Interview with Steve Albini, 1993

Interview with Steve Albini; recording engineer (Nirvana, Jesus Lizard, P.J. Harvey, many others); member of Big Black, Rapeman, Shellac; interview takes place at his house on April 14, 1993.

Matt: Can you give me a mini-biography of how you got into the music. . .

Steve: I grew up in Missoula, Montana. And sometime around 1978, it might have been ’77. . .

M: How old are you now?

S: I’m 30 now.

I was on a school field trip, and on the school field trip somebody on the bus had a portable cassette recorder which was, at that time, a novelty. He was playing this tape of the Ramones which I thought, everyone on the bus thought was the most hilarious record ever made. The first Ramones album. We all thought it was totally hilarious. No one took it seriously at all.
A friend of mine and I were enthralled by this concept of the Ramones; this really terrible band that were making records. That was the first record that I ever actually ordered from a record shop. I went to the record store and I placed an order for the first Ramones album.

M: Were you into music at all?

S: Not even in the slightest. Not even marginally interested in music. Over a period of weeks I became religious about going to the record shop to see if the Ramones record had come in. When it showed up it was. . .we threw a little party and played the Ramones album.

Anyway, I lived by the record for about six months. Initially it was comedy, it was a gag. We just thought, “oh, this is that goofy record.” But then it did develop into. . .it developed to the point where I thought. . .suddenly it made sense to me. I thought, “yea, this is the perfect form of rock music.” I was totally rabid after that. I bought anything that anybody called a punk rock record. I bought anything that I could find in the record shop. Used, new records that didn’t look familiar, that looked punk rock. I just completely immersed myself. And when I came out here to go to school, that was an opportunity to go see live bands which I’d never really been able to do in Montana.

M: Did you pick Chicago knowing that there would be a lot of music here?

S: No. I had no idea that there was any kind of a music scene here. I just figured it’s a city, there’s gotta be more stuff goin’ on there than there is in Montana. I was kind of wrong, because there wasn’t a whole lot going on except for a few scattered bands during that era. But those few bands turned out to be some of the more remarkable ones that Chicago’s ever produced: The Effigies, Naked Raygun. A lot of those bands were bands that were really inspirational to me.

M: I’m trying to remember the name of an album which came out in the early ‘80s which was a compilation of Chicago punk bands. .

S: There was one called The Middle of America. It was a hardcore compilation. And before that there was one called Busted at Oz. That was a live record. It was recorded at the Oz Club. That had the Effigies, and Naked Raygun, and Da, and Silver Abuse. That was an amazing record. Some of the sound quality was pretty lousy, but some of the stuff on that record was pretty amazing. The Effigies stuff on that record is amazing. Just a furious, just amazingly great sounding fuckin’ live, raw punk record.

So the early 1980-82 was sort of when I was learning what a live music scene was about. I had formed a band as soon as I got here. Just a goofy punk rock band.

M: What was the name?

S: Small Irregular Pieces of Aluminum. Then I joined a . . .a friend of mine introduced me to some friends of his that were this sort of arty new wave band, sort of like Joy Division, or Magazine or something. I played bass in their band for three or four months and they kicked me out. And when they kicked me out I decided to try and start my own band, and I messed around with some people for awhile, trying to find musicians to be in a band with, and I wasn’t really comfortable with anybody. I didn’t know that many people, so I couldn’t really just put the word out. I had to try putting up flyers.

M: Were you going to school all this time?

S: Yea. I wasn’t very successful finding anybody to play with, so I just. ..

M: Did you live on campus?

S: No. My freshman year I lived in a dorm because, at that time, they required you to live in a dorm your freshman year. I think that was because they had to justify all these new dorms they’d built in the seventies. So my freshman year I lived in a dorm, and after that I lived off campus. I didn’t really live in Evanston after my freshman year. I lived in Chicago.

So I was looking for a band, and I failed. So I decided I was gonna try and record some stuff on my own and see if I could use that to find people to play in a band with.

M: Di you go through the usual channels, such as the Reader?

S: Yea. I placed ads in the Reader, and I answered ads in the Reader. I met people who ultimately went on to do other things, but there was nobody I was really comfortable playing with. From there it gravitated to being quite satisfied doing things by myself. I did the first Big Black record by myself, recorded on borrowed equipment. By the time that record was ready to come out, I had become friends with the Effigies and Naked Raygun and some other people in town that were involved in music on a larger scale. From the release of that record, those people helped me put together a live band. The band was fairly stable. Initially it was Jeff Pezzati from Naked Raygun playing bass, and Santiago Durango playing guitar, and me.

M: And you used a drum machine live?

S: We used a drum machine.

After a couple of years of operating that way, Big Black started to become more serious as a band. It was obvious that Jeff had too many things to look after. He was in Naked Raygun, and he had a girlfriend, and he had a job, and he had other responsibilities as well. I just asked him if it would be easier for him if I didn’t expect him to be in the band anymore, and he said it would be.

So Santiago and I had both like this band, a surf-punk band called Savage Beliefs from Chicago. And the bass player in that band, dave Riley, was a prtty good bass player, and Savage Beliefs had broken up, so we asked him to join. And that was the last of the line-up changes. It stayed that way until we broke up in ’86 or ’87. . .’87.

M: When did the last album come out?

S: The last Big Black album came out in September of that year, I think it was ’87. That was about a month after we had broken up. Our last show was in August of ’87.

M: Did you play the regular clubs in Chicago?

S: At that time there were quite a few clubs that you could play goofy punk rock gigs at. You could play at the. . what’s now the 950. It was originally the Lucky Number bar. The Lucky Number was one of the earliest punk rock joints in the city. And Tut’s, which was on Belmont where the Avalon is now. A place called C.O.D., which is in Roger’s Park on Devon Avenue. And a place called Misfits, which is on Sheridan Road just north of there. The Metro would have gigs, but there was also a group of punk rocker kids that were putting on shows in a rented hall on Broadway and Irving Park.

So there were quite a few places to play whereas now there’s really only. . .for a band of that size, a band that got it’s land legs but isn’t famous yet, there really very few places to play. The Czar Bar, or something of that caliber is about the best that you can play if you don’t have records out.

M: Were clubs receptive to you if they thought you were a punk rock band?

S: It was kind of cool in that the people who ran the clubs had no fuckin’ idea about what was goin’ on.

M: So like in L.A., if they found out you were a punk rock band, you were black-balled from many clubs.

S: Well, L.A. is such a weird universe anyway. I don’t even consider that part of the world. If you leave this plain of reality and go into an alternate reality, that’s where you’d find places like Los Angeles. Because the club owners didn’t know what the hell was going on, they would turn it over to somebody else and say, “find me some bands to play here.” So usually there were people who were eager to do that sort of thing. People who worked at record shops or people on college radio were eager and excited to be booking bands someplace. So you could call one guy and he could get you into the Lucky Number, or you could call another guy and he could get you into C.O.D., or call another guy and he could set up an independent show for you. That person, the independent middle-man show arranger, doesn’t really exist anymore. Local independent promoters are few and far between. Sean Duffy is a holdover from those days. He still does shows in Chicago on rare occasions.

M: Why are they gone?

S: Because there are clubs now that specialize in alternative music. And they’re generally speaking run by people who are fans of the genre and they can pick and choose which bands they want and make contacts with booking agents. And booking agents is another fairly recent phenomenon. That there are people that make a living just booking tours for punk rock and odd ball bands I pretty amazing. That was inconceivable as little as ten years ago. That was just absolutely inconceivable that you could make a living doing nothing but booking tours for rock bands. Or that you could make a living being in a rock band. That was virtually out of the question for virtually all punk rock bands. It was never, from the time that I recall its inception, to very very recently, it was never even a consideration. . .it was never even in the realm of possibilities that your band could pay your way through life; that your band could be your living. As far back as I can remember, and for virtually every person that I can think of involved in the music scene, having a straight job was considered part of the price of being in a band. You have to buy guitar strings, and you have to buy an amp, and you have to have a straight job.
And now it seems as through the attitude of the bands that are coming up now is that of course eventually they’ll make a living at it. And of course they’ll find someone else to give them money to put out a record. And of course they will find someone to book shows, book a tour for them. It’s as though that machinery is part of the birth right of every musician.

M: I’m not sure they think of it as an “of course” thing. I think they see it as a legitimate thing to strive for. The possibility that if you are a good band this will come for you.

S: Right. My definition of a good band is broader than “popular.” Popular band is not by my definition a good one necessarily. And that is all that matters as far as the rest of the music machinery is concerned. If you are a popular band, then you are viable. If you are viable, then there are any number of leaches that will try to take parts of your money in exchange for making you more popular, or so they claim.

M: What’s a good band?

S: A good band is a band that makes music that I respect or admire, and behaves itself honorably. Does things within the band, and within the interaction of all the bands that it deals with, and all he people that it deals with, does things in a way that it has no reason to be ashamed of. If you’re looking for specific examples, a real good example would be someone like Fugazi. They are the pinnacle of the integrity ladder. They do everything themselves, they deal directly with the people. They don’t go through middle-men or agents or crew or anything like that. They handle their own affairs, and they demonstrate how easy it is.

There’s a sort of religion of fear that’s built up around being in a rock band. If you don’t have a booking agent then you’ll get taken advantage of when you try to book shows. If you don’t have a record label, then no one will take you seriously if you try to put out your own record. If you don’t have a manager, then the record labels won’t take you seriously. If you don’t have a lawyer, then your manager has no clout. All of these steps. . .all these peripheral parts of being in a rock band are now considered an organic part of the scheme, when they’re very recent developments as far as punk rock music goes.

M: So you don’t think they’re necessary?

S: Absolutely not! Admittedly it’s been three or four years since I’ve been in an active rock band, but in the entire time that I was in a rock band, which was over ten years, I never once dealt with a booking agent, never once had a lawyer, never had a manager, never had. . .we took. . .Big Black categorically never took an advance from a record company. We paid for our recordings ourselves. That way we would be careful about how much money we spent. And as a result we ended up making quite a bit of money off the band. Whereas a band that spends its money in advance recording or whatever, has virtually no chance of making money off of its record label. . .I mean off of its records.

M: Big Black has probably made more money since you broke up.

S: That’s true. Since we broke up before our most successful record was released.

M: Songs About Fucking.

S: And then that record and all the previous records continued to sell really dramatically.

M: They were all just rereleased, right?

S: The ones that were out of print were just rereleased. The records that were rereleased sold geometrically more in their rerelease than they did originally.

M: So just recently.

S: Yea.

M: Weren’t they just rereleased in the last month or so?

S: About three months ago. I think in total numbers of records sold, I think we sold something. . .the reissues, the combined sales of the reissues was something like 80,000 copies. And the total world-wide sales to date of those records is something like half a million records. That’s if you take every copy of every record that’s ever been sold and add them all together it’s about half a million records. We made a substantial amount of money on those. If we had been on a big label and sold that many records, we would probably still owe money.

M: Were you ever approached by a major label?

S: Yep. We were approached by EMI. We were approached by Capital, by RCA, and by Warner Bros., and Rough Trade in England. And the point when Rough Trade. . .

M: And you categorically told them to get lost?

