Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991
by Michael Azerradbook data
1,556 ratings,
4.23
average rating, 246 reviews
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published
July 2nd 2002
(first published 2001)
by Back Bay Books
binding
Paperback, 528 pages
isbn
0316787531
(isbn13: 9780316787536)
description
Finally in paperback, the story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan Eighties when a small but sprawling network...more
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avg 4.23
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
I loved this book. Azerad profiles bands like Black Flag, Minutemen, Mission of BUrma, Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth, Big BLack, Minor Threat, The Replacements, Fugazi, BEat Happening, Mudhoney, and Dinosaur Jr. It's the royaly of 80s underground music in America.
There are bands that could have been incouded, namely the Pixies, but Azerad wanted to focus on bands that made a big splash in America. And while the Pixies were an American band, they were on 4AD, an English label. They b...more
There are bands that could have been incouded, namely the Pixies, but Azerad wanted to focus on bands that made a big splash in America. And while the Pixies were an American band, they were on 4AD, an English label. They b...more
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Read in January, 2005
Wow, what a read. The big plus for this tome is that Azerrad spills as much ink on some bands who were slipping off the radar - notably Mission of Burma (at least at the time the hardcover was published, pre-reunion) - and on how he's able to let the story of one band from this geographic region lead into this band from that region... so at the end the reader has an idea of how 6,7,8 different little underground scenes birthed a nationwide network that is still around and supporting interesting...more
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Read in August, 2008
Ah, memories of my youth -- the hardcore and indie bands of the early 80's. Each chapter chronicles a different band. The writing isn't great, and tends to focus on the sensational (fights, drunkenness, general debauchery -- standard rock-n-roll stuff), but considering this is one of the only books available that chronicles this period, it's a good resource. Strange that there isn't more written about 80's indie, because it was much more interesting, both musically and socially, than 70's punk r...more
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Read in March, 2009
Really cool book, especially if you were born ten to fifteen years before I was. Aside from Sonic Youth and the Replacements, I knew next to nothing about these bands, and most I had never heard before -- one (Beat Happening) I'd never even heard of. (Embarrassing to admit as a Washingtonian). Still, the collection was well written and interesting. Every single piece of music writing I've ever read always falls into that ridiculous and annoying hyperbolic bullshit of like "X's bass notes an...more
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Gotta go with Tim on this one, this was pivotal in my musical development at the time that I came across this book. My own explorations had been inching me closer to that whole area of music, so this book turned out to be a good companion throughout. Real fun read for lovers of the music!
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FINALLY! A book that has all my favorite bands. Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr., Butthole Surfers, Mission of Burma, Minor Threat etc. This is the best book you can read for music. I recommend it to anybody who likes Punk Rock or even just any kind of music.
Basically Azerad does a mini-bio of most of the punk bands and underground indie bands. The most interesting part, is he is basically questioning how Nirvana came out of nowhere and became one of America's most popula...more
Basically Azerad does a mini-bio of most of the punk bands and underground indie bands. The most interesting part, is he is basically questioning how Nirvana came out of nowhere and became one of America's most popula...more
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Read in January, 2004
I only read the chapters about the bands that I knew, but that turned out to be most of the groups in this book. I think the only chapter I didn't read was the one about Mudhoney. Not surprisingly, my favorite chapters ended up being about the bands that I liked the most: The Replacements and Beat Happening. What those bands share, and what most of the groups detailed in this book share, is a certain honesty of approach that I find refreshing. This book makes you want to start your own band ...more
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Read in March, 2009
This is a great book. I originally intended to read only the bands I was
interested in, but ended up going cover-to-cover. Azerrad does an excellent job of bringing that time period up and immediate. I was musically coming of age about 5 minutes into when these bands started getting signed into major labels and so had minimal appreciation of where they came from. And it was only after reading this book that I got the notion of how hard the folks in these bands worked - holy smokes, quit...more
interested in, but ended up going cover-to-cover. Azerrad does an excellent job of bringing that time period up and immediate. I was musically coming of age about 5 minutes into when these bands started getting signed into major labels and so had minimal appreciation of where they came from. And it was only after reading this book that I got the notion of how hard the folks in these bands worked - holy smokes, quit...more
Read in May, 2009
This came at a good time - the same time Jay Brown is posting all the awesome pictures from Staches where I hung out, saw 7 of the 13 bands as well as lots lots lots lots more.
