The "Next Seattle"

Out Of The Loop: Chicago in the mid-90s as the music industry's fleeting focal point.

I wish I could remember who sent me a VHS copy of the 1997 documentary Out Of The Loop, a film about the brief moment in the 90s when Chicago was one of several cities vying for the title of “The Next Seattle.” It’s a snapshot of that moment in time when everyone started to realize the early ‘90s dream - the dream that all these cool, arty rock bands would become huge in the wake of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and The Pumpkins - wasn’t going to come true in a business dominated by alternative radio and MTV. As usual, from the artist’s view, the music business screwed it up. From the industry/revenue view, they blew the doors off the joint.

Why are GenX musicians so cynical? Disappointment. At first, underground rock’s big mainstream moment in The Year Punk Broke (91) felt amazing. By ‘97 the moment had passed, giving way to the bitter disappointment of manufactured versions of bands that we once counted as underground. The new Nirvana would be Bush. The new Pearl Jam, Creed. Marcy Playground were the new Pavement. A lot of great rock music came out of the later 90s; but none of the cool, authentic, interesting rock music that moved indie culture cracked mainstream. But mainstream rock became massive. business.

The film isn’t any sort of masterpiece. It’s amateurish, the sound of the performances is pretty awful, and it gets a bit dull at times. For the few great performances: Red Red Meat, The Jesus Lizard, and Seam, there are more that tempt the viewer to fast forward to the talking parts.

Some of the conversations are fascinating and insightful. For example, the Steve Albini interview is hilarious, iconic. He’s in full edge lord mode, mean as hell but self-deprecating. Makes me wish I’d found a way to work with him, though truth be told I was terrified of him. Albini, some of you will recall around this time, wrote a piece titled The Problem With Music, which began with the iconic line, “Some of your friends are probably already this fucked.” In the piece he describes the horrors of the major label experience with colorful prose…and it’s mostly accurate.

The inspiration for the film seems to have come from a piece in the local arts paper The Reader by journalist Bill Wyman touting Chicago as the next Seattle. Albini took offense and opened the proverbial can of whup ass on Wyman in a series of letters to the editor. The contrast of Wyman’s excitement over the scene’s breakout moment contrasted with Albini’s dismissive cynicism provides an underlying tension that comes through in the best interviews.

It’s an exciting time, but it’s also media-spun bullshit. There’s a feeling that anyone could be next as unknown acts signed massive, buzz-fueled deals, but there are deep feelings of resentment and suspicion as signed acts fail to live up to all the buzz. At the heart of the film, and the moment, is local breakout of the moment, Veruca Salt.

I can’t remember exactly when or how I met Veruca Salt, but it must have been early ‘93, probably when they played Bloomington, where I lived at the time. When I had my own apartment for a few years in Downtown Bloomington in the early 90s, I must have put up 30 different bands. Whenever a band I liked played Second Story a couple blocks away, I’d offer my place. They usually accepted, and I made a lot of good friends that way - including Veruca Salt.

I think they stayed with me twice, once as a still-struggling local Chicago act branching out to near, then less than a year later as a signed act on the rise. Their star rose quickly after they formed in ‘92. They’d seen my band Antenna play the Cabaret Metro in Chicago and become instant fans. They left me a demo after their first visit and I fell love with the songs, especially a track that seemed to jump off from Nirvana’s Bleach titled All Hail Me. It sounded like a hit to me.

I’ve never shared this or even really thought about it in these terms - meeting Veruca Salt and a couple other acts around that time made me want to build some sort of business so that I could get involved and help when a band was on the verge like that. I wanted a way to get involved and create value when I saw an opportunity. What did I have to offer? There had to be something I could do.

I can easily tell when a band has what it takes to be big. Any music fan should be able to tell. Does it make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up? The only times I’ve gotten it wrong are either when the artist somehow self-destructs or when I’d convinced myself it’s better than it is. When it’s gonna happen, I’ve always known. Case in point, Veruca Salt. It wasn’t if; it was when. After I met them and witnessed their ambition, sophistication, and intelligence, I knew they’d be successful. The only remaining question was whether they could hold it together to become true global superstars. With a creative duo, that’s always an open question.

