Rockers outside of California, where Gina writes a weekly music column in the East Bay Express, may have discovered Gina's name via entirely different means - an Option cover photo in which Kim Deal of the Breeders sports a t-shirt reading, "Kill Gina Arnold."
Deal's fashion statement, it turns out, was a joke; Gina even gave it to her. The shirts, however, are for real. Disgruntled readers of Gina's column made them.
Why? Gina's not really sure, but apparently she's quit a target for hatred. Sure, she occasionally docks a band or scene (she's not big on Dead Heads or Riot Grrrls), but her writing is noticeably positive. So positive that it's not hard to imagine that her generous praise may be her key offense. No self-respecting punk rocker wants some mainstream critic gooing all over their band; the frat boys might hear about them.
That attitude - one in which underground rock fans cling to insularity and obscurity - is one Gina would like to see vanish. Music is, after all, to share. Her populist take on so-called alternative rock may be, uh, less than consistent . . . and we deal with some of her arguments elsewhere . . . but it should be heard.
The following interview took place on Northern Hemisphere Live, WXYC's weekly call-in talk show, with hosts Todd Morman and Jeff Robins (filling in for Bill Burton). What was originally a two-hour interview (transcribed = 18 pages) has been pretty drastically reduced. Since we took quite a few editorial liberties, a copy of this transcript was sent to Gina before it went to press. (She wrote a nice letter back with thanks, no changes and praise for WXYC and its swell listeners.) -- Carrie McLaren
Huge thanks to Nancy Novotny and Jeff Robins for helping to transcribe.
X = WXYC hosts Todd Morman and Jeff Robins
G = Gina Arnold
C = Assorted anonymous callers
G -- It was basically the underground music scene of the 80s, the post-punk, post-Sex Pistols American scene. Eventually it started to become co-opted by the mainstream and Nirvana was kind of the culmination of the co-option; but also a defiant an d beautiful moment because their success proved that basically we weren't the losers we thought we were. They went to number one and they were great.
X -- You talk about purity in the book. You think it was a pure moment.
G -- They were really a genuine hit that people loved for themselves. MTV and radio played catch-up on Nevermind. Geffen only pressed 200,000 copies of the record. They had no idea it was going to be so big. Every contract that was written around N evermind was written as if it was not going to succeed. And that made a lot of people rich. A lot of people had points on Nevermind.
X -- Could you explain the idea of "points?"
G -- Points is a percentage of royalties on sales of a record. It's divided up into a hundred percent and they give them out to people. It's a perk you give people, like producers or friends who help out.
X -- So if it sells like crazy, even half a percentage point could be significant.
G -- Exactly. A point is worth about nine or 12 cents per copy sold.
X -- In your story, you point out it was the points on Nevermind that really saved Sub Pop from their financial troubles.
G -- Initially, Nevermind was going to come out on Sub Pop, but Sub Pop was going bankrupt so they sold the rights for $70,000 to Geffen. But they retained a lot of points because Geffen didn't think it was going to be big. That sustained the entire company.

X -- I love the story you told about how Sub Pop got a contract with Nirvana.
G -- Yeah, before that they just had a handshake deal. Right before Nirvana left Sub Pop, Chris (Novoselic) got really drunk one night and went over to (Sub Pop owner) Bruce Pavitt's house and said "I'll gonna kill you if you don't give me a contra ct right now!" So Bruce scrawled out a contract and that saved his company's ass. If they hadn't written that contract, Sub Pop would have had absolutely no rights over Nirvana.
X -- You point out that the record really jumped out of record stores without the help of MTV. MTV didn't do a thing at first and it was selling a lot more quickly than, say, Sonic Youth's Goo or
other major independent albums at the time. Why was that?
G -- Basically the time was right. There are so many records that could have been Nevermind. Goo is a good example of one people thought would be Nevermind. It certainly got great press. But people weren't buying Sonic Youth records. Nevermind wa s just a genuinely beloved record. It really was the music.
