Azerrad's book

        The American underground in the Eighties embraced the radical notion that maybe, just maybe, the stuff that was shoved in your faces by the all-persuasive mainstream media wasn't necessarily the best stuff. This independence of mind, the determination to see past surface flash and think for oneself, flew in the face of the burgeoning complacency, ignorance, and conformism, that engulfed the nation like a spreading stain throughout the Eighties.

    The indie movement was a reclamation of what rock was always about. Rock & roll hinged on a strong, personal connection to favourite bands, but that connection had been stretched to the limit by pop's lowest common denominator approach, not to mention things like impersonal stadium concerts and the unreality of MTV Indie bands proved you didn't need those things to make a connection with the audience. In fact, you could make a better connection without them.

        Corporate rock was all about living large; indie was about living realistically and being proud of it. Indie bands didn't need million-dollar promotional budgets and multiple costume changes. All they needed was to believe in themselves and for a few other people to believe in them, too. You didn't need some big corporation to fund you, or even verify that you were any good. It was about viewing as a virtue what most saw as a limitation.

       The Minutemen called it "jamming econo." And not only could you jam econo with your rock group -- you could jam econo on your job, in your buying habits, in your whole way of living. You could take this particular approach to music and apply it to just about anything else you wanted to. You could be beholden only to yourself and the values and people you respected. You could take charge of your own existence. Or as the Minutemen put it in a song, "Our band could be your life."

-- Michael Azerrad, "Our band could be your life."

.think.about.it. 

 Ştiam că am mai scris de Minutemen, pentru că am simţit aceleaşi lururi, şi am fost lovit exact de ideea de "our band could be your life", cu care începe "History Lesson, part II". Dar se pare că nu era aici.

"Mister Narrator -
This is Bob Dylan to me"