Dazed & Confused Kevin Linklater's 1993, masterpiece becomes with the passing of time, one of my favourite films of teenage or pre-teenage musical experience. Along with Stand My Me, Grease and Juno. I find I can watch any of these as much as I like. They all understand implicitly how our youths are probably the essential passages of time of our lifetime, how they directly impact on everything that happens emotionally subsequently, and how central music is to that experience and how it resonates within us from that point on.
In a closing scene in Dazed & Confused freshman Mitch Kramer, essentially the hero of the film, returns home from a night out on the town, the first of his adult life in many ways. During the day he's been terrorised by a senior looking to beat his ass numb, had a gun pointed at him by a redneck, got his revenge on the bully, and made out with a girl a couple of years older than him. His mom meets him at the front door and lays down the law to him. He shrugs everything she says off., lies down on his bed, puts his headphones on and blasts out a favourite track. A beatific grin spreads across his face. He's made it.
The song he chooses to listen to is by Heavy Rock also rans Foghat but it might as well be something from Foo Fighters latest record But Here We Are. Foo Fighters seem to serve the same basic function as Kiss, Aerosmith and Foghat do for the kids in Dazed & Confused. They provide a soundtrack.
What this function is exactly probably depends on where you stand on music in general. How important it is to you. And Rock Music in particular. One thing you can say for Dave Grohl's band, 25 years into their highly lucrative career, is that they are not, definitely not Nirvana. You can't help wondering what Kurt would have thought of them. I like to think he would have understood.
In his suicide note Cobain quoted the famous Neil Young lyric 'it's better to burn out than fade away.' The fact that he did so, in all seriousness, (and he was both a highly intelligent, highly sensitive and highly distraught man), is testimony to his utterly shredded state of mind when he wrote it, and an indication as to why he went on to do what he did next. Join that stupid club.
Perhaps Kurt should have spoken to Grohl a bit more and a bit less to his wife Courtney Love. It might have shown him a way out of his predicament. Grohl is clearly both a highly sensitive and highly intelligent man himself. But Here We Are, the eleventh Foo Fighters album, in a band career that will shortly pass its 30 year milestone, is exactly what we have come to expect from them. Solid Rock product. No more, no less really. It's good. The more you listen to it, the better it seems. But absolutely nothing about it will surprise you. Foo Fighters have been here before. Exactly here. For most of their career really.
I listened to the record yesterday morning and it's damned good at what it sets out to do. Not very exciting perhaps, but incredibly durable. Well written and performed Rock songs in the American tradition. Ideal listening material for a long cross country drive like the one the kids are having in the closing scene of Dazed & Confused. The one that follows Mitch's as the credits roll over shots of them enjoying their ride to get Aerosmith tickets ear to ear grins on all four of their faces.
Perhaps that's not good enough for some people but its good enough for me. But Here We Are is housed in a whiter than white sleeve. The band don't even need to struggle with what to put onto their record sleeves anymore. Just turn up and do what they do. It's good enough for millions. I imagine any number of college kids in The States and elsewhere are planning their own summer trips to catch them at the local enormodome. They're pretty much sure not to be disappointed.
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