Going Underground

I was flicking through my albums of the year the other day, so I was, and was struck by how many of them could loosely be regarded as belonging to the "American underground". From The Wondermints to The Flaming Lips and Wilco to Cotton Mather. And even last year, it was all about Mercury Rev. The odd thing is, the more you look into it, the more you find that these relatively well-known bands merely make up the vanguard, and before you know it you're on the phone to a second-hand record shop in Nowheresville, Ohio, looking for an obscure album that you saw mentioned in No Depression.

I suppose in a sense it's the US's version of Britpop - without the massive record sales and the attendant tabloid attention. It has been long predicted that after the latest round of buy-ups and buyouts by the major record labels (who now control over 80 per cent of the market), the next big wave would be a return to small-scale indie labels (hey, just like 1977). On this side of the water we're still waiting for that to happen, mainly because we're looking the wrong way and spending too much time prattling on about how the bloody Internet will revolutionise the music industry - probably the most boring story around at the moment. Over there, though, they're busy with the DIY tools and if Mr Major Label ain't going to sign a band because he "can't hear a single" or wonders how it will "play on MTV", they merely shrug their shoulders and bring out the album on their own bedroom label. With a promotional budget of about $5 and a rickety distribution system, these albums can be difficult to track down. A case in point: someone did me up a compilation tape a few months ago with stuff by Uncle Tupelo, The Raspberries (that's another story) and a band called The Wondermints. I knew the latter band had an album out, but drew blanks even from the better record shops when I tried to buy/order it. Eventually I tracked it down to the best little independent record shop in the world, which is called Minus Zero and is just off London's Portobello Road (only open on Fridays and Saturdays, for reasons best known to themselves).

The person who runs the shop, Bill Forsythe, specialises in hunting down all manner of "American Underground" produce. He's the man who's largely responsible for "discovering" Cotton Mather on this side of the Atlantic - he heard the Kontiki album, bought in a truckload of copies and sold 300 copies of it over two days. He's been busy since then doing a similar job with The Wondermints album, Bali. "These type of bands produce undeniably radio-friendly music," he says. "They may not have the potential to sell millions of records, but they have the potential to sell a lot. The short-sightedness of major record companies astounds me. We're beginning to hear groups making up pseudonyms for majors who've neglected them. Rejector for Elektra and Musical Cemetry of America for MCA."

It's a point taken up by Cotton Mather's Robert Harrisson: "Cotton Mather must be the most passed-over band in the world. We did have some offers, and we would be put in a studio; but the record companies always tried to get us to change our sound, so we just walked away," he says. "With all these multibillion takeovers in the music industry these days, people are cautious of investing in something that isn't Britney Spears. There's a conservative set of rules at play at the moment and any sort of passion and daring is ruled out. That's why we always end up on small indie labels - you know, one guy in an office on the phone trying to get your record out there."

What the members of this new wave of "American Underground" bands have in common is an affinity with the tone and rhythm of the "B" bands: Beatles, Byrds, Beach Boys, Big Star, and their intention, in quite a few cases, to take the "British Invasion" sound, put it through their own Americana mixer and come up with something different. Little wonder how astonished these bands are when they arrive in Britain to find that they're playing to eight people in a pub in Camberwell - and Oasis are the biggest rock group in the country.