YuppiePunk

A (Not So) Complete History of Our (Not So) Complete Histories

2009-07-01T05:16:32Z

You may have noticed that we love to catalog things here at YuppiePunk World HQ, particularly the outer edges of pop culture. From live TV streaking to rejected movie posters to TV theme songs sung by cast members, we’ve grouped a lot of things together over the years. We even do it in our podcasts.

We’ve done several histories of tattoos inspired by pop culture:
Mark Ryden
Literary Tattoos
Corporate Tattoos
TV Show Tattoos
Band Tattoos

There have been a bunch of volumes focused on celebrities:
Actors Who Paint
Rock Stars Who Paint
Caught-on-Tape Tirades
Tattooed Female Reality TV Stars
Music Videos Featuring Naked Band Members
Topless ‘American Idol’ Contestants
Naked ‘Read World’ Cast Members
‘SNL’ Black Dudes
Celebs Who Wear Black and White Makeup
Celebrities Using Profanity on Live TV
Naked Male Musicians
Celebrity Pot Smoking Photos

Some even focus on a particular celebrity:
Danny Gokey’s Shirtwear
Paris Hilton’s Boyfriends
Bruce Vilanch’s T-shirts

Many have been centered on bands and band names:
Bands with Teenage in Their Name
Elvis’ First Album Cover Tributes
Onstage Altercations
Bands with Against in Their Name
Bands with White in Their Name
The ‘Punk Goes…’ Compilation Series
Bands With Boy in Their Name
Bands With Bad in Their Name

Movies are a frequent focus too:
Posters Featuring Women’s Legs
Sibling Filmmakers
Mockbusters and Blockbusters
Skateboarding Movies

But the most popular posts just might be the ones focused not on pop culture, but on regular Joes and Janes:
Unfortunately Named People
More Unfortunately Named People
Stupid Haircuts

And finally…..
Judge Show Bailiffs

Actor Art Review

2009-06-28T15:53:07Z

From Andy Warhol to Jackson Pollock to Jean-Michel Basquiat, there are a lot of great films about artists. Perhaps that’s why so many amazing actors are attracted to taking those roles. Plenty of A-listers would jump at the chance to play a dark and long-suffering complicated character — the general archetype of the artistic personality. It’s no surprise then that so many actors have tried their hand at painting. And most with little success. But judge for yourself:

CHARLES BRONSON
The mustachioed star of films like "The Great Escape" and "The Dirty Dozen" wasn’t a bad painter. His tough guy on screen persona is much softer on canvas. This piece, "Late Red Sky," depicts a scene from his Connecticut vacation home. Grade: B

PIERCE BROSNAN
What is super agent James Bond supposed to do when he retires? Paint apparently, as the former 007 puts together warm portraits with vibrant colors. Grade: A

RICHARD CHAMBERLAIN
With his acting career at a standstill, the star of "Dr. Kildare" and "The Thornbirds" concentrates mostly on painting these days. He even has an a website where you can buy prints of his work, but you probably won’t want to — he’s pretty mediocre. Unless of course you like the art your grandma has hanging, in which case this is probably right up your alley. Grade: D

TONY CURTIS
Though Tony Curtis starred in "Some Like It Hot," his art certainly isn’t. Mostly painting flowers and still life, Curtis’ paintings aren’t offensive, just boring. He has a website where you can check out his work. Grade: C

JOHNNY DEPP
Whenever Johnny Depp is interviewed, it always seems like there’s more going on in his head that he lets on. Perhaps some of that internal dialogue is captured on the canvases he paints, which, like his best roles, are stylish and emotional. Grade: B

PHYLLIS DILLER
God bless her – 91 years old and still going strong. May she live forever… but stop painting soon. Grade: C

BUDDY EBSEN
Just what you’ve always wanted: Art inspired by a television series as painted by the man who starred in it! Sorry kids, we’re not talking about The Hoff’s "Baywatch" collection, but rather the folk art paintings of Buddy Ebsen, who played Jed Clampett for nine seasons on "The Beverly Hillbillies." Here’s the website. Grade: C-

PETER FALK
To most people he’ll always be Columbo, but to us Peter Falk is forever the manager of a female wrestling tag team in the classic 1981 film "All the Marbles." Too bad he draws like an art school student. Go here to see the Falk art. Grade: C

ANTHONY HOPKINS
In addition to being an Oscar-winning actor, the knighted Welshman is an established artist, having shown at galleries all over the world. Thankfully, his paintings tend to be more Hannibal Lecter than “Remains of the Day.” Grade: B+

