And It Was All Right: John Sellers and Perfect From Now On

I finally got my hands on John Sellers’ recent book Perfect From Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life. I had to order it through inter-library loan, frustrating because I was so hot to read it. I noticed that the copy I read doesn’t claim Connecticut as its primary residence; it came to me from Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire. Why is this? I can’t help but wonder: Are there no libraries in Connecticut that ordered this book? Why? They’ve made a mistake. It’s a small mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

Sellers is the kind of guy I’d probably have been friends with when I was in college, but then again, Edith didn’t have too many friends in college, so who knows. Maybe we’d’ve just studiously ignored each other for four years. Anyway, he’s written a book that a million people I know could have written, but he’s the guy who did it, and more power to him.

I knew I’d like this thing from the first sentence. That actually doesn’t happen very often, so I was impressed. The first sentence of the book is, “I hate Bob Dylan.” a statement bound to annoy a lot of folks. But I can relate. Edith, you may be interested to know, got her start in bookselling not by selling books, but by working in a video store and then in a record store. Edith has, in other words, spent her entire career as an employee by spouting opinions on things, whether they be movies, music, or, ultimately, books. Back in the late 1980s, Edith was the last of the 45s girls at a local record store. It was her job to file things and play records for customers on an old turntable; it was her job to help customers who said, “I remember this song and it went kind of like this: ba da da da, boop boop boop….” Or maybe they remembered a snip of a lyric. These kinds of questions were fun for Edith, and she was fairly good at answering them. Sadly, however, the era of selling 45s in retail ended, and she was let go (a day of much hysteria, because rent was due). Fortunately, within an hour, she had a new job selling books at a store four blocks away. So things do work out.

But back in the day – I think this was 1988 – Edith was selling 45s and hanging around used record stores on her lunch break, acquiring vinyl like it was going out of style, which it was. It was during this time that she happened to meet a young man who worked as the sound guy for a local club. They didn’t exactly hit it off. He was a friend of a friend, and we all had lunch together one day. Over French fries, Edith listened to the sound guy talking about Bob Dylan with great enthusiasm. Bored, she cut through his monologue: “Bob Dylan is irrelevant.”

Edith sort of formed a reputation with that statement, and not necessarily a good one, but the fact was, it was 1988. And as far as I can tell, to this day (it’s mid-April, 2007), the Dylan stuff that people talk about most is still the stuff from the 60s and 70s. Was Dylan doing anything interesting in 1988? Not that I can recall. “Biograph” had been recently released, but so what? And I don’t know anyone who sits around obsessing over the lyrics of recent works by the guy. He won an Oscar, didn’t he, for Best Song for that track on the Wonder Boys soundtrack. I mean, really: that’s a sign of nothing good. Maybe Ron Rosenbaum is still obsessing, but I don’t know him, so I don’t count him. Outside the group of people who are basically professional obsessives, who really pays attention to Bob Dylan? Who finds his voice even tolerable?

I can handle two of the earlier albums. One of them I like for its humor; the other I like for its venom. I’ve got those two sides of Dylan’s coin, and that’s enough for me. Interestingly, John Sellers seems to feel the same way, though he spends a lot more time than I do thinking about this; and the upshot of all this here is that I liked Sellers right off the bat because, like me, he was willing – nay, eager – to say to the reader, “Your god? I don’t like him. He’s boring.” To which I would add, with apologies to the young Michael Stipe (and Tom Leher), If you can’t enunciate, shut up.

Sellers puts his arguments forth in an entertaining and highly detailed fashion. (His use of footnotes, an obvious tribute to Nicholson Baker, is noteworthy here; also the appendices, which are a little much at times, but still fun.) I often disagreed with Sellers. Sometimes I just wasn’t informed enough to be able to agree or disagree. (I stopped buying music more or less the same time I started in the rare book game; my monies could only go in so many directions, and the printed word won.) So I don’t know a blessed thing about Guided By Voices, Sellers’ greatest obsession. But I had fun reading about his pilgrimage to their leader, Robert Pollard. I disagreed significantly if not totally about Duran Duran – I think he’s very unfair to the Rio album, which I truly believe to be a great pop album. I think he’s sometimes a little too fast to dismiss musicians or bands. I mean, he’s pissed at Duran Duran for their vapid lyrics – sure, they often are vapid – as if the majority of perfect pop songs are the sung equivalent of, I don’t know, John Donne or something. Uh-huh. I often wanted to just say, “Lighten up, buddy.” (I’m relieved he didn’t take on my beloved Go-Go’s, which he could have; I think I’d’ve had to do something drastic if he’d attacked Beauty and the Beat, which, along with Spring Session M by Missing Persons, was the first album I bought.)

Perfect From Now On is not for everyone, putting it mildly. I don’t know how many people are actually going to read this thing. But there’s a demographic out there that is going to read it and boy oh boy are they going to love it. Because – if you’re one of those kind of people – even if you don’t agree with Sellers, you know the feeling of feeling so strongly about music like this. And that’s really what this book is about.
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