The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic

by Jessica Hopper

  With Good Kid, Lamar is also trying to shift how South Central Los Angeles has been portrayed historically on record. “He’s telling his truth—the typical story of a kid growing up in Compton,” explains Top Dawg’s president Terrence “Punch” Henderson. Like everyone around Lamar, Henderson is respectfully mum on what is and isn’t on Good Kid, but he is clear about how it’s a departure. “It’s not what you know from N.W.A. It’s not about gangs he’s representing. It’s a classic. The only thing separating him from the greats is time.”

  That potential is what drew the attention of hip-hop legend Dr. Dre, who signed Lamar to Aftermath after being turned on to a K.Dot mixtape by Eminem’s manager (Lamar’s Interscope deal also included a label deal for Top Dawg). Dre is one of Good Kid’s executive producers and is featured heavily on the album’s Twin Sister-sampling lead single “The Recipe” (Lamar also has worked on several tracks for Dre’s eternally delayed Detox). Lamar smiles broadly when talking about Dre, a fellow graduate of Compton’s Centennial High School, who he alternately refers to as his “big homey.”

  While much has been said (including by Lamar himself) about picking up where his hero Tupac Shakur left off, Dre’s patronage cements the extension of that classic ’90s West Coast legacy. It’s worth noting that the last time Dre ushered a young rapper into the mainstream with such support it was Eminem. So, is the world ready for this next evolution? Kendrick Lamar, the emotionally sober non-gangster? One that doesn’t luxuriate in copious consumption or lobster bisque for breakfast? Can you go to the top of the Billboard chart with nary a rooster in a ’rari? What if there is no ’rari at all?

  Ab-Soul believes that what’s on Good Kid is universal: “It’s Kendrick’s story, but it’s my story; it’s not just an L.A. album. Everyone will get an understanding of why my generation is acting the way they are: violence, vulgarity, anguish, and resentment, rebelliousness, and eff the police. He puts it all in perspective. Not just ‘black-on-black crime,’ telling the whole story of homies we all had.”

  While Good Kid is pure autobiography, like much of Lamar’s work, it’s allegorical. While he is rapping about himself, his songs are heavy on experiences and feelings that are universal and easily relatable. It’s hard to imagine him ever dropping a song about his jewelry or creeping towards itemized receipt rap. The closest archetype is, perhaps, Jay-Z: the swaggering good guy, the kid that got out. Lamar is separate, peerless in his ability (he never rides the beat the same way twice) and also in the space that he occupies; he’s different from previous rap saviors—he’s not a scold and his hooks are tantamount to the message. Though, more than all of this is, what defines Lamar is that he’s wholly ghosted by what might have been; he cannot shake the proximity of Compton.

  Lamar is aware of the power of his influence, but says he’s not out to change the world. “The idea of me sparking change; it’s got to come from within. I couldn’t be saying I want Compton to change. You know, Compton is a beautiful place. You just gotta keep your eyes open.”

  CALIFORNIA DEMISE: TYLER, THE CREATOR AND EMA FEEL THE BAD VIBES

  Village Voice Pazz and Jop Critics Poll, 2011

  Tyler, The Creator is stuck inside “Yonkers” with those California hate-fuck blues again. Don’t ask him what the matter is—you’ll get an album-length spleening in response. He’s rap’s nouveau old-model bad boy, showing the kids that “breaking rules is cool again,” rhyming impolitely about his problems with, well, everything. Many spent the year trying to gauge the murder-minded messiah MC. On Goblin, he came across as so ferociously indifferent, it was hard to imagine he could give a shit about anyone at all—including himself.

  He’s unlike all the other cool California kids of recent memory, who’re writing songs that pick up where David Crosby’s sailboat docked. They’re obsessed with the various qualities of sand, sunshine, friendship and/or the waves, and they’re too high to take a position on much else. Last year’s chillwave wave was the latest iteration of California’s musical posi-vibe, all bright smiles highlighted by a deep tan. Chillwave’s methodology of easy hooks submerged in reverb and delay served as a constant reminder of being distant and of singers floating in their own worlds.

