S/D: (american?) indie rock 1987-1992

(inspired by donut bitch's trumans water thread.)

Add:
Pussy Galore
The Gories

Antiseen, *Honor Among Thieves*
Big Black, *Songs About Fucking*
Dag Nasty, *Field Day*
Death of Samantha, *Where the Women Wear the Glory and the Men Wear the Pants*
Green River, *Dry As a Bone*
Halo of Flies, *Garbage Rock*
The Holy Cows, *We Never Heard of You Either*
Precious Metal, *That Kind of Girl*
Saint Vitus, *Born Too Late*
Scrawl, *Plus Also Too*
Urge Overkill: *Stay Tuned 1988-1981: The Urge Overkill Story*
The Zeros: *4-3-2-1....Zeros*

uhm, what else...let's see:

-Gun Club
-the Wipers. First 3 albums.

Slumberland Records: Velocity Girl, Whorl, Black Tamborine

and the Simple Machines label: Tsunami, and...

and Teenbeat, of course: Unrest, and much much more

Can't vouch for most of this as I wasn't interested at the time, and still not much since, but maybe others can.

Anyway, the marginality and mediocrity of a lot of the bands people (including me, in a lot of cases) are listing in this thread should give you a good idea why some of us who were obsessed with indie rock circa the mid '80s were listening more to Cover Girls/Expose/Stacey Q/Tiffany/Poison/GnR/Real Roxanne/etc. just a few years later, and (at least in my case) were extremely skeptical about Nirvana (not to mention Pixies/Pavement/Phair/etc.) just a few years after that. These really were slim times for indie-rock (and as far as I'm concerned, the slim times didn't even end until only the past couple years, but heck, what do I know). Anyway, that *Gimme Indie Rock* compilation really is a pretty smart place to start. That Death of Samantha album might be the only really great album on my list, too. (Actually, Sonic Youth's 1987 *Sister*, their best album by far, is as good as anything anybody's mentioned here--though maybe since, like Big Black, they're in Azzerad's book already they don't count.)

ART PHAG!

1. Doomsday performed by Verlaines
2. He Is God performed by Big Dipper
3. Alive Again performed by Live Skull
4. Lives of the Saints No. 135 (Naked Wife) performed by Honor Role
5. I'm Like You performed by Urinals
6. Standing at the Crosswords performed by Great Plains
7. Charmed Life performed by Half Japanese
8. Red Barn [live] performed by Salem Sixty Six
9. I'm in Heaven Now performed by American Music Club
10. Coming Through performed by Pastels
11. Aberration performed by Nice Strong Arm
12. Flesh-Colored House performed by Bastro
13. Quest performed by Phantom Tollbooth
14. Gravity performed by Tall Dwarfs
15. Ultravixen performed by Volcano Suns
16. Stanley performed by Antietam
17. I Wish I Was Adopted performed by Happy Flowers
18. Party in My Heart performed by Chills
19. Somebody's Baby performed by Yo La Tengo
20. Two-Week Vacation performed by Embarrassment
21. Oddity [live] performed by Clean
22. Do It performed by Death Of Samantha

Wipers and The Gun Club were both good groups. "Youth of America" by the Wipers and "Fire of Love" by The Gun Club are the first two to check in my book, but really they both are pretty consistent except the last couple of Wipers albums.

Mudhoney's early records were great. I remember that I really liked their self titled record better than that Nirvana band, which was just ok. I've seen people slag that self titled album for years and I never could understand why people either liked Superfuzz or Every Good Boy... so much more.

"Buzz Factory" by Screaming Trees is one of the most overlooked records of that period. It is their only album that I really liked. The more they smoothed out their sound, the worse they became. Lanegan has such a cool voice with all that wah wah guitars.

I liked all of The Feelie's albums, but their first one "Crazy Rhythms" is a definite step above the rest.

"Songs About Fxcking" is another great one, but most of "Rich Man's Eight Track" which includes Atomizer is also quite grand.

Flipper's first album "Generic" is another one to check, it is a favorite of mine.

