Our Band Could Be Your Life poll

Live '84 is probably the best Black Flag document.

If we're talking about caring about bands, I don't really care about any of them ... Butthole Surfers probably the closest I can manage.

First issue of Forced Exposure I ever bought/read was the Mission of Burma issue, when they were already this semi-mythical disbanded band whose recs in the UK were p tough to source (apart from the live alb, for some reason.) So when they, somewhat unexpectedly, reformed AND played in England (and later Scotland) AND totally didn't suck - when, in fact, they were totally awesome - well, that kind of happy wish fulfillment doesn't happen that often in music, or in life. So Burma.

re Black Flag it's years since I read I read it but I just remember the impression of squalor and misery and the way the book made it sound like driving around America in a van with Henry Rollins and Greg Ginn was the worst thing imaginable, but that didn't really seem to translate to the records in as interesting a way as one might have hoped

Absence of meat puppets in this book still appalls me.

Butthole Surfers.

I forgot to mention Mudhoney before when I was listing the bands I didn't care about

Listen to in the present day with any frequency:
Sonic Youth
Dinosaur Jr.
Husker Du
Big Black

Used to listen to a lot, still enjoy plenty of things by them:
Fugazi

Like what I know but don't own anything:
Minutemen
Mission of Burma

Enjoy some things:
Black Flag
Butthole Surfers

Don't have much of a connection with:
Mudhoney
Replacements

Decidedly not for me*:
Beat Happening

*I would say "No just please God no someone think of the children" but ever since I stopped worrying and learned to love Neutral Milk Hotel, I don't take anything for granted.

my favorite chapters:
minutemen
dinosaur jr
butthole surfers
big black
minor threat
fugazi

i have not yet read:
mission of burma
replacements
mudhoney
beat happening

i think about doing that "perfect pencil" joke in the butthole surfers chapter to someone way too often

dinosaur jr one was hilarious to read about how much those dudes really hated each other, sounded like such a bad trip that it is astonishing that they made such good music

i don't know what it is about sonic youth but i don't have much desire to listen to them anymore, thurston is just too much of a dick and i can't handle his personality/lyrics/voice anymore

couldn't really give tuppence about their music these days, but i do appreciate beat happening's stridently non-macho presence on this list

this was every band i gave a shit about in college. the only ones i listen to with any regularity anymore are burma and fugazi, so one of them (i also think they're easily the best bands here)

have a lot of love for a lot of these bands, leaning towards fugazi for both coming in and going out like champs

mudhoney might have competed on that front if i hadn't just seen mark arm's uniqlo aad

(Voted for SY obv.)

not saying i begrudge mark getting an easy buck per se, just that it takes you out of the running against fugazi on the "going out like a champ" front

I was going to say "don't tell me Evol is macho" but then I considered whether killing California girls and firing an exploding load into the milkmaid maidenhead might complicate that.

couldn't really give tuppence about their music these days, but i do appreciate beat happening's stridently non-macho presence on this list

and obv. there's the almost complete absence women here (kim, kira, teresa, heather from beat happening - is that it?), could of had the likes of scrawl, ut, fire party, throwing muses, babes in toyland...

I've never even heard of 3 out of 5 of those bands

personally would have LOVED a scrawl chapter - or really i'd love to read a book about scrawl. as much as i love the book i do think it makes too straight a line from punk to nirvana - a lot of the quirkier alt stuff got pushed aside, some due to distribution technicalities (i.e. babes and muses were distributed by majors by their second albums) but i think also due to a goal TO explain how punk became nirvana

^^^ yes, a Scrawl chapter would've been great.

and the fact remains that groups that AREN'T needed to explain how a Mabuhay Gardens mosh-pit became a Cow Palace moshpit - i.e. Mission Of Burma - are pretty dude-band

Descending order of shit-givance, from "still listen to on a regular basis" all the way down to "loathe":
Mudhoney
Black Flag
Dinosaur Jr
Minor Threat
Fugazi
Minutemen
Mission Of Burma
Husker Du
Sonic Youth
Replacements

Bands I've never heard:
Butthole Surfers (excepting the radio song from the mid-90s)
Big Black
Beat Happening

