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Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Jim Connelly's
Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Monday, January 15, 2007
Jesse Steichen's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Friday, January 12, 2007
Bill Bentley's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Tom Ridge's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Lee Templeton's Favorite Recordings Of 2006
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Anthony Carew's 13 Fave Albums Of 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
SXSW 2006: Finding Some Hope In Austin
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Letter From New Orleans
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Jennifer Przybylski's Fave Albums of 2005
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Music For Dwindling Days: Max Schaefer's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Sean Fennessey's 'Best-Of' 2005
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Lori Miller Barrett's Fave Albums Of 2005
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Lee Templeton's Favorite Recordings of 2005
Thursday, January 5, 2006
Michael Lach - Old Soul Songs For A New World Order
Wednesday, January 4, 2006
Found In Translation — Emme Stone's Year In Music 2005
Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Dave Allen's 'Best-Of' 2005
Monday, January 2, 2006
Steve Gozdecki's Favorite Albums Of 2005
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Johnny Walker Black's Top 10 Of 2005
Monday, December 19, 2005
Neal Block's Favorite Recordings Of 2005
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Jenny Tatone's Year In Review
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Dave Renard's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Monday, December 12, 2005
Jennifer Kelly's Fave Recordings Of 2005
Thursday, December 8, 2005
Tom Ridge's Favorite Recordings Of 2005
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Ben Gook's Beloved Albums Of 2005
Monday, December 5, 2005
Anthony Carew's Fave Albums Of 2005
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Prince, Spoon And The Magic Of The Dead Stop
Monday, September 12, 2005
The Truth About America
Monday, September 5, 2005
Tryin' To Wash Us Away
Monday, August 1, 2005
A Psyche-Folk Heat Wave In Western Massachusetts
Monday, July 18, 2005
Soggy But Happy At Glastonbury 2005
Monday, April 4, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 3: All Together Now
Friday, April 1, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 2: Dr. Dog's Happy Chords
Thursday, March 31, 2005
The SXSW Experience, Part 1: Waiting, Waiting And More Waiting
Friday, March 25, 2005
Final Day At SXSW's Charnel House
Monday, March 21, 2005
Day Three At SXSW
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Day Two In SXSW's Hall Of Mirrors
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Report #1: SXSW 2005 And Its Hall Of Mirrors
Monday, February 14, 2005
Matt Landry's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
David Howie's 'Moments' From The Year 2004
Thursday, January 27, 2005
Lori Miller Barrett's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Thursday, January 20, 2005
Noah Bonaparte's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Kevin John's Fave Albums Of 2004
Friday, January 14, 2005
Music For Those Nights: Max Schaefer's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Thursday, January 13, 2005
Dave Renard's Fave Recordings Of 2004
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Neal Block's Top Ten Of 2004
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Jenny Tatone's Fave Albums Of 2004
Monday, January 10, 2005
Wayne Robins' Top Ten Of 2004
Friday, January 7, 2005
Brian Orloff's Fave Albums Of 2004
Thursday, January 6, 2005
Johnny Walker (Black)'s Top 10 Of 2004
Wednesday, January 5, 2005
Jennifer Przybylski's Fave Albums (And Book) Of 2004
Tuesday, January 4, 2005
Mark Mordue's Fave Albums Of 2004
Monday, January 3, 2005
Lee Templeton's Fave Recordings Of 2004
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Monday, August 27, 2001
Punk Could Be Your Life, Part One
Neumu's Michael Goldberg writes: Michael Azerrad's new book, "Our Band Could Be Your Life," is one of the most important non-fiction books to be published this year — and simply one of the most important music books to be published, period. The book — subtitled "Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981–1991" — documents the underground rock scene of the '80s.
In 1991, Nirvana scored an international hit with their revelatory punk anthem, "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Azerrad — who covered Nirvana for Rolling Stone, interviewed the band and wrote "Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana" — tells the back story: in other words, he describes some of the ten years of indie rock that ultimately allowed Nirvana to burst through into the pop mainstream. By focusing on some important indie bands of the '80s, including Black Flag, The Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Sonic Youth, Fugazi and Beat Happening, he takes what until now has been a story told primarily in bits and pieces over the years in magazines and on Web sites, and laid it out in one place. No longer can the music and the people who made it be denied.