Now they came a bit later than 92, but an indie band that I thought was good that no one seemed to like is Engine Kid. They got kind of slagged off as either a Melvins or Slint rip off, which they were of both, but that combined sound is pretty good if you ask me. I saw them live in Louisville with Silkworm with about 10 people and they were fun. Their album "Angel Wings" is one to pull out of the cheapy bins used, if you like this kind of thing, I think it is pretty good. Their other album is a bit more spazcore and I didn't like it.

Silkworm when they were a four piece was a good band, as a trio they lost much of their dynamics.

(And some of the best songs on that Homestead compilation, not to mention a bunch that Nathalie named, came from Flying Nun Records in New Zealand, which actually sounded way more alive indie-rock-wise than the United States did in the late '80s and early '90s. And the Urinals, though American, were MUCH earlier -- Their *Negative Capability...Check it Out* compilation is pretty great, end to end.)

Urinals100 Flowers

this part confused me.

Gun Club and Wipers key phases were early 80s, btw.

"College Rock" and "Postmodern Rock" (and "Modern Rock," too!) were, like, Love and Rockets and Midnight Oil and the Church and R.E.M. (and maybe, okay, the Replacements and Husker Du, etc.); it was mainly stuff on commercial (and lots of college) stations -- college rock, in fact, tended to imply a certain folky wispy wussiness. Indie was indie (which isn't to say it wasn't also lots of OTHER names); don't know how WIDELY the term was used, but it was there. (And grunge was "sasquatch rock," as far as I cared, but never mind.) (And Big Black and Pussy Galore and Scratch Acid and so on were Pigfuck.)

Then again, I'm from Detroit. And wrote for the Village Voice and stuff. Which obviously might make my experience different than some.

I was about to say. That was just pop radio for me in high school -- like I had been listening to already!

Fugazi's "Margin Walker" EP is actually pretty good.

- I recommend things like Barbara Manning's _Lately I Keep Scissors_ & Lois' _Bet the Sky_ (from 1995) despite Jess' known aversion for twee fuckery; Lois might err on the twee side, but it's still a solid record, & Ms. Manning ain't twee @ all, & if you dig her, it'll make a fine segue into exploring the happy-go-lucky side of Flying Nun (cf. the Clean, the Verlaines, Tall Dwarfs, etc.)

- Also on the side of twee, but decidedly untwee (when they wanna be) - Field Mice & Heavenly. That 2 CD Field Mice retrospective won't totally redeem the damning stereotypes that color the wunderbar world of indie-pop, but it goes a long way in justifying the existence of the genre/subculture (well, maybe not the subculture). And, for what it's worth, Saint Etienne covered one of their songs. After the first Heavenly record (which is twee with a lowercase t that wants to be an i with a heart as the dot) (not that this is a bad thing), it's all snide, rude, and charming skip-a-dee-doo-dah that'll win you over if you let it.

- Scrawl's a definite must-hear in this category, though I'm partial to the 2 Simple Machine re-/releases (the _Bloodsucker_ EP & _Velvet Hammer_) in terms of Scrawl's hookiness, or "pop smarts" (the former) & Scrawl's ability to pick at scabs until they bleed (the latter)

- On the rockier Clevelandy side o' thangs, there's Prisonshake - they have one full-length I'm aware of (which is pretty good & available via ScatRecords.com), but my pick is _I'm Really Fucked Now_, which I THINK is a European or Australian collection of songs from some ridiculous multimedia release the band put together (consisting of a tape, a CD, and a 7"? - darn me for not hitting the Trouser Press guide right next to me). It's great, though, if you want your indie rock to "redeem" blues-based thuggery.

- As a catch all introduction, you could do a LOT worse than snagging that _Human Music_ compilation, given all the threads you can investigate from there. The included Yo La Tengo song (covering Jackson Browne or Eddie Money) is 15 types of shit, though. There's the Flying Nun angle, of course, as well as the Cleveland Rocks! axis (Death of Samantha, Great Plains), and there's also the Embarrassment and the Urinals.

- The Embarrassment monkeyed with the usual canonical postpunkian icons we all know & take for granted, and then added a little of that eau de spazz that typifies the scattershot ramblings of the socially awkward middle class white kid weaned on Stan Lee & grape soda. The _Heyday_ retrospective is all you need (though _Blister Pop_ makes a fine addendum). If you like your spazzing to be a little more esoteric (& not so groovy), then you'll want the Great Plains in your life.