DENNIS HOPPER
Though he’s mostly known as an actor, Hopper fancies himself an artist — acting, painting and taking photographs. He even did the cover for the Ike and Tina Turner album "River Deep – Mountain High." And just his like his best performances, his photo realistic paintings are as lifelike as the characters he plays. He’s even got a book of his work: "Dennis Hopper: Paintings, Photographs, Films." Grade: A

SALLY KIRKLAND
A minister in the Church of The Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness, Kirkland’s artwork is New Age-y and kind of scary. Which is also the way that church sounds. Grade: D

MARCEL MARCEAU
The world’s most famous mime was a pretty decent painter. Apparently all that energy he saved by not talking was shuttled into his paintings, like this one called "The Third Eye," which is dark and moody. Grade: B+

VIGGO MORTENSEN
Though he took up painting after his passion for acting took hold (but prior to his passion for poetry), Mortensen’s moody abstract canvasses are as solid as his acting chops. Grade: A

MARTIN MULL
You’d likely know the face of this comedic character actor if not his name, though you probably didn’t know he’s also a world-class painter with a BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design. As well, his work is included in many museum collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Grade: A

EVE PLUMB
Jan Brady paints still life — mostly fruit and furniture — which she taught herself to do some 20 years ago. The bulk of her work doesn’t appeal to us, but some of the lonely settings she paints are somber and soothing. Check her website for more. Grade: B+

ANTHONY QUINN
Both a sculptor and painter, the Mexican-American actor has won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor twice, for "Viva Zapata!" in 1952 and "Lust for Life" in 1956. But he’s a great artist too, as you can see below by his self-portrait. Grade: A

JANE SEYMOUR
How apropos that the star of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman makes paintings that look like they should be hanging in a doctor’s office. Her technical ability is fine but her subjects are bland and broad. Grade: B-

RED SKELTON
If he hadn’t started out his career as a clown, Skelton’s penchant for painting them would be downright creepy, but considering his works have sold for tens of thousands of dollars, those red-nosed portraits are obviously resonating with his audience. Grade: C

SYLVESTER STALLONE
This piece from Sly Stallone, titled, "Philadelphia Skyline," was painted during the filming of "Rocky V" and could be yours for the low, low price of just $18,800. Grade: C+

BILLY DEE WILLIAMS
While he was struggling to make a living as an artist after graduating from the National Academy of Fine Art and Design in New York, Williams turned to acting to make money for art supplies. His work can be seen in the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution, but most of it looks like something you’d see airbrushed on the side of a 1970s van conversion. Grade: C

JONATHAN WINTERS
If you ask us, the funnyman’s art is about as funny as he is – and we’re not sure that’s a compliment. Mostly his work reminds us of something you’d find in a surreal coloring book. Check out his website for more info. Grade: C-

Q&A: Virgil Dickerson of Suburban Home Records and Vinyl Collective

2009-06-24T03:24:41Z

Virgil Dickerson is a busy dude. When he’s not running his indie label Suburban Home out of his Denver, Colorado office, he’s busy overseeing Vinyl Collective, the distro and online store he launched three years ago that specializes in — you guessed it — vinyl. And somewhere in between all that he also manages to make time for a wife and kid. Specializing in alt-country and tuneful punk rock, Suburban Home has released records from Drag the River, Useless I.D. and Tim Barry, lead singer of Avail. The label even has a Drunk Dial Hotline, a voicemail line that inebriated bands — and fans — are encouraged to call when they’ve had too much to drink, the highlights of which are posted on the labl’s website. We chatted with Dickerson about his two businesses, harnessing social media and the death of the label sampler.

Your label is named after a Descendents song, were they your entree to punk rock?
They weren’t my first experience with punk rock. I went to college in Boulder at C.U. in ‘93, and I was a big hip-hop guy leading up to that and never really latched on to too much rock. But the first bands I got exposed to were Screeching Weasel, Green Day and Operation Ivy. And that blew my mind. It opened me up to a whole other world that I knew nothing about. Shortly thereafter, I started thinking about doing a fanzine, and the name came up because of the Descendents song, who I became a big fan of. We were going to call the zine Suburban Homes and Gardens, but for whatever reason we decided to just make it Suburban Home. And that started in September of ‘95.

