YMMV / Throwing Muses

• Funny Moments: Hersh's description in her memoir of an early Muses gig in which she was offered Tiger Balm to rub on her hands beforehand, after which she removed her contact lenses and spent the entire gig in a blurry visual mist with tears pouring down her face from her Tiger Balm-irritated corneas, on top of which a drunk guy messed with her amplifier and stage dived into the floor, whereupon she had to restrain the other members from attacking him, and she couldn't read the set list, and the band's rider consisted of warm orange soda and what appeared to be horse in gravy.
  • Another example from the memoir is the moment when Hersh and Narcizo watch documentary footage of themselves:
  "Keeps you honest," Dave said, staring sadly at the video monitor, when the guy left to make coffee.
  I squinted at the screen in misery. "Well, no it doesn't. It keeps you self-conscious. I was honest before."
  "Yeah. Being in the moment doesn't look good." He pointed at himself. "Watch the face I make whenever I do this fill." He grimaced angrily both on film and in the room. "I wish I didn't do that."
  Hmmm. I glanced at Dave. He looked sick.
  "Well, geez, look at me," I said, pointing at the screen. "I really don't blink." We watch. "Golly, that's creepy." I knew I stared into space when I played; Betty never stopped giving me shit about that. She should have been giving me shit about the thing I do with my head. It swivels from side to side in a figure-eight pattern while I play. What the fuck?
  "I think of it as an infinity symbol," Dave said kindly.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The band had trouble gaining a national fanbase in the United States, partially because their sound didn't mesh with other college rock acts in the 1980s and partially because they came out of Rhode Island at a time when the tiny state's music scene wasn't exactly on the national radar the way that Athens, Georgia was ^note The Newport Folk Festival went through hard times in the 1980s, and the noise rock scene that revitalized Providence's music scene across all genres didn't start up until the mid-90s. However in the UK, they were the first American act signed to 4AD Records, and their sound perfectly matched with the indie pop genres that was gaining ground in the late 1980s. Most of their albums charted in the UK, and their biggest pop hit in the country came as late as 1992 ("Firepile").

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