Azerrad's book is a fantastic intro to American indie rock of the 1980s. Full of anecdotes, gossip, and band histories, this is an informative and entertaining read that pokes holes in all those narratives about Nirvana ushering in indie and punk rock in the 90s. However, all his talk about the emancipatory politics of DIY gets quite tiresome and reduces the complexity of indie rock into a simple case of 'us' (i.e. cultured, hip, and cool indie) vs. 'them' (uncouth, square, and corporate mainstream rock). Still a good read though. ( )

Fantastic and THOROUGH history of some great bands that shaped many of the bands we enjoy and listen to today. I learned an incredible amount of history here and have expanded my musical taste even further by listening to the bands Azerrad explores in the book as I read about them. This would of been a 5 star book if it was a little shorter. I found myself towards the end just wanting to finish it because I had devoted so much time to this book (but did enjoy it VERY much) ( )

Perhaps partly because some of these bands are among my all time favourites, I thought this was the best book on rock music I've ever read.

It contains 13 potted biographies of American underground/alternative bands of the early 1980s - Black Flag, Minor Threat, The Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Husker Du, The Replacements, Big Black, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, The Butthole Surfers, Fugazi, Mudhoney and Beat Happening. The cutoff point was the release of Nirvana's "Nevermind" LP in 1991, which effectively took the kind of music these bands made and the attitude they had overground.

All could loosely be described as punks, although the music they made is actually quite varied. From the short sharp speedy bursts of noise made by Minor Threat to the arty avant-garde stylings of Sonic Youth to the epic guitar solos of Dinosaur to the amateurish lo-fidelity recordings of Beat Happening, these bands operated outside the mainstream and certainly weren't in the music business to make large sums of money.

Music was a passion for these bands and their fans, hence the book's title, which is nicked from a Minutemen lyric. Some have been moderately successful - I was startled to discover Fugazi have sold 2 million records worldwide - most have merely been influential, even, to use that dreaded rock cliché, seminal. Bands like Green Day would not exist if it had not been for these pioneers.

Azerrad conducted interviews with pretty much all the major players in these bands rather than relying on research material so its certainly thorough whilst being as concise as a 500 page book can be.

These bands had pretty colourful histories and contained some quite eccentric characters, many of them drawn to making music because they were misfits of one sort or another - proto-slacker J Mascis (Dinosaur), misanthropic Steve Albini (Big Black), the rigid "straight edge" morality of Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat/Fugazi - straight edgers do not partake in alcohol, sex or drugs, just rock 'n' roll), the musclebound self loathing of Henry Rollins (Black Flag) and the acid fried lunatics that comprised the Butthole Surfers.

Even though many of these bands emerged only a quarter of a century ago, the world described has virtually disappeared so the book is almost an historical document.

This was a tight knit world of limited edition vinyl singles on independent labels often started by the bands themselves (some like SST, Sub Pop, Dischord and Touch & Go are still going and still release great records), photocopied fanzines, college radio stations, endless touring in battered vans to play all ages shows (many small gigs in the USA are in bars and don't admit anyone under 21, meaning many of the bands' fans would not have been able to see them play live) for low prices (Fugazi had a policy of never charging more than $5 admission) and sleeping on fans' floors.

Some, like Mission of Burma, were hugely successful in their hometowns (Boston in MoB's case) and virtually unknown elsewhere, or inspired fiercely regional scenes as Mudhoney did in Seattle. Nowadays, bands set themselves up on myspace and away they go.

I found it fascinating and raced through it. As I say, whilst the subject matter might not be of interest to all, a brilliant book. Highly recommended. ( )

Our Ban Could Be Your Life (taken from a lyric in a Minutemen song) chronicls the independent music movement in post punk america by following 13 bands through the 80's and 90's. The bands profiled are Black Flag, Husker Du, Minutemen, Minor Threat, Fugazi, Mission of Burma, the Replacements, Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth, Beat Happening, Big Black, Mudhoney, and Dinosaur Jr. The book is broken up by band into chapters and is loosely chronological.

I'm sort of divided in how I feel about the book. On the one hand it conveys a pretty good sense of what it was like in the indie underground, the bridge between Punk and the Alternative boom of the 90's. On the other, it seems like it gets mired in it's stylistic template and it comes off like Azerrad is trying to hard to write two books in one. Whereas each chapter profiles a band, he often strays from the profile into talking about the movement as a whole losing site of the band in question. This was especially frustrating in the chapters on Mudhoney (which should really be a chapter on the Sub Pop label) and Beat Happening (which should really be on the K label.) Both bands seemed to be only skimmed in favor of talking about the region of music that spawned them or their label mates, while interesting doesn't do much of a service to the band and points to the overall topic as being a bit to wide reaching to fit into the specific template Azerrad chose to use.

Earlier in the book this works to great effect while spreading out the SST bands and illustrating how they intereacted and effected the scene (Minutemen, Black Flag, Husker Du.)

I think the book would have been better served to focus on the various labels using bits of band history as emphasis, insteadof short changing the bands.

The other issue I had was with Azerrad's inconsistancies in his descriptions of bands. Pretty much every band profiled was the best band in the world in their own chapter, while when mentioned in another chapter they might come off as inconsequential. In fact, every band appearently had the most important record of the decade.

Even though I seem to be harping on the book, I really do feel that it is an important look at a very interesting time in independent music, I just think it's hampered by a poor stylistic choice. ( )