Every New Beginning is Another Beginning's End

I'm going to dust off an IMU classic and use a series of YouTube videos to go through a few thoughts.

Riley Hawk put out a new video part this week (last week?) and it's the first stuff I've seen from him since Baker 4. I was surprised to hear Turnstile as the music for it when the video started and will admit that I found it a little hackneyed at first, with how popular GLOW ON has been since its release. Don't get me wrong, the album is good, but for some reason the idea of taking the most hardcore song from the album and putting it to a Baker part was wack to me.

That is, until the end of the song started and the refrain of "I want to thank you for letting me be myself" started to repeat over Riley skating rails. It's hard to not read this editing as an intentional metacommentary on Hawk's family and how awesome it has been to watch him blossom into his own distinct skater that is constantly supported by his dad. Once again, I eat crow.

Someone posting about the "Closing Time" on Twitter sent down a wormhole. I am unable to resist that specific type of 90s power pop, especially when the band is known as a one-hit wonder. I love love love the bridge octave riff. It's the exact type of guitar work that speaks to me. Maybe it's me relating heavily to that sort of failure. Is a one-hit wonder a failure? Is achieving a huge level of success only to be unable to replicate that better than mid-level excellence? I'm not sure.

In any case, I watched a bunch of live videos, because I had never seen a live performance of the song. In this performance of the song on Leno, the band cuts out the extended intro, instead hitting the piano riff right away and only passing once before starting the verse. Dan Wilson's shirt and haircut combo is very bad. He atones for it slightly by playing a red SG instead of the weird sort-of Les Paul thing (why not just play a Les Paul) he has in the song's music video, but then starts this wavy hip dance during the song's first chorus. The shirt and dance combo is some big douche vibes, but "Closing Time" is at the peak of its popularity, so you can't fault the guy for feeling himself.

I also wanted to get a sense of what it was like to see the song performed for a big crowd, so I checked out this video from Pinkpop. Lo and behold, he starts doing the hip sway again! That makes me hate the move! It being a performative thing that he does each time makes it so much worse.

However, I was eventually won over by this video of the band playing the song in their hometown Minneapolis in 2019. The full intro! The same SG! The crowd knowing the words! This time, he waits until the second chorus to hit the shimmy and he got me. Him being old and embracing the fun of the song got me and it made the dance move fun. What can I say?