History Lesson - Part II
April 10, 2016 11:04 AM Subscribe
On the 15th anniversary of its publication, The A.V. Club interviews author Michael Azerrad and others on the creation and impact of Our Band Could Be Your Life.
Interviewees include Mike Watt, Bob Mould, Mark Arm, Brian Baker, Steve Albini, Roger Miller, and Paul Leary.
Interviewees include Mike Watt, Bob Mould, Mark Arm, Brian Baker, Steve Albini, Roger Miller, and Paul Leary.
Read it: Steve Albini, never change.
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:38 AM on April 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by Joey Michaels at 11:38 AM on April 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
That book is a beautiful time capsule of a moment in history when the indie/underground was as pure as it was ever going to be. Those days are long gone and I'm not sure we've replaced them with something better. Everything is just so codified now, the path to press/exposure/attention is well-paved, and everyone knows they need to get booking agents and managers. Indie is a career path like any other. On the other hand, we have more compelling bedroom musicians than ever before, thanks to the accessibility and affordability of computers/phones/etc. that can function as entire studios and collections of instruments. Maybe a book needs to be written in 2016 about bedroom experimental musicians who play underground DIY venues, chronicling the venues too as they get shut down or close due to increasing gentrification as people leave the suburbs and cities become playgrounds for the wealthy. I'd read it!
posted by naju at 12:22 PM on April 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by naju at 12:22 PM on April 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
Still waiting for the sequel on music journalism, "Our Band Could Be Your Life" Could Be Your Life.
posted by ardgedee at 12:58 PM on April 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 12:58 PM on April 10, 2016 [2 favorites]
Is there anything in the Butthole Surfers chapter worth reading apart from the story about Alex Chilton? Gibby's scatological fixations and the band's general squalor always gave me the willies.
posted by pxe2000 at 1:17 PM on April 10, 2016
posted by pxe2000 at 1:17 PM on April 10, 2016
From Paul Leary's comments in the article, it sounds like they gave him the willies, too.
I don't really remember the Butthole Surfers chapter much, but I don't remember thinking it was awful or anything. I mean, obviously the Fugazi and Big Black chapters are going to be more interesting. Those guys were fascinating, by any standard. But the chapter on the Butthole Surfers fit with the rest of the book.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:29 PM on April 10, 2016
I don't really remember the Butthole Surfers chapter much, but I don't remember thinking it was awful or anything. I mean, obviously the Fugazi and Big Black chapters are going to be more interesting. Those guys were fascinating, by any standard. But the chapter on the Butthole Surfers fit with the rest of the book.
posted by kevinbelt at 1:29 PM on April 10, 2016
I really liked that book. The structure of it was brilliant, which made each band very memorable in and of itself. The chapters that have lived strongest in my memory are the ones about Minutemen and Beat Happening. The one thing I wish he'd done differently was add a chapter about Bikini Kill and the riot grrl movement, because that always felt like the final flowering of that indie scene.
posted by Kattullus at 1:58 PM on April 10, 2016
posted by Kattullus at 1:58 PM on April 10, 2016
I loved this book. I let some friends borrow it and they kept it, and I don't talk to them any more (for other reasons, but still). There have been many times where I wanted to go back and check some thing about one of the bands in there. It works as a reference for each of the bands covered as well as being about the scene as a whole.
The one thing I wish he'd done differently was add a chapter about Bikini Kill and the riot grrl movement, because that always felt like the final flowering of that indie scene.
I guess that depends on your perspective, because Bikini Kill would come about right at the end of the period covered, but so did Nirvana, and given that Azerrad had previously written a book about Nirvana that seems like the more natural tie-in. While reading it, I felt like the subtitle of the book could have easily been "How Nirvana Happened", and it looks like the interviewer felt the same way based on this question:
Before you wrote this book you worked with Nirvana on the band biography, Come As You Are, and really, the specter of that group looms large over Our Band Could Be Your Life. You can feel them coming as you flip through the pages. To your mind, was Nirvana really the culmination point of this entire decade of music, and could it have endured in the way it existed after that band exploded into the mainstream?
So really, the whole indie/alternative scene takeover of the early 90s is basically the result of what the book covers, but nobody got as ridiculously HUGE as Nirvana did. I'm still amazed at how it seemed like the slate of, for lack of a better term, white mainstream popular music was wiped completely clean in 1991. Before that time, you had New Kids on the Block and hair metal.
posted by LionIndex at 2:09 PM on April 10, 2016
The one thing I wish he'd done differently was add a chapter about Bikini Kill and the riot grrl movement, because that always felt like the final flowering of that indie scene.
I guess that depends on your perspective, because Bikini Kill would come about right at the end of the period covered, but so did Nirvana, and given that Azerrad had previously written a book about Nirvana that seems like the more natural tie-in. While reading it, I felt like the subtitle of the book could have easily been "How Nirvana Happened", and it looks like the interviewer felt the same way based on this question:
Before you wrote this book you worked with Nirvana on the band biography, Come As You Are, and really, the specter of that group looms large over Our Band Could Be Your Life. You can feel them coming as you flip through the pages. To your mind, was Nirvana really the culmination point of this entire decade of music, and could it have endured in the way it existed after that band exploded into the mainstream?
