an interview with a second- or third-generation 90s band

Dr. Martens never really went out of style

Ivory Daze, a shoegaze trio from Lincoln, Nebraska, just released a new EP, "Chlorine." Their sound is 1990s alternative guitar music—heavy, but not metal.

Guitar player and singer Isahen Harms took a moment to answer some questions.

Damon: Will these songs be on a full-length album?

Isahen Harms: No, these songs have always been meant for their own EP. We tried to make something cohesive even if it's coming in the form of a five-song EP.

Damon: The band promo material says, "With Chlorine, the band pushes further into the tension between chaos and melody, drawing from the best of 80s and 90s guitar music while carving out their own modern path." Why do you think you are drawn to music from the 90s? Why are the 90s influencing you now?

Isahen: There were just a lot of really good records put out in the 90s. Being a three-piece guitar, bass, drum, and vocal band, it's kinda hard not to take influence from that era of music. We still listen to and take influence from every era of music, though. Currently our guitar player is listening to Sade, our bass player is listening to Shallowater, and our drummer is listening to John Prine. We are kinda all over the place.

Damon: You sound a little like the band Hum. Are you familiar with that band? If so, what do you like about them?

Isahen: Yeah, we all like Hum. “You’d Prefer an Astronaught” is a great record. Lots of cool chords on that album.

Damon: What influences do you have from the 1980s? What elements specifically?

Isahen: We all like Duran Duran, Hall and Oates, Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, The Smiths, etc. There was just a lot of good pop music being put out back then, and we take a lot of influence from pop music.

Damon: What is something you are afraid to say to someone you love?

Isahen: I slept with an ex's dad once. That was a rough conversation.

The new EP, "Chlorine," opens with “IV League,” a song that showcases the band’s strength—its rhythm section. A strong back beat pumps momentum. The vocal walks clean and pushes at the chorus.

In “Waco” I most clearly hear the 90s influences, like The Smashing Pumpkins and Hum, in two major ways. First, the chord changes and rhythms. The song recalls “Cherub Rock” right there in the open. Second, the band sounds big—big drums, velvety bass, fuzz guitars on overdrive and crunch, all in a full mix with good output. Heavy melody.

The best vocal on this EP comes on the single, “Corset.” The little Oohs and Yous make for a catchy vocal. It works.

 

The main things about The Smashing Pumpkins were probably the superb rhythm section, big guitar and production, and Corgan’s voice. Ivory Daze have a good rhythm section and big chords. The vocal is anonymous.

"Chlorine" was released October 17, 2025.

 

 

about the wine purveyor and his brother

The starched gabardine jacket features a butterfly collar and breast pockets. Features shoulder button tabs. He wears this chocolate jacket with a white turtleneck, not a blouse. The man is a wine connoisseur. He swirled the glass. Impressed his guests as the meat and cheese glistened with sickness on the charcuterie board and the hours passed.

 

About being capable of feeling great affection

I hate everything about the way this guy looks: the golf shirt tucked into his "nice jeans," leaving just enough give to hip-swivel 20 degrees (engineered and tested before leaving the house); his low-profile sunglasses; and his perma-shape pompadour, three shades above black, a bubble blown from a sharp part. This turd aspires to fitness without strain. Jeremy. Jeremy thinks calling his boss "boss" boosts his ego, and Jeremy likes exercising that little bit of control over his superior's emotions. Doing so also, he thinks, curries favor.

The New Girl sports her newness

This New York Magazine profile says a Zooey Deschanel is not an Apple product like we all thought. A Zooey Deschanel is actually a constant, expansive, and versatile market force carried out through a persona. And a Zooey Deschanel persona is a composite of associations--associations with sexuality, quirkiness (sometimes mistaken for "originality"), innocence, fun, and indie credibility with all its emphasis on authenticity and sincerity. People, especially those who fancy themselves hip and/or original, explore these conceptual areas for opportunities to escape consumer culture. But every attempt to step outside that culture just expands the Market's reach there (and beyond). A Zooey Deschanel is that reach manifest; her persona is singular in that it does not change whether on or off camera, thereby invoking a claim to authenticity and sincerity that empowers it to follow the hip and the original to new areas into which the market can flourish.


