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Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991
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About Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From The
Product Description The definitive chronicle of underground music in the 1980s tells the stories of Black Flag, Sonic Youth, The Replacements, and other seminal bands whose DIY revolution changed American music forever. Our Band Could Be Your Life is the never-before-told story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan Eighties -- when a small but sprawling network of bands, labels, fanzines, radio stations, and other subversives re-energized American rock with punk's do-it-yourself credo and created music that was deeply personal, often brilliant, always challenging, and immensely influential. This sweeping chronicle of music, politics, drugs, fear, loathing, and faith is an indie rock classic in its own right. The bands profiled include: Sonic Youth Black Flag The Replacements Minutemen Husker Du Minor Threat Mission of Burma Butthole Surfers Big Black Fugazi Mudhoney Beat Happening Dinosaur Jr. From The New Yorker Azerrad crisscrosses the American landscape of nineteen-eighties "underground" rock music, from Washington, D.C. (which spawned such bands as Fugazi and Minor Threat), to Washington state (Mudhoney, Beat Happening). He profiles thirteen bands that came of age before Nirvana closed the gap between alternative rock and the mainstream market, and the best stories here are the most marginal, such as the chapter on the explosive Boston band Mission of Burma. Even in his treatment of better-known bands, though, Azerrad does a fine job of demonstrating how the post-punk prime movers of the eighties echoed the original rock-and-rollers of the fifties—springing from a complacent political climate to reject the sentimental excesses of the music that preceded them. Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker Review "Altogether rockin'...Azerrad's coup here is in getting most of the major players to talk...A scrapbook from the last time music mattered."― Patrick Beach, Austin American-Statesman "A timely reminder that Cobain and company were merely a key regiment in the motley alt-rock army... Our Band Could Be Your Life narrates, down to the homemade posters and tour van repairs, how these bands gradually built up an audience large enough to make record labels and critics take notice."― Benjamin Nugent, Time.com "In the decade Azerrad covers, indie America proved that world-class rock could be created outside corporate structures... Our Band Could Be Your Life passionately resurrects thirteen indie groups...Azerrad is adept at drawing out musicians' war stories -- and this bare-bones movement was full of them."― Eric Weisbard, New York Times Book Review About the Author Michael Azerrad is the author of the books Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991, and Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana. His writings on music and musicians have appeared in numerous magazines, including Rolling Stone, the New Yorker, Spin, and the New York Times. He lives in New York City. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Our Band Could Be Your Life Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 By Michael Azerrad Little Brown and Company Copyright © 2002 Michael AzerradAll right reserved. ISBN: 9780316787536 Chapter One BLACK FLAG FLIPSIDE INTERVIEWER: DO YOU MAKE A PROFIT?GREG GINN: WE TRY TO EAT. It's not surprising that the indie movement largely started in SouthernCalifornia?after all, it had the infrastructure: Slash andFlipside fanzines started in 1977, and indie labels like Frontier andPosh Boy and Dangerhouse started soon afterward. KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimerplayed the region's punk music on his show; listeners could buy what they heardthanks to various area distributors and record shops and see the bands at placeslike the Masque, the Starwood, the Whisky, the Fleetwood, and various impromptuvenues. And there were great bands like the Germs, Fear, the Dickies, the Dils,X, and countless others. No o
