music itself is more ambitious too.  Tony Thaxton is a great drummer and very popular with my four-year-old musician-in-training, Evan.  When we got him a little drum set for his birthday, he made sure he was playing with his arms crossed, just like Tony on his YouTube videos.

Motion City Soundtrack has released four albums and their last one, My Dinosaur Life, came out in 2010.  It’s their best and I think it was well-timed with how I felt at the time.  That’s not to say I was going through the exact things the songs describe.  While they cover topics such as devastating splits (“Her Words Destroyed My Planet”), substance abuse (“Delirium”), and being afraid of intimacy (“Stand Too Close”), I had been through heavy self-doubt and the realization I’d spent the last year way too angry.  His experiences are more extreme than mine but the feelings come from the same place.

I hope that doesn’t sound depressing because one of Justin’s saving graces is that his lyrics don’t wallow in their own misery.  He’s not in love with being unhappy (I’m looking at you, Morrissey).  In fact, My Dinosaur Life gives you a sense of someone working for something better, especially the song A Lifeless Ordinary.  That’s why I connected with it as strong as I did.

I think the band is often dismissed by people my age (and, ironically, Justin’s age) as just another pop-punk group.  Their loss.  I’ve heard people complain that we don’t get many albums like Weezer’s Pinkerton anymore but here’s a band working at that level now, especially compared to what Weezer’s done since.

Last year, Justin’s other band, Farewell Continental, released their first full-length album, Hey, Hey Pioneers.  While not a confessional album like My Dinosaur Life, it’s grade-A stuff.  I wrote a review for it last year.  I’m looking forward to hearing what he does with The Company We Keep.  The group’s female lead singer is a Detroiter, so it does come full circle.

As I’ve headed into my mid-thirties (which is what I consider thirty-six and I won’t say late-thirties until I’m thirty-nine and a half), I don’t feel the same level of hero-worship I used to for writers, directors, and musicians.  I am very appreciative to Justin Pierre, though, for giving some crazy years a solid soundtrack.

Before Watchmen: The Year’s Biggest Non-Event

If you heard a popping sound  this week, chances are it was the sound of geeky heads exploding over DC Comics’ announcement of their Watchmen prequels, all printed under the banner Before Watchmen.

For those of you outside the comics community, who may know of Watchmen because it’s one of the few series to escape into the non-comics world, this is the equivalent of someone making a sequel to Citizen Kane.  Watchmen is our sacred cow and not just because it’s one of the greatest graphic novels of all time (it is).  What makes Watchmen special is because it was instrumental in pushing the boundaries of what superhero comics could be.  There was nothing like it before its debut and creators have killed themselves to make something like it since.

Alan Moore (the writer) is angry about this.  Alan Moore is always angry but it’s worse when he has a reason.  Dave Gibbons (the artist) gave a weak statement of support with a clear “I really wish you wouldn’t have done this” subtext.

The biggest surprise is the talent they lined up for them.  Two, Brian Azzarello and Darwyn Cooke, are favorites of mine.  Their inclusion gave pause to what would’ve otherwise been an immediate feeling of disgust.  Since then, I’ve read several opinions, pro and con, and have a clear feeling on the subject.

When it comes to the books themselves, I’m indifferent.  It doesn’t matter who is working on them.  Watchmen is a complete work and I have no interest in digging further into its back story.  I don’t mean this to reflect poorly on the talent.  If Darwyn Cooke he has a story to tell about The Minutemen, who am I to tell him he can’t?  Just don’t expect me to buy it.

Here’s what irritates me:

“It’s our responsibility as publishers to find new ways to keep all of our characters relevant,” said DC Entertainment Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee. “After twenty five years, the Watchmen are classic characters whose time has come for new stories to be told. We sought out the best writers and artists in the industry to build on the complex mythology of the original.”

Really?  Hey Dan and Jim, Rorschach isn’t Superman.  He’s not an open-ended character without a complete story who gets reinterpreted over multiple generations to keep him relevant.  We know everything important about him.  His story has a beginning, middle, and end.  He’s a complete creation.  You don’t need to “keep him relevant”, just visible. You’ve done that.  You’ve sold a lot of Watchmen books in the last five years and he’s so interesting people went to the movies to see a so-so interpretation of him.

You know what, though?  I shouldn’t be arguing with their statement.  Why?  Because it’s BS.  Anyone with a brain in their head knows this isn’t the result of a creative impulse.  DC has a bankable property, they don’t need its creators’ permission to use it, and they’re confident they can finally get away with doing this.

I don’t know Brian Azzarello (which might be good because I’d probably annoy the hell out of him) but I have enough respect for him to assume he’s doing this out of a true creative impulse.  But his book wouldn’t be happening at all if not for DC’s desire for a cash grab.

I’m not against said cash grab for moral purposes.  Moore feels DC screwed him on Watchmen and he may be right.  I know they’re not keen on him either.  I’m not interested in reffing a fight between an increasingly bitter man and a bottom-line minded company, even if the man is my favorite writer in any medium.  These things are murkier than many want to acknowledge.

What I’m irritated by is that DC has a lot of momentum right now and a rare chance to grab readers’ attention for almost any project.  They can put great writers and artists to work creating this generation’s Watchmen.  Instead they’re wringing everything they can out of the original.  It runs counter to what they were doing in 1986, when they opened up the potential for sophisticated artistic expression in mainstream comics.

Don’t get me wrong.  I read a lot of DC Comics.  I’m a defender of the New 52 initiative, if not all the individual books.  That’s why I’m so disappointed to see them drop the ball on the follow through.

I won’t be buying these books.  They may turn out to be solid reads but I don’t like what they represent.  I also won’t spend any more time writing or arguing about it online.  Ignoring them is the best way to insure they fade away.  The only exception is if you’re at a book store and you see someone checking out the Watchmen books on the shelf.  We have a responsibility to make sure they know which one is the real thing.