Words by Peter Tanski
Peter Tanski grew up in the small but thriving Wilkes-Barre/Scranton area, fronting several bands and founding the music and literary fanzine, Exmortus. After a brief stint living in Manhattan’s Lower East Side and writing for Legends Magazine, he returned to Pennsylvania where he began to work with web based music site NEPA Rocks. He currently fronts the melodic hardcore/punk band, Heart Out and hosts The Book of Very Very Bad Things PodZine.
“When I found you, you were pursuing a career as a cage fighter. A warm capper to a life as an assassin. Hooked on barbiturates. You were an animal. But we took you in. I gave you a family,” – Professor X to Wolverine from the film, Logan.
As the strains of “Tangk” (Partisan Records), the most recent strike from the agitprop punkers, Idles, ramps up in my monitors, I am struck by how symphonic and strangely “Pop” this album is, standing in stark contrast to its previous work. There is something strangely timeless about these songs, as if they could have easily existed in my early 1990’s heyday, juxtaposed between Void, The Pixies, The Cult, and Depeche Mode. The simple notion of ubiquity in the arena of the sonic statement stirs in the fore of my mind and I’m struck by the notion that music simply isn’t as all encompassing for all human animals.
The arts can often be painfully subjective. Simply put, not everyone enjoys paintings, sketches, poetry, the written word. Yet, somehow, everyone has a favorite band, favorite album, or at the very least a favorite song. I’ve legitimately only come across one individual in my entire life that did not like any music to speak of, and that person was a confirmed sociopath.
While engaging in conversation with Dan from the classic Midwestern Emo band Broken Hearts Are Blue, this very statement came up in the context of our interplay. In truth, I’d not thought of the individual in question for over a decade, but he had no favorite song, band, album… and this guy was as primed for the underground music scene as anyone I’d met. He was bright, awkward, bespectacled, and the victim of his parents unsteady hands with clippers, scissor, and salad bowl.
The Boy (his name for the remainder of this article), my childhood friend Kenny, and myself pitched a tent in Kenny’s back yard for a night of prepubescent tomfoolery. Awaiting the dimming of the lights via Kenny’s parents, this unlikely trio set out into the forest behind all of our homes on Grove Street, Avoca, Pennsylvania. Being of tender age and unsullied minds, we imagined enemies of all sort to vanquish in the murk of the woods under cold, blue moonlight. This was where and when my suspicions about The Boy deepened. His primary interests were X-Men and New Mutants comic books, and his encyclopedic knowledge intrigued me. I goaded him on, mining his limitless familiarity with the gods of cape and cowl. You see, having grown up in a home with a parent that suffered a mental health malady, I’d known the guideposts to O.C.D. and B.P.D., and this poor kid was checking all of the boxes.
The young man, for all of his massive intellect and literacy, balked at the notions of music’s inherent merit. He was unbending, non-malleable. The conversation was either in his wheelhouse, or not had. After that uncomfortable exchange, I bid my farewell and slunk into the cold comfort of my childhood bedroom, headphones, LPs and local band’s demos that I would later go on to make mixtapes of for the individual at the heart of this story. Each and every cassette littered with classic Thrash, Industrial, Goth, Punk, Deathrock, and Hardcore act of the late 1980’s to early 90’s. At an impasse, I’d even made an attempt to expose him to the wealth of Hip Hop brewing in that era, from pop-rap and New Jack Swing to Conscious and Pro-Black artists, all to no avail. He was stone, and it infuriated me!
As our hormones and hearts coursed with burgeoning manhood, he drifted from my periphery, not to be seen or heard from again until the Catholic High School he’d attended saw fit to part ways with him. His outsider “otherness” had only deepened in the intervening years. Appearing mid-way through our Sophomore year, he was a born target, being simultaneously “new”, strange, bespectacled and gangly. I, of course, extended my hand, even offering him the demo my band had recently completed. It was the day after I’d given said gift when “The Mutant Incident” had taken place.
The Boy arrived at Phys Ed 3 minutes after the bell, slinking through the glass double doors into the gymnasium. Unprepared for the occasion, he conferred with our PE Instructor and commenced to the bleachers, where he sat with his copy of X-Men and his Jansport backpack. As I approached him from across the Gym, the ladies soccer team captain (and good friend of mine) yelled to him “Hey (omitted), I have a pair of shorts for you! Let us see those glow in the dark legs!” Not the most kind how-do-you-do, but she was no bully. Her intent was to involve him and break his somber countenance. As she grew near, his eyes appeared to go black. Truly. Black.
Changing his normally meek voice to sound deep, raspy, and robotic, he puled a number 2 pencil from his khakis and thrust it into her shoulder “Stupid human!”. He pulled back and thrust it again, punctuating every motion with the nonsense word “Ka! Ka! Ka!”. He must have stabbed her 5 times before the initial shock faded and she threw a right cross into his temple and knocked him cleanly out.
What was It? Why didn’t he find the comfort and outlet in those songs that I’d offered? What would move him today? Chelsea Wolfe has perfected a melange of dark industrial, post-metal, and doom laden feminine power with “She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She” (Loma Vista) a perfect outlet for helplessness and angst. For a taste of something a bit more maudlin and gothic, Projector’s maiden long player, “Now When we Talk It’s Violence” (self-released) fuses the the sounds of the early oughts Post-Punk revival ala Franz Ferdinand and Interpol with classicist Goth Rock to mighty ends. San Diego Hardcore Punk legend Justin Pearson and producer Luke Henshaw have crafted yet another startling, challenging electronic freak out masterpiece with Planet B‘s “Fiction Prediction” (Three One G). Dez and company have delivered on the promise of Lesser Care’s first record with the the “Face Turn” E.P., a 5 song primer for the forthcoming “Face Turn” (self-released), a tour de force of existential human dread, deep romantic longing, fear, and redemption. With help from Soft Kill’s Tobias Grave, a cast of co-conspirators including the mercenary ear of producer Odom and the much sought after Will Yip, and song craft so meticulous and deliberate, I’d be stunned by a response anything south of total devotion… but would he listen?
To that young man, who is now the Northeastern regional manager of an office supply conglomerate, I bid peace in mind and contentment in spirit. May the past that has seen fit to eject you from no less than two high schools, social ostracism, and solitude, remain in the past. And my good God, may you have found the simple, exquisite solace in song.