COME + PUNK: CHAOS TO CUTURE

TIME PASSAGES

Revisiting the bruised blues of Come's 11:11

 

by Matt Ashare |  
Published June 19, 2013

COME: Controlled chaos without the couture

Once or twice a decade, it seems, the idea that was and perhaps still is punk rock reemerges to be reexamined as part of a cultural conversation that's been ongoing since the summer of ’77, when London, as the Clash famously put it, was "burning with boredom," and the Sex Pistols, newly outfitted with bassist Sid Vicious, were working up to their nihilistic implosion. The chatter over punk — its essence, its meaning, its very embodiments — has heated up once again this summer, thanks to "Punk: Chaos to Couture," an intriguing exhibit of fashion design that runs through August 14 at NYC's revered Metropolitan Museum of Art. And maybe that's exactly what punk deserves a little more than a quarter century after its initial chaotic assault on England's senses — a carefully curated institutionalized installation that strips punk of its slashing guitars and disaffected sentiments, and dresses it up in outrageously provocative outfits, accessorized, one would hope, with no less than a few industrial sized safety pins.
    Maybe that's a bit too harsh. After all, punk has proven to be a remarkably durable concept, elastic enough to encompass far more than just a musical approach, a rebellious political message, or a singular stylistic sensibility. Indeed, if there's something resembling a general consensus — a point at which most coherent discussions about punk, with or without the rock, generally resolve — it centers around the notion that punk is, at heart, an attitude. Which is to say, the potential applications of punk principals are nearly limitless (see cyber- and steam-punk), and, inevitably, the very idea of punk will continue to mean very different things to very different people as its successive iterations coalesce from time to time across the cultural landscape. But, as punk itself devolved into a maddeningly diffuse mother of reinvention, its stepchild, post-punk, emerged as a savior or sorts — a safe haven for artists inspired by punk's core attitude who were wisely wary of taken on the baggage one might have to carry around if, say, you ascribed to the version of punk on display in "Chaos to Couture."
    Post-punk has thrived in various guises — from new-wave to no-wave, from indie-rock to alt-rock — as an underground phenomenon that occasionally offers up a mainstream breakthrough. But 1991, christened wryly by Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore as "the year punk broke," was a watershed heralded by the unexpected triumph of Nirvana's "Nevermind." And it ushered in a decade in which artists who might otherwise have been deemed too challenging (i.e., not commercial enough) for prime time play, were given a passing chance of reaching a broader audience, usually in the form of a glowing review in Spin, followed by an opening slot on a tour with Nirvana or, perhaps, Sonic Youth. There was, in retrospect, a method to the madness that followed "Nevermind," even if it didn't necessarily feel that way at the time.
    Just a few weeks after the Met's punk fashion exhibit opened in May, Matador Records, the once dominant indie institution of higher churning, repackaged and reissued an expanded edition of a debut album that hit all the right alternative buttons when it came out in 1992 — Come's largely forgotten classic "Eleven: Eleven." A Boston-based foursome, Come coalesced around two already somewhat established artist with underground cred: singer/guitarist Thalia Zedek, a haunted, dark-haired visage with a fierce voice that summoned demons, had fronted the NYC avant-noise band Live Skull in the ’80s; her foil, guitarist Chris Brokaw, had been playing drums in the moody, Sub Pop-affiliated slo-core band Codeine. After joining up two Athens, Georgia-expats with solid resumes of their own — drummer Arthur Johnson had been in the Bar-B-Q Killers, and bassist Sean O'Brien had played with some friends of R.E.M. called Kilkenny Cats — Come did like Nirvana and released a 7-inch single on Sub Pop.
    All the right pieces seemed to fall into place for Come. Glowing review in Spin? Check. Slot opening for Nirvana? Double check. And, yes, they also had the honor of touring with Sonic Youth. But, as with many great bands who emerged from the punk-inspired indie underground in the early-’90s, artistic success didn't quite translate into commercial returns. Come soldiered on, releasing three more full-lengths — 1994's smartly titled "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"; 1996's short but bittersweet "Near-Life Experience"; and 1998's epic "Gently, Down the Stream." And both Zedek and Brokaw have gone on to other musical projects. But, "Eleven: Eleven" captures a strangely hopeful moment when it really did seem like anything was possible — when a band you'd just seen in a club, a band you might even know personally, could become the object of a major-label bidding war. And, listening to the album 21 years later, with its sinewy guitar interplay, its casual embrace of dark matters in bruising tunes like the 6-plus minute "Brand New Vein," its deconstructed nod to "Exile on Main St." blues rock, and its stark cover of the Stones' "I Got the Blues," is a pleasant reminder of just how much life is left in punk when you put a post before it.