Music, Arts & Culture » Music  Satansville Revisited  It takes
more than a reunion to bring the past alive     Last month, the
New Yorker magazine had a little write-up of an upcoming
Swervedriver show in its "Night Life" listings. As a
Swervedriver fan, I paid special attention to the brief mention,
especially its last sentence: "Swervedriver lasted from 1989 to
1999, but it has since re-formed for a second stab at stardom."
The word choice of that last phrase bugged me. Swervedriver's
following is small but devoted, and their importance in the
general scheme of popular music is fairly minute—their first
stab at stardom was marked with record label setbacks and the
eclipsing glare of grunge. But it seems dubious that the
motivating factor for the band's reunion is fame; though
currently touring internationally, Swervedriver have no new
album to support, and the band members, fairly unassuming guys
at the starting end of middle age, are not the type to seek the
spotlight.  By the time the New Yorker's Swerve