Brainiac

by Justin Vellucci

Days before flying to New York City to ink a major-label deal that might have propelled his band Brainiac to stardom, front man Tim Taylor was killed in a car crash. But that's only the beginning of the story. Rooted in the musical community and history of their native Rust Belt home, Dayton, Ohio, Brainiac left its punk and New Wave brand of indie rock on musicians ranging from Beck to the Mars Volta. Now, more than twenty-five years after the release of its swan song EP, Brainiac-called "the great lost band of the 90s" by Variety-has reunited, finding newfound fame, a celebrity-laced documentary, live shows, and a sense of closure.

155 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 16, 2024

Reviews

[Alex Sarll]

I don't listen to Brainiac much these days, always associating them with a friend who didn't make it through lockdown. And as a prose stylist, Justin Vellucci leaves a lot to be desired; to someone raised on the best of British music writing, the US strain tends to feel at once stilted and cheesy, but he has a particularly awkward iteration of that, often coming across like a CEO trying to entertain his employees' surly teenage offspring. Adverbs always come before the verbs, which I'm not saying is necessarily wrong (I did it myself at the beginning of this sentence), but feels jarring when you get constructions like "The group recently had returned from opening for Beck" twice in three pages. Some information is repeated unnecessarily, but an excessive fear of repeating words leads to clunkers like "Bassist Juan Monasterio was the only member of Brainiac born outside Ohio. He entered this mortal coil in Paris", which just makes me think of a baby on 4AD. Oh, and American parochialism is in full effect; I've seen John Peel called a lot of things over the years, but never "legendary BBC engineer". And while I agree that the band were instrumental in getting American alternative rock over its fear of keyboards, the idea that they might have been key to Radiohead's change of direction on OK Computer ignores quite how much earlier British indie, a few luddite ladrock pricks aside, made it past that particular hurdle*.

Despite all of which, I quite enjoyed this. Partly it's the format, a neat little volume that works as a reminder or introduction for a band where an encyclopaedic approach would have been too much for me; it's not a million miles away from a 33 1/3, especially the ones that are visibly straining at that series' single album constraint. But more than that, it's the deep sense of the band's roots in Dayton, Ohio, once the crossroads of America, now just another rust belt wreck, but one with something special bubbling under the surface. In a sense this is the story of every group of local heroes who could have been contenders, their story tragically cut short. But having managed to get so much recorded in their five years of existence, even if it doesn't entirely get rid of that 'you had to be there' mythologising of the live shows, goes some way to justifying it. Brainiac were played on the radio, were written about in the papers, but I still finished this with much the same sense of what could have been that I always get from Spearmint's Sweeping The Nation, a song that has almost nothing in common with Brainiac's frantic squall. But reading this reminded me how much fun that racket can be too.

*I'm seriously tempted to advance the thesis 'Carter USM: Britain's Brainiac', if only because it would please absolutely no one.

[Mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend reading this while listening to the band. (My favorite song is probably PU55YFOOT1N, followed by Dexatrim and Go Freaks Go.)

It's difficult for me to write a review, because I knew so much of the material already. As someone who lived in Dayton in the 90s, I remember hearing Brainiac for the first time. I went to shows, hung out in some of the same places. (The Southern Belle isn't mentioned at all in these pages-- a shame.) I remember where I was when my somber friends informed me that Tim had died. So reading this book is part nostalgia, part curiosity-- what did the author get right? What did he miss?

Overall, he gets a lot right. I was thrilled that Jeremy Frederick appears throughout the book. (The manner of his death is hinted at but is not accurate.) I liked the "Musical Interludes" between chapters. Not sure the Hamill interview was necessary, and I didn't like the use of "more on that later," which popped up more than once. Some of the celebrity reference felt like little more than name dropping, an attempt to justify the band's importance-- which it doesn't need.

Glad I read it. Even happier that I lived it, even if it was just on the fringe.

[Chris Browning · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a lovely book. The abiding tone is puppyish enthusiasm, and most of the charm comes from the fact it feels just like it should be - someone whose single minded aim is to make you feel like Brainiac are the greatest band you’ve never loved yet. And Vellucci manages to evoke that fannish love without it ever feeling too much. He’s just enthusiastic and in love with this music and wants to make sure he is responsible for making that love go a little further along by gathering new fans. It’s a joyous book and celebratory, even though it starts with the awfulness of Tim Taylor’s tragic death, and everybody involved seems unified in their aim to just keep momentum going for new people to discover this amazing, glorious music. And it worked for me. I only have a couple of bits of their stuff but spent a lovely afternoon correcting that and absolutely believing every giddy word of this and, hopefully, in my own small way keeping that love going

Also, Vellucci very clearly (and rightly) holds Pitchfork in the deepest of deep disdains and it’s very, very funny indeed