Yeah, yeah…Seattle, the Year Punk Broke, whatever. There was music up there decades prior to the media frenzy that ostensibly shaped what ‘indie’ was to become during the ensuing years. That being said, there’s a decent chance that working through some linear history of that scene, those Sub Pop groups would come somewhere after Jim Basnight in a proper progression of history.
Probably some people will disagree – as is their right. And after hearing the (kinda) recently released We Rocked & Rolled: 25 Years Of Jim Basnight & The Moberlys the argument to drop this guy into the town’s music history might be a bit obtuse. But there are moments scattered all over the place on the retrospective that move past the glitzy glam of Bowie towards an almost punk thing. “She Got Fucked,” off a single not included here makes the argument best. But before Basnight worked up this Kinks cum Hoople group, he fronted a group called the Meyce.
That band was lucky (talented?) enough to open for the Ramones during the New Yorker’s first trek through the Northwest. And apparently, the guys back east were smitten with the Meyece to the point that Joey wore a t-shirt sporting the name of a zine the guys ran in Rock ‘n Roll High School.
Either way, Basnight and the subsequent ensembles he worked with weren’t ever able to hit on a chart topper – although, he apparently sat in with Johnny Thunders on bass for a while, which should be figured as cooler than having a hit no one remembers anymore.
Moving back and forth between coasts eventually burned Basnight out and he returned to Seattle in ’92. An auspicious time one might figure. But of course, the bands of that moment weren’t engaged with Rasperries styled rock nuggets, leaning more towards sad sack Sabbath jams than anything else.
Undeterred, Basnight wrangled another group of players and has since about that time maintained a ridiculous touring schedule – one befitting a younger group and one with more commercial viability.
There isn’t a point to all of this – Basnight’s retrospective garnered a bit of buzz, but nothing really career making resulted. He didn’t receive a second wind like Roky Erikson or whatever other dinosaur you’d like to insert here.
Hearing all of these tracks – “Oppurtunity Knocks” specifically – points to how keeping a positive attitude, for no particular reason, could be beneficial. You might not like that song too much (me either), but Basnight surely enjoys playing it.