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I first saw Beat Happening in 1986 in Bellingham WA with Mecca Normal, Girl Trouble, and the Screaming Trees. Although I was into pretty underground music already, the only one of the four groups I got into that night was the Screaming Trees who totally shredded. This seems ironic, because over time, the other three groups are among my all time favorite NW rock acts, and the Screaming Trees just got over produced, then old and boring.
It was when I saw Beat Happening play between Fugazi and Nation of Ulysses around '90 that it really struck me how much balls they had to do this stripped down minimal pop in front of punk audiences, and that it was in fact punker than lots of hardcore shit just for being so audacious.
It does help to watch Calvin dance on stage at least once to get into the band from that point on I think. I know him pretty well these days, and don't think of him as a "star" at all, yet he still does have this powerful charisma on stage that's hard to deny.
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