The lost late eighties college rock interzone

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

can we just list every band that got college airplay in the 80s and call it a day

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

― da croupier, Wednesday, June 27, 2012 4:43 PM

yeah, i agree. i'm just trying to map the interzone (or an interzone) as a product and part of american culture. in that, i'm particularly focused on "college rock", what became "indie rock" and a specifically american sort of postpunk.

that's swell, but you can still find all that shit in SPIN best-of lists, which defeats the whole purpose of pondering what's "lost"

the interzone is everything michael azzerad left OUT

okay, i figured the interzone was the landscape in general, and the lost were what you might turn up under this or that rock. either way...

but you're not discussing the "landscape in general," you're trying to limit it to white american indie rockers everyone still thinks is cool

not at all! i'm trying to reconstitute a culture as it seemed to view itself then, in the moment, not as remembered from here.

i mean, obviously the "lost late 80s college rock interzone" is going to mean different things to different people...

no you're trying to limit it to white american indie rockers that everyone still thinks are cool

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

Nick Marsh (vocals and guitar) and James Mitchell (drums) formed the band and soon recruited Rocco (originally from Wasted Youth, guitar and vocals), and Glen Bishop (bass), taking their name from an American cult movie. They signed to Polydor Records in 1983, and soon thereafter, bassist Glen Bishop left to join Under Two Flags, and was replaced by Kevin Mills (formerly of Specimen).

The label dropped them a year later after their eponymous first album failed to find any commercial success.

In 1985, the band signed to Hybrid Records and released a mini LP, Blue Sisters Swing, which was produced with Craig Leon. The cover image of two nuns kissing resulted in the album being banned in the United States and Europe.[2] Flesh for Lulu then joined Statik records, who released Big Fun City later that year.

The following year, the band signed to Beggars Banquet Records, and their song "I Go Crazy" was featured in Some Kind of Wonderful and saw some airplay on American college rock radio stations. This allowed Flesh for Lulu to sustain a successful tour of the US.

In 1989, "Decline and Fall" followed and became a top 15 hit on the new Modern Rock Tracks chart. The next year, "Time and Space" written by newest member Del Strangefish[3] became their biggest US hit, hitting the top 10 of the Modern Rock chart, but the song failed to chart on any other US chart. The band were dropped again, and dissolved soon afterwards.

The song "Postcards from Paradise" was covered by Paul Westerberg as a secret bonus track on his 2002 album "Stereo". Unfortunately, the 'secretness' of the cover meant zero royalties for Flesh, and as the original publishers remain unwilling to provide any accounting to the band, the real extent of their dues in this instance remain unknown. The Goo Goo Dolls also covered the same song, which will be part of a "deluxe edition" release of their 2010 album Something for the Rest of Us available on the band's website.

i mean compare and contrast that list with the hang the dj comp and this: http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres86.php

i have no memory of flesh for lulu's biggest american hit time and space. but i do think its funny that paul westerberg and goo goo dolls covered the same flesh for lulu song!

no you're trying to limit it to white american indie rockers that everyone still thinks are cool

honestly, i imagine that few people these days think that all those bands are particularly cool. those that do were probably indie rockers in the 80s and/or 90s. the artists i mentioned are those that i remember reading about in option, the village voice, spin, forced exposure and smaller publications back in the day - the bands, at least, that seemed to cross over from one pond to the next. they're the bands that seemed to be treated as "prominent" or "important" by the tastemakers and scene arbiters i was aware of, and i tried hard to read and hear everything. plus they sold well. collectively, i think they do a pretty good job of describing the context in which less well-known artists operated.