How do most people discover new bands? And by new, I mean relatively new or new to the individual. It could be a band that's releasing their debut album tomorrow, or a band that released their debut album in 1962. Historically speaking I think radio and television played a big role in introducing the masses to new music. You wear a Led Zeppelin t-shirt today, but you were born into this world without any pre-existing knowledge of what this was. If you're in your 50s, you probably heard this band on the radio in the 1970s. But how would someone in their 20s, or someone young that missed Led Zeppelin's success, become familiar with this band? Perhaps the individual's parents were big into rock music from back in the day. Perhaps the individual got fed up with the shear number of people walking around in Led Zeppelin t-shirts that he looked them up. Perhaps they were a recommendation from a close friend or cited as an influence from another band he likes. A number of likely outcomes are plausible, but there has to be two things in all circumstances. One is exposure, or how the individual becomes familiar with the subject, and two is the driving force willing the individual to listen or learn more about an artist. The drive has to be especially strong in the case of learning more of a band that pre-dates the individual. You're never going to see them live and they're done releasing new material, so why bother, right?
In 2004, I was very very excited to go to my very first Warped Tour. If I'm not mistaken, I was most excited to see Senses Fail and Hidden in Plain View -- two prominent figures in the scene that I loved in high school. But I also noticed that NOFX was on the lineup. At this time, I didn't know much of NOFX, only that they were a big name in 1990s punk rock. I figured I would buy an album from them to see if they'd be a band I'd want to see at Warped Tour. I mean, it's like $30 for an all day pass to see as many bands as you can see. Why not get my money's worth?! So I picked up a copy of their 2000 album Pump Up the Valuum released through Epitaph Records. However, when I popped this CD into my computer, the music that was encoded onto the disc wasn't NOFX at all. According to the data that Windows Media Player automatically fills in for me, it was some band named Refused and some album named The Shape of Punk to Come. WTF??? Some brief internet research informed me that this album was also released through Epitaph, so I just assumed it was some manufacturing error from the label and tossed the CD at the bottom of my music collection. I only listened to the first 30 seconds of "Worms of the Senses" before regarding the album as garbage and something I'd never listen to.
However, over the next few years I kept seeing Refused's name popping up in various interviews with bands that I loved at the time. All of the "scene" bands that I was really into at the time such as Thrice, The Used, Thursday, Senses Fail, Showbread and the like all cited The Shape of Punk to Come as a major influence on their music. And one day it hit me like a ton of bricks: I have a copy of this highly praised album just rotting at the bottom of a stack of CDs. So now I had both the exposure (the physical CD) and the drive (the interest to see what all my favorite bands were buzzing about). I dug out my copy and listened to the full thing front to back.
It was probably the most artistically done album I'd heard at the time, so I didn't know what to make of some of it. The extended spoken-word intro with street sounds in the background, the odd interludes featuring techo/electronica or some radio DJ speaking in a foreign language -- it all went over my head. However, the actual songs grabbed me and held on tight. It was heavy but catchy, and oddly jazzy at times. Songs like "Deadly Rhythm" and "Refused Party Program" were very loud and intense, while songs like "Liberation Frequency" and "New Noise" seemed a little more structured and memorable. However all of them were very raw and unpolished. To me, the more raw an punk rock song is, the more passionate and honest it is. When punk goes a little more commercial and mainstream, it looses that "do what you want" vibe. Mainstream punk pours itself like batter onto a waffle iron. All waffles come out pretty much the same way and anything extra gets trimmed off the edges. Different chefs like to dress up their waffles with different toppings, but it's still a waffle. Indie and underground punk pours its batter however it sees fit. Refused set up quite the breakfast buffet with The Shape of Punk to Come. It was everything that the "scene" bands were doing, only they were doing it better with more diversity, intensity and passion. And Refused was also doing it about five years prior to their formation.
I later grew to appreciate the parts that I initially disregarded as odd. I love listening to full albums front to back, but it can be difficult to stomach 45 minutes of blistering hardcore music. These oddities and interludes provide a nice pause from the otherwise in-your-face punk rock, likely in the same way wine that is only being tasted is not swallowed. If you swallow your sip from one glass of wine, the next one will be tainted with the flavor of the previous one. Wine tasting is a sensory experience much like enjoying good music. I now have full appreciation for the experimentation on this album, and its ability (whether intended or not) to make each track seem fresh and exciting, while also being able to make the album still seem unified. A difficult feat, no? Refused manage to make one hardcore song flow into the next hardcore song without using hardcore. Such a simple formula, why isn't this implemented more?
I was so mad at myself for not giving this a chance the first time around. I had no idea was sitting on top of gold! But ultimately, it didn't matter how long it took to listen to it, it's only important now that I DID listen to it. Giving this album a chance really opened my eyes to what music was prior to the music I was being exposed to. There was an entire world of music sitting right before my eyes, I just didn't know how to find it. But The Shape of Punk to Come seemed to have found me and I'm ever so grateful that it did. I would like to find the guy at Epitaph that fucked up and shake his hand. From this point on I payed very close attention to what bands had an influence on the groups that I was listening to at the time.
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