The lost late eighties college rock interzone

i'm not sure i buy the basic premise of this thread, but i will note that this period is also when a lot of classic amerindie bands made their first shitty records: replacements, husker du, meat puppets, x, etc etc. and though it's easy to make fun of rem in the '90s and beyond, it's also worth remembering that a lot of murmur fans had already given up on them byt he late 80s and accused them, too, of selling out and/or sucking.

― fact checking cuz, Wednesday, June 27, 2012 3:44 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I gave up on REM by 87, New Order by 87, Replacements by 87, Meat Puppets by 89, Buttholes by 90. Some of these I have since changed my mind about, of course. Seems like there was a while when young me did nothing but by new records by my favorites and hate them.

haha ned remember her rendition of the national anthem

All too readily.

I guess maybe this period was when college rock started to commercialize but before it became a brand ("alternative") and a recognizable radio format, so bands had to sneak onto mainstream rock or pop radio, each in their own way. Also some of the early scruffy pioneers were starting to become more professional, which wasn't always a bad thing (e.g. REM). Also the Smiths broke up.

oh man i've been getting into 80's rodney crowell records i had no idea! so wonderful. and way better than anyone in that twangrock tread title.

i like this cover too where he looks like eddie van halen mixed with rosanne cash.

http://www.countryuniverse.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Rodney-Crowell-ST.jpg

i had one of his early 80's albums in the store for like two years and i finally played it and found out how wonderful it was and as soon as i do someone says hey this is great is this for sale? and i said NO! i was THAT record store guy. in my store for two bucks for two years. you had your chance.

"ain't living long like this" !!

rodney crowell was great until he got too singer/songwriter-y in the early 90s

going back to college rock, crowded house was where i got off the bus. i liked that petrol emotion. for a minute. until i got paid for the review (j/k)

i've only skimmed this thread with half an eye, but maybe a good example of the arty bohemian independence that tim was talking about persisting into the 90s is thinking fellers who had their jangly moments but mixed it all up with post-ubu dada weirdness and a little light noise music

I'm gonna be lazy and just repost something from the rolling punk thread here:

being as old as mr contenderizer I agree w/ his take on indie starting out as a broad umbrella term. in the 80s it just meant bands on independent labels getting college radio airplay, which could be anything from black flag to yo la tengo. the distinction was mainly economic/distribution related, similar to the way any weird bands used to get thrown in a bin called "imports" at the record store no matter where they were from.

if I think about the evolution of the term, the roots go back to late 70s punk bands flirting with major labels - after the labels figured out they didn't know how to sell it and the punk scene discovered it could thrive without big capital requirements, they moved down separate paths. punk got extreme and unmarketable as hardcore emerged. then hardcore bands discovered pot and started getting weird (black flag, dinosaur, husker du, butthole surfers). what I dismissively called "jangle rock" was getting big as well (REM and their progeny - tho in truth I do like a lot of that stuff), a wing of the underground more influenced by the velvets 3rd album and 60s folk rock than the stooges and no wave.

by the mid 80s major labels started coopting the scene. I know that's a loaded term but eh, sympathies are sympathies. husker du signing to warners in 85 was the big turning point, once they went over the wall many followed. this excerpt from wikipedia sums up the cycle for the next 25+ years:

Flip Your Wig became the first album released on an independent record label to top the CMJ album chart, and at year's end, both New Day Rising and Flip Your Wig ranked in the top ten of the Village Voice annual Pazz & Jop critics' poll.

During the recordings sessions for Flip Your Wig major label Warner Bros. Records approached Hüsker Dü and offered the group a recording contract. The band felt it had hit a sales ceiling that it could break through only with the help of a major label. The promise of retaining complete creative control over its music convinced the band to sign with the label.[13] Mould also cites the distribution problems with SST as a reason for the move, mentioning that there would sometimes be no records to sign when the band would show up for promotional events.[14] Hüsker Dü was not expected to sell a large amount of records. Rather, Warner Bros. valued the group for its grassroots fanbase and its "hip" status, and by keeping the overhead low the label anticipated the band would turn a profit.

things got strange in the post-nirvana 90s as major labels snapped up anybody with indie cred, and this was when indie became a code word in certain circles for "biding your time until a major signs you". bands with no hopes of getting signed in the 80s (the wall keeping the rabble out was huge + insurmountable) were suddenly commercially viable. a lot of indie labels were now major label fronts, the same way huge beer companies started putting out pseudomicrobrews. I guess I could've saved a lot of typing and just posted this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwzxH1c3yk0

then the alternative/grunge wave crashed and the scene limped back to its basements and warehouses, and that's when things started getting interesting again to me. indie nowadays is a loaded term with a patina of aspirational baggage. from an 80s perspective pissed jeans and bon iver and sic alps are all indie bands. but if I was headed out to a pissed jeans show and a casual music fan asked me where I was going, I'd be doing a disservice by replying "going to see some indie band". cause they'd probably expect deer tick or arcade fire. you know, that jangle rock stuff. now beat it kid, grandpa's leg is asleep.