There's more to be said about the Urinals & 100 Flowers, and maybe pre-Imperial Unrest, and perhaps Small Factory, and lord knows what else, but I'm starting to wander a bit with the thoughts, so I'll stop here.

Thinking Fellers
Death of Samantha
Urge Overkill
Slovenly
Couch Flambeau
Phantom Tollbooth
Laughing Hyenas
Sister Ray
Wedding Present
My Dad is Dead
Lazy Cowgirls
The Embarassment
Repulse Kava
Cosmic Psychos
Fastbacks
Unrest
The Fibonaccis
Snapper
Clawhammer
The Scene is Now
Snapper
Crystallized Movements
The Original Sins
Great Plains
Fish & Roses
The Bats
Union Carbide Productions
feedtime
Dustdevils
Vomit Launch
Pontiac Brothers
Scrawl
Pooh Sticks
Crawlspace
Mecca Normal
The Shams
Drunks With Guns
The Neats
The 3Ds
Breaking Circus

Pain Teens & Tar -vs- Spacemen 3 & My Bloody Valentine

I'm tempted to needle Hstencil some more re: rural prog, but I don't actually hate it. it does seem like a kind of dead-end genre--probably no more than, say, microhouse or jungle, granted, but I suspect I'm just saying that because I don't hear Malkmus doing much of interest with it.

Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)
By: Reunion
(Norman Dolph-Paul DiFranco-Joey Levine)
1974

B. Bumble and the Stingers, Mott the Hoople, Ray Charles Singers
Lonnie Mack and twangin' Eddy, here's my ring we're goin' steady
Take it easy, take me higher, liar liar, house on fire
Locomotion, Poco, Passion, Deeper Purple, Satisfaction
Baby baby gotta gotta gimme gimme gettin' hotter
Sammy's cookin', Lesley Gore and Ritchie Valens, end of story
Mahavishnu, fujiyama, kama-sutra, rama-lama
Richard Perry, Spector, Barry, Rogers-Hart, Nilsson, Harry
Shimmy shimmy ko-ko bop and Fats is back and Finger Poppin'

Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie

FM, AM, hits are clickin' while the clock is tock-a-tickin'
Friends and Romans, salutations, Brenda and the Tabulations
Carly Simon, I behold her, Rolling Stones and centerfoldin'
Johnny Cash and Johnny Rivers, can't stop now, I got the shivers
Mungo Jerry, Peter Peter Paul and Paul and Mary Mary
Dr. John the nightly tripper, Doris Day and Jack the Ripper
Gotta go Sir, gotta swelter, Leon Russell, Gimme Shelter
Miracles in smokey places, slide guitars and Fender basses
Mushroom omelet, Bonnie Bramlett, Wilson Pickett, stop and kick it

Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
Life is a rock but the radio . . .

Arthur Janov's primal screamin', Hawkins, Jay and Dale and Ronnie
Kukla, Fran and Norma Okla Denver, John and Osmond, Donny
JJ Cale and ZZ Top and LL Bean and De De Dinah
David Bowie, Steely Dan and sing me prouder, CC Rider
Edgar Winter, Joanie Sommers, Osmond Brothers, Johnny Thunders
Eric Clapton, pedal wah-wah, Stephen Foster, do-dah do-dah
Good Vibrations, Help Me Rhonda, Surfer Girl and Little Honda
Tighter, tighter, honey, honey, sugar, sugar, yummy, yummy
CBS and Warner Brothers, RCA and all the others

Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
Gotta turn it up louder, so my DJ told me
Life is a rock but the radio rolled me
At the end of my rainbow lies a golden oldie

Listen (remember) they're playing our song

Rock it, sock it, Alan Freed me, Murray Kaufman, try to leave me
Fish, and Swim, and Boston Monkey, Make it bad and play it funky

(Wanna take you higher!)

I don't understand what's so difficult to understand about his lyrics, either.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWGSK8IfRCI

^ great Big Dipper footage

^^^ This song is immense, it blew me away when I got that 3-disc retrospective Merge put out a couple of years ago.