And when did you put out your first record?
I’d say the summer of ‘96. It was a band from Orange County called Overlap and it was a self-titled seven inch. They were a very Screeching Weasel-influenced pop-punk band. The second release was by a band called The Fairlanes, who were the ones who turned me on to all this music. Early on all we did was vinyl. We then put out a compilation called "Punk: It’s All About the Orchis Factor," which was a really stupid name. But we put out bands from all over and it actually had Blink-182 on it, who, at the time, were a really small band and were good buddies of ours. But later on that was the only reason the comp sold.

Punk rock compilations seem to have gone out of fashion. Labels just don’t seem to put them out like they used to.
I think that in 2009 music discovery happens on a whole other level. Back in the mid ’90s, I think people found out about other bands from compilations. If you were a fan of Fat Wreck Chords, you’d buy the cheapo comp they’d put out every year because you knew there was going to be new songs from upcoming records and you knew there was going to be new bands on there. But today you’ve got MySpace and Facebook and Twitter and all these other ways of finding bands that make compilations obsolete.

How then do you harness of all of those social media applications to your advantage?
We don’t really know what we’re doing, but we try a bunch of things. We’re on Twitter, we’re on Facebook, we’re on MySpace – one of the guys in our office created a streaming player that has an embeddable HTML code so that anybody who wants to share our music with people can embed it on their blog or MySpace page and help us share a full album stream by one of our artists. We’re always trying things. We’ve given away albums for free. We’ve done kind of everything under the sun with mixed results. And we’re always trying to do different things, but it’s an interesting time. There are so many neat ways to share music with people and spread what you’re doing, but on the flipside it’s so hard to reach out to people because everybody is getting bombarded by 50 million bands and songs and tours.

How many copies of something do you generally need to sell to pay back your investment? And how many copies does a good selling release do for you?
When we do vinyl on a title, we typically press about 500 or 1000 copies. If we can sell 300 or 400 of the 1000, we can usually make our money back on the pressing costs. And for a lot of our releases we’re able to do that no problem. As far as recouping the other expenses, like the recording costs and CD manufacturing, we’re having a really hard time selling CDs. I go back and forth about whether to even press CDs moving forward. Ideally I would just do vinyl and digital but I guess I’m not totally ready to throw in the towel on CDs yet. Breaking even on a record really depends on the recording costs or how much it costs to press the packages. As far as a good selling release, Tim Barry’s last album, "Manchester," we’ve probably sold 5,000 copies between vinyl and CD.

And you still operate like a traditional label by paying for the recording costs, manufacturing, etc?
We try to do everything as simply as possible and we consider ourselves to be pretty artist-friendly. We do a 50/50 profit sharing model with all of our artists. So if we break even on a title we split everything 50/50. Tim Barry’s records recoup and he makes royalties, but nobody’s ready to retire off of what we’re making. If the artists work hard and get momentum from all the things they do, it’s potentially possible to make a little money.

You worked at Hopeless Records for a time. What were able to take away from that experience that you could bring to Suburban Home?
I started the zine in ‘95, the label in ‘96 and in ‘97 I went to work at Hopeless as their label manager where I got to see the inner workings of a pretty successful small independent label. At the time, they had 88 Fingers Louie who were doing well, Mustard Plug who were doing well. They had signed Against All Authority, and all of their releases were doing pretty solid numbers. I learned that bands need to be able to tour – that’s so important. I learned a lot about getting records to distributors and making sure that people know about your releases. They do such a good job and they’re still doing really well. It’s insane some of the success that they’ve had. I think they’re about to go gold on one of the Avenged Sevenfold albums — it’s at about 480,000 copies scanned. And they put out two or three Thrice albums before they signed to a major. And they have a band now, All Time Low, a pop-punk band, that they’re expecting to be a big record. So I learned a lot there. I mean I only worked there for a year but I’ve been doing the label full time since returning.

How many employees to you have?
Six full time and one intern. If it were just a label it would probably only be me, but we also run Vinyl Collective, which is a lot more successful than the label.

And Vinyl Collective is a distro?
It’s a vinyl-only online store and we also license records from labels that aren’t putting out vinyl. With Vinyl Collective we put out the most recent Minus the Bear album, a bunch of Every Time I Die albums. We put out a few Portugal the Man records. Basically a bunch of bands that are bigger than our label could work with and we’ve put them out on vinyl and done really well with those titles.

