Bruce Adams, who has worked in the music industry since 1988, is the co-founder of kranky records, which was established in Chicago in 1993. He left kranky in 2005 and continues to work in the industry.
[You're with Stupid] really knocked me over...The book really
instilled a sense of not giving a single fuck about what anyone
thought outside the four of us making the record. I also discovered
bands like Dadamah, Spiny Anteaters, and Dissolve, who were large
musical influences...You're with Stupid really enriched my soul,
and lit a fire under my ass to dig in more, continue to be
restless, and try to create something that feels like our own.
Learning about the history of independent music is important to me
to understand where we are and where things came from.-- "Flood
Magazine" (10/14/2024 12:00:00 AM)
You're with Stupid serves as a primer on the independent record
label boom of the late 1980s, the documenting of a city's diverse
scene, and the quiet explosion of a new kind of music via kranky.
Most importantly, it offers the backstories of some of your
favorite bands and albums of the last thirty years.--Mac McCaughan,
coauthor of Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, the Indie Label
That Got Big and Stayed Small
Independent music from Chicago was absolutely essential to my
developing sensibilities. My teenage mind was blown away by labels
like Touch & Go, Drag City, and Thrill Jockey, but as I dug deeper,
I zeroed in on the magical, shadowy kranky. It was pre-Internet,
and I didn't get all the scene connections or timelines, I just
happily listened in my shitty apartment and felt my world shift.
You're with Stupid does something equally remarkable: It tells the
history of that time and place without making any of that early,
optimistic magic disappear.--Brandon Stosuy, co-founder, The
Creative Independent
You're With Stupid is every self-described Gen X music nerd's dream
come true.-- "The Stranger" (12/7/2022 12:00:00 AM)
[Adams] proves to be an incisive and wry observer of the Windy
City's paradigm-shifting musical ecosystem and his role in shaping
rock's vanguard...You're with Stupid abounds with interesting
insights about musical and cultural niches that deserve more
attention and, more importantly, it reveals the inner workings of
one of history's greatest record companies.-- "The Stranger"
(12/16/2022 12:00:00 AM)
The best kranky releases sound refreshingly different, not just
from other indie rock of the '90s but from nearly everything on the
radio, or off it, in 2022. They're well worth a listen. And You're
with Stupid is worth a read, especially if you belong to the
generation that stayed up late to catch '120 Minutes' on MTV and
attended Yo La Tengo shows in multiple millennia.-- "Washington
Independent Review of Books" (12/28/2022 12:00:00 AM)
You're with Stupid is a thoroughly entertaining read...Reading the
book feels like sitting next to [Adams] on a bar stool, hearing
memories of a bygone but beloved musical era straight from the
horse's mouth.-- "Aquarium Drunkard" (12/5/2022 12:00:00 AM)
You're with Stupid is most successful when it contextualizes kranky
inside the larger Chicago music scene--and indie as a whole.
Chicago was and is such a vibrant city musically that the larger
discussions of where the bands and labels fit into regional and
national networks of groups, scenes, and zines were welcome and
illuminating...this book got me interested in music that was new to
me--I dug around online for Labradford and Stars Of The Lid--and
gave me a greater sense of Chicago's scene in the '90s.--
"Razorcake" (11/15/2022 12:00:00 AM)
You're with Stupid proves [Adams] as adept at communicating what it
was like to be immersed in a time and place of intense creativity
as behind the scenes making it happen.-- "The Wire" (12/1/2022
12:00:00 AM)
[You're with Stupid] succeeds as both a memoir and a cultural
history of a brief wrinkle in time when a few Chicago neighborhoods
seemed to comprise the center of a then-flourishing underground
rock universe.-- "Aquarium Drunkard" (12/1/2022 12:00:00 AM)
[Adams] does a great service in sketching out the different rosters
and aesthetic approaches [indie record labels in Chicago]
took...You're with Stupid is both a cultural history of the Chicago
music world at that time, as told through the record labels and
distributors that Adams worked for, and a how-to road map to
founding a DIY operation.-- "Bookforum" (12/1/2022 12:00:00 AM)
Adams' book is a story about both a Chicago and a world that
doesn't exist anymore...[You're with Stupid is] a first-hand
account of a fascinating time in music history to motivate us into
some truly focused, immersive, offline activity.-- "Bandcamp Daily"
(11/21/2022 12:00:00 AM)
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