― diamanda ram dass (Edward III), Thursday, March 15, 2012 1:21 PM (3 months ago)

george strait ruled. don't forget keith whitley, reba mcentire and rosanne cash. these were also the years i bought old conway twitty albums for $1

Dwight Yoakam!

Boylan Heights by The Connels is a great album.

there are still bands around who are "bohemian" in bent, to use tim's word, like deer tick. they would've been college radio darlings in the late 80s, and they just curated a music fest in PVD that included bands like doomsday student, so they at least appreciate + support stuff that's deeper underground than they are.

but I'm not even sure what we're talking about when green on red, live skull, helios creed, and camper van beethoven get mentioned as examples of a "zone". I mean, they had records next to each other on a college radio shelf in the 80s I guess.

imo there was a period from '78 - '86 where weird postpunk and indie rock flourished, that wave slowly grew and crested and broke. as scott points out, by '87-'88 there were just confused wet ppl left on a beach sifting through broken pieces of things and waiting for the major label lifeboats to save them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_1D-h1aFWg

I'm not even sure what we're talking about when green on red, live skull, helios creed, and camper van beethoven get mentioned as examples of a "zone".

Read fanzines a lot in those days and could totally see someone reviewing records by all of the above in the same issue.

ew -- that Jeffries thing sounds like Iggy Pop meets Bill Callahan

this is kind of silly, and i apologize for all elisions and dubious inclusions, but the list below tries to map out what i think of as the terrain in question: specifically american college-rock-into-proto-indie-into-alternative as defined by some of its most "important" or at least well-known bands and artists. musically, it runs the gamut from audience friendly jangle pop to hairy post-hardcore noise rock and describes the progress of a culture more than any specific sound or approach. i arbitrarily set the start date at 1982 - though it doesn't really kick in until 1984 (not coincidentally, the year i started college) - and let it run up through 1994, by which point alternative rock and indie were starting to seem like separate animals.

1982:
The Dream Syndicate - The Days of Wine and Roses
The Gun Club - Miami
Mission of Burma - Vs.
X - Under the Big Black Sun

1983:
R.E.M. - Murmur
The Replacements - Hootenanny
X - More Fun In the New World

1984:
Black Flag - My War
Black Flag - Slip It In
Butthole Surfers - Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac
The Dream Syndicate - Medicine Show
The Gun Club - The Las Vegas Story
Husker Du - Zen Arcade
Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II
Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime
R.E.M. - Reckoning
Scratch Acid - s/t
The Replacements - Let It Be

1985:
Black Flag - Loose Nut
Camper Van Beethoven - Telephone Free Landslide Victory
Dinosaur - s/t
Husker Du - New Day Rising
Husker Du - Flip Your Wig
Meat Puppets - Up on the Sun
Minutemen - 3-Way Tie (for Last)
Mission of Burma - The Horrible Truth About Burma
R.E.M. - Fables of the Reconstruction
The Replacements - Tim
Sonic Youth - Bad Moon Rising
X - Ain't Love Grand

1986:
Big Black - The Hammer Party
Big Black - Atomizer
Butthole Surfers - Rembrandt Pussyhorse
Camper Van Beethoven - II & III
Camper Van Beethoven - s/t
The Flaming Lips - Hear It Is
Husker Du - Candy Apple Grey
Meat Puppets - Out My Way
R.E.M. - Lifes Rich Pageant
Scratch Acid - Just Keep Eating
Sonic Youth - EVOL

1987:
Big Black - Songs About Fucking
Butthole Surfers - Locust Abortion Technician
Dinosaur Jr - You're Living All Over Me
The Flaming Lips - Oh My Gawd!!!
The Gun Club - Mother Juno
Husker Du - Warehouse: Songs and Stories
The Lemonheads - Hate Your Friends
Meat Puppets - Huevos
Meat Puppets - Mirage
Pussy Galore - Right Now!
R.E.M. - Document
The Replacements - Pleased to Meet Me
Sonic Youth - Sister
X - See How We Are
Yo La Tengo - New Wave Hot Dogs

