SMOG
Funny Farm
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But there are those artists who, while loath to exploit the lowly catchphrase, would nonetheless like to be noticed and remembered. Some of them have contrived a way to circumvent the problem. Even while they maintain the posture of disinterest and apathy, apparently eschewing the dirty little device, these groups manage to produce simple, catchy songs. They never even soil their underground credentials. These are the bands of Drag City and they are the masters of the antihook.
Characterized by its cerebral bands and self-conscious hipness, the local label Drag City was started by Dan Koretzky and Dan Osborn around the time the gimme decade gave way to the shimmy decade. They scored immediately with the release of some early singles by instant critical darlings Pavement, a choice that signaled their flair for finding personal and quirky music. The Drag City Umwelt was on display last summer at the first (annual?) Drag City Invitational, a three-day orgy of disaffected pop at a jam-packed Lounge Ax. With Pavement providing the star power, the shows drew national attention; Spin magazine agreeably proclaimed Drag City “America’s best record label.”
It would be easy to continue with Drag City’s roster, noting the reluctant twang of the Palace Brothers or the Silver Jews, whose quintessential antihooks force a smile from any hipster’s badly chapped lips. It is true, as Spin noted, that there is “no obvious Drag City ‘sound.’” But there is a Drag City style and its mantra is the antihook. Ten years from now, the Drag City Invitational will have attained the status of cultural milestone. Some who attended will recall how they played in the mud, while others will claim to have given birth right there in Lounge Ax. The bands who performed will surely have vanished, their songs preserved by binary codes on CDs that gather dust. Unlike the music of Woodstock, no one will want to hear those songs; no one will remember the antihooks of bands long past. No one will care to hear bands that pretended that they did not want to be heard.
