From Norfolk Bible School

Album: Beat Farmers, The Pursuit of Happiness, 1987

Acquired: Purchased at Mother's Records & Tape Company in Military Cirlce Mall on May 18, 1991, for $5.95 (so says the Lifetime Music Guarantee sticker on the tape case)

Best Track: "God Is Here Tonight"

Lasting Memory: As described below, just finding this sucker.

Remember when there was nothing cooler in the world than going to the local record store and picking through the bargain bin? When you found something worthwhile, it was like opening King Tut's tomb or something.

Today's youth will never know that joy of discovery, or that brief moment of realization that what you had been searching for almost desperately was in fact a thing most people never wanted. Shifting through the record shop bargain bin was always a great way to exclaim, "This is so cool!" while at the same time realizing, "I am so lame!"

The kids will never know, and a bunch of adults are doomed to forget, such moments because getting music is all about electronic downloading nowadays. Soon there will be no record stores besides small boutique places. The death of the proper record store began nearly 20 years ago. In fact, shortly after I rescued Pursuit from remainderdom, Mother's sold out to Wee Three. Then Wee Three sold out to Camelot Music. Camelot sold out to Trans World Entertainment, which converted all Camelot's in FYE stores. Now FYE is slowly going out of business.

I was fortunate to have come of musical age during the heyday of the mall-based record store, however. And since I am so coolly lame, quite a number of the cassettes in my collection were cut outs and misdeliveries. I also own more than a few used CDs. The way I figure it, another man's musical trash is just a Charlie Brown Christmas tree waiting to be loved by somebody.

And, boy, do I love me some Beat Farmers. Imagine my surprise at recently learning that I am not alone in my reverence for this proto alt-country band out of Los Angeles. (No bonus points for figuring out who I am on that board, but rest assured that the alias is just the name of a minor character in one of my favorite books. Definite bonus points for naming the book.)

The Beat Farmers emerged from the not-quite-punk L.A. underground music scene that also produced Los Lobos, X, Dave Alvin, the Blasters (feat. Alvin), Alejandro Escovedo (personal brother of Sheila E.), Maria McKee and Lone Justice, etc. Quite a murder's row of bands and solo artists that for the most part never got the proper hearing. The members of Beat Farmers also served in various permutations as the various bands that backed and featured Mojo Nixon.

I've sometimes heard the Beat Farmers' sub-subgenre called "cowpunk," and as I hope to remember to expand upon when I get around to profiling my Circle Jerks album, the musicological and thematic differences between traditional country and '80s punk are barely even cosmetic.

I can't remember the first time I heard a Beat Farmers' song, but I distinctly remember being very pleased when I got this album. The originals rock and are beyond well written. "Hollywood Hills," about the eternal promise of heading West and, to quote Bruce Springsteen, exploding into rock 'n' roll bands contains the lines, "We gave up our youth/ And model railroad trains/ Picked up guitars and/ We changed our names/ With experience of a tortured youth/ You turn up the music and/ Go in search of the truth."

Pursuit also includes excellent covers of Johnny Cash's "Big River" sung by the immortal Country Dick Montana and of Tom Waits' "Rosie." But the best song on Pursuit for me will always be "God Is Here Tonight." Permit me to quote at length:

I come along these great states
From Norfolk Bible School
I guess I been brained along the way
A couple times ... a few
Out on the road it come to me
That everyone must know
'Cept for scary dogs and Russians
That Jesus loves ya so
Now the mission stew smells good tonight
The holy bums in line
All tip their hats as I walk by
Cause God is here tonight

I make my way around this town
From market to the park
Where no holy man in his right mind
Would venture after dark
I bless the cops and lady-men
And the fireplugs and the signs
And the trestle down on Tenth Street
Where I lay me down tonight
The whole damn world is beautiful
In his holy light
And I don't feel the cold wind
Cause God is here tonight

I love this song because it raises the question of whether the narrator is just a homeless wino or a mystic holy fool. Per The Idiot, Dostoevsky might say it doesn't matter. What does matter is the second question the lyrics raise, which is "Is Beat Farmers lead singer and chief songwriter Joey Harris from Norfolk, and did he go to St. Pius or Norfolk Catholic?" My sisters and I were in school with a number of Harrises, and each of those families had at least one Joseph in the fold. Peggy, Kathy, Susan: Do you know of any Joey Harrises who lit out for L.A. in the early 1980s?

Listen to a clip of "God Is Here Tonight" (Again, confirmation requested. Yesterday's experiment failed.)

Up Next: Black Flag, Who's Got the 10 1/2, 1986

Word Count to Date: 4,921