Category: Music Reviews and Essays

I ostensibly moved to Atlanta because the drummer in my last band had moved there a year early.  He, however, had a job at CNN lined up, whereas I had nothing at all.

Not long after I moved, one of the bands from my hometown came to Atlanta to play a show.  I went to said show and got to see a few people I went to high school with that I’d now known for nearly a decade.  The band, Party of Helicopters, was pretty well known in the “scene,” if you will, so their show was a big deal.  It was at this show that I met the king of the scene.

I don’t know if such creatures exist anymore, now that we have the internet.  I mean, we had it then, too, but most people I knew were still on dial-up, so it wasn’t exactly the go to way of staying in touch or getting music.  I honestly don’t remember what the king of the scene in Atlanta’s name was.  For some reason, I want to say Matt.

Anyway, we met at that one show and he was nice enough and since I was new in town, it was cool to have someone to talk to that was into the same things as me (or, in this case, one thing that I was into).

Not long after that, another band from my hometown came to Atlanta to play.  This was a little bit different because I was not only friends with these guys from high school, they were also some of my best friends.  They came to my place before the show, we all hung out after the show, they stayed at my place while they were in town.

Their van ended up breaking down when they tried to leave, so they stayed a few days longer while it was getting fixed.  The king of the scene even managed to set them up with another show.  I think the Party of Helicopters was there again for that show, so afterwards it was this fairly big group of “indie” people hanging out.  At this point, the king of the scene seemed to assume that, since I knew all these bands from my hometown and I liked a lot of the same music, I was going to be a part of the “scene.”

I distinctly remember having a conversation with the king about some upcoming event.  Honestly, I remember it as being a phone conversation about an event that was either that night or the next.  I told him I was going to miss said event and I don’t believe I had a reason for missing aside from the fact that I just really didn’t care.

He told me that it was the type of thing that I “had” to go to.  I remember him saying that much.  I don’t remember how direct he was, but at the very least the implication was that if I wanted to be a member of the “scene,” then I had to go to “scene” based events.

Needless to say, that was my last experience in the “scene.”

There’s something to be said for the timing of that.  It happened the summer of 2000, and I was spending
more and more time online.  It was the heyday of Napster.  I didn’t need to go to shows to discover music.  Hell, I didn’t need to know anyone to discover music.

Two years later, I moved to Los Angeles.  The first few years were difficult for me with regards to music.  I met a lot of people and made some great friends, but none of them listened to the same things that I did.  I began going to shows by myself, which ultimately wasn’t nearly as pathetic as I thought it would be.

During those years, my tastes began to change, aligning with where I’m at now.  I still listen to the recorded in a basement, angst and anger punk rock, but it’s not my go to music.  It’s music of a mood.  It’s no longer my every day music.

These days, my music has softened.  I’m indie rock.  That’s probably the best way to put it, as much as that might pain me.  I listen to earnest rock music by bands that don’t have mainstream success.  The songs are more accessible, but still challenging, probably more so, even.  I listen to more singing than yelling, although I still enjoy some quality yelling.

Slowly but surely, I met people who were into at least some of the same bands I listened to.  Nicole quickly came on board with a lot of my music.  We started going to shows.  We started going to shows with friends.  The Troubadour was the greatest place on earth.

Even this started to tapper off after a while.  I got old.  A show that went until 1 AM on a week day was exhausting.  My feet hurt from standing.  I wasn’t the angry young man I was two decades ago.  And I’m fine with that.

These days, I listen to Pandora and Soma FM to hear new music.  My friends on Facebook talk about their favorite new bands.  I share with Nicole the bands I think she’ll like and keep the others to myself.  Every once in a while, if it’s a band we both really like a lot, we’ll make the drive into the city to see them.  We’ll stay up late.

I’m not punk rock.  I don’t know that I ever was.  But I had fun dabbling.  I had fun dabbling and it got me to where I am now.

It was worth it.

My punk rock journey began in part 1.

On the Record

I mostly ordered records from Subpop and Dischord, since I knew I liked the Afghan Whigs and I knew I liked Jawbox (although I’d first heard both bands on major labels). Seven inch records cost between two and three dollars, which wasn’t much of an investment to try out a band I’d never heard of. I stuck some money in an envelope, stuck the envelope in the mail, and a few weeks later I had some vinyl goodness.

