What do you think?
Rate this book
Band For Life
Peanuts meets The Young Ones in this graphic novel about a noise rock band in an alternate reality Chicago. This is a graphic novel about a noise rock band, based in an alternate reality version of Chicago, and their community of friends and acquaintances. Though beset with disaster at every turn―and frequently reduced to squabbling―they stick together because the band is the core of their existence, and they help each other find their way. Band for Life is a love letter to people compelled to create with no hope of financial reward. Full-color illustrations throughout.
250 pages, Hardcover
First published October 25, 2016
2 people are currently reading
107 people want to read
About the author
Anya Davidson
10 books11 followersAnya Pauline Davidson is an American cartoonist, educator, printmaker and musician.
Davidson grew up in the US and Canada. She received a BFA (2004) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she currently teaches comics. She has written or done illustration works for a number of pubblications, including The Comics Journal, Mad Magazine, The Fader Magazine, Pitchfork Magazine, VICE, Chicago Reader.
Davidson grew up in the US and Canada. She received a BFA (2004) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she currently teaches comics. She has written or done illustration works for a number of pubblications, including The Comics Journal, Mad Magazine, The Fader Magazine, Pitchfork Magazine, VICE, Chicago Reader.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
January 3, 2017
My second read of Davidson's stuff, collected strips about a women's noise rock band called Guntit in an alternative reality Chicago. The colors are garish, and the drawing angular, surreal, with a kind of loud, trippy post-punk vibe. I expected it to be offensive for some reason, but it is mainly funny and sweet and about a band as family, with close relationships. That's the key, great weird characters including front woman Linda, crazy Ann, gay bipolar Krang, quiet Renato, all members likable. They get their first gig before they have even written their first song, and have a week to get ready with an opening set. . .. If you like music or have ever been in a band or are one of the thousands of nightly Chicago (or any city) fans of new bands in clubs, this is your book. Exuberant!
Hey! I was sort of in a kind of folk band once! Led Zeppelin and CSNY covers; we sucked but loved the music. Some songs we sort of nailed, though. No lessons, just hanging out and learning songs from each other, with wine. I also spent years in my twenties and thirties going to clubs to see bands.
Hey! I was sort of in a kind of folk band once! Led Zeppelin and CSNY covers; we sucked but loved the music. Some songs we sort of nailed, though. No lessons, just hanging out and learning songs from each other, with wine. I also spent years in my twenties and thirties going to clubs to see bands.
February 9, 2017
Band for Life was written by the lead singer of the downright frightening noise band Coughs and it shows. Every line and page drips with knowledge and experience of the mythical "band life" that is actually mostly mundane. Holidays and weather are used to signpost time passing and in this way we can see that the majority of Davidson's characters lives are consumed by everything but music; however, music is the one thing that holds these characters together and gives them purpose.
The colors used in this book are lurid and even sickly, and many of the characters present are more monster than human. It gives the feeling of a grimy otherworld underneath of our own populated with punk rock cavemen, which is presumably exactly what Davidson was going for. Our alternate universe Chicago is the city of punk rock posters and album art, chewed up and gnarled yet brightly colored and lively. While it may come off as loud to some people I found the book to be a treat to look at from start to finish.
Band For Life presents life in a band as an alternative to "straight" life, as a way of building a family out of friends one botched show at a time.
It really does summarize the way a band who makes the kind of music Coughs did operates. If you've ever been in a band, and not a bar cover band or something, clanging away in a basement or a rented room you can barely afford in a warehouse, Davidson's book will speak to you. You owe it to yourself to read this book if you are a fan of noise rock, punk, metal, and low-brow art.
The colors used in this book are lurid and even sickly, and many of the characters present are more monster than human. It gives the feeling of a grimy otherworld underneath of our own populated with punk rock cavemen, which is presumably exactly what Davidson was going for. Our alternate universe Chicago is the city of punk rock posters and album art, chewed up and gnarled yet brightly colored and lively. While it may come off as loud to some people I found the book to be a treat to look at from start to finish.
Band For Life presents life in a band as an alternative to "straight" life, as a way of building a family out of friends one botched show at a time.
It really does summarize the way a band who makes the kind of music Coughs did operates. If you've ever been in a band, and not a bar cover band or something, clanging away in a basement or a rented room you can barely afford in a warehouse, Davidson's book will speak to you. You owe it to yourself to read this book if you are a fan of noise rock, punk, metal, and low-brow art.
