NOISE ROCK MEMORY-EXCAVATION
Psychiatric Tissues. Jeff Schneider. Pig Roast Publishing, 2018. 269 pages.
āI wanted to punch Neutral Milk Hotel in the face, not the people in the band, but the songs that represented them.ā āJeff Schneider, Psychiatric Tissues
Musical memoir is a genre I donāt have much familiarity with. Neither did I know much about the iconic noise rock band Arab On Radar before I read the book Psychiatric Tissues by Jeff Schneider. But this didnāt matter because I easily read the book in two days and was thoroughly engrossed. Schneider was a guitarist in the band who went by the nom de guerre Mr. Clinical Depression (virtually all the band members had such monikers), and his ability to tell a storyāreplete with grisly anecdotes from the road, analyses of the indie music industry in the 90s and 2000s, shoutouts to individuals along the way who either gave their all to help the band or were obnoxious hindrances, proud reflections on the bandās gritty hometown of Providence RIāis remarkable and assured. Itās rough and bears the traces of long experience and knowledge whereof he speaks.
Itās also funny as fuck and had me laughing out loud, real uncontrolled laughter which doesnāt hardly ever happen when Iām reading books, even books that are considered to be conventionally humorous. It takes something special and hard to define to make me lose it. This book has that thing and itās just one of Schneiderās talents that helps pull you like a hooked fish steadily through the book. His sense of humor derives from the working class wise guy voice of an artist from the East Coast crossing paths with the freaks, pretentious āsweater-lovers,ā people with identical āRomulanā haircuts, shysty music industry types, cookie-cutter hardcore bands, and other denizens of the often compromised post-Nirvana indie music scene as it existed in those years. Arab On Radar toured the USA and Europe, collecting bizarre, sometimes violent experiences, and one area in which the book excels is Schneiderās ability to quickly paint witty pictures of the people the band meets, and also, of course, the people the band is comprised of. The encounter in the UK with ineffectual bobbies (āgoofy ass cops with yellow construction bibsā) while looking for stolen musical gear was just one of many hilarious portraits too numerous to recount, but he does.
The book is many things but one of its more utilitarian functions is to serve as a handbook for musicologists who want to delve into a musical subculture as it has existed around the turn of the millennium and beyond. The arcane lore is givenāof bands, labels, producers, studios, and perhaps one of the most fascinating bodies of information in the book is an almost night-by-night recounting of the venues Arab On Radar played at in cities around the country and world. The band was apparently phenomenal in their live performances, and to this chump reader, who hasnāt seen live music since the 90s, I was absorbed in the tales of humping gear in and out of locales, playing with maximum devotion even when there was āno oneā in the audience, getting in scuffles both social and physical with other bands (Death Cab for Cutie mistaking AOR for roadies who will handle their gear like servile coolies was priceless), and just the memory-excavated physical descriptions of the stages and performance spaces, especially when the skepticism of Schneider and the rest of the band seemed to give way to awed approval.
Violence, sex, and drugs color much of the story; it is a blessing that Schneider can remember the details as well as he can, but again, he does. The book isnāt all raucous adolescent fun, of course. Often a gnawing anxiety and depression attacks the author, and the regret over lost friendships, lost opportunities for love, and just people vanished to time, unavoidable to those writing a memoir about their youth, take their toll. The passages offering bitter criticism of the fake weakness and elitism of musical scenes strike a familiar chord to those of us who came of age in the 90s when the issue of bands selling out and being fake were common currency (Iām sure itās a perennial problem, but Schneiderās tale had a generational resonance for me somehow).
All thatās left to do now is to pay attention to the catalog of music that existed, and do the archaeology that this book gives a series of guideposts for.
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