Once I discovered that Jawbox had their own label, DeSoto Records, I got a little crazy. I don’t think DeSoto released a 7 inch that I don’t own. Seriously, I’m looking at their web site right now and I’m pretty sure I own all of those.

From 7 inch records I went to compilations. I was in love with compilations. It was a great way for me to discover new bands, particularly if some of the tracks were by bands I already knew. There was the Simple Machines 7′ series compilation, the first Jabberjaw compilation, Dischord’s State of the Union comp, all those Kill Rock Stars compilations, and endless records put out by tiny labels in every town in America featuring bands their friends were in.

And then there were the ‘zines. Listen, I’m not much for “real” or “true” definitions of labels, like the whole fake geek business. But if you were actually involved in underground music at all back in the day, you read ‘zines. I mean, you just did. The internet wasn’t the place it was today, so you had to get all your information about upcoming shows, upcoming records, etc. from ‘zines. And some of the bigger ones would even release compilations of their own.

This was all going down during my sophomore year of college, my first year at Ohio University (after leaving a very small, very conservative school in the middle of the state). I’d been playing guitar for over a year by this point, so I was actively trying to find people to be in a band with. I actively sought out people by the music they listened to. It was all that mattered to me. It was horribly close minded, but I’m nothing if not committed. I dove in.

The Glory Days

I spent five years at Ohio University, three finishing my undergrad, two in grad school, and during that time I became a bizarrely active member of the “scene.”  I put that in quotes because I didn’t think such a thing existed, but often found myself in situations where I was planning shows that my band wasn’t even playing in.  The younger kids were really into creating a community, which was great, but I’ve always been a misanthrope, so going out of my way to organize social functions was very strange.

There weren’t a lot of “indie” rock bands at OU back then, and by default my first band, Middle Kittanning, became this strange kind of figure head.  A lot of that probably stemmed from the fact that we had a PA that other bands could borrow.  It also probably stemmed from my aforementioned involvement in the “scene,” as it were.  As if to firmly cement myself as part of this strange sub-culture, I got a job at a local record store.  Now I was that guy in that band who also worked at the music store.  I was defined by all of this.

I realize all of that sounds pretty arrogant and I don’t mean it to be.  We’re talking about a couple of dozen people in this so-called “scene,” at least at this point (it seemed to get larger as the years went on).  And Middle Kittanning really only filled a void left by the graduation of a band called Mr. Hand, who were a stark contrast to a lot of the garage rock that was going on at the time.  I was nothing special.  I’m just trying to make it clear at how completely submerged in this I was.

The kicker came in grad school when I moved into a house with other like minded individuals.  We had a basement full of musical equipment.  We were all in bands of one kind or another, if not multiple bands.  We had shows in our basement which bled out into parties in our house.  We became that house.  Every town has one of those houses, where the loud angry bands play through shitty PA systems and boys with patches and girls with pixie hair get drunk and awkwardly try to make out with each other.  We were that house.

I remember a really nice kid from Memphis, new to OU, setting up a meeting with myself and another member of the house, to discuss the upcoming punk rock events.  I’d suddenly been roped on to the underground social committee.  A band once showed up at our house to play a show, but no one had told us (or anyone else).  They were on tour, so they just hung out.

Eventually, we even had recording equipment in our basement and a audio production major who could use it all (two, really).  Records were now being recorded there by bands from other towns.  It sounds arrogant to say that the house was a hub of some kind, but it really was.  I don’t remember there being a house like ours in the years previous.

A funny thing happened while my head was buried in all these things at OU: the music scene in my hometown of Kent, Ohio become a big deal.  Okay, that’s relative, but it seemed like every punk rocker’s eyes would light up when they learned where I was from.

I mention this because it became important when I finally left the nest, graduated from OU, and moved to Atlanta.

Like most kids, I grew up listening to Top 40.  I listened to Casey Kasem’s (and later, Rick Dees’) countdown show every Sunday, if I could.  My parents listened to a lot of ABBA and Neil Diamond, so that was always in the peripheral.  That was pretty much how it was through the 5th grade, aside from one blip: some small time college band called R.E.M.

My brother introduced me to R.E.M. for one reason and one reason only: they had a song about Superman.  It would be years before I even realized the song was a cover.