  With decades of this cheery jangle as a cultural inheritance, it’s easy to see why Tyler’s Wolf Gang wants to kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out (and then kill God) or why EMA came blazing for “California” with nothing but middle fingers and lick shots for the left coast. Can you blame them? The thrill of popping that bubble is undeniable. Tyler’s most (or only, depending on whom you ask) obvious talent is antagonism, a puerile needling that knows to go for the jugular—to say the exact thing you don’t want to hear, flippant and cruel in equal measure. Although plenty of Californian MCs have paired rage with ridicule, Tyler’s effusively macho posturing is less Straight Outta Compton and more like that of the man who made it his trademark: Henry Rollins. (This time around, Syd’s got the 10 1/2.)

  Historically, California punk has had its share of teen loathers with suicidal tendencies. Rollins is Tyler’s clearest primogenitor (Eminem be damned!)—the myopic focus on bad feelings, a hangover of confused, adolescent tumult tangling hard with violent solutions. Tyler’s sober indifference isolates him from the other California girls and boys, and the intensity with which he doesn’t give a fuck belies just how much he actually does. It’s the most un-L.A. thing he could possibly do.

  So much is the same for Erika Anderson—known on-record as EMA—even though she is, in essence, Tyler’s inverse. Born-and-bred Midwestern riot-grrrl rides west in search of new liberation in noise, gets grown, and explodes her heart and head open on Past Life Martyred Saints. It’s a brute-force real-girl reveal: She’s done with the archetypes and instead has an album full of blood and “20 kisses with a butterfly knife.” Self-preservation is not a principal interest—she is gutting her guts and blunt about the trauma she has known instead of engaging in the apathetic yearning that typifies indie rock’s notion of a “confessional.” Like on Goblin, the volatility and capriciousness is unsettling—it makes you believe she’s howling her truth.

  When Anderson faces her audience, foot up on the monitor in confident, rock-star repose, and begins noosing herself with the mic cable, her methodical calm is what shocks. Her seemingly easy acquaintance with violence makes her shows seem less like performance and more like a visceral expression of how little (or much) she cares. She’s a spectacular songwriter, coaxing howls from her half-stack, a tall, beautiful blonde calmly cooing, “I used to carry the gun / The gun, the gun, the gun.” In the underground, she’s as much of a “walking paradox” as Tyler.

  Both artists goad unease for different reasons (EMA’s violence is directed inward; Tyler’s viciousness is often directed toward queers and women), but discomfort is crucial fuel for their spectacle. The placement of “Yonkers” and “California” in this year’s poll offers evidence that listeners are taking them up on the vicarious thrill of their Cali-kid violence—regardless of whether it delights or disgusts.

  WILL THE STINK OF SUCCESS RUIN THE SMELL?

  LA Weekly, February 2009

  The story of The Smell—an all-ages venue that’s the wellspring for the young idea here in Los Angeles—on the surface, isn’t exactly spectacular. Like most clubs, it’s a depot of questionable haircuts and bombastic bands. Yet, The Smell is different than the rest: it’s a no-booze, not-for-profit operation that is staffed most entirely by teenage volunteers. The recent success of some of the exciting bands it fostered—namely No Age—has made The Smell a point of focus for the worldwide underground, a place delivering on punk’s unfulfilled promises of DIY community and inclusion.

  ***

  The way people talk about Jim Smith, you’d think he was sanctified and risen. The story of every Smell band, every volunteer’s gee-whiz excitement, always hinges on Smith, who opened the venue eleven years ago. A labor union organizer by day and dutiful scene facilitator by night, Smith is taciturn and humble.
He’s got an old fashioned gallantry to him; he dresses in working man’s clothes and decries little. He has the gravitas of a man living by a code. Smith closes up at The Smell at 1 or 2 a.m. then goes to work at 6 a.m., night after night. Without complaint or even the slightest sense that this unpaid toil brings him anything other than gratification.

  If Smith is The Smell’s heart, No Age are its arteries. The story of L.A.’s zeitgeist, noise-pop duo is braided with the venue’s genesis. Given the amount of press and hype the band has garnered in the last year and a half, it’s become part of their mythic tale: The Smell as the house No Age built. This is objectively true; talking to guitarist Randy Randall in early October, he lamented that though he and drummer Dean Spunt helped break concrete for the construction of The Smell’s second bathroom, No Age was on tour during its completion.