What are the biggest challenges that you face in these businesses?
One of the biggest challenges is that the brick and mortal physical distribution is a broken business model. It really favors the big distributors. The problem is a lot of distributors will take a lot of copies with no care in the world whether they sell through or not. One of the biggest problems is that we end up manufacturing so many CDs for releases that never really had demand. Tower Records would take like 600 copies and then return them all. I have a whole storage space of dusty CDs. One reason we have focused our attention directly on our customers is that there are no returns. We’re a small label so maybe a lot of retailers will carry our titles when they’re a new release but then there’s not enough of a demand to always keep them in stock. So we focus a lot of our efforts directly on the music fans hoping that they’ll buy directly from us and then come back and buy the next record from us.

What records are you enjoying most at the moment?
There’s a band called Good Old War which is like the newest incarnation of Simon & Garfunkel. It’s just a really good folk-pop record. There’s a band called The Riot Before from Richmond, Virginia and they’re a really great Americana-influenced punk rock band. They kind of remind me of the early Gaslight Anthem stuff. And Portugal the Man, a band we work with on vinyl – their new album comes out July 21st on Equal Vision — and that’s my favorite record of the year. I’ve been listening to it for a while now and it’s phenomenal.

Can one be both a yuppie and a punk?
I feel like I straddle that line. My wife and I enjoy good food and nice things but I think that for me, if I don’t look like your quote unquote punk, I’ve learned a lot of values from the DIY ethics that I’ll carry with me forever even if someone looks at me and says, "Oh, that guy’s a yuppie!"

Eggers²

2009-07-01T05:29:08Z

We love Dave Eggers here at YuppiePunk World HQ (just like Angelina does), and the San Francisco author/founder of McSweeneys and the non-profit 826 has recently made a couple of books available for pre-order. Out on October 1st is "The Wild Things," a sort-of hybrid adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s classic children’s book "Where the Wild Things Are" and the screenplay for the big-screen adaption of that film which Eggers co-wrote with its director Spike Jonze. The book is about a lonely boy named Max who likes to wear a wolf costume and who becomes king of the Wild Things after he runs away from home and sails to their island. Eggers talked to the Montreal Gazette about the book in late 2007:

Spike and Maurice and I always had the same goals for the movie, and the novelization, too, which was to sort of reinstitute the dangerous elements of that book. Because when it came out (in 1963), it was pretty controversial and some librarians didn’t like it, and child psychologists thought it was, you know, unhelpful. (laughs) And it was really morally ambiguous in a way. It showed a kid sort of disobeying his mother and acting crazy - which all kids do, but you still don’t see much of in children’s literature. It’s too often, I think, washed clean.

Spike and Maurice and I just decided we needed to make the book wild and dangerous again and really unexpected. So the movie is really unlike anything anyone will expect, I think. And the book is different from both of them, actually. It has Max and Max going to an island, but in the book I’m able to (develop) the storyline also - as a book can always do. You have a lot more room to play with. The (picture) book is 150 words, the movie is 90 minutes, the novel gets to be a whole different level.

Returning to non-fiction, Eggers will release "Zeitoun" via McSweeneys on July 15th. The book is the story of Abdulrahman Zeitouna, a 47-year old Syrian-American and father of four, who, after Hurrican Katrina, refused to leave his home, opting instead to protect his family and neighbors by canoeing through the flooded streets of New Orleans delivering food and goods to the less fortunate. He disappeared one week later and was never heard from again. The book is his story, from his Syrian roots to his marriage to Kathy, who eventually converted to Muslim. Eggers spoke to The Rumpus recently about working on "Zeitoun," a project which took several years of close involvement with the family to finish:

Their story intrigued me from the start, given that it’s at the intersection of so many issues in recent American life: the debacle of the government response to Katrina, the struggles facing even the most successful immigrants, a judicial system in need of repair, the problem of wrongful conviction, the paranoia wrought by the War on Terror, widespread Islamophobia.

They’re really a beautiful family, and we worked on the book together for a long time. With a book like this, I think you get the most accuracy when you involve your subjects as much as possible. I think I sent the manuscript to the Zeitouns for six or seven reads. They caught little inaccuracies each time. They have to live with the book, of course, as much as I do, so I needed their approval. With "What Is the What" and with this book, I consider the book as much theirs as mine. So they were intimately involved in every step, as were their extended families. We had many months to get everyone’s approval over everything, to make sure it was accurate.

And Eggers will be busy. Aside from this pair of book projects, he and his wife penned the screenplay to "Away We Go," directed by Sam Mendes and released later this month starring John Krasinski of "The Office."