X -- You don't have the indie rock critic cynicism that prevents people from gushing about things. Maybe that's one of the reasons people object to the way you write. I like that - (gushing) I find it wonderfully romantic.
G -- One of the things that I find really disheartening about the lack of support I've gotten as a writer is that I really consider myself genuinely positive. Mostly I rave about the bands that mean a lot to me. People hate that. They want to rea d negative things. And I don't know why that is. I personally dislike negative journalism. . . What I write in my column and in the book - I'm not so much interested in the bands as what it's like to be a rock fan. And although there are a lot of personal anecdotes, I really write keeping it in mind that I want those anecdotes to feel universal.
X -- Let's go back in history to about the mid-70's, late-70's in the Bay Area. You say that by '78, '79 it had died. That struck me as almost funny that the glory days of punk in the United States or at least in that area were very short. What killed it?
G -- Well, it was super super oppressed. Nowadays you see kids with mohawks and green hair in shopping malls, but back then it was extremely unpopular to be a punk rocker. . .
X -- You talk about how there was a lot of violence in L.A. punk and the cops used that as an excuse to shut down clubs. But at the same time, you claim that the media take on punk was that it was very nihilist and very bloody and violent. Still, you talk about the movement's energy, its "innocence", its "fun", its "positiveness", even it's "joy." That kind of shocked me. Was it really this joyful, positive time?
G -- Oh yeah. I compare it to is the rap scene. Rap really gets tagged as being really violent, but all of us who love rap know perfectly well that the whole phenomenon is much bigger and much more positive.
X -- So really, the media just picked up on the nihilistic trappings and . . .
G -- Oh yeah, they just reduced it to these occasional fights that would occur at shows. It was very reductive. Although again there was a very tiny scene of people who were really into brutality . . .
X -- Yeah, the kids who brought the "arena rock mentality". . .?
G -- There's always some asshole who comes and makes everybody really angry.
X -- You talk about '87, '88 as a turning point when all of a sudden people like that did start coming to shows like the Meat Puppets. You don't resent that?
G -- No, I don't resent it at all. In fact, I seem to be the only person in the United States who isn't angry about that. I always just wanted everybody to like the bands that I liked. If that means me seeing them in a huge arena, so be it. I just don't see how you can decide who deserves to hear the music. Can you imagine a painter painting a painting and saying only some people could see this painting? Some people aren't worthy of seeing it? I think rock 'n' roll is the only art form where anybody would dare to say something that elitist.
X -- You mention you see that kind of elitism in magazines like Spin. If you don't like or know about this band, you're not cool.
G -- And it's a two-edged thing. It's like if you don't know about Pavement, you are not cool. On the other hand, you may not be cool enough to like Pavement anyway.
X -- So if you don't know about Pavement already, we don't want you knowing about Pavement.
G -- Right. Nirvana have really bought into this thing. They think some people aren't worthy so they want to scare them away. They're going to keep their credibility by having Steve Albini produce the new record in such a way that some people wil l hate it. I find that just a bizarre attitude to take about one's songs.
X -- Yeah, but it sounds good.
G -- Yeah, I know, well, I like Steve Albini's production.
(They take a call))
Caller -- I agree with you that everything is really elitist now. It's really annoying. But it's also annoying that jocks and rednecks are coming to shows. I went to see Dinosaur, Jr. at the Cradle and it really ruined the show for me.
X -- Why?
C -- Well, because I was being crushed in this barricade and I couldn't breathe and people were being really rude.
G -- I know what you mean. It's just one of those things. I don't know if there's a solution, but I certainly think that great music should be heard by everybody and you can't keep people out. . . It would be interesting to talk to someone in a ba nd and see how they feel. Do they want the jocks kept out. Or do they want everyone to hear their music cause they think it's good music. You also never know when a jock is secretly a cool person. . . Maybe they'll hear the song "Rape Me" and it will really make them think. You never know when someone's secretly a cool person desperately struggling to get out.
