Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground - Michael Azerrad (2001)

Published in the waning years of nu-metal and the TRL teen pop revolution, and shortly before the NYC rock renaissance, Our Band Could Be Your Life charts the progression of 13 legendary, lesser-known bands in the US in the 80's. It's one of my favorite books and I hadn't read it since the mid-2000's. A lot of it was memorable, a couple minor paragraphs revealed themselves anew, and overall it cemented itself into its rightful position on the Best Books list. [Ed.-Or maybe not?]

It is pretty much impossible to write a thorough review of this book without skirting over a few of the bands, so it will be the subject of one of our first (and hopefully not only) podcast episodes. For now, it will suffice to mention a few quotable paragraphs and briefly run through the subjects.

Black Flag

Greg Ginn founded Black Flag in the late 70's and they cycled through a few different singers until Henry Rollins emerged and recorded their landmark debut LP Damaged. Damaged is definitely in the top 100 albums of all time and is frequently cited as the essential hardcore document...I'll just excerpt it:

"Released in January '82, Damaged is a key hardcore document, perhaps the key hardcore document.  It boiled over with rage on several fronts: police harassment, materialism, alcohol abuse, the stultifying effects of consumer culture, and, on just about every track on the album, a particularly virulent strain of self-lacerating angst--all against a savage, brutal backdrop that welded apoplectic punk rock to the anomie of dark Seventies metal like Black Sabbath." (33)

Ginn and Rollins are polarizing figures but time has been more kind to Rollins. Ginn has reformed Black Flag and released an execrable comeback. Even though What the....is terrible, it's still worth hearing. Ginn is a guitar virtuoso, probably the 2nd most iconic featured in the book after J. Mascis.  His best work is in the past, but there are still moments on the new album where he unloads that same vicious squall. 

Ginn also founded SST records which is probably the only entity that pops up in every single chapter. Apparently, he is kind of an asshole. Regrettably, Henry Rollins cannot bring himself to sing with them again, because it would undoubtedly be one of the best reunion shows out there. Rollins is loaded and has become an almost saintly figure. Everybody loves him now but he was definitely an asshole too at one point, as this chapter conveys. Ginn probably comes off more sympathetically back in 2000.

The Minutemen

The Minutemen are the 2nd weirdest band profiled in terms of sound. They're not a punk band, but they are. They're a jazz band with really short songs. They are pretty out there. Their philosophy is righteous, however, and they cut inspiring historical figures. D. Boon unfortunately left us all far too long ago in an accident that appears to have been unnecessary and preventable, but what a mark he left on this world. Mike Watt continues on with their legend and retains cache as one of the leading elder statesmen (dinosaurs?) of the scene. Of course he later played with the Stooges and Iggy is the ultimate dinosaur (after the Rolling Stones front duo). 

Double Nickels on the Dime is another SST classic album. It's not as tight as Damaged though. The Minutemen probably have some of the best lyrics of any of these bands but they also have the most threadbare sound. That may be intentional. They're not one of my favorites but they're worth a listen. "This Ain't No Picnic" is amazing, as are at least a dozen others. It's also very amusing to hear their first couple albums when they do like 10 songs in 7 minutes (Paranoid Time or The Punch Line, see "Fanatics" off the latter).

Mission of Burma

Founded in the late 1970s by the same trio that would never shift (their "fourth member" Martin Swope would eventually get replaced by Bob Weston), this band came out of Boston and was never "big." They're noteworthy in that when their story ends in this book, basically no one still knows who they are--a final tour stop in Chicago yields an audience of six. 

And yet they were one of the very first to reform, almost immediately after the publication of this book (some 17 years after their demise due to Roger Miller's hearing loss). They are Next Level, but I think their post-2000's albums are weaker than their first two (Signals, Calls and Marches and Vs. are pretty much impossible to top, in their defense). They're not the most interesting personalities. Roger Miller had tinnitus and Clint Conley had a slight drinking problem and Peter Prescott just seemed rambunctious.  Azerrad refers to Prescott screaming like a "traumatized drill sergeant." (106) This is not the only time he compares a punk vocalist to a drill sergeant, but there's a different adjective the second time.  Conley's comments on how he doesn't like talking about his own lyrics are most interesting.  But overall this is just kind of an encyclopedia entry about a band that more people should hear and know.

Minor Threat

Re-reading this book led me to revisit a lot of this music, and Minor Threat's first two 7''s (15 songs) are, I think, perfect. Damian Abraham recently commented that the Bad Brains were "uncoverable" (because no band could do a better version of their songs) and maybe that's the case for Minor Threat, but it doesn't stop me from wanting to start my own tribute band, Mid-Age Threat. 

Ian Mackaye reappears in the Fugazi chapter, but that is probably the least necessary in this book because the whole story is here. Fugazi is about doing things their own way. Minor Threat is about DC hardcore and straight edge. Also, "Straight Edge" is awesome.

Husker Du

When I first read this book, Husker Du were one of the bands that I hadn't heard, that I got turned onto, and that I loved instantly. Zen Arcade is another classic SST album (actually released on the exact same day as Double Nickels). They were heavily referenced in Try, which I had read in Fall 2003, and I came to them with some expectation of their grandeur. 