November 27, 2021
This book took me a month and change to read because, although it's a graphic novel, the text is DENSE and the story is detailed. I first heard about this book when I listened to a podcast interview with Anya Davidson in which she talked about being both a musician and a cartoonist and how her artistic lives merged together and influenced each other. I so related to that and her words stuck with me (as much of my work is ABOUT working in theater or any number of other jobs). The characters in Band for Life (which I keep mistakenly calling 'Band on the Run', like the Paul McCartney song in my head) are so wonderful, so well developed. I especially like the plot line with Linda and her adoring boyfriend Claw and their love triangle with her old flame and band mate Renato. There are a lot of delicious details in the language of this book and one-liners. The stories themselves are the perfect length, I find and transition well, one into the next. I also really like the 'Halloween Carol' (a parody of Christmas Carol) and Krang and his boyfriend, both of whom are nurses. This book is engaging and although it took me FOREVER to read it was well worth it and allowed me to milk every moment and story line.
December 27, 2016
A wonderful book collection of Anya Davidson's VICE Magazine strip, which details the ups and downs of of a fledgling noise rock band called Guntit. Davidson's brightly colored panels look to me somewhat like Spain Rodriguez on acid (in quite a good way, mind you), and her sense of comedy and ironic melodrama interlaced with genuine pathos is masterful. Davidson herself is a musician, and her experience in that milieu brings a sense of reality to the often absurd proceedings. But her real secret weapon is her cast of characters: from trying-to-keep-it-all-together front woman Linda to the highly unstable Ann, from gay, bipolar Krang to weak-willed Renato, each member of the band is funny, vulnerable, and downright lovable—to my mind one of the most appealing comic strip casts ever. Highly recommend this, one of the year's best. 41/2 out of 5.
June 12, 2020
Band For Life is the best new thing I have read in a long, long time. It was so good that I messaged Anya Davidson (who I Do Not Know) on Twitter before I'd even finished it, just to freak out about it -- and this is clearly a Thing You Should Not Do, but she was very gracious and did not treat me like a crazy stalker at all. I have continued to freak out about this book all week, and it basically just got better and better with each page.
All of which does not tell you anything. Okay.
Band For Life is about a noise rock band made up of a mix of queerish fringey art rock weirdos (who might also be monsters) trying to hump it in Chicago (albeit a sort of postapoc technicolor explosion version of Chicago, complete with spaceships and mutants living in junkyards). It is a book that is acutely aware of the living existential crisis that is trying to make creative work you care about in a world that seems disinterested in your existence, and it's about the futility of pursuing the weird nebulous valuelessness of Art when civilization itself is going through a slow-motion collapse.
It's a book that asks what it would be like if we paused and expanded Jaime's contributions to the first few issues of Love and Rockets - back when it was messy and tinged with sci-fi and totally punk - but then mixed in the final few issues, when the characters had gotten older and wondered what had happened to their youth. Because this book is punk as fuck, but it's also just a sweet story about lost love and managing your feelings and trying to take care of your parents and your kids and yourself.
Band For Life is pretty much goddamn everything, and it was drawn with friggin' markers, for chrissakes. I can't abide any of us telling each other how to feel anymore, but I do know you haven't felt as much as you could until you read it.
All of which does not tell you anything. Okay.
Band For Life is about a noise rock band made up of a mix of queerish fringey art rock weirdos (who might also be monsters) trying to hump it in Chicago (albeit a sort of postapoc technicolor explosion version of Chicago, complete with spaceships and mutants living in junkyards). It is a book that is acutely aware of the living existential crisis that is trying to make creative work you care about in a world that seems disinterested in your existence, and it's about the futility of pursuing the weird nebulous valuelessness of Art when civilization itself is going through a slow-motion collapse.
It's a book that asks what it would be like if we paused and expanded Jaime's contributions to the first few issues of Love and Rockets - back when it was messy and tinged with sci-fi and totally punk - but then mixed in the final few issues, when the characters had gotten older and wondered what had happened to their youth. Because this book is punk as fuck, but it's also just a sweet story about lost love and managing your feelings and trying to take care of your parents and your kids and yourself.
Band For Life is pretty much goddamn everything, and it was drawn with friggin' markers, for chrissakes. I can't abide any of us telling each other how to feel anymore, but I do know you haven't felt as much as you could until you read it.
March 20, 2017
While I didn’t enjoy this one quite as much as Anya Davidson’s first comic collection, School Spirits, this was a fun, exuberant depiction of a post-punk Chicago music scene populated by a diverse population of endearing monster people. I enjoyed how grounded and real Davidson made her world, contrasting its garish colors and lurid brushstrokes with a strong feeling of Midwestern metropolitan grit and the strange but relatable people that live there.
