A look at the sendoff album and the artists who thankfully denied us an encore:

Smart is the aging, wizened rocker who knows when to call it a day and surrender those glorious things of youth. After all, even the best of them can only take their initial inspiration and motivation- usually unrequited lust- so far before there’s not much to do but embarrass themselves, and their fans, by trying to squeeze their middle age into the rock n’ roll costume du jour. Or, worse, they could keep churning through their old hits, recycling hooks, revisiting all those shining nuggets of former glory and being a one- note revival of themself. Either way, you’re another casualty in the mess of misguided comebacks and painfully protracted careers, all clogging up that cult of youth we call Rock N’ Roll. Sometimes, old man, you don’t have sense enough to die on your own and we’re just itching to pull the plug on you. Granted, we know that if we did it wouldn’t shut you up. You’d go acoustic.

The following bands, for whatever reason- be it creative differences, money issues or the inadvertently shared girlfriend- said their piece and left. They may have left us wanting more, and wondering what could’ve been, but it’s probably to our benefit that we never know.

Government Issue- Crash
This album marked the end of a storied near- decade long career (and, in the eighties, almost ten years was a long time to be a hardcore band.)Their preceding album, You, was much better, but that in itself makes Crash a near perfect goodbye, the sound of a band stepping down after reaching their pinnacle.

You was the sound of a band at their creative peak after having weathered years of lineup changes, label shortchanges and general road wear. Continuing in their Damned- filtered- through- American- Pop- Hardcore (a la Husker Du, Naked Raygun and Squirrelbait) sensibility had paid off, for the listener at least, as the band’s voice gelled into its strongest and most confident statement of purpose. Crisp, bright production and playing brought out barbed hooks that stayed under your skin years after repeated listening. Psych rock touches hinted at in previous records, such as keys, sitar and backwards feedback loops, are explored more fully here, giving the record an added sonic dimension. The final track, “Melancholy Miss,” sports a boogie riff and gangly chorus that made for a perfect lead-in to the hard rocking, metal-tinged Crash, to the point that it almost feels planned. Maybe it was.

Crash was, at its core, an attempt to resolve hard riff rock sensibility with new- wave anglophile pop. On the better tunes it almost works. Time Will Rearrange grafts Angus Young riffs to a barking, heart on the sleeve, post- hardcore sing- a- long, The Price features a spindly guitar figure, bringing the Psychedelic Furs or Echo and the Bunnymen to mind, and Connecticut sounds like a summer song to drive to after having your heart broken. But the jewel of the album is the final track. “For Ever,” with it’s march along melody and final chant- a- long fade out, is the perfect song on a perfect album to end a career on.

All members of the final lineup went on to other things, some bigger if not necessarily better. Vocalist John Stabb led a small succession of bands in DC, the most recent being Factory Incident. Tom Lyle put out a couple of solo records. J. Robbins led the more well received Jawbox, a band that had done some time on Warner Brothers, and now divides his time between being a name DC producer and leading Burning Airlines, a band with former GI drummer Pete Moffett.

Dr. Strange recently reissued the better part of the bands discography on two CDs. Thankfully, this has yet to spark talk of a reunion.
 
The Micronotz- 40 Fingers
Midwest teenage snot- rock at the outset, the trebly, tin-can production on early records actually worked to the bands ragged charm. The spanking riffs and barbed hooks served as a perfect backdrop for original singer Dean Lubensky’s caterwaul, sounding to all the world like Janis Joplin’s horny, pubescent, punked out suburban little brother. Precocious sense of rock history and local Midwest legend and lore intact, their first album boasts an Hombres cover and a set of lyrics penned by William S. Burroughs. It was everything corn fed brat rock should’ve been.  However, adolescence can only last so long and, with the departure of Lubensky and the arrival of a new singer- the hoarse, full throated Jay Hauptli- the Micronotz entered adulthood.

The transition is made a little clumsily on the Beast that Devoured Itself. Themes of teenage alienation give way to themes of adult alienation, and the better part of the songs mark the departure noticeably. A handful of songs, however, sound like rote punk rock toss- offs that were included on the album, apparently, just to get it out of their system and out of the way.

They’d found their voice and held it by the time of their swansong, 40 Fingers. The thicker, open guitar sound brings out more fully realized melodies. Melancholy backing vocals provide a honeyed counterpoint to Hauptli, who howls like a wounded giant, spinning tales of lost time, lost youth, and displacement in a music scene the band had helped found. This is the sound of being landlocked, lonely, restless and not getting any younger in a little Midwestern college town.

