1998: 2 years before we're all dead
So I am back once again with another year-end recap of everything that
happened in the 12 months known to the "commoners" as 1998. And, sorta
similar to last year's spectacle, I'm not going to break things up into
numerous categories like I did in the inaugaral '96 outing. I simply can't
find a way to kill that much time and take up that much space. So I'll
just break up this page into several topics and we'll expand from there.
I'm so glad that you like this idea, too.
Myself
You know, quite a bit happened for me in this year. I had a couple of
Sunday Specials that turned out okay, I travelled outside of the
Mason-Dixon line for the first time ever, and (oh yeah) I graduated from
Georgia Tech back in September with my degree in Industrial Engineering.
Right now I'm in the job hunt, and if you're reading this and you have a
space open in anything, let me know! Please, I beg of you!! But enough
about that. There were a couple of strange things that went on this year,
of which I won't really go into right here, but I can think of a lot of
good things that happened as well. These may not be so revelatory, but
they're just the nice things that see you through. The best memory I can
think of really is going out for my 22nd birthday with 3 of my closest
friends at Alfredo's, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I get very uncomfortable
when people mention it's my birthday to others, but I was having such a
good time and the people who worked there were likable so it made things
that much better and sillier when they came out to sing to me. And then
when we left, a guy congratulated me, which I thought was interesting,
like I'd done something worthy to be thanked by others. There's a couple
of other times that I remember fondly, like going to Cinefest to the Jan
Svankfduej2383ljfdskjde@?## animation festival and then heading to the
Stein Club afterward with a big party of people, seeing the Picasso,
Toulouse-Latrec, and pop art exhibits at the High Museum (where I finally
became a member), driving to Athens to visit Holli while it's cold and
getting dark outside while listening to old folk music to enhance the
feel, taking Anthony to Alabama for a day and swimming, writing a hurried
piece for my dear friend Amber for her new zine, and of course being
called a member of a "sucky hair band" by an irate person in Creative
Loafing. Ah, those were the days. Just to do something for my own sake,
these are people who made 1998 a good time for me (in no order, of
course): the Go-Lats, the 454 N Highland crew whoever you are, the Glenn
Gang, the Australian collective of Amber and Richard (who I've never
written to but I have to say that he's very good with designing
envelopes!), Holli Estile (the only good person to ever come out of Mt.
Vernon), Sunday Special conspirators Anthony (Stacy, as well) and Ben and
Marshall, people who have been nice enough to write me after seeing my
page, and my dog. That's about it. If you're not on this list, well you
just didn't try hard enough. You have one more year to redeem
yourselves.
Music
What can I say about music this year? Well, as for 1998 music I was highly
disappointed with what I heard. Normally at the end of the year I make mix
tapes of my favorite stuff from the past year, but I had precious few
albums from this year, and even then I wasn't totally crazy about
everything. This may be my fault, and I'm sure there was a lot of good
stuff out, but it just went by me. Albums I loved included Cat Power's
Moon Pix, Belle and Sebastian's The Boy With The Arab Strap,
and Suckdog's Onward Suckdog Soldiers. That's really about it. Of
course, I still bought a lot of music, it's just that it was all older
stuff. Albums this year that I really appreciated include Joni Mitchell's
Blue, Can's Ege Bamyasi, Neu!, the Soft Machine's first 3
albums, the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo, the Beach Boys box set,
the Charles Mingus box set Passions of a Man, the Anthology of
American Folk Music box set, the Nuggets box set, Prince's
Dirty Mind, several Nico reissues, Syd Barrett's couple of albums,
Nick Drake's Pink Moon, and the list goes on. I don't really
specialize in one given area, but I think there's too much out there
that's great to just shut myself off in one area. And I listened to more
old albums that could be construed as "classic rock", which was really
suprising to me. When I was getting heavy into music back in junior high,
I listened to a lot of music that everyone's exposed to. And then when I
got interested in college and underground music, I shoved all of that
aside, particularly once I started college and saw 10 billion people
jamming to Led Zeppelin all day. It infuriated me, and I distanced myself
from it heavily. But now that the time has past, and I've listened to a
lot of music, I'm able to go back and appreciate some of the stuff. I
guess I always heard that people did that, and of course just because
something is famous does not mean it's awful. So I reacquainted myself
with some artists that I used to look up to, like the Beatles and Bob
Dylan and Creedence Clearwater Revival. It may not be obscure, but I
appreciate it just the same.
