This book covers the history of a quite a few (but by no means a
complete listing of) important indie/punk/hardcore bands: Butthole
Surfers, Mission of Burma, Minutemen, Sonic Youth, Big Black, Dinosaur
Jr., Black Flag, Minor Threat, Fugazi, Husker Du, The Replacements,
Beat Happening and Mudhoney. Those who are into any of the bands
covered by this book should probably at least flip through it in a
bookstore. The danger of course is that reading something about a
moderately unfamiliar band can lead to fondness and back catalogue
purchases of bands long ignored or simply missed the first time around.
I am now the proud owner of Mission of Burma's oeuvre (as well as a
bunch of other albums I hadn't heard before). Overall the book is an
entertaining read, but uneven. Some band's chapters are rock solid and
a good read all throughout — Butthole Surfers' is particularly
entertaining — but some of his choices of focus are unusual (Beat
Happening? WTF?) and flimsy excuses to bring up non-sequiturs
(Mudhoney's chapter is essentially SubPop's chapter, really). Minor
Threat AND Fugazi getting separate chapters seemed overkill to me, and
there are notable absences in the stories — I understand that maybe
Gibby Haynes or whoever, didn't want to give an interview, but there
are repeated instances of missing members from bands (no Chuck Dukowski
of Black Flag, or George Hurley from the Minutemen) as well as quite a
few bands that should have been mentioned that weren't (no Bad Brains,
Dead Kennedy's, Meat Puppets, Pixies, The Melvins, Circle Jerks, X,
Germs, Descendents, SWANS, Flaming Lips or Misfits). Which isn't to say
that the book is bad; it's just not as good or complete as I would have
liked. When Azerrad is on, the storytelling can be quite engaging and
will, as I say, make any reader eager to be listening to the music
that's being described. When he's not on, the writing is just dull.
It's worth looking at, but it's not a be-all end-all book about the
indie scene in the 80's and if I had my 'druthers there'd be a second
book featuring the bands he missed in this book.
