Beat Happening: Music To Climb The Apple Tree By

BEAT HAPPENING: MUSIC TO CLIMB THE APPLE TREE BY (1984-2000/2003)

1) Angels Gone; 2) Nancy Sin; 3) Sea Hunt; 4) Look Around; 5) Not A Care In The World; 6) Dreamy; 7) That Girl; 8) Secret Picnic Spot; 9) Zombie Limbo Time; 10) Foggy Eyes; 11) Knock On Any Door; 12) Sea Babies; 13) Tales Of A Brave Aphrodite; 14) Polly Pereguinn; 15) I Dig You.

As a very brief, but obligatory post-scriptum to the true story of Beat Happening, we should mention this collection of singles, EPs, and other rarities, spanning about fifteen years. It was first made available as one of the CDs in the Crashing Through boxset, released by K Records in 2002 and containing just about everything the band ever did; then, a year later, it was issued sepa­rately, for the benefit of those veteran fans who already had all the records.

As it usually happens with these things, you will not find any major surprises here, though. His­torically, I guess, the most important tracks are the last four — recorded by the band in 1988 in collaboration with another indie outfit, Screaming Trees, and containing the proto-grunge rocker ʽPolly Pereguinnʼ that was later named by Kurt Cobain as his favorite song of the 1980s. It does stand somewhere halfway between the heavy psychedelia of the late Sixties and Nirvana's somber grunge declarations of hatred for humanity, but honestly, it's not that good — not even in a bang-your-head-against-the-wall suicidal variety of «good». The sound of it, with the heavily distorted descending riff (a little derivative of Cream's ʽWhite Roomʼ, if you ask me), the deafening bass, and the stone-dead vocals, is morbidly seductive, but the hook-power is quite limited. But I guess the sound was well enough for Kurt on this occasion. Besides, it's really a Screaming Trees song, not a Beat Happening one, so why am I even discussing this?

Another interesting inclusion is the single ʽAngel Goneʼ, which was actually recorded during a brief reunion period in 2000 — and shows that very little had changed in the meantime, except that Calvin's baritone became even deeper, but also more controllable: he is now capable of wea­ving fluent, even slightly mesmerizing vocal melodies (over the same monotonous two-chord guitar jangle) that confirm the band did have talent, after all, no matter how efficiently they tried to hide it for all those years. And the B-side, ʽZombie Limbo Timeʼ, shows that they never lost the scary graveyard side of their personality either — although this track, to be honest, sounds like straightahead black comedy (and could also be easily mistaken for a B-52's outtake).

Fans of You Turn Me On will also be happy to have the single ʽSea Huntʼ, which preceded the album and presaged its style — anthemic singing, heavy echo, and just a touch of offensively out-of-tune violin to remind us that these guys were still downshifters and deconstructors, and what was good for The Velvet Underground was even better for Beat Happening. The rest of the tracks, including alternate (single) versions of ʽNancy Sinʼ and ʽDreamyʼ, just sort of pass by, though. That said, I do admit that I have not been, as of yet, able to listen to the record properly as recom­mended — namely, while in the state of climbing an apple tree — and cannot accurately guaran­tee that it will not sound completely different to the ears of someone busy grappling a tree trunk with all four limbs. Unless, of course, this is simply a veiled hint at the fact that this kind of music can only appeal to 12-year olds, or to any-year olds with the mind of a 12-year old, or to any-year olds who can efficiently simulate the mind of a 12-year old whenever they want to re­cover from the latest political scandal or personal tragedy. Beat Happening, ladies and gentlemen. Give 'em a big hand and all.

Beat Happening: You Turn Me On

BEAT HAPPENING: YOU TURN ME ON (1992)

1) Tiger Trap; 2) Noise; 3) Pinebox Derby; 4) Teenage Caveman; 5) Sleepy Head; 6) You Turn Me On; 7) Godsend; 8) Hey Day; 9) Bury The Hammer.