Notes:

The NYMagazine profile writer is aware and even seems vaguely complicit with the permanent marketing campaign of a Zooey Deschanel--until sticking this jab at the end using a Zooey Deschanel's own words:

Hearing the CD reminded me of how she had gotten very impassioned when I asked her if she and Gibbard bonded over music the first time they met. “I’m wary about this thing about being in the generation of social networking where people are like, ‘I am my musical taste,’” she said. “I am not just a collection of music. Or a collection of movies. I think that’s a thing that people romanticize: ‘Oh my God, she likes this band so she is a dream.’ I’ve definitely learned that you can easily get stars in your eyes. I’ll meet directors and they’ll be like, ‘I love Godard!’ And they love screwball comedies and they love all these things I love, and then it’s, like, ‘Wait a minute, that doesn’t mean they can make movies.’“ 

Just because somebody likes something doesn’t mean ... anything, really.”

Right there a Zooey Deschanel shoots down the sole reason she is appealing, and apes the very reaction that people have to her: A Zooey Deschanel is so cute because she likes Hello Kitty! A Zooey Deschanel is a composite of associations and likes that constantly advertises those likes, thereby associating a Zooey Deschanel with whatever associations the audience has with the objects being liked.

In a sense, none of this is unique to a Zooey Deschanel, but it is perhaps taken to a new level and with a new audience.

I first saw a Zooey Deschanel in an Apple product commercial, and I noticed the face design that says, "You are looking at me" (or, "I am a thing that is looked at").

The substance of style

The New York Times article "Sleeveless and V-Necked, Santorum’s Sweaters Are Turning Heads" notes a recent meme from the Republican campaign: Rick Santorum's sweaters. Here, the candidate's fashion is playfully called the "sensible, traditional choice of grandfathers and college football coaches". I think this as astute an observation as any made about the campaign so far.

The larger discussion here is about image--Santorum's self-image, the image he has of his perspective supporter, and the self-image of that supporter. The Santorum staff's enthusiasm for the sweater is not entirely in jest; the sweater vest is indicative of their message and target audience.

As the last standing hardline social conservative in the field, Santorum appeals to swaths of mature voters ("grandfathers") and strict disciplinarians ("football coaches")--disciplinarians in the sense that these people emphasize self-discipline as key to one's ability to support oneself and manage life's affairs. This is the person who most heartily nods in agreement while reading the Forbes article "If I Were A Poor Black Kid"; his appreciation for discipline shows in his brand of faith, his military support, his politics, and many of his habits and much of his work. The "football coach" conjures many other qualities and values attributable to Santorum's perspective supporter.

But what about the other candidates' images?:

Mr. Santorum’s rivals are biased toward sleeves. Mitt Romney likes his crisply pressed oxford shirts, often under a blazer. Ron Paul is partial to suits, albeit ill-fitting ones. And Michele Bachmann, who has said her fashion icons are Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Audrey Hepburn, is almost always carefully turned out ...

Romney messages about the economy, and he appeals to fiscal conservatives. Members in this crowd see themselves primarily as responsible, business-minded people ready for wealth and status. With his style, Romney communicates this economy of success, but opts for business casual over suits so as to appear accessible, his elbows ready to rub.

Besides being one of the few options left to a man his age, Ron Paul's suits reflect his own desire to be taken seriously. Afterall, what else is a suit but a man hoping to be taken seriously? Ditto for Michele Bachmann, more or less, although I vaguely recall reading she wore only dresses or skirts at public appearances which, if so, would communicate a traditional brand of femininity, a servile sort as opposed to the "bossy" pant suits of Hillary Clinton.

Thinking back to Barack Obama's campaign, seems like he adopted several looks, even allowing/releasing photos of his basketball practice. Perhaps he welcomed being seen in a variety of ways, sending the message that he is a dynamic (young) candidate.

Validation!

