Sarre-Chasm

Waiting for the Bubble to Burst

by Jon Sarre
illustration by Timothy Walker

First things first, I’d like to offer up a big round of applause for Mr. Trent Reznor, for what else, being selected as one of Time Magazine’s “Twenty-five Most Influential People in America”!!!??? Huh? Does that make sense to you? Influential in what way? Fashion? Music video? Does this mean he can have a guy killed just by making a phone call? More important, is Mr.Nine Inch Nail gonna be all that influential a year from now (Sure, providing he can pull a Bowie and sniff out/suck dry future trends much like the Thin White Dork did a little while back when he had NIN draw in unsuspecting young suckers – I just wanna know who got to be on top for the duration of that tête-a-tête, er… tour)? Who really knows for sure there (not the industry, that’s a given. While we’re on the subject, how much cash did the Offspring bilk Sony outta?).

They don’t handicap the trends in Vegas, probably cuz fights are easier to fix, but maybe they oughtta, since watchin’ highly touted talentless hacks go down in flames is more fun than seein’ Joe Palooka take a dive in the third round cuz 20-1 is 20-1 when you come right down to it. Yeah, I admit taking pleasure in watchin’ the clueless sign the stupid and prayin’ for the best since, hey, it’s the band’s fault if it doesn’t work out and there’s really no shortage of potential busboys and pump jockeys out there.

The only question I really have is when does the music/media/ marketing industry move on from alterna-punk-indie-modern-suck-cumrock to whatever greener (y’know, the color of money) pastures they can find to spread their bullshit (electronic whoisitwhat stuff seems to be the coming hype, god knows Bono’s sense of trend-sniffing is nearly as acute as his Uncle Dave’s – Bowie, that is)?

It’s gonna happen sooner or later, things are so fucked up that even when a throw-’em-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks signing comes up big for one record, that momentum often can’t be maintained for the second. Green Day and, hell, even Nirvana (maybe on purpose though) could not come up with a sophomore megasuccess (sure, it’s an old story, but tell me that people don’t expect “Smells Like Longview Part II” or something).

Sales figures, however, have nothing to do with music. Commercial achievement and aesthetic validity exist in two completely different and separate spheres. They do occasionally cross (Nirvana again, maybe Pavement or PJ Harvey, too, but changes – for the worse, natch – were made in their cases), that’s more the exception than the rule.

For my money (and that plus a quarter will get you a local phone call), the most interesting signings are the ones that come off as so fucked up, so misthought that you’d think the labels were just throwin’ money into an incinerator. Don’t get me wrong, these are usually the people who are actually playin’ real rock’n’roll and not the pop imitation, but if you consider the odd case of the Melvins (now “back home” at Amphetamine Reptile – read, their prestigious conglomerate corporate label dropped ’em), well, they sure ain’t Stone Temple Pilots, right?

Zeke, one of Epitaph’s (whether this label is an “indie” or a “major” should be a matter of perception) more recent signings, is one such band. If I were less cynical, I’d say a crew of nitrosucking, noisy, speed demons were welcomed aboard the good ship Epi-prize as a service to the fucking industry, but Brett Gurewitz ain’t runnin’ a charity and who knows how those madmen’ll sound after undergoing the Sally Browder Wall of Punky Sound… Will they sell? Maybe, they fuckin’ should, but at last check, this world wasn’t perfect.

Not having the gift of ESP, I don’t know what expectations (record sales-wise) Zeke’s supposed to fulfill (or for that matter, hardcore hellions DFL, ladies o’ the garage the Red Aunts, or even vets like Gas Huffer or legends like the Descendents).

I guess I’d like to know, but even more, I wanna know how long these people are gonna stick around, even on a sub-major like Epitaph, once the bottom drops out of this thing and the market stops humoring anyone foolish enough to keep calling their own dances. Hell, DGC and Virgin don’t really seem to know what to do with a Boss Hog or Royal Trux right now, what are they gonna do with `em in the next year or so? Pressure `em to change? Drop ’em? Let ’em make increasingly irrelevant “art” records like Sonic Life, Death and Proper Parenting For the Nineties?

Not too long ago, there was a pretty fair number of indie record labels around. They varied in size, scope and distribution, but they did lots of the dirty work required to keep rock’n’roll alive until the majors stepped in. Now, many of these former independents are either partly owned by a major (Caroline, Matador and Sub Pop fall into this category) or, at least, involved in distribution deals (which appear to be both complex and tedious). Will the indie-rock safety net, as frail as it was, be available when the majors start trimming the fat from their rosters?

Yeah, it’s too early to carve the inscriptions on the tombstones (but, goddamn it, invest those royalty checks!). Until the saturation point, where everyone is sick of the punk sound/fashion/scene, is reached, there’s still room to rise up, up, up, higher and higher, just like a soap bubble. Sooner or later, it’s gonna burst. And when it does… like Thurston Moore sang a long fucking time ago… “Confusion is next.”