Fun with the 1991 Edition of the Trouser Press Record Guide
Fifteen years ago. Before Nevermind. NWA is still together. A band called Mookie Blaylock has just recruited a new lead singer named Ed. Underground rock and hip-hop are bubbling over, but the charts are dominated by Color Me Badd, Extreme, BoyzIIMen. What were the cool kids saying, and were they right?
The answers are in The Trouser Press Record Guide. The Guide began in the early 80s, with a focus on punk and new wave. By the time of the Fourth Edition, in 1991, it was subtitled “The Ultimate Guide to Alternative Music,” and it lived up to the billing, with over 2500 bands and almost 10,000 records covered. It’s a great resource — I still use it to find new things to listen to — but it’s also a fun as a wayback machine. Here are entries you may find of interest, with my comments in brackets.
Nirvana
Bleach
Blew EP
Nirvana was formed in 1986 by vocalist/guitarist Kurdt Kobain and bassist Chris Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington, home of legendary quaalude-metal titans the Melvins, whose drummer played on the band’s 1987 debut. After a brilliant debut single (a snarling cover of the Shocking Blue’s “Love Buzz,” included on the first album), Bleach elevated Nirvana to major hip-press status, as Kobain’s sandpaper growl and roaring guitar propelled amazing hard-rock hooks. His taut, jagged songs contain elements of the Seattle sound but show a rare sophistication.
The Blew EP combines two album tracks with two new songs, the slow-grinding “Been a Son” and the bruising “Stain.”
[Cool alternative spelling of Kurt's name; overall a pretty perceptive blurb]
Nine Inch Nails
Pretty Hate Machine
Cleveland singer/synthetic noise wiz Trent Reznor is yet another tortured soul with a whole lexicon of Excedrin headache beats stored on a floppy disc. As Nine Inch Nails, this junior industrialist takes out his anxiety and despair on the rest of the world. But while the tracks are springier and less stringent than on other likeminded hammer parties, the vocals carry very little in terms of threat. Reznor is talented, though, and many instrumental segments on Pretty Hate Machine are intriguing indeed. If he wasn’t trying so hard to sound like Skinny Puppy and Ministry, he could make really effective records of his own.
[Love this one, so condescending, yet recognizing of promise]
Uncle Tupelo
No Depression
Coming as close as any recent band has to translating the spirit of American folk music into the rock idiom, this St. Louis threesome plies its tales of tribulation and remorse in a style that combines an acute understanding of country music dynamics with punky power-trio punch. Thus, the band judicious use of mandolin, banjo and pedal stell guitar doesn’t detract from the thrashy appeal of noisy cuts like “Graveyard Shift” and “Before I Break.” Meanwhile, the impressive original “Whiskey Bottle,” a CD-only cover of Leadbelly’s “John Hardy,” and the title track (a ’30s Carter family gospel tune) demonstrate surprising melodic subtlety that should serve Uncle Tupelo well in the future.
[A bold and prescient acknowledgement of talent, especially considering how few records UT had sold and how limited their touring was at this time.]
Beastie Boys
Licensed to Ill
Paul’s Boutique
(excerpt only)
By the time the Beasties came off the road [from touring on Licensed to Ill], engineered a disputed label switch and got around to making a record, the rap world was a very different — and far more competitive — place. Recognizing the fragile oddness of their stylistic position, the trio abandoned Licensed to Ill’s rock’n'rap formula and reached for street credibility on Paul’s Boutique. What they wound up with was a dull collection of simple rhythm track over which the terrible three’s verbose raps (and the record’s innumberable samples) drop enless cultural references to no memorable effect. Lacking [Rick] Rubin’s furious imagination, the Dust Brothers (California producers responsible for monster records by Tone Loc and Young MC) leave the Beasties yakking among themselves on an album that is neither effective hip-hop nor amusing parody. The deluxe fold out sleeve — two panoramic four-panel photographs of the Lower East Side — is easily the best this about this disappointing dud.
[Totally misses the boat. I think Paul's Boutique is almost universally acclaimed nowadays.]
Fun post Greg — awesome. Where did you find this??
Comment by Steve Evans — June 29, 2006 @ 10:39 pm
A friend (and veteran of the 80s underground scene) loaned it to me (about six months ago, shh). I wish I had the same thing from 1983.
Comment by Greg Call — June 29, 2006 @ 10:46 pm
LOL, if Reznor wasn’t trying to sound like Skinny Puppy…
Comment by Steve Evans — June 29, 2006 @ 10:49 pm
One of my favorite things about it is that in the reviews of Mudhoney, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Green River, etc., the word “grunge” is never used. (By the way, it pretty much dismisses Soundgarden as bad Led Zeppelin imitators. Sorry, Susan.)
