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Man, even Jandek's doing reunion shows
By Lance Scott Walker

No, this article isn't about Jandek. I addressed that in these very column inches some months ago. His playing live now doesn't diminish his records unless you put all the weight of his appeal on the fact that he's the mystery that he is, and if you've done that then it's your own fault if you don't like him anymore. His performance at the Scottish Rite in Austin in November will weaken the mystique, yes, but not the legend before it.

SLINT (Slint)

Anyway, enough of that. This is about reunions, and what they're worth - for what that's worth.

WIRE

They've been making records here and there, yes, for years. But for some reason I still think of Wire's presence on the tour circuit as a reunion. I saw them play, reunion or not, at the first All Tomorrows Parties festival in England a little over five years ago. I thought they were awful, and I thought that because they were awful. Sound-wise, there wasn't much lacking, but it basically boiled down to a bunch of old men playing songs penned by energetic young upstarts some 20+ years earlier. Wire had an era, a time you associate with them when you hear their songs. In many ways, their songs are still timeless, yes, but the energy that went with them is no longer there. Hard to see it done live, but I'm still glad they make records - 2024's Send was the best thing they've done in years.

GANG OF FOUR

The worst one of all on soooo many levels. When Gang of 4 made their first trip to the United States back in the late '70s, the brilliant late writer Lester Bangs went backstage at their show and, after acknowledging all the unwarranted praise they had been receiving, proceeded to tell them they were a bucket of shit. The band just kind of nodded their heads and said "alright." If Bangs were alive today he'd be furious at all the Gang of 4 clones spitting out records like it's going out of style (because it is?!?!?!) and only helping to highlight what an unwarranted legacy was there in the first place.

TELEVISION

Man, I think everyone can admit that being in the same room when those four dudes play "Marquee Moon," regardless of whether it's 1979 or 2024, it has GOT to rule…

MISSION OF BURMA

Probably the only one that's really proven to be worth it as far as developing new music, and that's because Mission of Burma's work was really never done. They were only a band for four years, and health problems (Roger Miller's tinnitus) are what ended the band, not feuding or creative tension. By all accounts, they're still an incredible live band as well. We'll see - by the time this hits the racks, I should have a Mission of Burma show under my belt.

CRIME

I initially thought that this reunion might be the most interesting of the lot. When I first heard about it, CRIME were already in the studio with John Reis, working on songs they'd left in pieces the last time they played together in 1986. But it turns out the only original member in tow is Johnny Strike, trailed by Hank Rank, who only played in the band for two years, and two other guys who were never a part of the ever-changing band at any point. So what kind of a reunion is this? Not. A killer record could bail them out of it, but at this point it's about as much of a reunion as last year's Damon Caballero tour.

SLINT

My friend Larry Pirkle and I disagree on this one, but I'll still maintain that Slint is one of those rare bands that does not have an era, a stigma associated with their music needing or even having had existed in any particular stretch of time. Spiderland didn't come boiling to the surface right after its release in 1990 - most people found it somewhere along the way and became fans. Slint has always been something that people passed on to one another. Slowly.

So, with that in mind, I sat on my couch some months back reading the Slint interview in Punk Planet. I finished reading, slammed the issue shut, went to my computer, got on eBay and found two tickets to see Slint play in Seattle that very Saturday. I bought 'em, booked a flight and called my best friend, who happens to live there, and told her I was coming up to take her to the show.

And so that night the five-piece Slint walked out onstage and tuned their guitars and vocalist Brian McMahan, standing sideways at the microphone at stage right, which is where he would be stationed all night, whispered into the microphone with that cold, dark voice "Because you've been bad, we're only playing old shit tonight." And with that, they rolled into "Good Morning, Captain."

Fucking unreal. I have never seen as accurate a presentation of such a monstrously over listened record as they did that night. Every note was perfectly lodged where it should have gone, every vocal creeping into every crevice it needed to go. Todd Cook and Michael McMahan of The For Carnation filled out the five-piece that night, and did so faithfully. The spirit was there, the songs had been there, and the performance was as perfectly solid as it could have been. The crowd was even great, with only one heckle: "Play something off of Young Team!" In the end, with all the money I spent on plane tickets, booze, clothes and old girly magazines in Seattle that weekend - it was totally worth it. I mean, you don't remember not going, do you?