S: Umm hmm. Actually, Rough Trade were still, in name, an independent, so we did. . .the guy that started and ran the company, Jeff Travis, wanted to meet with us and we had a meeting with him. And he explained the way he did business and it seemed so shaky that we weren’t interested. And ultimately they went broke, so I guess that was a good decision.

M: So if you put yourself in the shoes of a young unsigned band, eighteen or nineteen year old kids, especially in the post-Nirvana signing craze, which I imagine is a reality. . .

S: It’s now to the point where any band that wants to get signed to a major label, I do not care what style of music you play, what the personalities in the band are, if you are willing to sign a contract, any contract, then you can get signed to a major label. It is not as though that is an unattainable thing at this point. Not only is it not difficult, in a lot of cases it’s easier to get on a major label than to be on an independent label. To be on an independent label you actually have to be worth something. A major label will take a band that no one has ever heard, and sign them. An independent label, for it to be worth their effort to put out your record, they have to be certain that somebody likes you. Either that, or someone at the record label has to take a personal interest in you and thing, “yes, I really love this band. I’m gonna champion this band.” And that is something that never happens on a major label. Major labels, by and large, sign bands based solely on whether or not they think they can be successful.

M: It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a bad band though, does it?

S: Not necessarily, although there’s a very very high correlation between bands that sign to major labels immediately, and bands that are terrible. There’s a very high correlation.

M: But what about bands that go from independent to major? Like Nirvana, for example.

S: I don’t think Nirvana are any worse a band now than they were when they were on Sub Pop. I do think Nirvana, in terms of the way that band is structured and the way their money is handled and things of that nature, I think Nirvana are in a far worse situation than they were when they were on an independent label. It’s a good example. And this is from published figures, this is nto me spilling the beans on anything, or making stuff up. Geffen, as a result of the Nirvana albums, this is the figure that they have publicly given, made $55 million off of that album, off of the Nevermind album. The band were paid $3 million. So there you’re in a situation where the record company is making $55 million and the band is making $3 million. That means the individual members of the band each made, probably, about $1 million. They lost half of that to taxes, of course. They probably had to pay out an equal amount of that in terms of management fees and percentages that they lose to collectors and that sort of stuff. When it boils down to it, they made about as much as, each of them made about as much as a lawyer would. The difference being that a lawyer in a good position in a firm, can make better than a half million a year for thirty years. And that’s from the perspective of the most popular rock band in the world, Nirvana. The band that sold more records than any other rock band that year. The most popular rock band in the world. Eight million records down the pipe.

Ting! There’s that band.

They are probably in the situation where in five years they will have no record income. No income from records. Or a measly income. The sort of income that Styx has nowadays, or the sort of income that, you know, Chicago would have. Where there are a few diehard fans, but that’s about it.

And if you compare that with a band like the Jesus Lizard who’ve already had five years of phenomenal success in artistic terms, there’s really no reason to. . .I don’t see any reason to strive for the sort of chaos, and the sort of piddling that goes along with being on a major label.
I can’t think of a single thing that a major label can offer a band that will offset the negative aspects, being the amount of meddling and the amount of lying to and all that sort of stuff. And the ancillary costs that are associated with being on a major label. Major labels flatly will not allow bands to make albums cheaply.

I’ve been at odds with record labels—major labels—about albums that I’ve made for people. And their chief complaint is, “You didn’t spend enough time, you didn’t spend enough money.” The more money that a band spends initially on a record, the better the record labe’s position with that band. Because then the band is dependent on the label for every cent that comes after that. They can’t earn any money ‘cause they’re in the hole. And as long as they can keep them there, in the hole, then the record company can dictate the terms of everything that the band does from there on out.

I can show you mathematically how a band can make no money, and a record label can make a lot of money, and as far as the record company is concerned the band is still in the hole. Basically, the pre-expense percentage that a band is paid of the retail sale price of every album is generally less that twelve percent. So less that twelve percent of the retail price of an album is credited to the band. Generally speaking, if the record company has, in standard fashion, insisted that the band use a main producer on the record, that main producer will get from 1-3 of those percentage points. . .of their twelve percent. Which would put the band, let’s split numbers and say that the band then is in a position where they’re getting ten percent of the retail price of the record. If the band has a management company, the management company will take ten to fifteen percent of their income. And depending on the deal, depending on whether the management company is talking about their royalty or their income, then they would be taking an additional ten percent off of the band’s net income.

M: So the record label is making eighty-eight percent?

S: No. The record label is making. . .that’s off the retail price. The record label is probably wholesaling that record for about sixty percent, or seventy percent of retail price. So the record company is not making eighty to eighty-eight percent compared to twelve percent. The record company is making something like seventy or sixty percent, from which they have to pay twelve percent. It’s more like, something like sixty percent of the gross income of the record goes to the record company, and ten to twelve percent of it goes to the band.

M: And out of the ten to twelve percent the band. . .

S: The band has to pay all of their recording expenses. That is, the money that the record company advanced them to record the record, that has to come out of the band’s ten to twelve percent.

M: And at the same time the label dictates who they should use, and how much they should spend on it?

S: Exactly.

M: That’s fucked up.

S: Yea. That’s why I have categorically said that any band that signs to a major label out of the underground is fucked.

M: But you still work for bands that are on major labels.

S: I work for bands that have chosen to go to major labels, yea. I get paid significantly more than I do for working for an independent band. For a couple of reasons, I justify that to myself in several different ways. One way is, these bands are fucked. They’re never gonna get paid. So the money that I’m paid is not coming out of their pockets, it’s coming out of the record company’s pocket, because the record company is gonna cheat them anyway. That’s one way of looking at it. The other way that I justify it is, it’s sort of punitive. If you think that you can be a big shot by being on a major label, you’re going to have to pay me considerably more than somebody else does.

M: Do you tell them this?

S: Yeah. I’m totally above board with this to everybody. The other thing about it is, using me to record a record for a major label, they will get stuck far, far less, if they do turn a profit, than if they use somebody else. Virtually everyone, and I should actually state it as, everyone that I know of, except me, that records records as a producer or engineer, is paid a royalty on a record, on records that are sold. One point, two points, three points. That is the producers fee for making the record is a percentage of the retail sales. The way I structure my deals is that I’m paid a flat fee, and that pays me. . .I’m paid for the job that I do to make the record. So I have no interest in whether or not that record sells one copy or a zillion. I’m pad a flat fee. Period. The advantage that give the band is, any money that they do earn from their record, they get to keep. They don’t have to keep shelling money out to me.

There are situations where a band is in an unfavorable contract, and the record company, the record company dictates that they use a certain producer, and the producer gets paid a certain number of percentage points out of the band’s income. And it is possible to stricter a deal, I know that this has been done in many cases, where for every record that the band sells, the band goes deeper in dept, because the have to pay the producer. They’re paying the producer out of their income. They’re still in the hole and unrecouped from the record label, and they have their marginal costs that they have to keep paying. They’re daily operating expenses, and their expenses for management, and their expenses for. . .

M: But there must be bands that are making money on major labels.

S: Why do you say that?

M: It just seems that there must be.

S: There are probably a very very small number of bands, of the superstar elete status, that make money. When yo speak of bands on the underground scene that have graduated to, in their eyes, graduated to the major label circuit, I would be shocked and appauled if I. . . I would be shocked if I found more than a half dozen of them.

M: REM must be making money.

S: REM are a superstar band.

M: They supposively came from the underground.

S: They were never really, strictly speaking, in the underground. Their first album was on IRS. IRS was a division of Warner Bros. records. They were not, strictly speaking, from the underground. If you’re talking about bands that work their way up from being on independent labels playing punk rock clubs and stuff. . .

M: Sonic Youth?

S: Sonic Youth are not making money on their records. They make some money touring. And they make some money from royalties. Broadcast royalties. And in European royalties. They’re not making a buck on their records. They spend way too much money on their records to make any money.

M: Were they making more money before they were on a major label?

S: They were getting paid for sales of records, yea. Not immediately before. Immediately before they were on Geffen, they were on. . .signed to a company called Blast First. And Blast First had a deal with a label in California called Restless, that also had a deal with a company called Capital Records. That arrangement pretty much precluded them from ever getting paid from anything. Because the money had to pass through so many hands. Their English record label before that did pay them. And their American record label, SST, was in really bad financial straits, but was paying them as much as they could.

M: What do you think of SST?

S: It’s not really a label to be taken seriously at this point.

M: There’s the stuff going on in the press about them not paying people. . .

S: I wouldn’t be surprised at all. There was a period when that record company made a lot of money. They had a lot of good bands. . .Husker Du, the Minutemen, Sonic Youth. . .

M: Meat Puppets.

S: Meat Puppets. I didn’t particularly like the Meat Puppets, but they had quite a few bands, and if they had not managed the company poorly, that is if they hadn’t taken on too many employees, and too many expenses. They had a whole fancy ass suite of offices that they built and all that sort of bullshit. If they didn’t do stuff like that, then they could be in a position that Touch and Go is now. That is a record company that’s been around for a long time, been doing things honorably, and pays everybody. But they’re not.

M: So you’ve making money.

S: As what. . .off record royalties?

M: Doing what you do.

S: Oh sure. I make a good living as a recording engineer. I make a good living. I could make a good living just off record royalties. Because I don’t deal with big labels. Big Black and Rapeman records still make money. If I had a band that was in the public eye now, and the band sold records consistent with the other bands I’ve been in, I could make a living off of that.

M: Are you gonna be in a band again?

S: I’d like to. It’s not a priority. Because. . .for a lot of the reasons we’re talking about. I’m’ not interested in being part of that scene. I’m not interested in being thought of in the same breath as Pearl jam. That very notion makes me want to give up.

M: They’re probably making money.

S: Pearl Jam are very, very wealthy.

M: They’ve stayed on the charts whereas Nirvana came and went. Anyway, what do you think about local scenes?

S: They’re very important. That’s where all the good music is being made. There are small and interesting communities of bands all over the place. I don’t think that there’s anything holy about bands being small and inexperienced, but that’s obviously where new ideas are gonna come from, from people who have never played music before.

M: Do you think there’s any way for a band to keep that attitude even as they being making records?

S: Sure. That’s not a problem. The primary evils in the music industry are people other than musicians who want to make money off of bands. Managers, booking agents, lawyers, record companies. Any time somebody says, “Let me take your band and give you some money so that I can make more money,” that person is evil. That’s all there is to it.

M: So you must be part evil.

S: No. Bands come to me and buy my services. That’s an enormous difference from a record company saying to a band, “You have to have Steve Albini produce your record.” I would never work with a band under those circumstances. And it’s never come up.
Generally speaking, the bands that want to use me for recording their records are either bands like this band here, Heyday, band that haven’t got enough money to do it any other way and they come to me because they know I’m cheap and that I do a good job. . .

M: How much do you charge?

S: Independent bands I charge $150 a day, and big shot bands I charge by the project. I did a P.J. Harvey record, I happen to like. . .I happen to have a fondness for her as a person, and for the band for their music. . .I charged $30,000 for that record. The Nirvana record that I just did I charged $100,000 for.

M: Because you know that they have more money?

S: No. Well partly because I know they have more money. But mainly because they offered me $100,000.

M: They chose you?

S: Yea. They said, “It’s worth it to us to give you $100,000.”

