Track 16: The Next Big Thing by C.E. Hanifin
Twenty-eight years ago, Jim Ellison, the exuberant frontman of Material Issue, died. He was 32 years old, and he took his own life.
My Doc Martens are firmly planted at the tail end of Gen X, so every spring my peers commemorate another mid-’90s rock suicide that shook our souls when we were teenagers. My heart broke along with my generation when Kurt Cobain killed himself in 1994, but it shattered into pieces when Jim Ellison died two years later.
I was 19 in 1996, and most of what I would become in this world was still ahead of me. What I already knew was that I cared about music — listening to my tapes and CDs, going to as many shows as I could, writing reviews and interviews for my school newspaper — more than just about anything else. The mixtapes I spent hours making were filled with indie rock, riot grrrl, hip hop, punk, metal, and y’allternative.
The music that spoke to me most directly, though, was power pop, with its irrepressible hooks and lyrics saturated with longing that resounded as deeply within me as the genre’s emblematic chiming guitars. During those years in which punk broke, this was not a cool thing to admit. In the whatever nevermind ’90s, my earnest obsession with Cheap Trick was about as fashionable as Rick Nielsen’s signature bowtie.
Fortunately, in my hometown of Chicago, local bands like Urge Overkill, the Bad Examples, and Veruca Salt proudly shouted their power pop influences. I might have been the only kid in my freshman dorm who worshipped at the altar of Alex Chilton, but I wasn’t the only person in the crowd at my first Smoking Popes show who was saving up to buy the Yellow Pills compilations.
And then there was Material Issue. A clerk at Kroozin’ Music on Archer Avenue, who was usually patient while I spent hours debating which albums were worth my entire after-school-job paycheck, told me I needed to hear Material Issue’s 1991 debut record, “International Pop Overthrow”. By the time the cassette clicked off at the end of Side 2 on the bus ride home from the record store, my power pop heart belonged forever and ever to this band.
When I listened to Ellison’s ebullient yelps and watched him bound across the stage at the Metro, he embodied what I most passionately wanted to become: An artist whose life revolved around music. “International Pop Overthrow” wasn’t just a song for me — it was a call to arms.
My all-time favorite power pop albums exemplify an element of the genre that, to me, is essential: Yearning. No one could capture yearning in a three-minute pop song quite like Ellison could.
In his songs and in his life, Ellison yearned for so much: To fall in love with a beautiful girl. To be the next big thing. To ride his motorbike just like Evil Knievel. To win that beautiful girl back when he lost her. And, above all else, to write pop songs so perfect they shimmered.
Ellison died before he could become all that he might have been, which is a personal and artistic tragedy. He also died before I could meet him, which I truly regret. I was the quiet girl hiding out in the crowd when I was a teenager. The thought of talking to my heroes made me shiver with anxiety. One of the reasons I admired Ellison so much is that he was courageous enough to show the unique pyrotechnics of his heart to the world through his songs.
I don’t have a shred of musical talent (seriously, I don’t even sound good to myself when I sing in the shower), but I started writing stories as soon as I could hold a crayon, and I knew when I was in kindergarten that I wanted to be a reporter. I found out in high school that there were journalists who actually got paid to write about music, so that’s what I set out to become.
I often tell people that I decided to be a rock critic because I wanted to interview Jim Ellison. After I missed that chance of a lifetime when he died, I ran after every opportunity to interview my other musical heroes. Writing about music for the major newspapers that carried my byline was my dream job for a long time.
Until it wasn’t anymore. The global forces that transformed the newspaper business in the ’00s twisted my profession into something that felt grim and unsustainable to me. (Ask me sometime about the wealthy country star who tried to get me fired because I didn’t want to write about the corporate distillery sponsoring his world tour.)
That’s happened to me more than once — OK, more like a dozen times — in my life: I’ve chased down a dream, grasped it, and then, for one reason or another, moved on to the next big thing.
So, you know when you’re in a group of people who have just met at a new job or in a class, and everyone is asked to go around and share one random fact about themselves? I never have trouble thinking of something to say in those moments.
Anyone who knows me can tell you that my stories tend to begin with phrases like, “When I owned a Mexican restaurant in Milwaukee …” “During my grad-school years in Tallahassee …”, “While I was doing PR for a hospital in the Upper Peninsula,” or my favorite opener, “Back in my rock critic days …”
I’ve lived a lot of different lives in my 49 years as I’ve bounced between professions. My relentless curiosity, my desire to learn new things, and my fear of feeling stuck push me to shed my skin every so often.
But what about the old versions of me? Those different Cynthias — the restaurateur, the newspaper editor, the therapist-in-training, the Lester Bangs wannabe — still reside inside of me. They’re all part of who I am.
Or who I used to be. Resigning a part of myself to the past tense can be a relief (the bumbling waitress has been banished in the furthest corner of my psyche), but sometimes it stings. Earlier this year, I stepped down from my most recent dream job as second in command at my favorite independent bookstore, a place that sometimes felt more like home to me than my own apartment during the three years I was employed there full time. I had compelling reasons for pursuing a different line of work, and my new job will allow me to grow in directions I really want to go. But this particular transition from one identity to another has been painful. The only other iteration of myself that I agonized this much over retiring was the role of rock critic.
I was still a cub music reporter in 1999 when I was assigned to review the solo album released by Material Issue’s bass player, Ted Ansani. The track that immediately caught my ear was called “Used to Be”. Ansani was inspired to write the song after explaining to his young children that, before he had a family and a career in management at a local bank, he used to be a rock star. The glory days of Material Issue must have felt like a well-worn, but no longer well-fitting, pair of jeans when he sang, “I used to rock the stage/I was all the rage/Now all that used to be.”
A couple of decades after Ansani recorded “Used to Be,” a new generation of power pop enthusiasts are discovering Material Issue. And many longtime fans like me, who never stopped listening to the band’s records, found each other on social media. In 2021, a filmmaker in his 20s made a documentary about the band that was released in theaters across the country. In the crowd at the film’s Chicago premiere, I spotted many of the faces I used to see at Material Issue shows back in the ’90s.
Ted Ansani and drummer Mike Zelenko reunited a handful of years ago to perform together once again as Material Issue, with musician-about-town Phil Angotti taking on lead vocals. This reissued version of Material Issue is, of course, not the same group as the trio once led by Jim Ellison. The band has evolved since its first heyday, and so have its fans. But the songs Ellison wrote, and the way they make me feel like the entire world is mine to grasp in my hands, remain the same.
I think I’ll always feel the tug of the versions of myself that I used to be. When I spin the power pop records I’ve loved since I was in high school, though — the Undertones’ “Teenage Kicks,” Big Star’s “September Gurls,” and especially Material Issue’s “International Pop Overthrow” — those songs still possess the power to evoke all the things I have yet to become.
C.E. HANIFIN never travels too far without a little Big Star. She writes, makes zines, and lives on the Southwest Side of Chicago. Tell her about your favorite power pop record at exilefromguyville@gmail.com.
