niceness in the nineties: An Indie Music Memoir

by Jim Miller

For general release MARCH 23rd, 2011. Jim Miller was a touring guitarist and songwriter in the bands Black Angel's Death Song and Trash Can School in the early to mid nineties. In the latter half of that decade he was a band manager and a promoter for the legendary downtown L.A. dive Al's Bar. At its core, this memoir is a club level look at the rise and fall of the music phenomenon known as grunge.

256 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2011

Reviews

[Tom Schulte · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jim Miller's (Trash Can School, Black Angel's Death Song) first-hand accounts of the rise of Sub Pop, grunge and such bands as Possum Dixon, Hole, L7, Love Battery, Gits, and more is a quick and interesting read to a 90s scenester like myself. However, Jim never goes deep to analyze, sufficing only to summarize the years of shows, recording, touring, etc. in a name-dropping chronology. For those were outsiders then, this book will not offer insight. I did an interview with the author in 2011.

[Mary Stein · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book is about the author's neighborhood band. Bloke had a band in Hollywood at the time grunge started and got to play at some local pubs. Bloke booked some bands at another local pub, seems to be a lot of fancy talk about who knows who and whatnot. Put others up and pulls others down. Sort of like high school, really.