Music makes the nerds come together

Via Last Plane to Jakarta, I found Harp magazine (which, seriously, how had I not heard of this before?) and a short piece by John Darnielle titled "How Souled American's Flubber Changed My Life." It's a lovely piece, and I'll wait here while you read it, but my first thought on reading that title was "WTF is it
with Souled American?"

Some of my first conversations with Mark Lerner were about Souled American, and the beautiful set of posters he helped create as public fan art about the band. I think that there must be two types of people: those who have never heard of Souled American (or like me, have heard of them but never gripped enough by their music to seek more of it out (sorry, guys)) and crazy-passionate fans.

Of course, they're not the only band of that type -- I resonated with Mark's relationship to Souled American because the only thing that got me through grad school was the drugs nervous breakdown Hats Mekons. In fact, I used to teach subcultural affiliation as a concept by wearing my "I ♥ Mekons" T-shirt to class. Nine people out of ten, I'd say, ask me "what's a Mekon?" But as a result, that tenth person, who nods, or says yeah!, or says me too, that person feels, however briefly, like my comrade in arms.

(We would pause here for an excursus on how the Mekons' music encourages that sort of sociality in a way that Souled Americans' more introverted sound could lead to thinking of them as a private treasure, and in general on the ways in which artists work to construct their own audiences, but it is too long an essay to fit onto the Internet.)

I wonder: are there things about a band, other than its lack of mainstream success, that make it a candidate for this sort of fandom. Is there something about the directness of the sound? the lyrics? or is it something that's just a quicksilver interaction between the person, the moment, the records in question?

Comments

[CMD]

Tuesday was my first day teaching in a new semester. Although I love teaching, I most sincerely do not love various things about where I teach, I'm not sleeping, and various other things conspired to make Tuesday morning sort of bleak and Dickensian.

But the iPod was on an odd streak: Velvet Underground that I haven't heard in a long time (groovy and feel good by VU standards), then Mekons, more Velvet Underground (angrier now), Oysterband (which reminds me of Mekons in a way), more Mekons, more VU. It was a weird run, but the right one for Tuesday morning.

[Mark Lerner]

Hey toots. Since you confess to never getting Souled American, I should confess to never really listening more than once to the one Mountain Goats 45 a friend sent me, though that piece about Souled American was lovely. It was also strangely reminiscent of , written by my wife. Music really does make the nerds come together.

I think I will listen to the Mekons now all day today in your honor.

Hope to see you someday if I ever make my way back to NYC for more than a few hours at a stretch.