X -- I agree, I'm not in favor of keeping people away from shows. But the down side is that there are people who just don't get it. They hear loud, fast music and immediately their elbows are knockin' into people's heads and the music's totally unim portant. To have a lot of those people there changes the whole feel of a show.
G -- Right, and I think that's one reason why we keep listening to underground music instead of something more popular. But on the other hand, good music is good music. And I'll go see, say, Belly, even though they're popular. . . The way my book ends, I go to see Nirvana in Denmark where they play to 140,000 people. Within a year, I saw them play to 20 people and then 140,000. And I loved both shows.

X -- Talk to me about the homo-eroticism of Sub Pop. You actually got Sub Pop people to admit that this was some of the original appeal of the label. You say a lot of Sub Pop's appeal was "seeing guys respond to the sexiness of these other guys. It was guys being very sweaty and sensual and playing sexy music" Really?
G -- I think it was the first time I saw the Fluid that I realized this. It was something about that guy. He
was totally shirtless and he was rubbing up against the guys in the audience and the guys were getting off on it! I was laughing to myself. At early Sub Pop shows there were never any girls. Well, there were a few but they were in the back of the room. An d I just looked at it and it made complete sense to me. These guys are getting off on this guy the way girls, when they see Dave Pirner (Soul Asylum) for example, get off on it. It's something that girls don't talk about when they go to shows because they 're belittled for it . . . called groupies. It's a really natural aspect of rock and roll. And Sub Pop had the bands that were outwardly aware of that purpose and they were doing it to guys. I think it's had an incredibly beneficial effect for women in rock.
X -- Really?!
G -- When guys recognize the fact that they can be turned on by rock stars, but not necessarily want to sleep with them, then they can understand that girls can feel that way too.
X -- Woow. That's a leap I'm not sure guys make.
G -- Actually I know a lot of guys who've made that leap. They may have made that leap subconsciously. You can only chronologically equate Sub Pop's era with the rise of so many women rock bands, Riot Grrls etc. It's because women were suddenly giv en license to be sexual without necessarily being sluts.
X -- In your book you say the indie scene of the late 80's was less welcoming to women than the punk scene was before it.
G -- Yes. Infinitely. If you look at the iconography used in the records. The sort of (SST artist) Raymond Pettibone art, a lot of the Sonic Youth art, any Maximum Rock and Roll, Conflict, Forced Exposure , they're extremely anti-women. It's not tha t they don't like women, it's just that they don't want them playing guitars. They're very un-encouraging . . . There were a lot of women playing bass, but they tended to be the girlfriends or wives of someone in the band - not that that's a put-down - bu t unless you had a really solid person backing you up you just couldn't go out and form a band. You were just belittled. Throwing Muses is a band that was never given their due.
X -- But that's changing now, isn't it? Members of Throwing Muses went on to form the Breeders, and you've got the Riot Grrls..
G -- Yeah, there are tons of really great changes, but the 80's were really suppressed and backward. . .
Caller -- What do you think of groups like L7 and the lesbian stuff that happens with Riot Grrrls.
G -- The Riot Grrrl thing was nearly chapter 23. I nearly had that in there. I feel really conflicted about them. The people that label themselves as Riot Grrrls - Bikini Kill, Bratmobile - just really aren't that good. I don't think they're lastin g bands. Their ideology is kinda cool and some of the stuff they espouse is kinda cool ...
X -- That whole independent network of "we're doing our own seines" young women doing things for themselves...
G -- Yeah, right. But musically they have not done anything worth adding them to the pantheon of musical people and I just don't think they're ever going to influence anybody with their music.
X -- Ouch! There are no good Riot Grrrl bands??!!
G -- Not ones that would call themselves as such. A band that I just love is Tiger Trap. People think they're Riot Grrrls but they would not call themselves that.
X -- What about God Is My Co-Pilot?
G -- I haven't heard them.
X -- Really? They're a trio from New York. Two girls and a guy.
G -- But do they call themselves Riot Grrrls?
X -- I dunno, but they get grouped in with that.