Comment by Greg Call — June 29, 2006 @ 10:51 pm
Soundgarden got that a lot. One time I saw them, Chris Cornell read a review that bashed them as Led Zep wannabes, then they launched into “Kingdom of Come.” It was awesome.
Comment by Susan M — June 30, 2006 @ 8:12 am
I’ve got a 1990 edition of the Trouser Press Record Guide. It’s good fun, but it has even less about grunge (whichis okay by me–most of the time I like to pretend that grunge never happened).
Comment by BTD Greg — June 30, 2006 @ 8:27 am
I’ll post some of my favorite excerpts from my copy tonight when I get home (assuming my Trouser Press Record Guide hasn’t been packed away in some box somewhere–which is actually pretty likely).
Comment by BTD Greg — June 30, 2006 @ 8:34 am
I have a book on the history of the Seattle music scene called LOSER: The Real Seattle Music Story—which I’ve hardly read any of, but it’s super cool. There’s a funny bit about Mark Arm (singer for Green River and Mudhoney) and his first band, Mr. Epp and the Calculations. The author of the book had written a piece for a local zine asking readers to nominate the most overrated band in Seattle. Mark Arm (his real name is McLaughlin) wrote this:
“I hate Mr. Epp and the Calculations! Pure grunge! Pure noise! pure sh**! Everyone I know loves them, I don’t know why. They don’t even wear chains and mohawks! They all look different, yuk! And they have no sense of humor. In fact, they have no sense. They’re all pretentious, older than the Grateful Dead, and love Emerson Lake & Palmer (my mother’s fave). While my friends listen to Mr. Epp and the Calculations, I listen to Mr. Glass. His music is repetitious, redundant, and repetitive. Pure art! It’s sooooo intellectual, like me. I love to listen to Philip Glass over and over and over and over again etc.
Mark McLaughlin
Mark McLaughlin
Mark McLaughlin
(Ed. note: Mark McLaughlin does guitar & vocals in Mr. Epp and the Calculations.)”
The book goes on to say:
“Mr. Epp and the Calculations was originally a hoax by McLaughlin and Jeff Smith, students at the suburban Bellevue Christian High School, who put up posters and graffiti announcing fake gigs by their ‘band’ (named after a math teacher). Smith called it ‘like a Dungeon and Dragons-y thing; we just pretended it was real.’”
The best part: some promoters kept seeing their posters around and tracked them down to do a show. At that point, they decided to get some instruments and actually learn to play. Apparently their first gig was cancelled, though, because one of the band members was grounded by his parents.
And Mark Arm’s letter is the earliest known reference to a Seattle band as “grunge.”
Comment by Susan M — June 30, 2006 @ 9:24 am
Trouser Press is also online: online here since August 2002, began with the contents of all five Trouser Press Record Guides, those highly opinionated review books of alternative rock. Thanks to many fine contributors, the site now includes loads of new and updated entries  more than 3,000 in all.
Comment by bill — June 30, 2006 @ 10:23 am
Thanks for the link Bill. Check out how they’ve revised their review of Paul’s Boutique. It’s basically the same until “…reached for street credibility with Paul’s Boutique.” The new review then does a total 180:
“The thickly textured, deceptively subtle album distanced the Boys from the controversy-for-controversy’s-sake mindset and the getting-tired rock’n'rap fusion formula. The album makes extensive use of a remarkable array of samples  credit due to the Dust Brothers’ stoner-friendly production  and shows an impressive affinity for funk at its deepest. Tracks like “High Plains Drifter” and the whining anthem “Johnny Ryall” merge West Coast cool with East Coast tension, propelled by a swagger unlike anything the group had previously mastered. Even the moments of utter goofiness  like “Egg Man” and the Mr. Wizard-gone-bad “The Sounds of Science”  are handled more nimble-mindedly. An indispensable item in any hip-hop library.”
[What, no mention of Young MC?]
Comment by Greg Call — June 30, 2006 @ 10:50 am
I think it’s funny that they called NIN Skinny Puppy wannabes, cuz I always considered Skinny Puppy a rip off of all the “real” (IMO) industrial bands. I’m still pretty resentful of NIN. They took the industrial stuff I listened to as a teenager (Cabaret Voltaire, Einsturzende Neubauten, etc), watered it down and made it dance music.
Comment by Susan M — June 30, 2006 @ 11:12 am
I didn’t listen to much industrial, Susan. But I totally agree. When I left on my mission, I fully expected industrial to be one of the leading arms of alternative music with Front 242 in the lead. I returned to grunge and NIN.
Didn’t Front 242 turn into a dance band in the later ’90s?
Comment by William Morris — June 30, 2006 @ 6:12 pm