I was reading some random posts on Threads the other day and someone mentioned how when some people talk about ‘the 90s’ (specifically about music), a lot of what they mention really started in the 80s, like Jane’s Addiction and their amazing 1988 album Nothing’s Shocking.
To which I responded: “I always say the truly formative alt rock years were really ’84-’89. It just happened to reach wider popularity in ’91.”
Which of course made me think that I really need to get my act together and finally write and complete that Walk in Silence book project. I think at this point it would be less a historical book and more of a personal memoir in which I write about the important albums and singles that influenced and inspired me during that time. And I’ve kind of been doing a very abbreviated version of it with my daily 750Words, so perhaps I’m a bit further ahead on this than I think I am…?
The other day I found a chronology spreadsheet that mentions this era and puts a few personal things in their proper order, and I see that I didn’t meet up with D until March of 1994, which makes sense. [I hear you: why the hells do you have a spreadsheet of your past? What kind of weirdo are you? Well, a) I’m a writer, and b) it was initially built up for the Walk In Silence book project and thus laid out what I wrote at the time as well as personal and public events that went on at the time. Simple as that.] It does clarify things a bit, as I know my final months at the Shoebox were just as exciting as they were tense.
ANYWAY. Things were about to change pretty soon, but not just yet. February of 1994 wasn’t entirely without incident, as I’d been focusing on multiple writing projects: more examination of Nocturne and the possibility of finally working on the long-delayed Two Thousand project. Now as then, I didn’t always start from the beginning but wrote and gathered up several notes over several days (or months, or years) to see what I could make of them. At least something was going in the right direction!
Green Day, Dookie, released 1 February 1994. The breakthrough heard ’round the world dropped almost quietly and unassumingly with the “Longview” single. It was immediately picked up by WFNX and WBCN and you’d hear it several times over the course of a week. WFNX was a bit more adventurous and would pull out some of the deep cuts as well. A few months later they’d storm the Hatch Shell and cause chaos throughout the city.
Pavement, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, released 2 February 1994. I wanted to like this band but something about their deliberatelly half-assed slacker delivery didn’t quite gel with me. Still, “Cut Your Hair” was just as ubiquitous as Green Day on the airwaves.
Cake, Motorcade of Generosity, released 7 February 1994. I wouldn’t get into this band until their 1996 album Fashion Nugget, but I do remember hearing “Rock and Roll Lifestyle” on WFNX every now and again.
The Greenberry Woods, Rapple Dapple, released 8 February 1994. This band came and went rather quickly but I remember really liking the “Trampoline” single at the time. I bought the cassette for this at Tower and would listen to it at the Shoebox during my downtime.
The London Suede, “Stay Together” single, released 14 February 1994. A single-only release that often gets overlooked, but it shows where the band was headed, already evolving away from their glam swagger and more towards heady indie rock. I remember hearing it every now and again but it really didn’t do much here in the States.
Soundgarden, “Spoonman” single, released 15 February 1994. I’d been a passive fan of this band since first hearing them my freshman year, but even with this song I could tell they were taking a detour into a style that was less prog-meets-grunge and heading into darker post-punk territory. Its super-tight production and dense tension made everyone eager for the album that would come the next month.
Stabbing Westward, Ungod, released 15 February 1994. I initially lumped this band in with the industrial-alternative genre that was certainly out there but not quite making a dent, no matter how loud they might be. And this band was LOUD. “Nothing” got considerable airplay and the album would eventually become a favorite, leading them towards more popularity in the latter half of the decade.
Low, I Could Live in Hope, released 18 February 1994. This amazing duo’s debut dropped almost without notice in the early half of the year, hidden amongst the louder and more dissonant grunge and hard rock. They were hard to pin down but they had loyal fans from the beginning.
The Grays, Ro Sham Bo, released 22 February 1994. Jason Falkner’s group after leaving Jellyfish was with Jon Brion and it was unfortunately a one-and-done project, but it’s one hell of a fine indie pop gem. It’s out of print and hard to find, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you can find it.
Nine Inch Nails, “March of the Pigs” single, 25 February 1994. Speaking of teaser singles, this was Trent Reznor’s first since the dense and angry Broken and Fixed EPs and a handful of disturbing related music videos. And it’s one hell of an introduction to his next project, considering that it was both a bit more listenable than the EPs and a bit more terrifying in its moods.
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Coming up: Disconnects and reconnects, unknowns and spirals
I’ve been doing a deep dive into 80s music lately.
I’m shocked, SHOCKED! I hear you say, not bothering to hide your eyeroll. But this is different, honest! I mean, sure, I’ve been listening to some of my old mixtapes and radio tapes, primarily because of a few writing projects I’m working on, but instead of doing the usual dive into records that have a bit of a long history to them, I’m playing around with records I remember seeing in the bins back in the day that have kind of been forgotten.
Not the “forgotten” bands that were really one-hit-wonders, or “obscure” bands that actually get a lot of airplay on certain genre stations. (And on the other side of the spectrum, I’m not yet at the “outsider” musicians that are just a bit too weird and impenetrable for my current tastes. I’m getting there, though.) I’m talking about the ones that I distinctly remember hearing on college radio and seeing their videos on 120 Minutes.
I’m talking about bands like the Jean-Paul Sartre Experience…
…or Gaye Bykers On Acid…
…or Fetchin Bones…
The funny thing is that many of these bands were the ones where I could never find their records, or never got around to buying them for budgeting reasons, or that I didn’t want to chance it if I didn’t exactly like it. I’m coming across a lot of them and checking out their grainy ripped-from-videotape music videos on YouTube. A lot of them are bands where I’d said I’d check them out sooner or later because I’d been hyperfocused on other obsessions…and I’m now realizing that I’ve finally come to the “later” part of that equation.
Some of these bands have stood the test of time, or are definitely a time capsule of a specific style. Some of them have not aged well at all (there’s one comic-punk band I used to like, but now sound like those one-joke pastiches you’d hear on those “irreverent” (read: tasteless bro humor) Morning Drive radio shows). They’re the bands that haven’t had as much of the Old Wave Renaissance play on satellite radio, but they’re the bands music nerds like me will remember.
What am I getting out of this? Well, aside from expanding my soundtracks and playlists, they’re filling some much-neglected holes in my personal history of listening to college radio. And as I’d hoped and expected, they’re also bringing back some memories I’d long forgotten. They’re putting the music history (and my own history) in a much richer context, that 80s college radio wasn’t just about The Cure and Depeche Mode and Wire and REM, but about the smaller bands and scenes that popped up. The music from different parts of the country — or the globe — that had a small but sizeable fanbase of their own. The music that may have somehow made its way onto major labels, but for the most part felt right at home on the independents.
And let me tell you, I’ve been having a hell of a fun time with it all!
Walk In Silence 