Recently I commented on “You Say You Want a Devolution", Kurt Andersen's article in the current (January 2012) Vanity Fair in which he argues that America has stagnated culturally, as evidenced by 20 or more years of unchanged style and fashion. I've spotted a number of published responses, including "Is 2011 really just 1991?" by Maria Russo in Salon. Of course I cite hers specifically because her thoughts brush elbows with mine, if only briefly, when she echos my guess that what people wear and what they listen to means less now (or at least means something different):

Technology is definitely making lifestyle—and the expense associated with acquiring it—less relevant. (Which is fortunate for those of us who can no longer afford much of one, anyway.) Much of what Andersen prizes from the allegedly more innovative American past is just display. But when your life—public and private, working and leisurely—revolves around a MacBook and an iPhone, and constant, disembodied exchanges of information in placeless cyber realms… well, you don’t need to overturn the Aeron chair, do you? Nor do you need to fixate on the status-symbolism of where you live. Best of all, you don’t need to worry about what you buy and what it says about you, because you may buy very little.

Notes:

• Also, she sounds way too condescending throughout.

The times, they are a-changin'

In the Vanity Fair piece "You Say You Want a Devolution?", Kurt Anderson argues that fashion and design--art, music, movies, television, clothes, cars, etc.--looks much the same as it did 20 years ago. This fashion freeze is our collective response, Anderson offers, to the unparalleled rapidity of change in other areas such as economics and technology.

It's an interesting thesis. Well argued and written, too. But to totally buy into his idea, you have to share Anderson's vision: Anderson sees fashion as a collective bundle of popular trends, and the evolution of these trends looks something like a line on a graph surging upward as trends continue evolving. Over the last 20 years, though, that line has leveled off, according to his view.

This picture needs complicating, so I suggest an alternative model.

First, sticking with our graph: I think fashion includes at least a few lines, not just one, that have historically surged upward. And rather than leveling off, I see these lines splintering over last 20 years--even more so the last ten--as social groups subdivide into ever smaller subcultures of like-minded people.

While most of these lines keep trending upward over time, in my splintered model there could indeed exist some mainstream line hovering between and below these subcultures--a mainline that appears to level off and soldier on. But rather than see this grouping as having stagnated, it could be they just dropped their fidelity to fashion altogether. In this sense, their line simply stops. For them--the designers and the consumers--fashion has moved from the aesthetic realm to the political. (Note that fashion continues to demarcate affiliations.)

What the mainstream wears and what they listen to means less (or at least means something different) to them now than it did 20 years ago. So, for example, if you wore a new pair of Nike sneakers in 1993, you were saying something: Nike was synonymous with Michael Jordan and basketball supremacy, and the label was expensive so a new pair of kicks was a sign of status. If you're wearing a new pair of Nike shoes today, it's probably because your old ones wore out. More likely you wear New Balance because you've chosen comfort and practicality--the politics of personal choice--over glamour and status--the fidelity to fashion.

Anderson too briefly discusses changes in how we consume fashion. He's right here, of course, but doesn't take it far enough. He says,

The only thing that has changed fundamentally and dramatically about stylish objects (computerized gadgets aside) during the last 20 years is the same thing that’s changed fundamentally and dramatically about movies and books and music—how they’re produced and distributed, not how they look and feel and sound, not what they are.

Yes, technologically production, distribution, and consumption has changed. But these facets have changed in meaning, too. How and what we make and consume is now a political matter: Toyota Prius or Hummer? File sharing and torrents or iTunes? Walmart, Whole Foods, or local?

-Other Notes:

• Anderson noted the tendency towards nostalgia one minute and then pointed to the outright freeze on design the next. This muddled his point. But his words ring clearly when he hypothesizes about the institutional and market forces at work.

• Certainly not all but many successful artists (designers, trend setters) from all fields in every age have kept an eye on the past. Designers and architects who worked in the Georgian period of the 18th century drew from the Classical Age just as their descendants in the age of Art Deco did in the 1930s.

• In the 1990's we referenced the 1970's. Right now (2011) the 1980's seem popular; the post-hippie feel of the Grunge era has been replaced by the post-New Wave kids of today.

• There is nothing totally new under the sun.