But. It's so good that the songs that follow pale in comparison to a ridiculous degree. I still haven't heard all three discs because of it.

love "faith healer," and that's a great clip, but deny that it so thoroughly outshines the rest of their scant catalog. they're not a band of a million hits, but they've got a few. i wouldn't even call myself a fan, necessarily, but "lunar module" and "ron klaus wrecked his house" stand among my favorite songs of the era, looming, in my mind, even over "faith healer". they're nowhere near so corkscrew tense and clever, but far more beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS3WsiNCBpY
(not the best version, and tragically quiet, but you takes what you gets)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQbBcbByk_0
(ibid, though differently, and loud)

honestly, you'd be best advised to skip the crappy youtubes and just listen to the songs somewhere

I'll give 'em a go, but really it's 'corkscrew tense and clever' that I'm naturally attracted to, so my response may well differ to yours.

just got trumans water's spasm smash XXX0X0X ox and ass 2LP the other day, and that shit KILLLLLS.

they were fun live. they made a racket.

My latest cranky '80s indie-rock opinion (which Scott will be happy to hear) is that I've decided I like Human Sexual Response more than Skin Yard. (Though they were both pretty good, I guess. Definitely both influenced my '70s art-rock, too -- Roxy Music and King Crimson respectively, for starters -- though HSR's songs are a lot easier to hear. And they had a better sense of humor.)

(Also both pre-1987, but what the heck. And Skin Yard weren't that much pre-1987.)

i moved back to connecticut in the early 90's for a few years and lived with my brother and other fabulous furry freaks in a horrible house in new milford connecticut and we would go to T.K.'s Sports Lounge in Danbury on Sunday nites cuz Sunday nite was alternative nite much to the chagrin of the sports fans there and i saw a lot of latter-day indie rock stuff - i remember madder rose and maybe the lilies and definitely the swirlies and lots of other like-minded folks - and i never dug much of it but i did dig trumans water. buffalo tom. yeah, didn't like them. and our local, um, heroes would play. monsterland and st. johnny and hed and gnu fuzz and china pig and the awful awful bunnybrains.

Buffalo Tom

Four Squirrels

i just put on a 90's indie rock album by a band i've never heard of and its a singles comp and d.wolk apparently put out some stuff by them and that's actually why i'm listening to it. cuz i like his style. dymaxion. but i don't know if they are american. probably not. and its later 90's stuff. kinda cool so far.

But. It's so good that the songs that follow pale in comparison to a ridiculous degree.

MacDara, I didn't buy that Big Dipper collection, but if it's in chronological order, then all the other stuff that follows on the Boo Boo EP does kind of suck iirc. BUT: the first album proper, Heavens, was really good! If you like the tenser, tighter stuff, you really gotta give 'Younger Bums' or 'Easter Eve' a go. Second album was alrightish too, but the third (which came out on Epic instead of Homestead) aiieee, that was a huge stinker imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEqr0PtvPxU

^ Skin Yard's best song -so fucking good- but the whole of the Hallowed Ground album was dead nice, had this cold clammy vampyric feel to it. Maybe even slightly Voivod-ish, but perhaps the later Die Kreuzen albums are a closer point of comparison.

not enough happy flowers love on this thread. they poop on skin yard!

They probably pooped on their cat too.

There should really be a Happy FLowers song title poll on ILM though.

I would have killed to see the Swirlies and the Lilys in the early 90s at the Danbury place. Also St. Johnny.

Anybody a fan of Uncle Wiggly?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSTnwVJT0Ho&feature=related

i love them especially the stuff that d.wolk put out!

everyone needs to go to douglas's website and buy these:

DBC219 World (of Dreams)'s Who Is Yahdoosh? CD

DBC216 Uncle Wiggly's Farfetchedness CD

love 'em both a bunch. i actually don't know a ton of uncle wiggly. the yahdoosh album is wiggly guitarist. so great.

I'll probably go do that!

