Sharing in the Groove: The Untold Story of the '90s Jam Band Explosion and the Scene That Followed by Mike Ayers
Big thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for sending
me an advanced copy of Mike Ayers’s fun and insightful book Sharing in the Groove: The Untold Story of the ‘90s Jam Band Explosion and the Scene that Followed.
Admittedly, I’m not a jam band enthusiast. I never really got into the scene,
went to any shows, nor owned any of the music. It was all around me in college,
but I never really got the happy sounds or extended guitar solos. Yet, I found Ayers’s
book to be a fascinating read not necessarily into the music, but rather the
scene and the ways that record companies may commodify a trend to try to
monetize it. Furthermore, I found that I learned a lot more about this scene,
its origins, and how it expanded over the course of the 90s, frequently
resisting the attempts to corporatize the music to produce radio-friendly
singles. Ayers’s book serves as an additional perspective on the 90s touring/festival
movement that Bienstock and Beaujour wrote about in their excellent oral
history of Lollapalooza (Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival), also published by St. Martin’s Press. Both books
take the oral history approach and feature interviews with not only band
members, but also managers, producers, and others involved in the touring and
recording process. It’s interesting to consider how these music movements both
germinated and grew in the pre-internet days of the 90s. While Lollapalooza and
“alternative music” grew out of 80s punk and college radio, eventually absorbed
into the MTV heavy rotation, the jam band scene was like an alternative to
alternative music, also growing out of colleges and the remnants of the hippie touring
from 70s bands like the Allman Brothers and the Grateful Dead. In fact, many of
the subjects of interviews in the book mention how alternative music was
growing in popularity and MTV required videos to break big, but many of the
bands in the book just kept moving ahead with their own styles, appealing more to
their fans’ desire for a show, as opposed to radio-friendly singles. Yet, the
tension between art and commerce, where bands often require financial support
from record companies to produce more records and tour, seemed to play a part
in many of the bands decisions about making records and deciding whether to
play the game or maintain their artistic goals and values. I didn’t necessarily
realize this about many of the bands, but it makes sense why I’ve seen the
popularity of bands like moe., String Cheese Incident, and Disco Biscuits for
concerts, but I never really see their records in stores or hear them on the
radio.
I learned a lot from this book, and I was really surprised
to learn that some of the early 90s players in the Jam Band scene started Princeton,
NJ, which is like in my backyard. I also didn’t realize that bands like The
Spin Doctors and Blues Traveler were considered Jam Bands, since I don’t really
think of them as having longer jams. Both bands experienced commercial success
in the early to mid ‘90s, but their popularity grew out of playing live shows
in NYC and NJ clubs in the late ‘80s. Ayers traces other regional bands that
shared a similar ethos and appreciation for 70s rock music like the Allman
Brothers and The Dead, as well as some of the chemicals that fueled their music
and touring. College towns in Virginia (Dave Matthews Band), Georgia (Col.
Bruce Hampton and Aquarium Rescue Unit, Widespread Panic), and Vermont (Phish)
also helped to birth musical acts that eventually began expanding their touring
and connected with other bands who shared a similar ethos. I loved reading
about these connections, since it showed how tape trading and touring engaged a
core audience and allowed for the discovery of new bands. I kept thinking about
Stephen Blush’s book American Hardcore, which documents how bands like
Black Flag and Bad Brains toured North America and helped to create hardcore
and alternative bands throughout the country. The interviewees discuss how
exposure to shows and shared musical interests often led to new bands, often in
college towns, and that following tour routes from bands like Phish and Dave Matthews
Band allowed later bands to build the momentum that these earlier bands
established.
Furthermore, I was excited and somewhat surprised to see
that Medeski, Martin, and Wood were considered part of the Jam Band scene. I
usually think of them as more of a jazz or funk band, but I remember some friends
in college who were into Phish were also into Shackman, the 1996 album
from MMW. As the book explains, Phish began playing MMW’s music in between sets,
which led to their fans becoming more interested in their work. I actually
remember seeing MMW in Philly in the late 90s, and it was an eclectic scene,
with a lot of big, expensive winter coats. The music was awesome, and for me,
it was an experimental kind of show, where the musicians explored sounds and
tones on their instruments. I still remember how Chris Wood played his bass
with a slide and how cool it sounded at the time. The chapters that focused on
MMW were some of my favorite as they were kind of working outside of the jam
band scene, traveling to Hawaii to make Shackman in a shack with only
solar power, something that I never even knew. There were also some great
chapters about other jazz/funk bands that were associated with the jam band
scene, and this expanded my playlist to include bands I’ve heard of but never
really listened to like Greyboy Allstars and Galactic. I love it when I’m able
to discover bands and artists from reading.
The chapters are relatively short and are primarily composed
of interview snippets from the band members as well as managers and others who
contributed to the jam band scene. Some of the chapters focus on particular
bands, like Blues Traveler, Spin Doctors, moe., and Medeski Martin Wood.
However, other chapters focus on aspects of the bands’ lives and their
intersections with record companies. Again, this was a fascinating look at how the
record companies tried to capitalize on these bands’ popularity, but also
struggled to categorize and market them in a business that often relies on
fitting bands into specific genres for marketing purposes. Throughout the latter
half of the book, this seemed to be a theme as bands either struggled with
success (Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler), or struggled to meet the rigid
expectations of record companies (Phish, moe., God Street Wine). This was a fascinating
look at how music scenes develop organically, but also how record companies try
to manufacture and reshape bands to fit a mold, which can sometimes bring about
the demise of the band.
I also appreciated that Ayers provided an extensive list of
the participants in the interviews at the beginning of the book since there are
many people to keep track of throughout the book. This helped me better
understand which musicians or participants were associated with which bands or
record labels. One aspect of the book that I wish was slightly different was
that some of the chapters included a brief introduction or contextualization
that helped to frame the topic for the chapter. This was really helpful, but it
was not included with every chapter. Furthermore, many of the chapter titles
were taken from quotes from that chapter, but didn’t always frame the chapter
well enough. While nearly all of the chapters were organized according to either
a specific band or a theme, for a few chapters, it was challenging to figure
out the theme. Having more of these contextualizing paragraphs or sentences
would help frame the chapter’s focus. However, with 68 chapters, I can
understand why every chapter might not have this kind of contextualization. The
book primarily moves chronologically, so the book ends with the turn of the
century and the emergence of digital technology, briefly mentioning how
websites and file sharing like Napster a new way for bands to share their music
and live shows to a broader audience. It also explores the emergence of the 90s
festival scene and how many of these bands developed their own festivals, often
outside of record labels’ support. This was also fascinating and somewhat
humorous to read about- especially Phish’s various ideas of how to celebrate
Y2K. Reading about the influence of technology was also fascinating, especially
to consider how digitizing music reshaped record companies and the ways that
people consume music, eventually leading to downsizing much of the music
industry. It would have also been interesting to learn more about what some of
these bands continued to do or whether some of these festivals continued. However, I realize that Ayers’s book is
expansive and follows many different bands, so it probably would have been
challenging to follow up with all of the bands and their members. Nevertheless,
some kind of afterword or epilogue about the jam band scene and where it has gone
in the subsequent 25 years would have been an interesting coda to this
fascinating documentary journey of the scene. Nevertheless, this is a great
book that is full of fun and interesting stories, even for someone who is not too
familiar with or interested in the jam band scene. I learned so much from
reading this book, and I added to my playlist, finding some new bands to listen
to. I highly recommend this book, especially if you are a fan of music and
enjoy reading about how music scenes and genres develop and evolve.
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