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Alternative And Indie Rock

Dayton, a four-track and a classroom

Guided by Voices

Guided by Voices formed in Dayton, Ohio, in 1983 around Robert Pollard, who spent about fourteen years as a schoolteacher, most of them teaching fourth grade, while the band pressed self-financed records in runs of a few hundred for friends and family. Their 1992 album Propeller came out in just 500 copies, each with a handmade cover, and started to spread beyond Dayton. Built on four-track cassette recordings and famously short songs, the band broke through with Bee Thousand in 1994, released by Scat with distribution from Matador. Pollard, the only constant through endless lineup changes, has nearly 3,000 songs registered in his name. The band split in 2004, reunited in 2010, split again in 2014 and came back in 2016, and has released more than forty albums.

Mark Linkous, Richmond, Virginia

Sparklehorse

Sparklehorse was the vehicle of Mark Linkous, from Richmond, Virginia, and its first album, Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, came out in 1995. The next year, on tour in Europe with Radiohead, Linkous collapsed in a London hotel room after a dangerous mix of drugs and lay with his legs pinned beneath him for almost fourteen hours. His heart briefly stopped, his kidneys failed, and he spent six months in a wheelchair. Three more albums followed between 1998 and 2006, and he made Dark Night of the Soul with Danger Mouse and David Lynch, released in 2010. Linkous died by suicide in Knoxville, Tennessee, in March 2010. His family finished the album he left incomplete, and it was released in 2023 as Bird Machine.

Wallasey, named after Harper Lee

The Boo Radleys

The Boo Radleys formed in Wallasey, across the Mersey from Liverpool, in 1988, with Martin Carr writing the songs, Simon "Sice" Rowbottom singing and Tim Brown on bass. They took their name from the reclusive neighbour in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Moving through small labels to Alan McGee's Creation Records, they won wide acclaim for Giant Steps in 1993, which the NME scored nine out of ten, then went bright and brassy for Wake Up!, their only UK number-one album, in 1995. The band split in early 1999 after one more record. They reunited without Carr in 2021, releasing their first new music in twenty-three years, and have put out several albums since.

Atlanta, 2001

Deerhunter

Bradford Cox and drummer Moses Archuleta formed Deerhunter in Atlanta in 2001, and guitarist Lockett Pundt joined after the band's first album. In March 2004 their bassist, Justin Bosworth, died at 24 of head injuries from a skateboarding accident. Deerhunter reached a wider audience with Cryptograms on the Kranky label in 2007, then came Microcastle in 2008 and Halcyon Digest in 2010, their most acclaimed record. Cox also released solo work as Atlas Sound. After an eighth album in 2019, the band went on an extended hiatus at the end of that year's tour.

Boise, Idaho, a rotating cast

Built to Spill

Doug Martsch formed Built to Spill in Boise, Idaho, in 1992, after his earlier band Treepeople, with the idea of using a different set of backing musicians on every album. Instead a steady lineup held for more than a decade, through There's Nothing Wrong with Love in 1994, Perfect from Now On on Warner Bros. in 1997 and Keep It Like a Secret in 1999, their first album to chart. Three of their records made Pitchfork's list of the top 100 albums of the 1990s. Martsch went back to the rotating approach in 2012, and after twenty-two years with Warner the band signed to Sub Pop, which released When the Wind Forgets Your Name in 2022.

From a forklift to Matador

Kurt Vile

Kurt Vile was born in 1980 in Lansdowne, a suburb of Philadelphia, the third of ten children, and spent 2000 to 2002 driving a forklift while making home recordings. After moving to Philadelphia he formed The War on Drugs with Adam Granduciel in 2005 and played on its first album in 2008. Then he left to concentrate on his own records, with Granduciel staying on in his backing band, the Violators. Matador signed him in 2009, and Smoke Ring for My Halo in 2011 and B'lieve I'm Goin Down... in 2015 made his name. In 2017 he released Lotta Sea Lice, a duet album with Courtney Barnett, and in 2022 he moved to Verve Records.

The Collection