Titles of Posts in Our Feed Reader That Would Make Great Band Names

2009-07-01T05:29:22Z

Barfing Monkey

Do Not Buy the Licorice

Coppola’s Unhinged Dream World

The Geek Atlas

Banjo Rock

New Media Writer

Bing

Phil Spector’s Mug Shot

Ruh-Roh

Mickey Rourke as Whiplash

The Freedom Bleeder

School Picture Photographers

The Holocaust Museum Shooter

Essay Contest

Your Potato Chip Dreams Are Coming True

The Fine Print

The Tail of the Pig

The Lucky Monkey

Lunchtime Quickie

Pornocchio

Children in Pakistan

Learning to Ride a Unicycle

Mariners 4, Baltimore 1

Heather Graham Bra Fail

Dear Brooke Hogan

2009-06-28T05:01:37Z

Hint: When you’re already kind of thought of as a dumb blond, don’t make silly typos on the video page of your official website.

Sincerely,
YuppiePunk World HQ

P.S. Tell your dad not to hurt us.

RELATED: WTF CNN? | So Good You’ll Do What? | Oopsie!

Fivesome

2009-06-23T02:47:15Z

Here’s a look (and listen) to some records that have been cluttering up our desk and inboxes here at YuppiePunk World HQ over the past few weeks. Though none of them inspired 3000-word soliloquys, we figured we could at least muster 50 on each and an MP3.

ANTI-FLAG - "THE PEOPLE OR THE GUN"
By now you pretty much know what to expect when a new Anti-Flag record shows up: Pissed off anthems about a decaying society. The Pittsburgh quartet has been cranking out melodic punk albums for over fifteen years now and their latest LP Is more of the same – songs about the economy, war and politics … and how fucked they all are.
Anti-Flag - "This Is the First Night”

GREEN DAY - "21st CENTURY BREAKDOWN"
Green Day are all grown up, which is great on the one hand because their last two records increased the scope of their worldview (and their audience) dramatically, but also kind of sucks because their early records were so darn catchy and blissful. But alas, bands must evolve, and if "American Idiot" was your bag, so to will be "21st Century Breakdown."
Green Day - "21st Century Breakdown"

THE PARASITES - "SOLITARY"
Dave Parasite has been banging out sugary pop punk records since the beginning of time, or at least the late-’80s, and though they never achieved the success of many of their peers, they’re still doing the same thing they always have, writing three-chord pop punk gems about girls. And while we’re not sure whether this a compliment of a put down, you can take any song from the band’s latest record and swap it in with something off one of their early-90s records and you’d be hard pressed to notice a difference.
Parasites - "Say It Again"

RANCID - "LET THE DOMINOES FALL"
It’s been 6 years since we last heard from Rancid, and apparently they’ve been listening to all their previous records, taking moments from each and combining them here – which despite some great songs, makes for an uneven outing. But at least there’s something for all Rancid fans. The lead off track, "East Bay Nights" is a melodic classic, while "Civilian Ways," a mandolin-laced ballad may just be the best Tom Waits song he never wrote.
Rancid - "Civilian Ways"

TUMBLEDOWN – "TUMBLEDOWN"
Mike Herrera from MxPx unplugs and releases a record of barn-burning country punk songs. There’s not a lot of depth however, either in style or substance, but fans of his other projects will no doubt find plenty to sink their teeth into. The record does have a great album cover though, looking like a piece of traditional tattoo flash.
Tumbledown - "Son of a Gun"

The Tattooed Ladies of Reality TV

2009-06-16T04:08:10Z

We’re not sure why, but there seems to be a proliferation of heavily-tattooed women on reality TV shows of late. We’re not talking tramp stamps, ankle tattoos or the usual trendy stuff. We’re talking hardcore coverage on major body parts. Sure, the tattoo taboo is not what it used to be, but are full sleeves becoming a feminine fashion accessory?

Could it be the popularity of Kat Von D and her fellow tattoo artists on “LA Ink,” the hit reality series set in her High Voltage tattoo shop?

There’s Audrina Patridge, star of “The Hills” on MTV, who has a few tats, which you can see below.

But Audrina’s got nothing on her sister Casey has, herself making the occasional appearance on the series. Maybe Audrina should stop screwing around and get a full-on chest piece like sis. Maybe then she’d finally nab that elusive Justin Bobby.

Tila Tequila’s tattoos are kind of bad, but at least she rocks them on both shoulders — hearts, guns and stars.

Megan Joy Corkery showcased her voice on “American Idol,” but it was her tattoos that really stood out. She’s got a colorful 3/4 sleeve on her right arm.

Or perhaps Megan just took a cue from Carly Smithson on the previous season, figuring if one finalist with a 3/4 sleeve could make it, why not two? Carly’s husband is a tattoo artist by the way.

