Indie Music: Why it Matters to Everyone

This afternoon an Indie band arrived at our house with trailer in tow. They had just driven across a chunk of America, West Virginia to Illinois, to play a couple gigs on their current tour. "This is more a 'see America' tour, rather than us playing a lot of dates," the guitarist for Lights Out Dancing tells me. "We went to Philly, New York, North Carolina and Washington, D.C. The people were really nice there. And oh yeah. We took a detour through Camden, New Jersey. That sorta sucked."

There are 5 guys in the group. My daughter knows them through MySpace. She's been messaging back and forth for a couple years, owns their albums and today, she will be taking photographs for possible promotional shots. That's her gig right now. She's getting requests from all sorts of bands to take pictures and starts college next fall, where she'll likely major in music business administration and photography. She thinks. Who knows where the future will take her? She's a pretty good musician herself, you see. Violin and guitar. Lately she's been playing with a sharp little singer named London who might want to take the band on tour this summer? There are plenty of kids living that dream these days. There are Indie bands filled with amazingly proficient musicians all over the Chicago area.

But of course it doesn't really matter these days where a band is from. There is music (good and bad) all over the internet. The MySpace machine takes care of that. Some music actually gets sold. Some of it gets downloaded for free, but it's all part of the game in getting known.

Bands can cut and sell their own CDs thanks to digital technology. But some of the basics still exist. To promote their music, Indie bands play clubs wherever they can find them. Some bands eventually get signed and work with producers to rise in the music scene. My daughter hates it though when bands get signed. Her best friend gave her a t-shirt that says, "I listen to bands that don't even exist." That's how she likes her bands and her music: Undiscovered and accessible. But eventually the goods ones get big. "I hate big shows," daughter admits. "Something gets lost."

The Indie music circuit accommodates the tastes of all kinds of music fans. For Indie bands, getting a spot on Warped Tour is a coup. Warped is a chance to meet more fans, win more converts and play your way to the top.

You might be asking why this writer--a middle-aged man of 50--should care about Indie music. Well, guess what? I like it better than the tired old classic rock I'm supposed to like. Sure, the classics form the foundation for many bands today. There may be no such thing again as the world-shaking originality of the 60s. But consider this: How many more times am I supposed to listen to songs by groups like Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and not grow tired of them? The song Suite Judy Blue Eyes by CSN seems to predict the ultimately boring state of Classic Rock: "It's getting to the point...Where I'm no fun anymore. I am sorry." So am I. It's time to move on. I know I've heard some songs from my generation at least 100 times, if not thousands! I still love the Beatles, Steely Dan and Pink Floyd, but there is simply more to life than hearing these same songs over and over again. Some of us are ready to listen to something new.

That's why my daughter's bands seem so interesting. There's inventiveness in the music of Vampire Weekend that supercedes the fact that it cops some licks from Paul Simon. There is joy in the catchy riffs of new groups like The Hush Sound, MGMT and Of Montreal. Some former Indie bands (or groups that have an Indie sound at least) have risen to the top. Death Cab for Cutie is just one example. Now matter how many songs they record, they still sound like a undiscovered local band. That seems to be the secret to new music these days.

I remember going into a music store five years ago when a song came over the speakers that literally made me stop in my tracks to listen. I stood transfixed, craning to hear the next song came on, then the next. "Who is this group?" I finally asked the kid behind the counter. "Modest Mouse," he muttered softly. I couldn't hear him, so I asked "Who?" again.

"Modest Mouse?" he answered quizzically. "Why, do you like it?"

"I'll buy it," I told him. "It's awesome."

"I have to warn you," he said sheepishly, holding up the CD case with its warning sticker. "It has some swear words in it."

"All the better," I said.

I'd been aching for some new sound in my life. That album took over my car CD player for at least a solid month. Such nuance. Such vibrant, cryptic lyrics. Best of all, the songs contained words that said something more than "I love you" or "why did you leave me?" Songs like "Bukowski" actually captured the angst of the writer.

The day after I bought the CD, I e-mailed the radio station in Chicago that brags about breaking new music. "I count on you to tell me about new artists," I complained. "Why aren't you playing Modest Mouse?"

The next morning, on my way to work, the song "Float On" by Modest Mouse came through my radio. Circumstance? Perhaps. But I felt vindicated that I may have contributed in some microscopically small way to promoting alternative music to the world.

We Baby Boomers have had it our way for so long in terms of music it is easy to forget there is a great generation of new, motivated kids out there cranking the amps and developing a following. It puzzles me why radio, which has become so stale it almost stinks when you turn it on, has not found some way to feature Indie music.

Well, we all know the truth. The music industry itself is to blame, geared to break the hits its own, stodgy way. But of course now it is paying the price since music sharing has gotten so easy and Indie bands introduce their records/CDs/MP3s without need of a record label, radio station or greasy promoter. Even acknowledged successes like Radio Head release albums online as an experiment to see if they really need record stores.

Or other stores. Paul McCartney's latest CD was only available at Starbucks. I hate coffee, so I didn't buy the CD either. When the Eagles released their bland, forgettable double CD through Walmart stores my daughter sweetly made the sacrifice to buy it for Christmas because she knows I have an Eagles songbook from which I learned about 30 songs on guitar. It was a nice gesture on her part to buy me the Eagles CD, but the album was terribly boring. What did we expect? I don't want to have to go to Walmart to buy my friggin' music. Mainstream music cheapens itself through moves like that.

That's another reason I'm so glad that kids these days are making their own rules, writing incredible new songs and riffing on the classic formulas of rock. They don't want Walmart defining their tastes. They live outside that world of corporate largesse and banal attempts to capitalize on the past success of rock acts.

Today, 5 bright, funny young men lounged around our house, 2 with guitars in hand (my $300 Ibanez and my daughter's $2000 Taylor) while the lead singer read lyrics for their newest song from the screen of his MacBook and sang with a pillow propped up behind him while the other guys, tired from their travels earlier in the day, half tried to sleep. The lead singer had an amazing voice. Harmonies rang through out house and I stood watching one guitarist work my Ibanez in way I could never dream to play.

Their group is called Lights Out Dancing, and the new song I heard them play in our house is absolutely awesome. "That could be breakthrough material," I told them. They just chuckled.

All I know is that it had such great musical structure. On this rehearsal they discovered that playing a quiet middle-8 made the song even better. As they finished their runthrough, their sleepy drummer muttered from under the blankets, "Let's play it that way tonight. It sounds better."

As I write this it is 8:45 p.m. on a Sunday. The band goes onstage in just over an hour. When the show finishes they'll drive a foggy, long trek north to a relative's house to sleep the day away before a final gig at a club called Clearwater in Dundee, Illinois. This is their life, an Indie band on the road, making it happen for themselves, by themselves. Their motto is something about having more fun than they probably should.

Go at it boys. Some of us Boomers are rooting for you. And thanking you for the music.