Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation?

[V]

VIN-dication!

Your back. I haz it.

[Timothy225]

I nominate Vin as the Great White Hipster Hunter. Who's with me?

Yep, read the article, shaking my head the whole time. Kid was too young to really appreciate the time period, to take advantage of all it offered, etc. so his opinion becomes suspect and irrelevant as a result.

By the mid-80's I was thoroughly into the alternative/underground music scene, mostly thanks to my college's radio station, the fact I had easy access to several quality record stores (Vintage Vinyl, folks! Used to mainline that store every week when it was in Eatontown), as well as many, MANY clubs to see bands play. Most of those, sadly, are long since gone - Club Bene, Birch Hill, The FastLane, The Saint, etc. Also the Stone Pony, though it's been ages since I've been there. That whole genre finally hit the mainstream during the grunge movement, despite not all of it being grunge or a distant relation at best.

IMHO, figuring grunge began and ended with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, etc. ignores a lot of preceding history, and unless you were really part of the scene at the time, you really can't speak of it beyond how Nevermind made you feel. Dude who wrote this article was out of it before he even got to high school, so take that for what you will.

[Abraham Smashington]

Green River is still one of the best "grunge bands" that no one seems to talk about.

[Timothy225]

I also don't hear much about Mother Love Bone either. Seconding Green River BTW.

[Abraham Smashington]

Mother Love Bone...oh how I loved your name when I was a kid.

[BillyG]

Mother Love Bone is fantastic. Really pissed there isn't more of their stuff on Mediafire. Also, Dinosaur JR. gets no love, and they should get TONS. Farm came out like a year ago, and it's incredible.

[Abraham Smashington]

Dinosaur Jr. IS fucking AMAZING. Much love. One of my favorite bands.

[Timothy225]

Geez, been far too long since I heard any Dinosaur Jr. Same with bands like Sebadoh, ALL, The Descendants, Black Flag, and until recently, The Replacements.

Really, really gotta start reconnecting to my musical faves. As well as upgrade many of my old cassettes to CDs.

[Abraham Smashington]

Sebadoh! OMG. I finally feel like I can add to the music conversation. <3 the 90s.

[Timothy225]

One cool thing about my first post-college jerb ('89 - '97) was I used to work with a guy named Erik who made weekly mix-tapes. Thanks to him, I was exposed to a TON of bands I'd never heard of before, even back in college.

Everybody needs a friend like that.

[Abraham Smashington]

Also, been jamming to a sweet cd of Fugazi that was mixed by Steve Albini (as opposed to the studio release) and I forgot how fucking BADASS they were.

[Chris Miller]

I still listen to Lithium on Sirius (the all 90s alt channel) more than anything else. I actually used to tape 120 Minutes Sunday nights. Hell, listen to most of our stuff and you can see we never left the 90s.

[V]

One cool thing about my first post-college jerb ('89 - '97) was I used to work with a guy named Erik who made weekly gay porn mix-tapes. Thanks to him, I was exposed to a TON of cocks I'd never seen before, even back in college.

Everybody needs a friend like that.

They suuuuuuuuuure do, Tim...

[Timothy225]

Hey, hey, HEY! The gay porn and scheise mixtapes didn't show up until 2001, Vin! That's at least two career-path changes. And those were on DVD!

This guy over here...

[V]

Ah... German Scheiße porn.

That takes me back.