Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground Pdf

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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. I read and can recall reading half of the book, based on what was currently playing out of my computer speakers. I was a punk rock kid and my much hipper and much older brother who only listened to bands in the second half of the book let me borrow it to read about Black Flag, Minor Threat, Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Replacements, and then, begrudgingly, Fugazi who I had thought at the time took themselves too seriously, let alone how serious their pompous fans took them. This book is one of the best of its kind: punk memoir, ethnography and history. Music at the time that I read this book was necessary to my life, and it makes sense that I would want to read about its vital importance, especially DIY possibilities. I was in love with punk rock, and it consumed me. Now I would sooner read anything else. DIY naivete bores the shit out of me in the era where Justin Bieber was found on Youtube, and every shithead has a stupid blogand punk holds very little allure, except as Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground and defiant posture. These bands were my life. And then I found a life outside of them. By the time your done you feel like Bruce Pavitt was your neighbor, Ian Mackaye was your uncle and Cory Rusk was your best friend. By the time you got done reading the chapter Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground the Replacements you were drunk, by the time you got done reading the chapter on the Butthole Surfers you were hallucinating. Anyway you get the idea. It's in-depth. As someone who "entered the scene" in '87 it was definitely cool to hear about how it all started in this level of detail. I only really knew Black Flag, Minor Threat and Fugazi, so it was cool to look up all the other bands as I was reading their chapters. Whenever I read this stuff I always think it sounds like some "golden past" when everything was so cool and now it's all just crap. Then I just feel like an old man waving his cane. There are still plenty of bands out there struggling to make music their life and now they have the internet to help them do that. Just hope they have as much fun doing it as I did all those years ago. The stories are inspiring and hilarious and heart-breaking, and Azerrad is scholarly without ever being stuffy - a perfect writer to tell the tale of a brilliantly imperfect Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground. A big book that could have been twice the length and still been just as enjoyable. I intend to come back to this! Especially since I received an accompanying mix CD. Atomizer album. Bad Moon Rising album. Candice Pedersen. Chalk Circle American band. Double Nickels on the Dime. John Stabb musician. Let It Be The Replacements album. List of Black Flag band members. List of Colombian Americans. List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people: H. List of gay, lesbian or bisexual people: M. List of people who follow a straight edge lifestyle. Minor Disturbance. Minutemen discography. Pleased to Meet Me. Roger Miller rock musician. Straight Edge song. The Faith American band. Touch Me I'm Sick. Home Groups Talk More Zeitgeist. I Agree This site uses cookies to deliver our services, improve performance, for analytics, and if not signed in for advertising. Your use of the site and services is subject to these policies and terms. Members Reviews Popularity Average rating Mentions 1, 14 12, 4. 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. Recently added by mrsmith9NickAbbatetommdanjsmallrunningbeardbooksrawsharktextstheidlerZoestertpitts6SGonzales. Hachette Book Group No current Talk conversations about this book. This book was epic-ally long, but that was okay because it made me feel more like I was there. Effing fantastic history of some of the best and most important bands and record labels of the American independent underground music movement. MsFunk Jul 16, JennyArch Dec 25, You must log in to edit Common Knowledge data. Village Voice 25 Favorite Books References to this work on external resources. The definitive chronicle of underground music in the s Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground the stories of Black Flag, Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground Youth, The Replacements, and other seminal bands whose DIY revolution changed American music forever. No library descriptions found. Book description. Haiku summary. Add to Your books. Add to wishlist. Quick Links Amazon. Amazon Kindle 0 editions. Audible 0 editions. CD Audiobook 0 editions. Project Gutenberg 0 editions. Google Books — Loading Local Book Search. Swap want. Rating Average: 4. Is this you? Become a LibraryThing Author. Recently added by. For more help see the Common Knowledge help page. Original publication date. Add to Your books Add to wishlist Quick Links. 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Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. This is the never-before-told story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan Eighties-- when Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground small but sprawling network of bands, labels, fanzines, radio stations, and other subversives reenergized American rock Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground punk rock's do-it-yourself credo and created music that was deeply personal, often brilliant, always challenging, and imme This 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 reenergized American rock with punk rock'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 has been recognized as an indie rock classic in its own right. Get A Copy. Paperbackpages. More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Jan 18, Caroline rated it it was amazing Shelves: prosenonfiction. I found the structure of the book particularly effective, because it's divided into chapters that cover the story arcs of the individual bands. While there are certainly common themes in the story of any band, particularly within the fairly narrow slice of genre that Azerrad is covering here, he manages to find an interesting angle for just about every chapter. The bands that were made up of lifelong friends versus the ones that couldn't stand each other or the ones that started as the first and ended up as the secondthe bands that were dedicated to promoting a way of life or a political movement versus the ones that wanted to get rich versus the ones that just cared about making music, the artists who viewed what they did as a job versus the ones who were determined to sabotage their own success. Every story feels a little different, and it's the insight into the individual personalities and group dynamics