Alternative is as alternative does
Description
Through oral history and secondary sources, this thesis is a study of the Black Problem family tree - a group of Generation X indie bands in New Orleans' alternative music scene almost entirely overlooked in histories of “New Orleans music” and post-punk “alternative music.” Forming around the mid-’80s in the suburb Metairie, the Black Problem interpreted New Orleans’ carnivalesque cosmopolitanism through Minutemen’s post-Zappa, post-punk, and posthardcore DIYism for a model of “obtuse” social, improvisatory musical experiences in and of New Orleans that inspired predominantly white peers to form their own local bands - Rigid, Weedeater, Evil Nurse Sheila, Nut, and Burnversion. Into the ‘90s, the Black Problem family tree increasingly focused their activities in the postindustrial city’s gentrifying center and shared stages, members, and crowds with ultimately better known jam/funk peers like Galactic and sludge peers like Eyehategod. Three decades later, the Black Problem family tree’s persistence through obscurity meaningfully problematizes the presumed mutual exclusivity of historic New Orleans’ countercultural character and postmodern Generation X’s model by taking pride in commercial and professional failure and the alternative successes of community, coming-of-age, cynicism, and cosmopolitanism through alternative music in New Orleans.