A tricky question here: will the Beat still be Happening if, for once — just for once — the band actually decides to record music that does not intentionally sound bad? As in, quality hi-fi pro­duction, predominantly on-key vocals, well-tuned guitars and all? The song structures may still be minimalistic as hell, restricted by 2-3 chords at max, and the atmosphere may still smell of lobotomy post-op, but the technical quality is improved to the point of there actually being some technical quality, and isn't that, like, sacrilegious for this band? Is there a point here? Didn't we really all enjoy Beat Happening just because of the aural masochism?

In any case, it is a good thing that they recorded this, because otherwise we'd just have empty speculations — and here is your actual chance to witness a cleaner, tighter, more overtly musical variant of Beat Happening before it's too late. Additionally, there is one more important change: the songs are much longer now on the average, varying from around 4 to 6 minutes, with ʽGod­sendʼ clocking in at an awesome-awful 9:28 — and no, this is not some sort of «progressive» tendency, because the Spartan melody stubbornly stays the same all the time. If you can listen to our shit for two minutes, you might as well listen for nine. Let the chords soak in.

My honest opinion is that the gamble pays off quite well. In essence, this is the same old Beat Happening — Calvin, the grumpy one, and Heather, the bright innocent one, with their guitar melodies reflecting the two different personalities — and the improved sound quality is a blessing for their vocal hooks, which, although repetitive, finally get a chance to properly materialize and solidify (particularly when they prop them up with multi-tracked vocals).

So you could say that the inexperienced kid of seven years ago has finally matured here, advan­cing to the level of writing some really densely encoded lyrical observations on love and death and to the level of actually mastering some professional techniques to set them to music — yet all the while remaining at about the same level of rudimentary musical talent, and retaining the twee innocence and the gloomy sarcasm of yore. Actually, one thing that you can sense fairly well is that the personality is almost completely split in two now: Heather and Calvin move in such dif­ferent directions that it almost feels uncomfortable to have something as sweet, optimistic, and encouraging as ʽSleepy Headʼ and something as grinningly ghoulish as ʽPinebox Derbyʼ (a song about hunting witches and sealing them in coffins, no less!) on the same album. Or, a minute later, have to listen to the quasi-Satanic mantra of "turn me on dead man, turn me on dead man" and then, right next to it, learn that "it's just the things you do, you make it true, you're a godsend" over the course of a friendly nine-minute mantra.

Indeed, approximately half of this album sounds as if it were recorded in the dead of night at your local cemetery, while the other half was recorded in broad daylight on some green lawn in Central Park. The two halves lock together on the final track, ʽBury The Hammerʼ, a relatively rare case of an actual duet between Calvin and Heather that urges to "forgive and forget, it's time to make amends", as if the previous forty minutes were spent in the state of a hostile rift, and now the creepy cemetery joker and the sunshine-loving dame are coming together in one final em­brace... yeah, I could picture something like that.

And yes, the vocal hooks are nice. Not very original — just nice. For the record, one bit of vocal modulation on ʽSleepy Headʼ is borrowed from the Stones' ʽAs Tears Go Byʼ, and I'm sure that most of the other parts can be traced back to their old-school pop roots as well, from Motown to the Kinks, but they are reworking, not stealing, and matching the old hooks to their modern per­sonalities. Be it the mournful "we cry alone, we cry alone" of ʽTeenage Cavemanʼ, or the ado­ring "you make it true..." bit of ʽGodsendʼ, or the nonchalantly mumbled "bury the hammer, bury the hammer" mantra, they're all a tiny tiny bit «new», and they're all meaningfully attractive.

