Category: Music Reviews and Essays

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.