I said, “Okay. Sounds good.”

M: They must be worried about their next album, looking as if they’ve sold-out.

S: You would think that except that, for example, we just recorded this album in February. They were ecstatic with it. I thought it sounded great. I though I did as good a job as I possibly could. They, at the time seemed totally thrilled with it, and the record company is not arguing, trying to convince them not to release it. The record company does not want them to release that record. Principly because they didn’t spend enough money on it. You might think that paying me $100,000 is. . . that means they must have spent a lot of money on the record. They spent $130,000, roughly, on the record. That’s far less than their last record cost them. And the record company knows that I’m not getting paid any points. So the band is gonna make money on this record. And that scares the shit out of the record company. They want them to spend six months and a million dollars on the record. That’s what they want. That’s ultimately what they would be happiest with. So that when the record came out, it would be the talk of the town, but what an ordeal it was to make the record, and that would be more hype. They’re guaranteed of selling a couple million. They could put out a blank record that says “Nirvana” on it and sell a couple million.

M: This album will sell no matter what, but their next one is the one. . .

S: Exactly.

M: That’s why it would be bad for them to come to someone like you who has a reputation of independent alternative stuff, rather than Bob Rock. . .

S: You would think that, if you were from the underground scene. But they’re not from that scene. These people. . .this is the record company that gave us Nelson for Christ’s sake! This is the record company that gave Neil Young a contract that said, “You can do whatever you want,” and then they sued him, and the ground for their suit was that he did! That’s the mentality of the people you’re dealing with here. You’re not dealing with punk rock fans. You’re dealing with people that want to maintain tight control while seeming to be with it and hip. Because the with it and hip quotient is what sells some of their records.

M: But the three members of Nirvana must be thinking, they must be a little worried about the album looking as if. . .

S: I don’t think that’s a. . .their lives are so weird now. They can’t live like normal people, and I doubt that they have normal people thoughts. Personally I got along with them great. I think they’re nice guys. But they live in such a weird universe now, where I can’t even begin to imagine what they’re thinking. It’s not like being in a band anymore. It’s like having a whole. . .it’s like having an enormous industry that exists merely to suck your blood. My dealings with that band confirmed my suspicions about all the people that work with them. Everybody associated with that band, other than the actual band, every member of the entourage. . .the publishing company. . not the publishing company. . .the managing company, the record company, the legal people. . everybody associated with that band is a piece of shit. They’re scum. They’re pure fuckin’ thieving robbing pieces of shit. They will indulge any infantile whim that the band has. They will extend any infantile paranoia that the band has. They will do whatever yes-man type thing it takes to get the band in a position where they feel dependent on them. And whenever they can exploit an insecurity, whenever they can exploit a drug problem or an emotional problem, or anything like that, whenever they can use any of that stuff as another means of making a little scratch, they will. And I think that is totally criminal. To prey on people’s weaknesses like that. That’s awful.

M: So that’s a larger economic question dealing with capitalism vs. other economic forms. . .

S: No. there is a way that you. . .all the functions that those people server for these bands, and I’m speaking in general terms now, I don’t want to pick on Nirvana, all the functions that these people do could be handled by the band themselves, or by people that dealt with the band honorably. It just isn’t done. It could be, it just isn’t.
There’s a good example in town. There’s a booking agent, a buy named Dave Vaichelle (INTERVIEWERS NOTE: I’M NOT SURE THIS IS HIS NAME. IF ANYONE DOES KNOW, PLEASE LET ME KNOW). He deals only with un. . .small bands, independent bands. And generally speaking pretty good bands. And he’s got a good reputation with the bands for setting up tours that are reasonable. That is, where the band is not being paid too little to make it worth their while, and not being paid so much that the clubs will lose money and they won’t be welcome again. He’s very straight foreword about his business dealings, he’s above board with the clubs, he’s got good relationships with all the bands he deals with. I think he’s doing it in an honorable fashion. That begs the question, should anybody be doing that at all for anybody else? I think there are some bands for whom. . .bands that tour a lot, have straight jobs, or don’t have straight jobs, and want to tour full-time, and don’t want to be bothered with trying to set up itineraries for touring. For those bands, I think having a booking agent is reasonable. The band that I was in, I always thought it made more sense for me to do that. I think these things can be done for people in an honorable way. Cory Rusk, head of Touch and Go, runs a record label for all these bands, and he does it honorably. He accounts for every penny that’s spent on the band’s behalf. The band and he split all the expenses down the middle, as opposed to them being the band’s responsibility as is the case on major labels. The money that comes in is divided among the expenses and the profit. And the profit is split evenly, 50/50 with the bands. I think that’s a very honorable, equitable way to run a record company. And he had made it a . . .there are people that would argue, “You can’t be a financial success doing that. You can’t make money.” He’s done it for fifteen years. Cory Rusk has run a record company at a profit and has dealt honorably with all the people that he deals with. I think that. . .just the evidence of his existence by itself is evidence enough that you can be an honorable businessman in the music business. It’s just very rare.

M: Because most people get into it not from the music side of things.

S: Exactly. Most people that run record companies. . .the vast, vast majority of people that are involved in this whole scene—press people, management companies, booking agents—never played a note of music in their lives, don’t know what it means to go on stage scared out of your mind and have beer cans thrown at you and get paid $20, if that. They have no conception of what it is to be in a rock band. They see it as this big pinwheel of money going around between an audience and band, and they’re just snatching a few dollars off the pinwheel. Mathematically it works out that all these ancillary people, all these secondary people, the players make way, way more in every instance. . .they make more money than the bands that the whole thing revolves around. It’s pathetic that such an industry exists. The industry exists specifically to exploit the popularity of the bands. But that’s the case.

M: What do you consider the real “alternative” music? It’s obviously not rock.

S: There is rock music being made on an independent level that is truly and vehemently independent. I support most of that music in principle if not. . .even if I don’t like the way it sounds. There are plenty of bands that are still releasing their own records. And there are bands that don’t even bother releasing records, that just exist as a social entity. I think that is perfectly valid.

M: Do you look for bands?

S: I’m a fan of music. I buy records. I go see bands that I don’t know anything about.

M: Do you ever look for bands to produce?

S: No. I made it a tenet of my behavior that I won’t thrust myself on anybody else. If people decide that they want me to work with them, they’ll get in touch with me. And there are people that are so out of touch that they don’t’ have any idea how to get a hold of me, and if it’s somebody that I’m particularly interested in, I’ll make of point of letting them know how they can get a hold of me if they want to. But I’ve never pressed myself on any band.

M: So you go to shows around Chicago?

S: All the time.

M: What bands to you like in Chicago?

S: Well, obviously, the Jesus Lizard, the greatest rock band in the world.

M: But can they really be considered a local band? They live here, but they never really played the scene.

S: That’s not true at all. They’ve built themselves up through the same network of, you know, opening gigs with friends’ bands. . .

M: I thought they just came up here from Austin.

S: No. David Sims was in Rapeman, the band that I was in. And he lived here for two years before the Jesus Lizard got started. And so did David yow. He lived here for two years before the Jesus Lizard started. Duane moved up to start the Jesus Lizard, but he moved to Chicago. So did Mac. As a matter of fact, I think the first ever Jesus Lizard gig was at. . .they were opening for Slint at a Thai food restaurant. Slint was having their album release party for their first album.

M: I’ve never heard of Slint.

S: Slint are an amazing band. They don’t exist anymore. When they did they were a phenomenal band.

M: What other bands do you like?

S: I like Shorty. I like Tar. I like the Didjits, they’re not really from here, though, they’re from down-state Illinois.

M: What about bands that aren’t signed?

S: Shorty aren’t signed to anybody that I know of. I like Dolomite, I think they’re a cool band. I’ve seen Burnout a few times, I think they’re okay. They’re not my favorite band in the world, but they’re kind of okay. There’s a guy who’s just a guitar player, who I think is really cool. He’s a really funny guy, writes really goofy songs. His name is Robby Fulks. He has this combo called Trailer Trash.

M: I think there was a write-up in the Tribune.

S: Really. That’s surprising. I like him. He’s a friend of mine from years ago. I think he’s doing things I a kind of neat way. He doesn’t really care if anybody likes his stuff or not. And he’s not playing the kind of music that’s at all popular. He’s just writing goofy songs, and playing them.
There are personalities in town that occasionally put together bands that I think are really cool, kind of intreging. A guy named Camilo Gonzalez who’s been in bands for years. He was in Naked Raygun when they first started. He was in Silver Abuse, arguably the first punk rock band in Chicago. And he’s trying to put together a new band now. He’s looking for a guitar player, I think he’s a really cool guy. Whatever he does I’m sure will be great. There are other bands that are. . .that I believe in, that I have some faith in, that I don’t necessarily think they’re gonna do great things in the world.

Phone rings. Steve answers. Tape goes off. Then on.

S: There are bands that I think are worth support, even if they’re not necessarily a lot of fun to listen to. A band called Super Duty that I like. And another band called Buzz Muscle that I like.
It’s not necessarily that a band is successful or even any good that makes them supportable for me. There’s a band from Milwaukee that I have a real fondness for, called Dis.

M: I was emailing a guy from Dis. . . he goes to Marquett.

S: Two of them work at the Marquette library.

M: Are they a pretty good band?

S: They’re derivative musically, and they’re not an amazing. . .They’re good musicians. Their music is not totally riveting to listen to yet, but it might be. I’m completely in favor of the way they do things. I like them a lot.

M: Most of these bands you mention I’ve never heard of, and I go to a lot of shows in Chicago.

S: What sort of shows have you been going to?

M: To the Avalon. . .

S: The Avalon. That’s a whole. .

M: and Metro on Wednesday nights.

S: A lot of those bands are bands that will exist for six months and then disappear. They’re not really committed musicians or anything. A lot of those are sort of goof off bands.

M: But these are bands that have been around for awhile. Like Rustbucket.

S: I’ve heard Rustbucket.

M: You don’t like them obviously. Charming Beggars.

S: Don’t know anything about the Charming Beggars, although it sounds like. . .just the name invokes an image of a certain era of bar bands that I really couldn’t stand. Sort of like pop, hippy, like vaguely ethnic pop hippy rock music.

M: Skid Marks, from the Way Moves, is the singer.

S: The Way Moves! Now you’re reaching way back into the horrible band era.

M: He’s completely different now. They’re a pretty good band.

S: Don’t know anything about them.

M: Why don’t you like Rustbucket?

S: They’re just awful. Some bands defy any kind of. . .If a band is derivative, and they’re young, that’s one thing. Because young bands tend to be derivative. If a band is horrible and young, that’s excusable. Young bands can be horrible before they find their way around. If they’re derivative and horrible and persistent, they get no excuse from me. I can’t put up with it. A band like Big Hat, for example. I can’t fathom a reason why they shouldn’t be just guillotined. They’re awful. They’ve been around for too long. They’re horrible. They’re derivative. And they take up space. Fuckin’ kill them; get ‘em out of the way.

M: What do you mean by derivative?

S: Derivative means playing music of a genre, rather than playing music of inspiration. Playing music that stylistically fits in with the bands that are their favorites. That bugs me.

M: Everybody has their favorite bands, and they’re bound to be influenced by their favorite bands.