They're 1/2 of the Minneapolis scene detailed here (I would say 1/3 but Prince is only mentioned in an aside or two). They're the less accessible, more serious and visionary band of the two. I liked them a lot more before but I kind of got worn out after a while. Also Michael Azerrad wrote Bob Mould's memoir with him so this chapter sort of eventually became it's own book.  

Sadly, Grant Hart died last year, so there cannot be an actual reunion, but it seemed like there was plenty of time to do one, and who knows why they didn't. Maybe Bob Mould was like, "just see us solo, we'll play a few old hits." His new stuff is very good in its own way too, and his band can execute the old ones well too, but it's just not the same.  I hadn't heard "Eight Miles High" or "Sorry Somehow" until after I read Mould's book and my life is more complete because of them.

The Replacements 

The other Minneapolis 1/2 is probably the most accessible band in the book (or "most mainstream-sounding"). Not the case for their early work, but Azerrad notably gets off the train when they go major.  I'm reading Trouble Boys right now so I'll have more to say about the Replacements later. Suffice to say this is a good quick primer on them. An argument can be made that all of their work, save perhaps their last two albums, is almost perfect (in a very imperfect way). Let it Be is classic, but for me, "Kids Don't Follow" is their best song. 

Sonic Youth

Here we get to one of my favorite bands of all time. Admittedly, I haven't listened to them very much since their demise, and I had plenty of material to explore in the post on Kim Gordon's memoir, Girl in a Band. Who would know what the future had in store for SY back in 2000?

No one! They hit a low point with NYC Ghosts and Flowers and only went up from there, eventually imploding in divorce and sad vibes. THEY COULD STILL GET BACK TOGETHER, but I don't think anyone would find that necessary. I saw them more than any other of the bands featured here, and they played enough shows over their 30-year history to satisfy most of the listening public.

This is actually one of the most boring chapters because none of them have drug problems and though they are avant-garde and outre and experimental and no-wave and "pigfuck," this does not always translate into a compelling story. I think an argument can be made that they're "boring" musically also. Anybody who has seen them live knows that seeing them drone on a feedback jam for 10 or 30 minutes is essentially witnessing experimental free jazz-induced aural torture. Yet their power cannot be denied and they will always be one of my favorite bands, as well as one of the greatest of all time.

Butthole Surfers

Not really sure what to say about this group.  I got Locust Abortion Technician on something of a whim a long time ago, and it's okay.  They're more of a performance art experiment than a rock band.  Musicianship sounds rudimentary, and seems to take a backseat to the lyrics and overall message of the sensory experience conveyed by the songs.  They really do seem more like a traveling circus or freak-show than an indie band, and this chapter is consequently an outlier.  It is undoubtedly the most outrageous part of the book, and occasionally compelling.  

It seems like drugs are a pretty essential accoutrement to consumption of the Butthole Surfers music.  Moreover, like many of the bands in this book, their full majesty may only be adequately understood by those that saw them live.  Without getting too deeply into their personal mythologies, Gibby Haynes is their front man and his professional situation imbues their narrative with a sharp philosophical bent:

"'I can't believe we lived through that,' Leary [co-founder] continues.  'Man, I'll tell you what, I'm glad to be alive--it kind of seemed like we were in a constant state of suicide the whole time.  It wasn't like, "Gee, we're going to become successful and make a lot of money."  It was more like, "Man, we're going to have a lot of fun before the end comes and we all hit the can." I didn't think there was any way out.'
They were eventually reduced to scavenging for cans and bottles so they could turn them in for the nickel deposit.  It was quite a comedown for Haynes, who was all set to be a successful accountant just a couple of years before.  One day some prankster ran up and kicked all the bottles out of Haynes's bag.  'Gibby and the rest of us were on our knees, scurrying to collect the bottles again,' says Coffey [drummer].  'And I looked in Gibby's eyes, and he was about to cry.  It was just so pitiful--this big, strong guy like Gibby being reduced to tears because here he was on the streets of New York, groveling for bottles.  But good god, we needed those bottles.'" (287)

They do go on to command a pretty sizable fee for their concerts, and it is amazing they are one of the bands whose latter history is not covered because they got signed to a major label.  They're a curiosity for sure, and we all probably need a good dose of them given how "safe" so much artistic expression has become in recent years.

Big Black

Along with the Butthole Surfers, Big Black explored dark lyrical territory with an added dose of meanness.  Musically, however, they are much more listenable.  Big Black is basically Steve Albini, who is an island unto himself.  It is also Santiago Durango, who played in Naked Raygun and later went to law school and now works as an appellate defender in Ottawa, IL (once I used his name as a pseudonym for a legal writing assignment).  Jeff Pezzati and Dave Riley each did stints on bass. "Roland" (the drum machine) supplied the beat.  Notably this is the only Chicago band in the book.  

Most people know Albini without knowing they know Albini by virtue of the albums he's produced for other bands over the past 30 years.  The rest of us know him for his way with words and the sound he can wring out of his guitar.  I never got into Big Black until I had a friend play me his vinyl copy of Atomizer.  Atomizer is probably universally-recognized as their high watermark, but it's far from accessible.  Their first EP, Lungs, is weaker, but if you listen to Pigpile, their posthumous live album, the songs are given a new life.  Pigpile is probably their most accessible release and serves as a kind of greatest hits collection.  Its versions of "Passing Complexion" and "Cables" are highlights.