I learned stuff I didn't know (Greg Ginn and raymond Pettitbon are brothers? The HELL you say!) AND re-lived things exactly as I remembered them (Butthole Surfers shows.) With a little namedropping (Replacements roadie Bill Sullivan! I haven't thought of you in AGES!!!!!) I greatly enjoyed reading this, and had...more
I learned stuff I didn't know (Greg Ginn and raymond Pettitbon are brothers? The HELL you say!) AND re-lived things exactly as I remembered them (Butthole Surfers shows.) With a little namedropping (Replacements roadie Bill Sullivan! I haven't thought of you in AGES!!!!!) I greatly enjoyed reading this, and had...more
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Michael Azerrad's music journalism is outstanding, especially in Our Band Could Be Your Life, a book that traces the second wave of the punk rock movement in the 1980s. Azerrad profiles several of the most influential punk bands of that era, including Black Flag, Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Replacements, Husker Du, just to name a few. Through interviews with a lot of the movement's key players, Azerrad addresses the DIY ethics of the punk scene and also argues that those band led to the success of...more
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Read in November, 2008
In high school, I subscribed to Spin magazine like it was my job (I was heartbroken when the changed the paper and made it smaller and took out "Genius Lessons"! END OF AN ERA, PEOPLE). It pretty much was, I guess, as an angsty-youth with the eyeliner and ridiculous clothes, and it recommended this to me. Despite the fact that I am sure I would have been really into them at the time, I asked for (and received) this book for Christmas my Junior year (and didn't read it until, like, 6 ye...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommended to Mike by:
Beau Golwitzerrecommends it for: Anyone interested in the most interesting time of American rock music
Loved it. I am a big "indie" rock fan and some of the bands chronicled in this book are some of my favorites.
Because most of the bands in the book never were huge superstars, there is a hell of a lot out there written about them.
This book tells stories about life on the road, in the recording studio, and other tasty tidbits of these great bands.
The 13 bands that are written about are:
Black Flag
Minutemen*
Mission of Burma*
Min...more
Because most of the bands in the book never were huge superstars, there is a hell of a lot out there written about them.
This book tells stories about life on the road, in the recording studio, and other tasty tidbits of these great bands.
The 13 bands that are written about are:
Black Flag
Minutemen*
Mission of Burma*
Min...more
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Read in August, 2008
This was kind of a fun book, although it took me a while to get into it. I wasn't very familiar with any of the bands except by name (despite having seen Mission of Burma in concert several years ago) but had some firsthand knowledge of the hardcore scene, at least as it existed after the time period this book covers. In that sense, it was lovely to see the font from which all of the angry boys with Xs on their hands sprung.
As someone largely unfamiliar with the bands' music, the ...more
As someone largely unfamiliar with the bands' music, the ...more
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Read in January, 2004
recommends it for:
young hipsters, old hippies, and all the punks in between
Sometimes I just need to indulge my guiltiest of pleasures: the music nerd in me. The 1980s were an exciting time to be aware of underground music in the U.S., only to be corrupted by the post-Nirvana band-grab of the 90s. Azerad's chronicle articulates this and documents a baker's dozen of America's most important bands and the underground rock scenes that they championed. About half the bands come out as heroes (particularly The Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Mission of Burma, Fugazi and Beat Happeni...more
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Read in January, 2005
recommends it for:
anyone into indie music from the last few decades
You can tell that Michael Azzerad was allowed to "geek out" a little bit in the writing of this book. I don't know if there are many musical historians as knowledgeable as he is, especially in the realm of indie music from the last few decades.
In this book he basically does a mini-bio of several of the most important bands of the "american indie underground". He does not, and could never, cover them all. But, he does speak on some of the most influential bands of...more
In this book he basically does a mini-bio of several of the most important bands of the "american indie underground". He does not, and could never, cover them all. But, he does speak on some of the most influential bands of...more
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Read in June, 2008
recommends it for:
music nerds
This is a great collection of snapshots, covering 13 bands that kept punk alive through the '80s and changed it into the ethical and political code it's become - and also the hidebound, narrow-minded code of conduct it has sometimes become. The writing's pretty hyperbolic at times, which gets a bit grating. I did learn a lot though: who knew hardcore sprouted so fast, became dogmatic, and had a backlash in just 3-4 years?
While there are great inspirational stories of bands starti...more
While there are great inspirational stories of bands starti...more
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Read in June, 2006
The finest music-related piece of literature I've read. Azerrad wrote the seminal Nirvana book Come As You Are, which was my primary source for an non-fiction essay I wrote in 7th grade about the band (yup), and Our Band Could Be Your Life plays on Azerrad's strengths as well as the success of that book. The central question: How did Nirvana essentially come out of nowhere and in 1991 release Nevermind, which within a few months would supplant Michael Jackson, of all people, at the top of the Bi...more
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Super-fucking-great. A lot of the bands I've loved throughout the years are unlikely to be written about in "rock journalism" books, so when I found one that had large chapters devoted to many of them, I was pretty pumped. The bands featured are: Black Flag, The Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Minor Threat, Hüsker Dü, The Replacements, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Dinosaur Jr., Fugazi, Mudhoney, and Beat Happening. Aside from providing the obvious biographies of the band...more
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Read in January, 2005
I love this book, and re-read it every few years or so. I've read criticism of this book by those that lived it that the author -- by nature of not having lived this scene himself -- gets some of it wrong. I assume that's true, but it's as close as I'll ever get to living this period of the American music underground, so I savor every word. What these bands went through to continue making music on their own terms simply blows my mind, and their do-it-yourself ethic continues to be an inspiration...more
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Read in January, 2005
The title of Michael Azzerad’s chronicle of the American indie rock scene of the 1980s comes from a song by punk’s working class heroes, the Minutemen, and there probably hasn’t been a single phrase ever scrawled more evocative of the spirit that surged through the era Azzerad writes about than "Our Band Could Be Your Life." As punk flamed out at the end of the ’70s, a generation not quite old enough to have participated in the initial wave salvaged its remains for principles t...more
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