beat happening

A lot of what’s been written about Olympia, Washington’s finest-ever rock trio, Beat Happening, refers to its purported immaturity. The band has been pegged as “wide-eyed,” “naive,” and “childlike,” which would, I guess, be charming If it weren’t so wrongheaded. “I don’t mind when we get called childlike, but I don’t understand it,” says Beat Happening’s Lurch-throated singer-guitarist Calvin Johnson. “What’s childlike about ‘Revolution Come and Gone,’ or ‘Black Candy’?” Or for that matter, any number of Beat Happening’s heavy gems, such as “Red Head Walking,” or, from its wholly fab new LP, You Turn Me On, “Tiger Trap” and “Bury the Hammer”? For his part, Johnson prefers to think of the trio’s music as classic rock—not Classic Rock, mind you, like the Doors or Led Zeppelin or Bad Company,...