Word: sonic
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...many "indie" record labels at large in the '80s, but it had the foresight to sign Sonic Youth and Dinosaur, Jr., bands whose followings both eventually dwarfed that of Black Flag and those of their `80s punk contemporaries, like Boston's Mission of Burma and Washington D.C.'s Minor Threat. The shows they played were booked at venues older proto-alternative bands had already played, but they had their work cut out for them selling America and Europe on innovative, unpolished sounds...
...only after long years of miserable day jobs and masterful schmoozing that they were picked up by David Geffen's DGC label and became internationally-recognized rock stars. Azerrad quotes former Sonic Youth drummer Bob Bert on the band's prowess at working the room: "You'd go to a party and Kim [Gordon, singer and bassist] would know who the Village Voice writer was in the corner of the room and she'd make sure she went over there." By 1991, that kind of fastidious networking had put Sonic Youth and Dinosaur, Jr. in the enviable position of being...
...same, nobody made any money to speak of until the major labels came calling. "Do you make a profit?" a reporter asks Black Flag's Ginn in one of the many `zine articles Azerrad excerpts. His response: "We try to eat." While members of Sonic Youth now drive Volvos and divide their time between Manhattan and country homes, the people who accumulated real wealth as a result of the American indie rock saga of the `80s were either in Nirvana or married to people in Nirvana. For that reason, the tenth anniversary of Nevermind comes attended by unceremonious squabbling. Courtney...
...presiding like the nicest homeroom teacher was Dick Clark, just 26 when he took over the show. Calming, genial, sweet-faced and way cleverer than he appeared, Clark was the Ike of teens - a canny conduit to spread the social and sonic threat of rock 'n roll from kids' bedrooms into the nation's living rooms. Jerry Lee Lewis might come on, pound away at "Great Balls of Fire" and flip his head forward, letting his hair spill over his face like a thick blond veil. (I can still recall a delicious roiling in my stomach when I saw this...
...blamed/ For anything I've done?,") the Beta Band's songs compensate for their lack of profundity with their attention to harmony and tone. Just as most every track on 'Nuggets II' contains at least one moment where all the instruments come together to form a sublime sonic landscape, so does every track on 'Hot Shots...