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Laughing Hyenas
Laughing Hyenas is the saga of one of the most uncompromising quartets in post-punk's artistically dubious history. It's a legacy of hell-bent self-destruction in the name of making an unholy racket, a sound both original and traditional, fueled by a love of punk rock, blues and the endless highway. The Hyenas shared stages with indie rock royalty and crisscrossed the nation to deliver the gospel of the New Sounds.
The band's road to big things was blocked by heroin habits, along with the incumbent personality problems that go along with addiction. Based on new interviews and fresh source material, Laughing Hyenas intimately chronicles the history of one of the last outlaw rock 'n' roll bands of our era.
The band's road to big things was blocked by heroin habits, along with the incumbent personality problems that go along with addiction. Based on new interviews and fresh source material, Laughing Hyenas intimately chronicles the history of one of the last outlaw rock 'n' roll bands of our era.
164 pages, Paperback
Published July 29, 2025
About the author
Steve Miller
210 books1 followerLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 5, 2025
I was a southeast Michigan native during the time this book takes place. I also lived in Ann Arbor when the Hyenas were a "local" band. Hitting dive clubs and soaking up the emerging Techno the Hyenas were not my thing at the time. Reading this book I feel I missed out on so much. Could not put this down and read through the whole thing as fast as I could.
August 20, 2025
Interesting book about one of my all-time favorite bands. Kind of a bummer. Stay off heroin, kids!
January 6, 2026
J Card Press has started publishing a series of short (less than 200 pages) books that focus on bands that have slipped through the cracks commercially but are influential way above their pay grade. After earlier books that included AFI and Brainiac I was thrilled to see that the Laughing Hyenas have joined this list. This Michigan-based band (Ann Arbor) led by John Brannon and Larissa Stolarchuk (Strickland) redefined what happened after hardcore and before punk became commercially viable. Between 1985-1995 they toured relentlessly while releasing four records on the legendary Touch & Go Records. Steve Miller (author of Detroit Rock City) and himself a member of hardcore stalwarts the Fix has brought the Laughing Hyenas back in this latest installment of “bands that you may not know but will still rock your world”.
The book is taut – 154 pages, focused on the Hyenas so he doesn’t waste any time in getting right to the story. Most of us know that John led (and still leads) seminal hardcore band Negative Approach while Larissa was making magic with L-Seven. The Laughing Hyenas were a product of their partnership and after filling out the band with Kevin Monroe and Jim Kimball were soon playing around town while quickly silencing sceptics (like me) who were still waiting for Negative Approach Part II. But the Laughing Hyenas grew quickly on you and their records hold up so well 35 years later. We all knew that this band was not destined for commercial success and their history and problems are well-documented in the book.
Larissa died in 2006, but most of the other principals and their stories are included here. Steve Miller does an excellent job in keeping the story moving while including interviews with many of the people that were part of the Laughing Hyenas world. I really like the fact that he included the exact numbers of each release broken down by vinyl, cassette and CD. This allowed me to see that about 23,000 copies of their music made it into the world. Those records are difficult to find these days even with Discogs. However, Third Man Records stepped into the breach and remastered and re-released all of their albums in 2018. There is absolutely no excuse and your life will be much happier while listening to and reading all about the awesome Laughing Hyenas.
The book is taut – 154 pages, focused on the Hyenas so he doesn’t waste any time in getting right to the story. Most of us know that John led (and still leads) seminal hardcore band Negative Approach while Larissa was making magic with L-Seven. The Laughing Hyenas were a product of their partnership and after filling out the band with Kevin Monroe and Jim Kimball were soon playing around town while quickly silencing sceptics (like me) who were still waiting for Negative Approach Part II. But the Laughing Hyenas grew quickly on you and their records hold up so well 35 years later. We all knew that this band was not destined for commercial success and their history and problems are well-documented in the book.
Larissa died in 2006, but most of the other principals and their stories are included here. Steve Miller does an excellent job in keeping the story moving while including interviews with many of the people that were part of the Laughing Hyenas world. I really like the fact that he included the exact numbers of each release broken down by vinyl, cassette and CD. This allowed me to see that about 23,000 copies of their music made it into the world. Those records are difficult to find these days even with Discogs. However, Third Man Records stepped into the breach and remastered and re-released all of their albums in 2018. There is absolutely no excuse and your life will be much happier while listening to and reading all about the awesome Laughing Hyenas.
September 11, 2025
Are Laughing Hyenas the most underrated band of all time? Yeah, maybe. Don't ask me to show my math on that though.
But they are.
But they are.
September 21, 2025
A short but very cool biography of one of underground music's greatest bands. These guys should have blown up a lot bigger in place of corporate guff like The Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam.
Read this and then get hold of the records (if you haven't already). RIP Larissa
Read this and then get hold of the records (if you haven't already). RIP Larissa
May 5, 2026
They don’t make em like that anymore.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews