Last night a Mixtape...

Our band could be your life

Real names’d be proof

Me and Mike Watt played for years

Punk rock changed our lives

“Our band could be your life. Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991” (2002) — translated into Italian by Carlo Bordone for Arcana — is one of the bibles of Anglophone rock writing. Michael Azerrad — the journalist behind the Nirvana biography (“Come As You Are”, 1993), later editor of Bob Mould's autobiography (“See a Little Light”, 2011) — traces the arcs of the genre's seminal bands right up to that fateful year, 1991, “the year punk broke”, as Sonic Youth put it in David Markey's celebrated film of the same name about the ferment of the era, when “Nevermind” (Geffen, 1991) shot to the top of the charts around half the world.

Over time the book has become a symbol of alternative/indie rock in its strictly do-it-yourself form, chronicling the independent years of bands who later signed to majors (Husker Du, Replacements, Mudhoney, Butthole Surfers, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr.) alongside groups that stayed true to the ethic of self-production and the underground circuit (Black Flag, Minutemen, Minor Threat, Mission of Burma, Beat Happening, Fugazi, Big Black).

The records whose making emerges from the book are masterpieces of the genre: “Damaged” by Black Flag (SST, 1981), “Vs” by Mission Of Burma (Ace of Hearts, 1982), “Zen Arcade” by Husker Du (SST, 1984), “Double Nickels On The Dime” by Minutemen (SST, 1984), “Let It Be” by Replacements (TwinTone, 1984), “Psychic… Powerless… Another Man’s Sac” by Butthole Surfers (Touch and Go, 1985), “Bad Moon Rising” by Sonic Youth (Homestead, 1985), “Atomizer” by Big Black (Homestead, 1985) — so uncompromising it isn't even on Spotify, and thus absent from the playlist — “You’re Living All Over Me” by Dinosaur Jr. (SST, 1987), “Jamboree” by Beat Happening (K, 1987), “Repeater” by Fugazi (Dischord, 1990).

As the story unfolds, a constellation of scenes takes shape, a web of genres with mutual influences, a network of labels and fanzines forming the backbone of what Azerrad calls “the American indie underground”. The playlist we're presenting follows, in its first part, the order of the historical-biographical profiles the author lays out through a series of songs emblematic of each band, while the second part digs deeper into the underground affinities, the long-distance dialogues, and the sonic and conceptual echoes between them.

There's no starting point but Black Flag, the SST label, and the band's iconic partnership with artist Raymond Pettibon, brother of guitarist and producer Greg Ginn. As the keystone you'll find the melancholy “Indian summer” of the Pacific Northwest morphing into the blazing “Celebrated Summer” of the Midwest, moving on to the memorable lines from “History Lesson Pt. 2” that Azerrad chose as the book's title — and its meaning — before closing with “Strangers Die Everyday”, a kind of epitaph for a scorching season chosen by Richard Linklater to seal his film “Slacker” (1991), a manifesto for a generation out of step with mainstream values and busy producing its own cultural and artistic content.

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22/12/2025