Better than: Thomas Pynchon's last novel and the severity of a misplaced lover.
It is easy to forget oneself in this day and age of vanity and laissez faire shenanigans. It is easy to forget the basic building blocks of a scene, and how the better examples of it, not necessarily the prime movers of it, manage to chuck and jive as time passes by. The Forgetters at Talent Farm didn't play a Jawbreaker show and no jets were destined for Brazil at any point, but in the nuanced pitch of an intimate setting, the seventy-odd souls who braved the westernmost auspices of Pembroke Pines received a treat.
And there is something oddly postmodernist about the passage of time and how forgetful the casual person might be with memory, but if bandmates Blake Schwarzenbach, Kevin Mahon, and Michelle Proffit choose the gone-by nomenclature, it is not for an actual need to try... You might want to forget them, but that sweet tickle just beyond your ear drum will not let you.
Seven days into the new year and we've already witnessed 2013's greatest show.
The Talent Farm might be big on talent but it is in the middle of nowhere. Google map it; that big green clump to the left is the Everglades. That aside, although boasting a raised stage, they chose to keep it clean and on the floor and more so with extremely punk rock hip-hop between bands, which makes a lot more sense once you remember the roots of both movements. But I'm only straddling extra words here.
What matters most, in the end, is what you see and hear and share in a room full of individuals who bop along with your same cadence. Opening acts Dove Swallower, You'll Live (who have a new LP out that you need), and Featherweight were as young and spirited a bunch as you'd expect and be thankful to receive. No different than a young Hubert teaching Eddie Coffin the ways of bank robbing vis a vis the intricate patterns of classical philosophy outside of the classroom.
WTF?
Exactly. Because when a show is this close, when the instruments are close enough to touch regardless of how OCD one may or not be, and yet one abstains, you know silly little heckles from the crowd will be met with pure academic rigors. Case in point, when the Forgetters were three-quarters of the way through their set, some ambivalent chunky bald punk made some not-so-snazzy postmodernist quip about the proceedings, Mr. Schwarzenbach, himself a very learned man, jived no misstep on a retort that he "was no postmodernist..." but rather "a romantic in the 19th century application."
You've turned wrong at Albuquerque and made a beeline for post-graduate work at this point. Is Mr. Schwarzenbach this "Godfather" of the emo genre the Internet demonizes him to be? No. He is a Renaissance man: gamer, writer, painter, lover, reader, and lyricist. Is it shameful that the lowest end of this dick-shaped state couldn't muster a larger crowd for these bands? Yes, because they could've gone the route of others and chosen a different cut-off point in Florida. They could've gone the ways of monies and fame and yet this is the old time punk rock lesson people fail to learn. It is not about that. It is not about money and fame. It is about happiness and getting it done.
No trio has looked happier on the level with their fans than this outfit. No trio really should. When you speak a certain way, you are expected to act a certain way. It doesn't always happen and it shouldn't, but when it does it is so fucking good, you'll be talking about it for days.
And when those days are up, you'll simmer in the glory of whatever comes around next but when that fades, as it will, you'll find yourself reminiscing about a night like tonight. Forgetters? Only in name, certainly not in execution.
Critic's Notebook:
Personal Bias: West Pembroke needs more liquor stores.
Chunky bald punk note: The Forgetters were able to seamlessly utilize samples and sounds into their set so well, I was momentarily transported to a Mission of Burma situation. That is a good thing, period.
Set list:
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