In commemoration of City Weekly's 40th anniversary, we are digging into our archives to celebrate. Each week, we FLASHBACK to a story or column from our past in honor of four decades of local alt-journalism. Whether the names and issues are familiar or new, we are grateful to have this unique newspaper to contain them all.
Title: Notes from the Underground
Author: Ziba Marashi
Date: Aug. 25, 1989
This summer has been marked by musical anniversaries: the two decades since Woodstock, the 25th birthday party of the Who, and the not-so-Rolling Stones return to the stadiums. While most of the attention has been focused on the likes of Roger "the Codger" Daltry and Keith "Blood Bank" Richards, 1989 marks another anniversary of sorts. It was ten years ago that the Salt Lake "underground" scene asserted its tenacious and rarely acknowledged presence. While the Geritol generation—those aging hippies—pack mega-seat arenas, local bands struggle to fill 100-seat venues. So what of that scene?
From 1979 to the present the scene has struggled to keep original, alternative music alive in Salt Lake. There have been dozens of exciting, innovative, local bands, but until recently, there were no permanent venues to book them. Additionally, local promoters refused to risk booking touring acts with names like Butthole Surfers, Meat Puppets, Tupelo Chain Sex and Day Glo Abortions.
This, combined with a reluctance bordering on fascism by the local media to acknowledge anything even hinting of subversion or creativity, forced enterprising young people to create their own venues, promote their own shows and to release their own records. Then, and to a lesser degree now, promotion was largely improvisational with the likes of Jon Shuman, Brad Collins and Kevin Golding financing hall space rental, renting P.A. equipment, and printing flyers out of their own pockets. In sites as disparate as community centers, abandoned garages, basements and living rooms, those underground pioneers and others managed to bring bands like The Minutemen, Black Flag, Husker Du, Minor Threat and Dead Kennedys to Salt Lake. Meanwhile, local bands like Massacre Guys, Maimed for Life, 004 and LDS put out records and toured—in between dodging rednecks and police.
Ten years later, all-ages halls like the Speedway, the Word, and Cinema in Your Face! make it possible for more local bands than ever to get together and perform without struggling for exposure. Their original music is now more accessible and more evident than ever and Salt Lake, once considered a cultural desert, is now gaining wider recognition outside the Intermountain area as having some of the best organized promotion and most receptive audiences in the nation. Underground music is alive and well in Salt Lake City.
That success, to a large degree, is the direct result of networking between promoters, alternative radio DJs and hall owners. With our small population, there is always the danger of oversaturation and promoters have learned to work together rather than compete directly with each other for the same audience—the scene has "Come Together" and John Lennon would be proud. For example, the Speedway Cafe and the Word try to avoid scheduling conflicts when booking major acts by coordinating their monthly calendars and helping each other promote shows. The irony lies in the fact that their liberal booking policies which have allowed local music to thrive over the past two years have made original bands so accessible to the public that they are in danger of being taken for granted.
That the city allows these facilities to conduct business is a benefit for all Salt Lake City music and a sign of how much attitudes have changed. The Word and Speedway are gaining legitimacy, escaping the stigma associated with being located on the West side and providing entertaining original music—which unfortunately, the mainstream public still refers to as "punk rock." These clubs are also a viable alternative to bars while encouraging creativity and keeping kids off the streets.
That was not always the case. The original Painted Word was forced out of business through the use of a dubious and rarely-enforced ordinance which prohibited live entertainment after 2:00 a.m. The Painted Word was a coffee shop which catered to night owls and the "entertainment" was often a poetry reading or acoustic guitar jam. Also, Alice's Restaurant was suddenly closed down in a police raid in which illegal substances and stolen stereo equipment were found on the premises. The issue remains clouded, but Alice's doors remain permanently closed.
Despite prior problems, alternative music continues to flourish. A New York census analyst once described Utah as "a third world country in the middle of America" due to our high birth which accounts for the largest per capita below thirty population in the United States. Contrary to the popular maxim, "families aren't forever" and a lot of kids can also mean a lot of dissatisfaction, boredom and a need for self-expression. If there is something that can be described as "underground" this is where it begins.
While the Woodstock generation had Viet Nam as a rallying point, this generation has no common thread, and bands and fans in the same "scene" can become as divisive, hypocritical and antagonistic as those they are rebelling against. Not all bands are apolitical or apathetic though—there is a strong current of social consciousness and commentary inherent in many of them, reminiscent of the "punk" movement of the early '80s.
The positive aspect of this separatism is the striking individuality of many bands. Unlike Athens, Ga., where everybody tried to be the next REM, or Los Angeles where every band wants to be the next Guns N' Roses, Utah has no musical icons to aspire to—with the possible exception of the Osmonds which is virtually irrelevant. Consequently, musicians become their own leaders, resulting in a range and diversity of music which is astounding for a city this size. There are currently at least thirty local bands playing their own compositions. Their interests and influences vary from "straight edge" (a term coined by Minor Threat singer Ian McKaye, condemning drug and alcohol abuse—giving rebellious Mormons an outlet for musical expression), to affected Satanic posturing, to psychedelic hedonism and everything in between.
Generally, "underground" bands are young, don't play in bars, and don't do cover songs. Word of mouth is the catalyst to drawing a crowd. Good bands gain nearly immediate popularity, as in the case of Boxcar Kids or Sun Regime. Others, like the Bad Yodelers and the Stench (who must be considered Salt Lake's premier band after an album release and their first national tour) develop audiences over a period of time. The bottom line is that any band, whatever their trip, is allowed time and access to develop and perform in the "underground" scene.
Unfortunately, unlike Athens, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles, record executives are not exactly flocking to Salt Lake to scout the local talent. This leaves Salt Lake's original music creators and performers with the options of relocating, independently releasing their own albums with hopes of distribution and radio air-play, or attempting to tour. That leaves many bands disillusioned, indulging in petty backbiting or succumbing to the big-money lure of corporate, cover-band bar entertainment. The phrase "sell-out" in Salt Lake is essentially redundant.
Hopefully another alternative will arise: That people will spend less time in bars listening to "Wild Thing" for the millionth time and spend more time checking out what's exciting and happening. The "underground" scene is vital and evolutionary. Almost all music has four beats and so does "underground" music. You can even dance to it—although it isn't reggae. Attention from outside of Utah has focused on the local scene here. Salt Lake has the potential to become the "next alternative music mecca" of America—and it's happening in your own backyard.