One thing I didn't appreciate, though, is the local scene. It seems like
Atlanta just doesn't have much going for it right now, and it upsets me. I
can think of 2 local albums I bought this year, and I was only crazy about
1: the self-titled debut of Macha. And that's on a national label, so they
may not be solely local for long. I have heard about a couple of new bands
who sound interesting, but I haven't checked them out yet. And I know that
I may just be someone who's out of it (I can't remember the last time I
tuned into the Georgia Music Show), so I should probably try to assert
myself. But from what I've read and what I've occasionally heard or seen
in the clubs, all evidence points to the contrary.
And shows this year were good for the most part, a couple of outstanding
events at the end of the year but for the most part expendable. I went out
quite a lot, but I was never really moved by anyone but a choice few. Good
shows I saw this year included the Kronos Quartet at Spivey Hall, Marc
Ribot and Smoke at the Variety Playhouse, Cat Power at the Echo Lounge,
Crispin Glover at the Variety (which wasn't music but still), Polvo at
their last Atlanta show at the Point (a shame, because they rocked),
Belle and Sebastian at the 40 Watt Club, and Bill Taft and the Shaking Ray
Levis at the Star Bar. Local shows that I dug were seeing Grace Braun and
Dugan Trodglen at the Eyedrum, and the Gold Sparkle Band's farewell at the
Silver Ceiling. A couple of comments on several of the previous
things.
Clubs seem to be looking up in the city. Forever frustrated with the Point
but going because they simply get good shows, I was glad to see some
upstarts around town. First was the Eyedrum on Trinity, which is basically
the rebirth of the Silver Ceiling. The Old Gold guys do it, so you know
it's interesting, and the environment there is great, a nice space with a
downstairs area with cheap drinks, and of course intriguing performers.
The one drawback is that it's fairly easy to get an obscured view of the
"stage" (there really isn't one), but it seems like they've tried to
improve it from the numerous times I've been there. It's a great addition
to the city, and the fact that it doubles as a gallery makes it even
better. The other big thing to spring about is the new Echo Lounge in East
Atlanta. For the actual space, it's okay with me, nothing grand but it's
not bad. It's very loud there, from the 2 shows I've seen (although the
second show might not have been so loud if I hadn't been standing by the
speaker). But the acts booked there are good, so maybe we'll be getting
some more bands to hit this accursed town that normally wouldn't get
booked elsewhere. Although I'm sad to say that I heard the Barbara Manning
show only got about 3 people, but it was brand new at that point with
little advertising.
But even though we got some new clubs, it still didn't stop quite a few of
my favorite local musicians from packing up and getting the hell out of
town. Broken-up bands this year include the Gold Sparkle Band, Flap, San
Agustin, William Carlos Williams, and at least a few others that don't
immediately come to my head. Basically, most of the good established bands
hit the road. And I'll miss them, but I hope that other cities will be
more appreciative of them than this one was. Of course, we still have
Seely, Pineal Ventana, and a few others around town to rely on.
But as for the best shows of the year, I would have to give them to 3
bands who played here at the end of the year who just totally floored me.
The first was Godspeed, You Black Emperor!, who opened for Low on October
3. Holli and I went to this (because it was Low, y'see), and while we had
heard of the group we didn't know what they were really like. Suffice it
to say that we were both blown away. Granted, their formula is fairly
easy: start off slow with stringed instruments and maybe guitar, keep one
riff going and develop it a little further making it into a scary wall of
sound until everything is really loud and at that point bring the two
drummers in and then proceed to tear the roof off of the place. It worked.
