Rating: 
Summary: An important book
Review: The subject of this book is impressive: profiles of some of the most important bands of the 1980s who were not signed to major labels. Each of these bands accomplished something without being part of the mainstream music industry.Fortunately, the author's writing as as good as the subject matter. He creates a profile of each band through the details of their concerts, music, members, and the musical influences that inspired them. Each band deals with the legacy of punk, either embracing or rejecting it to define themselves. The chapter on the Replacements is the best, simply because they're the best band here. They deserve a short book of their own. The Butthole Surfers chapter is very funny. Big Black comes across as smart and relentless. Fugazi and Minor Threat come across as humorless. Husker Du and Dinosaur Jr are stories of pointless inter-band drama. My only criticism --- which keeps this from being a five-star book --- is the missing chapter on the Dead Kennedys. They should have been covered here.
Rating:
Summary: Great book, small criticism
Review: I have really enjoyed this book. Long overdue, Azerrad presents a wonderful history of this most important movement in American music. I do have some problems with the book, though. Mainly it has to do with the histories of the bands that signed with major labels, The Replacements, Sonic Youth etc. By only quickly going over that part of those bands life, he misses an important part of the history. This is especially true of the chapter on The Replacements, which deals very little with their "major label" life and with Westerberg's solo career. I think the whole controversy on Westerberg's solo career is quite important to the history of the band (I also don't think Paul should be vilified for becoming a solo artist). Don't let this small criticism, though, dissuade you from buying this book, which is a very fine book indeed.
Rating: 
Summary: a great introduction
Review: an outstanding trip through the formation of the 80's underground with sections that are long enough to give you a taste of the major bands, and short enough to avoid bogging you down with excess. Every band mentioned is phenominal and most are fairly different from one another, which helps to cover the variety of music that still lays under the radar, in the ever expanding relm of indipendant music. These bands are great starting points further exploration.
Rating:
Summary: 'Behind the Music' of 80s Hardcore
Review: "Our Band Could Be Your Life" chronicles some of the underground giants of the independent music scene of the 1980's. It makes no attempt to be complete, yet most 80's rock fans will have at least passing familiarity with one or more of these bands. Many of the bands I revered as a teenager are given space: Black Flag, Husker Du, the Minutemen, Minor Threat and Fugazi. This alone makes the book an amazing read. But not having heard the music of some of the other bands (Mission of Burma, Big Black, Dinosaur, Jr, Beat Happenings) it was hard fro me to care about their chapters and I could only give cursory attention to bands whose music I never liked beyond a few songs (Replacements, Sonic Youth, Mudhoney). Of the bands I loved, the section on the Minutement (whom I knew the least about) was my favorite. Black Flag's chapter will be mostly familiar to any who've read Henry Rollin's 'Get in the Van' and Joe Cole's 'Planet Joe'. The writing stays focused on the music - how it was made, why the band made it and some of what they went through to get it 'documented' and play in clubs all over the country. Common themes pop up repeatedly: a DIY mentality, a fierce distrust and/or dislike of the mainstream music industry, a relentless work ethic, turning personal and political angst into art (as opposed to churning out rehashed product geared to exploit the angst of consumers), extreme loyalty and personal integrity to the music, the band and the independent music scene, and the inner tension between starving/burning out and selling out. While many could pick bands that were left out, the Dead Kenneys seem to be a glaring omission, having achieved similiar level of success as the mighty Black Flag, while remaining a seperate entity from the LA-based SST indie juggernaut. The author makes a case for these bands laying the foundation and the framework for the overnight success of Nirvana and for previously underground music suddenly becoming "it" in the early 90's (everything from Lollopallooza to Jane's Addiction to the Chili Peppers and the Seatle grunge movement). I don't know whether ther truly is a direct correlation, but as most the bands in "Our Band..." burned out in financial, musical/and or idealogical failure, its a comforting sentiment for fans. Also recommended: "Rock and the Pop Narcotic" by Joe Carducci; "Get in the Van"; "Planet Joe".
