Has anyone read Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991? It's a book that came out last year sometime I think. Just wondering if anyone's read it and what they thought.

It is a very easy to read, enjoyable and informative look at a great time in American Music (well, a great scene). Well worth the read.

Definitely worth picking up. A lot of interesting stories especially if you're particularly interested in any of the bands. Even if not, it's an entertaining and informative read.

i enjoyed reading it.

What bands are discussed?

I added it to my Christmas list. From what I can tell it basically discusses bands from the indie scene before Nirvana released Nevermind. Dinosaur Jr has a chapter which sparked my interest. Other bands discussed include Sonic Youth, Black Flag, Husker Du and The Minutemen.

There's a chapter on each of the following...

Black Flag
The Minutemen
Mission of Burma
Minor Threat
Husker Du
The Replacements
Sonic Youth
The Butthole Surfers
Big Black
Dinosaur Jr.
Fugazi
Mudhoney
Beat Happening

I bought it back in June or July. I'm only like a 1/3rd of the way through though because I've been reading a lot of other books.

But luckily it's one of those books where you can take each chapter as its own story...and take your time reading the whole thing.

A great read.

Excellent use of the book icon.

Black Flag was the least interesting. Butthole Surfers was the most interesting. I recommend it.

i liked it - the butthole surfers stuff is insane

I enjoyed it a lot - and I agree with Gordo's assessment...

The book came out in 2001. Glad people are still discovering it.

Our Band Could Be Your Life (extracted from a Minutemen song) is the first decent historical account of the eighties indie rock scene. While books like We Rock So You Don't Have To (excerpts from Option, edited by Scott Becker) and We Owe You Nothing: Punk Planet: The Collected Interviews (edited by Daniel Sinker) offer nice snapshots, Michael Azzerad presents a much more satisfying, cohesive, exhaustively researched account of key bands -- Black Flag, Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Minor Threat, Hьsker Dь, Replacements, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Dinosaur Jr., Fugazi, Mudhoney and Beat Happening.

The stories range from truly inspiring (Minutemen, Fugazi), disheartening (it's amazing how bands like The Replacements and Dinosaur Jr. managed to make great music, considering how unlikeable and loutish they were) to unremarkable (Mudhoney).

In the Black Flag chapter, one has to give respect to Henry Rollins' dedication. His self-flagellating, narcissistic lyrics finally make sense after learning about how he had been sexually abused growing up. They laid out the blueprint for self-releasing records and touring cheaply. But their lifestyle of suffering -- seven people living in a practice space, living in a van, hating life -- really came through in their dreary records from '83 to '86. Reading about all the constant negativity and disintegration of camaraderie and mutual respect for each other was depressing.

Minutemen were a refreshing opposite. While they toured together a lot, they couldn't have been more different. Intellectually curious, passionate, more positive, more experimental, they were overall much more worldly than Black Flag. A fucking incredible band to the end. It was cool to see that they really did listen to Captain Beefheart, Television, Wire, Gang Of Four and The Pop Group, just as I suspected. But more surprisingly, they listened to plenty of mainstream stuff. Before they initially formed as The Reactionaries, before hearing punk, they did cover songs of classic rock. In the liner notes for Double Nickels On The Dime, I never noticed this before, or didn't remember, but they wrote, "p.s. we also thank van halen, steely dan, & creedence clearwater revival for writing timeless music and richard meltzer for writing STAIRWAY TO THE STARS." Heh. The chapter on Mission Of Burma also gave intriguing insights into their influences, including John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, No Wave, free jazz, Sun Ra, Brian Eno, James Brown, Pere Ubu, Gang Of Four, P.i.L. and Television. Contrary to most of the bands, Mission Of Burma really had no peers in their local scene, which made it so difficult for them to get an audience, except when they'd open for touring bands like Black Flag and The Fall, who were big fans. Had they formed a few years later, they would have found useful compatriots in Sonic Youth.

Sonic Youth could have come across as a bunch of pretentious art-rocker wanna-be wankers, the way they craftily networked and bridged gaps between the art world and the indie rock scene with their famous gift of gab. However, their sheer, joyous enthusiasm comes across as utterly genuine, as they selflessly helped out many bands, some who went on to far greater success, like Nirvana. Most importantly, their music holds up over time.

Other memorable, amusing moments include the fact that the non-drinking Ted Nugent was one of the first inspirations for Ian MacKaye's "straight edge" lifestyle. For a while, this did not include non-violence. The Minor Threat chapter documents how they originally had chips on their shoulders, and weren't afraid to get into fights (though they were all pretty damn small!) At a Black Flag show at the Peppermint Lounge in New York, they knocked into the long hairs. Jack Rabid of The Big Takeover (named after a Bad Brains song) "assailed the D.C. punks' behavior as 'a stupid, macho, phoney trip,' adding, 'If you insist on this bullshit attitude than [sic] we may as well forget all the positive aspects of our scene and chuck the whole thing out the window. And may a hippie beat the living shit out of you.'" By the chapter on Fugazi, things have changed quite a bit, with MacKaye becoming the dignified post-hardcore elder statesman.

And who can forget the images of former MBA corporate accountant and gigantic wildman Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers literally weeping because they were in such desperate poverty?

Throughout the book, one can see the connections between each band, held together by hard-working indie-labels like SST and Touch And Go, producers like Spot and Steve Albini, and fanzines like Forced Exposure, Matter and many more. It truly was a community built on a foundation of scraps and favors, one that, for better and for worse, has never been the same since the 90's.

While the bands covered are not all the best ones, they do make the most sense in giving a history of indie rock. Azzerad does a good job in mentioning at least in passing, other important bands. R.E.M., Jane's Addiction, Fishbone, Throwing Muses and The Pixies were on major labels pretty much the whole time. However, enough important bands were left out, that a volume two could easily be filled with chapters on Bad Brains, X, Dead Kennedys, Bad Religion, The Feelies, The Gun Club, Half Japanese, Violent Femmes, Yo La Tengo, Camper Van Beethoven, The Flaming Lips, Souled American, Superchunk, Pussy Galore/Royal Trux/JSBX/Boss Hog and Squirrel Bait/Slint.