  No Age might very well be the coolest band in America right now, and it’s easy to understand why. Being a No Age fan feels like more than mere fandom, which is fitting since No Age feel like more than just another band. They stand for hope and big ideas as well as simple ones: have fun, include everyone, be positive, do good work. It’s an active rejection of adult cynicism. You could call it anti-capitalist, but there’s no indication anyone involved has given it that much thought. These are the same principals that The Smell seems to impart on everyone who passes through its piss-soaked doorway.

  ***

  In No Age’s Dean Spunt and Randy Randall, Jim Smith found his two most dedicated and willing volunteers—true sons of the scene. Like most of the kids who’ve found purchase in The Smell’s hallowed space, they were refugees from the city’s rock club circuit. “One of the first places I ever played was the Cobalt Cafe, in the Valley,” says Spunt. “They’d do a bill of six local bands and when you walked in they asked you what band you were there to see. Once you got over 50 people for your band, which was impossible, then you got 50 bucks and a dollar a head after that.” He adds, “They made you really feel like a kid.” Never mind that he still was one.

  “The first time playing Smell, it was the anti-version of that.” No booze. No tickets. No backstage. No bullshit. No security hassling you. No pay to play. The Smell is the very definition of anti-club. “At The Smell you were treated as an equal,” explains Smith. “The kids that come, they are people, not ‘patrons.’”

  When Spunt and Randall discovered The Smell in 1998, it wasn’t the province of teen punks, but a dingy downtown venue that’d been colonized by the experimental noise scene—Nels Cline and Win Records bands. The two promptly began booking shows for their then-band, Wives, and as Spunt puts it “we took the place over.” They began booking hardcore and punk bills, including an all-female crust band from the Valley, Dead Banana Ladies, who would soon become scene-queens Mika Miko. Exit old noise dudes, hello excitable tenth graders of the Inland Empire.

  Spunt’s devotion was instant: “The first time I went there I thought ‘I want to be here every day!’ and until about a year, year and a half ago, I was. I was there every day. It was so crazy and so special.”

  Spunt and Randall joined the cabal of people around Smith who were deeply involved in keeping the place open. In 2002, after the Great White club-fire tragedy in Providence, The Smell, like many on-the-fringe-of-legit spaces around the country, was closed by the fire marshal. For the next six months the Smell crew worked to bring the club up to code as quickly as possible. Spunt moved all the shows that had already been booked into a squat where he was living in Hollywood. Almost nightly, there was a four-band bill in his living room, and almost every day the two would be down at The Smell, putting on new doors, building and painting, alongside Smith and the rest of the regulars.

  Amid the process, The Smell became more than a hangout, it became a place Spunt and Randall were responsible for keeping running. “Anthony Berryman from Soddamn Inssein came down to the video store where I worked,” explains Randall. “He told me ‘Jim cannot do this by himself. Listen, you are going to get keys. I don’t want to hear that you are flaking on shows you booked or not showing up.’ I had to learn how to do sound, how to put the mics up there and run the soundboard, be there every night. Jim would try and pay me, and I would avoid him. He’d try to slip a twenty in your pocket somehow.”

  “And then we did the same thing to Mika Miko, because Wives were going on tour for four months. They were there everyday and playing twice a week,” says Spunt.

  In the years since The Smell’s re-birth, the venue’s stakeholders have gone from being just a trusted few bands and regulars to the scene at large. The door was thrown open for everyone to get involved, and it wasn’t simply an issue of good intentions. No Age began to tour frequently (sometimes with Smith in tow), as did Mika Miko, Abe Vigoda and longtime Smell booker/compatriot Brian Miller. Randall explains, “Jim figured that it had to get bigger than just us and other bands, it had to be the kids, too.” He made a “What Would Jim Do” book that volunteers consult; a dozen volunteers have keys. The Smell transitioned from the hands of a few to any and all willing hands.

