Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991 is a book by Michael Azerrad. It chronicles the careers of several underground rock bands who, while finding little or no mainstream success, were hugely influential in establishing American alternative and indie rock, mostly through nearly constant touring and records released on small, regional independent record labels. Azerrad conducted many interviews with band members, and also conducted extensive research of old fanzines, as well as more mainstream newspapers and books. Content The inspiration for the book occurred when Azerrad was watching a miniseries about rock music history. According to Azerrad after exploring the punk era "it skipped and went straight from Talking Heads to Nirvana. "I thought, This is insane. Did I black out for 10 minutes? I thought that someone should do something about this. And I had, appropriately enough, a DIY moment and I thought, Maybe I should do it." The title comes from the opening line of "History Lesson – Part II", an autobiographical song written by Mike Watt of Minutemen, one of the bands featured in the book. The song, which is on the album Double Nickels on the Dime, details the band's working class origins and populist sentiments: "Punk rock changed our lives." The book is dedicated to the lives of D. Boon (Minutemen) and Bob Stinson (The Replacements). The book focuses on 13 bands: Black Flag (from Hermosa Beach/Los Angeles, California) Minutemen (from San Pedro/Los Angeles, California) Mission of Burma (from Boston, Massachusetts) Minor Threat (from Washington, D.C.) Hüsker Dü (from Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota) The Replacements (from Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Minnesota) Sonic Youth (from New York City, New York) Butthole Surfers (from San Antonio, Texas) Big Black (from Evanston/Chicago, Illinois) Dinosaur Jr. (from Amherst, Massachusetts) Fugazi (from Washington, D.C.) Mudhoney (from Seattle, Washington) Beat Happening (from Olympia, Washington) In honor of this book's tenth anniversary, Azerrad put together a special concert at Bowery Ballroom with contemporary bands and artists to perform the music of bands covered in the text. For example, Ted Leo played Minor Threat and Titus Andronicus played The Replacements. Reviews In 2006, The Observer rated Our Band Could Be Your Life as one of the 50 best music books ever written. In 2009, Paste magazine named the book one of the 12 best music books of the decade. The Los Angeles Times listed it as one of "46 Essential