It was a long and lonely road to Nirvana, but not necessarily a sad one. Before Pearl Jam, Green Day et al made punk, alternative, emo, indie ad infinitum the music of choice for America's disaffected youth, a handful of skinny, pale, bespectacled undergraduates sat in dusty basement studios, blasting 1,000 watts of diffidence, dissidence and dissonance toward the mostly indifferent ears of Bon Jovi-lovin' American teens, most of whom by 1995 would lie claim they were into the Minutemen way before it was Mike Watt started playing with Eddie Vedder. Yeah, some of us know better.
