Why am I passionate about this?

My interests as a historian involve examining how Americans organize to change policy or politics through affiliations beyond political parties and, by extension, thinking about how culture is made and supported through institutions and businesses. These messy networks and relationships ultimately define how we relate to one another in the U.S. Indie music scenes are one way to trace all of these relationships, from federal policy governing radio stations and what goes out over the airwaves to the contours of local music scenes, to the business of record labels, to ordinary DJs and music fans trying to access information and new sounds that they love.


I wrote

Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio

By Katherine Rye Jewell,

Book cover of Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio

What is my book about?

It explores the world of college radio since the 1970s. These local stations served as key battlegrounds over evolving musical…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture

Katherine Rye Jewell Why did I love this book?

Before getting to radio, alternative scenes came together in the 1970s and 1980s through informal networks of shared tapes, backyard concerts, and zines. These scenes had politics all to themselves, which revolved around concepts of “authenticity.”

Duncombe’s book not only captures the range and meaning of zines in all their forms, but it unravels the deeper meaning of these DIY publications. As he writes, “Zinesters believe that authenticity can be found only in a person unshackled by the contrivances of society.” Zines thus offered the purest expressions of self, in theory, but soon, the zine scene developed its own codes of conduct and traditions – practices though that would inform the sound and practice of college radio.

What I love about this book is that it delves into theory (zinesters were like Rousseau? Who knew?!) but remains accessible, using the theory only to enlighten underappreciated aspects of zine culture.

By Stephen Duncombe,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Notes From Underground as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 14, 15, 16, and 17.

What is this book about?

An engaging and scholastic presentation of zines and modern culture

Much history and theory is uncovered here in the first comprehensive study of zine publishing. From their origins in early 20th century science fiction cults, their more proximate roots in 1960s counter-culture and their rapid proliferation in the wake of punk rock, Stephen Duncombe pays full due to the political importance of zines as a vital network of popular culture. He also analyzes how zines measure up to their utopian and escapist outlook in achieving fundamental social change. Packed with extracts and illustrations, he provides a useful overview of the…


Book cover of Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture

Katherine Rye Jewell Why did I love this book?

Alice Echols is not only a renowned historian of the post–World War II era, exploring gender, politics, and pop culture, but she is also a former club DJ herself. She brings those experiences to her resurrection of the much-reviled disco scenes of the 1970s, which, before they became corporate big business, were the site of contests over the voices of American culture.

But more than that, Echols reveals how disco was an underground phenomenon, one whose origins are somehow more hidden than punk’s, and connects transnationally across oceans and across U.S. communities that reveal a complicated map of U.S. culture that defies common tropes.

More than a chronicle of disco’s rise and fall, Hot Stuff instead explores “shifts in identity and representation and the debates they triggered,” as well as reveals the dynamics between underground and commercial that would roil college radio. On top of it all, Echols’s engaging writing style made this my first pick for books to assign to students!

By Alice Echols,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Hot Stuff as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the 1970s, as the disco tsunami engulfed America, the question, "Do you wanna dance?" became divisive, even explosive. What about this music made it such hot stuff? In her incisive history, Alice Echols reveals the ways in which disco transformed popular music, propelling it into new sonic territory and influencing rap, techno, and trance. This account probes the complex relationship between disco and the era's major movements: gay liberation, feminism, and the black freedom struggle. You won't say "disco sucks" again as disco pumps back to life in this pulsating look at the culture and politics that gave rise…


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Book cover of A Beggar's Bargain

A Beggar's Bargain by Jan Sikes,

Historical Fiction Post WW2.

A shocking proposal that changes everything.

Desperate to honor his father’s dying wish, Layken Martin vows to do whatever it takes to save the family farm.
Once the Army discharges him following World War II, Layken returns to Missouri to find his legacy in shambles and…

Book cover of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities

Katherine Rye Jewell Why did I love this book?

Before delving into the business and culture of college radio, I had to think through the complicated relationships between universities and their surrounding communities. Davarian Baldwin helped me do just that.