S: Not necessarily. My favorite bands, I know, don’t influence the way I play, or didn’t influence the way I played after the first hour or two. The first couple of weeks I owned a guitar, I tried to play Killing Joke and Public Image riffs. After that, it was just a matter of. . .you can appreciate what somebody else is doing, but it doesn’t mean you want to do it.

M: This band you were just recording sounded a bit Public Image to me.

S: This band is horrible. They’re an example of an inexcusably bad band who’s been around for too long to be apologized for. I really don’t like their music. And they’re really annoying people.

M: So why do you produce them?

S: Grit my teeth and get through it.

M: Do you try and make them sound better?

S: I try to do a good job, yea. It’s my obligation to do a good job, even if I’m not a particular fan of the band.

M: They must have sent you a demo.

S: No. They just called me up and booked the time.

M: That doesn’t bother you?

S: I explained it to them. I said, “If I know that I’m gonna hate the session, if you familiarize me with your music and I hate it, then I won’t do it. But if you just want to book the time, and not give me the option of turning you down, I’m fine.” The problem is that he booked the time under the name Heyday. The band is called Heyday now. They used to be called Hollow Heyday. And I have a Hollow Heyday record that’s awful. If he has said, “This is Bob from Hollow Heyday,” I wouldn’ve said “Oh, yea. Sorry, I really don’t think I’d enjoy it.” But I wasn’t perceptive enough.

M: So you don’t see yourself as a prostitute?

S: Not in the slightest. Prostitutes do things. . .if you consider prostituting yourself to be doing something just for the money, now, I do not do that, period. I’ve never done that, and I can’t imagine doing it.

M: But you don’t like this band. But you’re doing it anyway, ‘cause they’re paying you to do it.

S: No. I’m doing it because they asked me to and because no one else would. There’s no place they could go to get a professionally made record for this little money. I would feel horrible if I put myself in the position of being arbiter of taste. If I said “no no no no no. You are not good enough to work with the almighty Steve Albini. I do not consider your band worthy of me.” I couldn’t imagine behaving that way. So I cut them the slack. I’ll say, “Sure. I’ll work with anybody. Anybody on the lower rungs, no questions asked. I’ll work with you.” But if it turns out to be horrible, I’m not gonna do it again. And if they turn out to be dicks. . .

Motive Talk Among Indie Rockers

I wrote this paper for a presentation at the meetings of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interactionsim in Las Vegas, 1999.

Presentations of Self as Claims to Group Membership: Selling Out Motive Talk among Chicago’s Indie Rockers

Our presentations of self are claims to membership in groups. Others’ acceptances or rejections of our presentations signal their acceptance or rejection of our claimed group memberships. Chicago’s indie rock musicians maintained their membership in the early-nineties indie scene by acting in ways that validated the existence of their group, and thus their selves. They talked incessantly about selling out, a contextual paradox where musicians presented allegiance to a scene that decried working in any way with the major label recording industry, while at the same time anticipating careers in the same industry. Indie musicians used talk about selling out as motive talk, a way of ironically making claim to membership in the local indie scene in the face of behaviors to the contrary. “Skepticism,” “persistence pays off,” and “identifying the authentically successful” are three types of selling out motive talk that musicians used to assert their indie scene membership.

The Presentation of Self and Group Membership

Groups. Groups, like all objects, are things toward which we act (Hewitt, p. 169). They exist because we perceive them as existing, and act as if they exist. We make real decisions about what to do, how to behave, and who to consider friends, based on the groups we perceive to exist. We consider ourselves to be members of some groups and not others. The groups we want to be members of are the ones we behave so as to stay members of.

Chicago’s indie rock music scene of the early 1990s was a group. It consisted of nightclubs, radio stations, recording labels, periodicals and, most important, people who defined themselves as indie rockers. Indie rockers acted as if the indie rock scene existed. They acted toward the nightclubs, radio stations, recording labels, periodicals, and other indie rockers in ways that confirmed their mutual membership in the scene. Through appropriate, though constantly negotiated, presentations of self indie rockers maintained and validated theirs and others membership (or not) in the scene.

The continued existence of a group, in a stable form, depends upon the flow of negotiated behaviors by those who perceive themselves as its members. We reaffirm our group memberships with other members everyday and all the time. By behaving according to group expectations we communicate our willingness to be group members. Our conformity to group expectations and agreed upon rules and procedures establishes our level of group membership. In more formal groups (the military, for instance) we are more convincing in asserting our membership because rules and procedures are written down and made clear, the rational nature of the rules and procedures validate our membership claims. In less formal groups we must engage in intense interactional negotiations to ascertain membership statuses, there is no formally written down evidence that backs-up our membership claims.

Chicago’s indie scene existed as a group because of the behaviors of musicians and other members that validated its existence. The scene was an informal group, however. There were no written rules or procedures that members pointed to as evidence to back up their membership claims. Instead, indie rockers validated their membership claims, and ultimately the existence of the scene, through intense and continuous interactions with each other.

When situations become problematic, when groups’ definitional existences (and thus definitions of self) become ambiguous, group members often insist on orthodox behaviors from other members (Dewey, p. 164). That is, when we do not know what to do, we refer back to the rules and procedures of our organizations for guidance, and insist that other members do as well. If group rules do not supply us with appropriate behavioral responses, then we negotiate new behaviors, we work with other members to bring definitional clarity back to the group situation.

The action orientation of a group, the agreed upon activities in which group members engage, consists of its meaningful objects and, of course, the symbols members use to refer to the objects (Blumer, p. 69). The more formal the group, the more well defined are its objects. In less well defined groups objects are more ambiguous, there are more objects that need to be defined through spontaneous interactional negotiation. Thus, members in less well defined organizations spend more time negotiating the meanings of group objects (rules and procedures) and less time pursuing stated group goals.

Because of the paradox where musicians expected each other to stay loyal to the scene while at the same time trying to move beyond it[i], Chicago’s indie scene, as an informal group, was always in a definitionally problematic state. Members’ attempts at resolving this state took the form of intense interactional negotiations about group identity. Indeed, these identity negotiations were the overriding activity in which indie rockers engaged, probably surpassing even their directly musical activities. Because the action orientation of the scene was not well defined, members had to constantly negotiate the meaning of the scene and, therefor, their own membership in it.

Reference Groups

Some groups, our reference groups, provide our everyday actions and behaviors with consistency because, no matter what the interactional situation, we look to reference group objects, and role-take reference group people and roles, in making our own roles (Shibutani, p. 250). When viewing ourselves from the perspective of others, in knowing ourselves as members of groups, our reference groups come to mind more often than other organizations. Reference groups consistently influence our behavioral choices, whereas less referenced group memberships influence our behaviors only in isolated incidents.

Reference groups serve as social controls on our behaviors, they limit alternative types of behavior for us (Shibutani, p. 254). When making decisions about behavioral choices in isolated incidents, we must select between a myriad of choices, each espoused by different others, different group members, and members of different groups. We will most often choose the path, the behavior, that we feel will fulfill our membership in our reference groups, and least often choose the paths preferred by members in our most isolated groups. Reference groups provide consistency of behavior because we will make the same choice, with regards to similar situations, on a routine basis, choices that reflect our view of members in our reference groups.

Chicago’s indie rock scene was influential for its members, it was very much a reference group. Members referred to it, in choosing their behaviors, consistently, constantly, and across situations. That is, people who considered themselves to be members of the indie scene, who considered themselves to be indie rockers, made mundane life choices that they thought would confirm their indie scene membership in the eyes of others whom they perceived to be indie scene members.

Reference groups, therefore, provide us with our most consistent motive talk (Shibutani, p. 254). We use reference group motive talk in numerous situations, whether we are in the midst of reference group actors or not. What motivates us, and influences us to make the choices we do, comes more often than not from our reference groups, not from isolated groups. The indie scene provides members with language that they use to frame their behaviors, whether among or isolated from other scene members, most notably in referring to selling out.

We do not necessarily personally know all of the other members in our reference groups, they do not have to be small and intimate. Indeed, many reference groups are large, ambiguous, and abstract. They are this way precisely because of the way they influence our behavioral choices across a range of situational activities. The indie rock scene, as a reference group, was large and ambiguous. Indie rockers often did not refer to specific other indie rockers in role taking. Rather they referred to the generalized other of the indie rock scene. So it was a vague sense of what the generalized indie scene was that motivated indie rockers to action, not a concern with the perspectives of specific others.

In situations where group loyalties come into conflict, where perceptions of our group memberships are ambiguous, our loyalty to groups is questioned (Shibutani, p. 259). “Whose side are you on?” is the question here. We are sometimes expected to make a clear choice of group memberships. Our answer to the question will be our reference groups. Indie rockers, by definition, chose what they perceived as the indie scene, along with its motive talk, over other possible groups as their reference group, as the group that most closely defined their identities.

Personal Identity, Self-image

When we are in the company of our reference group members we feel “like ourselves.” We see objects, and see others seeing objects, in a comfortable, seemingly natural way; in a way we most understand and enjoy.

Cooley’s looking-glass self states that our conception of self as a member of a group is a reflection of others’ perceptions of us as group members. If others think we are members, then they act toward us as members, and we, through role taking, view ourselves as members. In less formal groups, those without official roles and objects that signal status positions (i.e. military stripes), we constantly negotiate memberships, constantly interact with others on the basis of negotiating group membership identities. In such groups we constantly work to influence others’ perceptions of us as group members.

Indie rockers, because they fancied themselves members of an informal group (the indie rock scene), had to convince other perceived indie rockers, through presentations of self, that they were, indeed, indie scene members. The presentational convincing took the form of constant interactional negotiations, one form of which is motive talk.

Our self-conceptions are reinforced by these social relationships (Shibutani, p. 217). After imagining how others will react to our behaviors, we act. When others react the way we imagined, our perceptions of self are reinforced. Once we can accurately predict the responses of group members we are full group members. Indie rockers acted based on their perceptions of how other perceived indie rockers would react. The more accurate they were at making such interactional predictions, the more they considered themselves members of the indie scene.

Groups contain factions (Smith [Kotarba], pp. 107-08), each pressing for its version of the definition of the group. So group self-identities, within our perceptions of self, often conflict as we role-take. We must make choices about which factions to placate, which factions to annoy. The two important factions in Chicago’s indie scene coincided with the selling out paradox. Some members felt musicians should stay loyal to the scene, to making records in an independent fashion. Others saw nothing wrong with attempting to construct a career in the indie scene that would lead to a further career in the major label industry.

Our self-identities change as others’ expectations of us change (Ebaugh [Kotarba], p. 156). As our careers progress we will, when role-taking, notice changes in what others expect of us, in how we think others will react to our behaviors. Often others’ expectations of us change before we are ready. We must then adjust our perceptions of how others perceive us, if we want to act consistently with group expectations. Sometimes, however, we fight against newly acquired identities. “I’m still the same,” we might say. When this occurs we behave so as to convince others that we are still the same.

Depending on their “success” within the major label music industry, indie musicians’ perceptions of self and others changed. To move into the major label industry, for example by signing a recording contract, would literally be perceived as selling out by those still in the indie scene exclusively. The musicians signing the contract knew this. They knew, when they signed the contract, how they would be perceived by others, and they acted accordingly.