Whether you liked the music or not (I can't remember most of it) the zines were hilarious and mean. Everyone hated everyone else's music.

god, what was i listening to in the mid-to-late 80s? a lot of critic's darlings, i guess... stuff recommended to me by option, the village voice and forced exposure on the one hand, melody maker and NME on the other. plus a random mix of what my friends were into and what i'd heard on college radio. lots of noisy weirdness that aligned itself peripherally with punk, but almost no traditional hardcore, and very little chart pop of any sort. a partial list:

dead kennedys
SST bands (flag, husker du, minutemen)
pussy galore
sonic youth
swans
REM
the replacements
the fall
laurie anderson
the jesus & mary chain
halo of flies
prince
camper van beethoven
violent femmes
the sub pop 100 comp
big black
the butthole surfers
dinosaur (jr)
scratch acid
spacemen 3 & loop
public enemy & run DMC
licensed to ill
the wipers
green river
u-men
beat happening
voivod
metallica
iron maiden
slayer
suicidal tendencies
guns 'n roses
bad brains
naked raygun
the pogues
elvis costello
the membranes
the pixies' come on pilgrim
the flaming lips' hear it is
throwing muses
the dream syndicate
the scientists (aus)
X (LA)
the dwarves' horror stories
the lyres
nomeansno
the cramps
the clash
foetus
XTC
wire
big stick's drag racing EP
king crimson
shriekback
throbbing gristle

i loved the volcano suns' all night lotus party, but it took me a while to work my way back to mission of burma. i remember investigating a lot of bands and records during this period, many of which i didn't much care for or follow forward: the fibbonnaccis, eugene chadborne, saqqara dogs, hugo largo, 10,000 maniacs, negativland, etc. going by mix tapes from the era, most of my real favorites were drawn from the list of usual suspects above, though i'd be interested in revisiting some of the stuff i couldn't make sense of at the time.

This MP3 blog runs a few years past 1992 more often than not, but it's a treat if you have some intangible hankering to hear Run Westy Run, Lucy's Fur Coat or Overwhelming Colorfast again.

http://ihatethe90s.blogspot.com/

...to continue that which doesn't really need the continuance, by the early-to-mid 90s i'd (temporarily) left the northwest by way of DC for chapel hill, NC. the music i was into hadn't changed much in its basic character, though the names and personnel were in constant flux. i don't have as many mix tapes from the '92 end of the spectrum, but here's what i can remember:

guided by voices (huge in my personal pantheon, occupying the place in my heart that husker du and sonic youth had a few years before)
pavement
nirvana (who i'd seen playing house party shows in '88 in olympia)
unrest (picked up on my way through DC)
mudhoney
tad (and sub-pop's endless et ceteras)
rapeman (the name, the name)
jesus lizard (like rapeman, the outgrowth of a previous favorite)
beck (i admit it)
sebadoh
NWA (belong in the above list, tbh)
MBV
more sonic youth (of course)
stereolab
polvo
superchunk
laughing hyenas
flaming lips (the flowering of)
the jon spencer blues explosion
mercury rev
the pain teens
the mike gunn (tom carter!)
caspar brotzmann massakar
boredoms
bongwater
the cows
more public enemy
a tribe called quest
digital underground
cypress hill
the pharcyde
black sheep
the jungle brothers
del tha funkee homosapien (very little rap, tbh)
drive like jehu (ex-pitchfork)
opal (but not mazzy star)
liz phair (didn't we all)
madder rose
antiseen (damn i wish i still had those joe young solo EPs)
the celibate rifles
the honeymoon killers
the lazy cowgirls
glenn branca (playing catch-up)
band of susans
L7
billy childish (milkshakes, headcoats)
the cynics
the nomads
the hard-ons (aus)
earth's extra capsular extraction
african head charge (and on-U in general)
john zorn (naked city, etc)
combustible edison
terminal cheesecake
main (ex-loop)
various bill laswell dub/noise projects
F/i
the gibson brothers
squirrel nut zippers (yuk, okay, but i worked with the brother of one)
flat duo jets
MOTO
the gories
the mummies
daniel johnston
jandek (never understood)
kyuss
monster magnet
entombed
truman's water and thinking fellers UL 282 (neither of whom i liked, but god knows i tried)
sun city girls (ibid, but with a bit more enthusiasm)

between the two punishingly exhaustive lists above, i think you get a decent cross-section of several threads of american indie rock during the period in question. i'm sure there's TONS of stuff i missed, ignored or didn't understand at the time, but i was working hard to "keep up" during those years, making lists of records i felt i needed to hear almost every month, and spending most of my time and money tracking down what i could. it's an interesting period to consider, from my POV, because it moves from the emergence of what would later be called "indie rock" (early-mid 80s, you can maybe nail it to the period when homestead formed and established labels like SST and touch and go started to push at the boundaries of punk/hardcore), to the point where indie became a formalized, codified genre in the mid 90s (thinking here of the bands that came up in pavement's wake: built to spill, etc). that's the point at which i started to lose interest in the genre.