1988:
Butthole Surfers - Hairway to Steven
Camper Van Beethoven - Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
Dinosaur Jr - Bug
The Lemonheads - Creator
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Rapeman - Two Nuns and a Pack Mule
R.E.M. - Green
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation

1989:
Camper Van Beethoven - Key Lime Pie
The Flaming Lips - Telepathic Surgery
The Lemonheads - Lick
Meat Puppets - Monsters
Mudhoney - Mudhoney
Nirvana - Bleach
Pixies - Doolittle
Pussy Galore - Dial M for Motherfucker
Sebadoh - The Freed Man
Shudder to Think - Curses, Spells, Voodoo, Mooses
Slint - Tweez
Yo La Tengo - President Yo La Tengo

1990:
Babes In Toyland - Spanking Machine
The Flaming Lips - In a Priest Driven Ambulance
Fugazi - Repeater
The Jesus Lizard - Head
The Lemonheads - Lovey
Pixies - Bossanova
Pussy Galore - Historia De La Música Rock LP
Sebadoh - Weed Forestin'
Shudder to Think - Ten Spot
Sonic Youth - Goo
Yo La Tengo - Fakebook

1991:
Babes In Toyland - To Mother
Dinosaur Jr - Green Mind
Drive Like Jehu - Drive Like Jehu
Fugazi - Steady Diet of Nothing
Hole - Pretty on the Inside
The Jesus Lizard - Goat
Meat Puppets - Forbidden Places
Melvins - Bullhead
Mudhoney - Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge
Nirvana - Nevermind
R.E.M. - Out of Time
Sebadoh - Sebadoh III
Shudder to Think - Funeral at the Movies
Slint - Spiderland
Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
Pixies - Trompe le Monde

1992:
Babes In Toyland - Fontanelle
The Flaming Lips - Hit to Death in the Future Head
Guided By Voices - Propeller
The Jesus Lizard - Liar
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - self-titled/Crypt Style
The Lemonheads - It's a Shame About Ray
Melvins - Lysol
Mudhoney - Piece of Cake
Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
Sebadoh - Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock
Shudder to Think - Get your Goat
Sonic Youth - Dirty
Yo La Tengo - May I Sing With Me

1993:
Bikini Kill - Pussy Whipped
Built to Spill - Ultimate Alternative Wavers
Butthole Surfers - Independent Worm Saloon
Dinosaur Jr - Where You Been
The Flaming Lips - Transmissions from the Satellite Heart
Fugazi - In on the Kill Taker
Guided By Voices - Vampire on Titus
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Extra Width
The Lemonheads - Come On Feel the Lemonheads
Liz Phair - Exile in Guyville
Melvins - Houdini
Nirvana - In Utero
R.E.M. - Automatic for the People
Sebadoh - Bubble and Scrape
Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
Yo La Tengo - Painful

1994:
Beck - Mellow Gold
Built to Spill - There's Nothing Wrong with Love
Drive Like Jehu - Yank Crime
Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand
The Jesus Lizard - Down
Hole - Live Through This
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Orange
Liz Phair - Whip-Smart
Meat Puppets - Too High to Die
Melvins - Stoner Witch
Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Shellac - At Action Park
Shudder to Think - Pony Express Record

I'm not even sure what we're talking about when green on red, live skull, helios creed, and camper van beethoven get mentioned as examples of a "zone".

Read fanzines a lot in those days and could totally see someone reviewing records by all of the above in the same issue.

― timellison, Wednesday, June 27, 2012 5:19 PM (6 minutes ago)

pitchfork could cover deer tick, lightning bolt, blues control, and the shins in the same week, I'm not sure that's proof they're related somehow, or that the 80s were particularly evocative of anything. imo it was just a lot harder for indie bands to break into the mainstream in the mid 80s, so creative ppl just festered in their own backwaters until somebody decided they were a "scene".

there's a career path now for indie bands on the jangly/dreampop/rootsy end of the spectrum, and a lot more avenues for them to connect with a broad audience. a band like warpaint prolly would've been a rolling stone footnote in the 80s, like salem 66 - nowadays they can rack up 2 million views on youtube.

