When music journalist and WFMU deejay Jesse Jarnow decided to write a biography of Yo La Tengo, he realized that he needed to tell more than just the story of a rock ‘n roll band. So the book became Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo & The Rise Of Indie Rock, and included carefully researched details about the birth of Hoboken’s music scene in the early Eighties.
But Jarnow went even further, and started his book by writing about baseball and the role that Hoboken played in the birth of America’s national pastime.
...“The story of Maxwell’s just intrigued me so much,” Jarnow said. “About how and why that happened, and why it happened there as opposed to anywhere else. And part of it is the separation from the city. And then the baseball thing came up. McCarty’s would have been about where the end of 12th Street is now. So there’s this huge coincidence – or maybe it’s not a coincidence – how these two bars separated by over a hundred years played this huge role in changing not just a city, but American culture. There’s just so much to the story of Maxwell’s, and you do just naturally come to Yo La Tengo at the end of it. So working backwards, it really made me curious to dig deeper into the history of the bar and the coffee factory and Elysian Field, and how all those pieces fit together.”
“The more I researched, the baseball part of the story became a little bit of an obsession,” he continued. “I actually found the expired insurance maps from the 19th Century to try and figure out exactly where McCarty’s stood and where Elysian Field was. That map is hanging on my wall now, but I’ll be taking it down and bringing it with me to the museum so people can see it when I give my talk.”
Repoz
Posted: December 07, 2012 at 02:05 PM |
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1. Heinie Mantush (Krusty) Posted: December 07, 2012 at 02:32 PM (#4319531)The bar scene in Hoboken, generally speaking, is loud and atrocious.
And there are all sorts of precursors, going back to British punk and pub rock (Sex Pistols, The Clash, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe), American punk (X, Black Flag), 70s NYC CBGBs bands (Talking Heads, Ramones, Television, Blondie), and even earlier stuff (Velvet Underground, New York Dolls).
Labels are a funny thing in disciplines like this.
Exactly. IMO, "indie rock" sprung from having strong independent labels, which were in relatively short supply prior to the late '80's, AFAICT.
And of course, "alternative" rock was supposed to be an alternative to the mainstream, and after Nirvana broke, it became mainstream. So mainstream rock became "alternative" rock, and real alternative rock became "indie rock."
I don't think there's any difference between "college," "indie," and pre-Nirvana "alternative." We've just been calling the same thing by different names since the early 80s.
I haven't heard this much name-dropping since I had dinner with Elvis at John F Kennedy's house.
I threw a rotting fish head at him that day.
to me, maxwell's was only good because of the small setting. i knew andy (sound) from college, i think he did a good job in that space as well. they had a change when todd didn't bring in the bands, but then they brought him back, i think? my memory is a bit fuzzy.
i thought pier platters was always a nice tie-in with maxwell's; there's all kinds of linkages between the bands / owners / bar/none / maxwell's / ppl who worked @pier, but it seemed to have a nice synergy to it.
eddie - was there '86 -> '01.
now i've got to listen to some tiny lights...
Well...Steve Fallon was originally a co-owner with Bill Ryan in Pier Platter's (that grand opening idea of having future vomity wine & cheese was all his idea)...until he sold out to LP-hawking Tom Penderghastly.
As a "genre" probably not (broad genres being rather silly things anyway) but there is a difference between an indie label and a major. Well, there was. So this kinda differs by band. REM was scooped up pretty much right away as was X I think. Husker Du and the Replacements lasted, what, 3-4 albums before getting signed to a major. Throwing Muses got kinda picked up quick -- always on 4AD but Sire grabbed the US rights quickly. Meanwhile Superchunk was always indie, although Merge is practically a major by today's standards.
The 80s were roughly like the pre-farm system days -- the majors would sit around and let the indies develop bands, then try to scoop up the best. REM and Nirvana hit it big, most of the others really didn't.
The first week Sam Goody's opened...we stumbled out of the mob-infested Wilton House, crawled through the cobblestone back alley and finger-forced vomit on the front window. Revenge never tasted so bitters!
Yeah, we can't take those terms literally. The Flaming Lips are another example. They've been on Warner Brothers for years, but no one would call them mainstream. On the flip side, Creed is actually the biggest-selling indie band of all time, but no one who says they like indie rock will include Creed in that "genre." These designations are all very silly, but I find the contradictions in the terminology interesting nonetheless.
Very good analogy regarding true indies and pre-farm systems.
X was on Elektra (part of Warner) starting in 1982. REM was on the IRS label for much longer, with their first major label release in November 1988 (Green) (also on Warner).
The original concept behind I.R.S. was not an actual record label per se, but an independent label conglomeration, backed by the distibution/marketing muscle of a major label (A&M). The concept wasn't new -- JEM Records out of Englebrook, NJ and Reseda, CA had been distributing indy and import records for years. With I.R.S. it was the major label affiliation that made the difference.
Of course A&M could be argued to have been an indie label at the time so ... y'know, semantics.
Eventually pretty much everybody was distributed by a "major" distributor as there was virtually no choice -- sometime around the early-mid 90s if memory serves.
Columbia, Warner Brothers, Polygram, etc. = MLB
Merge, Touch & Go, Factory, Beggars Group = Japanese League
80s IRS, Sub-Pop, 415 = AAA
Kill Rock Stars = Mexican League
Well, maybe. I'm old enough (and Triangle-y enough) to remember when Merge moved into their "new, big" headquarters -- a rented house with 3-4 staff. I assume they've grown some since then but I assume it's still pretty much a small operation and I'm guessing Mac is not doing blow off bikini model's stomachs.
Matador was a bigger deal at the time but I guess not these days. There was also a CH label that got bought out by Disney* ... I'd swear they had an "M" name too.
*Well, they probably entered a "creative partnership" or some such.
And because no music industry discussion should lack the inimitable stylings of Steve Albini: The Problem with Music.
And with the legendary Bleecker Bob's record store set to close...I'm down to only my wife yelling at me now.
The whole "indie" thing goes back quite a bit further than all that.
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