I've returned home from a pleasant trip to Birr, I was going to see John Shelly and the Creatures play. I of course had a crew of less Indie but equally interesting friends coming along with me.
this made me think, perhaps all my aspiring Indie readers don't yet understand the VAST importance of having non-Indie friends. So i shall now explain in great detail the necessity of other personalities, that if added to your clique will improve your image.
The Stylish but Hopeless: This refers to the person that to an observer appears stylish, generally well washed and the proud owner of a 9 to 5 office job. This person is not simply "non-Indie" but will in fact do their utmost to avoid being labelled as such. In fact the only reason that anyone with this personality would ever join your merry band of music lovers is to reassure themselves of how distant they are from anything resembling indie... So, why would anyone want this person around? firstly this person would be no threat to you in the fight for indie cred. but more importantly, to other indie folk you would appear to be a fair and balanced judge of people. This of course will lull any other indie folk into a false sense of security. Because as we all know judging people in a fair and balanced way makes you a bit of an anomaly in the Indie world. So when they approach expecting a short lived exchange of indie cred, that's when you hit them with the really obscure stuff, it wont be long before they crawling inside themselves to say "I haven't heard them.. but i've heard of them". with that, the fight is over!
The Sponge: A person that isn't at all indie and doesn't want to be, but for some reason, after a year or so of preaching at them, absorbs all information about obscure record labels, and important release dates that you can't always remember yourself. you can consider these people your walking Indie-Encyclopaedia, and referring to THEM for the information during an Indie Cred battle makes you seem like you must have just told them 5 minutes ago.
The Closet Case: This is someone who is Indie in everything but name. They generally have a good understanding of Indie music and films but have no idea how to broadcast their indie-ness or converse with other indie folk. these people are very useful for buying albums that you can't afford and go with you to gig's no one else will. everybody wins!
10 comments:
cool layout. took abit of time to get used to but it does give more character to your posting style and content. i still cant figure out what layout i want for my blog. i suck at html and such. unless it was How To Make Love of course haha.
so where do i stand in the indie world? i do keep track of bands,be it mainstream or indie, as long as i like the music. :D
well i'm going to call the layout a work in progress. as long as it can be read by people i don't mind that much.
as for the world of indie.. well, we'll have to enter into an Indie-Cred clash of the titans to really find out :D.. i'll soon post up something on the skills need to preform your best during such an encounter. needless to say, keep a few bands under your hat until the time is right.
nice layout going on there. i suck too in HTML that is why all you see is just plain and simple colours on my site. heh.
just like cypher, i too have a mix of relatively unknown bands and some mainstream ones on my ipod playlist. as long the sound is catchy or earlobe penetrating, i'll listen to it.
Liking semi-popular bands gives you more credibility. but of course Indie stuff is your bread and butter.
tell me a band you really like (popular or otherwise) and i'll try and match it with a band i know.. it's a great game, and it makes you think :D
well, theres alot of underground malaysian bands that i really dig, namely Love me butch, Crush, Prana etc...international 'mainstream acts' such as Tool, a perfect circle, Smashing pumpkins (mellon collie and before), Wes Borlands 'black light burns' (released on an indie label :)
theres alot more malaysian indie acts which u can find on myspace music worth listening to
singapore too has some good bands; whether they are under an indier label or not; for example i like listening to The fire fight, Jennifer Deathwish and Monotone.
Well of course there are some of Malaysian band i do tune in to, like One Buck Short.
Personally, i do really like Fall Out Boy, having earmarked them as the band to look out for when there were just starting off from their second EP. On the obscure side, i do listen to alot of acts like Northstar and Mest although the've disbanded quite sometime ago.
well cypher, listened to Love me Butch. and i really like Baracade and Hollywood Holiday.
and i think you'd like "dEUS" they're a Belgian band. if you use torrents then here is an album for you: http://www.mybittorrent.com/info/263144/
dEUS are a little softer. but if you want somthing more jumpy. Arcade Fire have gotten some main streem attention over here and you'd probably like them to.
zul- i also think you might like some of dEUS's stuff.. but i think you'd like an Irish band called Paper Tank, there music is on my space but the recording is AWFUL. so they don't sound very good. i liked the song Kelibat Korupsi by one buck short.. although i haven't idea what it's about :D
thanks alot seb (if you dont mind calling me that).
Arcade Fire won the album or the year in 2006 if i recall correctly. they are a band playing kinda alternative music, no? never heard of them before but judging from the acclaims they've received, i got a hunch, they're pretty good.
thanks again, for sharing bands knowledge with us, as of now, i'm torrenting deUS..
Arcade fire would be hard to dislike for anyone into Alternative music. the had a number 1 album here.. which is odd because Ireland has some of the worst music fans in the world.. i can say that considering i've done extensive travelling.:)
(calling me seb makes perfect sense, people also call me Berko :)
Speaking as representative of the greater non Indie community.
Indie, will become, or is, main stream. The obscurity of the bands you love is slowly being eroded
away by that medium that brought them to you attention in the first place.
The internet!!
In time as HMV and Virgin and other music shops finally pop there clogs and become unviable as more and more people turn to the internet for there music fix. Awareness off these formally little know bands will grow to epidemic proportions. Chart listings wont be TV based but peer based. The sad trust is while some bands are shit and are obscure because of this, others aren’t. If I was to hazard a guess these are the ones the Indie people hold most dear. These are the big bands of the future leaving the truly Indie only the crap bands that no one wants to lesion to in the first place. The Indie experiment will die and they can return to quoting monty pathion and playin Risk.
I love Risk!
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