And Low was good, but they were the total opposite of what we had just
heard and I left that show just thinking about how great GYBE was. Sadly,
I saw that they had no place to stay, and if I had still been living at
Georgia Tech at the time, I would have offered them to stay with me. Oh
well, I hope they'll return. The second great show was seeing Melt Banana
in Athens at the High Hat. I was rather surprised to hear that they were
playing what I considered to be a blues club, so I knew I had to check it
out. We got there, got up front with several friends, and then saw the
group just rock the hell out of everybody. They're such fun, that I don't
see how anybody couldn't have a good time. I mean, Holli dislikes a lot of
aggressive music, but she enjoys seeing them as much as I do! Plus, they
did the best "Surfin' USA" cover I've heard. Finally, the last astounding
show was Hovercraft at the Point Nov 13. I had never seen them before, but
I'd heard the records and to be honest I've never dug their albums. But
their show was enough to make me want to buy everything they've done. From
their video show impeccably timed to the sheer ferocity that they played,
I could only utter "OH--MY--GOD" as soon as the set was over. It brings
the idea of "movie music" to a whole new level. Those 3 shows alone proved
1998 worthy of existence.
So that's really my musical thoughts. Good stuff happened, and it's always
fun to learn from past history, but nonetheless I hope next year is much
better or else we're all in trouble.
Comics and Books
I decided to also talk about other forms of writing in this section, since
yet again I had a dismal year with regards to comics. I feel like I'm
writing about the end of my quests, because it seems that each year I
write more about how I'm out of touch with this or that. And I'm only 22!
I guess I just need to look harder. To be honest, I was disinterested with
comics for quite a while this year. I hardly ever read them, and I mainly
stuck with the "dependable" titles like ones from Fantagraphics and Drawn
& Quarterly without delving deeper. Yes, I know this is a problem, but
it's one that I'm trying to fix. The year's brightest moment in comics to
me wasn't even a comic, but instead the 200th issue of the Comics Journal.
In addition to the great articles written about great stories in the past,
there were huge interviews with Charles Schulz and Chris Ware that made me
part with my $12.95 with no problem. But now that I start thinking about
it, there were some great comics that came out, namely Eightball #19. Of
course everybody loves Clowes, but to be honest I thought his last several
issues weren't as great as his previous stuff, with everything dwindling
slightly from the great 15th issue. While I liked Ghost World, it seemed
time to give it a rest, and he did. And #19's story was absolutely great,
showcasing everything I like about Clowes. There was humor, introspection,
surrealism, the works. It's the only comic that I've ever forced someone
else to buy (Holli was my poor victim), just because I thought that more
people needed to read this story. And towards the end of the year when I
was getting burned out with buying record after record, I decided to try
out the cheaper alternative of comics. I learned that I dug Richard Sala's
Evil Eye, and I found a (gasp) non-major-indie comic that I found
interesting in Jack's Luck Runs Out, which caught my eye since the
main story dealt (no pun intended) with people with card faces. A clever
concept, and it helped the story seem more ridiculous as it went along. To
comment on the old standbys, Palookaville is going slower than usual. I
love Seth, but I can't even remember what that story's about right now.
Optic Nerve's last issue was okay, but in my eyes that's currently
dwindling from the sublime issue 3. Maybe Tomine will be like his idol
Clowes and knock me out with his next one. Dirty Plotte continues to be a
favorite of mine, and I found Julie's recent issue to be really funny,
closing her great story of NY life and throwing in good absurdism in the
rest of the issue. Hate's now at an end, and in my opinion it could have
happened a little earlier to better effect. Considering the thing I liked
most about it was its new anthology approach, I hope Bagge continues on
his ideas to establish a new Weirdo-type comic. And the Hate Jamboree was
a really good read, seeing as how I'd rather just read about Pete through
autobiography instead of through Buddy Bradley. Peepshow got one more
issue out (I'm guessing the last we'll see this millenium), returning to
the present day but not really doing much with it. I guess any appearance
by Joe is a good one, but this one didn't have much substance to it
(unless you didn't know that he and Seth constantly annoy each other and
that he enjoys pornography). Schizo, previous recipient of the "no more
issues this millenium" award, actually forfeited its trophy with a new
issue, which I enjoyed. As opposed to some of the aforementioned comix
kids who continue to stay nice n' predictable, Brunetti offered a change
of sorts. Sure, he still hates everything with a passion, but this time he
actually tried to write a story about showing up at work, which showed him
mingling in real life (supposedly) in an unprecedented fashion. And of
course, the back page strips were amusing, as always. Crumb didn't have
anything new come out, but I picked up the Crumb Family Comics tpb and
adored it. This seems to be a companion piece to the movie from a few
years ago (wonder why it's coming out just now), and has work from
everyone in the whole freakin' family. Wow, Sophie's stuff is great! And
finally, I bought my first Marvel purchase in who-the-hell knows how long
with the tpb collecting the first 20 issues of the Fantastic Four. For
once, they are doing something right for a change! I love the insanity in
the cold-war writing, and while I might appreciate Kirby's work more if I
was an artist, I still like looking at his stuff. Who knew that David
Bowie had the Sub-Mariner as an ancestor? So to sum up, I guess some good
stuff did come out this year, but I hope to get more of a flavor of new
stuff in '99. Unfortunately, comics seem to be getting harder to find due
to the undeniable ebb that's happened in the biz-ness. Oh well, it doesn't
hurt to hope!