G -- Yeah well a lot of bands, Juliana Hatfield even, gets grouped in with that. But the bands that started that in Olympia. . . I just saw the Frumpies, which is basically Bikini Kill without Katheline and I was kinda laughing, They could easily b e reduced to really cool haircuts.
X -- What about bands like L7, four women who get up there and do the grunge-metal thing?
G -- L7 are cool. The Riot Grrrls accuse them of being assimilationist and that's true. They want to be allowed to rock like the guys, and they want to do it with a wink and be kind of subversive by being girls and that's cool.
X -- But they're not ideologically pure enough for the Riot Grrrls.
G -- Yeah. They're not ideologically pure . . . But you have to wonder when you're watching them: "if this was a guy band, I'd really hate them, so what does that mean that I like them because they're girls?"
X -- Uh, some would call it sexist.
G -- I mean, it really conflicts me when I watch them. I saw them recently opening for Nirvana and some guy yells, "You suck! play more!" And I thought, "Exactly!"
(They take a call)
Caller -- I want to respond to the stuff about the Riot Grrrls. There was something really different about being part of college radio in the 80's. It was the time of Reagan, when people wanted to cut themselves off from the mainstream and create th eir own private utopic world with indie labels. Whereas now bands are not isolating themselves from the establishment. Their politics are so much more a part of the media they're using. Kurt Cobain will go out and talk about his sexuality and say he's fli rted with other sexualities whereas people like Michael Stipe, Bob Mould were always really cagey. There was something very private about the music of the 80's and there is something endemically public to the music coming out now. You can't use the same s tandards to evaluate REM and the Replacements as you can to evaluate Nirvana or the Riot Grrrls.
G -- That's so true! You totally summed up why indie bands now should have a different attitude than bands in '85 did. Everything was different...the insularity is no longer the case. It's no longer relevant. If you're in a band you're just going to have to deal with those jocks out there. You didn't have to deal with them in 1985. This caller has summed it up perfectly: it was private and utopic and now it's not.
C -- But you, Gina, have to take that into account when you're
thinking about stuff like the Riot Grrrls. For me the exciting thing
about the bands is not just getting the record, but the whole network
. There's so much besides the music.
C -- Yeah, well it's giving you a different idea of what "validity" means.
G -- Right. There is validity to it. I would say that to lump them into the indie rock scene and look at, say, Bikini Kill just as a band...I don't think that they're good enough.
C -- I don't think that you can use the category "just as a band" anymore.
G -- That's true. In their case, that's true.
X -- I wanted to ask you about the role of 'zines. You talk about Gerard Cosloy and Conflict magazine, and that sort of indie- rock spiteful attitude. Do you still get the sense that there's this subculture that communicates within itself, and is sti ll different from what's passing for "alternative"?
G -- This gets back to what the caller said it used to be a private utopian world. Within a private utopian world you could communicate via fanzines and you could draw this curtain around yourself and say "we're cool, everybody else sucks." I thi nk Gerard in the book says it really well when he recants his whole persona during those years and says we did that then, but it's really mean, its not right, it doesn't work anymore.
X -- And yet there are some of us who, having given bands like Nirvana over to the mainstream, go looking for new bands. Sebadoh has not quite reached that level yet, so we like Sebadoh. And there's always new bands and obscure bands that you can follow and find. . . So I still do get the sense that there's this underground culture that's going to send the next Nirvana out in a while.
G -- I'm glad to hear you say that . . . but I feel like a lot of bands, like a lot of the San Diego bands, are just recreating a world that was more from the first time around. I don't hear a lot of groundbreaking stuff; I hear some good stuff. It just feels different to me.
X -- You're a lot different too. I mean, when you went to your first Sex Pistols show, you were about 15, and you're probably in your early thirties now. Maybe there's some stuff out there that you as a 30 year old are just not aware of, and there's a reason for you not to be.