The Role of Language

We reveal our intentions through gestures (Shibutani, p.146-47), mainly language. For things to run smoothly, for us to be convincing (and convinced) in our claims to group status, the talk between group members must be convincing. We must convince each other, through talk (and other gestures), that we are who we say we are. . .members of the group. Thus it was through motive talk that indie rockers convinced each other, and themselves, of their membership in the indie scene.

Talk thrives on problematic situations, situations in which objects are not clearly defined. When we are not sure of the definitions of objects in the situation, we talk about them, we define them through interactional negotiation. Since the selling out paradox made the indie scene constantly problematic, indie rockers talked constantly about meanings and memberships in the scene.

In defining how we feel about objects, we declare how we intend to act toward the object (we declare our understanding of the definition of the situation). This, in turn, is a direct reflection and assertion about our group memberships. If we define objects (through talk) the same as other members, then we are members; if we define (through talk) objects contrary to other group members, then we are unlikely to be members ourselves.

Indie rocker motive talk was an attempt by indie rockers to agree on the “indie” definition of the situation. No matter that they seldom came to a consensus as to objects’ definitions, it was the behavior that mattered, the performance of definitional negotiation was enough to solidify one’s membership in the indie rock group.

Self-esteem

When we role-take we judge ourselves from a moral standpoint (Hewitt, pp. 94-5). We judge our performances as “good” or “bad,” as we think others judge them as good or bad. Thus, we judge our group membership performances as good or bad as we think others judge our performances as good or bad. Indie rockers judged their own behaviors, through their perceptions of other indie rockers views of their behaviors (role-taking), as good indie behavior or bad indie behavior. In their desire to be seen as “good” indie rockers, then, they adjusted their behaviors to fit what they felt others would see as good indie behavior.

Furthermore, we seek recognition from others in their worlds, in their groups (Shibutani, p. 274). We want to maintain acceptable definitions of self in the eyes of fellow group members. We care about the opinions of others about self. So we act so as to maintain positive conceptions of self from the standpoint of others, and thus from the standpoint of self. Indie rockers acted so as to maintain a “positive indie member” sense of self.

Aligning Actions and Motive Talk

We use aligning actions when we perceive that our behaviors are devalued by other group members (Hewitt, pp. 140-41), when we feel that others have a negative conception of our self. Aligning actions are meant to prevent devaluation of self in the eyes of others. Indie rockers used aligning actions when they felt that others saw them as “negative indie members” as a result of their acting in perceived poor indie fashion (that is, if they wanted to be seen as indie members).

Motives and Motive Talk

A specific form of talk, motive talk, arises when an act is called into question (Hewitt, p. 142), either by real or imaginary others (real or imaginary depending on one’s perceptions). Motive talk lays clear the intentions of the act. As an aligning action, motive talk is an attempt to maintain our identity in the face of discrediting perceptions of our actions. Indie rockers used motive talk as aligning actions, to maintain their indie status in light of discrediting behaviors in the eyes of other indie scene members.

By role-taking before acting, we create motives for action (Shibutani, pp. 76-7). These motives are aims, they give direction to our actions. When asked why we acted the way we did, we can fall back on the motives we already created, a set of culturally approved reasons for acting. Reasons that will, in our perceptions, maintain our group memberships. Indie rockers, therefore, had motives for the actions, motives that they kept in their heads. These motives gave indie rockers direction to act in what they perceived as appropriate indie scene fashion.

Important here is that a group’s ability to attract and retain members is directly correlated with its ability to provide a vocabulary of motives (a set of motives to direct members’ actions). We are more likely to stay members of groups that provide motives and motive talk, groups that maintain our positive self-esteem. As I will show, the indie scene provided indie members with motive talk (“Persistence Pays Off” and “Identifying Indie Successful Bands”) that helped them maintain their indie memberships. This motive talk also provided indie members with motives for their behaviors, motives that gave direction to members’ behaviors.

Career Failure and the Need for Aligning Actions

Our expectations of career lines often run up against reality (Hewitt, p. 193). When this occurs, we must remake our selves. Already attained positions are reinterpreted. Indie rockers’ career plans were often antithetical to their presentation of motive talk. This irony provides what I call the Selling Out Paradox, a perception by indie rockers that industry success was defined as failure, and industry failure defined as success.

Our adjusted career aspirations become problems for organizations as well as for ourselves because group members had expectations that coincided with our own expectations. Thus, all group members (including ourselves) were prepared to adjust their definitions of objects as we advanced along our careers. When our careers stall, all must readjust their expectations of readjustment.

Failed indie bands were a problem (as in a problematic situation) not only for the bands’ members, but also for the maintenance of the indie scene as a whole. Other indie members had to fit failed bands into an established motive talk, or create new talk, in order to understand the band’s career path (failure) within the framework of the indie scene. Motive talk explained away failed careers by putting the careers and behaviors in an “indie positive” light.

The Paradox of Selling out: Authenticity and Success

The selling out paradox for Chicago's indie musicians was to create authentically pure art products yet with an eye to constructing stable careers in the mainstream music industry. Art worlds offer career paths unique from others in that art is often thought of as something above and beyond the market place. That is, "pure" art is not seen as a commodity, and those who choose to make art should not expect material rewards. The goal of a pure art career is non-material respect for one's work by those who understand, namely the members of one's art scene. This perspective contrasts with the goal of corporate commodity driven careers, for instance, where success is defined by increasing one's salary through filling ever more important positions within a business. It is not the goal of a pure art career to increase one's salary. The basic contradiction for Chicago's indie rock musicians was that these two career types converged. The music was considered art--pure art--but the act of selling records was a commodity driven enterprise. Thus, the goals of art and commerce were in acute conflict.

Indie musicians wishing to have successful careers in the rock recording industry had to reconcile the conflict between the goals of the commodity driven industry and the goals of indie rock as an art form. Attempts at reconciling this conflict took the form of moral debates over "selling out." The debate served as "motive talk" (Hewitt Dilemmas) that allowed musicians to present their bands as authentically indie rock while pursuing major label contracts. Motive talk, as already discussed, is an effort to preserve socially desirable identities. When social actors succeed in claiming legitimate or understandable motives for their acts, they also succeed in maintaining and reinforcing their identities. That is, they persuade others to see them, and they are enabled to see themselves, as individuals acting in socially desirable and approved ways, and thus to be identified with others and with shared conceptions of the good (225).
Indie rock musicians used motive talk to assure each other that although they might appear to be aiming for recording industry success, they were still grounded in the artistically pure and desirable world of Chicago's indie scene. They used motive talk to maintain their membership in what they perceived to be Chicago’s indie rock scene.

Indie rockers judged bands as being more or less authentic to indie rock conventions. They discussed authenticity in much the same way as Simon Frith discusses it in Sound Effects, it was the perceived sincere presentation of indie conventions. That is, self-identified indie rock audiences had to accept bands' presentations of indie conventions as rooted in the real experience of Chicago's local indie scene, and not as fabricated attempts at capitalizing on industry fad.

Musicians' dual focus on industry success and indie authenticity created a significant quandary. The level of art world activity that indie rockers saw as most authentic was also seen as relatively unsuccessful. In this sense, the purist form of indie rock music was performed by unsigned bands because they were seen as a part of the audiences for whom they played; they were playing "folk" music. The quandary for bands that were successful in the major label industry was that they were inevitably seen by indie rockers as having lost contact with the indigenous scene. They no longer represented their original audience base. They were no longer members of the indie scene. This loss of membership is what Chicago's indie rockers commonly meant by "selling out."

Another paradox for unsigned indie musicians was related to their perceived chances of success within the major label recording industry. Indie musicians realized that most bands did not make it to the major labels. To combat this discouraging reality, indie rockers constructed other levels of success that encouraged and rewarded bands at the local unsigned level. A major indicator of success within the scene was the perception of bands' indie authenticity (their indie membership). Since many bands would never sign major label contracts, they defined authentic indie rock music as something that they could produce. Authentic indie rock music was something at which a relatively large proportion of bands could be successful. The paradox is that bands were comforted or reassured by the rewards for local indie authenticity, but on the industry level this reward meant failure.

At the same time that local unsigned musicians criticized the recording industry and accused major label bands of selling out, some bands that were once considered indie authentic but had made it to the majors were revered for their success. These bands were seen as having beaten the odds and were successful at something at which very few bands were. Although they were not considered authentic indie rock bands anymore, these bands were still regarded as successful and as something to be emulated.

Because indie rockers perceived two levels of success (artistic and industry), musicians could claim artistic success for their bands even when they were not successful within the recording industry. Statements like the following were common among indie musicians in unsigned bands: "We haven't had any financial or critical success, but I think we've had a lot of artistic success" (personal interview). Other bands were apparently industry successful without having earned indie scene authenticity. Indie musicians accordingly felt that the recording industry support personnel had the power to make bands successful on the recording industry level, with or without indie authenticity. The manager of a major label band that was relatively successful on the industry level as well as having earned considerable indie artistic authenticity made the point that "power managers" have the ability to bring industry success to artistically mediocre bands.

"I cringe when I see mediocre bands…just because they have a power manager…they're a mediocre band that happens to become successful because someone was pushing for them. Some bands are great and they're overlooked because no one is really behind them pushing them. At the same time I know so many bands who have an unjustified amount of success because somebody was there pushing them to do certain things. Or they also manage a huge act on that label…like the manager of Genesis on Atlantic will bring in some bimbo Top 40 person, and all of a sudden they're high on the charts simply because he has the clout on Atlantic to make sure they get marketed right." (personal interview)

The manager is suggesting that even artistically authentic bands need the help of industry executives if they want to attain industry success. No band can be successful in the recording industry, no matter how artistically authentic they are, without the help of industry support personnel. All of Chicago's indie musicians believed this to be true. Thus, if selling out was defined as bands giving control over their artistic products to industry support personnel (personnel who more than likely were not part of Chicago’s indie scene), then all bands that made a living at the major label level were sell-outs (they had all become non-members); and all musicians that wanted to make a living at this level would have to sell-out (they would have to renounce scene membership).

Industry Success

Artistic authenticity and indie scene membership notwithstanding, Chicago's indie rock musicians wanted to "make a living" playing music. Artistic authenticity (indie membership) did not compensate for industry success.

"I still want to realize that fantasy of getting signed and going on the road. And that's one of the things I still haven't done. I haven't experienced it at that level. I've experienced performing at a fairly high level, and I've experienced the working of it, and I've experienced practicing, and being obsessed with music. And getting just the right sound, getting this lick down, or the grooving of this particular kind of music. But I haven't gotten to that next step of going on a long tour and having a record, being signed to a label and that sort of thing. And that's the next level up." (personal interview)

Any musician who says "I'm just in it for the art," they gotta be bullshitting. In the long run you definitely want something out of it. (personal interview)

For musicians to consider their bands real successes they had to move out of the local indie scene and into the mainstream recording industry. They had to move to the next level.

And so the basic paradox facing indie rock musicians remained. They wanted to construct careers in the major label recording industry while at the same time decrying major label industry success because they saw it in conflict with artistic authenticity. Yet Chicago's indie rock musicians pursued these two seemingly incompatible ideals simultaneously.