The FM signals emanating from inside the walls of the ivory tower occupied the public’s airwaves, and so surrounding residents not affiliated with institutions had legitimate claims to these signals, which usually operated on licensed signals requiring public service and educational functions. While these signals often did provide valuable culture and information for wide and diverse communities, they sometimes replicated the more complicated politics of these institutions and the destructive role they played in communities.

Baldwin’s engaging and enraging exploration of town and gown provides a critical lens to use when thinking through the relationship between universities, nearby music scenes, cultural service, and radio.

Book cover of Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991

Katherine Rye Jewell Why did I love this book?

No list of books on the indie music scenes of the 1980s is complete without this classic tale of the rise of commercial tensions regarding indie rock bands.

Music offered a form of rebellion against conformity – and punk challenged the corporate music industry of the 1970s with its DIY code and aesthetics. But in its wake, new forms of rebellion and alternative pathways to success emerged – at least for a time.

These bands that Azerrad chronicles became the giants of this alternative scene, and they were the sound of college radio. As Azerrad writes, corporate labels co-opted new wave in the early 1980s, “but they couldn’t co-opt punk’s infrastructure—the local underground scenes, labels, radio stations, fanzines, and stores. They, perhaps more so than any particular musical style, are punk’s most enduring legacy.” 

By Michael Azerrad,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Our Band Could Be Your Life as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Finally in paperback, the story of the musical revolution that happened right under the nose of the Reagan Eighties - when a small but sprawling network of bands, labels, fanzines, radio stations and other subversives re-energised American rock with punk rock's d-I-y credo and created music that was deeply personal, often brilliant, always challenging and immensely influential. OUR BAND COULD BE YOUR LIFE is a sweeping chronicle of music, politics, drugs, fear, loathing and faith that is already being recognized as an indie rock classic in its own right.

Among the legendary bands featured are: Black Flag, the Minutement, Mission…


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Book cover of A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman: A Memoir

A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman by Lindy Elkins-Tanton,

A Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Woman explores how a philosophy of life can be built from the lessons of the natural world. Amid a childhood of trauma, Lindy Elkins-Tanton fell in love with science as a means of healing and consolation. She takes us from the wilds…

Book cover of Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes

Katherine Rye Jewell Why did I love this book?

No one combines the business of indie scenes – from production to labels to distribution – better than Holly Kruse. In this accessible yet rich book, she details the complicated structure of the alternative system that Azerrad nods to in his history of the bands that occupied the airwaves and whose products circulated through these systems.

To say that these independent music labels and distributors operated completely absent of the corporate music industry from the beginning is a canard, as Kruse demonstrates, but she also reveals the personal and particular practices that shaped these emerging commercial relationships and consumption patterns that undergirded music fans’ ability to participate in music scenes locally, as well as to access sounds from across the nation, and indeed the world. 

By Holly Kruse,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Site and Sound as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes examines how independent pop and rock music scenes of the 1980s and 1990s were constituted within social and geographical spaces. Those active in the production and consumption of «indie» pop and rock music thought of their practices as largely independent of the music mainstream – even though some acts recorded for major labels. This book explores the web of personal, social, historical, geographical, cultural, and economic practices and relationships involved in the production and consumption of «indie» music.


Explore my book 😀

Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio

By Katherine Rye Jewell,

Book cover of Live from the Underground: A History of College Radio

What is my book about?

It explores the world of college radio since the 1970s. These local stations served as key battlegrounds over evolving musical movements and genres, the tastes of young people, and the politics of the era.

College radio became synonymous with indie music in the 1980s and 1990s, but the story is much more complicated than a triumphant resistance to the corporatization of the music industry. Instead, college radio and the music scenes it supported were sites of conflict over shifting business models for cultural production, the transformation of higher education, and the politics of culture that sparked national political attention. 

Book cover of Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture
Book cover of Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture
Book cover of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities Are Plundering Our Cities

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Interested in rock music, pop culture, and higher education?

Rock Music 248 books
Pop Culture 166 books
Higher Education 41 books