The September of My Seconds

Most of these YouTube fight videos from L.A. are set to lowrider music: either the trunk thump of Zapp rap, or the soft harmonies of Chicano doo-wop soul. I first encountered them while rifling through various L.A.-related videos. Most of them are unwatchable, either because of a complete lack of action, or because the action that is there is too hard to stomach.

But here, I was slayed from the first seconds. I felt certain this was most achingly played organ-and-tambourine slow dance ever recorded. What was it doing in some young hump’s fight video? YouTube suddenly seemed a tide pool and not a desert. Among the webcam detritus and miniature music videos, some pristine nugget of vintage East Los Angeles sweet soul had entered my life by way of a sideways glance. Is there a better way to fall in love? Between gang boasts and put-downs, the comments section told me: The Bees – I Love You.

I found out I was wrong on all counts. The Bees are not old. They aren’t a harmony soul group. They aren’t from anywhere remotely near California. The Bees are an indie rock sextet from the Isle of Wight. I’d actually heard them before, but in America they go by A Band of Bees. They specialize in a patchwork of Sixties styles, borrowing from both Desmond Dekker and Them, with a heavy emphasis on early and mid-period Kinks. Some of it’s pleasant enough; most of it is freakbeat-by-numbers. Several of their songs have appeared in British TV advertisements for deodorant and Sainsbury’s supermarkets; a perfect fit for this band. But I can’t imagine “I Love You” in a commercial.

So my excavation revealed I had a bone and not a fossil, but the mishap only deepened the video for me. Some youngster in Carson imports a British rock band’s approximation of Chicano sweet soul to soundtrack a fight between kids whose grandparents helped invent Chicano sweet soul? Listen to the hum of the modern world’s crossed wires.

Beyond The Bees, there is something here that compels me. Is it seeing the heated, ineffectual violence of young people juxtaposed with aching, delicate soul music? Is it because in a year when gun violence between blacks and Latinos in L.A. reached a seething peak there is comfort in the image of two teenagers who can’t even box attempting to settle their anger with their hands? Is it because the voyeuristic point-of-view from behind a dumpster adds to the sense that this footage is secret, unreal, out-of-time? It is because the music, the slow-motion movement of two bodies, and the late-afternoon lambency behind some Walgreens in Carson conspire to turn a crummy fight video into a gentle fever dream that inadvertently encapsulates life in Los Angeles? All of these reasons, I suppose.

A mop-haired band from an English island and some kids who might represent the ugliest side of Los Angeles end up in oblivious collaboration on a piece of video art that translates Southern California on a three-inch screen. I found it floating in the YouTube ether. Life occurs in accidents.