And when I talk about books, I'm not talking about current things. I just
mean books I happened to read this year, regardless of when they came out.
I immersed myself in all sorts of great books in the past year, among them
Pamela Des Barres' great I'm With The Band: Confessions of a Rock
Groupie, Geek Love which I had had recommended to me by too
many people for too long (and with good reason), Helter Skelter,
and so on and so on. Frankly, I don't really know why I'm writing this,
like this is going to appeal to others. Okay, I'll stop it.
Movies
I went to the movies considerably more than I did in '97, which was
definitely a good thing. I saw stuff at the dollar theaters as well as the
normal run places and even a few special showings. Considering I made no
lists (I became less anal retentive in '98), it's hard to think of things
off hand, but here are some high endorsements. For films released this
year, I would have to say my 2 favorite movies were The Opposite of
Sex and Happiness. I guess this shows that I'm a big fan of
black comedies, and I thought the acting in all was great. And I hate
anybody normally associated with Friends, so you know that has to
be a compliment. Other good movies I saw (regardless of their release
date) were (with no italics since that would be too much): There's
Something About Mary (the return of Chris Elliott!!! And much
better than Kingpin), The Night of the Hunter (also night of the exploding
beer cans while trying to remain inconspicuous at Cinefest), Buffalo 66, A
Clockwork Orange and The Shining (seen at Phipps during Warner's 75th
anniversary; a great experience marred only by Godzilla yelling through
the wall nextdoor in his opening weekend and the seats which made my butt
hurt), Metropolis and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (both silents shown at
Cinefest with Flap doing instrumentation for the former and Pineal Ventana
for the latter), Touch Of Evil, Pi, Pecker, and probably some others that
I can't recall. I didn't really see anything this year that I hated, which
was a good thing. I thought some of American History X was flawed, but
Edward Norton did such a good performance that I'm willing to overlook it.
And I wasn't very fond of Kurt & Courtney for several reasons, but I went
into the movie in a bad mood so I don't know how much of it can be
attributed to that. I guess (and this is just my opinion, seeing as how
everyone I know loved it) that the director didn't put together a very
cohesive movie. To me, it didn't sound like objective work, but rather the
story of a guy who couldn't put together a truly revealing documentary
(Courtney Love is a manipulative person? Ooh, that's a new one) so instead
he just decided to slag her as much as he could. I was called a Courtney
sympathizer for this opinion (to which I have to say that I don't care for
her at all; I used to like her music prior to Live Through This,
then I felt sorry for her for a little while, but it sooned turned to
disinterest), but it just seemed to me that the movie seemed to promise to
reveal hidden stories, when all it did was just tell me stuff I already
knew. On top of that, the director backed this stagnancy with a vindictive
toward Courtney that couldn't help but make her sound more villainous
(like she needs help with that). But it didn't bother me to the point to
say something like it's the worst film of the year. So I guess that 1998
was a good time for Atlanta and films, and I hope 1999 promises more. Show
more old movies!!!
The inevitable conclusion
So there you have it. Of course you can't really condense one year into a
short writing, but that's generally my impressions of the past 365 days. I
hope this reading hasn't bored you too much, and if you have any comments
on what I wrote or any recommendations on things I may have missed, feel
free to write me and let me know. But for now, I have some '99ing to
do!
Finished January 11, 1999 by (who else?)Scott Watkins.