Quotes from Michael Azerrad

sharing information was the key to survival.

certain kinds of music will never be accepted by certain people.

it was a phrase, it had power, I had this riff.

Sonic Youth recognized two things: One, that without substantial radio airplay, press was the main promotional outlet for underground bands, and two, that underground music fans paid particular attention to music criticism.

it was a phrase, it had power, I had this riff. To me, that's just sort of the alchemy of writing songs.

Music journalist Chris Nelson once wrote, "Their friendship formed the living core of the Minutemen, while their loyalty to each other and San Pedro informed the overarching theme of brotherhood that permeates the band's catalog.

People got this idea that ultimately what mattered was the quality of what you were doing and how much importance you gave to it, regardless of how widespread it became or how many records it sold.

The indie underground made a modest way of life not just attractive but a downright moral imperative.

The members of Sonic Youth realized that "a life involving music" depended on cooperation—if bands worked for each other, everybody would benefit.

rock & roll was an intrinsic part of a young person's soul, an engine of social change and not just a consumer commodity.

And the indie rock and art scenes have a lot in common: in both, talent is one thing, but otherwise it's all about making the right connections and orchestrating one's own creations into discernible and desirable movements.

We're all voracious acquirers of information, whether it be books or movies or whatever, we're just really vastly into what's going on in culture and trying to synthesize what's going on. I think that was just a natural impetus, a natural tendency.

And the indie rock and art scenes have a lot in common: in both, talent is one thing, but otherwise it's all about making the right connections and orchestrating one's own creations into discernible and desirable movements. Relationships are currency

The lack of fluency in Calvin's voice, his callow, chesty drone is infinitely more affecting than the deftly frantic signification of emotion practised by 'accomplished' singers.

Fired up by the punk explosion, they wrote their first song—"Storming Tarragona." Named after the down-at-heel housing development where Boon lived, the song was about tearing down the projects and building real houses for people to live in. Boon and Watt, it turned out, had a powerful populist streak. "D. Boon didn't think our dads got a fair shake," Watt says, "and I think he was kind of railing against that ever since.

The band members' voracious appetites for all kinds of music and their enthusiasm for spreading the word about it was a big part of the networking process. "We were, on the one hand, trying to take it all in," says guitarist Lee Ranaldo, "and on the other hand, using whatever position we had to reflect people back out to see a larger world.

There was constant communication between everyone.

the cover of Land Speed Record is a photo of the coffins of the first eight soldiers killed in Vietnam; like many punks, the members of Hüsker Dü actually agreed with Sixties counterculture values but despised the hippies for selling out those values. "We're doing the same thing that the peace movement did in the Sixties," Mould said, "but the way they did it didn't work.

So they just made sure they weren't part of the problem and fought the good fight, knowing they'd never prevail.

regional variations in things like slam dancing had gotten erased by MTV. "It went from each town having its own little story to it being kind of the same group of people in every town.

People have misconstrued the pessimism and anger in our songs," Mould protested. "We're really the opposite of all that; we're not callous, insensitive people. But we're frustrated by the fact that most people seem to end up that way—hopeless, defeated. We're afraid of ending up that way ourselves, and that fear comes out in our songs.

That was Black Flag: when you lose your shit

People work all day and they want a release," he told the L.A. Times. "They want a way to deal with all the frustrations that build up. We try to provide that in our music.

Johnson was fascinated by these bands—"They are so isolated, they can't help but develop their own sound