I saw Big Black play four songs back in September 2006, I think, at the Touch and Go block party.  They played last, and then segued straight into a Shellac set.  I don't remember much about it.  I go through periods of rediscovering old bands I used to like.  This happened with me for Shellac in 2014 when they came out with Dude Incredible.  I think a lot of the characters from this book have changed over the years, not just from the early 80's to 2000, but also from 2000 to 2018.  Albini is just as intimidating as ever, but he seems to have toned it down.  He still clearly does not care if you like him or not, but appears less outwardly confrontational.  He and his wife do amazing work for the homeless.  If I had to point to examples of lives well-lived, his would be up there. 

For what it's worth, of the book Albini said, "It was written by a guy who wasn't there when any of it happened.  I naturally think Azerrad's perspective is skewed by hype, publicity, and reputation, and he swallows some pretty burnished bullshit regarding motives for various embarrassing episodes.  A lot of what he says sounds like mistaken critical perspective to me, but that's inevitable given the sentences I typed right there.  It's never taken well when somebody tries to school a monkey about bananas."    

Dinosaur Jr

This is one of the few bands I knew pretty well going into the first reading.  They are just J. Mascis, Lou Barlow and Murph (Lou Barlow gets fired after Bug and Azerrad skirts over pretty much everything after Green Mind).  Lou Barlow started Sebadoh pretty early on, and they had their own impressive run of albums, but they were not exactly primed for arena rock in the same way as Dinosaur.  I saw Sebadoh in 2004 at Maxwell's and interviewed Lou Barlow for an imaginary zine that I would never put out and I asked him about reforming Dinosaur and he said they had a friend that was trying to make it happen.  SO I KNEW.  It didn't happen for another year or so, but I would get to see them at Lollapalooza in 2005 and several other times over the next ten years.  

I thought this was a kind of boring chapter on previous readings, but this time it struck me for the inter-band tension.  In view of their reformation, the anecdotes seem almost quaint.  Dinosaur stand out musically in this book because of J. Mascis and his guitar pedals: 

"And after Dinosaur's tour, a whole wave of English groups, dubbed 'shoegazer bands,' sprang up in their wake, playing folk chords through phalanxes of effects pedals to make swirling, deafening music; they uniformly adopted a nonchalant demeanor and paid lip service to Neil Young and Dinosaur Jr." (366)

I think My Bloody Valentine had been formed around the same time as Dinosaur, but their sound did evolve, and it is not unlikely that Dinosaur were an influence.  Mascis is the #1 guitarist featured in the book (and there are many great guitarists in this book).  You're Living All Over Me is classic, and Bug is pretty good, but Mascis admitted that it was the album he was least happy with.  Now, everybody says their later albums are good (Pitchfork has gone 8.4 on Beyond, 8.5 on Farm, 7.9 on I Bet on Sky, and 7.5 on Give a Glimpse of What Yer Not) and while I agree they are good, I don't think they're quite as good as those two.  I think they are better than their debut, but they're not better than Where You Been.  I think they're on par with Green Mind and Without a Sound and Hand It Over.  Then again, Barlow's presence as a songwriter elevates them into higher territory.

It's also worth noting that they are featured in The Year Punk Broke, but post-Barlow.  Their two songs were always the highlight for me.

Fugazi  

Somehow I hadn't realized that Guy Picciotto had another band besides Fugazi and Rites of Spring.  This reading turned me onto the pleasant curiosity that was Happy Go Licky.  Apart from that, it was much of the same, and not much of a revelation for a person who owned the Instrument DVD.  Fugazi certainly belong in this category, yet this chapter seems about half as long as most of the others, probably because we already know all about Ian Mackaye.  It seems to end rather abruptly.  Most of the chapters end when the band signs a major label deal or break up.  Fugazi released their last album in 2001, and there may or may not have been intimations of that experienced by Azerrad during his interviews (it feels like there were not).  This is the way the chapter ends:

"Despite the alternative gold rush, Fugazi didn't release a follow-up to Steady Diet of Nothing until June '93, when they released In on the Kill Taker, which actually made the lower rungs of the Billboard Top 200 album chart.  
Although Fugazi's legend grew even larger in the Nineties, Brendan Canty feels the band's early days tell its truest story.  'People might look at us and think we're this icon,' he says, 'but at the time there was just a couple hundred people coming to the shows and it wasn't huge and nothing had potential.  It was just important to do it.  And the fact that we all wanted to go on the road and work as hard as possible, and that we were able to, is in itself its own success story.  It doesn't necessarily have to be about getting anywhere, but about getting through the process of fulfilling your own possibilities.'" (409-410)

Way to skirt over Red Medicine, End Hits, and the current state of the band (The Argument) as of 2000.  Okay, this is definitely one of the best books, but that doesn't mean I don't have criticisms, or think maybe the writing's a little clunky at times and it's purely in the Best Books category just because it's a bunch of great anecdotes.  It reads like it should be an oral history.  Azerrad's exposition is often stark and humorous.  Sometimes he sounds like an imitation Lester Bangs when describing the particular feeling a certain song can make.  At times, these are perfectly on point.  Take this description of the guitar sound in Black Flag's "Depression":

