[SynthethicalY]

Awesome band, don't you think?

[Toilet & Bowels]

i like the first album, but what i've heard of the others ones didn't really do too much for me

[SynthethicalY]

I just got into them, I have heard some songs before, but recently I rediscovered, and they are just amazing. I like his voice, it seems out of place.

[Cantankerous]

i can't take them seriously, they're too cute and fuzzy.

[gmku]

Oh man, I love those guys. In the late 80s, Heather was in my pantheon of girl rocker crushes.

[pbradley]

Never saw the appeal but they're cool I suppose.

[schizophrenicroom]

cast a shadow in MYYYYYYYY direction!

[screamingskull]

i dunno, i never really liked his voice much.

[Cardinal Rob]

I've got a crush on you, I've got a crush on you, I've got a crush on you, I've got a crush on you, I've got a crush on you, I've got a crush on you, I've got a crush on you, I've got a crush on, youuu.

I adore Calvin's voice. I've had huge crushes on songs such as Indian Summer, Our Secret, Dreamy, Hangman, Red Head Walking (I have the single), Cast a Shadow, Pyjama Party in a Haunted Hive etc.

It's also probably worth checking out a bit of Dub Narcotic Sound System.

[Pax Americana]

I'm not into twee. Not at all really. Too cute for me. BUT I really do like some Beat Happening. I've always thought that Calvin Johnson's voice was really cool.

[gmku]

I don't think of them as twee. I always classified them as lo-fi grunge, but maybe that's because I got into them around that grunge time, and I don't think twee was even a term back then.

[hotbutterknives]

one..of...my...favorite....bands...ever...but...th e...halo...benders...are...the...absolute..shit!!! !!...the...dub..are..also..good...as...well....as. ..calvin's...3....solo...albums...(fuck...i....got ..to...get...a.new...keyboard....these///fucking....dots...are...driving/....me///insane)

[Pax Americana]

Originally Posted by gmku

I don't think of them as twee. I always classified them as lo-fi grunge, but maybe that's because I got into them around that grunge time, and I don't think twee was even a term back then.

I always kinda thought of them as twee. Well, in any case they certainly influenced a lot of 'twee' bands.

[Visaforviolet]

Calvin's voice is hardly twee, though. Which creates a nice tension with the lyrical concerns, which can be on the twee side.

Dub Narcotic were always more my speed. There's always the immortal couplet: "1994/Fuck shit up some more!" Ye-ah.

(My favorite ever Calvin Johnson TV interview is the one he gave Toby amies in ...1994 was it? He was wearing these ridiculous oversized red mittens with snowflakes on them, and he answered every one of Toby's questions with stone-walling, monotone monosyllables. It was hysterical. Or was it obnoxious? It's a fine line.)

[Bicorn Halfelven]

I used to wear a Beat Happening shirt (the one with the kitty face) to high school quite a bit. Got me dirty looks from the hardcore kids, but the indie girls luuuuved it.

[SynthethicalY]

Originally Posted by screamingskull

i dunno, i never really liked his voice much.

That is what I adore from them, the voice Calvin has is a big contrast to the music.

[Everyneurotic]

i have their first record and it's great.

[Dead-Air]

I first saw Beat Happening in 1986 in Bellingham WA with Mecca Normal, Girl Trouble, and the Screaming Trees. Although I was into pretty underground music already, the only one of the four groups I got into that night was the Screaming Trees who totally shredded. This seems ironic, because over time, the other three groups are among my all time favorite NW rock acts, and the Screaming Trees just got over produced, then old and boring.

It was when I saw Beat Happening play between Fugazi and Nation of Ulysses around '90 that it really struck me how much balls they had to do this stripped down minimal pop in front of punk audiences, and that it was in fact punker than lots of hardcore shit just for being so audacious.

It does help to watch Calvin dance on stage at least once to get into the band from that point on I think. I know him pretty well these days, and don't think of him as a "star" at all, yet he still does have this powerful charisma on stage that's hard to deny.

[SpectralJulianIsNotDead]

I played Cast a Shadow on my college radio show that I had in 2004, and this jazz DJ asked me to explain why I liked it to him.

I saw Calvin Johnson at a hole in the wall sort of club doing is solo "What Was Me" stuff. It was really cool, he was the one there selling his records. He did a cool cover of Hard Travellin by Woodie Guthrie after an explanation of how he didn't know it was a Woodie Guthrie song. He added in a line about thinking that the war on terrorism was a bunch of BS population control and it fit right in.

He stood in the middle of everyone, no mics or anything, he didn't use the stage because he said it felt "cave like."


Bewitched was my favorite song to listen to when I was a senior in high school whenever I had a crush on a girl

[Dead-Air]

Originally Posted by SpectralJulianIsNotDead

I played Cast a Shadow on my college radio show that I had in 2004, and this jazz DJ asked me to explain why I liked it to him.

So what was your answer, or did you have one? Potentially, that sounds pretty interesting.

In an odd aside, Calvin personally doesn't like jazz, though he's into soul, dub, reggae, hip hop, and to some degree experimental music. At least that's what Brandt Sandeno from Unwound/Replikants told me once. I never heard it from Calvin or anything, but Brandt did work at K at the time.