Sorely missing chapters:
Meat Puppets
Camper Van Beethoven

Apparently, I blocked out Minor Threat when making my list, which is actually fairly apropos to how I feel about them.

the thing I remember most from the Minutement chapter is Mike Watt's account of meeting D Boon for the first time in a park when they both were kids, and being amazed at all these funny jokes and stories Boon was telling, apparently off the top of his head, then later realising that they were Jack Benny routines he had memorised (or possibly another old-timey comedian? does anyone remember?)

oh, and Boon literally falling out of a tree to land next to him, and that being how they met

Sonic Youth
Butthole Surfers
Dinosaur Jr
Big Black
Mission Of Burma
Beat Happening
Husker Du
Minor Threat
Replacements
Fugazi
Black Flag
Minutemen
Mudhoney

i like beat happening (esp. black candy) but can see why people hate them

or possibly another old-timey comedian? does anyone remember?

It was George Carlin

who in their right mind would single out Mission Of Burma as the "dude-band" on this list

come on

Best/funniest thing about the book = the ghost of REM hovering in the background

I have liked all these bands at various points. In order of most liked to least on record.

Sonic Youth
Big Black
Mission Of Burma
Husker Du
Dinosaur Jr
Minutemen
Minor Threat
Mudhoney
Fugazi
Replacements
Beat Happening
Black Flag
Butthole Surfers

I also enjoy and still listen to all of these bands except the Butthole Surfers

I also enjoy and still listen to all of these bands except the Butthole Surfers Replacements

Minor Threat chapter is my favorite, I don't think there has been anything else written about them w/that amount of detail

a Throwing Muses chapter would've been terrific

The Wipers should of been in there but of course they were an outlier in history until old saint Kurt shined the light upon everybody.

(from what i've read at least. i don't know if they were ever in competition/cahoots with any of these bands)

I've always liked the idea of Black Flag, and I still get a kick out of The First Four Years, but they're just not that good.

Calvin Johnson is a creep and Beat Happening is cloying bullshit.

I've barely listened to Mudhoney or Fugazi. I admire and enjoy all the other bands to varying degrees, but there's only one I adore. Huskers win.

i can't remember what chapter i liked best. probably the black flag one.

favorite band here is definitely butthole surfers

The Minutemen chapter of this book was incredibly pivotal for me when I read it in my late teens, made me seriously think through how I wanted to live my own life.

I re-read it years later, and of course it couldn't quite live up to the magic, but I still love that band and love that chapter, so this was an easy vote for me.

who in their right mind would single out Mission Of Burma as the "dude-band" on this list

come on

― hackshaw, Thursday, October 15, 2015 9:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no one did! there was a guy who used the phrase "dude-band" in reference to MoB, but more as an example of one of the more redundant-to-the-narrative bands that happens to be dude-ish than as one of the most dude-ish. I'm a Burma fan, enjoyed the chapter, not saying they're criminally "dude". No reason to question my sanity. Just noting that room was there to paint a more diverse picture of the indie scene than was attempted. Shouldn't hurt you too much to hear.

Excellent book. 1) Husker Du, 2) Replacements, 3) Minor Threat, 4) Sonic Youth, 5) Beat Happening. (I really only love three or four songs each from the last two.)

Husker Du seem the pivotal band here to me in the way the book hangs together, the 'arc' of whatever you call it

They just seem in the middle of everything - peaked in the middle of the focused era, mix of tunes and volume, the vital hardcore/college crossover.

I vote for John Lydon, who shows up in each chapter and acts like a snob.

yeah of all the "three weirdos got together and blew the roof off with a power trio sound that melded punk with..." chapters husker is the most crucial, though if you're gonna turn one into a movie i'd vote for dino

Surprised by all the Replacements hate here. You damn millennials probably hate REM too.