Rating:
Summary: Excellent account of the underground scene
Review: Azerrad's book is a fun, informative look at thirteen bands that helped shape the underground indie rock scene before Nirvana broke big and everything changed. Azerrad only writes the history of these bands when they were on independent labels, so you only get that part of the story. Once bands like Sonic Youth and the Butthole Surfers move on to major labels, Azerrad stops the story. There's great road stories and good insight on what these bands went through and why the music was so influential. This is not dry reading as Azerrad's writing style keeps the pace moving and he gets great interviews from various bands' members. I wish the Wipers were included in this book, but then again I think the author did a good job of picking the right bands.
Rating: 
Summary: OK, but not great
Review: This is an interesting look back at many bands that defined my youth, and as such made for an exciting read. However, in the end it feels incomplete and somewhat meandering, and often seems based more on available sources rather than on true significance to the genre (and some staggering genre-jumping is part of the problem here). A complete history of second-wave American punk needs to include Germs, the Dead Kennedys (referenced by allusion and the occasional quote repeatedly, reiterating their importance), X (same as above), and Meat Puppets, just for starters. The book at first seems to try to place its focus on the nascent hardcore scene, but then takes wild detours when focusing on Butthole Surfers (who were more symbolically associated with the noisy/thrashy aspects of the genre rather than being an actual hardcore band) and Beat Happening (who have no relation whatsoever to hardcore, and only peripherally to punk). I mean, Bad Brains, Flipper, and the Big Boys were as seminal to the HC scene as anyone else, even if they don't have the same 'founding fathers' legacy that characterizes Black Flag or Minor Threat (I also agree with many reviewers that the Fugazi chapter really belongs elsewhere). Although I am a big fan of Sonic Youth and Big Black, I don't really consider them as defining elements of the hardcore or the 'indie scene' when compared to the Germs or the DKs. Furthermore, I *really* didn't see the value of including the Replacements and Dinosaur Jr... again, apparently more of a decision based on access rather than on actual significance. Mudhoney's chapter, more than anything else, seemed like an excuse to include Bruce Pavitt's generous musings on Sub Pop and the Seattle 'scene' that helped 'break' (in both senses of the word) home-grown punk. In a different light, this could have been a worthwhile (although limited) outline of a history of important punk and post-punk indie labels (SST, Twin/Tone, Touch 'n' Go, Homestead, Sub Pop, Dischord, and K), but as such would have needed to include Alternative Tentacles, Slash/Ruby, Shimmy-Disc, Posh Boy, Ralph, and quite a few others. Sometimes the bands seemed to be mere commodities within the larger label-centric narrative, which would have been fine if the focus had been to document the rise and fall of the punk indie. Anyhoo, to wrap up, it was cool to read about Black Flag, Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Minor Threat, and Hüsker Dü. The rest of the book pretty much dragged. I actually find the decade-long scope of the book to be utterly appropriate (from the first rumblings of west coast punk to the 'year punk broke'). I just didn't find it to be either comprehensive or consistent. I didn't feel totally ripped off, either, and that's why the book gets 3 stars. I'd recommend it to those who weren't there and would like some insight on the period, but would probably suggest they check it out at the library or borrow someone's copy first.
