"This is Just an Indie Rock Story"

November 8, 2005 by David Blackman

If only my ears had been opened earlier; I could have had a soundtrack to my traumatic junior high career. Instead of listening to Meatloaf records, with my father pleading with the narrator to make it three out of three, I could have had my own music -- music my parents would've hated. It would have given me my first fight with my parents. Instead, I had to wait until years later, when I was kicked out of the same nerd camp for "disrespect of authority."

It was around that time that I rediscovered Radiohead, when a friend handed me an unmarked CD-R full of meticulously organized mp3s. It contained a terrible B-Side called "Bishop's Robes." A throwaway droning number that should have only resonated with a child of a British boarding school. But it was the first song I'd found on my own. I sat in the dark with a pair of headphones trying to find the words to describe it and the reason why it meant so much to me. I was hooked. This was My Band.

I found other bands -- ones that were spoken of in the same sentence as Radiohead, ones they covered and name-checked, old openers. I had found indie -- a movement that had come to be centered around other bands that spoke to the outcasts, the nerds and the theater kids. I saw them live and I understood the difference between a concert and a show. This wasn't seeing the Rolling Stones, old and boring, with my father. This was a bunch of angry guys who had a lot to say.

I wanted to hear it again. So I went and saw them again in New Jersey nine days later. When I realized it would be infeasible (and not that interesting) to follow them around the country, I discovered bootlegs and the obsessiveness that follows from even the most tentative entry into that community.

Collectors of these artifacts discover hidden gems in them -- unreleased songs that few people have ever heard and even fewer have ever appreciated. It leads to a rabid desire for completeness, the idea that if you try hard enough, you can find the songs of your favorite band that will be new and exciting. After you've worn out all the albums and even the EPs and then the singles, there will still be scratchy recordings filled with tape hiss and drunk guys screaming "Freebird", but buried underneath will be the songs you haven't explored.

I now worry that in my fetishistic relationship with music, I've lost something important. The Internet has done for music what pornography did for relationships -- it took away all the intimacy and made everyone restless. I'm jealous of everyone who ever had to tape an LP off a friend, wait for the next Sub Pop single or send away to SST Records for their catalog.

Owning an album used to mean something -- you paid for it, and once you had it, you were stuck with it. It would be only one of a limited number you owned and could engage with.

Thanks to the Internet, I will never again know the joy of waiting months for an album, making an expedition out of the trip to buy it, opening the thin plastic lining and listening to the record while poring over the liner notes that will elucidate or expand the mysteries of the music. Maybe I'm just hopelessly romanticizing owning a copy of "Frampton Comes Alive" on vinyl.

Much like the tech industry, it is evolve or die in the music-snob world. If you're not taking in at least 10 new albums a week (and pretending to take in at least twice that), you're falling behind. Someone will find the next Arcade Fire before you do, and the indie girls will love him more and you may as well just kill yourself.

Why exactly am I entangled in this elitism? I got into music because it spoke to me and it gave voice to unexpressed feelings. Trying to iterate my musical taste on a weekly basis means that I will never be able to give as much time to a great album as it deserves. I worry every time I listen to "Automatic For The People" that I'm doing a disservice by not exploring my complete and untouched Massive Attack discography. This is not healthy.

As much as we snobs claim that we value indie ethos over all else, it's a lie. If that were true, we wouldn't be spending time trying to understand the value of Pere Ubu, just so we can tell other members of our tribe that if they don't get it, they don't understand modern music.

If you were really indie, you'd listen to bands that no one had ever heard of. And then there would be no point, because if they're really that obscure, you wouldn't receive any cred for finding them. The dispensers of cred, your peers, need to know of the band to appreciate your appreciation of them. Otherwise, you could just be making this shit up. Oh yeah, I'm real into The Hot Cells. .. they're, ummm... a post-rock band from Albany, sort of like minimalism meets Mission of Burma. Bullshit.

Having a car with nothing but a CD player has done wonders for my relationship with music. I need to choose which albums to buy and which to burn, which to keep in the car and which to rotate. Away from my computer, I can't just pick 50 random songs to play nor put my iPod on shuffle. It's forcing me to be much more active in my music appreciation.

Do I burn "Nirvana Unplugged" or the latest Pitchfork-It-Band that is absolutely required listening for any self-respecting snob (Animal Collective and Wolf Parade being the two latest disappointments)? No, I think I'd rather put on the Mountain Goats record I've had in my car since early this summer. It's a good record for autumn driving.

David Blackman made a damn good Ozzy Osbourne before he cut his hair. Now he looks like the lead singer of a new wave band. He also turns 21 on Friday. Send him birthday wishes at blackmad@stanford.edu.

David Blackman made a damn good Ozzy Osbourne before he cut his hair. Now he looks like the lead singer of a new wave band. He also turns 21 on Friday. Send him birthday wishes at blackmad@stanford.edu.