Overall, this is clearly a thumbs up kind of album — I hesitate to call it the «culmination» of all things Beat Happening, since it objectively sounds very differently from everything they did pre­viously; but as the end of the journey, it is at least as important as the self-titled debut. You can easily skip the middle of the road, but it makes sense — and a little intrigue — to take a look at how they ended up if you already know how they started out. Ironically, this was not originally supposed to be Beat Happening's swan song: it is more like one of those albums that unintentio­nally come out looking like swan songs, and then subvert the band into breaking up because there's just no way they could really pick it up and continue on. Another record like that, and the spiral of mediocrity would start swirling again; but as it is, You Turn Me On remains the band's most immediately accessible and likeable record, and I'm glad they went out with it. 

Beat Happening: Dreamy

BEAT HAPPENING: DREAMY (1991)

1) Me Untamed; 2) Left Behind; 3) Hot Chocolate Boy; 4) I've Lost You; 5) Cry For A Shadow; 6) Collide; 7) Nancy Sin; 8) Fortune Cookie Prize; 9) Revolution Come And Gone; 10) Red Head Walking.

And the growth process goes on and on, and here is where we reach a stage where there is almost nothing left that could rekindle those old feelings of endearing cuteness. The primitive guitar melodies stay strictly primitive, while the lyrics strive towards increasingly meditative, introspec­tive, impressionistic poetry — which creates an unpleasant imbalance: you'd think that more so­phisticated wordplay exercises deserved a songwriting jolt as well, but no, these guys are just too lazy or too stubborn to come up with better melodies.

At least Heather gets to sing three whole songs, two of which sound exactly the same and one of which (ʽCollideʼ) sounds like an early Sonic Youth demo. Her twee-ness makes it easier to sit through Calvin's usual deconstructed surf-rock stuff, which shows no progress whatsoever from the previous album. Only one tune somehow stands out, both because it's longer than the rest and because it is the closest so far that they have come to amateur-emulating the Velvets: ʽRevolution Come And Goneʼ, a song not about any actual revolutions, but rather about a love-and-hate re­lationship with strong sexual implications — however, the rhythm guitar work and the inflection-free vocals are so mind-numbing that I'd rather have me 17 minutes of ʽSister Rayʼ than have to listen to yet another four minutes of this song.

In fact, fourth time around it is clear that the formula has finally «locked in», and that Dreamy is a proposition strictly for those who have already been converted. Yes, these songs are still catchy in the same way that early Beach Boy songs like ʽSurfin' Safariʼ were catchy, or Jan and Dean, or Link Wray, etc., but these are not freshly invented hooks (fans of early Sixties rock will probably find no new melodic moves whatsoever), and their execution leaves everything to be desired — so there's really nothing except for an abstract «lo-fi aesthetics» left to defend them. And there is nothing I can say about songs like ʽMe Untamedʼ, ʽHot Chocolate Boyʼ, or ʽNancy Sinʼ that I have not already said about their earlier tunes, so why say anything? My limited time subscription to this aesthetics ran out with Jamboree anyway.

Bottomline: if you are a fan of running once fresh, but eventually quite stale artistic jokes so deep into the ground that nobody except you can even see them anymore, Dreamy is there for you. I, however, feel more bored by its thirty minutes than if I'd had to spend all that time listening to a Grateful Dead jam. You get similar reactions from late period Ramones, but at least late period Ramones didn't have to harbor an irrational pride for shitty production, poor playing, and offkey singing. Which is too bad, because Calvin's lyrics are actually getting better — he's got quite a unique way of looking at relationships now, and with a slight change of aesthetics, I could see how something like ʽCry For A Shadowʼ might have been reworked into a really efficient, even therapeutic love song. Unfortunately, I cannot at all stomach this approach to «being different»: when your music makes Lou Reed seem like the Jascha Heifetz of electric guitar, you know you're taking huge risks, and I believe that, if you think in context, Dreamy is where they reach the end of the line. Thumbs down.

Beat Happening: Black Candy

BEAT HAPPENING: BLACK CANDY (1989)

1) Other Side; 2) Black Candy; 3) Knick Knack; 4) Pajama Party In A Haunted Hive; 5) Gravedigger Blues; 6) Cast A Shadow; 7) Bonfire; 8) T.V. Girl; 9) Playhouse; 10) Ponytail.

