Perfect from Now on: How Indie Rock Saved My Life

Sellers book reads as though he's telling you the stories over a few beers in his favorite bar. He understands perfectly the ability of music to take you back to a certain time and place. Perfect From Now On flicks a nostalgic switch whether you're a fan of indie rock or not. Oh yeah, and it's hilarious. The appendixes are an added bonus. Who hasn't spent a good part of their youth making best of/worst of lists?

If you are at all acquainted with indie/alternative rock (and your tastes don't have to run exactly the same as the author's) you will probably enjoy this book. Prior to reading this book I loved Pavement, Husker Du, the Replacements, and the Smiths; I had an appreciation of Guided by Voices (not quite Sellers' adoration) and I really didn't know a lot about Joy Division and My Bloody Valentine (just to name a few of the bands the author expounds on). Sellers is a witty, funny author who writes in a very conversational tone (at times you feel like he's talking directly to you; this may be what he had in mind). I loved his use of footnotes (get ready to read a lot of them) and found that he seemed like a down-to-earth, approachable kind of guy. Great book!

I loved every minute of it. I actually snorted on the subway when I was reading it at one point and people looked at me like I was crazy. I think I lived parallel lives with John Sellers. Our musical discoveries were pretty scarily similar and dawned at similar times (my first concert, forced upon me, was Dan Folgeberg, and my first awesome concert was Journey in the 6th grade). And even though all our music crushes weren't the same, I still just really, really, UNDERSTAND his obsessional behavior. I applaud it! I adore it when I hear a song I can't wait to hear again, and it leads to another and another until suddenly I'm in the throes of another addiction that most people can't understand. I think he captured brilliantly how silly and fantastic it all is. My friends still tease me to this day about a poem I wrote for Jeff Buckley back in 1999 to commemorate his death. His book was a great nostalgia trip for me, and a reminder of how important passion for something (anything) can be. He perfectly captured an early-to-mid-30's-coming-of-age-tale. Who knew something like that could even exist?

This book really surprised me. It surprised me, in that, the subject matter was completely different from what I had expected. For anyone who is of the age that grew up listening to bands that used to be known as college rock and later indie rock, this is a real trip down memory lane. Sellers uses a mix of autobiographical anecdotes as well as an obsessive base of knowledge of bands that span everything from the early days of MTV (R.E.M, The Cure, The Smiths) to the coming-of-age/college years for many Gen X-ers and bands such as The Pixies, Pavement, and The Stone Roses. Unlike prior works by Sellers, this book is much more of a narrative of the author's life and the great importance and influence music has had on him. A good dose of band histories, best-ofs, interesting facts are mixed in, without being an over-the-top, ultimate guide to the genre. Instead, the story is one that translates to anyone who ever was completely blown away by U2's War or The Stone Roses' first album or for anyone who can identify as a period in their life in which no other music mattered (as in "That was the summer of The Replacements"). Sellers admits that he will obsess over a band (see later chapters on Guided By Voices) to the point that he finds himself hopelessly tracking down every album, EP, and factoid about his particular band du jour that it becomes a compulsion to consume everything in his life, be it Dinasour Jr. or Husker Du or Pavement....a cycle that ends with John's ultimate allegiance to GBV, ending in a near-doom experience with the band for which he would most likely sell a kidney. I found myself laughing out loud while reading this book. It's an amusing narrative with a college rock station soudtrack. But, it's also an important insight into growing up, coming of age, and realizing what awesome power music has on shaping your experiences and your memories.