Past Prime #22
Bon Iver, George Michael, Black Sabbath & The Misremembrance of Robin Ventura
I’m done. I am fully, officially done. Not done like Billy Joel, who quit making new music but who couldn’t quit selling out Madison Square Garden. And not done like Jeff Mangum, who fled his own cult only to briefly reappear & then re-disappear like that fable about the lumberjack poet groundhog1. I’m done like Paul Westerberg who toiled & flailed & failed before disappearing into suburbia with the exception of that one random time when he was interviewed outside a Walgreens after some last minute Christmas shopping2.
Yes — I’m Paul Westerberg done. I’m fifty year old dad done. Done squeezing out the last ounces of productivity from 2024. Done chauffeuring kiddos to baseball, softball, basketball, singing & acting. Done making holiday plans. And buying holiday gifts. And sending holiday cards. Done considering geriatric Black Sabbath. Done wondering if Bon Iver will ever get back to the shack. Done poring over the Nolan Ryan / Robin Ventura fight like it was The Zapruder film. I’m just done. Done. Done. But also, Past Prime will be back in a couple weeks. And in the meantime, there are some Replacements tapes for sale in the shop. Happy 2025 — the year when everyone finally realizes that past prime is the new prime.
Once upon a time, Black Sabbath were considered musical troglodytes — dumb, artless wankers, shunned by the cultural cognoscenti. Years later, even after many fans & some critics came around, they were still treated like drunk, possibly murderous threats. It was not until recently, long after Ozzy left, after Ronnie left, after most of the world had reconsidered them, that Sabbath settled into the realm of quaint nostalgia & rich celebrity. They signified the excess & darkness of Seventies Hard Rock & the eventual convalescence from said excess & darkness. By 2013, Ozzy Osbourne was unimaginably wealthy. He was a reality TV star. He was a doddering, comical old man. And yet, despite the passage of time, despite the reputational rehab & despite Ozzy’s defanging, “13” is not funny — not even for a single moment. “13” is terrifying.
As Bon Iver evolved from loner in the shack to experimental Jam band, Justin Vernon became more diffuse — and more opaque. His voice was everywhere, but his songs were impossible to decipher. His career was simultaneously safe & unpredictable. He was Indie Rock canon verging on Pop canon, but one never knew when or if the next album would come. And one never knew what it might sound like — except that it wouldn’t sound like “For Emma, Forever Ago.” The one thing we knew for sure about Justin Vernon was that he was not going back.
Robin Ventura “The Misremembrance”
His “grand slam single” during the 2000 NLCS would have been the most memorable event from almost any other player’s career. So would have the two grand slam game or the two grand slam double header. So would all those gold gloves. And that’s not to mention anything of the fifty-eight game collegiate hitting streak. Any one of those feats would have been a career hallmark for most ballplayers. But not so in the case of Robin Ventura who, on August 4, 1993, dared to charge the mound inhabited by one Nolan Ryan.
Eight years removed from his last album of originals — after a very public arrest, after the death of his mother and his partner — George released what would become his swan song. Having lost most of his U.S. fanbase, “Patience” was less a triumphant return & much more an album for aging diehards. Like all George Michael albums, it was an extremely personal one. But, it was also a radically honest album. Prince employed characters & double entendres. Michael Jackson used masks. And Madonna had her costumes. But there was always a sense that George was telling the absolute truth. That what we were hearing was not a “version of George Michael,” but the man himself.
The Olivia Tremor Control “Garden of Light” & “The Same Place”
Whereas Bill Doss was a hard working free spirit, Will Cullen Hart was more of a boundless tinkerer. Doss’ songs have an easy air about them — they feel well-crafted but also kind of effortless. Hart’s songs, on the other hand, sound unlike anything or anyone else. If The Olivia Tremor Control were a miracle, Hart was the miracle worker. And of the many miracles he performed, none were more miraculous than the ones he manifested on November 29, 2024. That day, at the age of fifty-three, he bequeathed us “Garden of Light” & “The Same Place.” The surprise of these two gifts — the first new music from OTC in fifteen years — was all the more mind boggling, though, when you consider what immediately preceded them. Just a few hours earlier, Will Cullen Hart had passed away from natural causes.
No such fable actually exists.
Paul Westerberg “Christmas Shopping at Walgreens”