In this section I discuss the skepticism engendered in unsigned indie musicians when viewing their chances of succeeding in the major label industry (and thus leaving the indie scene). I describe two definitional strategies that indie musicians used as motive talk to explain their own lack of success in the recording industry (and thus their solid membership in the indie scene): “Persistence Pays Off,” and “Identifying Indie Successful Bands.” Both of these strategies were more than talk alone. They motivated the ways musicians attempted to construct their own bands’ careers in relation to the selling out paradox.

Skepticism

Musicians in unsigned bands tended to temper their goals of securing major label contracts with skepticism about their actual chances.

M-Are you interested in eventually making this your living?
R-Definitely. But we're not gonna be surprised if it doesn't work out. (personal interview)

Indie musicians' skepticism was motive talk for discussing what, on the level of the recording industry, were seen as unsuccessful careers. Skeptical talk allowed musicians to account for their bands' lack of industry success in comforting ways, comforting in that it affirmed their membership in the indie scene.

In one sense skepticism helped to cushion the blow of failed industry success. By downplaying their chances at a major label contract, musicians in unsigned bands were not disappointed in their lack of success. Two comparative examples are enlightening here. Surfers in Southern California are often skeptical about how the waves will be while on their way to surf. They talk among themselves about how it was a waste of time to get up in the morning (they often surf before dawn) because the surf is going to be bad. Thus, if the waves really are bad, then the surfers will not be disappointed. If the waves are good, it is a nice surprise. Similarly, the skepticism of unsigned indie rock bands about their chances at industry success cushion the blow if they really do fail. If they do not make it to the major labels, it is expected. If they do make it, it is a happily unexpected event.

Another comparative example of skepticism, one much closer to home, occurs when graduate students and recent PhDs looking for jobs talk of how tough the market is. They discuss among themselves how only the lucky few get jobs right away. The rest have to stick it out, and maybe eventually things will get better. Such skepticism is motive talk that serves to deflect ideas that students' failure on the job market may be their fault. Maybe they just are not good enough. Similarly, skepticism engaged by unsigned indie rock musicians deflected implications that their bands did not make it to the major labels because they were not good enough.

In another sense the skepticism of musicians in unsigned bands strengthened their claims to indie scene authenticity (membership). Failing to make it to the major labels was a badge of honor. It demonstrated bands' commitment to the local indie scene. This function of skepticism is similar to Liebow's suggestion that lower-class Black men develop a "shadow system of values" that is "[d]erivative, insubstantial, and co-occurring" (213) with the parent system of middle-class values. Liebow's argument is that lower-class Black men would like to partake in the value system of mainstream society, but they adapt to conditions as "failures" in America's economic order. The shadow system gives the men a set of positive values that give worth to their lives. Similarly, indie musicians' skepticism provided a system of values in the shadows of the mainstream music industry. Musicians wanted to make it into the industry, but in the face of failure, skepticism provided for a system of values emphasizing authenticity by which musicians could feel good about their indie performance.

Persistence Pays Off

The skeptical motive talk of indie musicians took two forms. One was talk of "Persistence Pays Off," the other was "Identifying Indie Successful Bands." First, many musicians felt that their chances for success in the recording industry (and thus leaving the indie scene) were enhanced through persistence.

"I think the key for us, or for any band really, is to be persistent. To stay together as a unit, not to have a lot of personnel changes. Maybe just staying together. Bands that continue playing for years eventually have probably a better chance at succeeding than a band that's only together for a year. One band continues, and other bands, the rivals or competition, keep disbanding. The band that continues, obviously, has a somewhat better chance." (personal interview)

Since many musicians felt that artistic competence was not directly correlated with industry success, other factors were seen as responsible for bands' making it to the major labels. Persistence, in the form of not breaking-up, was one of these factors.

Not only did indie musicians feel that persistence was a way of making it to the major labels, they also felt that persistence was a reward in itself. They felt that bands that stayed together for a long time deserved to have industry success, as the following musician said about a successful major label band.

"Of course they worked. They toured plenty and they made their grass roots connection with people. So they should get their due. However, I never thought their music was particularly challenging." (personal interview)

This drummer suggested that it was persistence rather than the quality of the band's music that entitled them to industry success. He respected them for their persistence if not their music, and thus held them as an example for the effectiveness of persistence.

One guitarist suggested that his band was like a family, and families do what they can to stay together.

"It's the same way, say, your family is all pissed off at each other. You just forget about it. Even though you're mad at each other…you're mad at your brother but you've got to go on vacation together and you've already got everything packed up. What do you do? You don't cancel the vacation and leave you at home because you're mad at your brother. You all go. You have to sit there in the same car no matter what. You just forget about it after a while. And that's how it goes. John (the vocalist) and I weren't speaking to each other the day before that show. He walked out on practice because he was mad at me for something totally stupid. At the shows that doesn't matter, you still play. There's this one thing that's more important than all your petty arguments, your family. Keeping your family together is more important than you and your brother fighting." (personal interview)

Persistence was one of the only aspects of their bands that indie musicians felt they could control in their attempts at moving out of the local scene and into the major label recording industry. Persistence was more than something musicians talked about, it motivated their behaviors. Indie musicians spent much of their practical time simply trying to keep their bands together. Sometimes it was more important to stay together and be able to maintain musicians' claims to the status of rock band than for them actually to engage in the core artistic activities of rehearsing, playing live gigs, and recording. One guitarist said that his band had regular "band meetings" when the members would get together, without playing their instruments, and talk about the status of the band.

"We'll either have the meetings before practice or after practice; like a serious "turn the god damned amp off and let's talk." Or we'll go out and have a beer or two and talk that way." (personal interview)

Musicians’ strategies for resolving their bands’ disagreements were conceptually similar to what Hochschild describes as "gender strategies." These are strategies that husbands and wives use in managing family housework that have direct implications for keeping families together. Spouses construct, maintain, and reconstruct their strategies in attempts to mesh their separate beliefs about gender roles in families with the reality of their own relationship. Sometimes strategies fail and spouses break-up, but this does not negate the importance of husbands and wives trying to develop interactional strategies to keep their families together. Similarly, the ways that indie musicians handled disagreements among their members were strategies for keeping their band together. As with families, sometimes strategies failed and bands broke-up, but the belief that Persistence Pays Off led musicians to develop strategies in an attempt to keep their bands together--Persistence Pays Off was a motive for indie musicians’ behaviors.

Bands also existed as entities above and beyond the membership of individual musicians. For the sake of the band, and its chances at industry success through persistence, musicians were often kicked out of, or voluntarily quit their bands. A band that still had its name was often seen as the same band, even though it may have consisted of only a fraction of its original members. Again, the idea that Persistence Pays Off reinforced the idea that a "band" would still exist above and beyond its members, and thus motivated musicians actions.

Identifying Indie Successful Bands

Along with using strategies of persistence to combat skepticism about their chances for success in the music industry (and leaving the indie scene), indie musicians qualified their visions of making it to the major labels by identifying bands that they considered indie authentic yet industry successful. These were bands that appeared to maintain control over their art products while making records for major labels. That is, they appeared to maintain their indie scene membership while, at the same time, selling out.

"Like Babes in Toyland, or even Sonic Youth, something like that. Who wouldn't want to be in Sonic Youth's shoes? Big, and having the freedom to record and play, but not being a World Theater packing band." (personal interview)

Identifying these kinds of bands was how indie rockers constructed an image of a place in the recording industry for bands that were not willing to sell-out, a place where bands could be successful both within Chicago’s indie scene and outside of it. Sonic Youth might not pack the World Theater (a Chicago-area arena reserved for the top audience drawing stars of popular music), but they could make a living in the industry without compromising their indie authenticity.

Identifying Indie Successful Bands highlights a contradiction in indie rockers' perceptions of selling out. On one hand indie rockers were consistent in their verbal rejection of anything relating to the major label recording industry. Yet, since indie bands were actively trying to make it to the major labels, the identification of successful indie bands in the major label ranks was important as motive talk. Musicians felt there was a desirable place in the major label recording industry for bands that did not sell-out, and they could identify this place through identifying these bands.

Persistence Pays Off and Identifying Indie Successful Bands were strategies used by musicians in constructing "realistic" success goals for their own bands. Many bands stayed together five or more years without receiving any type of interest from major label executives, yet their belief in the motive talk of persistence kept them together. Similarly, the identification of indie authentic yet industry successful bands was important because unsigned indie musicians would try to model their own bands' careers on what they knew of these other bands' careers.

These two motive talk strategies were also ways for musicians to maintain their bands’ memberships in the local indie scene. Persistence Pays Off harkened back to an idea of hard work pays off. “We are still here,” the argument seemed to go, “because we work hard and do not give up. We have not, obviously, sold out.” Identifying Indie Successful Bands gave musicians an industry successful band, a band that had for all purposes become non-members, to mold their own careers after. Both strategies, then, served as behavioral motives for musicians and their bands.

References

Blumer, Herbert. 1969. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspectives and Method. University of California Press.

Dewey, John. 1988. Human Nature and Conduct. Southern Illinois Press.

Ebaugh, Helen Rose Fuchs. 1984. “Leaving the Convent: The Experience of Role Exit and Self-Transformation,” in Joseph A Kotarba and Andrea Fontana, The Existential Self in Society. University of Chicago Press.

Frith, Simon. 1981. Sound Effects: Youth, Leisure, and the Politics of Rock ‘n’ Roll. Pantheon.

Hewitt, John P. 1990. Dilemmas of the American Self. Temple University Press.

Hewitt, John P. 1999. Self and Society: A Symbolic Interactionists Social Psychology. Allyn and Bacon.

Liebow, Elliot. 1967. Tally’s Corner. Little, Brown, and Company.

Smith, Roland W. 1984. “And Existential View of Organizations: Is the Member Condemned to be Free,” in Joseph A Kotarba and Andrea Fontana, The Existential Self in Society. University of Chicago Press.

Shibutani, Tomatsu. 1991. Society and Personality: An Interactionist Approach to Social Psychology. Transaction Publishers.

Chicago's Indie Rock Music World

Here's another paper I wrote; this one in 1997.

Chicago’s Indie Rock Music World

Art worlds consist of artists, audiences, and support personnel (Becker). Artists produce the art, audiences consume the art, and support personnel bring artists and audiences together. In this paper I describe a system of nightclubs, college radio stations, and arts periodicals that served as support personnel for some Chicago musicians to produce and present a particular type of art form, “indie rock.”

Chicago’s indie rock music world of the early nineties was a place where support personnel in the form of nightclubs, college radio stations, and arts periodicals provided musicians with arenas to present their music as well as rationales for their existence. Nightclubs provided bands with spaces to present their art form, indie rock music. College radio stations broadcast bands’ music, giving them a performance outlet and an aesthetic rationale for creating indie music. Arts periodicals served as barometers for indie rockers to check on the progress of local bands and, in writing about indie rock, created and aesthetic frame for understanding the music.

Finally, in the Conclusion I argue that descriptive empirical ethnographies such as this are essential to our understandings of rock music worlds. They are the first step in the creation of theoretical constructs about generic rock worlds.

The Research

Data for this paper come from two years of participant observation fieldwork, from 1992 through 1994, I the world of unsigned Chicago indie rock bands. During this time I attended an average of two live rock shows per week, was a columnist for a Chicago-based indie rock fanzine, and a disc jockey at a college radio station.

