A lot of artists don't agree to it. This is part of the problem.

Of course the foulest fruit from our glut of bad secondary English teachers is the Fan Theory, those poorly-argued, po-faced, symbolism-obsessed 10000 word manifestos dedicated to proving Tony Soprano Was Definitely Killed, Walter White Really Died in the Snow-Covered Car, or All Of [name any show] Is Really the Main…

Fo' fo' fo'!

Salem 66, 'Carry A Torch'
Ritual Tension, 'Tightrope'
Black Flag, 'No More'
Skinny Puppy, 'Dig It [Video Edit]'
Celebrate the Nun, 'Unattainable Love'
Infam, 'Intense'
Skinny Puppy, 'The Poison Mouth (1993)'
The March Violets, 'Turn to the Sky'
Weekend, 'Monongah, WV'
Lowlife, 'Mother Tongue'
The Mekons, 'Where Were You?'
Polyroc…

1981 is 'pre-new wave'? Remind me what year Gary Numan's Pleasure Principle came out

Astonishing username/comment synergy

But this episode he also forces the supposedly 'authentic' band to ditch a few members and essentially polish their sound. The show may be complicating the rockist notion of 'authenticity'–for Finestra it may turn out that the authenticity he seeks isn't a white whale but rather Lot 49.

She left MTV to work for some environmental organization, then went into public radio. Careers don't get much more late-1980s than hers.

I got five apiece for having watched IRS Cutting Edge Happy Hour before 120 Minutes.

That segment on 4AD literally changed my life (they dedicated a lot of the episode to 4AD and played all the videos from Lonely Is An Eyesore). After that I started looking for and listening to everything on that label…on that show I also think they played Front 242's 'Quite Unusual'; between the two, that's pretty…

'The idea is new and not fed through a machine so hard that you can’t feel the fucking intestines of the artists and the music.” Yeesh. It’s getting harder and harder to handle any line about the importance of real rock'n'roll'

The first person to recommend Pixies to me–not long after Surfer Rosa came out in the US–sold them as 'Violent Femmes but louder'. If I were writing a longform piece on the Pixies' reception history, I think I'd build on that comparison; I think those bands have some things in common–besides any similarities in…

People promote albums on Fox Business?

I'm sure prog fans will mock me for this, but the one Emerson, Lake, and Powell album is very good, and an excellent stab at updating ELP's sound. Not that his playing on their classic albums isn't great, of course–unquestionably he's one of the great keyboardist so far his era; I imagine Wakeman is his only real…

Absolutely. Any band that can be described as '1980s alternative band from New England' gets at least a listen from me. Not just indie, but some great punk and industrial bands as well.

Kinda sorta, not really. They were more a college rock band, not an indie-circuit-touring band. They were on an artsy British label (4AD), not a grubby American one, and they signed to a major after an album and a half. Their American 'indie' label was Rough Trade US, an American offshoot of another British label. All…

America needs to have a conversation about how the Pixies became so revered. They are a great band, but at the time they never quite stood out, at least in America. Their US breakthrough (such as it was) was 'Here Comes Your Man', an embarrassing stab at radio play. And by shutting down their best weapon, Kim Deal,…

Homestead's covered a bit in the Big Black, Dinosaur Jr, and Sonic Youth sections. I guess the issue is they never had one of the more important indie bands signed for more than a record. Live Skull or Naked Raygun maybe, but their scenes are covered in Our Band by Sonic Youth and Big Black.

Melvins would have been a good one, a better choice than Mushoney for a NW band. I also thought Minor Threat and Fugazi should have shared a chapter. DK would be important because the very influential SF scene was overlooked. But the book never claimed to be comprehensive, and it's certainly great as is.

Pixies were never on an American indie label, so they wouldn't fit.