Tuesday 9th February 2010
BEATERS – “FISHAGE”
Ten years have passed since I downloaded my first MP3 using Napster. To say a lot had changed since then would be like beating you with a plank of wood with the word ‘obvious’ painted on it. We know it’s no longer a pre-requisite to own anything tangible,let alone pay for it. We know that patience is no longer a virtue, but something worthy of Papal status. Anything approaching anticipation is easily thwarted by careless/predicated ‘leaks’. So, while physical media finds itself replaced by intangible files and lines on a screen, what’s left of the old world? And what are the new rules?
Listening to Beaters, it’s clear that post-punk isn’t going out of fashion any time soon. “Fishage” finds them cast in a Wild West caper, in hot pursuit of some hectoring Liars-alike Apaches. Evolutionary concerns are slurred, bass burbles and sheet metal clangs in the distance. This burial ground isn’t quite cursed, rather more a place of sly humour and tasteful shabbiness.
But still I’m haunted by these rules. When I was a boy, I’d be certain to find out as much as I could about an artist I was listening to. Now I wonder with the casting off of prior moral duties if this should perhaps also be forgotten. As a result, the most I could bring myself to find out about Beaters was that they were from San Diego, California. The post-hippy consensus is that the ‘Golden State’ quit being so just after The Manson Family commenced door-to-door house calls, long before Rollins and co flew the Black Flag. And yet, the thought of a group of young Californians making music for sewer dwellers and C.H.U.D.‘s doesn’t quite sit right with my immediate preconceptions.
But then, looking at those awful Californian Tourism adverts on TV, you’re reminded that Conan The Barbarian is their head of state. That’s enough to keep me awake at night, as I lie in wait for a new set of rules to take hold.
Liam Manley
(Photo: Square Eyes)
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Thanks to Matt Flag from the Fair Ohs for pointing us in the direction of this song. He’s releasing a selection of Beaters’ songs through his cassette imprint Suplex very soon. More details here
