From the SLUG Archives: Best of the ‘90s
Archived
For SLUG’s ‘90s throwback issue, in celebration of the magazine’s 36th Anniversary, SLUG’s editorial team compiled snippets of the coolest things that went to print in SLUG each year, from 1990 to 1999. Click the link on each title to read the archive piece in its entirety.
The Ramones
Issue 20 – August 1990
By Don Elkins Jr.
SLUG: So, do you get tired of the “underground” label?
Ramones: Nobody calls us that; we do really well in America, but over there is where, I guess, we do the best. There’s a different attitude over there.
SLUG: About the music, there’s a real sense of forbidden energy to it. Lots of the songs are about things that go counter to what society sees as accepted behavior (“beat on the brat with a baseball bat,” etc.). Is it intended that way?
Ramones: Yeah… it’s our reactions to all the bullshit and all the pretentiousness and all the mediocrity that goes on. We don’t compromise, we don’t kiss ass, we don’t give a shit what people think about us, we do what we believe.
SLUG: What do you label your music?
Ramones: We call it punk — it’s hard rock, it’s exciting rock and roll music.
SLUG: Is punk still alive?
Ramones: It’s alive enough, and there’s nobody like us.
Saving the Tower Theatre …
Issue 26 – February 1991
By Laura Bringard
“I think, as a community, we all have to do something to put back what we’ve taken out,” said new owner Harold Hill regarding his contributions toward saving the Tower. “It’s as important as the new arena for the Jazz. I think historically its worth is beyond calculation and it’s a very integral part of our marketplace. Intrinsically, you can’t replace it. I’m going to roll up my sleeves with Greg and see if we can’t get things done,” said Hill, who noted he has received offers from parties interested in opening restaurants in the theater’s location.
“It’s quite an investment to buy a theater. They’re not known to be a very stable business in these hard days when multiplexes are the way to go,” said Greg Tanner regarding the Independent Film Foundation (IFF)’s efforts to recruit Hill. “But we have a unique position in the film market here in Salt Lake in that we specialize in something that no one else does — art film programming,” Tanner said, “so we can make the Tower a viable economic investment whereas I don’t think anyone else really could.”
Paganism in Utah
Issue 40 – April 1992
By Clarke Walker, Jo Yaffe
SLUG: Well, what about the word “witch”?
Gretchen: We’re deliberately reclaiming and deliberately choosing to use that word, instead of a prettier or “nicer” word, because we see the power in it. We see the positive context … The problem with that is: I’m not sure any of the three of us would actually believe in supernatural powers. I don’t think it’s super, other or other side. We think it’s all entirely natural. How much more “super” can you be than “natural”? For a long time, it was assumed that all magic, including the growing of plants, came from power given by a deity. Part of the problem is which deity a person claimed the power came from. If a person claimed that the power came from the coming ruling deity, then the magic was called a miracle, and you were doing the will of God, and it was fine. If a person happened to worship any other deity than that one central, cultural god — whether or not they claimed that their ability to do magic came from that deity — then it worked by magic and evil.
The Malady of Immortality: Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Issue 49 – January 1993
By M.
The movie and the book are both wonderfully constructed, delving into the psyche of the vampire and making the horror and shock secondary. They do not merely satiate our human bloodlust, but study human reactions to the supernatural and the spiritual. Through the responses of the actors in Dracula and the character in Anne Rice’s novel, we can examine our own attitudes toward death and immortality and vicariously see how we might choose if given the opportunity. How many of us would drink the blood of eternal life? How many of us are happy just as we are? These questions are eternal and are raised through the vampire legend, far enough removed that we can make our decision without obligation or pressure to our souls. If the vampire fascinates our own minds, why is that? If the creatures of the night disgust and frighten us, what does that mean? … Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula is incredibly true to Bram Stoker’s novel, especially in the mood and the passion elicited on the screen.
The Cramps: A Phoner with Poison Ivy
Issue 71 – November 1994
By SLUG Staff
Poison Ivy: …For whatever reason, more people in Europe know about rockabilly and American culture than Americans now. I don’t know why that is.
SLUG: Do you think all this label attention might offer some hope to the more traditional rockabilly bands like High Noon, The Frantic Flattops, The Dave and Deke Combo and Russell Scott & His Red Hots?
Poison Ivy: Yea, I hope so. I think that makes a better chance for it. Those are really good bands and it should open the door for that because the climate just changed at radio and record companies. We haven’t modified what we do and Reverend Horton Heat hasn’t tamed down at all. It’s like more people are coming around. More people who are actually music industry types are warming up to it. I don’t know why it’s taken them forever. So, that might open the door for more bands. People are just sick of moody depressing music. We sure don’t need a ’70s revival — it was bad enough in the ’70s.
