Josh Rogers, the drummer in my band and longtime reader and sometime contributor to GLONO, turned me on to a book a few months ago because the story seemed to mirror my own life as a budding indie rock fan growing up in conservative West Michigan. As I read the first few chapters of Perfect from Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life I realized that for a period in the early to mid-90s the author and I attended about 80% of the same shows. I am sure I bumped into him on more than one occasion at various St. Andrews shows featuring Madchester bands or local punk shows at the various underground clubs that all seemed to take residency in the same shitty warehouse on Oaks Street in Grand Rapids. But I don’t know John Sellers, not personally.
I am getting to know him through his fantastic blog, Angry John Sellers (coincidentally, and appropriately, I was tagged “Angry Vantrell” in my pseudo American Mod band). His latest entry is a case in point of why his book is so fantastic for indie fans who came of age in the 80s and 90s. We can’t help but hold great contempt for the idiots we once were, but there’s also a sense of sympathy for the little dopes. If only we, the grizzled and wise older version, could go back and guide the chubby, peach fuzzed nobs we may have gotten laid after prom.
Behold, Angry John Sellers’ Top 25 of 1986.
John is a really great guy and a ton of fun. I last saw him a few weeks ago at the Hideout where he read for an installment of Funny-Ha-Ha (I think it’s called) and he was awesome. Answering the common challenge “what qualifies you to write about rock music?” he actually brought a notebook from when he was like 10 years old or something, and read things he wrote back then about why he likes bands like Def Leppard and ZZ Top (“because they have the rock”). It was hysterical.
Everyone should read “Perfect From Now On” – now out in paperback! /shamelessplug
At some point in, like, 1986 or so, I dedicated a VHS tape to forever capture MTV’s “Greatest Metal Videos of All Time” (or some such title). I stumbled upon it during a visit home a few years ago. Dee Snyder was the host. It was horrible. They were most certainly not great, and, at that point, “of all time” was like the 7 years or so that MTV had existed then.
Nothing like Rokken with Dokken.
I’m happy to say that I have no idea what about five of those songs sound like. Man, I shudder to think what I thought was cool in 1986… except for the Replacements.
Derek — thanks for the nice post. (And thanks for the high praise, Joshua!) I take it you were at the Charlatans show at St. Andrew’s? Awesome.
Charlatans, Mondays, Suede (twice), Cranberries…