Rating:
Summary: At last
Review: The 1980s are being turned to chum, diced into simple nostalgia bites, so that the decade is best remembered now for a few MTV synth pop hits, maybe a Springsteen/Cougar Americana song, hair metal and the Rolling Stones' "Steel Wheels" tour. What is always lost in the VH-1 retrospectives is the remarkable American indie underground movement that began in roughly 1979 (the first Black Flag EP), peaked in the mid 1980s and had its last gasp in 1991 (when Nevermind, a record that could not have existed without the indie movement, hit #1). So it is a blessing that we have at last a fine, relatively unbiased and intelligent history of Husker Du, the Replacements, Sonic Youth, Beat Happening, the Buttholes, Dino Jr. -- bands that were the equivalent to the Beatles and Stones to me, and whose influence inspired whatever life there was to be found in 1990s pop music. It's not a perfect book. For one, everyone will have gripes about which bands did and didn't deserve chapter-length studies (the most obvious oversight -- the Meat Puppets, and I'd go to bat for Camper Van Beethoven as well), and did we really need two separate chapters on Ian MacKaye's bands? Once a band signs to a major label its story effectively ends for Azerrad, which is fine when you're covering Dinosaur Jr., for example, but which also means that the Replacements' Tim -- one of their finest records -- isn't even mentioned. An influence of MacKaye's rather hysterical obsession with "purity", perhaps. Azerrad's writing on the whole is fine, though he occasionally litters his prose with a gruesome slang phrase, like "all about" (viz. "it was all about purity"), and I would have enjoyed a discography and a more detailed notes section, as fresh interviews done for this book are often stitched next to fanzine interviews from 1983, with scant notice. But these are minor criticisms -- this is a long-needed, wonderful book that hopefully in time will inspire others. How about a volume 2? The Meat Puppets, the Dead Kennedys, CVB, the Misfits, Human Switchboard, Bad Brains, the Mekons, even REM..
Rating:
Summary: Don't Believe the (Negative) Hype
Review: This book is great. Most of the bitching about this book stems from which bands were and which weren't chosen as subjects. Though I was never really into the Butthole Surfers or Big Black I still enjoyed the chapters on them and understood Azerrad's logic for their inclusion. The chapter on Black Flag is probably the best as it relates how the band literally created the entire indie/punk band touring across the country in a van scene. And then the Minutemen simply used Flag's connections to repeat the process and it flourished from there. It was also amazing to learn that Greg Ginn was a huge Grateful Dead fan, but damn it makes sense if you listen to those Rollins era Black Flag albums (too much jam-age.) Sure I would have liked chapters on the Descendents, Bad Religion, the Flaming Lips and maybe even the Pixies but this book was fine...and you always want some good material left for volume II. Disregard most of the nay-sayers though. Most of these people seem trapped in the same old debates of what is and what isn't punk. This book may have been doomed from the start in those circles, since nothing is probably less punk than actually being able to read.
Rating:
Summary: If you're looking for the 'punk manifesto', this isn't it
Review: There is a lot of hostile criticism here about how this book isn't "punk enough" or is "too scholarly", etc. These reviews should only appeal to those trapped in some kind of stunted alternate-adolescence, where it is still 1984 (or even 1994) and you're feeling pretty cool because you're the first kid in your school to buy the new Dead Kennedys record. For the rest of us, this is a mighty fine summation of the American underground music scene during the 1980's. Is it exhaustive? No, it could have used a chapter on the Meat Puppets or the Kennedys. Is it an important book? You betcha. There is no other book out there that documents this period with the enthusiasm and respect that Azerrad gives it. If you're a big music fan and are interested in this massively important era of rock history, then trust me, you're going to enjoy this book. If you think you know it all already ("I lived it man, I was there when Flag played Chino"), then do yourself a favor and skip it.
Rating: 
Summary: A long boring slog through the underground
Review: With the exception of the Butthole Surfers, most of the band stories make for dull reading. I wasn't expecting Hammer of the Gods, but descriptions of J. Mascis squabbling with his bassist for pages on end got tedious. Most of the brand name punk/indie acts of the era are included (in other words--the usual suspects) and frankly, a lot the interviews/stories have been circulating on these folks since, well, the '80s. I'm done with the review, but if anyone cares how I would have improved the book (say, as editor), read on. A chapter on Shimmy-Disc would have been great, since that label released tons of interesting music in the '80s that stood miles apart from the contrived sounds of Sub Pop, Dischord et al. Kramer's legal hassles/personal travails and subsequent loss of both Shimmy-Disc and his recording studio would have made for interesting reading. The Bongwater album covers alone are more exciting than Sub Pop's entire catalog.
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