Beat Happening

Beat Happening was the main vehicle of expression for Calvin Johnson, a small institution in the 1980s independent and lo-fi rock scene. The man who sang lines like �The best part of sex is walking home hand in hand� became, first and foremost, a moral institution of American colleges.

In 1983, Calvin Johnson formed a trio in Olympia, near Seattle, with drummer Heather Lewis, called Laura. With the addition of guitarist Bret Lunsford and the departure of the third member, Beat Happening was born. Initially, the trio only played at local caf�s, mingling with the crowd of street musicians. Like the UT and a few other groups in rock history, the three members alternated between instruments and vocals. The first two years of their existence are documented only by self-produced tapes.

The first tape, Beat Happening (K, 1984), was recorded at home in November 1983. It is an exercise in minimal folk whose tracks (particularly the nursery-rhyme-like Fourteen and the farcically noir ballad I Spy) rarely exceed two minutes, center around a fairytale-like melody, and are performed with makeshift means. It is a cross between Kevin Ayers and David Peel. Lewis enlivens the atmosphere with Down At The Sea, a simple and spartan Jonathan Richman-style chorus.

A clear step forward came with the second tape, recorded two weeks later with a bit more precision. It contains another childlike nursery rhyme, Our Secret, destined to become their signature. Lewis sings What�s Important in a similar vein, slightly more lively. It is a festival of the primitive and the rough: the drums are little more than a bass drum, the guitar strums in a barely amateurish manner. Nevertheless, the voodoobilly of I Love You manages to create a hypnotically obsessive atmosphere.

The third self-produced tape, Three Tea Breakfast (K, 1984), recorded in Tokyo in spring 1984 under disastrous conditions, contains another surreal folk ballad sung by Lewis, In My Memory, the chant-like Honey Pot performed solo by Johnson using only hand claps, and even a Velvet Underground-like number, Don�t Mix The Colors, all approached with a subterranean, superficial, insignificant arrangement. It is the pinnacle of primitivism and reductionism, yet the extreme poverty of the project highlights the trio�s melodic talent.

The first album, Beat Happening (K Records, 1985), compiles recordings from various periods. Production had improved somewhat, but the starting premise remained: making music with minimal effort, focusing entirely on vocals. The tracks continue to be miniatures, fragments, and demos. Johnson thrives in the grotesque and driving voodoobilly of Bad Seeds, perhaps their masterpiece, and showcases his resonant baritone in the Indianesque chant of Look Around and the Latin-flavored pop of Let�s Kiss. Lewis enchants with her soft register in another fairy tale, Foggy Eyes, dances gracefully and childlike in 1,2,3, but also tackles more rock-oriented themes in Run Down The Stairs. Compared to the preceding tapes, this album introduces no real novelties: it is still three-chord music played in 4/4 time.

These recordings, tapes and albums, were later collected on 1983�85 (K, 1990).

It took three years before the group found the strength to release another album.

Jamboree (K, 1988) offers a new ration of lullabies for psychopaths. Dominating tracks include Bewitched and especially Hangman, slowed-down, emotionless Cramps tunes (humor, horror, or whatever), with beat inflections in Crashing Through and garage-rock distortions and cadences in Midnight A Go-Go. Johnson�s monotone voice, which flattens the melody almost entirely, is well suited to lead semi-country ballads marked by pow-wow rhythms and a solemn tone (Drive Car Girl, Indian Summer, destined to become their most famous song).
The This Man Boyfriend Club, sung a cappella over a casual distortion din, marks a return to the rawest primitivism. Lewis�s jewel (she seems to lead a parallel career within the group, focused on warmer, more human music than Johnson�s ascetic style) is this time In Between. Overall, the album confirms only what previous tapes and records had foreshadowed: a sparse sound, emotion-starved, deliberately subtle, fundamentally ambiguous.

A marked drop in quality characterizes the next album, Black Candy (K Records, 1989), of which only Pajama Party In A Haunted Hive, the title track (Cramps-like), Cast A Shadow, and Ponytail (the two most pop-oriented tracks) stand out. Knick Knack is the only track sung by the drummer. The album calls into question the art of Beat Happening, which some considered a colossal bluff.

Disappointment doubled with Dreamy (SubPop, 1991), another dry and banal album, though it contains some of their best material: Johnson again vents his �Crampsian� desires in Nancy Sin, while Lewis paints varied and personal ballads like Left Behind, Fortune Cookie Prize, and Collide. Hot Chocolate Boy and Cry For A Shadow are revivalist numbers, fun but not particularly brilliant. The garage-rock Revolution Come And Gone is the album�s highlight, but does not justify Beat Happening�s college fame.

