Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used To Be

Nostalgia reminds us not only of what has been lost, but who we have become as a result of these losses. Unknown

“She is a swimmer waiting to get on with the drowning. Joy Williams

Nostalgia Isn’t What It Used To Be

Nostalgia isn't what it used to be.  We yearn for a time that is past and gone. Perhaps, it never was. A teacher once scolded me and some friends who were trying to change the course of simulated history, "don't ruin it for all the other kids." densemilt January 2021.

Yes, I googled myself. I do that regularly because I repeat myself. Often. In fact, I wrote about Nostalgia back in 2021 and before that in 2019. Nostalgia is grief’s snotty sniveling little brother. Nostalgia echoes loss. Loss is defined by the love that came before. Loss morphs into lost. Loss is the distillation of losing, but nostalgia is also very much like a virus. This kind of loss is highly contagious. Like loss of memory.

When you can’t remember, you have two choices. First, you can be overwhelmed by the gap in memory, because that gap is all on you, and it hurts to be shorted by yourself in such a way.

The second response is to reinvent. Start over. Forget the road not taken- what does it matter if you didn’t take a certain road? We can’t relive our life. Sometimes being kind is to not rewind. We have to move on, and make something newer. Who knows, maybe it will be better.

We are at an age where loss is always fresh. There is an old sales adage-always be closing. Lose the “c”, and closing becomes losing. Always be losing. Losing friends and family to the finality of death. When people around us die, that kind of loss is forever. It hurts like no hurt that came before. It is the worst hurt— at least until the next loss comes.

Locals are upset with change. Joe’s coffee shop was most famous for their tall cappucinos in styrofoam cups, dusted with what tasted like Nestle’s Quik. Maybe it was Quik. It was infamous for the time when the Portuguese owners got upset over two lesbians kissing. The local lesbians staged a Kiss-In. For a brief time, Joe’s was Jo’s. For many people, it was just a place where creepy men hung out, shouting at women as they passed. Times change. People get old and infirm. They retire. I can guarantee you will find another cup of coffee that you will like. Next!

Then we have the crocodile tears over the announcement that a fabric and notions store is perhaps closing. The announcement was strange. The store was not imminently closing. It might close soon. It might reopen in another location. Basically a non-announcement. All this moaning for a place that is famous for buttons, questionable service or times of closing- yes they close at 5:15- get used to it.

Then we have all the crusty punks who yearn for the time they once hated. Punk is so regressive at times. If they had bottled their vitriol way back in the late seventies and early eighties, I would bet dogs to doughnuts that the bloom is off the rose. The potion has gone bad. What was once youthful anger and indignation is now dusty bottles of piss and vinegar. Which contrary to popular opinion, is a lousy salad dressing.

Nostalgia is when we become obsessed with an old bandage. Rip it off, I say. Respect the scar. You earned it. Now move on.

KIM GORDON IS KOOL AS FUCK

Looking like Joan Didion is vinyl gym shorts, Kim Gordon is Kool as Fuck. Her melange of sighs, chants, and whispers layered over bowel emptying BASS & DRUMS, distorted guitars, occasionally borrowing from a history of New York art scene music, slide art, random and intense, our girl Kim is a beloved artist. An aural and visual artist.

She is 71, but don’t let that scare you. At 66, getting to 71 means nothing to me. But Kim Gordon is not nothing to me. If Patti Smith was hot, then Kim Gordon is cool. Kool, like the Sonic Youth song Kool Thing, a song inspired by an interview she had with LL Cool J.

Her new project is called The Collective. Remember collectives? The 80’s were filled with collectives and co-ops, bands, essentially working together on projects. The single from this new record is called Bye Bye. Bye Bye is a checklist of personal things she might need on what seems to be a planned departure. Leaving a relationship? Starting a new life?

Even though her music has antecedents and debts to music and art history, the Collective builds on her own personal history as well. The band is three super young kids with the energy that comes with your 20’s,curated by Kim and her 70+ esthetic. Age is experience. Age is a superpower.

You can inventory the scars and wrinkles, but the stage is roughly unlit, with a backdrop of melting, morphing images. Personal and industrial. Check out her visual works on the internet. Check out her musical history from Sonic Youth, which was great until her marriage with Thurston Moore blew up. Most likely it didn’t blow up so much as Thurston cheated on her, but those relationship things are usually an accumulation, less a particular incident, but a pattern of misbehaviour.

Kim relates her beginnings on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, from the early influences of the New York No Wave movement, she started out as a trio of women, using lyrics cut out from Women’s magazines, all of it as part of a Dan Graham performance piece.

The sound of the Collective is rooted in the bass, super loud, distorted, like dub blown up. A young woman plays the bass and keyboards. The young drummer has a very jazz feel, but uses lots of echo and programming, and then there is a young guitar player. He played one song with a screwdriver on the guitar. For a lot of the show, it appeared as if he wasn’t playing.

One of the songs featured Kim’s vocals that with the processing sounded vaguely Middle Eastern.

I tried to write down some of the lyrics as I heard them. Between the distortion, volume and my bad hearing, this is what I heard:

Get the broom

Cement the brat

Delicious yeah

Lounging deep

American idea

Fucking rights

Set you free

I’ll fix you up

Anti world

Closing tomorrow

I’ll be your feet

Set you free

Get away

You got it

I’ll be your fear

Set you free

Come on down

Just not a girl

A woman

I’m not down

Hold your mean side

Lies which grow

What’s the last thing you said

As a purist

The sound of ending

Golden table

You took back out of the Apple

You took a bite out of an apple.

Were those the lyrics? Most likely not. Definitely not.

Maybe. I feel we might speak the same language.

Kim is Kool.

She has a great laugh. Her voice is incredibly sexy.

She is not nostalgic. She is not content to live in the past or attempt to recreate what has been successful for her in the past.

Kim Gordon is the anti-nostalgia.

Kim Gordon is making something new.