By BILLY BRAT
BOOK OF KILLS, for the most part, is the name given to DIY-recording projects
and live bands led by Jim Shelley of Bridgewater, VA since the late 1980s. I
consider the sound “transcendental garage rock”. To me this is a style of music
that retains a primitive and raw “60s garage rock” sound but also takes from and
builds off of various influences and styles that appeared in the rock scene long
after the garage heyday (ignoring the present recurrence of B.S. garage). So
it’s like garage with electronica/industrial elements. Or garage with
folk/freak-folk overtones. Jim is quite a music fan and Book Of Kills has been a
lot of things (and as an avid BOK collector I can attest to all of it being
good). Most of all it seems fitting to mention “garage” here because it implies
the kind of Do-It-Yourself, improvised production and distribution
characteristics occurring “outside the house” of conventional Rock and Roll that
Book of Kills has embraced for over 20 years.
A basic timeline of BOK is easily abbreviated despite the decades of existence because history is a cruel, repetitive mistress. So it can be laid out thusly: Jim develops a sound at his home, cranks out a few albums, progresses, gets bored, starts a band, progresses less, dissolves the band, rinse, repeat. Jim is a very creative person and seems to flourish on his own, cranking out the jams on whatever recording console he can get his hands on. He gets tired of this “audio masturbation” (to paraphrase the man) and wants to return to the “live arena” and sweat it out with some buddies.
The “classic lineup” of the Book of Kills live band that would then inform nearly every future incarnation came into being in the mid-90s during the height of the grunge rock/alternative rock movement in the American underground (and above). So this band cranked out the jams and stuck with the sounds of the times (but definitely held their own amongst contemporaries in terms of innovation and spirit) and eventually dissolved into nothing and Jim went home, working out the rhymes and producing amazing stuff on his own. Somehow the energy and sound of that “classic lineup” was further emulated with different configurations of musicians for several years despite changes in the “musical climate”.
Fast forward to 2010 and suddenly Jim’s recorded output is in no way a mirror of the stuff the live band is up to. Does anyone even care about the type of jams the BOK band was trying to put down? What is Book Of Kills? Is it even appropriate to call two different sounds the same name just because they feature the same leader? At this point is the band (and the name) just a pale vestige of the last vagaries of youth in a man’s life? Now since he’s over the hill does it just seem silly to rock out in this way? All answers point to another dissolution but this time it would be final.
In the early days of Buck Gooter the idea of setting up a show
to try and get Jim and whatever live band he’d put together to play became an
impetus for getting gigs. It seemed to make it worthwhile to play in our
hometown if we could book a place and have Jim come out and jam. Although the
sounds of each band are vastly different I appreciated not only the music but
the “never say die” attitude and fervor generated by the very name and legend
that is Book Of Kills. Other “key players” on the local scene form disposable
bands and care more about getting lit and writing half-baked jams so their 14
friends can all laugh at them and their “inside joke” bands. I don’t get it.
Book Of Kills was more interested in preserving and distributing the art and
putting it out there in whatever way possible. This ethic speaks to me. For
this reason I never hesitated to help Jim out with a show and he would hardly
blink before accepting and confirming the gig and being a good help with
promotion, etc. This is the way bands should treat each other – as friends.
So when Jim got in touch about booking the final BOK show I didn’t hesitate or
really think about the implications. It’s just another show, right? BOK has
dissolved before; it’ll reappear again, right? Let’s just do this and have some
fun and feel some jams…
But in the days and weeks leading up to the fateful gig it became apparent, through various postings on the Book of Kills website that Jim had his sights set on something different: on retiring the name and coming up with something else. To put to bed a sound that had been following him around for years, wagging its tail and trotting behind him happily as he ran inside the house. This time Jim seemed serious about leaving it behind.
And the fateful day came. Somehow there was no epic flyer made for the gig. The only promotion was done through various comments on the BOK web site and some comments by a few folks on social networking interfaces. No article in the paper. There was even a competing show across town that normally we would blame a lack of audience on (but of course none of those people would’ve been at the show anyway). But the energy in the Little Grill was electric even before anyone showed up. Rock and Roll was alive and screaming before any sounds were made. When people started trickling in and then swelled into a mob that the small restaurant could barely hold it just made for a sweatier room. But we were all thankful for that and the thrashing around, the movement and interaction that’s necessary for a band like Book Of Kills to really work in the live setting. Gone were the countless lackluster Harrisonburg gigs we’d been putting on for the past two years. This was a different kind of night. Suddenly it seemed like the right thing to do to play this stuff. It didn’t matter what year it was. People were gathered together in a big sweaty pack to feel some music, not just hear it. The microphone belonged to the crowd at times. It was the pinnacle of emotion, intensity and fun for band and audience. It was the best Book of Kills show I’d ever seen.
And then, after a couple encores and raucous applause it was over. Onto the next band that could barely play, reeling from the intensity of the night and half dead from abuse of libations. I wanted to make a speech; I wanted to mark the moment with a tribute to Book of Kills. But all I could say was “Thank you, Book of Kills”. I guess that’s all that needs to be said. Everyone packed up and left. On to new things. Headed back home.
From here to where? What needs to be said about the end of an era? How can you fault a man that finds no room for the foibles of youth in the autumn of his life anymore? It’s not giving up as much as it’s giving in to reality. There are always possibilities, futures and new names. Hell, maybe that cruel mistress of history will see fit to lie on her back and repeat herself all over again much to the hopes of all us rabid fans who don’t want to see a good thing go. Or who can’t accept it yet.
The last thing Jim sang to us at the final Book of Kills show
was the classic line from “I Hang Heavy”:
I hang heavy in this universe
The coming is bad but the going is worse
And he’s right about that.