Our Band Could Be Your Life
 | |
| Author | Michael Azerrad |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Subject | Underground Music |
| Genre | Music |
| Publication place | USA |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-316-78753-1 Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character |
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991 is a book by Michael Azerrad (ISBN 0-316-78753-1).
The title comes from the opening line of an autobiographical song written by Mike Watt of The Minutemen, one of the groups featured in the book. The song, "History Lesson, Pt II" is on Double Nickels on the Dime and details the band's working class origins and populist sentiments: "Punk rock changed our lives."
The book chronicles the careers of several underground rock groups who, while finding little or no mainstream success, were hugely influential in establishing American alternative and indie rock, mostly through nearly constant touring and records released on small, regional record labels.
Azerrad conducted many interviews with the members of the featured bands, and also conducted extensive research of old fanzines, as well as more mainstream newspapers and books.
Chapters in the book focus on each of thirteen groups from ten urban communities:
- Black Flag (from Hermosa Beach/Los Angeles, California)
- The Minutemen (from San Pedro/Los Angeles, California)
- Mission of Burma (from Boston, Massachusetts)
- Minor Threat (from Washington, D.C.)
- Hüsker Dü (from Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota)
- The Replacements (from Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota)
- Sonic Youth (from New York City)
- Butthole Surfers (from San Antonio, Texas)
- Big Black (from Evanston/Chicago, Illinois)
- Dinosaur Jr. (from Amherst, Massachusetts)
- Fugazi (from Washington, D.C.)
- Mudhoney (from Seattle, Washington)
- Beat Happening (from Olympia, Washington)
Response
Our Band Could Be Your Life has sold well and has earned mostly positive reviews; one notes that "one of the best books yet on punk, college, or indie rock and the roots of the alt-rock juggernaut." ISBN 0-316-06379-7;
Another writer states that "As music history, this book is important. None of these bands got much coverage in mainstream rock magazines while they were doing their most innovative and vital work, and Azerrad has done a great job of gathering ex-bandmembers up for revealing interviews ... However, the book collapses under the weight of its own in-crowd cool."[1]
References
Notes
- Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 (USA: Little Brown, 2001).