Our 10-/12-/14-year old continues to grow up, and now he seems to be entering a mean streak — about half of the songs here have dark overtones, be it the bass riffs, Calvin's ever-lowering vo­cals, or lyrics that tend to drift into the spooky-scary corner of the absurd. Not that this is «goth» or Alice Cooper stuff, but at this point in the life of the protagonist, I'd stay away from him if you were a girl, because he is liable, you know, to drop a spider in your panties or something. "Drip my blood / Fall in love / Chew my cud / Mess my head" does not look very appetizing as a re­placement for the simplistic romancing of the first two albums.

I am very much tempted to write these thirty minutes off by saying that the joke finally got too old, and that's it — on the other hand, the songs continue to be moderately catchy, and this new darker vibe counts for progress, so I guess it would be more honest to admit that by 1989 Beat Happening still had not completely outlived their initial purpose. Not that I seriously want to talk about these songs. For one thing, it's frustrating that Heather only gets to sing lead once, on the twee-cutesy ʽKnick Knackʼ, whose repetitive, but seductive and optimistic refrain of "you see a ghost, I see a halo" contrasts nicely with Calvin's gloominess — it's as if she was allowed, just once, to make a retort and used this opportunity to provide a bright, reassuring, idealistic femi­nine counterpoint to Calvin's dark brooding masculinity (a yin-yang role reversal!). But one song out of ten? She may not be the technically better singer of the two, but at least she's the nice one.

For another thing, what is there to talk about, really? I could mention that ʽOther Sideʼ opens the album with a melody that is very similar to Zappa's ʽWowie Zowieʼ, and that this may not be a total coincidence (Freak Out! had its fair share of intentional «childishness» as well), but other than that, well, you see, it no longer has that freshness and strangeness of approach — it sounds more serious than anything they've done before, enough to dispel the aura of «innocent young teen delightfully failing in his sincere artistic inclinations», yet not serious enough to wow or stun you with its melodic potential or unique atmosphere. Honestly, I am not sure that I really need Beat Happening if I want someone to invoke me to "let's find a way to the other side" — plenty of people in the psychedelic era did this more convincingly.

Some stuff here is just plain misguided — the finger-click-accompanied ʽGravedigger Bluesʼ, for instance, sounds like an inane parody on Nick Cave; it could be funny if only the singing wasn't so terribly offkey, but as it is, it is not. ʽPlayhouseʼ finally adds an agenda of sexual innuendos to what used to be a much more chaste approach, and for that reason, also sounds more like a self-parody than a serious statement. The pseudo-surf rock ʽBonfireʼ and the pseudo-Stooges ʽPajama Party In A Haunted Hiveʼ sound more like frustratingly incomplete genre exercises than intellec­tual deconstructions of their respective genres — I understand that the difference is fleeting and subjective, but I just don't feel any enticing atmospherics here.

In other words, they are trying to make some progress without abandoning the core ideology, but there's only so much you can achieve when your starting capital consists of not knowing how to play or sing and not being afraid to use that lack of knowledge. Think of Black Candy as the band's "We wet our beds, but we want to be Jim Morrison!" record or something — maybe that'll help. At least it's nice to know that it is still no longer than thirty minutes.

Beat Happening: Jamboree

BEAT HAPPENING: JAMBOREE (1988)

1) Bewitched; 2) In Between; 3) Indian Summer; 4) Hangman; 5) Jamboree; 6) Ask Me; 7) Crashing Through; 8) Cat Walk; 9) Drive Car Girl; 10) Midnight A Go-Go; 11) The This Many Boyfriends Club.

Second time around, the joke is not quite so funny any more. True to tradition, this is still a very short album with very short songs (making any of these go over three minutes would severely violate the Geneva convention), but there isn't much progress other than the proverbial «10-year old kid» growing some pubic hair and discovering (in a not-so-independent process) the joys of feedback, distortion, and RCR (Rebellious Caveman Rock!).