I remember once I had breakfast with the band and they’d found a bookstore that had the Chicago Tribune, where they were featured in the Sunday edition. They told me all about their recent experiences, being courted by every major label as their indie single climbed the Modern Rock chart in Billboard. Back then, the few lucky acts that had the bidding war felt like they were in the center of the Universe. Rock was so popular, and MTV made sure everybody heard every genre. That sort of attention felt so intoxicating, all the possibilities that came with the attention. The money, the fame, traveling the world.

Veruca Salt didn’t have the sorts of worries that Pulsars had, regardless of the positive spin they give in their interview. Maybe they truly didn’t feel the pressure, but they would feel it very soon. The reality is that Pulsars signed a massive, state-of-the art deal with A&M spinoff Almo Sounds, and then landed with a thud. Veruca Salt already had a hit. That’s the closest thing in ‘94 to going viral today. If your record blew up on commercial radio on an indie label, you’d write your own ticket. The fascinating thing is reflected in the next quote from Nina, below. They had MASSIVE leverage, relatively speaking, but they still signed what today would be a garbage deal. Did they get a seven-figure advance check? Probably. But did they own the album? The credit on Spotify reads copyright DGC 1994. That means Universal owns it, along with the follow-up, Eight Arms To Hold You.

Then I assume - like just about everyone else from the 90s who didn’t quite reach superstar status - they got dropped from the label. Whether or not they got dropped, they moved on. They went through some years in the wilderness, split up, then eventually came back together. I’ve seen them live fairly recently, and it was great. Nina and Louise have always been students of the business, they already had a lot to report back from their industry journey. To wit:

“If you sign to a major label, of course the company is going to make a lot more money than you could ever make…even if you have a good record deal you’re making a tiny percentage of what the record label is making off of you and your songs…and there’s something inherently really gross about that.”

-Nina Gordon, Veruca Salt

As of 1997, this is true to a point. The timing of this means it’s from the perspective of someone actually selling records, finding out that the deals are basically a scam. I note, however, that even then labels took risks signing artists, and they did invest heavily in development and marketing. It’s also notable that margins have always improved album to album for a successful act in a long-term deal. Many terms have long been open to renegotiation, with the exception of ones that truly mattered. You could push for more money in-pocket and a bigger royalty, but labels wouldn’t feel the need to budge on ownership or number of options. That’s why it’s so important and so amazing that major labels will do short-term license deals now under certain circumstances. The trend is towards artist ownership, which is one reason a lot of these opinions in the film seem quaint.

“There are so many corrupt, fucked up indie labels…they’re just as evil as major labels, or even more so because they operate under the guise of being “artist friendly” when really they’re just in it for the money or the, like “cool factor.”

-Nina Gordon

This quote followed another by an indie label head named John “Skippy” McFadden proclaiming that indie labels have more integrity than majors. In my experience, of course there were bad actors in the indie space then as now. Independent labels in the 90s were typically run by music fans, often with very good intentions. Some - including Touch and Go, who are heavily featured in the film - ran great, pro-artist businesses that truly did offer financial and administrative support without limiting artistic freedom. Some of those that survived are important and financially successful institutions today. The trend of artist ownership can be traced to indie rock labels of the 90s, which raised the question of whether it was a fair tradeoff if the Indie label couldn’t even afford to pay you what they owed, as was so often the case.

My own experience is that some independent labels that are founded on good values and intentions are just poorly run businesses that cause harm through sheer incompetence. I’m not naming names, but I’ve had clients signed to “cool” indie labels that couldn’t get it together to account to their artists. I’ve had to put a number of revered indie labels in default because they didn’t pay my artist clients. Major labels could be brutal, but at least they sent regular accounting (even if it was intentionally unintelligible for most artists).

I’ve seen far too much to buy into any “major bad, indie good” narrative. Good situations are good, bad ones are bad. They come in all flavors. A lot of the value I bring to my clients is experience with which companies are up to the promises. I’ve learned that a huge part of being “artist friendly” is running an effective, transparent, responsible business that lives up to its promises. That’s where so many companies have failed so many artists in the independent business. If good taste were enough, after all, there’d be a lot more successful independent labels.

