Portrait of the Artist as a Fucking Asshole

The first time I heard Dillinger Four was when I was 18. I'd just gone to college and was trying to adapt to an anxiety disorder that had started peaking its head out six months earlier. I was at a place in my life where conversations with other people terrified me to the point where I wouldn't call to order pizza, and if my family members or friends asked me to read out loud something as simple as a menu at a restaurant, I would have a panic attack.

Adjusting to that left me living completely and totally in my head. There were lots and lots of inputs: music, movies, things other people said, but there was no interaction. For those six months (and the next several years), I observed but never commented.

In hindsight, the inputs coming in from the world were pretty wild. Columbine was still on the national consciousness. It had not yet become an every day occurrence that someone went on a shooting spree. And perhaps most formative, 9/11 was either weeks after or weeks before I heard my first Dillinger Four song.

The first song I heard was called "Our Science Is Tight" on a compilation CD. It was track #1 on that CD. Aside from being an incredibly catchy song with three vocalists with three distinct voices singing in some perfect balance of unison sections and trade off lines, it also had clear and provocative lyrics. At least the chorus was easy to understand:

WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU
WHERE DID YOU COME FROM
IS THIS THE WAY THINGS SHOULD BE
OR JUST A FEAST OF CRUMBS

Here I am, living entirely in my head, at an age when most people are trying to make sense of the world. At a time that the world (or at least the country) is unabashedly trying to make sense of itself. And every piece of pop culture, art, music, film, etc., tells me either, "Things are great," or "Things are terrible," And here's a song that isn't just a good song, but is putting the question to me: "Does what you see make sense to you?"

Now, that song is mostly about scenes and music, but the only lyrics I could make out were, "Is this the way things should be or just a feast of crumbs?" (And the direct question of "Who the fuck are you?" Like you are inherently right? What the fuck do you know? I see things. I have an opinion. My voice counts.)

I was hooked.

I remember going out to the record store in Madison and buying their second album, Versus God. And for a kid who went to Catholic school and still had my superstitions, fears, and sense of sacrilege, buying an album with that name was not easy. But I bought it. And I listened. And I was sold on every chorus. I was a sucker for every chord. But as addictive as every song was, I found myself challenged by every word. (Which is all the more wild considering that's my least favorite album.)

"We act like we didn't know. Then kids shoot kids a community defies its role. And of course it's everyone's fault except anyone we might know." Holy shit! Someone is writing a song and saying things that I am thinking. But articulating them better than I ever could. "Family values are a value most can't afford"? Wow. I didn't grow up wealthy, but I definitely grew up privileged, loved, and had nothing real to complain about. And now I'm considering how fortunate I have been!

I dig deeper and deeper.

"Ignorance, intolerance abounding, how could this be a part of any greater plan?"

 "Sunday school at age 9, I thought I was on the winning team. Because I wanted to see it, I wanted to need it. It was 9 years of holy shit and I believed it."

They lambaste Catholicism. They express what's in my head about the conflict between what I was raised to believe and what I feel based on what I see. And then in the next song they paint a picture of someone society might consider a degenerate, but who actually just doesn't have a job.

It's like someone saying, "Fuck your bullshit religion." But also somehow telling parables like a modern day Jesus Christ.

And then after a couple years of being hooked, I realize they're not rock stars. These are just dudes who work and happen to play music. And I go to their shows and realize I'm not the only one who's hooked. I'm not the only one singing along to every lyric. And I realize that despite my inability to have a conversation with anyone I haven't known for more than 10 years, I am not alone. I am not crazy. (Well, I may be crazy. But hey, I'm not alone.)

And I know that because of four guys from Minneapolis who challenge me in every song to be a better person, to look closer at the world around me, and to not ever let myself off the hook and go with the crowd.

Towers fall. Rabble is roused. Wars are started. And while everyone is rising up and waving flags with Bruce Springsteen, I'm thinking, "Wait. This President is the same dipshit he was last week. Why does everyone think he's great now?"

I'll say this. For years I probably got over excited about criticizing myself. I probably got a little too hard on myself about not doing enough. A little too combative with people whose opinions I didn't agree with. A little too radical? Maybe. My wife told her parents when we started dating that she didn't think it would go anywhere, because I was too radical. I probably got a little too cynical about work and money. And it's definitely a little embarrassing to say, but I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for this tiny little band from Minneapolis that no one has heard of.

They haven't played a show in Chicago in some time, but I just finished seeing them at the Double Door. And as I'm sweating on strangers, smiling ear to ear, and singing along with people I've never met to "Minimum Wage Is a Gateway Drug," I am both overjoyed and reminded of my cynicism.

Because in a perfect world, that song doesn't exist. And if there isn't a problem in this country, several hundred people don't show up to celebrate that someone is expressing that point of view in song. In a perfect world, every song is bubblegum. America is the good guy. The actions of corporations and governments are not subject to criticism. In a perfect world, Dillinger Four doesn't exist.

And in that world, I am less happy because of it.