The Refreshments - “Banditos”
1996
To be clear: This music-listening phase I’m now going through is not “nineties nostalgia.” As Michael Ventura wrote: Nostalgia cheapens, corrupts, and, finally, destroys memory, leaving in its place a bright plastic artifact that pretends to be one’s past.
See, lately my mind has been running through a lot of nineties memories. And with me, memories heavily go hand-in-hand with music. But I’m not being nostlagic for the nineties. I mean, why would I be? For the first half of the nineties I worked for a cheapo outfit of a corporation, where I got to hear nonsense about “team” and “teamwork” on a daily basis, got lied to and stabbed in the back, and (among other cultural insults) had a coworker ask if The Black Crowes were “a new wave band.” It was horrible, kept getting worse, yet somehow I got it through my thick skull that it didn’t have to be permanent. The last half of the nineties were some of the best times of my life as I worked on being a writer (instead of merely thinking I could be one someday) and started a zine. But still, I was doing temp jobs for low wages. The days weren’t all that great, reading the newspaper with my brown-bag lunch was easily the highlight. If it wasn’t for MPR/KFAN/Radio K on that little radio I kept in my cubicle, I would have been one miserable little accountant.
But that mid-point of the nineties, when REV-105 was going strong and breaking ground and The Edge was trying to play catch-up here in Minneapolis was some joyous fun while spinning around the FM dial. I keep meaning to assemble a playlist of faves from those few short years. Most of them would be one-hits, and that's fine with me, I hear that era as single-servings, not Bold Statements By Major Artists. (Not that bold statements weren't being made, just my radio-listening experience was typical one of hearing a bunch of fun songs by various artists.) I should assemble this playlist soon, before I totally forget all the songs I loved. Case in point, a few weeks ago I heard The Refreshments' "Banditos" on SiriusXM Lithium and realized I had completely forgotten it. It's a beauty of a one-hit wonder, hooky garage rock with a certain contagious exuberance over its slacker tale. In the Jukebox of My Mind, this tune is the much-heralded B-side to Beck’s “Mexico.”
This is the only song I know by The Refreshments. Maybe they recorded other such gems, but this one is the only one I care to hear. Because I have a very specific memory of hearing this in on my car radio on Emerson Avenue South in 1996. I was in a very good mood that day, I don’t remember why. Maybe it was just hearing this song. Some days, something like that is enough.