Perfect From Now On

Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life is a ridiculously misleading title that John Sellers borrowed from the 1997 Built To Spill album (which is of considerable higher quality than this book). I had hoped for possilby some in-depth discussion regarding how discovering Pavement and Sonic Youth et al. changed his perspective on life or had some sort of profound influence on his outlook. No. Instead, Sellers treats readers to an inconsistent history of the bands that he has been "obsessed" with since adolescence, eventually dissolving into five chapters discussing, in excruciating detail, how drunk he got with Bob Pollard (Guided By Voices). The book reads like it is, quite accurately, a blogger's attempt at penning something over 500 words: his footnotes drag on and take up half of the page at times, his wit is too forced for comfort. For anyone interested in GBV, I recommend a read. For anyone else, you're going to feel out of place--Sellers is quick to dismiss crucial bands (of the Fall, he says: "Sounds like bad Pavement, sorry").
Ultimately, Sellers knows what he's talking about. He just needs a better editor and some sort of legitimate narrative arc. But, hell, I've got an autographed copy.
"Any self-respecting music fan in 2007 should own an iPod, or another portable digital music player, because these devices represent a cultural shift in the way we listen to music."

"Now there are a few ways you can give in to musical obsession. You can give in suddenly and briefly--such as when, over the course of a few weeks or months, you find yourself hooked on a particular album (especially a debut album or a breakout album) and start talking up the artist to everyone you know; but then, after seeing a boring live performance or hearing someone you don't respect gush about the music, you just as suddenly denounce the artist as being annoying or unoriginal."

"Our differences in listening to music was a major reason I'd retreated from them, my best friends in the world. I wanted to hang out, hold court, and blare music, and they did not. I wanted to go to concerts, get drunk, and let go; they wanted to get up early. It was a drag."

"...there was a television channel that blended two of your favorite pastimes: watching television and listening to music. Now you could literally watch music!"

"In fact--I know this is shallow--I snubbed them party because of the hype. Due to the exhaustion for hype, I no longer felt compelled to listen to the things a person my age was being told to listen to."

"The lyrics of those favored bands were often impossible to decipher, and it fit a phase I was in. Lyrics had been getting in the way because they further cluttered up my head. I required complex, pretty, inscrutable songs turned up very loud to help me avoid thinking that I didn't like myself very much."

"I am forever stuck in a loop of missed opportunity."

"A drinking party is different from a regular party. At normal parties, most attendees follow the strange customs of dancing to bad music, bantering with people they don't like, and flirting without discretion; drinking is secondary. At a drinking party, the idea is simply to hang with your buddies and get drunk."

"By and large they are peopled by hiply dressed twentysomethings standing almost entirely still but for the bobbing of their heads; occasionally some of them might be moved enough to smack their hands against their legs in time to the music."

"The euphoric end of the extremes is what matters: It is simply wrong to love music halfway."