You're with Stupid

Independent music from Chicago was absolutely essential to my developing sensibilities. My teenage mind was blown away by labels like Touch & Go, Drag City, and Thrill Jockey, but as I dug deeper, I zeroed in on the magical, shadowy kranky. It was pre-Internet, and I didn't get all the scene connections or timelines, I just happily listened in my shitty apartment and felt my world shift. You're with Stupid does something equally remarkable: It tells the history of that time and place without making any of that early, optimistic magic disappear. -- Brandon Stosuy, co-founder, The Creative Independent You're with Stupid serves as a primer on the independent record label boom of the late 1980s, the documenting of a city's diverse scene, and the quiet explosion of a new kind of music via kranky. Most importantly, it offers the backstories of some of your favorite bands and albums of the last thirty years. -- Mac McCaughan, coauthor of Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label That Got Big and Stayed Small This well-informed love letter to Chicago, a hub of DIY music and sonic explorations, allows the reader to witness the birth of a label and largely covert scene that continues to mutate and resonate. Bruce Adams, though, avoids pure homage, bringing the same acute critical eye, and yes, barbed tongue, that helped build this musical revolution. A funny, bullshit-free chronicle of life in underground music. -- Kevin Martin, The Bug, King Midas Sound, Zonal A story of passion and perseverance with a soundtrack that echoes from the pages...Dedicated fans of 90s alt rock will find inspiration and lessons. * Publishers Weekly * [Adams'] prose efficiently wrings out important and nutsy-boltsy specifics that will trigger strong memories in those who were there, enrapture readers who bought the records in lieu of being there, and perhaps encourage the spawn of Those Who Came Before to bring back, aurally if not in person, artists like Labradford and Bowery Electric and Jessamine. * Backyard Industry * There was once a point when indie music tended to mean something with clear connections to rock music. Nowadays, that line is much more blurred, making for some stunning artistic feats and the music scene in Chicago in the 1990s and 2000s played a big part in that. Bruce Adamss new book offers an inside look at the evolution of that scene and its lasting impact. * InsideHook * Youre with Stupid proves [Adams] as adept at communicating what it was like to be immersed in a time and place of intense creativity as behind the scenes making it happen. * The Wire * Youre with Stupid is most successful when it contextualizes kranky inside the larger Chicago music sceneand indie as a whole. Chicago was and is such a vibrant city musically that the larger discussions of where the bands and labels fit into regional and national networks of groups, scenes, and zines were welcome and illuminating...this book got me interested in music that was new to meI dug around online for Labradford and Stars Of The Lidand gave me a greater sense of Chicagos scene in the 90s. * Razorcake * Adams book is a story about both a Chicago and a world that doesnt exist anymore[You're with Stupid is] a first-hand account of a fascinating time in music history to motivate us into some truly focused, immersive, offline activity. * Bandcamp Daily * [Adams] does a great service in sketching out the different rosters and aesthetic approaches [indie record labels in Chicago] took...Youre with Stupid is both a cultural history of the Chicago music world at that time, as told through the record labels and distributors that Adams worked for, and a how-to road map to founding a DIY operation. * Bookforum * [Youre with Stupid] succeeds as both a memoir and a cultural history of a brief wrinkle in time when a few Chicago neighborhoods seemed to comprise the center of a then-flourishing undergrou

Bruce Adams, who has worked in the music industry since 1988, is the co-founder of kranky records, which was established in Chicago in 1993. He left kranky in 2005 and continues to work in the industry.

Introduction 1. Hey Chicago 2. Honk if You Hate People, Too 3. That That Is ... Is (Not): 19911992 4. Accelerating on a Smoother Road: 19921993 5. Analog Technology Makes Space Travel Possible: 1994 6. Slow Thrills: 1995 7. The Taut and the Tame: 1996 8. London Was Ridiculous: 1997 9. An Audience Hungry to Hear What Would Happen Next: 1998 10. Both Ends Fixed: 1999 11. After This They Chose Silence: 20002002 Epilogue: Specifically Dissatisfied Since 1993 Acknowledgments Authors Notes Index