All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
Damn that Donnie Darko.
Escaping the recesses of Moria during the siege of SXSW 02, a broken-beaked cave troll fled north seeking asylum at a newly inhabited Village known as the Alamo Drafthouse North, where Donnie Darko‘s blink-of-a-third-eye respite couldn’t stem its cruel fate at the hands of the arthouse cinema gods. (Let us not awaken the live music balrog; Hole in the Wall, requiescat in pace.) There, to “The Killing Moon” cries of Echo & the Bunnymen, Joy Division, and the Church, unreeled a John Hughes-ian future cable staple for the Ray Bradbury crowd. When the jet engineus ex machina had been cleared from Donnie’s bed, the haunted strains of Tears for Fears’ “Mad World” sank in like a casket.
And their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
No tomorrow, only yesterday’s reality today. Where the Marquis de Song, Elvis Costello, is still armed, angry, imperial (When I Was Cruel), and David Bowie remains a Low-down Heathen. A time in which Soft Cell, Suicide, and Wire still survive, and Ryan Adams declares the Smiths his favorite band (Demolition). The return of Johnny Marr. Interpol spreading Joy Division (Turn on the Bright Lights), as Sparta screams Jane’s Addiction (Wiretap Scars).
Seven CDs of Like, Omigod! The ’80$ Pop Culture Box (Totally) and four New Orders (Retro). Austin’s Octopus Project tentacling back 20 years for the sounds of the future, while spiky blond pop bomber Britt Daniel and Spoon Kill the Moonlight. The Donnas making Runaway noises at Emo’s for almost a decade, then stomping La Zona Rosa last month like the Go-Go’s on Ramone therapy.
And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying
Are the best I’ve ever had
Nightmares about a simpleton named Bonzo and a CIA spook named Bush. A Strangelove son to rule them all. Springsteen (The Rising) and Earle (Jerusalem) standing like twin towers of conscience and protest. Public Enemys — wanted: mad-badder Cee?lo collared Green (Cee?lo Green and His Perfect Imperfections) and the N.E.R.D.s of Clipse (Lord Willin’). Jurassic 5 (Power in Numbers) and the Roots (Phrenology). Angst boys (Bright Eyes), sad boys (Beck), boys with no socks on their cocks (Red Hot Chili Peps). A free-spirited road girl (Tori Amos) and a voice to slay them all (Neko Case). The ongoing battle for your carport: the White Strokes vs. Swedish Invaders the Soundtrack of Our Hives. All of them muses in the file-sharing age. A format to outsell them all: DVDs. Question is, are we moving forward or backward?
I find it hard to tell you
‘Cos I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It’s a very, very
Mad World
This article appears in 2002.