For some reason, once I reached middle school, I started borrowing tapes from my brother (yes, tapes).  There was more R.E.M., of course.  The B-52s.  Depeche Mode.  The Sundays.  They Might Be Giants.  Nine Inch Nails.  Jane’s Addiction.  Mostly “progressive” music that would either become or lead to “alternative” music.

I remember my friends at the time thought everything I listened to was weird.

I entered high school in the fall of 1990.  That first year I mostly continued listening to my weird progressive music.  I was an angsty kid, and at the time it was as close to angsty as I could find (aside from metal, but I didn’t know any metal kids, so it was a complete mystery to me.  My metal phase would come much later).

In the fall of ’92, things changed.  I was still angsty, and suddenly there was music for exactly that emotion: grunge.  For about two years, it was the majority of what I listened to.  I know it sounds stupid, but it spoke to me.  It said the same things I was saying.

In the winter of ’93, I joined a band.  We called ourselves oral groove (yes, lower case).  Our biggest influence was probably Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, although I was clearly trying to be Eddie Vedder, at least for the first year.

Being in a band exposed me to more music (like the aforementioned Ned’s).  Aside from the flavor of the day, we each liked different rock music, from metal to hair bands to hippie jam bands.  None of us really listened to anything that might have been called punk rock, not really, not then.  But we did seem to push each other to find new bands outside the growing alternative mainstream.  The Afghan Whigs and Quicksand were two notable finds.

Grunge was the first cultural phenomenon I got on board with early on, and the first one I watched expand like crazy and ultimately become co-opted.  I’m not saying I wasn’t part of that, but it was strange to watch.  As grunge became alternative, it was watered down, and very quickly third and fourth generation bands were mimicking the same sound.

Alternative music also lacked the angst that grunge had.  It veered into hippie territory.  I was far too disgruntled for that.  I had to look elsewhere.

I can still remember sitting in my parents living room watching the video for “Unsung” on MTV.  Helmet were four dorky guys with short hair playing heavy music and I broke my cassette of their second album, “Meantime” I played it so much.  The last part of my senior year, Helmet had unseated many of the grunge bands.

And then I graduated.

Musically, I took Pearl Jam, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, R.E.M., Weezer, Helmet, and the Afghan Whigs with me.  Say what you want about Pearl Jam, but they were always the grunge band that got me.  I didn’t have the refined pallet to appreciate Nirvana the way I do now.

I had a good mix going.  Weezer hadn’t really taken off yet, but I bought their first album as soon as I heard “Undone.”  The Afghan Whigs was a band that my friends and I absolutely loved, and that no one else we knew seemed to care about.  It was the same way with Ned’s, although they were more of a pure alternative band.

Two bands happened to me the fall of my freshman year of college that completely changed the way that I thought about music.  Those bands were Jawbox and Sunny Day Real Estate.

Oh, and I also started playing guitar.  Suddenly I was much more involved in creating music, and if mainstream music had turned me off before, it was even worse now.  The lack of integrity in mainstream music became very apparent when I started creating my own.

The final element of my musical awakening, if you will, came from a discovery that was, funny enough, facilitated by the internet.  Back then the internet was, for me, mostly about BBS forums and record label web sites; there were no such things as MP3s.  But internet gave me the information I needed for something very important: mail order records.

Armed with catalogs I’d printed out from web sites, addresses from the same, and a record player I’d had for at least a decade, I began my submersion into the world of underground music.
 

My brother versus Top 40

Like most kids, I grew up listening to Top 40.  I listened to Casey Kasem’s (and later, Rick Dees’) countdown show every Sunday, if I could.  My parents listened to a lot of ABBA and Neil Diamond, so that was always in the peripheral.  That was pretty much how it was through the 5th grade, aside from one blip: some small time college band called R.E.M.

My brother introduced me to R.E.M. for one reason and one reason only: they had a song about Superman.  It would be years before I even realized the song was a cover.

For some reason, once I reached middle school, I started borrowing tapes from my brother (yes, tapes). This would have been the late 80s, so perhaps I’d gotten my fill of hair metal and pop music. The songs that were topping the charts just weren’t enough for me; they didn’t speak to me. 

My brother had this cassette rack that must have been made from balsa wood or whatever the next step up in wood was. I remember when I eventually got one, how glorious it was to see this giant wall of tapes. I remember opening a space on the rack when I got a new tape so I can keep them in alphabetical order.

