Our Band Could Be Your Life poll

(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

The way in which these guy bands subsumed the homoerotic subtexts in their songs, their ethos, and chemistry, and how Husker both accepted these terms yet hid nothing from those in the know -- that's the thing I wished Azerrad had, ahem, teased out.

Aside from the ones that got MTV play in the 90s, I was discovering all these bands around the time the book came out, but don't think I read it til I was pretty familiar with the contents. The listening guide at the back of Michael Lavine's photo book "Noise from the Underground" was more responsible for leading me to this stuff.

major bands of my life: Minutemen, Husker Du (chose my college mainly because I heard about it in their chapter), Replacements, Sonic Youth, Big Black, Dinosaur Jr, Beat Happening

somewhat less important: Black Flag, Mission Of Burma, Minor Threat, Butthole Surfers, Fugazi, Mudhoney

Why do I always imagine there was a Bad Brains chapter? Does the Minor Threat chapter touch on them a lot?

xp Yeah, rereading it a few years back there's plenty of discussion of the type of things that come with the primarily white macho milieu--a number of the stories involve doses of homophobia and misogyny. I don't think the book explicitly endorses this stuff a la Joe Carducci, but you're right, the politics of the scene aren't thoroughly extrapolated amidst the triumphant points about how different these guys were from hair metal or slick synthesizers.

Ok voting black flag

so many incredible anecdotes in that chapter

yeah the dino jr. chapter is the one that it really doesn't matter if you like the band, or have even heard them. it's just a really good yarn. would make a good story arc for "empire."

replacements and husker du meant the most to me back then. the one i still listen to with any regularity is minutemen.

Never cared much for: Black Flag, Minor Threat, Dinosaur Jr., Butthole Surfers, Mudhoney, Beat Happening:
Very often cared more than anything else for: Husker Du, Replacements, Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Sonic Youth
Ambivalent: Big Black
Probably my favorite of the whole batch but don't think they belong with the others: Fugazi

best part was learning that Minor Threat broke up because everyone except for Ian MacKaye got super into U2.

Husker Du are definitely god-like.

am i wrong in thinking a lot of new indie bands don't even know who the fuck they are?

(but most of the time they love Beat Happening, My Bloody Valentine and any sensitive boy canonical indie rock)

am i wrong in thinking a lot of new indie bands don't even know who the fuck they are?

this is definitely a good question to shout at bands in the middle of a show

when i want to get real sensitive and indie, i put some mbv on

but for real, i think the shitty quality of the husker du mastering on their records has not done them many favors at all, in terms of influence on sensitive fuck boys

it's like in the aughts there was this total aversion to the "punk" thing and it was straight-up Pavement/Built To Spill sans aggression plus more U2.

Broken Social Scene etc and that continued on for awhile until the whole thing seemed very lacking in edge

are DIIV jamming to Big Black in their off time?

I love sensitive indie boy music too for the record.

i am a sensitive man,

who owns the rights to husker du's music these days? ryko? i can't figure out why someone can't remaster the shit out of it and make tens of thousands of dollars in profit

I read this once, just skipping between random chapters, and have no real recollection of what it was about.

Voting Fugazi cos i always like their stance against violent/machismo dominance in underground rock music.

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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