The Indie Hangover Cure

So you were at a gig last night... You wake up and everything hurts. You've got the Indie Hangover!

The combination of alcohol (usually imported, therefore stronger than usual), dancing (all indie kids dance at some point during the night) and all the general merriment combine to make the worst feeling in the world the next day. So, when you wake up with that feeling that makes you want to hurl yourself on front of a truck filled with Amy Winehouse CD's, here's a few things that can help:

1. Sleep



Not The Big Sleep, but regular sleep. Sleep is the indie way. When not lounging around your favorite coffee shop, record store or book shop, or enjoying the latest film to come out of northern Sweden sleep is the distraction of choice. Coupled with some motilium beforehand, sleep is the most effective weapon in the indie arsenal against indie hangovers.

2. Music



Sun Kil Moon, Sigur Rós, Sparklehorse and the likes. Anything acoustic will do, or with nice jangly electric guitars. Nice music can take your mind off anything, including an incapacitating pain in your head and/or stomach.

3. Food



Ok, so you've managed to drag yourself out of bed and have a shower, but when then? Pop down to your kitchen or failing that your local café. If you can stomach it (and the motilium should have helped) some nice coffee, tea and breakfast. The nice ambiance of an indie coffee emporium should help awake those senses and get you ready for the day ahead.

Today's snaps belong to the following... The café one is from Danielle Blue, indie awesome photographer from Baltimore. The CD collection belongs to White Plains, NY resident Joe Mad. The photo of The Big Sleep is Jonathan Feinstein's who is an awesome band photographer (check his stuff on flickr).

Indie Show-Down

It's a clear, cold night.
the further you walk, the more you seem to notice it becoming more lonely, as people are appearing less and less... The night is pouring in around you. Even the street lamps fighting it seem to be surrendering to it's persistence. Just then, as if from the shadow itself, steps an Indie guy.. He walks towards you with purpose and determination. he stops, stares and asks "So what kinda music are you in to".... You've just been called out to prove your Indie Cred.. what do you do?
luckily, i have some helpful hints!

1) First Response:

The first thing you say could determine if you win or lose, so be careful!
What you need to do is name off some pretty obscure bands, but ALSO throw in some red herrings here is the formula, the order is important: (a+x)+(b+y)+(c+Z)

here is how it works. a,b,c are your red herrings: these are indie in name, but in reality they're the at the popular end of indie. x and y are your relatively unknown bands and finally so they know you mean business Z, this is a VERY obscure band, but not your Ace, you need that for later.. here is an example of how it might sound:

"Well, i like Belle and Sebastian, Sparklehorse and umm.. Sufjan Stevens, dEUS i was just listening to Eels and also John Shelly and the Creatures"

what you want is for them to ask about your Z band, that is when you can cut him where he stands with the Kryptonite of Indie retorts "Oh.. you wouldn't know them, they're pretty underground" sadly any self respecting indie follower wouldn't fall for that. they'd remember the name and look it up in their own time.

2)The Rally

This is where your true colours are shown, and your first few Indie-Cred-Clashes, will be a short clean defeat. The Rally is more about experience than actually Indie knowledge. Here is how most Rallies will develop.
a) Testing the water:
during this period of the Rally bands will be thrown around between the two of you until someone breaks with mention of a gig.. something like this:
...
"Yeah.. i liked the first album, did you hear the Arcade Fire album"
"In fact i did, and i saw them live last year..."

b) Live Show.. Show Down
Things just got complicated.. you have gotten over the first hurdle and you have proven that you KNOW your stuff. but have you seen it? it's no longer just about how indie the band is.. it's about how indie they were when you first saw them play.. SO lets welcome back the red herring bands that we used earlier. now these guys are going to win it for you.. this is the round where the lesser known bands don't mean crap.
A popular band that you saw years ago before they where big is exactly what you want here.. not too popular.. you don't wanna be saying stuff like "i saw Take That before they broke up.. "..that sorta crap will get you killed!
this round will last until either one of you has aced the other OR until someone changes back to indie bands again...

c) Last Stand
remember that Ace you where saving.. this is where to throw it out.. the situation is desperate and if you've made it this far then the guy is good.. really good.. it's like a western quick draw.. the one that gets out their Ace first will have victory and the other will fall in disgrace..

lastly.. be careful out there...