This month sees the release of “Strum & Thrum: The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987”, a double-LP compilation on Brooklyn indie label Captured Tracks. A limited to 1000 copies colored-vinyl early issue of the set was released a few weeks ago on the third “Record Store Day” of 2020, and it appears to have sold out immediately and copies look to be trading hands for up to $80 on the ol’ Discogs, which leads me to wonder: who the heck’s buyin’ these? Now, it’s a great comp. Nary a dud among the 28 tracks. I have no idea if CT has the sorta audience that just blindly opens their wallet for every single thing they release but I’m also not sure why thousands of people enjoy Mac DeMarco’s music. I guess anything’s possible. The real reason I’m surprised 1000 copies of a 2xLP compilation of obscure 80’s guitar bands sold out instantly and immediately became a high-priced collector’s item is the most well-known artists on the whole thing is probably Salem 66 and The Windbreakers who weren’t ever household names beyond the college radio world (from what I gather) (And the best Windbreakers album is actually Bobby Sutliff’s first solo album “Only Ghosts Remain” – Ed.) So are the DIIV and Wild Nothing fans of the world snapping up these records or is there actually a ton of interest in all those bands Gerard Cosloy signed to Homestead back when “sounds like R.E.M.” was still a compliment? And what the heck is “The American Jangle Underground” anyway?
I think most fans of pre-2000 “underground” or “independent” music will immediately recognize the word “jangle” and the types of bands it describes. If that word has joined “shoegaze” and “no wave” in being stretched-out, mutated, co-opted and bastardized for press releases and Bandcamp profiles and it doesn’t mean what it used to; I have no idea. I certainly haven’t heard it used to describe a new band in a long, long time but I’m not as tuned in to whatever Pitchfork and Vinyl Me Please currently deem “cool” so take that observation with a grain of salt, I guess. Honestly, I’d be delighted to hear that there’s a bunch of kids out there emulating bands like The Bats or Big Dipper. Who knows? What I do know is the bands on “Strum & Thrum” aren’t too far removed from bands on another comp that came out right smack dab in the middle of the time period it covers: NME’s “C86” cassette/LP from 1986.
“C86” was one in a series of several comps curated by NME writers and editors available for sale to readers through the magazine’s mailorder. Just like tabloids the music press in the UK was always highly competitive and at the time there were no less than four weekly music journals battlting for readership. Going back to the 60’s and the Beatles vs. Stones era one tactic the UK music press used to attract readers was by declaring the existence of entire new genres of music, usually based on small regional scenes or sometimes just a few random likeminded bands who defied traditional categorization. Depending on who you ask, the compiling of “C86” was either dumb luck in that the compilation became so popular organically due to the high quality of the music within that it spawned a new genre bearing the name of the release, “C86”, or it was a highly tactical maneuver by the journalists to curate a collection so as to purposely propose that all of these bands shared some common thread that would actually need a name to describe them. Either way, “C86” almost immediately became synonymous with the shy, mopey, somewhat inept, less abrasive, post-punk, post-rock’n’roll, independent guitar-based pop ie. “Indie Rock”. John Peel had already been referring to this style of jangly Byrds-esque guitar pop as “shambly” or “shambling” for a bit and the fans easily put two and two together when they heard the bands on “C86” and before you knew it: a new genre was born. Now, if you listen to “C86” from start to finish, you’ll notice that there are quite a few tracks on there that are hardly jangly or shambly. Bands like Bogshed and Stump and Big Flame sound nothing at all like the head down, awkward, pimply faced pop bands that ended up being defined by the title of the comp. Leave it to the press to ignore that fact and just latch on to “C86” and “Indie” now being easy ways to lump together a bunch of bands that didn’t fit in anywhere else and only share a geographic location and a charming musical ineptitude in common. (Actually, a few of the bands that contributed to “C86” were initially horrified to hear they weren’t considered good musicians and that the fans and press saw that as an asset to their originality). The readers ate it up and before you knew it the idea that specifically being a fan of independent bands on small regional labels was a type of musical identity in of itself. One of the biggest debates in the British and European music press in the 80’s was whether or not certain journalists and publications acknowledged the indisputable popularity of black American hip-hop and r&b artists and whether rap music as a genre was a fad that would die away or if it was indeed the revolution in art it eventually proved to be. Many argue that when “Indie” was christened as an actual genre by the fans and critics it was an easy and safe (read: white) way for everyone to focus on this new native genre instead of American hip-hop which made a lot of people nervous and even more outright angry (“that’s not music!”). In that regard, “indie”, “C86”, “jangle pop” couldn’t have come at a better time for those…conflicted fans and critics and the hip-hop debate was a good reason for everyone involved to make sure “indie” continued to be a “thing” worth talking about.
Unlike “C86”, the common thread shared by the bands on “Strum & Thrum” is fairly obvious assuming the words “jangle underground” make sense to you. Still, when I first saw the title and tracklisting I was a little taken aback as I don’t think I would have ever really recognized that common thread if it weren’t pressed up and put in front of me. Honestly, like “C86”, if someone were to have told me to come up with a story tying all these bands together it feels like it would have been a bit of stretch to connect the UK-style sad pop of Chicago’s The Springfields to Ohio’s nutty, sometimes psychedelic, sometimes garage-y Great Plains to the post-hardcore melancholy rock of DC’s Crippled Pilgrims to Boston’s all-female folky-post-punk Salem 66. Seeing as I was around 10 years old the during years these comps cover, my perspective of those times is informed by both curious peers looking back at it the same way I am as well as an older generation who lived through it all in real time and very well could dispute connections, influences, and acceptance by other scenes, critics and audiences. One thing I really appreciate is Sniper’s assertion that “I’m happy that the first compilation I’ve ever produced features overlooked records that are still affordable — anyone who enjoys this comp can dive deeper into this scene without having to take out a loan.” Just like “C86” featured fairly obscure independent bands from smaller scenes with smaller audiences, accessibility is a major factor on “Strum & Thrum”. However, knowing Sniper’s deep knowledge of the collectors market going back to chats with him in the Academy Records on N6th in Williamsburg years, I’m pretty sure he’s fully aware of the “legitimization” that happens when cheap, obscure records are “comped” and the frenzy a record getting “comped” creates among collectors in the wake of its release. If anybody who knew what was on this thing was smart, they’re sitting on some copies of the hundreds of the A New Personality 7″s and 12″s that are currently NOT for sale anywhere I can see…
“C86” may have been the result of some people taking pieces from a dozen different puzzles and throwing them all into a random box and selling it to the fans as a cohesive puzzle that was up to them to figure out. When the fans figured it out, and it didn’t resemble anything obvious, but everyone still agreed it was a completed puzzle, everyone was happy and a new genre was born. The pieces on “Strum & Thrum” all seem to fit together fairly well from the get go, but it’s going to be interesting to see how much sense that puzzle makes to the younger generation just discovering this music now. Sniper also mentions in regards to the comp, “People nowadays sometimes say that guitar music is dead. Strum & Thrum is certainly against that notion.” Now, I believe him when he says he hears people say that, but he’s in tune to a world of modern listeners I’m not a part of so whoever is actually saying that is a mystery to me. If those are the people that are buying “Strum & Thrum”, I can only hope it has the same effect on them that “C86” had on the UK and European audiences when it was released. I have my own perspective on what makes all these bands special but I’m more than happy to keep my mouth shut and let the younger generation take it all in organically and decide what effect it’s going to have on the music they make and the records they buy.