  “[Jim] really sent it out to the community, that they have to do it,” says Randall. “People complain that The Smell won’t book their band, but then you have to ask them, ‘Well, how many shows have you been to? Have you volunteered there?’ It’s about nurturing the community.”

  ***

  Backstage after No Age’s show in London in late October, a young blogger has been waiting, impatiently, for the 30 minutes since Spunt and Randall got offstage, to interview them for her website. They are soggy and winded from their set and trying to get it together to walk across the street to play a second, “secret” show for 120 die-hards at a 90-capacity sushi bar. Despite the fact that the girl is openly resentful and has a list of 40 terrible questions, they indulge her. With smiles. They are unwaveringly polite. It is the California way to never offend anyone, but their gentleness, removed from the context of The Smell’s downtown alley, becomes immediately recognizable as the spirit of Jim Smith. After 10 minutes, they have to go. They invite her along—she carries the cymbal stands.

  At the packed sushi joint, kids are blowing up balloons, and Smell-scenester Vice Cooler is deejaying R. Kelly too loud. The band heads backstage—a stairwell to the roof—where they learn the Misfits’ classic “Where Eagles Dare.” Someone had dialed up the guitar-tab on their iPhone, learned it and proofed it against the collective memory of the band’s friends that have gathered in the stairwell. Five minutes later, Spunt and Randall open their set with it. Ebullient fans scream along: “I AIN’T NO GODDAMN SON OF A BITCH! YOU BETTER THINK ABOUT IT BAY-BAY!” The floor begins to flex wildly under the pogoing people, so, at the behest of Randall, the audience sits down, which sparks a pig-pile pit. The band blazes through a short set with everyone rolling on each other, singing along and writhing on the floor.

  At the club show No Age played just an hour before, for 1,200 composed Londoners, they were great—a truly fun band. But to see them play a party at this too-small spot, heavy with die-hards, is to see No Age at their incandescent, miracle-band best. It is then that you get that they are so much more than a band. To so many, they are deliverance, they are everything everyone says they are—everything we’ve wished and waited for in punk.

  Since its inception 30-odd years ago, punk has had a spotty history of living up to its best intentions, which is part of its charm. Periodically, there have been bands—most notably Crass, Fugazi, Bad Brains, The Ex, Bikini Kill—or labels (K, Dischord) or scenes that sprang up with radical notions that inspired a paradigm shift. It is a matter of inspiration—and great records or live shows are necessary to back it up, to wrap people up in the big ideas—the pugnacious do-it-yourself dogma is transmogrified into something urbane and empowering. It’s a rare sort of once-or-twice-a-decade thing, when a band shows us we can be more than fans, and that this can be about something other than entertainment, getting wasted or getting laid. It is an alchemical shift, where music becomes exactly
what you believed it was when your heart was 15 and pure, and all the hope and time you’ve given it pays out. The Smell is home to one of these coalescent moments, No Age is one of these bands.

  ***

  While The Smell may have indoctrinated No Age on how to approach their career and given them an ideological toehold for their music, it didn’t necessarily prepare them for success. The band is being held up as an emblem of positivity in the media, hailed as a signal of a new Los Angeles, and the band is wearing the weight of those expectations. “We want to play and do our thing but the visibility puts a lot of stress on people around us, the community of L.A.,” says Spunt. “I have to wonder, like, did we fuck something up?” What happens in a scene of equals when suddenly one band is declared king?

  ***

  It’s the morning after what should have been No Age’s triumphant return to The Smell. It’s been a big year for the boys; their debut on Sub Pop, Nouns, has the underground hyperventilating with glee, and has brought them to the attention of the overground: they have been profiled in The New Yorker and played on a late night chat show. They have been nominated for a Grammy for their album packaging. After months of non-stop touring, they had almost two weeks home for a break, and booked a hush-hush show at The Smell. The show was moderately attended, but the audience had few familiar faces. Then, after the third song, in a pocket of strange silence, a kid yelled giddily from where the pit should have been, “YOU WERE ON MTV!” Dean and Randy exchanged glances and Dean quickly counted off into the next 4/4 blitzkrieg; a handful of kids pogo, while the rest gawk silently at the band.