that made me keep reading. A real bonus to this book is the rise of YouTube and Netflix Instant, which means a lot of opportunity to find footage of just about everything Azerrad is describing, plus since this book was published 10 years ago the mandatory 'whatever happened to that guy? NOT particularly recommended if an excess of white boy pain is going to bring your enjoyment to a halt. At the very least be prepared to roll your eyes at some of these people's behavior, but overall I think the author puts it in a fair perspective. View 2 comments. Mar 16, brian rated it really Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground it. View all 25 comments. Feb 12, Eddie Watkins rated it really liked it Shelves: music. This book helped me immeasurably in catching up with the past I missed while it was happening. This was one of the best books on music I have ever read. A list of my experiences with every band featured in the book: Black Flag — The only band in the book I was aware of and listened to however involuntarily as their music was coming out and happening. Much of my college career was spent feeling this beer and punk induced claustrophobia. A guy I knew from the fraternity listened to Black Flag exclusively. He had large dark eyebrows and was quite imposing. Sometimes I would ride with him places and he would blast Black Flag and drink beer from cans while driving. On a simple half hour excursion he could consume almost a six pack. I remember looking through the tape collection in his car — nothing but Black Flag and Mozart. His dad listened to nothing but Mozart. I was immediately smitten and sensed an immediate kinship, largely through a connection made between their music and the classic rock I listened to almost exclusively growing up. They remain a favorite. Mission of Burma — I had heard of them before reading this book but had never listened to them. I picked up Vs. Excellent album. The combination of raw power and intelligence immediately appealed to me. A very large enveloping sound. The Replacements — Another band that has far too many associations with my claustrophobic frat party years. Even more so than Black Flag. It is easily a favorite album of mine, but I still have not listened to any of their other albums, though I did see Lee Renaldo live once improvising to a Stan Brakhage film a film which Brakhage by the way intentionally made as a silent film. They were probably my favorite band for a year or so while I was living a down-and-out existence after graduating from college. I saw no barriers between my digestive system and Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground world at large. The Buttholes fit perfectly into this intuitive approach to a rather dangerous and fraught way of living. I still like them and think Gibby Haynes can be hilarious. Big Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground — I probably heard them also during my claustrophobic frat party years but I have no tangible recollection, and I have not even been able to sample them on Spotify as they do not appear to be participating in it. Steve Albini reminds me of Robert Crumb in the level of his intelligent disgust with almost all things. Dinosaur Jr. They interest me much more than Minor Threat. I plan on picking up one of their albums after reading this book. Sounds like they could offer the kind of thorny jumpy intelligence I often crave. Mudhoney — I had never previously listened to Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, but I checked out a few of their songs while reading their chapter. Beat Happening — Being a long-time Jonathan Richman fan I immediately linked the two when I started reading their chapter. A few pages in Richman was mentioned as an inspiration for Calvin Johnson, so I thought maybe I have always been cooler than I thought. I will definitely be listening to a lot of Beat Happening in the near future. View all 23 comments. May 06, Pamela rated it liked it Shelves: read-in This is such a GUY book. The band histories are filled with the drama and backbiting you would expect from teenage girls, but are posited as Very Important Cultural Happenings. I guess that is the book's strength, and its entire reason for existing: documenting a whole bunch of assholes and taking them seriously, even at their most hapless and idiotic. I mean, he manages to write a deathly serious chapter on Black Flag, whereas I just giggle at the thought of Henry Rollins circa '81, standing on This is such a GUY book. I mean, he manages to write a deathly serious chapter on Black Flag, whereas I just giggle at the thought of Henry Rollins circa '81, standing on stage in his teeny little black shorts and screaming at people. Let's see - it's all very journalistic. The writer isn't a character and he doesn't talk about his own memories or involvement. So, it's interesting that he's trying to do something a bit more documentary-like rather than a personal history. And he keeps pretty neutral for most of it, but then squanders whatever currency he has built up as an objective observer on weird little jabs at specific bands you don't like The Cure or Ministry, I GET IT. There are points when the fanboyism is a little too obvious. Explaining away Ian Mackaye's and Henry Rollins early, weird race things as "misunderstandings" wastes a good chance to actually talk about what they meant. And he gives way too much slack to Steve Albini. I guess this book is good at being the book that it is, and most of my annoyance and disappointment that it is not the book that it is not. Jul 21, Meagan rated it it was amazing. Basically, if you were under the impression that punk died when Mick Jones got kicked out of The Clash and wasn't revived until Nirvana released Nevermind, do yourself a favor and read this book. Yes, there are a few omissions okay, just one that kind of sticks out in my mind. Meat Puppets. They're mentioned several times, but don't merit their own chapter but overall this is a great way to learn about a lot of bands you don't Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, or learn more about bands you thought you knew all about. The way the book is constructed forms a roughly chronological timeline, with bands and labels dovetailing neatly into each others' stories. I like Azerrad's decision to omit some of the bigger bands, like REM and The Pixies, and to end each chapter when the band either broke up or signed to a major label. Also, it's really inspiring, even to an old fogey like me. If I had read this book when I was 18, I probably would have started my own record label. But, thankfully, I read it as a nearing-middle-ager who already tried that whole "get in the van! But if I knew an year-old who had aspirations of being in a band, or starting their own label, or what have you, this is the book I'd put in their clammy little hands.