The Micronotz split up after Forty Fingers, splintering into a number of somewhat mediocre bar bands, the most well known being the Pedaljets, guitarist John Harpers entry in the post-collegiate hard rock power pop sweepstakes. Their fifteen minutes entailed getting compared to Dramarama in a Creem review. The death of bassist Dave Dale in ninety- three sparked a tribute album, which, aside from the William S. Burroughs cut of him reciting his own “Old Lady Sloan,” is about as pointless as any other tribute album. It sure as hell didn’t do the actual band a great deal of justice, well intentioned as it was.
 
Husker Du- Warehouse: Songs and Stories
I remember Bill Stevenson once saying he’d hated it when people would lump in the Descendents with Husker Du, mainly due to the muddy, all- over- the place guitar tone, the sloppy, simplistic drumming, and the overall mix that defies any actual engineering that may have been going on in the studio.

Both bands are partially responsible (to blame) for ushering in a strain of pop- punk that, a decade later, would hit mainstream radio. Both bands hit the hooks, they’d just arrived at them differently. Descendents through goofy, surf via Sabbath inspired songs about girls and food. Husker Du through more lyrically obtuse Byrds via Buzzcocks songs about…whatever it was they were about.

Thing is, Husker Du broke up after the release of their second major label release and their second double album, probably, aside from the more publicized ego and personality clashes,  from the weight of their own creative ambition.  Whereas their previous double, Zen Arcade, had more great ideas than actual songs, Warehouse feels like a clearinghouse for songs they’d probably all had buzzing around their noggins for years, nothing on any of the four sides sounds like filler. There’s not much more to say about it outside of it being a fine album to end a career on, whatever the reason for their breakup.

Bob Mould and Grant Hart both went on to spotty solo careers. Greg Norton took the respectable route out of the music business and became a successful restaurateur

Big Black- Songs About Fucking
There was really only so much that could be done with that sort of attack anyways- the drum machine, the martial guitar strumming, the vocals that sound like a pissed off answering machine message. Granted, they were at the forefront of their game, having ushered in the post hardcore era of Americanized Gang of Four, Birthday Party and, almost needless to say Wire, junkyard art rock. But being at the forefront means you’re among the first to get hit with the burnout. Albini was probably relieved when Santiago announced he wanted to go to law school and fuck Rock N’ Roll.

So, they took what they’d been doing and cranked it on their last album. Probably not minding the tag industrial but cringing at the thought of being lumped in with all those disco junkie cowboy party boys that had taken the mantle upon themselves, Songs About Fucking is very much a gnarly, pounding, big and ugly Rock N’ Roll record.

Outside of that there’s not a lot to be said about it. It was very much a Big Black record, and that sound has become so commonplace to anybody with even a passing familiarity with any sort of indie rock that it’s probably pointless to even mention the staccato guitar chug and goosestep rhythms. Thankfully, Albini discovered real drums and stopped burying his vocals so they sounded like an agitated car alarm. Other than that, with Rapeman and the still active Shellac, he hasn’t varied his approach much. However, he has advanced it and still manages to make it sound fresh, all things considered.

The Beatles- Let It Be
And that they did. At this point, even their staunchest loyalists would cop to them being a little overrated. However, there’s one thing you gotta give due credit for: they stopped, quit, retired, gave it a fucking rest already. Granted, they all went on to solo careers, letting us know how dismal it may or may not have really been, but, at least as a band, they buried it.

Is Let It Be a great album? Nope. Not by a long shot. On some days it might qualify as pretty good, depending on what your mood is. Lennon had stated in interviews that he was just happy it didn’t make him puke. Granted, he was an asshole, and he was pretty much blowing himself, his solo career and his super- important proto Bono- esque quest for world peace by that point. But it’s true. Yoko or no (rim shot, please), the Beatles had been hammering at their own coffin since at least the off-white album, and Let It Be, the movie and it’s soundtrack, was the lead nail.

Songwise, Lennon had lost so much interest that he’d basically handed Macca the reins, and Macca sounds as though he’d accepted them reluctantly. Never great individual musicians (there’s a reason they stopped being a touring band and holed themselves up in studios to make product), the performances on this album are particularly half- assed, delivered with all the heart of a strung out blow- up doll. This is the sound of four guys who can’t stand each other and don’t really have to, not when they can just kind of clock in and then retreat to their country estates. In short, baroque boredom, a pale corpse with Phil Spector as its overzealous coroner.  

Still, Stones loyalists are still claiming the new album is the next Exile, just because they’re grateful it didn’t suck as bad as it could have. They will probably continue to do so long after rigor mortis has set in.

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