Songs for Grungers, Ravers and Indie Rock Librarians

Teen Spirit, Wings and a geographically dislocated Dinosaur Jr. at Stewart Gardiner’s recent DJ session of outsider sounds and indie rock

At my secondary school, you were either a grunger or a raver. Ground zero had mostly been indie of the baggy, shoegazey sort (saying that, I’m grateful that my Best of Indie Top 20 cassette also featured “Monkey Gone to Heaven” by the Pixies and “Freak Scene” by Dinosaur Jr.), then folks generally got into either the alternative or rave scenes. I initially took the latter path, although it wasn’t too long until I wound my way to the former. Obviously things weren’t as cut and dried as that suggests and I would add that the people at my school into alternative music were more open to dance music than vice versa. I was friends with people in both groups and didn’t quite fit in with the rave crowd – personality incompatibilities aside, my preferred house and techno was light years away from their happy hardcore. A change in musical allegiances ultimately allowed me to embrace my outsider status in positive ways.

There was a moment that clarified all of this for me. I’d grown my hair out and was sporting a flannel shirt. Walking through the school minding my own business, I saw someone that I would’ve hung out with only months before. There weren’t any issues as far as I was concerned, but as I passed him he snarled, “Fucking grunger” at me. The ridiculousness of the incident aside, I took his intended insult as a real badge of honour. I’m a card-carrying “grunger” to this day.

I’ve been bringing some of that spirit to my DJing and the set from my recent gig at the Muswell Hillbilly Brewers taproom is as good a representation as anything of where I am musically right now.

Early on at the taproom, a woman asked me what the record that was playing was. That the answer was Wings (in this case “Wild Life”) took me back to a Plan B magazine event at Mono in Glasgow I organised and DJed at back in the mid-2000s, where our publisher excitedly asked what I was playing and seemed almost dejected when I informed him it was Wings (in that case “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five”). Back to 2023 and the woman who asked the question was delighted to discover it was a Paul McCartney cut.

Later on, I’m playing Dinosaur Jr.’s magnificent “Forget the Swan” from their debut album and a guy comes up to me and points to the record.

“Best Scottish band ever,” he says.

I’m a little confused. “That’s Dinosaur Jr.”

“Yeah!”

Um…

Despite not really wanting to shatter a decades-old illusion, I feel it’s my duty to break it to him that Dinosaur Jr. are in fact American. After further explaining that J. Mascis hails from Massachusetts, I decide I have to make things right. So, as a Scot myself I tell him that we’ll take Dinosaur as one of ours. More than happy to.

He sidles back up to me a little later, looking for some reassurance.

“Are the Jesus and Mary Chain still Scottish?” he asks.

This time everything is okay.

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Muswell Hillbilly Brewers Taproom, Saturday 3 June 2023:

Jim O’Rourke – Not Sport, Martial Art (Drag City)

Mariah – Shinzo No Tobira (Everland)

Eiko Ishibashi – Introduction (Drag City)

Spirit Fest – Anohito (Till the Gate) (Morr)

M. Takara & Carla Boregas – Aurino (Hive Mind)

Duncan Marquiss – Drivenhalle (Basin Rock)

Low – The Price You Pay (It Must Be Wearing Off) (Sub Pop)

Paul McCartney & Wings – Wild Life (UMC)

Os Carbonos – Pássaro Selvagem (Mad About Records)

SAULT – Free (Forever Living Originals)

The Slits – I Heard It through the Grapevine (Island)

Billy Paul – Let the Dollar Circulate (Be With)

Wendy Grose – Blue Sunny Sky Day (Re:Warm)

Crosby, Stills & Nash – Long Time Gone (Atlantic)

Jim O’Rourke – Prelude to 110 or 220 / Women of the World (Drag City)

Silver Jews – New Orleans (Drag City)

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – Madeleine-Mary (Domino)

Smog – Song (Domino)

Dub Narcotic Sound System – You Fuck Me Up (K)

fIREHOSE – Sometimes (SST)

Sebadoh – Gimme Indie Rock (Homestead)

Sleater-Kinney – One More Hour (Sub Pop)

TAD – Sex God Missy (Glitterhouse)

Dinosaur Jr. – Forget the Swan (Jagjaguwar)

Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit (DGC)

Fugazi – Walken’s Syndrome (Dischord)

Hole – Olympia (DGC)

Sonic Youth – Stones (Geffen)

R.E.M. – The One I Love (IRS)

Beat Happening – Indian Summer (Domino)

The Afghan Whigs – My Curse (Blast First)

Pearl Jam – Black (Epic)

The Beatles – Come Together (Apple)