My brother was ahead of his time when it came to music. Like me, he was a white kid from the suburbs, yet my brother had a handful of hip hop albums in his collection, more than anyone else I knew. He got really annoyed when I played him a Vanilla Ice song because Vanilla had swiped a line from Big Daddy Kane (possibly one of the lower offenses Vanilla Ice is guilty of).

The majority of my brother’s collection, though, fell squarely in the “progressive” category. There was more R.E.M., of course.  The B-52s.  Depeche Mode.  The Sundays.  They Might Be Giants.  Nine Inch Nails.  Jane’s Addiction. There were a lot of bands that would be relabeled “alternative” when a similar sound hit the mainstream.

I remember my friends at the time thought everything I listened to was weird. I don’t know that that was part of the draw, but I did like the fact that I didn’t know anyone else that was listening to that kind of music.

Weirdness and angst

I entered high school in the fall of 1990, multiple mix tapes of weird music in hand. I had a lot of thoughts in my head and “progressive” music seemed to be made by people with the same issue. They also played a lot of sad and thoughtful songs, a mood that occupied much of a my time. My angst wasn’t just sadness, though, as I had plenty of anger, and that anger would find a soundtrack with the arrival of grunge.

For a solid two years, the majority of what I listened to was either grunge or grunge adjacent. I was a melodramatic teenager who knew nothing of the various chemical reactions happening (and not happening) in my brain, I just knew that I felt different and the people making grunge music seemed to understand that.

In the winter of ’93, I joined a band.  We called ourselves oral groove (yes, lower case).  Our biggest influence was probably Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, although I was clearly trying to be Eddie Vedder, at least for the first year.

Being in a band exposed me to more music (like the aforementioned Ned’s).  Aside from the flavor of the day, we each liked different rock music, from metal to hair bands to hippie jam bands.  None of us really listened to anything that might have been called punk rock, not really, not then.  But we did seem to push each other to find new bands outside the growing alternative mainstream.  The Afghan Whigs and Quicksand were two notable finds.

Grunge was the first cultural phenomenon I got on board with early on, and the first one I watched expand like crazy and ultimately become co-opted.  I’m not saying I wasn’t part of that, but it was strange to watch.  As grunge became alternative, it was watered down, and very quickly third and fourth generation bands were mimicking a sound that barely resembled the original.

Alternative music also lacked the angst that grunge had.  It veered into hippie territory.  I was far too disgruntled for that, so I had to look elsewhere.

I can still remember sitting in my parents living room watching the video for “Unsung” on MTV.  Helmet were four dorky guys with short hair playing heavy music and I broke my cassette of their second album, “Meantime” I played it so much.  The last part of my senior year, Helmet had unseated many of the grunge bands.

And then I graduated.

Turntable Exiles

Two bands happened to me the fall of my freshman year of college that completely changed the way that I thought about music.  Those bands were Jawbox and Sunny Day Real Estate.

I also started playing guitar.  Suddenly I was much more involved in creating music, and if mainstream music had turned me off before, it was even worse now.  The lack of integrity in mainstream music became very apparent when I started creating my own.

The final element of my musical awakening, if you will, came from a discovery that was, funny enough, facilitated by the internet.  Back then the internet was, for me, mostly about BBS forums and record label web sites; there were no such things as MP3s.  But the internet gave me the information I needed for something very important: mail order records.

It’s impossible to overstate the significance of the mail order business back then, just as it’s probably impossible to explain it to anyone who wasn’t alive then.

You would look over every listing by every record label. They had to sell you in a just a few sentences and the easiest way to do that was by referencing bands you already knew and liked. You’d mark the ones that you wanted, then added up the damage.

Then you’d have to start cutting because you always marked a done of records and you never had enough money. Then finally you’d mail your order form and a check (a check!) or money order and you would wait four to six weeks to get your records.

You had to force yourself to forget that you even ordered them.

But, man, when you got them, it was everything. Indie labels back then had limited ways of promoting themselves. They’re weren’t going to make commercials for TV or radio because that was simply too much money. But they were generous with the freebees. I think most of the music related stickers I ever owned came for free with records I ordered.

So armed with distribution catalogs and a record player I’d had for at least a decade, I began my submersion into the world of underground music. 

More on my punk rock journey in part 2.