"The songs took fleeting but intense feelings and impulses and exploded them into entire all-consuming realities.  So when Ginn wrote a chorus like 'Depression's got a hold of me / Depression's gonna kill me,' it sounded like the whole world was going to end.  'That was Black Flag: when you lose your shit,' says Rollins.  The music was the same way--blitzkrieg assaults so completely overwhelming, so consuming and intense that for the duration of the song, it's hard to imagine ever listening to anything else."  (33)

Other times, they sound obtuse, such as this description of Flip Your Wig:

"Except for the two instrumentals tacked on to the end, every song sounds like a hit in some alternate world where the rivers run with an equal mixture of battery acid and honey." (189)

What?  I digress.  Anyways, late era Fugazi is great.  Still this gives the feeling that they're a boring band that didn't really change because they're pretty much all stable, upstanding, principled and sober individuals.  

I wrote a paper in college for a Writing about Popular Music class about Ian Mackaye and Calvin Johnson and read it out loud to the class.  They all seemed to like it (it drew from material in Our Band Could Be Your Life and other things in its bibliography).  However, one or two of them suggested that Ian Mackaye was no longer straight edge, that he had allowed himself to drink alcohol.  It's pretty amazing that we still don't really know.  Ian Mackaye and Guy Picciotto today are mysterious figures that have laid low, though I believe the Evens are still active and Guy has been spotted at a Washington Wizards game.  Everyone wants them to play together again (even if it was just like what the Replacements did), and it feels almost a little bit cruel, like they don't want to capitalize, or they think it's boring and regressive to play old songs.  Maybe there's another reason.  In any case, they are notable in that they stopped pretty much when the book was published and haven't done anything since.  Almost every other band had some sort of life after 2001.  The Fugazi Live series of bootlegs perhaps counts.       

Mudhoney

Mudhoney might as well be considered a chapter on Sub-Pop.  This chapter is as much (or more) about Sub-Pop as it is the band.  Mudhoney is Mark Arm and Steve Turner, and others.  The chapter starts off being about Green River.  A lot of people talk about Green River because Jeff Ament was in it and later in Pearl Jam.  Mudhoney is framed as the precursor to Nirvana.  

The chapter is as much about Mark Arm and Steven Turner as it is Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman.  Actually the most dramatic moments involve the label and not the band.  They are treated as the sort of flagship Sub Pop band.  There is high drama in their relationship:

"'I remember seeing Steve the next day and trying to talk to him and being so at the end of my rope that I broke down and started crying,' says Pavitt.  'What hurt me more than anything was that he felt like I didn't respect him.  I didn't care if they went to a major--whatever.  But the fact that he would misread what I was trying to communicate...I was simply trying to be honest.  It was such a low point for me, just standing there crying in front of this guy.  I just said, "I'm sorry"'" (450)

At the end, Mark Arm remarks that Mudhoney may be regarded as a footnote in history.  They're probably the only band in the book that has remained active all this time.  The Lucky Ones is one of the earliest posts on this blog.   So perhaps that estimation has changed as their longevity has shown, yet they are still probably best known for "Touch Me I'm Sick."  In an interview a couple years ago, when asked how it felt to have inspired a generation of up-and-coming bands, Arm replied, "I think it would be presumptuous of me to claim that we inspired anyone."

Beat Happening

The last band in the book is one of the strangest and most influential.  Beat Happening is Calvin Johnson, Heather Lewis and Bret Lunsford.  This chapter is mostly about Johnson and K Records.  They have a lot in common with Dischord, but their bands tend to have more of a twee sound.  None of them really knew how to play their instruments very well and they rarely rehearsed.  

I used to listen to Beat Happening a lot and I don't as much anymore.  Johnson's style is confrontational and magnetic.  I was luckily able to see him once solo in a showcase of K bands.  I think I bought a copy of a Halo Benders album from Phil Elverum.

Because Beat Happening prove that you just need passion to start a band, not talent, they are one of the most inspiring bands featured.  Several of their songs are sung acapella, and Johnson once recorded an album of a bunch of random people around Olympia, WA singing.  Their musical skills were rudimentary, yet they managed to record several classic albums that became increasingly complex.  By the end of their run at You Turn Me On in 1992, they hit a musical peak and sound almost like masters of their style.

So that's it.  I really love this book.  However, I just finished reading Trouble Boys.  That is going on the Best Books list.  This took Azerrad three years of nonstop work.  Trouble Boys took Bob Mehr eight years, though he must have been doing other things too.  This is more of an overview than a deep dive, and it will be as educational to most readers as it will be entertaining.

  

My Bloody Valentine - m b v

Everyone wrote reviews of this album over the last two weeks (it is two weeks old tonight) and I still have not purchased it.  It costs $16.  I have been listening to it on streaming players.  As such I do not have it with me anywhere outside, in my iPod, playing on my headphones; I can only listen in my apartment, and with the AUX cable connecting my laptop to my stereo.  Listening to this album from tinny laptop speakers would be sacrilege.  When I have the discretionary income, I'll get it for the headphones.  

