Spend any time in the company of music geeks of a certain stripe, and you’ll inevitably hear an assertive invocation of the widely held belief that musical chops are assuredly less important than style. Granted, it’s sort of a tired argument, but it’s one I happen to espouse as well. While I have nothing against universally recognized virtuosos like Neil Peart or Joe Satriani et al., most of my own favorite musicians aren’t necessarily considered technical wunderkinds. That all said, while, say, Geordie from Killing Joke or Andy Gill from Gang of Four probably can’t play with the busy, fret-melting complexity of Yngwie Malmsteen or some other preening muso, for what they do, they are untouchable. No one else sounds like Geordie. No one else sounds like Andy Gill. The style they play with cannot be taught.
If Punk Rock genuinely accomplished anything, I’d suggest that it effectively levelled the playing field. Aspiring musicians no longer had to feel excluded from proceedings because they couldn’t replicate the ornate prog noodlery of Yes (who I happen to love, by the way) or the fleet-fingered fusion of Weather Report. Anyone could do it. Thus, you suddenly had a whole generation of bands who, by definition, couldn’t initially play by conventional standards, but they were getting out there and making it happen. And some of those humble beginnings actually spawned myriad bands responsible for great, unique music positively rife with inimitable style.
I must confess that, until stumbling across the video below – shot in Tompkins Square Park in the summer of 1981, I’d never heard of a New York band called Science. Evidently, they were performing alongside a list of other acts like Pierce Turner, Certain General and Liquid Liquid in an event filmed for public access cable TV with some connection to the Mudd Club.
I’m not suggesting that Science didn’t go onto to great things. They very well might have. But the footage of them captured below shows the trio readily taking full advantage of that newly opened frontier and making music despite their arguably pronounced limitations. I am not knocking Science, mind you. I’ve never had the balls to undertake such an endeavor, and my own favorite bands started off sounding like this, for cryin’ out loud. So, hats off to Science, wherever they may be today.
Beyond Science, this video is also compelling in that’s a fleeting taste of the East Village circa 1981, a lost time and place seemingly eons prior to the contemporary era of high-end coffee bars and artisanal pork emporiums. One could argue that hipsters have always been among us, but you’ll find no needless suspenders, man-buns or comedy-length beards on display here. The camera-person does zero in on one enthusiastic member of the crowd for what can only be described as an awkwardly inappropriate amount of time (for inarguably prurient reasons), but that notwithstanding, I found it to be an interesting little document.
See if you agree.
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