I love all of these bands except Beat Happening (who I hate), Mudhoney (who I like but not obsessively like most of these others), and Butthole Surfers (so fun to read / think about, almost zero fun to listen to, sorry)

I only listen to Husker and Sonic Youth these days, the Replacements and Minutemen just behind. Played Signals, Calls, and Marches a couple weeks for the first time in a decade and it sounded dandy -- and about all I could stand. Big Black also mean most in terse, angry excerpts. I don't think I've heard Minor Threat, Beat Happening or Fugazi of my own volition. Butthole Surfers and Black Flag don't mean anything to me.

I like the book but wonder if its reception would have changed had he published it in the early '00s. Amerindie coverage and tastes have shifted so much that these guys (and I mean guys) look as quaint as Human League fandom did in 2001.

*uh, published it in the late '00s.

though if you're gonna turn one into a movie i'd vote for dino

so many incredible anecdotes in that chapter--intense freakouts, lou barlow constantly sucking on cookie monster's eye, Murph intentionally falling asleep at the wheel of the van, the band's attempt to passively kick barlow out, the whole thing ending with barlow screaming at mascis on the street that he blew it, that nirvana had beat him to it

As far as the Nirvana book, I have never read it, I'll take your word that it makes a lot of the Mudhoney chapter redundant.

Is Jess' review of this for Freaky Trigger still around? I'd dig it up via archive.org, but that's blocked in China ...

Surprised this book's become as canonical as it has considering the defects - whole bunch of Guangzhou musicians I know have read it, and find Beat Happening p.inspirational.

absolutely baffles me that everyone around here loves the Huskers and hates Black Flag.
I'm guessing that's related to one Greg Ginn.

Faves: MoB, Huskers, Mats, Big Black, Raymond Pettibon.

I like Black Flag especially the marquee 84 gig, but do like that whole heavy as rock grinding thing they were doing around that time and the Chuck Dukowski version of that material too.

Shakey, you need to hear My War, jesus. At least side 2. I can leave everything bf did after that.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Re: later Black Flag stuff, My War is def worth hearing but I like In My Head even more

Realize this won't be a popular vote, but I saw a ton of Replacements shows in their first few years. Loved 'em more than anything else on this list by far.

Like:
Sonic Youth
Beat Happening
Dino Jr
The Replacements
Big Black
Fugazi
Husker Du

Dislike:
Black Flag

Even heard enough:
Mudhoney
Butthole Surfers
Minor Threat
Mission Of Burma
Minutemen

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

100+ votes is pretty good turnout

Poor calvin

yeah i'm fine w/ beat happening, enough time has passed, but there was no way in hell i was voting beat happening. that said calvin is the hero of this book. voted fugazi as that's the one i'm by far most likely to listen to nowadays, would guess sonic youth is the one i've listened to most (over husker du) but that's mainly sheer volume of releases. except for mudhoney, beat happening, and i guess butthole surfers (all of whom i like)(like those first few butthole surfers way more than any mudhoney or beat happening, they just fell off pretty hard and became supertiresome in general for me), i love every group up there.

I think this book would have been improved with some levity towards the end - I would possibly have made some room for Camper Van Beethoven, for example. Sonically, there's some 'spirit of punk' right there (compared to one or two groups who talked the talk but sounded not unlike everyone else)

Ian MacKaye's problem with T&G ("they were the ones who smoked cigars and ate ribs") - what's that about? It seemed like a contemporaneous interview.

wasn't T&G was pretty well respected? i thought i heard they uniformly did 50/50 recording contracts with bands

maybe that's not that great, idk

i wonder if ian mackaye has ever had a conversation with paul westerberg about the proper performance state of mind

I always took that "cigars and ribs" remark as reflecting a pretty clear culture clash between the Dischord wing of steadfast DIYism and the T&G/Albini/"pigfuck" wing. It's easy to imagine that the guy who wrote the lyrics to "Suggestion" might look askance at the part of the scene that plays host to a band called Rapeman.

It's also a working class midwest mindset vs. activist/political east coast mindset.

Trying to think which of the midwest punk/indie bands of the era ever got political. Not the Effigies, Naked Raygun, Big Black, Jesus Lizard, Killdozer ...

Effigies 'We're Da Machine' is v pointedly political

but yeah there was an avoidance of hectoring or anything that might resemble it in nearly all cases

toxic reasons?

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