There was a 22 year wait for this album.  I joked on facebook two weeks ago that a betting pool should open up on whether m b v would really be released that evening or not.  I forgot about it and then listened to the first half of the album the next day and went to a Super Bowl party.  I watched Beyonce perform her halftime show and I asked my friend hosting if he liked My Bloody Valentine (I know he likes much newer indie rock, but he is not generally known for liking all of the Our Band Could be Your Life bands, except for Sonic Youth perhaps, which is certainly in the direction of My Bloody Valentine...).  He did not know about m b v, nor was he interested in how it might sound.

Oeuvre rule: I love My Bloody Valentine.  See Concert Review  (which still has one of the best pictures of a band I have ever taken, I think, because it looks like the cover of Loveless) and 50th Post Milestone in Anticipation of Concert.  I have heard almost all of their music.

And this is one of the many things that sets MBV apart from other bands: you start with Loveless, you don't get it necessarily, but it's good--then you move onto Isn't Anything and reflect that it may be even better than Loveless, but don't exactly make this generally known because it might cause other people to think you don't "get" Loveless--you hear all of the old stuff (maybe not the stuff from Geek! or This is Your Bloody Valentine--getting into that 1985 stuff separates the hardcore fans from the obsessive fans)--and you are content to listen to Loveless or choice tracks from other releases from now until the end of time, and you expect Kevin Shields to keep teasing everyone that he is going to put out another MBV album soon and take everything he says with a grain of salt.

Until two weeks ago.

The closest analogue to this situation is the excitement that surrounded the release of Chinese Democracy.  That album took 15 years to release.

This album took 22 years to release.

This album is much better than Chinese Democracy.

We don't know exactly what Axel Rose and Kevin Shields were up to during that period, but we know some details.  Shields worked with J. Mascis (he played guitar as a member of "the Fog" on a few songs during the time that Dinosaur Jr.--a band highly responsible for the development of the MBV sound--was broken up).  Shields worked with Primal Scream, apparently (I haven't listened to them enough to offer an opinion on it).  And then there was Lost in Translation.

I saw Lost in Translation in December of 2003--but before I came back to the States for that, I heard the song "City Girl" in Paris.  Another classmate and friend of mine recognized the extraordinary character of that song and he downloaded and we listened to it over and over and talked about how great it was and we wondered why something that seemed so effortless wasn't matched by anyone currently working.

A lot has changed since 2003.  Dinosaur Jr. is back together (and have been very prolific and successful).  Chinese Democracy was released.  iPods and iTunes became de rigeur, and Compact Discs flirt with obsolescence.  The Nirvana legend continues to generate income for Courtney Love.  The Rolling Stones put out a new album.  Weezer all but lost their former greatness.  The White Stripes and the Strokes "saved" rock and roll; The Arcade Fire brought "majestic rock" to the masses and won Grammy Awards.  The Yeah Yeah Yeahs became respected elder statesmen(persons?).  R&B and Hip Hop came back in a bigger way than the "Outkast album" from that year could ever anticipate.  Elliott Smith committed suicide (around the same time as "City Girl").  Lollapalooza and other music festivals (i.e Pitchfork) became cash cows.

People would shell out hundreds of dollars for festivals, now.  Coachella could offer Morrissey $45 million (and purely vegan food vendors) to reunite the Smiths on their stage, and he would reject them, and he now flirts with retirement.  David Bowie went away and is about to come back.  Michael Jackson was about to come back, and he died in the process.  Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore broke up, and Sonic Youth's 32 year legacy remains a question mark.  And then My Bloody Valentine came back in 2007.  And then Pavement played reunion shows.

Rewind back to October of 2000, my senior year in high school, and my [ex-]friend Jon giving me Loveless, telling me not to listen to so much Smashing Pumpkins because Billy Corgan was really just ripping off this album.  Listen to Jon speak at length about Siamese Dream--"it is exactly the same guitar sound!"  Listen to all of the other bands Jon endorses--Minor Threat, Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate, Slint, the Velvet Underground, Cap'n Jazz--go to college, find other people that like the same bands and become obsessed along with them.

And then go to see My Bloody Valentine play alone because you don't have any friends in the city you're in--or at least any friends that want to shell out $50.

And then have m b v come out when you are in the waning days of your 20's.

Every review of m b v must have this personal element.  To talk about the album itself seems like an afterthought.  The first track sounds kind of boring.  The second track reminds the listener that they are listening to MBV and that it is about to get awesome.  The third track, "Who Sees You," is probably my favorite song on the album.  It stands along with the best songs they have ever done.  I personally find "Is This and Yes" to be one of the weakest songs on the album.  "New You" and "In Another Way" blend into each other for me.  One of them is super awesome and the other one is only really awesome.  "Nothing Is" is often compared to "You Made Me Realise" and indeed is the most fun song to turn up really loud on the stereo and play guitar to, while "Wonder 2" is often considered a standout track, though I am usually worrying about what album to put on next by that point (or getting ready to go to bed).

You won't be reading this far unless you are already an MBV fanatic.  You won't care about this album unless you are, and you probably won't be converted to MBV with the release of this album.  That is one of the things about this band.  It's unlikely they will play the Super Bowl next year.  They're not a band for the masses, but they are one of the most popular "underground" bands in history.

