Beat Happening is an American indie rock band which was formed in Olympia, Washington in 1982. The members who have been with the band along the whole way are Calvin Johnson, Heather Lewis and Bret Lunsford. Beat Happening were early leaders in the American indie rock and lo-fi movements and well-known for their use of primitive recording techniques, disregard for the technical aspects of musicianship and songs with a childish and coy nature.
The members of the band met while attending The Evergreen State College and began recording in 1983. The basic line-up was drums, guitar and vocals, however, when they first got together their only instruments were a pair of maracas and a Sears Silvertone guitar that were purchased at a thrift shop. Heather once made a joke during an interview that the history of the band could be told through a list of the carious people they had borrowed drums from.
Heather and Calvin had previously been members of a band together and got in touch with Bret, who had no previous musical experience at the time, saying that they should form a band and go to Japan. And, it was on a trip to Tokyo that the band members recorded Three tea Breakfast, which was an EP that came to establish the band’s reputation.
Calvin Johnson also was one of the founders of the seminal indie-rock label K Records. The label has been supported by many, including among others Kurt Cobain, who had a K Record logo on his arm. The label achieved some limited success and continues to keep its independent integrity, claiming that it has exploded the teenage underground into passionate revolt against the corporate ogre since 1982.
The first recorded the band released was the self-titled and critically acclaimed Beat Happening in 1985. The second record the band released had the title Jamboree and came out in 1988. When the third album, Dreamy, came out in 1991, Beat Happening was one of the most popular bands in the indie rock community giving them a major role in the in the International Pop Underground Festival, which brought anti-corporate rock some of the earliest mainstream acceptance. The last full-length album released by the band was You Turn Me On, which came out in 1992. On this record the band broke many of its established conventions from the earlier albums, especially on Godsend, which is a nine minute long track which features the use of multitrack recording and was by some described as a masterpiece.
Although Beat Happening never announced a break-up and claimed at one point to be practicing once a month, the members have moved on to other projects. In 2000 they released the Angel Gone single, which was their first new recording in eight years.
In 2002 the band released a box set with the title Crashing Through, which collects all of the band’s officially released music except for some or their tracks from a live cassette split with The Vaselines. Included with the box set is a booklet containing a lengthy essay on the history and impact of the band by Lois Maffeo together with rare photos of members Calvin, Heather, Bret and the musician and director G.B. Jones.
In the All Music Guide Beat Happening has been described as having created an unorthodox, raw sound, which rotated vocal, guitar, and drum duties between members in a democratic fashion, while leaving out the bass. Also the band skipped their last names to emphasize their everyman approach, while expressing simple truths and simple emotions with simple music. They favored off-key, tuneless vocals and three-chord primitivism over slick, processed packaging. Their music is also an implicit rejection of major-labels and the band remained with K Records for the entire life span.
Joe Boikowich writes about music formats and vinyl records. For more information about the band check out the site of Beat Happening [http://www.nylvi.com/artist/beat+happening] at Nylvi.
Nylvi [http://www.nylvi.com] is a new social marketplace for buying and selling vinyl records.
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