Preview
  • Your Band Sucks

  • What I Saw at Indie Rock's Failed Revolution (But Can No Longer Hear)
  • By: Jon Fine
  • Narrated by: Jon Fine
  • Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (34 ratings)

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Your Band Sucks

By: Jon Fine
Narrated by: Jon Fine
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Publisher's summary

Jon Fine spent nearly 30 years performing and recording with bands that played various forms of aggressive and challenging underground rock music. And, as he writes in this memoir, at no point were any of those bands "ever threatened, even distantly, by actual fame". Yet when members of his first band, Bitch Magnet, reunited after 21 years to tour Europe, Asia, and America, diehard longtime fans traveled from far and wide to attend those shows, which was a testament to the remarkable staying power of the indie culture that the bands predating the likes of Bitch Magnet willed into existence through sheer determination and a shared disdain for the mediocrity of contemporary popular music.Like Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, Your Band Sucks is an insider's look at a fascinating and ferociously loved subculture. In it, Fine tracks how the indie-rock underground emerged and evolved, how it grappled with the mainstream and vice versa, and how it led many bands to an odd rebirth in the 21st century in which they reunited, briefly and bittersweetly, after being broken up for decades. With backstage access to many key characters in the scene - and plenty of wit and sharply worded opinion - Fine delivers a memoir that affectionately yet critically portrays an important, heady moment in music history.

©2015 Jon Fine (P)2015 Tantor
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Critic reviews

"'I don't regret a thing' writes Fine, and neither will readers who live vicariously through the author's eyes and memory." ( Kirkus starred review)

What listeners say about Your Band Sucks

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Candid History

An emotionally intense music memoir that serves as a meditation on cultural change, aging, and the creative process. it was longer than I initially thought made sense. But, if anything, the second half increases in intensity.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Life in a band-the ups, downs and truth!

This book will resonate with anyone who has ever started a band; been in a band; or failed in a band (regardless of musical genre). An eyes wide open, no punches pulled, memoir of the late 80's thru the mid 2000's. Fascinating and entertaining!

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Entertaining look at indie bands journey

I enjoyed listening to this book read by the author. Birds eye view of what is was like to be a punk rocker. Very entertaining and insightful with excellent prose. Highly recommend to all
Fledgling musicians.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Nostalgic

Really good. I don’t know Jon personally but I know Sooyoung. It’s a great book of a great band before I got to know him.
I know there were antidotes from other peoples stories that were used. One that stood out about van stories eerily sounded familiar of a situation that involved me and another band member. Wondering if Jon had heard a story from my old band mate about that one?
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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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Well-Crafted, but No Story

Jon Fine's writing is great. There is no doubt about that. He has a voice and an originality with his words that are the thing that kept me going for the first six hours-plus of this book. But then I had to bail. There is just NO STORY. Nothing really happens, it is all musings on rock and the band culture of the 80s. I figure, if you invest six hours into a book and it's still not hooking you, it never will. Your Band Sucks is well-crafted, has a strong voice, and is great for a while, but it wasn't enough to sustain me and my husband on our road trip.

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