“There’s this attitude [at majors] where, we’ll just sign up a bunch of bands, throw everything against the wall, and whatever sticks we’ll purse. If it doesn’t take off immediately out of box then we don’t want to waste our time and money on these people.”

-Nina Gordon

I love these quotes, just putting it all right out there. What she’s saying here is exactly the problem with the old business model. “Artist development” at major labels in the 90s consisted of signing ten acts expecting one to really hit. That would be less terrible if everyone knew what they were in for, and if they’d let the artists out of their deals and give the records back when they knew it was roadkill.

I can tell you from personal experience that they would hold an artist under contract for years without any intention of backing the artist. There are probably thousands of finished albums, expensive albums made at labels’ direction that were shelved. Just this week I asked a close contact at a major label to help me get back an album for an artist that was shelved in the mid-90s. They should all give back every shelved album that’s been sitting in the vaults for decades. It’s shameful.

“[I predict] these bands that have signed to major labels are either going to have succeeded or, with the 95% fail rate, they’re all gonna come home and tell stories about being on tour with so and so, and they’re gonna be teaching guitar clinics or drum clinics in the suburbs.”

- John “Skippy” McFadden (March Records)

Or maybe they’ll become lawyers. There’s truth in this quote, but it is also steeped in the warped worldview of people trying to “make it” in music. Remember that the 90s were the peak of the gatekeeper era. Why did Veruca Salt, one of the biggest bidding wars of the year, still give up ownership of their work? Because, unlike today, they needed the industry. Would Veruca Salt have broken alternative radio on their independent single if they didn’t align with big time management and a major label? Could tiny Chicago indie label Minty Fresh have taken the band from local buzz to international hitmakers solely with the resources they had access to? Today it would be whether or not to sign. Back then it would be with whom and for how much. That’s the power shift in a nutshell.

At the heart of this quote is that binary view of success and failure. The idea that it’s somehow pathetic or shameful for a musician to have an opportunity with a major label and then end up having to work for a living. 95% failure rate - what does that mean? If “success” is being like Metallica or Air Supply or even The Flaming Lips - making a solid living over an entire adult lifetime - then it’s more like a 99.9% failure rate. With the exception of global superstars, everybody fails eventually.

I had a lot of measurable success as a musician in the 90s, I got to do so many amazing things and I made money. I certainly didn’t get rich, but I did OK. I wasn’t ever really happy, however, because of the mindset we all seemed to have about success and failure. I thought about it like Skippy - either you’re a superstar or a failure, no nuance or middle ground. I had the good sense to get out when I did, to go back to school and get a marketable skillset, mostly because my significant other wasn’t from the music business. Heather could take one look at what I was doing and see that it wasn’t sustainable. I was so deeply committed to my path that it felt like death to give up the dream - even though it was making me miserable. That’s insanity.

The themes that used to play out in our minds are all over this film: the success/failure dichotomy, selling out, the paying of dues, the non-negotiability of creative control. I’ve worked with young artists in recent years, and I don’t think any of these concepts resonate in the same way anymore. Except maybe the success/failure thing. Now that we’re measured in data, success is far more measurable and less abstract than before. We ranked ourselves against our peers all the time. Now, those rankings leave little margin for error.

One more:

“It’s kind of difficult being at this level: we’re too big to have regular jobs, but we’re too small to live off of what we make.”

-Chris Manfrin, Seam

I relate with this quote most of all. This was exactly my 90s experience. Too much going on to quit, but always on the brink of running out of money. I worked shitty jobs most of the time. Most of us had shitty jobs. Most of us never reached the point of a true livelihood, even as the music industry had its peak revenue years before the bottom fell out.

Since local scenes mean far less now than they used to, the idea of the “next Seattle” seems quaint. I can tell you it’s stressful to be part of a scene where some of the acts make it while others don’t. That’s every scene, including Seattle. Labels would irresponsibly predict their acts would be successful to the point we believed them. When you believe it’s going to happen, and then it doesn’t happen, that’s actually worse than never having hope in the first place.

Today you build an audience. You make money. Then the industry shows up and wants to partner. When you get to that point, it’s going to happen. That leads to a lot less disappointment and bitterness in music scenes. At least it should.