Seriously, if there is any way to describe the opening number ʽBewitchedʼ, it is this and only this: a product from the Build-Your-Own-Stooges-Song Set. The opening feedback, the threatening distorted riff, Calvin's nasty baritone, and those lyrics — "I see you hang in the crowd / Staring me down... / What am I to do? / I got a crush on you" — if this isn't a conscious attempt to build their own ʽDown On The Streetʼ, I don't know what it is. Except, of course, that you have to take it as completely tongue-in-cheek, or else it is just a travesty. You could make that riff thicker, throw in some supporting lead lines, add extra bite and snarl to the vocals, get a real good drum­mer, and end up with one of those proto-punk classics from either Funhouse or Raw Power, be­cause the riff is actually quite cool — but you don't do that. You just end up with this corrupted, lo-fi, off-key demo version, because that's supposed to be the point. Okay then.

In fact, the songs here are, if anything, even more intentionally and defiantly «demo-like» than on the 1985 album. The title track is just Calvin singing off-key to a primitive drum machine; ʽAsk Meʼ is just Heather, singing slightly more on-key to... nothing at all, although the vocals do form a cohesive and catchy pop melody that should have had a full backing... or should it, really? Who knows, maybe if they added guitars and a rhythm section, it would have been just another run-of-the-mill twee-pop number — whereas this deconstruction is... like... allegorical in form, meta­physical in content? Fifty-eight seconds of the never-ending battle between the Nacheinander and the Nebeneinander. Art imitating Life or Life imitating Art? "Five hands crawling up my back / Thump, thump, have a heart attack". Nursery rhyme in the left corner, lo-fi aesthetics in the right corner. Clinch, clinch.

The thing is, until we actually see these songs «completed», it is very hard to tell if they are qua­lity embryos, produced with fine, healthy genetic material, or if they're just a bunch of unferti­lized cells whose main, if not only, attraction is that very «unfertilized» look. Some of the vocal, ahem, «melodies» can stick around, largely because of their repetitiveness, and some of the tracks will stick around just due to sheer ugliness (like the last track, ʽThe This Many Boyfriends Clubʼ, apparently recorded live and featuring Calvin at his absolutely ugliest — the vocals are more hideous than a bunch of tomcats in the night, and the accompanying feedback blasts have all the proper effect of nails-on-chalkboard); «enjoyable» these songs can only be for those who also «enjoy» watching Night Of The Living Dead. (With a few exceptions, of course: whenever Hea­ther takes lead vocals, the songs take on a friendly-sweet and generally listenable air — but she does not do it too often).

But if you disregard the individual songs and once again just embrace the concept as a whole, the downside is that, «faux-Stooges numbers» like ʽBewitchedʼ and ʽHangmanʼ aside, the concept remains more or less the same as it was: a tongue-in-cheek look at «musical failure» as an artistic statement in itself. And second time around, it's really not that fun anymore, which is why I can­ no longer be generous enough for a thumbs up — I mean, there's no way I could recommend Jamboree to anybody with a good ear for music, and there's no reason I should recommend Jam­boree to anybody interested in music-centered artistic statements because, well, there's just one thumbs up allowed per exactly the same music-centered artistic statement if there's not much else to go along with the statement. Unless, of course, you have doctor-prescribed aural pain treat­ments, in which case ʽThe This Many Boyfriends Clubʼ is a total must. Play it once every day at top volume, and you will be totally immune to drills, jackhammers, and televangelists for the rest of your precious life.