Sarah Rice was kind of the bitchy one on “The Real World: Brooklyn,” but at least she fit in amongst that city’s hipsters if not the douchey types MTV likes to cast.

Daisy de la Hoya from “Daisy of Love” sports a lot of ink, and even a couple of throat tattoos. That’s way tougher than anything Bret Michaels ever did.

Punk Stuff

2009-06-11T04:10:00Z

Got a Black Flag tattoo and want to be in a book? Check out "Barred for Life."

We’re not kidding: Goth Punk Barbie. Does Ken get liberty spikes?

Dirk Diksen, aka The Pope of Punk, aka the guy who owned Mabuhay Gardens and Fab Mab in San Francisco gets a street named after him. Or more appropriately, an alley.

Three-part interview with Fat Mike: Part I | Part II | Part III

Dr. Frank, originally of Mr. T Experience fame, and of late, of "King Dork" fame, provides an update on that book’s journey to the big screen. Good news: It involves the director of the excellent doc "King of Kong."

Motorhead on Letterman’s show in 1991. (1) Remember when CDs came in those weird oversized boxes? (2) Back then did bands always walk out from backstage on Letterman? Nowadays they’re already on stage when they’re introduced:

An illustrated (and annotated) history of Bif Naked’s tattoos.

Riot Tuxedo’s super awesome t-shirts. Expensive but rad.

You know you want a Screeching Weasel skateboard. Each new trick you do looks just like the last one.

10 Must Hear Hardcore Bands, as offered up by IGN.

Tired of dumpster diving but sick of not making a profit from it? Do like Darren Atkinson does.

Book Review: ‘Grunge Is Dead’

2009-06-02T03:49:24Z

Grunge is dead, though for a time it was the most vital movement rock & roll had ever ~~seen~~ heard. Rarely before had a sound — and a city — been thrust into the spotlight with such ferocity and expectation. The world, it seemed, expected nothing less than a revolution, which it got, of course, before eventually killing off the pomp and hairspray of glam metal and welcoming a new breed of bands to the spotlight from Korn to Green Day. But alas, the movement that sprung from the ashes of punk, metal and the gray skies of Seattle, eventually retreated like that city’s sun every winter, leaving an uneven — and untold — story in it’s wake, leaving the door open for “Grunge Is Dead: The Oral History of Seattle Rock Music.”

“The original idea for doing this book,” author Greg Prato — a New Yorker — says in the foreword, “Came about when I was doing a Soundgarden article for Classic Rock magazine back in 2004. While interviewing the group’s early producer, Jack Endino, he mentioned that almost every single article being written about grunge bands nowadays were by writers who were not from the Seattle area yet were giving their “revisionist take” on what happened. Which got me thinking … what if a book was comprised of nothing but quotes from the actual people that experience the movement firsthand, tracing it from its very beginning to its end?”

And that’s the framework for his book — an enlightening chronological history of the Seattle rock scene from the 1960s through the mid-90s, as told by the folks who lived it. Most of the usual suspects are interviewed: band members, Sub Pop founders, writers, DJs, producers. However a few notable folks are missing, namely Chris Cornell, Kris Novoselic and Dave Grohl, three of the biggest rock stars to emerge from the scene. There’s also no one from Sunny Day Real Estate interviewed, a band who bridged the gap between the fall of grunge and the rise of emo. Aside from Nirvana, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam, there are plenty of other riches to explore: Mother Love Bone, Mudhoney, The Rocket, Fastbacks, The U-Men, Screaming Trees, Coffin Break and on and on.

As an oral history, the book works well, and does for the Seattle scene what “Please Kill Me” did for 1970s punk. Kudos to Prato for his tireless editing. It’s a big book, and he keeps pace throughout, no doubt a difficult task when drawing from some 130 interviews he conducted over a three year period. In a recent interview with UGO, Prato discussed the process of putting the book together. “It was done through phone interviews. I would speak to some people,” he said, “And at the end of the interview I would ask them to suggest other people I could speak to. One of the biggest helps was Mark Arm, the lead singer of a band called Mudhoney. He was really, really great, supplying me with long lists of people and their email addresses and phone numbers.”

Perhaps only the folk movement of the 1960s and punk rock in the ’70s had a similar impact on pop culture, but the 1980s — and thus far the 2000s — have been devoid of such a revolutionary musical movement (unless you count iTunes and the death of the album). It’s inevitable, however, that there will be a grunge revival. It happened with punk and even new wave, but that won’t change the fact that grunge is dead.