With m b v their legend is complete.  Nothing more need be said at this time.

 

Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record

Part 2 of our Canadian double-bill features Broken Social Scene, a similar group of Canadian musical artists to New Pornographers--with one major difference: New Pornos band members were already "famous" when they started their supergroup; BSS became famous after forming the collective. I don't think many people knew who Feist was before You Forgot it in People.

So this is technically the 4th BSS album, but the first is practically a moot point (i.e. same goes for Deerhunter, or Sunset Rubdown for that matter). The 2nd, You Forgot it in People, and the 3rd, Broken Social Scene, are debatable masterpieces. The size of the group seemed to swell as time went on.

Apparently they were about to break up after their last album, so the title of this one is appropriate. It's also worth noting that both Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning put out solo albums in the interim underneath the "BSS presents" banner. They toured with many members of the band each time, so it's not like it's really been four years since there's been any new music from these guys.

And while I haven't heard the Canning solo album, it's quite clear that Forgiveness Rock Record is better than Drew's Spirit If...(by no means a bad album, just one that often bores--though it does aim for a different mark), but also quite clear that Forgiveness Rock Record is the worst thing they've done since their debut.

Maybe that's a mean way of saying it, but it's the way I feel. Sure, "World Sick" is a pretty good first single, but it's not all that satisfying. "Chase Scene" (which tops out the set with 14 members playing on it) is probably my favorite song, and it seems more like a left-field experiment than a potential radio hit. "Texico Bitches" sounds exactly like something off Spirit If... not a bad thing, but kind of uninteresting for the same reason.

"Forced to Love" is probably my second favorite song, probably the only thing that sounds like classic BSS on this album. "Art House Director" could be a great song in the same way that "World Sick" could be a great song--like, it is apparently, but somewhere in the execution it falls flat. "Meet Me in the Basement" would be the best song on the album if it had lyrics. "Water in Hell" is the track second-most like classic BSS, thus my third favorite.

It's complicated to discuss my idiosyncratic beliefs about Canadian indie rock supergroups, but I do believe that BSS and New Pornos shared the same high in 2003 and have stuck around largely because of that early buzz. For my money, the self titled Broken Social Scene album of 2006 is their best single statement and it's going to be a very tough one to top--but live....

This is why I put these posts together on the same day: BSS are at least 2x as good as the New Pornos live. I've seen them three or four times. Only once was I vaguely disappointed. I am sure that live, these songs will be given new life. Kevin Drew is becoming increasingly iconoclastic. While I wish there were more signs of his obsession with Dinosaur Jr. on this album, I'll greatly look forward to seeing this band at the Pitchfork festival this summer. If it doesn't sell out by Memorial Day, at least.

Mudhoney - The Lucky Ones

Okay, just for the fun of it, let's look back at the 12 bands featured in Our Band Could Be Your Life.
-Black Flag
-Minutemen
-Mission of Burma
-Minor Threat
-Husker Du
-The Replacements
-Big Black
-Butthole Surfers
-Sonic Youth
-Dinosaur Jr.
-Mudhoney
-Beat Happening

Of those 12, 4 of those bands are still operating with all their original members intact (though 2 of them underwent extremely long hiatuses). Of those 12, all but one or two have principal members still actively working under whatever moniker(mostly going solo...Henry Rollins (on IFC), the Stooges, Bob Mould, Paul Westerberg, Shellac, Calvin Johnson). This is really starting to be amazing as most of these bands earliest seeds were sown nearly thirty years ago. Thus, the only 2 bands to survive an extremely long haul with only slightly varied original units--Sonic Youth and Mudhoney--and of those two, it seems incredible that one of them goes on regardless, when it would appear that 90% of the population might recognize the name Sonic Youth and less than 10% might recognize the name Mudhoney, but that is probably also the case for the Melvins, and they are probably a better comparison to make here. But in any case, Mudhoney is arguably as strong a band as they have ever been, despite their advancing age, and their newest album The Lucky Ones could serve as some sort of career-defining final album--of course that would be sad, but one look at the inside of the CD and one listen to the title track makes it seem all too apropos.

Opener "I'm Now" is amazing for how it can make one feel that the last eighteen years haven't really happened. Except the subject matter is very focused on the aspect of timekeeping. There are a couple instrumental flourishes that maybe Mudhoney wouldn't have used in the early 90's (keyboards here). "The past made no sense/The future looks tense/I'm now" is the chorus, and Mark Arm sells it the way he typically can. "Inside Out Over You," I can only describe as saying it sounds like "Sweet Young Thing Ain't Sweet No More" and I'm probably only saying that because Superfuzz Bigmuff was reissued the same day The Lucky Ones was released. And with the 1-2-3 punch of this album approaching the 1-2-3 punch of that album, it's almost as if Mudhoney is saying, "See, we're just as good as ever."