The members of fledgling noise rock band Guntit, while wrestling with all those life problems of contemporary urban existence and arguing over creative differences, household chores, and politics, are willing to go to any extreme to help each other and keep the music raging. Serialized on Vice, each segment helps us to get to know each band member, with all of their flaws, dreams, and loves. A little idealistic, a little cynical, all refusing to compromise their philosophies, the members of Guntit don’t shy away from fighting against the world’s demands. They never seemed judged, even if they occasionally come off as immature, and everyone seems like real people, no matter how many horns they may have. However, due to the serialized nature of the comic, which follows a few years of Guntit’s rocking, it can feel a little fragmented and it sadly ends rather abruptly.
The members of fledgling noise rock band Guntit, while wrestling with all those life problems of contemporary urban existence and arguing over creative differences, household chores, and politics, are willing to go to any extreme to help each other and keep the music raging. Serialized on Vice, each segment helps us to get to know each band member, with all of their flaws, dreams, and loves. A little idealistic, a little cynical, all refusing to compromise their philosophies, the members of Guntit don’t shy away from fighting against the world’s demands. They never seemed judged, even if they occasionally come off as immature, and everyone seems like real people, no matter how many horns they may have. However, due to the serialized nature of the comic, which follows a few years of Guntit’s rocking, it can feel a little fragmented and it sadly ends rather abruptly.
June 6, 2023
A series of strips following Guntit, a noise punk band in an otherwordly version of Chicago. I quite enjoyed Anya Davidson's loose cartooning style and choice of loud colors, though the strips were often a little too verbose and not really as funny as I was expecting. The characters are all charming for the most part and their oddball energy meshed well for the interactions, but I found it a little too easy to get bored reading through this. It's pretty good overall, but not something I feel like I could revisit.
March 15, 2018
I checked out this book with Davidson's first book, which I found crowded and hard to follow.
This book, however, is amazing! The Crayola 8-marker box coloring, and the monstery-looking characters are a really wonderful contrast with the sort of Thirtysomething stories of these band members.
This book, however, is amazing! The Crayola 8-marker box coloring, and the monstery-looking characters are a really wonderful contrast with the sort of Thirtysomething stories of these band members.
December 28, 2020
Lovely, funny and earnest strips about the joys of making art and not doing anything else with your life. Davidson's popping color palette gives this book even more life.
The best comic portrayal of young artists since Matthew Thurber's Art Comic!
The best comic portrayal of young artists since Matthew Thurber's Art Comic!
August 4, 2019
Extremely long-winded with useless dialogue.
March 1, 2020
Brash and fun
November 10, 2021
Read this with Tux:
so many clear-eyed zingers
about music and life !
so many clear-eyed zingers
about music and life !
January 15, 2022
Grata sorpresa. Súper sólidos los personajes. Un universo que no para de expandirse. Podría tener muchísimos más tomos.
February 8, 2022
Was that the intended ending of the book or was there a printing error?
July 12, 2022
Made me wish I was in a band !
June 22, 2023
Read this right now if u have ever been in a band. Equal parts hilarious and enlightened. The art style fucking slaps as well ♡
July 27, 2023
Artwork is beautiful, the strips are hilarious and relatable and queer. Probably my fav graphic novel to date
February 4, 2024
It has everything I love: rock bands, eccentric outsider characters, art, quirky humor. I couldn't put it down until I finished this cool graphic novel.
March 5, 2017
This graphic novel definitely had moments that were preachy. Despite this, the story of this group of friends in their band really draws you in and I very quickly realized I cared about the characters. They are a unique and kooky gang and that just makes you love them more. There also were many times the political aspect did genuinely blend well with the actual plots. Plus the drawings of the graphic novel were excellent and extremely detailed. The way she used color was so in your face yet clever.
September 9, 2021
I enjoyed a lot about this collection, but can’t figure why it ended mid-tale.
December 29, 2017
A hysterical candy colored feminist rock and roll comic book adventure that stuffs Archie, Ghost World, 80s punk girls movie The Fabulous Stains, Spinal Tap, and animated animal music-pocalypse flick Rock-n-Rule into a blender and whips up a frothy, nutso delight!
April 13, 2017
Anya Davidson's art and colors are the main draws here but you'll surely stick around for a bunch of lovable sonic misfits (and they call themselves Guntit). It is a much less weird story than I was hoping for and at the same time, I felt strangely related to it. So few graphic narrative works (or any narrative works at all) are this invested in the mundane life of people making art just because they need to do it, regardless of everything else in their lives. Sure she's not the master of the punchlines (this is somewhat a "comic strip" collection) and some of the jokes are fairly old fashioned (not that that's bad), but most of the fun is on the absurdly common dramas these folks have in their lives inside or outside the practice space. I read it a few pages at a time in the span of a week but it wasn't until the last few pages that it struck me how invested I was in these characters and in the fate of their band.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews