Various Artists | Towncraft Matson Films
Reviewed by M.R. Smith

At CollectorScum.com, unser the entry for Arkansas in the website's state-by-state discography of early American punk rock (roughly spanning 1976 to 1983,) contributor and Arkansas native son Dan Bailey devotes a few paragraphs of explanation as to why there are absolutely no records to be listed for his home state. Apparently, he says, a handful of folks were brace enough to start punk bands in the Fayetteville area, in the state’s northwest corner, around 1980, but none of them made records. Lack of vinyl evidence aside, it does make sense that Fayetteville would be a punk hub, since it’s Arkansas’ biggest college town. But what about Little Rock, the state’s well-known capital and largest city? Any action there? Not so much, apparently. Actually, even less than that: Although Bailey, a Little Rock resident, understandably €gures that due to his city’s size there must have been something happening there prior to the mid Eighties, his intense research has so far yielded nothing in the way of documentation. It seems that, early on at least, the town’s name was—pardon the tired pun, Little Rock scenesters—all too appropriate. But it wouldn’t stay that way forever.

While punk rock may have taken 10 years to hit Little Rock, once it €nally got there it found a tiny, excitement-starved crew of young thinkers, a close-knit bunch that was ready to make up for the lost time with its fanatical devotion to the D.I.Y. ethic. Why all the extra energy? Youth. Unlike the university students in Fayetteville and similar-sized municipalities, Little Rock’s pioneering punkers were almost all high school and junior high school kids. And by living, literally, in the middle of a cultural vacuum, they were not only less affected by outside musical trends in the pre-Internet age but were also starting with a clean slate, since punk seems to have had no real local precedent at the time. Besides the rednecks and parents they were rebelling against, there weren’t any too-hip older rockers to laugh at them if they got it wrong.

Towncraft, a sharply packaged box set that includes a feature-length DVD, two CDs, and a 60-page booklet, documents this brave little world, chronicling Little Rock’s underground music scene from 1986 to the present (the release shares its name with a cooperatively funded 1992 compilation.) The positive-minded template of Washington DC’s Dischord Records plainly struck a chord with the industrious Little Rockers, as the brainy and melodic inuences of that label’s pre-emo acts (Dag Nasty, Fugazi, Rites of Spring) are all over early bands like Chino Horde and Trusty (The latter even realized the dream by moving to DC and signing to Dischord.) As the years went by the scene grew in size and its sound got more sophisticated, moving from straight-up hardcore (Numbskullz, 12’6”) to garage rockabilly (Bloodless Cooties,) guitar pop (Magic Cropdusters, Johnny Mac,) heartland rock (Boondogs, Ho-Hum,) R&B/soul (Michael Chase, New Jazz Assassins,) Tindersticks-esque piano noir (Applescruffs,) singer-songwriter confessionals (Sugar & The Raw,) and back to punk again (Smoke Up Johnny.)

The €lm, produced and directed by former scene musician Richard Matson, was screened nationally prior to this release and features a wealth of live footage and often humorous interviews with band members and scenemakers—most of whom (Matson included) seem to have moved to lands beyond, having done their part for punk rock in Little Rock, Arkansas. As a document the set is undeniably impressive, an invaluable time capsule not only of a particular period and place in modern culture, but of a speci€ c demographic’s transition from bored innocence to adult realities. Admittedly, though, most of the actual music on Towncraft isn’t likely to hold many revelations for the ears of middle-aged alt-rock graduates, since, alas, it generally only recaps acts from the outside world. But that’s not really the point here: To these kids their music was everything, and it’s obvious from the start that they meant every last note of it and that it still means a lot to them today. For a while at least, sometimes just being able to make something honest and different than your immediates on your own matters more than whether it turns out to be truly “original” or not. As Dischord’s Ian MacKaye points out on camera, the ideals forged by kids in their early punk rock years become the very traits that carry them through life.

And whatever you might think of the music here, it’s impossible not to be inspired by the stories of the now grown-up kids in the €lm. As Trusty’s James Brady writes in the poignantly assembled booklet, “Little Rock was the town where a bunch of kids thought that there was nothing to do, and so they created something to do, and really, that’s pretty f****n’ cool.” Can’t add much to that.

www.towncraftmovie.com