Not clickbait!!!
By August Edwards
The reason Albuquerque Green Room exists is because years ago I got really nosy and wanted to figure out why and how people made music, and I wanted to know what it all looked like off stage. Since I started all this, I had one question in my mind: What the hell is a “local” band? A lot of people I’ve spoken with have drawn a distinction between a “band” and a “local band.” It never sat quite right to me, and it’s something I constantly think about, still.
Left Unsaid made good music and garnered a lot of excitement in Albuquerque and demolished that line between “local band” and “band.” Their excellent documentary, Never Ending, It’s Better This Way (watch here!) gave me more fodder for my ever-changing understanding of what it means to make music. The documentary was directed, produced, and edited by Left Unsaid guitarist and vocalist Mario J. Rivera.
I don’t want to give a play-by-play because I want you to watch for yourself, but I will say the documentary begins really strong, planting key themes that viewers will see develop: blue collar band; never made it big; no money; hope; passion; getting close; beautiful losers; die trying. It’s a lot to synthesize and think about as we’re thrust into a video montage of the band from nearly three decades ago.
The phenomenon—and, maybe, tragedy—of local bands is best put by Left Unsaid fan Danny Vigil in what is perhaps my favorite quote from the film: “I couldn’t believe that I was seeing a band that I liked so much that I’d never heard of before.”
There’s this passing idea that when Left Unsaid began making music and playing shows, the consensus was that they did not sound good. This idea of being “not good” is an important part of the story, because I don’t get the sense that they’re just calling themselves “bad” in retrospect. It seems like they believed that for a short period of time—yet they kept playing. They still wrote, they still practiced, and they still thought about a future, even if they didn’t know what a future would look like. It wasn’t until they heard themselves in a certain recording (from the studio of Tim Stroh) that their idea of a future became a little clearer.
If I were to relate the story of this band to the “bigger picture,” I might say something like this: It is not often that we get the gratification we desire from all our hard work. I think sometimes we have to completely change our perception of success. To celebrate the wins as they come, we have to recognize what a win is in the first place. Recognizing the success of that (seemingly fateful) recording was celebration worthy, and clearly something Left Unsaid hung onto to this day.
Good and bad matters less than doing your thing for the sake of doing your thing. I came away from Never Ending, It’s Better This Way thinking, wow, Left Unsaid were pretty lucky, because for all the obstacles they encountered, they received a lot of validation. I think they know this. The movie credits aptly end with a thank-you to their fans.
Ultimately, we are all we have. Our friends and family, the people who make our coffee, the clerks at the grocery store we see week after week (sometimes multiple times a week). We love vilifying and glorifying artist celebrities to speculate on what we find spectacular. I think we ask a lot from the stars, and the perceived distance from fame creates muddy waters for a “local” musician.
There are plenty of stories where people are like, “Freaking My Chemical Romance freaking saved me!!” and I just don’t think it’s the same as what a band like Left Unsaid can do for you. Because we ask so much of our musicians, a band like Left Unsaid has a little more bandwidth to impact your life. It’s just a different balance, different hand of cards. My Chemical Romance will never see you, but Left Unsaid can and will see you.
It goes both ways. When we want to be famous, we want someone to see us. We really want gratification for our work. That’s why it’s apparent that good art is made with pieces of our selves—the pieces take up so much room that there’s no room for any sort of financial endeavor, I think. Left Unsaid were seen, continue to be seen, and this documentary illuminates a gratitude for their fans.
It feels lame to boil it down to “that’s life, folks.” But that’s life. Despite it all, it will always be fun to find a band you really like that you’ve never heard before.
Anyway. I recommend watching Never Ending, It’s Better This Way if you enjoy music documentaries; if you are an artist and you love other artists and their processes; if you are curious, like me, about what drives people. This film presents the story of Left Unsaid in a very neat and beautiful package, though it’s apparent nothing is ever so simple.
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