It's not surprising that the indie movement largely started in Southern California—after all, it had the infrastructure: Slash and Flipside fanzines started inand indie labels like Frontier and Posh Boy and Dangerhouse started soon afterward. KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimer played the region's punk music on his show; listeners could buy what they heard thanks to various area distributors and record shops and see the bands at places like the Masque, the Starwood, the Whisky, the Fleetwood, and various impromptu venues. No other region in the country had quite as good a setup. But by the original punk scene had almost completely died out. They were replaced by a bunch of toughs coming in from outlying suburbs who were only beginning to discover punk's speed, power, and aggression. They didn't care that punk rock was already being dismissed as a spent force, kid bands playing at being the Ramones a few years too late. Dispensing with all pretension, these kids boiled the music down to its essence, then revved up the tempos to the speed of a pencil impatiently tapping on a school desk, and called the result "hardcore. Fairly quickly, hardcore spread around the country and coalesced into a small but robust community. Just as "hip-hop" was an umbrella term for the music, art, fashion, and dance of a then nascent urban subculture, so was "hardcore. Hardcore punk drew a line in the sand between older avant-rock fans and a new bunch of kids who were coming up. On one side were those who considered the Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground and its fans loud, ugly, and incoherent; to the folks on the other side, hardcore was the only music that mattered. A rare generational divide in rock music had arisen. And that's when exciting things happen. Black Flag was more than just the flagship band of the Southern California hardcore scene. It was more than even the flagship band of American hardcore itself. They were required listening for anyone who was interested in underground music. And by virtue of their relentless touring, the band did more than any other to blaze a trail through America that all kinds of bands could follow. Not only did they establish punk rock beachheads in literally every corner Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground the country; they inspired countless other bands to form and start doing it for themselves. The band's selfless work ethic was a model for the decade ahead, overcoming indifference, lack of venues, poverty, even police harassment. Black Flag was among the first bands to suggest that if you didn't like "the system," you should simply create one of your own. Ginn took his label from a cash-strapped, cop-hassled storefront operation to easily the most influential and popular underground indie of the Eighties, releasing classics by the likes of Bad Brains, the Minutemen, the Meat Puppets, Husker Du;, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, and many more. Their fans were just as disaffected from the mainstream as the bands were. I know I'm not joining the navy and I know your laws don't mean shit to me because the hypocrisy that welds them all together, I cannot abide. There's a lot of people with a lot of fury in this country—America is seething at all times. It's like a Gaza Strip that's three thousand miles long. Greg Ginn never really liked rock music as a kid. The record opened a new world for Ginn; a year later he began playing acoustic guitar as a "tension release" after studying economics all day at UCLA. Ginn Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground spent his early childhood with his parents and four brothers and sisters in a small farming community outside Bakersfield, California. His father earned a meager schoolteacher's salary, Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground Ginn got used to cramped surroundings and living on limited means. Inwhen Ginn was eight, the family moved to Hermosa Beach, California, in the solidly white middle-class South Bay area a couple of dozen miles south of Los Angeles. But while his peers were into hanging ten, Ginn disdained the conformity and materialism of surfing; a very tall, very quiet kid, he preferred to write poetry and do ham radio. A generation later he would have been a computer nerd. At the age of twelve, he published an amateur radio fanzine called The Novice and founded Solid State Tuners SSTa mailorder business selling modified World War II surplus radio equipment; it became a small but thriving business that Ginn ran well into his twenties. After learning to play an acoustic, Ginn picked up an electric guitar and began writing aggressive, vaguely blues-based songs, but only for himself. Even before he heard a note, he was sure punk was what he was looking for. The music was powerful, brilliant, and it had nothing to do with Genesis or the slick corporate rock that dominated the music industry in the mid-Seventies; this music was organic in the way it was played, recorded, and, just as important, how it was popularized. It was hardly "three-minute pop commercials. By then Ginn had developed extraordinarily wide-ranging musical tastes. He dug Motown, disco, country artists like Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, and adored all kinds of jazz, from big band to early fusion; in the Seventies he was a regular at Hermosa Beach's fabled jazz club the Lighthouse, where he witnessed legends like Yusef Lateef and Mose Allison. But besides his beloved B. King, there was only one group that Ginn