I love the Cows, I listened to them the other day! And the Happy Flowers! Are Voivod really an indie / alterna band? I saw them live and regretted it.

Well, if we're gonna post long lists, I might as well at least link to a couple. These have LOTS of indie rock I was listening to back then on them (until I stopped). '86 and '87 are the most overwhelmingly indie, I think.

Probably some of the best (and worst) records of 1988, but not all of them

probably not the best 150 albums of 1987

probably not really the 125 best albums of 1986

probably not the 50 best albums and singles (and/or EPs) of 1985

Are Voivod really an indie / alterna band? I saw them live and regretted it.

― toni mitchell (u s steel), Wednesday, December 29, 2010 6:19 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

yeah, no, they aren't. context-setting, like the mentions of NWA, laurie anderson, guns n' roses, etc. probably should have thrown in fishbone, RHCP and jane's addiction, too. and though those lists are unforgivably long, as soon as i'd submitted them, i started thinking of all the loved ones i'd left off: robyn hitchcock/the soft boys, julian cope, lilies, swirlies, pastels, happy flowers (as you say), killdozer, hickoids, drunks with guns, GG, honor role, squirrel bait, big dipper, lemonheads, feelies, stop me now, for the love of god...

I do think of Voivod as part of this genre, but I suppose in part because the only time I saw them it was on a bill with Soundgarden and Prong.

I'm wondering how you can not like TFUL282?

because they won't stop being crazy and just rock the fuck out

^ this seems a terribly flip response. i haven't listened to TFUL in some 20 years, and even at the time only ever heard lovelyville and mother of all saints. all i really remember about either album is that "shuddering big butter" is both a funny phrase and a cool tune (i think). fundamentally, i guess they outwigged me. i found their music more interesting than enjoyable, and i'm a creature of simple pleasures.

u should check out Strangers To The Universe or Bob Dinners or Admonishing The Bishops, the TFUL282 are gods who walk among us. imo their best work came after the time period being discussed.

Man, this era was the halcyon time when I first started doing college radio. These were some personal favorites:

...
Repulse Kava
...

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Wednesday, May 21, 2003 12:51 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark

goddam, mr. diamond's list from 7 years back is awesome, brings back tons of memories, bands i left off those giant lists i posted yesterday, some of whom i haven't thought of in years. urge overkill, phantom tollbooth, sister ray, clawhammer, the original sins, crystalized movements, union carbide productions, feedtime, the 3Ds. such a great time to be an indie...

i wanted to highlight the repulse kava mention, though. i was listening to a used copy of their flow gently, sweet alpha LP in a record store a few weeks ago and loved it to death. it's a record you used to see for cheap all the time, and one that i always meant to get around to, but never did. turns out it's great! super-tight, minutemen-like garage jamming, all thrashy and gleefully rambunctious. non-pop catchy too, like the distilled essence of late 80s indie-punk, carducci's platonic ideal. sweaty, weird, secretive and totally dedicated to the moment.

u should check out Strangers To The Universe or Bob Dinners or Admonishing The Bishops

yeah, i've always meant to revisit both TFUL and truman's water. i'm a little more musically open-minded now than i was in my youth, and they seem to be beloved of many whose tastes i respect.

'Coercion' by Repulse Kava was a top song! They kind of reminded me a lot of Phantom Tollbooth at the time cos they had that jammed out noise thing going on and then suddenly they'd hook up to a tune and go shooting off into space like they were riding on the tail of a comet. Except I watched a couple of Phantom Tollbooth videos a while back and they were sort of terrible.

TFUL282 were fantastic, but if you picked up the wrong album, you could find them a wee bit ho-hum. Strangers from the Universe and Admonishing the Bishops are both solid places to start though.