1989:
Camper Van Beethoven - Key Lime Pie
The Flaming Lips - Telepathic Surgery
The Lemonheads - Lick
Meat Puppets - Monsters
Mudhoney - Mudhoney
Nirvana - Bleach
Pixies - Doolittle
Pussy Galore - Dial M for Motherfucker
Sebadoh - The Freed Man
Shudder to Think - Curses, Spells, Voodoo, Mooses
Slint - Tweez
Yo La Tengo - President Yo La Tengo

1990:
Babes In Toyland - Spanking Machine
The Flaming Lips - In a Priest Driven Ambulance
Fugazi - Repeater
The Jesus Lizard - Head
The Lemonheads - Lovey
Pixies - Bossanova
Pussy Galore - Historia De La Música Rock LP
Sebadoh - Weed Forestin'
Shudder to Think - Ten Spot
Sonic Youth - Goo
Yo La Tengo - Fakebook

The before/after of when I checked out, p much. (Except for Priest Driven Ambulance)

1990 was painful. By the end of 91 I had heard Laughing Stock and Soul Discharge and didn't miss the interzone at all.

pitchfork could cover deer tick, lightning bolt, blues control, and the shins in the same week

Yeah, but it wouldn't be the same writer!

Anyway, you could do a 'degrees of separation' thing to connect all of those bands. Green on Red started as more of a psychedelic band - add roots and Camper Van Beethoven is clearly in the same ballpark. Psychedelia links them up Helios Creed. Roots doesn't, but once I saw him play as the guitarist in Nik Turner's touring version of Hawkwind and he was wearing a Sun Records t-shirt...

Jams Burke - The Day The Indieverse Changed

haven't dug through this whole thread so i apologize if this has already come up, but the popular art cinema of the late '80s is a bit of an interzone as well - all that pre-tarantino lynchy/cronenberg/burton surrealism feels kind of adrift in the same way for me

basically, i think we're saying that a dude in big pants, big glasses and big hair going to see Wild At Heart with Blue Sky Mining playing in the car has yet to be slotted into the pop culture narrative

WORST of the Best Picture Oscar Noms (Only The '80s Edition)

all that pre-tarantino lynchy/cronenberg/burton surrealism feels kind of adrift in the same way for me

Jarmusch part of this too imo.

i'm gonna put sleazy solo lloyd cole in the interzone too

I'd exempt Demme (too infatuated with received Hollywood forms + undated comedic textures) and Van Sant (his surrealism is rooted in realism).

loooove sleazy solo Lloyd Cole; when it comes to Quine raunch I prefer it on his records to Matthew Sweet's.

me too! "downtown" was also in that james spader movie, so bonus pts for sleazy lloyd

down south this interzone lasted a long time, & maybe it's still going, since most of the bands that broke in the early 90s weren't from down south. like the Connells were the 2nd biggest band at my high school in GA, behind REM of course but ahead of Metallica. & Drivin' & Cryin'! & I think that "locality" is still important down south. when I went to college in Texas everyone was into Tejano as pop, in addition to the jangle. grunge was just developing AC/DC's audience a bit, but it didn't replace it. anyway my jumbled (jangly?) thought is that this interzone is gonna be a bit geographically distinct, & what was the case in greater NYC wasn't necessarily the case in greater ATL. (duh?)

or in other words the Indigo Girls were huge 1989-1992 down there & Matthew Sweet was a pop champion in our own minds.

Hang the DJ: Modern Rock 1986 (Rhino)
1. Panic - The Smiths
2. Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
3. Cities in Dust - Siouxsie & The Banshees
4. Pretty In Pink - The Psychedelic Furs
5. If You Leave - Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
6. Don't Get Me Wrong - The Pretenders
7. Peter Gunn - The Art Of Noise
8. Strength - The Alarm
9. Walk Like An Egyptian - Bangles
10. A Question Of Time - Depeche Mode
11. Weird Science - Oingo Boingo
12. Missionary Man - Eurythmics
13. Desire (Come And Get It) - Gene Loves Jezebel
14. Digging Your Scene - The Blow Monkeys
15. Venus - Bananaramas
16. What You Need - INXS
17. Pleasure And Pain - Divinyls
18. Cattle Prod - Guadalcanal Diary

Hang the DJ: Modern Rock 1987 (Rhino)
1. It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) - R.E.M.
2. World Shut Your Mouth - Julian Cope
3. Hazy Shade Of Winter - Bangles
4. April Skies - The Jesus & Mary Chain
5. Ask - The Smiths
6. Peace Train - 10,000 Maniacs
7. No New Tale To Tell - Love And Rockets
8. True Faith - New Order
9. Birthday - The Sugarcubes
10. Heartbreak Beat - Psychedelic Furs
11. Fight Like A Brave - The Red Hot Chili Peppers
12. 4th Of July - x
13. Still In Hollywood - Concrete Blonde
14. Litany (Life Goes On) - Guadalcanal Diary
15. What's My Scene - Hoodoo Gurus
16. Seattle - Public Image Limited
17. I Heard A Rumour - Bananarama
18. Understanding Jane - The Icicle Works

