In her honey-dripping beehive

An old high school friend of mine wrote a few days ago to tell me he was In Bed, Bath & Beyond when he suddenly heard the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey” playing over the store’s PA.  I told him it was odd to think that middle-age weirdos such as myself were suddenly a demographic being targeted by stores.  He, on the other hand, wondered how many of our contemporaries who had shunned these oddball bands back in the day (back when Prince, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Hall & Oates and the Culture Club were all the rage) were hearing this song and convincing themselves that they’d always liked it (Retro-active Pop Culture Wannabe-Cool, I suppose).

And I remember those people.  If you lived in my little shithole home town and liked a band that others were unfamiliar with, you were a freak.  If you liked A LOT of bands that people were unfamiliar with (and these bands had goofy names like Dead Kennedys, Killing Joke, Echo and the Bunnymen, etc etc), you were mocked on a daily basis.

Until the Normals all went off to college and found out that the world was actually full of people their age who had different tastes from them.  And maybe the Normals liked some of these people, or maybe they suddenly found themselves to be the minority and just wanted to fit in, or they maybe they just cracked their minds open a tiny bit.   And then I would run into them when they came home for the weekend, or for break or whatever, and they would say to me “Wow! My roommate/pledge brother/boyfriend/girlfriend just got me into that music you always used to listen to!  It’s really good!”

Fucktards……

PSYCHOCANDY was a musical high point in a 5 or 6 year span that was jammed full of them.  It was melodic, abrasive and over-the-top.  It sounded like nothing else done, and it’s aged incredibly well.

The Jesus and Mary Chain rule.  Just ask the good folks at BB&B.  Why would they lie to you?