A really strange and wonderful time The Chapel Hill music scene: 1989-1999

Maxwell (Hell), a former member of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, paints a vibrant portrait of Chapel Hill, N.C.'s flourishing indie rock community in the 1990s. Drawing on interviews with record label personnel and musicians, he sketches a scene anchored by the Cat's Cradle, a small music venue where bands often premiered and which pulled into its orbit groups including Superchunk, Ben Folds Five, the Squirrel Nut Zippers, and Flat Duo Jets. Most garnered followings by getting their songs played on college radio in the 1980s and were picked up by local labels who helped to expand their regional reputations. Though the 1996 deregulation of radio markets--and subsequent homogenization of many station playlists--threw a wrench in the works, such bands as Superchunk and Ben Folds Five went on to develop national followings. While Maxwell's rigidly chronological accounting sometimes makes for tough sledding--each chapter covers a single year, methodically hashing out 12 months' worth of band tours and album releases--he vividly captures the heady spirit of a community sustained by "mutual support, affordability, collective identity, permeable social boundaries, and friendly competition." In the process, Maxwell offers measured hope that the values of "community, regionalism, and valuing artistic expression over profit" might "recombine and engender another artistic hothouse." The result is a spirited rendering of a brief but shining moment in indie music history. (Apr.)

An insider's account of the 1990s music scene in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Maxwell, a former member of Squirrel Nut Zippers and a capable writer, came up in a musical milieu kickstarted by R.E.M., from not-so-far-away Athens, Georgia. The ethos wasn't quite punk, but it was in the neighborhood, and R.E.M. represented "the first significant Southern band who weren't Lynyrd Skynyrd or Molly Hatchet." In no time, Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina, was sprouting bands that crafted literate music you could dance to. Like all scenes, Chapel Hill's represented a community, which "must have not only its stars but also its own climate of mutual support, including venues of expression and inspiration, lesser known but no less important artistic collaborators, social connectors, affordability, collective identity, permeable social boundaries, and friendly competition." The college town had all that in spades, with representative groups that included Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, and, of course, Maxwell's Squirrel Nut Zippers. Some of the bands came to national attention: Superchunk went out on the road with Mudhoney, for instance, and the Zippers were a favorite on the college circuit. As for Southern Culture on the Skids, well, leave it to them to cook up an annual festival called Sleazefest. Some bands even hit it big, including Ben Folds Five, before the cultural winds shifted. Where the Chapel Hill scene was supported by local radio, Bill Clinton's deregulation meant the erasure of regional differences in the place of all-corporate-all-the-time. As industry insider Tom DeSavia notes, "pretty quickly, we got Matchbox Twenty World." Still, it was a magnificent if evanescent blaze of local glory, and, as Maxwell notes in a where-are-they-now coda, many of the players of that era and beyond still shape local culture today. A fun treat for fans of 1990s indie rock. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.