At the end of the 90’s, into the new century, the music industry was in the final hour of its heyday.
The internet hadn’t yet taken hold of the culture. Legacy media still called the shots. Working bands had to network in the physical realm. The only place to win over an uninitiated crowd was on the road, IRL. On the Lash is the upcoming documentary-to-be that aims to throw the viewer into the back third seat of the touring van traveling show to show.
After boy bands and nu-metal proved lucrative, record execs wondered where to throw the bag next. When The Strokes and The White Stripes took off, they saw the formula. The Hives, The Vines, Interpol, and others followed. But beneath that top rung of stardom was a mess of bands challenging the norms of rock music. Punk, noise, shoegaze, post-rock, screamo pushed into a heavier and more deliberate sound.
Energy was the melody; unpredictability the rhythm.
Many great acts of the era would never find space in the pages of Rolling Stone or Spin Magazine (unless in a recap of every band starting with “the”). Buddyhead.com, run by Travis Keller out of Los Angeles, was the URL to find coverage on these groups, and also experience the genesis of shitposting in real-time. Online in 1998, the site ran off personality, rather than brand. Album reviews could be unforgiving. News stories were peppered with snide insults sometimes subliminally, sometimes not. There were run-ins and lawsuits with Limp Bizkit, The Strokes, Courtney Love. All in the good fun of taking the piss.
Buddyhead was also a small record label (and is back!). Some of the first releases were by The Icarus Line, fronted by Joe Cardamone. Also from LA, the group wore all-black dress with skinny red ties and left every performance in a heap. Their punk was destructive, screeching like that warplane with the face and toothy grin painted on, but also dissolving into psych-drone fallout. Keller toured the world with them as they opened for big acts and shook the infrastructure of small venues.
At the Drive-In, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fugazi, Elliott Smith, Primal Scream, Iggy Pop, Queens of The Stone Age were a few of the musicians passing through.
From ‘98 to 2005, Keller kept the handheld cam with the Velcro strap attached and let the mini DV tapes pile up. The documentary will come from the tape, as well as Keller’s photography. No hi-def digital lookbacks from each character in front of their backyard infinity pools. No perspective but the moment of.
Reconstructing the footage into a singular cohesive documentary will take time and a lot of gruntwork, but the process is underway. Keller and Cardamone, co-directors, have started a second fundraising campaign through IndieGogo. Backers include the artist Shepard Fairey and Mayans M.C. co-creator, Elgin James. Make a donation here.
Keller has revived Buddyhead.com.
The site has returned with its Axl rating system intact. Earlier this year the label side released Bender Ender by LA’s own surf rock group, The Cauterizers. The Icarus Line called it in 2015, but Cardamone has put out some albums of richly dark cinematic sound. The two opened a visual center called Lost Angeles where Cardamone has performed a series of freeform shows with other musicians called Midnight Mass. The next event is this Saturday.