Beat Happening: Beat Happening

BEAT HAPPENING: BEAT HAPPENING (1985)

1) Our Secret; 2) What's Important; 3) Down At The Sea; 4) I Love You; 5) Fourteen ('83); 6) Run Down The Stairs ('83); 7) Bad Seeds (live); 8) In My Memory; 9) Honey Pot; 10) The Fall; 11) Youth; 12) Don't Mix The Colors; 13) Foggy Eyes; 14) Bad Seeds; 15) I Let Him Get To Me; 16) I Spy; 17) Run Down The Stairs ('84); 18) Christmas; 19) Fourteen ('84); 20) Let's Kiss; 21) 1, 2, 3; 22) In Love With You Thing; 23) Look Around.

This is one of those records that usually triggers interminable and unwinnable discussions about what is music, what is art, what is taste, what is good and bad sound, and whether we're supposed to have admiration for something just because it was endorsed by Kurt Cobain, and if yes, should we also admire heroin and Remington Arms, etc. etc. In other words, a reviewer's paradise re­gard­less of how much the reviewer likes or hates the record in question.

The fact remains that, as evidenced by this particular recording, «singers», «songwriters», and, most comically, «multi-instrumentalists» (yes, that's the way they're encyclopaedically described) Calvin Johnson, Heather Lewis, and Bret Lunsford, upon getting together, found out or confir­med that they could not sing worth a damn, that they were unable to competently play any of their instruments, and that their songwriting talents did not significantly exceed those of an average 5-year old. Additionally, they did not have access to professional studios and did not even own a drum set (they had to borrow one or build up a cardboard imitation). In other words, they were, like, the first true punk band in history, except they did not want to be punks. Instead, they just took the most brilliant decision that could be taken, given the circumstances.

And that decision was — if our skills and talents match the average level of a 5-year old (okay, maybe a 10-year old for accuracy), why not imitate a 10-year old? "I was walking in our town / I was walking through the store / I saw a pretty girl / She held open the door / I said ʽI like youʼ / She said that she liked me / And we could be friends / In our special stupid way". That is the way this album opens (well, the new CD edition does, anyway), and isn't that something you'd pretty much expect to be written by a 10-year old when pressed into writing «poetry»? Okay, so the word ʽstupidʼ gives it all away: no 10-year old would voluntarily describe him/herself as ʽstupidʼ. So it's not quite as perfect as it may have been. But then, they have to have some points of inter­section with their grown-up audiences — after all, Beat Happening is not advertising itself for a pre-pubescent public. I mean, another of the songs goes, "I had sex on Christmas / I had sex three times today / Three different women taught me how to be bored / In their own separate sweet little ways". So let's put it this way: this is an album written by grown-ups about grown-up issues through the prism of the mentality of a little kid, one such as could have come up with the drawing for the album cover.

Does it work? Well, that's a tough question to answer once you've done your duty of acknowled­ging the innovative (or, rather, «novel») nature of the overall approach. As far as I can tell, it does not work on the level of «base catchiness»: beyond the fact that the primitive chord sequences that they can master on their guitars are all taken from various classic or not-so-classic pop re­cords, they don't really know what to do with them, or, rather, they just don't care, because any extra tinkering with melodies would qualify as «polish», and a 10-year old wouldn't be supposed to care about that. It certainly doesn't work on the level of «conventional prettiness», either: vici­ously off-key singing and annoyingly out-of-tune playing are the norm of day (although some songs violate melodic conventions more than others), so don't expect to be angelically charmed. So what else is there to compensate for poor songwriting and horrible execution? (And, oh yes, awful production, but that goes without saying, since the first thing about Beat Happening that you learn in textbooks is how they were the real «pioneers of lo-fi»).

Well, there is a fair amount of innocent charm in all this stuff, whose fairy godmother is actually Maureen Tucker on ʽAfter Hoursʼ (yes indeed, for everything in the Seventies, Eighties and be­yond there has been a blueprint at least as early as 1969). Just the way this trio launches into this material, with such gusto and all, challenges conventional expectations — instead of upgrading themselves to the level of a very mediocre, undistinctive, third-rate guitar pop band, they have chosen to downgrade themselves, and in doing so, they have attracted our attention rather than dissipated it. The lo-fi production and poor playing, in this case, enhance the experience — we are not being shown some pretentious, idealized, «childfully angelic» world, but are drawn into the process as is, warts and all: Beat Happening do not invite us to admire them, to fall head over heels in love with their cuteness and cuddliness, but instead provoke a mix of curiosity, laughing, irritation, and, on occasion, even some intellectual stimulation.