Hang the DJ: Modern Rock 1988 (Rhino)
1. Under the Milky Way - The Church
2. Crash - The Primitives
3. Waiting For The Great Leap Forwards - Billy Bragg
4. Mountain Song - Jane's Addiction
5. Orange Crush - R.E.M.
6. Tell That Girl To Shut Up - Transvision Vamp
7. Only A Memory - The Smithereens
8. Chains Of Love - Erasure
9. Need You Tonight - INXS
10. Peek-A-Boo - Siouxsie & The Banshees
11. Balloon Man - Robyn Hitchcock And The Egyptians
12. All That Money Wants - The Psychedelic Furs
13. Stigmata - Ministry
14. Sweet Jane - Cowboy Junkies
15. All Night Long - Peter Murphy
16. Tower of Strength (Single Version) - The Mission U.K.
17. Victoria - The Fall
18. Apron Strings - Everything But The Girl

we definitely have this "'80s indie rock became grunge and KILLED hair metal" narrative and this "hey, new wave!" nostalgia market, so everybody that's kind of not grunge and not new wave has been made irrelevant, except for when some ilxor wants to note that the arcade fire sounds like the waterboys

i.e. me

the day michael azzerad said IRS artists are disqualified from Our Band Could Be Your Life is the day the college rock died

if REM had split in 1996 there may have been a book or two to argue otherwise

(xpost to me)
those three "hang the dj" comps pretty much represent the birth of commercial alternative radio, no? and the aesthetic is way more british/australian/european than they are amerindie or anything else american. "120 minutes" was also born in those three years, for whatever that's worth.

the fact that matt pinfield is synonymous with 120 minutes these days and not dave kendall says a lot

i left a lot of stuff off that list up there (mercifully, perhaps), but feel remiss in not mentioning jonathan richman, flipper, the feelies, the violent femmes, beat happening, jawbox, polvo and a few others.

it occurred to me while compiling it that my list would wind up being overwhelmingly male-dominated, and of course it did, absurdly so. it includes a few bands with prominent female members - for instance X, sonic youth, pixies and yo la tengo - but not many. i perhaps should have made room for the likes of 10,000 maniacs, the cowboy junkies and michelle shocked, but that wouldn't have tipped the balance much, and they were arguably fellow travelers for only a very short while. female-fronted bands and solo artists only seem to assume a central place in the "independent rock" narrative in the 90s, often by forwarding their exclusion (bikini kill, liz phair). it's a self-selected list, of course, but the interzone really did seem to be a boy's club for a while there...

also, this really is white music. the groundwork for the list i posted runs from the velvet underground and the stooges in the 60s to bands like television, the talking heads and the B-5s's in the 70s, along with traditional punk and hardcore. few of the major "interzone" bands show any strong influence from R&B, soul, funk and/or jazz, not even by way of forebears like the talking heads. dance music was mostly off-limits, except as a mocking gesture.

what are Big Audio Dynamite not "college rock interzone"?

ah nevermind, didn't see you limited your scope to a large degree

always wanted to write something positing that Psychedelic Furs epitomized the divide that second-tier bands faced between what they sought (growing mass audience, top billing on a John Hughes soundtrack, money for expensive hair gel) and what they got (cult audience disgusted by big hair and top billing on a John Hughes soundtrack).

it occurred to me while compiling it that my list would wind up being overwhelmingly male-dominated, and of course it did, absurdly so. it includes a few bands with prominent female members - for instance X, sonic youth, pixies and yo la tengo - but not many. i perhaps should have made room for the likes of 10,000 maniacs, the cowboy junkies and michelle shocked,

where are Sinead and Suzanne Vega?

tbf i don't think contenderizer's list is really what this thread started out about at all. It's the gauche crossover shit, not Flipper.

like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS4ALgm6Rsc

any band that is connected to nirvana is not lost in the interzone

There was a counter-cultural vibe to late-'80s indie that got lost at some point in the early '90s, I think. It was really widespread and had a sort of seriousness to it.

― timellison, Wednesday, June 27, 2012 11:20 AM (5 hours ago)

to return to this, i think "punk rock" helps explain this. almost all the bands in the list i posted earlier got their start in and grew out of more traditional punk and hardcore. even the ones that didn't were steeped in punk culture. camper van beethoven covered black flag and sonic youth just like sonic youth covered the ramones and crime. i'd argue that an identification with explicitly punk music, culture and values is the glue held the interzone together. when american indie and alternative rock shed this connective tissue, becoming things in themselves rather than direct outgrowths of and responses to punk, they lost the the essence of their countercultural stance.

someone does not want to remember the hoodoo gurus