Preceded by the single Sea Hunt, You Turn Me On (K, 1992) abandons reductionism entirely and achieves its goal with a sound still indebted to the Cramps (Pinebox Derby, the title track) but also leaning toward the Velvet Underground�s minimalist raga (the long Tiger Trap), while giving more breathing room to Lewis�s domestic-flavored compositions (Noise and Sleepyhead). Johnson, in his very low register, crafts a surreal little song like Teenage Caveman and gutter-level garage-rock like You Turn Me On. His voice has become one of the most famous in alternative rock. The nine-minute God Send, a rosary recited by Lewis over Johnson�s dissonant strumming, breaks the two-minute barrier in the same way one loses their virginity.

Calvin Johnson, aided by local musicians (including Steve Fisk and Doug Martsch), also recorded the album God Don't Make No Junk (K, 1994) under the name Halo Benders. Johnson tries to weave delicate atmospheres in tracks like Will Work For Food (the desolate, martial Neil Young of Harvest) and Snowfall (almost a tribute to 1950s pop), but he is more successful with the comic Don't Touch My Bikini, the epic garage-rock anthem Freedom Ride, which marries the debauched verve of the 13th Floor Elevators with the fatalistic tone of Stan Ridgway, and the surreal Big Rock Candy Mountain, which blends the beat of Sister Ray, Jim Morrison�s macabre crooning, Fisk�s sickly organ, and Duane Eddy�s twang. These are precisely the tracks that stray furthest from his usual style. Electronic murmurs and distortions enliven the endings of the songs. As usual, what spoils the album is Johnson�s unbearable baritone.

Don't Tell Me Now (K, 1996), the second disc credited to the Halo Benders, again shows a more "musical" side of Calvin, although Halo Bender, Phantom Power and Mercury Blues, the emotional highlights, are far from the creative estrus of the first Halo Benders album.

Halo Benders complete the downfall with The Rebel's Not In (K, 1998), whose poppy Bury Me and Virginia Reel Around the Fountain are as alternative as Mariah Carey. The ballad Love Travels Faster shows at least a little emotion.

Dub Narcotic Sound System is Calvin Johnson's application of the dub creative process to rock music, although often the results sound like the Contortions performing Memphis soul of the 1960s. The project started in 1994 with a string of simple tunes like Dub Narcotic (K, 1994), Bite, Fuck Shit Up and Booty Run Up, followed by the EPs Hands On The Dial (Punk In My Vitamins, 1994) and Ridin' Shotgun (K, 1994), and then crowned by the single Industrial Breakdown (K, 1995), that also includes The Beat From 20,000 Fathoms. The instrumental album Echoes From The Scene Control Room (K, 1995) better explains the concept behind the project: wedding the minimalistic approach of lo-fi rock with the minimalistic approach of early dub experimenters. Calvin would resume the experiment years later on Degeneration Introduction (K, 2003), that features more danceable tunes such as Sounds Narcotic.

Boot Party (K, 1996), in a sense, is completely different from the singles. The dub and funk influences are stronger (especially in the instrumental Bunny Echo), but mostly the band "rocks", thanks to garage-rock rave-ups like Monkey Hips And Rice, Shake A Puddin' and Boot Party. It is indeed music for parties. The significant exception is Ship To Shore, a classy, soulful tune.

Beat Happening's guitarist Bret Lunsford, who left Beat Happening in 1989, formed D+ which released D+ (K, 1997) and Dandelion Seeds (K, 1998), both sticking to Beat Happening "lo-fi" dogma.

The EP Bone Dry (K, 1997) returns to a Memphis soul crossed with James Brown funk kidn of style.

Out Of Your Mind (K, 1998) is soaked in dub and funk, and at least Out Of Your Mind and Oslo Calling stand out as a new form of crossover.

The same is not true of Sideways Soul (K, 1999), a collaboration with the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion. Johnson's terrible vocals marr Spencer's jams.

Crashing Through (K, 2002) is a 7-CD box-set that includes all the albums plus Music To Climb The Apple Tree By, an anthology of all the singles, EPs and compilation tracks, and an anthology of rarities.

Calvin Johnson's solo album, What Was Me (K, 2002), is a spartan blues album. Its follow-up, Before the Dream Faded (K, 2006), is more eccentric and less bluesy.

Sons of the Soil (2007) reworks some of Johnson's past songs with a new band of veteran musicians.

Look Around (2015) is a Beat Happening career anthology.