The research began in June of 1992 with five weeks of observations with an unsigned band named Rustbucket. I attended Rustbucket’s rehearsals and live shows as well as spending time with band members in casual, non-band related activities. Through the members of Rustbucket I met other members of Chicago’s rock world, and through these other members I met still others.

By means of this snowball sampling technique I conducted forty-two interviews (Table 1). Two aspects of the world studied define it from others. One was the local unsigned status of the interviewed, a second was the self-definition of these people as “indie.” First, thirty-nine of the forty-two interviews were with individuals familiar with Chicago’s rock music world, and twenty-five were musicians in unsigned bands. All of the fieldwork was conducted in Chicago, and as a journalist and radio disc jockey I participated in Chicago’s rock world.

TABLE 1

THE INTERVIEWED

25 Musicians in Unsigned, Local Bands

5 Owners of Independent Recording Labels

3 Musicians in Major Label, Non-local Bands

2 Musicians in Major Label, Local Bands

2 Recording Engineers

1 Band Manager

1 Booking Agent

1 Musician in an Independent Label, Local Band

1 Nightclub Owner

1 Rock Music Journalist

The second defining aspect of the data stems from the results of snowball sampling. Because interviewees provided contacts for further people to interview, I collected a non-random sample of friends and associates. The term these friends and associates used to refer to themselves and their world was “indie.” They spoke of “indie bands,” “indie rock,” indie recording labels,” and an “indie scene,” assuming a general understanding of the term. For indie rockers, “indie” was short for “independent,” as in independent from the mainstream recording industry.

Chicago’s Indie Rock Music World

Nightclubs

Chicago’s live indie rock world centered around twelve nightclubs that can be arranged in a hierarchy based on the percentage of bands they featured with major and independent label recording contracts (Table 2). The clubs were all located within the city limits, and they all presented live music at least four nights a week —- Wednesday through Saturday.

TABLE 2

CLUB LEVELS BASED ON BOOKING OF MAJOR LABEL, INDEPENDENT LABEL, AND UNSIGNED BANDS

2 Upper-Level Clubs:

Major Label Bands (13%, n=8), Independent Label Bands (23%, n=14), Unsigned Bands (64%, n=39)

4 Mid-Level Clubs:

Major Label Bands (6%, n=3), Independent Label Bands (13%, n=6), Unsigned Bands (81%, n=38)

6 Entry-Level Clubs:

Major Label Bands (0%), Independent Label Bands (0%), Unsigned Bands (100%, n=47)

Chicago’s two upper-level indie clubs featured more major label bands than either the mid- or entry-level clubs. The upper-level clubs also featured more bands with independent label recording contracts. Mid-level clubs, on the other hand, featured some major label bands and some independent level bands, but the focus was clearly on unsigned bands. Finally, entry-level clubs featured unsigned bands exclusively.

In constructing their careers, Chicago’s indie musicians expected their bands to move from opening gigs on slow nights (i.e. Wednesday and Thursday) at entry-level clubs, to headlining weekend gigs at mid-level clubs, to opening gigs for major label bands on weekends at one of Chicago’s two upper-level clubs. Dan, of Rustbucket, in discussing why a particular gig was poorly attended, touched on the urgency with which musicians wanted to progress to better gigs within the club world.

"You wouldn’t want to play too many nights like that last show. There was nobody there. Two unknown bands on a Wednesday. Well, you’re never going to get many people to a show like that." (fieldnotes)

To become integrated into Chicago’s mid- and upper-level clubs was seen as the mark of a successful band. Said Terry, Dan’s bandmate in Rustbucket:

"I wanted to headline the Avalon [a mid-level club] on a weekend. I wanted to open for a band at the Metro [an upper-level club] on a Saturday. We’ve reached all of the goals we set out for. Thus, I consider this band a success." (fieldnotes)

Dan and Terry are describing what many musicians saw as the hierarchical structure of Chicago’s indie nightclubs, a structure that corresponded with the label affiliation of the clubs’ bookings. To move beyond opening for a major label band at an upper-level club was to move beyond playing the local network, to tour. And, in fact, this was the goal of most musicians: “The thing I want to do the most is go on a tour” (personal interview).

Nightclubs played different roles in Chicago’s indie world based on their position in the hierarchy. Entry-level clubs provided a number of services to both the rock world and the community at large. Mid-level clubs, on the other hand, were live rock clubs exclusively, featuring a mix of independent and unsigned bands. Upper-level clubs concentrated on the upper-echelon of nationally and internationally known rock bands, making it difficult for local unsigned bands to secure gigs. What follows is a discussion of exemplary clubs from the three hierarchical levels.

Entry-level Clubs. Entry-level clubs were multipurpose venues, functioning as both neighborhood bars and rock music clubs. Representative of such clubs was the Beat Kitchen, a three hundred person capacity club on Belmont Avenue. The Beat Kitchen was a long, rectangular club consisting of two rooms. The front room, which patrons entered from the street, was a bar and pub eatery. The back room, separated from the front by swinging doors, was the live music room. Because of the separation between the rooms, patrons could come to the Beat Kitchen without seeing or, when the doors were closed, without hearing the performing bands.
The Beat Kitchen featured live music, and sometimes theatrical productions and films, Monday through Saturday nights. Monday through Thursday patrons paid a cover charge of $2 or $3, and then only if they wanted to go into the back room. On slow nights they could lounge in the front room for no charge other than food and drink. On weekends, however, patrons paid a $7 or $8 cover charge to get into the club as a whole.

The life blood of entry-level clubs was their regular clientele, patrons who come without regard for the club’s entertainment. These clubs did not try to compete for live bands with higher level clubs. The manager of the Morseland, for instance, conceded that he sometimes booked bad bands because his club was not high enough on the competitive agenda of musicians.

"If a band plays once or twice a month in Wicker Park, why would they want to come up to Rogers Park to play the Morseland? Nobody would come up here ‘cause they know they could see them down there. So we’re at kind of a competitive disadvantage, and so we have some not so good bands sometimes." (fieldnotes)

The Morseland was at a disadvantage because of its location. It was too far away from Wicker Park, a neighborhood considered to be the center of Chicago’s indie scene, to draw a decent crowd. As a result, they booked a lot of non-rock (jazz, world music) bands and, as with many other entry level clubs, had “open mic” night on Wednesdays, where anyone wishing could get on stage and perform. Entry-level clubs, therefore, were not solely rock clubs. They were bars that catered to the diverse interests of local neighborhoods.

Mid-level Clubs. Mid-level clubs specialized in live rock music. The Avalon, a club located on Belmont Avenue east of the Beat Kitchen, was a representative mid-level club. It had a maximum capacity of 750 people, and was open from Wednesday through Saturday only.

Unlike entry-level clubs, the Avalon was strictly and obviously a rock music club. The sound system was exceptionally loud, the lighting was dim to none, and since there were but four or five tables in the entire club, most of the patrons were forced to stand or mill about. The Avalon did not serve food. “When you come here,” said Avalon owner Roger, “you’re in a rock and roll club. There’s no doubt about it” (personal interview).

The Avalon’s role in Chicago’s indie music scene was ambiguous. Twenty-five percent of the club’s bands were affiliated with independent recording labels, and they featured three unsigned bands a night, four nights a week, both as headliners and openers. For this reason indie rockers saw the Avalon as a club that took chances on unproven bands. One reason for the club’s ambiguity among indie rockers, however, was their inclination to book bands from outside the indie music genre. For instance, Wednesday nights at the Avalon were devoted to heavy metal bands.

Another aspect of the Avalon that hindered its credibility in the indie scene was the perceived substandard talent of many bands that performed there. Avalon’s bands were seen by some as
bands "that will exist for six months and then disappear. They’re not really committed musicians or anything. A lot of those are sort of goof off bands." (personal interview)

Roger defended his club by emphasizing its commitment to local unsigned talent. He admitted that some of the bands he booked were not very good, but this was because he booked as least sixteen bands a week. He felt the Avalon was an important part of the indie rock scene because he regularly booked unsigned bands to open for well known independent label bands, an act he felt supported unsigned bands on the road to mainstream industry success.

Roger’s perception of the importance of his club was echoed by indie rock musicians. When describing their goals or important moments in their careers, musicians often spoke first of opening for independent label bands and then headlining weekends at the Avalon. They felt that playing the Avalon (or any other mid-level clubs) on weekends was an early sign of success and integration in Chicago’s indie world.

Upper-level Clubs. The upper-level club most accessible to local unsigned bands was the Metro, an 1,100 person capacity club on Clark Street near Wrigley Field. The Metro’s accessibility was due mainly to their Wednesday night series when they featured three or four local unsigned bands. Because this was often the first time bands played the Metro, and because playing here on weekends was a priority, musicians felt Wednesday night shows important to getting the attention of the Metro’s talent buyer. Doing well on Wednesday night “is a way of showing the Metro that we are a band worth booking on future dates” (personal interview).

Lounge Ax, the other upper-level club, featured indie genre bands almost exclusively. Lounge Ax was located in Chicago’s Lincoln park neighborhood and held 250 people. Local unsigned bands had their best chance of opening a gig at Lounge Ax on Wednesday and Thursdays, with weekends reserved for more popular label affiliated bands. Unlike the relative ease with which bands seemed to get Wednesday gigs at the Metro, however, unsigned bands found it difficult to get booked at Lounge Ax.

"We’d like to play Lounge Ax, but that’s a whole political problem because it doesn’t seem like the owner is very into local talent. It’s a battle, but we’ll keep trying. I’m not gonna lose any sleep over it because we can easily play other venues." (personal interview)

This sentiment was echoed by a number of musicians in unsigned bands, bands that had played Wednesdays, and even opened on weekends, at the Metro. Because of the caliber of talent that Lounge Ax booked on a regular basis, however, it maintained its status on the upper-level of Chicago indie rock clubs.

College Radio

College radio stations played two roles in Chicago’s indie world. First, they maintained a rationale that justified indie rock as a music genre. Second, they gave unsigned bands their first opportunities to be heard by local indie rockers.

WNUR, Northwestern University’s radio station, was operated entirely by Northwestern University students, instructors, and staff. Along with the Rock Show, the station had a Jazz Show, the Continental Drift show (featuring world music), two hip-hop music shows (Street Beat and 6 Feet Unda), a blues show, a ska music show, a free form show (any style of recorded sounds could be heard during this show), a soul show, a classical music show, a folk music show, and acid jazz show, a heavy metal show, a punk rock show, and a reggae music show. The Rock Show, however, occupied more hours than any other show (nine hours per day, five days a week) and was on the air during the station’s prime hours of 2:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M.

Much of WNUR’s respect in the indie scene came from its structural status as a college radio station. In Manic Pop Thrill Rachel Felder writes about the structural position of college radio and its effect on programming.

"Financed by university funding instead of commercials, college radio works outside the commodity system--and so advertiser pressures—of American commercial radio and thus can take those playlist risks." (12)

Those “risks," for Chicago’s indie rockers, meant playing music that was not on the playlists of commercial radio stations. Since commercial stations played music which came almost exclusively from major recording labels, the risk that college radio stations took was playing unsigned and independent label recordings. A look at WNUR’s “Playlist” suggests that the station took such risks. On four different weekly Rock Show Playlists, from July 23 through September 24, 1993, only five of 160 songs (3 percent) came from major recording labels.

