YOUR BAND SUCKS

A memoir charting thirty years of American indie rock by a musician who was at its center.

When the members of the influential and beloved 1980s post-hardcore band Bitch Magnet reunited for a tour in 2011, the three middle-aged men were shocked to find that the current music industry was completely unrecognizable to them.

In indie rock’s pre-Internet glory days, bands like Bitch Magnet—operating far outside commercial radio and major label promotion—attracted fans through word of mouth, college DJs, record stores, and zines. Eschewing the old star-making machinery, they found glory in all-night recording sessions, shoestring van tours and endless appearances in grimy clubs.

Like Kitchen Confidential, Your Band Sucks is an insider’s look at that fascinating, outrageous culture—how it emerged and evolved, how it grappled with the mainstream and vice versa, and its odd rebirth in recent years as countless bands reunited, briefly and bittersweetly. With backstage access to many key characters on the scene—and plenty of wit and sharply worded opinion—Fine delivers a memoir that affectionately yet critically portrays an important, heady moment in music history.

JON FINE is the executive editor of Inc. magazine and a New York–based writer, commentator, and musician. As a guitarist in the bands Bitch Magnet, Coptic Light, and Don Caballero he’s performed around the world and appeared on MTV. Fine’s longrunning BusinessWeek column, “Media Centric,” won both American Society of Business Publication Editors and National Headliner awards, and his writing for Food & Wine won a James Beard Award. He has served as an on-air contributor to CNBC, and has written for The Atlantic, GQ, and Details.