today's active lifestyles

so hi guys. I'm not sure what the hell is going to happen with island Doug for many reasons, not the least of which is real Doug has been busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest as part of his/my endless failure to achieve a semblance of balance.

It's not surprising that in extreme conditions extreme ideas start making sense. So when I woke up Saturday morning to the news that Polvo is reuniting - at a festival in London headlined and curated by Explosions in the Sky, no less - I very quickly started coming up with crafty plans to fly around the world for the second May in a row.

Some bands grow more loved over time, build up a critical mass and slavering fan base, to the point where a reunion is almost inevitable, particularly given the current festival culture and increasing financial incentives for such a reunion. Slint, Pixies, the My Bloody Valentine reunion that's "definitely going to happen" (he says with endless skepticism) - these are all bands that are commanding audiences much, much larger than when they were around the first time.

With Polvo, I strongly suspect this is not the case. I rarely hear their name mentioned, and when I sent an email around to several friends who I remembered as Polvo fans, the reactions were not exactly that of hearing the second coming, and certainly not enough to inspire anyone else to think travelling to England was a good idea.

This is sad in a way because Polvo was a really important band to me for several years. I saw them at my first show ever at Emo's (September 1992, opening for Superchunk); it was there, I believe, that I bought my Polvo shirt, which held me in good stead for several years until it ripped while reaching into the back seat of my car. I listened to COR-CRANE SECRET over and over while we were starting Dyn@mutt and it (along with DOUBLE NICKELS ON THE DIME) greatly informed my drumming - my whole musical outlook, really. I remember vividly the LP of TODAY'S ACTIVE LIFESTYLES arriving at KTRU when I was an assistant music director, and immediately rushing over to Dyn@Dave's dorm room and doing a joint review with him and Nor. (BTW, if anyone's at KTRU and they still have a copy of this on vinyl and the review is still with it, I'd love to see a scan or photo of that review.)

What is it about Polvo? Noisy enough and rocking enough to be powerful, but delicate and arranged enough to be interesting and textured; dissonant but not amelodic; elliptical lyrics buried in the mix. But for me, it extended beyond; it was identification. The Minutemen said "Our band could be your life", but for many reasons I would identify more with Polvo than any of the other bands that were big in my life at the time. They weren't sexy, they weren't cool, they weren't dangerous, they weren't hip, they were just Polvo.

After an afternoon of listening to Polvo and scouring my head for memories, though, there was one thing I remembered. Polvo, for all their strengths, had never really put on a galvanizing live show. I saw them several times, and it was good because it was Polvo, but often the sound didn't do them justice, the songs didn't quite hang together ... or something. I can vividly recall details of so many bands I saw at that time - Silkworm playing in suits, the stunned look on Trenchmouth's face as they got an encore opening at Emo's - but I can't even recall what Polvo looked like on stage.

There are other reasons that travelling around the world makes no sense for this. I am probably going to be back in the States in July for a wedding in Chicago, and there's a good chance that a Polvo reunion would hit other locations, possibly the Pitchfork Music Festival, which historically takes place in July in Chicago. I have some immigration reasons that being out of the country for a long period of time is potentially a bad thing. The reunion doesn't include the original drummer, who left before their last (and by far least successful) album, SHAPES, which increases the possibility that the reunion could focus excessively on latter-day material. And I am not exactly made of currency and have plans for other ways to squander my finite resources that are equally though very differently self-indulgent.

So, as much as the adventure, the chance to visit British friends, and the desire to rock out to "Thermal Treasure" live appeals to me, I am not travelling to London to see Polvo at the moment. As a consolation prize, I learned this morning that Ornette Coleman is coming to New Zealand in February. Admittedly, to Wellington on a Friday night, which has the potential to be a pain. But it's easier than flying to London.