Rein Sanction

Years after Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis introduced his pedal-driven, melancholic noise-guitar histrionics to indie rock, Rein Sanction’s Mark Gentry emerged from his Jacksonville, Florida basement with drummer/brother Brannon and bassist Ian Chase. Although hamstrung by the Dinosaur Jr comparisons, the trio nonetheless created two powerful albums before folding up in 1993. Broc’s Cabin, produced by…

Tanner

When Ryan Fox left pioneering San Diego quartet Fishwife (the first group to record for Headhunter Records), the band’s three remaining members could’ve hung it up. Instead, they took a summer vacation, then returned as this propulsive, rhythmically taut trio. Following a handful of strong singles, singer/guitarist Gar Wood, bassist Matt Ohlin and drummer Chris…

Archers of Loaf

Like many towns (Athens, Seattle, Austin) before it, Chapel Hill, NC became an indie mecca in the early 1990s. Like the other bands — scene leaders Superchunk, the wondrous Polvo, Small — to emerge from the area at the time, Archers of Loaf creates provocative guitar rock with distinctive, if collegiate, melodic dissonance. Icky Mettle…

Timco

The unmistakable imprint of guitarist Kevin Thomson (ex-Nice Strong Arm) guides Timco through the eight songs of Friction Tape. Following Nice Strong Arm’s dissolution, the Austin native relocated from New York to San Francisco and fell in with Red House Painters and American Music Club, whose Mark Eitzel assisted with production on the recorded-live-in-a-club debut…

Drip Tank

While this San Diego quartet might be best known around Southern California for initiating a live tour of 7-Eleven stores, the band’s got no other gimmicks (unless breaking up counts: Drip Tank called it quits in 1995). As one contributor to the city’s early-’90s renaissance, the group followed a series of singles and compilation appearances…

Rodan

As an influential indie-rock landmark, Slint’s second album, Spiderland, helped chart new directions for abstract guitar skronk. While the quartet’s tenure was short, Slint left its mark most palpably at ground zero: the exciting and close-knit Louisville underground scene. Though it would be unfair to call Rodan — another short-lived enterprise, by guitarists Jason B.…

Farside

This Orange County, California, hardcore quartet prides itself on solid, anthemic songwriting and good instincts. While he didn’t stick around to record with the group, future Rage Against the Machine singer Zack de la Rocha was one of its original guitarists. Singer/guitarist Popeye (Michael Vogelsang, also heard in such bands as Triggerman, Borderline and Game…

Jasper & the Prodigal Suns

Having led one version of the group in Atlanta, singer/guitarist Jasper moved to Boston in 1992 and formed a new quintet there, providing hip-hop with an invigorating jolt of kitchen-sink ethics. The combination of live beats, guitar, steel drums, bass and saxophone yield results that are funky, frenetic and diverse: Rastafarianism, hip-hop, jazz (free and…

Trenchmouth

Fueled by diverse influences and smart enough to experiment with them, the explicitly political Trenchmouth resembled the better-known Fugazi in several ways but was, perhaps bravely, more esoteric. The Chicago quartet fused foxy rhythms (ska, Caribbean) with hardcore’s energy, dub’s mysterious intensity, funk’s ass-grabbing power and jazzy variations of all of the above. The sonic…

Meices

Grunge was Sub Pop’s lucky marketing term and helped carry some of the label’s early groups (Soundgarden) to commercial success and others (Mudhoney) to critical acknowledgment. It’s all rock’n’roll when the day’s over, but if the loosely defined noise-pop genre had to have a typical representative, it might as well be San Francisco’s Meices, a…

Jackonuts

Along with several compilation appearances and a couple of singles (one contains a surprising B-side cover of Algebra Suicide’s “True Romance at the World’s Fair,” another leads with the incomprehensible “Tracy Chapman’s Lips”), the five-song Jackonuts and the eight-song On You are the entire recorded history of the explosive Jackonuts (aka Jack’O’Nuts, aka Jack-o-nuts) thus…

Bodeco

One of the most underappreciated combos in the early-to-mid-’90s indie roots-rock movement (Gibson Bros, ’68 Comeback, Reverend Horton Heat, Southern Culture on the Skids), Bodeco — take the Bo from Diddley and the ‘deco from zydeco — shake, rattle and roll out celebratory party rawk. Sing the praises of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s arch…

Gits

Reaction to death in the rock world is often glib (if well-articulated), but the July 1993 murder of Gits vocalist Mia Zapata brought Seattle’s underground community together in a shared sense of tragedy, fear, sadness, horror and anger. (Her killer was finally identified via DNA evidence and arrested in January 2003.) Zapata was special, and…

Mount Shasta

Dirt and Phantom 309 co-founder John Forbes fled the simmering Atlanta underground in the early ’90s for harsher Midwestern (Chicago) turf, forming this scorching four-piece scuzz-skronk ensemble. Although the group’s peers include Cows, Butthole Surfers and other pigfuck leaders, Mount Shasta certainly goes to extremes others don’t. Put the Creep On is a good example…

Seaweed

Weaned on all-ages hardcore shows in their Tacoma, Washington, hometown, the five members of Seaweed struck out in late 1989 to emulate their heroes. The agile hook-core quintet was soon playing bars where its members were too young to drink, wowing onlookers with incessant pogoing and urgent metal-influenced riffs. Six years later, Seaweed’s maturation (and…

Rage Against the Machine

Until his departure in October 2000, RATM stood its revolutionary ground behind onetime Orange County straight-edge vocalist Zack de la Rocha (previously of New York’s Inside Out and California’s Farside) and his incendiary lyrics. Blasting away at cultural imperialism, the politics of greed, Eurocentricism and injustice, the multi-ethnic thrash/rap group based in Southern California unleashes…

Brainiac

Right around the time neighbors Guided by Voices were emerging from obscurity into critical darlingdom, this crack(ed) Dayton quartet reached into Ohio’s rich musical history (can you say Devo? Pere Ubu? Rocket From the Tombs?) for a handful of back-to-the-futuristic cool wave influences. And it was good. Really good. Armed with a Realistic Moog synthesizer…

Beatnik Filmstars

This English quintet spits back shards of US influences like Pavement, Sebadoh and Sonic Youth, but the group’s rough-hewn, druggy, post-Velvets flavor leaves it a tad behind more commercial countrymen in the bid to conquer America. And while Beatnik Filmstars come from Bristol, the group’s lo-fi three-guitar assault has nothing in common with such trip-hop…

Pitchblende

Part Pavement disciples, part Sonic Youth revisionists and part “math rock,” Washington DC’s brave Pitchblende peeled off an ambitious debut in the 22-track Kill Atom Smasher. Abstract experimental noise fragments — titled by length, e.g., “(1:05)” and “(:15)” — break up intense, dissonant songcraft. “Flax,” the pick of the litter, is a tumble of jagged…

Rachel’s

This unique music and design project based in Louisville, Kentucky revolves around Jason Noble (ex-Rodan), namesake Rachel Grimes and Juilliard student Christian Frederickson. Somewhere between meticulous and improvisational, the Rachel’s blurs the genres of classical and experimental music to deliver sublime, intelligent, occasionally haunting compositions. In the indie-rock world with which these composers are associated…