I'm far from finished with the book. In fact, I've only just finished the first chapter, which is about Black Flag. In that chapter, Azerrad includes a quote from a story I wrote for Rolling Stone in the mid-'80s about what I called the "post-punk" underground. I had observed during the early '80s that a scene had developed that was, in effect, the offspring of the mid-to-late-'70s punk that had briefly flourished in New York, London, L.A. and San Francisco. I called it "post-punk" not because the music wasn't punk (in the broadest mid-'70s definition of punk, which included bands as diverse as Talking Heads, Blondie, Mink DeVille, The Ramones, Television and the Patti Smith Group) but because the new bands had been inspired by that earlier wave of punk.
These bands came after punk and thus were "post-punk." The bands I focused on for my story were Black Flag, The Replacements, Flipper and Hüsker Dü. But the scene also included The Minutemen, with whom I spoke in the back of their van before a performance in a record store, as well as the Meat Puppets, Sonic Youth, The Swans and many others. At the time, the mainstream media generally ignored these bands; when they got coverage, the stories tended to sensationalize them.
In L.A., for instance, articles appeared that made it seem like Black Flag encouraged violence and were causing riots wherever they played. Though the band may have encouraged this perception on some level, it was inaccurate, and it took the focus off the music. And the reason the mainstream media took the focus off the music was twofold. First, many of those writing about rock for mainstream publications at the time simply couldn't relate to this new music. Second, the mainstream media had become used to dealing mostly with major labels and their public-relations arms. Major-label bands were served up to rock critics at record-company-subsidized showcases.
Certainly I generalize, but if you go back and look at what was reviewed in, for example, Rolling Stone's record review section during the first half of the '80s — when Michael Jackson appeared on the cover at least twice — you won't find many reviews of SST bands (which included Hüsker Dü, Black Flag, The Minutemen, the Meat Puppets and Sonic Youth), and certainly no coverage of Flipper (of whom Kurt Cobain was such a fan that he wore their T-shirt for photo shoots).
In his chapter on Black Flag, Azerrad writes: "Rollins had become quite an intimidating individual, especially to the mainstream music press. 'Get close to him — it's downright scary,' wrote Rolling Stone reporter Michael Goldberg. 'Eyes that bore right through you. Hair, a tangled mess that falls past his shoulders, down his back. Ragged, ripped clothing. Lots of tattoos: skulls and snakes, ghouls, a spider, a bat. And etched across his upper back in inch-high letters, Henry Rollins' philosophy of life: SEARCH AND DESTROY.' "
Now is as good a time as any to come clean. I was not, really, scared of Henry Rollins. He did look scary, like some post-Manson creepy-crawler, but he, and the other members of Black Flag — Greg Ginn, Kira Roessler, and Bill Stevenson — were, during the couple of days I spent with them in the mid '80s, friendly and talkative.
Post-punk bands, like the New York and London bands that had inspired them, weren't composed of violent, ruthless people. Rather, they were mostly smart kids who understood how lethal image and perception could be. Rollins may have indeed believed in the slogan, borrowed from an old Stooges song, that he'd had tattooed on his back, but what he and the others seemed to want to destroy was complacency and brainlessness. "Do we have a right to act as leaders, to tell people how to act?" Chuck Dukowski, who was Black Flag's bass player and wrote some of their songs before Roessler came on board, said to future Matador Records co-founder Gerard Cosloy, then a journalist writing for Boston Rock. "The easy solution isn't a solution, it's the fucking problem. It's too easy to have someone tell you what to do. It is harder to make your own decision. We put a certain amount of trust into the people that come to see us."
"Through interviews like this maybe we can let people know what we do stand for," said Ginn, who during his years leading Black Flag became one of rock's most exciting guitarists. "That we're against beating people up, that we're against putting people down because they have longer hair. We've made our statement, but we won't prevent people from listening to something else, dressing some other way, or doing what they want. We aren't policemen.... We're trying to always make a statement that it doesn't matter what you're wearing. It's how you feel and how you think."
The InsiderOne Daily
Report appears weekdays at 9 AM PST, except when it doesn't.
by Michael Goldberg
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