There is one song here (actually, presented in two versions on the new CD edition, one of which is a barely audible live performance) that is intentionally written in a «punkish» idiom — like, what would a 10-year old scribble in his classroom after his first encounter with The Clash or The Sex Pistols? With a quasi-surf rock guitar line and a stiff vocal performance that brings up visions of the B-52's rather than Duane Eddy, ʽBad Seedsʼ is like a really really silly, really really bad punk rock anthem if you take it on its own, but placed in this general context, it's just the album's protagonist momentarily caught in a bad mood — usually, his mood is much better, when he is trying to pen something romantic and optimistic, but sometimes the world gets him like that, and all he can do is just grin back at it: "we're ba-a-a-a-d, bad bad seeds" (should be delivered with all the theatrical evil that a little harmless, inoffensive kid can possibly gather up).

Special prize goes to Miss Heather "Mr. Fish is having a party" Lewis here, for serving as the prototype for thousands of intellectually endowed, innocently sounding indie ladies that would start springing up at alarming rates in the 21st century — on a gut level, I feel relieved every time that she takes lead vocals, because she is either too afraid or to ashamed to sing as completely out of tune as Mr. Calvin "The best part of sex is walking home" Johnson, who is simply reveling in the pleasure of making your ears curdle. But you're supposed to take it like a man: I mean, would you really be as insensitively cruel as to tell a 10-year old who's really, really trying that your singing totally sucks, lil' buddy? Come on now. In a few years, he'll start taking serious singing lessons, and then we'll see. And these guys here, they're just growing backwards.

And some of the songs are genuinely funny — ʽI Love Youʼ, for instance, has nothing to do with just loving you, but everything to do with our proverbial 10-year old trying to compete with the beatniks: it's something he might have written the next day after having his mind blown by Dylan's ʽSubterranean Homesick Bluesʼ, with such deliciously bad semi-rapped lines as "Those poets grin / Who never sin / They fight with Russians / And have discussions / With the KGB / At the Baltic Sea". It actually takes something good to create something that bad, you know. It is also amusing that, although our «kid» seems familiar with sexual experiences (so let's raise that 10 figure to at least 12-13 for comfort), he always seems to downplay and denigrate them: "You got five other guys saying love me do / You know what they want from you / Me, all I ask is love / And, honey pot, my love you can trust" (ʽHoney Potʼ), or check that quotation from ʽChristmasʼ again. On the other hand, we may very well be dealing with a virgin here who's just shooting his mouth off about having sex on Christmas, so, upon second thought, bring that figure back to 10. Any more than that and we begin to have our doubts about the whole thing.

Overall, on a conceptual basis Beat Happening is quite endearing, hilarious, and occasionally rather unsettling, since some of these songs come very close to nailing the phenomenon of mental retardation (the Ramones used to take too much pride in passing themselves off as mental retards: Beat Happening do that humbly and quietly, and this makes it all the more unsettling). On an in­dividual song level, it is practically non-existent, though, even compared to their later records where «polish» would reduce the importance of the concept and increase the importance of sepa­rate song units. Also, the LP/CD re-issue from 1996 which added a whole bunch of bonus tracks, particularly ones taken from the later EP Three Tea Breakfast, makes the whole experience somewhat overlong (23 tracks in 45 minutes — they come close to beating Wire's record with Pink Flag!). Regardless, it totally makes sense as an artistic statement and deserves its thumbs up, although I'll have to wait until I go completely mental before I start really enjoying it on a casual everyday basis.