So really, the whole indie/alternative scene takeover of the early 90s is basically the result of what the book covers, but nobody got as ridiculously HUGE as Nirvana did. I'm still amazed at how it seemed like the slate of, for lack of a better term, white mainstream popular music was wiped completely clean in 1991. Before that time, you had New Kids on the Block and hair metal.
posted by LionIndex at 2:09 PM on April 10, 2016
[I] gave Michael a cassette from this guy in Minneapolis who did an interview with us that’s a whole fucking spiel of me and D. Boon arguing and debating and this guy never even gets a question in. [Laughs.] Even between ourselves we would pull over to settle an argument at a library or just pull the boat over and start punching. The Minutemen were more about putting it out there.
Oh man the image of three big sweaty dudes charging into a public library while they're on tour with their punk band to settle an argument in the reference book section is just hysterical to me.
posted by Maaik at 2:38 PM on April 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
Oh man the image of three big sweaty dudes charging into a public library while they're on tour with their punk band to settle an argument in the reference book section is just hysterical to me.
posted by Maaik at 2:38 PM on April 10, 2016 [8 favorites]
Banned in DC
Mom: A nun just called me from the National Cathedral and she has your wallet, What are you doing?
Me: I forgot and put it in that ripped back pocket. The Minor Threat show was sold out. We went to the cathedral to kill time. We are going to the later show.
Mom: I don't like this at all. Who are you with? Those mohawk boys again?
My mom was precious and back then you could just hang up the payphone when you were done. I repent for the heart damage I caused her.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 3:53 PM on April 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
Mom: A nun just called me from the National Cathedral and she has your wallet, What are you doing?
Me: I forgot and put it in that ripped back pocket. The Minor Threat show was sold out. We went to the cathedral to kill time. We are going to the later show.
Mom: I don't like this at all. Who are you with? Those mohawk boys again?
My mom was precious and back then you could just hang up the payphone when you were done. I repent for the heart damage I caused her.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 3:53 PM on April 10, 2016 [3 favorites]
I don't really remember the Butthole Surfers chapter much, but I don't remember thinking it was awful or anything.Either Azerrad or Gibby went into long, loving detail about the "sex change movies" (their words, not mine) he'd order for the band's stage show and the photos of open wounds and autopsies he'd photocopy on his company's copier. This is par for the course with this band (he's interviewed in the Daniel Johnson docu while he's getting a cavity filled). I wasn't as grossed out by the grotesqueries in the Big Black chapter, I think because Azerrad is so clinical in his descriptions of their album sleeves and flyers.
posted by pxe2000 at 4:27 PM on April 10, 2016
Five years ago at Bowery Ballroom fourteen current bands got together to cover songs from the 13 bands in this book. NPR actually still has the entire mess up to stream as Our Concert Could Be Your Life.
Dirty Projectors played three Black Flag songs. Then after a ten minute break Delicate Steve played a 10-15 minute set of Minutemen songs, including "This Ain't No Picnic" sung by guest Tim Harrington. This continued throughout the evening. Highlights were Titus Andronicus as the Replacements and St. Vincent with members of Dirty Projectors tearing through a couple Big Black songs.
Finally Michael came out and talked a bit then artists from the night (from Wye Oak, Buke & Gass, etc.) played backup for Nirvana covers. Dan Deacon moshed in the crowd for "Negative Creep," Patrick from Titus bounced onstage for "Sliver" and Merril from tUnE-yArDs forgot the words to "Lithium." And everybody crowd-surfed and moshed throughout.
posted by mountmccabe at 10:44 PM on April 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
Dirty Projectors played three Black Flag songs. Then after a ten minute break Delicate Steve played a 10-15 minute set of Minutemen songs, including "This Ain't No Picnic" sung by guest Tim Harrington. This continued throughout the evening. Highlights were Titus Andronicus as the Replacements and St. Vincent with members of Dirty Projectors tearing through a couple Big Black songs.
Finally Michael came out and talked a bit then artists from the night (from Wye Oak, Buke & Gass, etc.) played backup for Nirvana covers. Dan Deacon moshed in the crowd for "Negative Creep," Patrick from Titus bounced onstage for "Sliver" and Merril from tUnE-yArDs forgot the words to "Lithium." And everybody crowd-surfed and moshed throughout.
posted by mountmccabe at 10:44 PM on April 10, 2016 [5 favorites]
Sounds like this book could use a chapter on Meat Puppets, and Camper Van Beethoven, too...
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 11:25 AM on April 11, 2016
posted by littlejohnnyjewel at 11:25 AM on April 11, 2016
Albini mentioned the book in the AMA he did a few years ago.
posted by homunculus at 5:34 PM on April 15, 2016
posted by homunculus at 5:34 PM on April 15, 2016
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posted by Joey Michaels at 11:12 AM on April 10, 2016