Title track, third track, is a radio-ready single for any alternative rock radio station, but they're probably all too fucking dumb to play Mudhoney. It could be a #1 single in the same way grunge could chart in 1992. Styles have changed, but "The Lucky Ones," I can hardly see as anything but an elegy for Kurt Cobain, and perhaps a few others--though who really knows who Mark Arm could be referencing in this song? "The lucky ones have already gone down/the lucky ones are lucky they're not around," again, another simplistically worded chorus that Arm, and probably only Arm, is able to pull off. (Could anyone make "Fuck You!" sound so awkward and awesome at the same time as he does on "You Got It (Keep It Outta My Face)"?) This is the longest song on the album, and it reminds me a lot of everything on Superfuzz Bigmuff, especially "In N Out of Grace," for some reason. But the subject matter is brutally depressing, and potentially dangerous for teens with suicidal thoughts (!), so obviously it's very deep and meaningful.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album begins to seem tedious when "Next Time" arrives with its plodding, repetitive, dirgey, drum-bass-guitar. Now, I can stand repetitive, simple music, if Mark E. Smith is providing the lyrics. However, Arm sounds more like Iggy Pop than MES, or he has more similar energy. He wants to play loud punk rock still. And that is very endearing, when someone such as myself is able to see Mudhoney play Chicago (September 1, 2006) and have a beer bottle land on his head (damn drunk Chicago assholes) and emerge from the pit drenched in sweat, as if he had been through a washing machine or bathtub or shower or lake or ocean or pond or similar body of water and see Mark Arm go totally nuts on stage (doing "Hate the Police" as an encore sans guitar, leaning into the over-frenzied crowd) and have his ears ring for 24 hours and have one of the best concert experiences of his life despite not knowing 70% of the 30 or 40 songs they must have played.

They're in the same class as Sonic Youth from that original book lineup because they've had years and years of practice. They haven't rested on their laurels because they haven't necessarily been able to--they're a real, working, very long-running punk rock band, and one of the last existing ones that continue to be vital in the scene. The rest of the album is not as sweet as the beginning, and only the title track could be considered as good as the best work in their career, but it is not a "phoned-in" performance, and understanding how hard Mudhoney partied, it is surprising they lasted longer than most of those other units. If anything, it's from sheer determination and a punishing live experience. Thank God Mudhoney do not want to hang up their jerseys yet. I would love to see them again. Ideally, doing a Don't Look Back performance of Superfuzz Bigmuff and then playing "The Lucky Ones" and "Touch Me I'm Sick" as encores. Maybe a Meat Puppets comparison would be more apt than the Melvins or Sonic Youth or Iggy Pop ones were.

Top Ten Albums of 2007

Sometime in January or February, I was asked to provide a list of my top 5 favorite albums of 2007 for the website I used to write for, http://www.downtownmoneywaster.com/ , on which you can read reviews of the newest Sunset Rubdown and Fiery Furnaces records, as well as a review of the Les Savy Fav/Blonde Redhead/LCD Soundsystem/Arcade Fire mega-concert at Randall's Island in October of 2007....As you can see we have some catching up to do.

Later I will cut and paste the Top 5 albums I prepared for that feature, which was disincluded due to management oversights. Also not ever included was a review I wrote of the film "Control" which will be added shortly thereafter to this blog.

#10
The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America
Did this come out in 2007? It did right? Early in the year maybe, March or April at the latest. While not as tight and focused as 2006's Separation Sunday, BAGIA has an abundance of great songs which played live as well as the rest of their oeuvre. It is a slightly more ambitious offering than they've attempted in the past, and highly successful. Still not their best in my opinion, but evidence that they are certainly one of the best (and most prolific) bands currently at work.

#9
Fiery Furnaces - Widow City
Aforementioned in the DMW.com preface, Widow City holds up better than the Furnaces previous offering, Bitter Tea. Whether Blueberry Boat is better, I cannot say (but it probably is). Still, Widow City is almost like if their "EP" (arguably their single strongest release) were stretched out to a whole-album's length. "Ex-Guru" and "My Egyptian Grammar" and "Duplexes of the Dead"/"Automatic Husband" all point in a pop direction, while album opener "The Philadelphia Grand Jury" riffs on the typical FF songwriting approach (read: descriptions of weird jobs, Eleanor Friedberger making inane threats, paperwork and requirements at the municipal, state and federal level). "Uncle Charlie" might have been something on "EP" if they had written it earlier, a crazy drum-solo-opening scorcher which might be the best single song on the album (it is at least definitely the shortest). "Wicker Whatnots" contains my favorite single line on the album, which if you read my full review, will be referenced.

#8
Sunset Rubdown - Random Spirit Lover
I gave this album 5 stars and said it might be better than OK Computer when I reviewed it. Okay, I may have been exaggerating a little bit, but it's epic and beautiful from beginning to end in the same way. Barely a wasted track, barely a wasted minute, still very long, very dense, not worth explaining any further, just listen to the first track and if you like it, buy the album. Likewise for the previous review, additional comments will be found at the full album review on the previously mentioned website.

#7
Dinosaur Jr - Beyond
While it is not exactly "You're Living All Over Me" or what I used to regard as the best Dinosaur album "Where You Been," "Beyond" is an exercise in setting up a new template for an old band with an original lineup that may have never fully realized its potential. "Beyond" delivers on some of that-notably containing what must be Lou Barlow's best songs in the Dinosaur catalog. "Back to Your Heart" could pass for a Sebadoh song, but "Lightning Bulb" is the undisputed standout from this album, a vicious sarcastic vocal performance carrying the track into the catharsis zone. J Mascis's tracks are standard quality, "Almost Ready," "Been There All the Time," "Pick Me Up" are all very good, but it is not like listening to "The Lung" or "Out There" or "Freak Scene." You understand, but vs. Mission of Burma's The Obliterati (which could have nearly cracked the top 10), this new album from an old band wins out.