adored more than any other. But because Ginn was only a novice guitarist, none of those influences came through in his playing; he was simply making music to work off energy and frustration, and as generations of beginners before him had discovered, the quickest shortcut to a cool guitar sound was nasty, brutish distortion. Then, when he saw the Ramones play, Ginn "got a speed rush," he said, "and decided to turn it up a notch. In late '76 a mutual friend introduced Ginn to a hard-partying loudmouth named Keith Morris; the two hit it off and decided to start a band. Morris wanted to play drums, but Ginn was convinced Morris should sing. Morris protested that he didn't write lyrics and, besides, he was no Freddie Mercury. But punk had showed Ginn you didn't need gold-plated tonsils to rock, and Morris eventually agreed. They drafted a few of Morris's friends—"scruffy beach rat types who were more interested in getting laid and finding drugs than really playing," Morris said and began rehearsing in Ginn's tiny house by the beach. In honor of their hectic tempos, they called the band Panic. There was precious little punk rock to emulate at the time, so the band picked up the aggressive sounds they heard in Black Sabbath, the Stooges, and the MC5, only faster. We might look like Deadheads—at that point we had long hair, but the Ramones did, too—but we meant business. They soon moved their practices to Ginn's space at the Church, a dilapidated house of worship in Hermosa Beach that had been converted into workshops for artists but was in effect a hangout for runaways and misfits. They got kicked out for making too much noise and found a new rehearsal space in the spring of ' They practiced every day, but since their bass player usually flaked out on rehearsals, Ginn had to carry much of the rhythm on his own and began developing a simple, heavily rhythmic style that never outpaced his limited technique. A band called Wurm also practiced in the Church, and the two bands began playing parties together. Wurm's bassist, an intense, sharpwitted guy named Gary McDaniel, liked Panic's aggressive, cathartic approach and began sitting in with them. McDaniel and Ginn connected immediately. Like Ginn, McDaniel, who went by the stage name Chuck Dukowski, was repulsed by mellow folkies like James Taylor and effete art-rockers. For their first couple of years, Panic played exclusively at parties and youth centers around the South Bay because the Masque, the key L. By necessity, Panic developed a knack for finding offbeat places to stage their explosive, anarchic performances, often sharing bills with Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground County punk bands, relatively affluent suburbanites who could afford things like renting halls and PA systems. The party circuit had a very tangible effect on the band's music. So we knew that we had a certain amount of time: don't make any noise until you start playing and then just go hard and long until they show up. Their first proper show was at a Moose Lodge in nearby Redondo Beach. During the first set, Morris began Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground an American flag around, much to the displeasure of the assembled Moose. He was ejected from the building, but he donned a longhaired wig and sneaked back in to sing the second set. Eventually the Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground progressed to playing shows at the Fleetwood in Redondo Beach, where they built up such a substantial following Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground the Hollywood clubs couldn't ignore them anymore, ef-fecting a sea change in L. Early Our Band Could be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground Ginn met a cheery fellow known as Spot, who wrote record reviews for a Hermosa Beach paper. Ginn would sometimes stop by the vegetarian restaurant where Spot worked and shoot the breeze about music. Couldn't imagine him ever being in a band. When Ginn asked him to record his band, Spot agreed, figuring it would be a nice break from the usual watery pop-folk. But nobody wanted to touch the band's raging slab of aggro-punk except L. But by late Bomp still hadn't formally agreed to release the record. And then got the singles made and put in there. A few months earlier they had discovered that another band already had the name Panic. Pettibon suggested "Black Flag" and designed a logo for the band, a stylized rippling flag made up of four vertical black rectangles. If a white flag means surrender, it was plain what a black flag meant; a black flag is also a recognized symbol for anarchy, not to mention the traditional emblem of pirates; it sounded a bit like their heroes Black Sabbath as well. Of course, the fact that Black Flag was also a popular insecticide didn't hurt either. It could well be their best recording; it was definitely the one by which everything after it would be measured. With music and lyrics by Ginn, the record is rude, scuzzy, and totally exhilarating. Drummer Brian Migdol left the band and was replaced by Roberto Valverde, better known as Robo, who originally hailed from Colombia. In July '79 the band played an infamous show at a spring family outing at Manhattan Beach's Polliwog Park, having told town officials they were a regular rock band. It didn't take very long for the assembled moms and dads to figure differently. Afterwards I enjoyed a lunch of delicatessen sandwiches which I found still in their wrappers. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. Home Page World U.