Jim Carroll

Jim Carroll wrote The Basketball Diaries the story about growing up with drugs and sex and about learning to survive on the streets of New York--once again in print. An urban classic of coming of age.which in the 90s was made into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

Henry Miller

 

Before the Beats but after the so-called Lost Generation was Henry Miller. His novel set in Paris, Tropic of Cancer was something unlike I had ever read before when - I think - Nick lent it to me.

David Lynch

David Lynch

Too many films which we dug had cult director and Twin Peaks maestro David Lynch in common, so I decided to feature the man behind the lens himself.
It started with the superbly weird Eraserheasd (1977)- a film I never managed to sit through - to the excellent yet mainstream Elephant Man (1980) and Dune (1984).

Velvet Underground

Lou Reed & Nico '65

Bret Easton Ellis

First time we heard of Bret Easton Ellis was when we looked for the novel the movie Less Than Zero was based on. Then Nick came back one day when he was living in Brixton with American Psycho, and blew us away.

Charles Bukowski

Charles Bukowski - Junk Equation

Bukowski's 'Women' and 'Notes of a Dirty Old Man' worth a read for those who like it told as it is. He is a drunk, ugly old womaniser (well he died in 94) which has plenty to say about everything.

"That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.”
― Charles Bukowski, Women 

Kerouac

Jack Kerouac

Perhaps the most famous of the Beats, Jack Kerouac, inspired us as he did so manygenerations before us with his free livin' get out there and live life ethos.

Burroughs

Beat Generation author William Burroughs (pictured) wrote the novel Junky, from where Nick and I got the name for Junk. The idea being you'd hate it but would be addicted.

Pablo Honey

Leon poster

OK this didn't influence us at all, but was a cool movie nevertheless.

Alice in Chains

Grunge

Nirvana

Slacker film

In 1991 Richard Linklater's film 'Slacker' was realeased. With Coupland's Generation X book these were the two works which were said to represent my generation, the generation schooled in the 80s and unemployed, unmotivated and uninspired in the 90s. As a film, I didn't think much about it, but like I said, it was a sign of the times, so needs a mention, if nothing else because it gave birth to the term later used to describe us: Slacker.

Generation X

Generation X is Douglas Coupland's acclaimed salute to the generation born in the late 1950s and 1960s--a generation known vaguely up to then as "twentysomething."

20s breakdown

Soundgarden/Pearl Jam poster

Rat At Rat R poster1990

Check out the support band for Rat at Rat R (one of Mike's bands)

Ektro says...

"Killer reissue NYC NOISE classic 1985!"

"Noise-rock quartet Rat at Rat R was formed in 1981 by guitarist Victor Poison-Tête. Originally hailing from Philadelphia, the band soon relocated to New York City's Lower East Side and became one of the highlights of the NYC noise-rock scene. With Sonic Youth, Live Skull and Swans among their contemporaries, the music of Rat at Rat R can best be described as no wave guitar-oriented noise music."

Mudhoney

mudhoney biography

By Mark Deming

Nirvana may have been the band that put an entire generation in flannel, and Pearl Jam and Soundgarden both sold a lot more records, but Mudhoney was truly the band who made the '90s grunge rock movement possible.
Mudhoney was the first real success story for Sub Pop Records; their indie-scene success laid the groundwork for the movement that would (briefly) make Seattle, WA, the new capital of the rock & roll universe; and they took the sweat-soaked and beer-fueled mixture of heavy metal muscle, punk attitude, and garage rock primitivism that would become known as "grunge" to the hipster audience for the first time, who would in turn sell it to a mass audience ready for something new.

If easily offended, visit the disney website instead