#6 (tie)
Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga; Interpol - Our Love to Admire

These albums are tied as they came out on the same day, are the most commercial releases from two indie rock powerhouses yet, I bought them at the same record store visit, and they are both very high quality albums (if you want to berate me for including Interpol, just be happy I didn't include the third crazy album to be released that same day in July last year, Smashing Pumpkins's "Zeitgeist," which may have been better than Machina, and I may have called it the best thing since Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, but which has proved a bit boring after just a few months). Spoon's album received praise for being their best yet, and in a way Spoon are just a very consistent quality band that doesn't put out bad albums. Oeuvre rule: I don't have "Kill the Moonlight" (except for the song "The Way We Get By" which is probably the best song for me to have off it), but "Girls Can Tell," "Gimme Fiction," and "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga" solidify Spoon as an act deserving of the mainstream, but one which is clearly uninterested, as evidenced by their partnership with Merge.

Interpol, on the other hand, are no longer on Matador, but Capitol, and "Our Love to Admire" is the major-label debut. When Sonic Youth put out their first album (Goo) on a major label they wanted to call it "Blowjob," and in the same way Interpol put out their most lyrically subversive album. The upfront subject matter of "No I in Threesome" is kinky sex and "Rest My Chemistry" is about doing cocaine and groupies that are "so young." However, unlike Spoon, Interpol is not going to shy away from ambitions to reach the masses. Seeing them live at Lollapalooza last year proved the point, with thousands singing along to every line of every song played. Pitchfork may have slammed the album with a mediocre review, but they also said "Turn on the Bright Lights" was the best album of 2002 (which it wasn't). Their review of "Antics" was spot on, and in my opinion, like Spoon, Interpol is an extremely consistent high-quality band. This album does drag in a couple of spots, and to be honest "Antics" is probably a better album from top to bottom (and it is also probably better than TOTBL though people will castigate me for this belief), but it is just as fresh and original as Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. Maybe it is heavier and sadder and more bloated, but that just makes it a big, messy, overstated clunker of an album that is better than it actually seems. It's just too bad that "The Heinrich Manuever" wasn't secretly a song about Bulls point guard Kirk Hinrich.

#5
Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
A very personal album, filled with fragility and bitterness, strained down into a mad pop album. It comes complete with one of the hallmark singles of 2007, "Heimdesgate Like a Promethean Curse," and the furious epic "The Past is a Grotesque Animal." This is a very over the top album, but successful for being completely unique in its own regard. The companion piece EP, "Icons, Abstract Thee" is equally as good as the album.

#4
Deerhunter - Cryptograms
Certainly one of the most interestings bands to come out in recent years, Deerhunter played some of the most crushing flat-out noise rock, some of the druggiest ambient instrumentals, and some of the saddest, sweetest pop songs of 2007. The stomp of "Cryptograms" and "Lake Somerset" sits alongside the ebb and the flow "Providence" and the "White Ink" and "Red Ink" pieces, while "Strange Lights" and "Hazel St" take the album to its highest peaks. The companion EP "Flourescent Grey" is equally as good as the album, and it contains what is probably their best song, "Wash Off."

#3
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Well any Radiohead album is bound to be good, right? But in truth I found "Kid A" and "Amnesiac" to be a bit boring, and while I thought "Hail to the Thief" was a step in the right direction, there were still a lot of songs I'd skip on it. I don't want to do that as much with "In Rainbows." Every song is nearly perfect in its own way. "Bodysnatchers" reclaims that nervous crazy loud rock that Radiohead used to play on occasion and is probably my favorite song by them since "Paranoid Android." "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" and "Videotape" put Thom Yorke at his clearest and most fragile, and surprise surprise, he pulls it off perfectly. "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" sort of sums up the best parts of the album--it's not dumbed down, it just rocks more, and its more fun to listen to.

#2
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Panda Bear has eclipsed all the work Animal Collective with "Person Pitch" easily the year's most beautiful album. It is difficult to say much about the album without representing it incorrectly. Many people say it is very Beach Boys, but it is completely its own thing to me, and if there is one word that could sum up the album it would be: warmth.

#1
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
The consensus choice for 2007 album of the year, and it totally deserves it. I'm not going to say something different just to be different. This album deserves to be recognized as the best thing that came out this year. "All My Friends" is arguably one of the greatest songs of all time, and many people seemed to say "Someone Great" is great (but I find it annoying that the exact same song, minus the words, is part of "45:33"), no matter, "Get Innocuous" is an amazing album opener, and "North American Scum" is still a very popular single (I heard it on the radio yesterday morning 103.1 in L.A., at 6:50 AM) a year after its release. The lyrics are excellent, the beats are flawless, the musicianship is superb, and in general the only thing that sucks about this album is that you can listen to it a lot and then want to listen to it more and then decide that you're listening to it too much, and finally you're sick of it, and you only care about it again when mentioning that it was your favorite album in 2007.