I was having lunch with friends. Between courses, one of my lunchmates said that her favourite song in 1989 was ‘Teen Age Riot’ by grunge rock pioneers, Sonic Youth. I wanted to agree. Indeed, I longed to say that, I too, believed ‘Teen Age Riot’ was, by some considerable distance, the very best song of 1989 and that the album from whence it came was a masterpiece that captured the essence of Generation X in its dissonant squalls and alternative tunings.
I wanted to say anything at all that would suggest that, in 1989, I had any idea the song ‘Teen Age Riot’ existed or what a ‘Sonic Youth’ was. But I couldn’t. Because in 1989, I was tragically and irredeemably uncool.
Saying you liked Sonic Youth in the 1980s is the equivalent of claiming that you liked the films of Ingmar Bergman before he went commercial. It’s an impossibly hip thing to declare. Knowing me, I probably thought that an ‘Ingmar Bergman’ was something you ordered from IKEA. To my great shame, I was totally clueless about anything cool. That’s because I was hopeless unhip throughout the nineteen eighties. I wasn’t cool for a moment, not even by accident.
It wasn’t for a lack of trying. Actually, my lack of coolness was a direct result of trying too hard – overreach was my enemy. Bleach-blonde mullet, pierced ears and home-made acid-wash jeans, I was packed to brim with uncoolness and positively pulsating with daggy energy. Not that I realised it.
In 1989, I had my own band and wrote my own songs. This is, without doubt, incredibly cool. Or, at least, it’s incredibly cool until you listen to any of the songs in question, after which it’s very much something else altogether – most likely a cry for help. Matters were made worse by my voice, which was an atonal squawk that’d have seen John Cage handing his ears back, expecting them to be put out of their misery. It was not pretty. It certainly wasn’t cool.
I had a denim jacket, though, which I used to think was cool but, in retrospect, was a couple of sizes too small and when I wore it, I looked like I was trapped inside a jacket borrowed from a much smaller person. It was, by some margin, the best jacket I ever owned. That year, I was gifted a leather jacket which – again – sounds like it could be cool, except that it had been procured from the Dattner House of Leather. It had the kind of shoulder pads more commonly associated with gridiron. So uncool.
Come to think of it, my life has been a series of failures involving jackets. In a rush of blood to the head that then flowed to my wallet, I once bought a suede jacket at a warehouse sale. It was large, cumbersome and totally impractical. Like the Death Star, it was beautiful to the eye but had a fatal flaw – it was allergic to rain. Jackets that can’t be worn in inclement weather are of little use. Bizarrely, I still chose to wear my suede jacket to a football match at which, by some miracle, it did not rain but, just as I was leaving, a seagull whom I can only assumed had been carb-loading all afternoon decided to let it rip. It was ruined. I never went to the football again.
I had a skateboard in the nineteen eighties which, on its face, is kind of cool. Until, of course, you realise that I lived on a farm in Tyabb and the only place to ride that skateboard was on a gravel driveway. If you’ve never tried to skateboard on gravel, I don’t recommend it. More than uncool, it’s downright dangerous.
Somewhat perversely, some of the things we had then that were considered uncool have now well and truly come back into favour. We had a record player and a lot of vinyl records. Which is all well and good until you realise that we also had my parents’ record collection which largely consisted of LPs from record clubs. (I assume that, at some point in history, ‘record clubs’ were a thing. I’ve never heard of them. That’s because, presumably, the first rule of record club is that you do not talk about record club.) Suffice to say, no-one plays a record entitled ‘Great German Marching Songs’ and expects to be thought of as cool.
In 1989, I had strong opinions about everything – music, fashion, German marching songs – you name it. And I was completely wrong about almost everything. During the recent election, some broadcasters profiled young voters before hysterically lamenting the naivety of today’s youth. Not me – I look at today’s young voters and then picture myself at the same age, before realising that today’s new adults are just fine and superior in almost every respect. Dare I say it – they’re cool.
My friend was waiting for a response. I cleared my throat before being honest – in 1989 my favourite band was probably ‘Mike & the Mechanics’. For me, there was no Teen Age Riot in 1989. Just a gravel driveway, a useless skateboard and a denim jacket that didn’t fit me very well. Things, I feel, are much better now.