G -- Oh definitely. But you know, I hear a lot of Gerardisms, people sort of mouthing stuff he said ten years ago. I think he said that when it was relevant, and it's not relevant now.. . . The attitude needs to change. There has to be a really b ig change of attitude in the indie world. There needs to be a streak of positivism. They've gotta stop out-obscuring each other, they've gotta stop turning people away from the gates.
X -- I'm in this to turn people on to good music.
G -- Yeah, that's important. But you have to be happy when people are turned on, whoever those people are.
X -- As long as they don't smack me in their heads with their elbows, then I'll coexist with them. We have another phone call.
(Mac from Superchunk calls.)
G -- Were you listening earlier? People were calling in and saying how much they hated going to shows when there were jocks or rednecks in the audience and I was saying if you ask band members if they cared who was listening to their music, they w ould say their music is for everybody.
M -- I would just as soon everybody listen to our music. But a lot of times I get the feeling that people listen for different reasons, and I'm sure some reasons are just as valid as others, but I get the feeling that some people just go to the sho w for some sort of weird hormone release. I'd rather have people listening for the music.
G -- Yeah, but everybody deserves to hear Nirvana, or Superchunk, and you can't make these distinctions, like so and so's not worthy...
M -- There's a difference between everyone being able to hear it, and people acting like jerks about it.
G -- But that's just inevitable in nightclubs, isn't it?
M -- Well, I think that people get drunk and people act unruly, but there are some shows that we've had, where everyone's dancing and going crazy, but no one's getting hurt. Then there are shows where some people are having fun and some people are j ust being a menace. There's definitely a difference. I'm not saying everyone shouldn't be able to hear the music, but some people are obviously not there for the music.
G -- I guess what I have a problem is bands like Nirvana who are trying now to alienate people. They want to choose their audience, and it seems with art, you just make your music.
M -- Yeah, I definitely don't think you can choose your audience, but I can empathize with some of their frustration, when you feel like 90% of the people in your crowd, especially when you're playing to such large audiences as they are, are not peo ple that you have anything in common with, or would even want to have a conversation with. You can't choose your audience, but it would be nice to feel like people are connecting with your music on the same level that you were, or on some level other than , -- "I'm just here to bash people around."
G -- Yeah, I totally understand what you mean, but it just seems like an impossibility.
M -- Fugazi's another band that seems to have a real problem with attracting an audience that seems to be at odds with everything they're trying to project. I don't think that anyone stays indie to keep people away. I think that's a misconception. You want as many people to hear it as possible, but not if that means sacrificing some control.
G -- Well you know, that's great if it works for you, and your lives are such as you want it, and your records are such as you want it, but I think that's a really rarefied position for most bands.
X -- Gina, for someone who raves about Fugazi as much as you do in the book, and especially the ideology that they live, isn't their example something that should encourage other people to do the same? Do it yourself. You don't need major labels.
G -- Yeah, that's true. I really respect Superchunk and Pavement and all the bands who have made the great refusal . . . Bands like Fugazi . . . Fugazi's a great, great band but the reason they do so well on an independent level and don't need to s ign to a major is that Ian MacKaye's a truly great business man. He has that together and he works really, really hard. Harder than most people can or will work. And you just can't expect bands to happen to have a member that can do that. What if you're j ust a great musician, a great artist, but you're a total flake... and you only know total flakes. You might find yourself in a position where you have to give up some control. And that might be the right thing to do.
M -- There's a lot of reasons for (signing to a major label), and it's much easier to get a good contract now than it was, say, five years ago. But I don't think that, you said these underground bands have to stop closing the gate or whatever. And I honestly don't think that bands choose to be indie because they're trying to shut anyone out. I think it's just because they want to be in control.
G -- But there's a certain ideology from the mid-80s where people are really anti-major that I think is outdated now. Everybody should do what they want to do, sign to a major or not. But you can sign to a major and keep control and be a great ban d. I really believe that. And you can lose control real easily too, as an indie.
M -- Either way, it's a matter of keeping everything in your court as much as possible, whether you sign to an indie or a major.
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