Another indicator of WNUR’s lack of commercial constraints was seen in the way music was picked for broadcast. Rather than having a prepared playlist, as commercial station often do, WNUR disc jockeys were in control of the music they played. The criteria for picking music was not commercial viability, but individual disc jockey taste.

College radio stations supported Chicago’s indie rock world in two ways. First they were indie rock aestheticians that literally defined “good” music for listeners.

"I started listening to WNUR. I discovered them. They would play a song, and I would listen and write it down and go out and buy like ten albums a week." (personal interview)

WNUR brought this musician into the scene by defining indie rock as “good” music. It helped create a rationale for him, and others, that legitimized indie rock as music worth pursuing as both a fan and a musician.

A second support service of college radio was providing entrée for unsigned indie bands to be heard over the airwaves. Rick, of the major label band Eleventh Dream Day, told how WNUR was playing his band’s music early in their career. "They were playing our demo at Northwestern. The people back there were really nice. We sort of got to be known a little bit." (personal interview)

WNUR played recordings by many local unsigned bands. Ten percent of the top forty most played songs on the four playlists mentioned earlier were unsigned Chicago bands. If, as mentioned, college radio provided a rationale for the legitimacy of indie rock, then unsigned bands whose music was broadcast on the stations were provided with a rationale for their very existence as indie rock bands.

Airplay. One WNUR show in particular served as entree for unsigned bands into Chicago’s indie rock world. The show was “Airplay,” it broadcast on Saturdays from 4-7 PM, and focused exclusively on local music. In addition to playing local compact discs, vinyl records, and demo tapes, Airplay broadcast local bands love from the station’s studio.

If local bands considered WNUR as a first outlet for their recorded music, then they considered Airplay to be an outlet for their music before they had recordings. Airplay’s importance to unsigned and unrecorded bands is evident in the promo packs sent to the show. Musicians created promo packs to promote their bands to specific other people, in this case the producer of Airplay, so that they might be invited to perform on the air.

The quality of promo packs received at WNUR varied greatly. Some were not more than a piece of notebook paper with a few scribbled lines mentioning the band’s name, the fact that they would like to play on the Airplay show, and a phone number or address where they could be reached. At the other extreme were promo packs that came in professional looking folders. On the cover of the folder was the band’s business card (including the name of the band, a contact phone number, and the name of the band’s manager). Inside the folder would be the band’s bio (a band biography) written on band letterhead stationary, a five-by-seven black and white photo of the band, a demo tape and a gift (T-shirts with bands’ names were most common).

Another indicator of Airplay’s importance in the eyes of Chicago’s indie rock community is how upset some musicians became when they found out that the overall sound at WNUR’s studio was relatively bad, and that it had no vocal monitors. The following story concerns a specific band during one Airplay show. The situation was repeated three times, with three different bands, in my tenure as producer of Airplay.

WNUR's live music room in 1993-94 lacked some of the basic equipment expected by rock musicians in a live music situation. The main piece of equipment it lacked was a vocal monitor, the result being that vocalists could not hear themselves over the din of the other instruments. Most musicians were disappointed when they found this out, but went ahead with their shows anyway. But on occasion, as in the following story, musicians got quite upset at not having vocal monitors.

The band Dick Justice played Airplay in May, 1994. Once the band loaded their equipment into the studio, we (myself and my assistant) set them up for broadcast. This consisted of putting microphones on each amplifier, two or three microphones around the drum set, and microphones for each of two vocalists. When everything was set up we did a sound check. Dick Justice played a couple songs prior to broadcast, allowing us to set the volume levels of the instruments and mix them together. We recorded the sound check on tape.

The members of Dick Justice were not happy when they found out that we did not have vocal monitors. How were the vocalists supposed to sing harmonies if they could not hear themselves? When they listened to the sound check tape, they were really unhappy. One member suggested that the band not play the show, he felt it would to them more harm than good to broadcast a bad sound. I convinced the band members that to break their commitment to Airplay was unprofessional, so they did their show. For the rest of the evening, however, two of Dick Justice’s three members did not speak to me, they spoke only to my assistant.

Dick Justice’s story highlights the importance that local bands gave the Airplay show. On the one hand the band was excited to play the show. They recognized that a lot of indie rockers, people from the community of which the wanted to be a part, would be listening. But they worried that the quality of the sound would turn off these very same people. So, because Dick Justice wanted to be successful within Chicago’s indie scene, and because they considered WNUR an important support mechanism for such success, they played Airplay without vocal monitors.

Periodicals

Three free arts periodicals were integral to Chicago’s indie rock world: The Reader, The Illinois Entertainer, and New City. These periodicals supported Chicago’s indie world in two ways. First, they provided show listings by which indie rockers kept track of local live gigs. By looking at current issues indie rockers saw exactly what bands were playing, on what dates, and in what clubs: “Our name is in The Reader almost every week. I like to look through The Reader and check up on bands” (personal interview). This statement highlights two features of the show listings in the periodicals. The first was just mentioned. Musicians “checked up” on bands by browsing the listings.

Show listings also gave musicians an opportunity to have their own bands’ names in the periodicals on a regular basis: “If anyone is into the music scene here I’m sure they’ve heard of us” (personal interview). If musicians’ bands’ names appeared consistently in the club advertisements, moving from one club level to the next at an appropriate pace, then their claims to success in the scene were legitimated.

A second way the periodicals supported Chicago’s indie rock world was through the “Classified Advertisements” section. Classified Ads served as a meeting ground for musicians looking to join already formed bands.

E-I decided I better try to get some people to play with. So I started going to band auditions.
M-Through The Reader?
E-Yea. Well, The Reader and The Entertainer. I think I found these guys in The Entertainer. (personal interview)

Eleven of the thirty-one musicians interviewed (35 percent) were either in bands that gained new members from, or became members of their current bands through Classified Advertisements.

Classified Ads in the periodicals were written, quite literally, in code. That is, in looking for the “right” kind of musician, bands placed advertisements consisting of indie rock genre conventions (Weinstein).

LEAD GUITAR PLAYER wanted (21-30 year old, city resident, w/car) for melodic indie-rock band. Ready to play out and record. Call [phone number].
BASSIST NEEDED TO complete band in vein of Jesus Lizard, Shorty, Shellac, Rodan. Don’t call unless you’ve heard of these bands. Mike [phone number].

Both of these Classified Ads provide the basic information needed for an interested musician to decide whether the band is right for him or her. That information includes: Age, location, necessity of transportation, general style of music, and band career stage (in the first); and musical influences and sarcastic humor/intelligence test (in the second).

Tail Spins. A periodical of a different sort that covered Chicago’s indie music scene was Tail Spins. Tail Spins fit Felder’s description of a “fanzine,” periodicals that
write about specific music for specific fans; they offer them a more focused option, an alternative, if you will, to Rolling Stone, which covers a broader musical spectrum to reach more readers. (14) The specific music for Tail Spins was indie rock, and it was written for and by indie rockers.

Tail Spins was run by one man, Brent, out of an apartment in the northern suburb of Evanston. It began as a promotional arm of the independent record label Happy Tails Records. Tail Spins was a more profitable venture than Happy Tails Records, however, so Brent folded the record label and put all of his resources into the fanzine. Within a year Tail Spins grew from promoting Happy Tails Records to a self-sufficient indie fanzine. Volunteers distributed it throughout the Chicagoland area where it was free, and it was increasingly distributed around the country, where it cost $1.00.

All of Tail Spins’ articles were written by volunteers, usually Brent’s friends, or friends of his friends. Most of the writers considered themselves part of Chicago’s indie scene, and many were in bands. This point was important to Tail Spins status as an indie fanzine. Its staff writers were not trained or professional journalists, they were indie rockers. They contributed interviews and articles about local indie bands and personalities, many of whom were their acquaintances. In this way, much like the snowball sampling conducted for this work, the writers and their topics for Tail Spins came from a self-selected group, many of whom identified themselves with Chicago’s indie scene.

Tail Spins, as with other fanzines, reviewed numerous recordings, most of which were on independent labels. The October/November 1994 issue of the fanzine contained 140 record reviews, 133 of which were on independent labels (95 percent). It was not just the percentage of independent label recordings reviewed that was important to Tail Spins’ indie status, it was the language the writers used in reviewing the recordings. As with Classified Advertisements in arts periodicals, Tail Spins reviews were written in code. The following is a review from the October/November 1994 issue.

Oblivion-Shop Thief
(Johann’s Face Records)
It occurred to me that nobody has thought of this before, . . .or at least not in this way. Oblivion is a goofy inventive alternative band that has this quite intensely fast tempo. It has got that catchy thing goin’ too. Every song is hooks galore with the unexpected blend of many para-song rifts that keep it interesting. Enjoyable loud. [address]

The main point of the review follows an indie rock convention of “catchiness,” it is a good record because of its catchy character. It is recommended in indie rock terms for indie rockers.
As with positive reviews, negatively reviewed recordings in Tail Spins were critiqued based upon indie rock conventions.

Pilot-Pilot
(Tim/Kerr Records)
This is backbone free music. Dreck like this should be squelched. (Reading the promotional info would clue you in to what shit this is.) Nice makeup, too. [address]

This review lets the indie rock reader know that this is not indie music. Therefore, it is simply thrown into the category bad music. The final statement about the make-up is also negative, for it assumes an indie rock convention that emphasizes a non-look over a look.

Conclusion

Sociology is concerned with the empirical world, with real people doing real things together. Sociological research, then, begins with empirical description. It provides us with a clear picture of the inhabitants of the world being studied: people, places, and things. Similarly, sociological theory should be applicable to real people doing real things together, it should be constructed from observations of real people.

This is an empirical paper. Although I think there are some interesting theoretical possibilities, I leave it up to the reader to discover them. I do not discuss the consequences of musicians’ behaviors, I do not explain why they behave the ways they do, I do not link the behaviors of indie rock musicians to the behaviors of actors in other sociological worlds. I describe the world I observed.

I do not compare the structure of Chicago’s indie rock support personnel to the support personnel of other rock worlds. This is the next step in the research process, operationalizing the findings and applying them to other worlds. What do the nightclub structures of other scenes look like? Do they have hierarchical orders similar to Chicago’s indie nightclubs? What role do radio stations and magazines play as support personnel in other rock worlds?

In answering these questions the picture of rock worlds, as generic sociological worlds, will become clear. The components that are common to all such worlds will be discovered. In the meantime, studies like mine need to be published in order to develop our data base of rock music worlds, to develop our understanding of how rock musicians and support personnel make music together.

Works Cited
Becker, Howard S. Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California, 1982.

Fairchild, Charles. “’Alternative’ Music and the Politics of Cultural Autonomy: The Case of Fugazi and the D.C. Scene.” Popular Music and Society. Spring 1995: 17-36.

Felder, Rachel. Manic Pop Thrill. Hopewell, New Jersey: Ecco Press, 1993.

Jipson, Arthur. “Why Athens? Investigations into the Site of an American Music Revolution.” Popular Music and Society. Fall 1994: 19-32.

Weinstein, Deena. Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology. New York: Lexington Books, 1991.