Circle Jerks
Issue 80 – August 1995
By SLUG Staff
SLUG: How many times have you played in Salt Lake City?
Keith Morris: We played the Speedway. We played the… it was like a youth center that served food. We played there with Scream. The last time I visited Salt Lake City, I was with a friend who was recovering from alcohol and heroin, so it was really boring. I mean, Salt Lake City’s a pretty boring place, so I’m really sure that whenever the Mormons get together to do their — you know, when the Mormon Tabernacle gets together to do their stage presentation of Oh! Calcutta! [which was a famous nude play from the ‘60s or ‘70s] that it’s probably, like, a welcome thing that everybody goes to. Maybe what we can do is, we can do the Circle Jerks backed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Maybe do a version of “I Want To Destroy You” or “Wild In The Streets.” Don’t they wear, like, gold gowns or capes?
SLUG: They wear garments and they have little insignias over the nipples.
Morris: Right. Like, kick here. I’m a loser. Pay later.
Warped Tour ‘96
Issue 91 – July 1996
By Speedy Brinefly
Atlantic Records is just happy that CIV has a second chance. A good way to alienate a record label employee is to invite one to Saltair for a concert. A year later, Atlantic’s representative still hasn’t forgotten the smell. She compares it to wearing a dirty diaper on your face. You go Angelica! CIV is gaining popularity slowly but surely. A few might remember their date with Quicksand … after the Warped mess — positive, melodic New York City hardcore and one of the best recent albums in that style.
Preceding them on the first stage are the Deftones. Why aren’t they headlining? They actually get played on the radio! They are one of the bands responsible for the return of classic rock to Salt Lake City radio. Thanks a lot, fuckers. How about this Goldfinger group? A cool cover with space images and a lot of gold sparkles featuring ska/punk in the pits. Opening things up on the first stage are The Meices.
Descendents
Issue 108 – December 1997
By Brent Porter and Jason Haug
Jason Haug: Did you know the guy at the door?
Karl Alvarez: Yeah, he was one of the scene people. Brad, who owns Raunch Records in town, is actually — he’s probably the nucleus around which all punk rock in this town has always traditionally centered. He had his radio show on KRCL for years and years. It was on very early — I want to say ‘78. I might be wrong, it might have been earlier. But before he started Raunch in the mid ‘80s, between his radio show and his promotions and stuff, he’s done more for music in this town than anybody.
Haug: Were they more against punk rock in this town than in other towns?
Alvarez: It was actually better here than in L.A., cause in L.A. they would have police helicopters searching the parking lots of gigs. They saw it as an actual threat. In this town they didn’t actually know what it was. For the longest time, like I said, in the Indian Center or in this one garage we called the “Grease Pit,” the cops literally had no idea what was going on.
Henry Rollins — The Interview: Part One
Issue 115 – July 1998
By Royce
SLUG: Tell me about the title of your new book, Solipsist.
Henry Rollins: It’s a book I started in the summer of 1993. The inspiration for the book comes from the definition of the title, Solipsist, which is someone that thinks the world is merely an extension of themselves, which is the way I feel sometimes in the city. It’s like when you’re riding on a subway in New York. You figure this urban hell is just nothing, but this thing has been created to make you insane.
I started writing from a very claustrophobic, obsessive point of view and the project took about three years to write. I finished it in 1996 and let it sit for about a year to see if I still liked it. I started reading it in late ‘97 and decided I still liked it and we’re putting it out. It’s a series of weird essays and stuff … I did some rewrites. As always with me, there are a lot of sentences that can always use strengthening. I’ve learned that a lot of writing is in the rewrite.
Funkadelic: An Interview with George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell
Issue 128 – August 1999
By Mike Evans
Worrell played classical music from the age of four. He took private lessons at Juilliard …
“Bernie used to play organ for us at our ‘doo wop’ talent shows,” Clinton says. “Man, he’d make us sound like professionals! When he came back from college, we were doin’ rock and roll. He took the funk, and added King Crimson and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. People didn’t know WHAT they were hearing.”
“Me and George Clinton and all of us used to move around,” Worrell reminisces about early Funkadelic. “We lived in Detroit, Toronto and we met Gary and Boogie (true All-Stars, also from Plainfield) up there. That’s before we knew Bootsy.”
Clinton tells the story: “Bootsy was funkin’ down in Cincinnati. He’d just left James [Brown]. When I first saw Bootsy, I said, ‘Wow! I didn’t know we had an extra man in the band!’ He already looked like one of the Parliament-Funkadelic. When we went to see him play in Cincinnati, when we were playing there one time, we thought WE were on stage!”
Read more from the SLUG archives:
Record Reviews: February 1995
The Skeletones: Do The Rockabilly ‘Til The Break of Day