Category: scram

Scram magazine, housed in Los Angeles, California, pays homage to all the players too eccentric or obscure or off-beat to find a home in the Madison Avenue media machine. Scram is truly a resource for those musicians just outside the windows of top-forty-land, those songwriters and guitar slingers looking for an outlet for their own particular brand of art. Accordingly, Lost in the Grooves takes up where Scram leaves off — a compilation of ruminations from 75 critics and music aficionados detailing their favorite slices of the scene: "Jandek is a flat-out weirdo. No one knows who he is, and the guy is either making up his own chords or just doesn’t care how his guitar is tuned. Jadek is like an alien trying to play music after hearing it described to him once. Blind Corpse is his masterpiece…His lyrics reveal a man suffering from a pain so oblique that the listener must simply allow him to revel in his misery. Jadek doesn’t need us for comfort…" (Hayden Childs — Page 120) These little known stories about the sometimes shadowy figures of the music world are a hoot to discover; more than anything, this book is like picking an old Rolling Stone and reading for the pure enjoyment of the ride. However, Lost is important for another reason: as a diary of the hidden streets of the American Music scene, the pieces come together to give true historical perspective to the influences behind the echoes shedding light on the faces behind the old ghosts. Just as much as all the big-time dollar bands, these unknowns serve to bring shape and continuity to the history of our sound: "Forget the hilarious GTOs. Forget even the mighty Shaggs. Suckdog captures adolescent female adrenaline-fueled angst and aggression like no recording artist I’ve heard before or since. This is not a record for the squeamish…" (Russ Foster — Page 228) Lost in the Grooves is not a book for fans mad about one band or one particular singer. Instead, this is a book for the serious music fan, for those serious students of the art form curious about who-influenced-who and what sound rose out of what region. Like turning on a radio station and listening to a feverish wounded-voiced DJ tell you the reason behind every record you never heard, there’s 20 new things to be learned on every page here. Recommended to all libraries in the public sector and at the college level as general reference text. Also will appeal to serious music fans of all generations – there’s some new stuff here for all tastes. & thanks to Routledge for perhaps forsaking pure commercial motive and releasing an invaluable teaching tool. (John Aiello, The Electric Review, March/April 2005)