Seven Ages Of Rock 6: Alternative US

[Gordon Moore]

Saturday 23 June BBC2 21:30

Sunday 24 June BBC1 Is it on???????????????????????

Oh there's a few clips of something called Glastonberg, Glistoberry, something anyway, mud wrestling and rain. All over the weekend...

Sunday 6:00 am More Teletubies Filth

Laa-Laa comes out of the house, does a little dance and calls the other Teletubbies for a Big Hug. They stop to watch two little girls making a pretend friend out of old clothes. The Teletubbies dance a bendy dance and watch the dancing Teddy Bear on the carousel.

They're perverts, got to be. Someone call the rozzers.


Stop Press: if you missed the Live From Abbey Road series which I enjoyed, but no-one here seemed interested in, it's repeated on More 4 at 00:45 Sunday Morning (very late Saturday night er)

There were some good acts on e.g. Massive Attack and some singer songwriters I've never heard of. Record it and ff through it.

[Des]

The Nirvana stuff was interesting. Michael Stipe took himself too seriously. The Pixies passed me by in the 90s but they looked like a great band. I was listening to contemporary classical in the 90s. Grunge was too much like HM for me.

[Charlie]

The Nirvana stuff was interesting. Michael Stipe took himself too seriously. The Pixies passed me by in the 90s but they looked like a great band.

Only just caught up with this one when it was repeated the other night. Henry Rollins of Black Flag comes across really well, in this programme and in some of the others. I did try to listen to them at the time (early 80s), when I was doing an alternative/indie show on Capital, but by then I was losing my grip on that post-punk thrash, and couldn't hear enough of his words to tell what his songs were about.

It was interesting to hear about the creation of a whole new set of venues around the country for this music that was being played only on college radio in the States. Who knew that the Replacements were such a big deal at that level?

Was Michael Stipe taking the mickey, pretending to be a pompous rock star? Unfortunately, I think Des is right, he really is a pompous rock star. Losing My Religion is a great song, but REM overall, hmmm, spare me.

The Nirvana story was well told, from my perspective of great ignorance. The trouble is, whenever I know about something, I can see all the ways they get the story wrong in the media, and yet I still accept their version of a story I don't know anything about...

For people of a certain age, Nirvana is their version of Little Richard or the Beatles or the Clash. But I have a feeling we don't have anybody contributing who is from that generation. Or do we?

[Martin_Edney]

For people of a certain age, Nirvana is their version of Little Richard or the Beatles or the Clash. But I have a feeling we don't have anybody contributing who is from that generation. Or do we?

I think I'm close, but not quite. Bands such as Hüsker Dü, The Meat Puppets, The Mega City Four and The Minutemen are probably my Little Richard, Beatles or Clash, and they were doing their stuff before and during Nirvana's time..

I didn't see the programme (I concluded it would be as poor as the others in this series). Did Hüsker Dü or The Meat Puppets get mentioned? Nirvana covered a Meat Puppets song ("Lake of Fire") so the influence/homage is certainly there, and Hüsker Dü were acknowledged by Nirvana as a major influence, and you can certainly hear that in their sound.

Anyone out there who likes Nirvana and hasn't heard Hüsker Dü or The Meat Puppets would be advised to check them out. I'd recommend Hüsker Dü's "Zen Arcade" and The Meat Puppets' "Up On The Sun" as good starting points, but most records by both bands are very good.

[Charlie]

Did Hüsker Dü or The Meat Puppets get mentioned?

yes, Hüsker Dü was mentioned and I think we got a clip of them playing live.

I don't think this series has been as bad as everybody else seems to have found it. It has been very white, it's true (apart from Hendrix), but once that word 'rock' is used, it implies white music anyway.

About ten years ago, a BBC series called Dancing in the Streets dealt with the music of the earlier generations, and very well too, so there was no need for this one to go through the same ground all over again.

[c hristian]

i'm 35 charlie! but not in England. When Nirvana happened, I was...let me see...in the clubs...I was 18.


born in 1972, the year of Ziggy Stardust. Not that I like Ziggy nearly as much as I like David, but, just to give you some perspective as it does or does not relate to what you were doing in 1972.