In the Eighties you knew where you stood with indie music but, twenty years later, 'indie' means major-label, mainstream guitar bands like Snow Patrol and Coldplay. But there are welcome signs of a return to the genre's DIY roots
Kitty Empire: We won the indie wars - but at what cost?
Jude Rogers
Sunday July 8, 2007
The Observer
In 1986 the NME released a tape of independent bands called C86 that captured the spirit of the time, collecting together guitar bands with winsome names such as the Wedding Present and the Pastels. The following year a small label called Sarah Records launched in Bristol, and quickly became the favourite label of weedy, sensitive, lovelorn souls. In the words of label bosses Clare Wadd and Matt Haynes, the songs they chose were 'full of wrong notes and wrong chords but crammed with right Everything Elses'. But the indie kids' biggest band was the Smiths, a group who objected to miming on Top of the Pops - they refused microphones to make their point - and sustained a four-year, largely self-managed career on the independent label Rough Trade. The two men who fronted that band - whey-faced, effeminate outsider Morrissey and confident guitarist Johnny Marr - would come to represent the different paths the term 'British indie' would take.
I became an indie kid in the mid-Nineties, at a time when the term was changing irrevocably. Although I was traditionally indie in looks and attitude - I always wore my £10-from-Barnardo's long leather jacket with tiny badges on the battered green lapels - the music I loved was getting harder. The Stone Roses were indie's most revered band at the time, a group who mixed Johnny Marr's Sixties-influenced guitars with dance music's psychedelic nous. They had disappeared for years to write their second album, 1994's arrogantly titled Second Coming. But like Oasis - who would seize their throne that year after the release of their debut album, Definitely Maybe - they hated what indie had come to stand for. In the final episode of the BBC's recent Seven Ages of Rock series, archive footage showed Stone Roses singer Ian Brown sneering: 'The independent scene's a joke, isn't it?' and Noel Gallagher bullying the 'nancy boys' of indie who 'need psychiatrists'. These bands were laddish and cocky and their lyrics were about being famous rather than being an outsider.
There were, however, still bands that were fey and self-deprecating - Pulp, Suede and 'pre-Parklife' Blur - and they were the bands I adored. They glorified the geeks rather than the geezers, and made my gawky teenage self feel part of a wonderful club. As their popularity grew, the major labels came calling. Pulp were signed to Island Records in 1993, Blur were signed to Food, which had backing from EMI, before being bought out completely in 1994, and Suede were on Nude, which got subsumed into Sony in the late Nineties. The next decade would be marked by big companies gobbling up the independents. Even Rough Trade, the Smiths' label, was bought by BMG in 2002.
And gradually, the term 'indie' changed. It came to mean any shambolic guitar band that wore vintage clothes and harked back nostalgically to the past. Indie kids now are more likely to be the boy with artfully messy hair or the cool girl in skinny jeans than the 'mis-shapes' and 'misfits' that Jarvis Cocker used to treasure.
But something is happening that might just revitalise the original indie spirit: 21 years after C86 acted out its quiet revolution, the do-it-yourself ethic is back. Arctic Monkeys - a band that built up a grass-roots following before signing to independent label Domino while remaining in control of their songs and their image - are the Smiths of this scene, and bands such as Koopa, from Essex, and John Peel favourites the Crimea have sustained careers by releasing their songs as digital downloads - in the Crimea's case, for free. As major labels crumble, sites like MySpace and last.fm act as free publicity machines, and internet forums provide a new way to connect communities of like-minded people.
Bands such as Wakefield's the Cribs rail against the corporate excess of mainstream indie bands like the Kooks, who, they claim, once turned up for a small gig in their hometown in a bus bigger than the actual venue. 'Indie's a word bandied about with reckless abandon with no consideration for where the word comes from,' says singer Gary Jarman. 'We're genuinely indie, we've toured independently, and we want more bands to follow our lead.' And even though the Cribs have signed a distribution deal with Warners in the US, they insist it is strictly on their own terms and they'll walk if the label starts interfering.
In addition to the indie spirit fomented on the internet there has also been an explosion in 'small-scene' activity over the past few years, with underground clubs and labels such as How Does It Feel To Be Loved? and Fortuna Pop! providing gentler souls with old-fashioned indie entertainment. So is the original spirit of indie returning? I donned my red spectacles, fastened a 'Home is Where the Record Player is' badge to the strap of my vinyl bag, and headed off to gigs and clubs to find out.
First stop, the Astoria in central London to see Art Brut, a band that are a perfect blend of old and new indie. Based in London, they make their own record sleeves - 'Every one of them different!' says their charismatic but deeply unglamorous lead singer Eddie Argos - write literate, self-deprecating songs and exhort their fans to form bands. Their inspirations are American independent artists such as innocently childlike Seventies singer Jonathan Richman and ramshackle contemporary songwriter Jeffrey Lewis - whom Gary from the Cribs also likes 'for writing genius songs and still touring the world in a shitty van with his guitar in a binbag'. So far, so old indie. But Art Brut have also sold out a 2,000-capacity venue and become ever so fashionable. Their fans are all shapes, sizes and ages - a good cross-section of the new indie spirit.
Outside, a group of teenagers in velvet jackets are handing out flyers. They positively ooze indie. 'We're independent, not indie,' says Cyan, 16, with a studied world-weariness. 'We would've been, but indie means the Libertines and the View these days. We're more DIY.' He's in a band called I Am the Arm with his friend Aimee, and they both like Art Brut because the band doesn't subscribe to any notions of 'cool'. 'Indie's not difficult or energetic at all any more. It's just music for the mainstream. It's music for poseurs.'
Further down the queue, Carrie, Lucy, Laura and Paul agree. They're a little older, at the cusp of their twenties, in the classic indie uniform of dyed hair, cardigans and blouses. 'Indie's just chirpy rock that will get you in the charts,' says Carrie, swinging her blue charity shop bag. 'And it's all about looking the same as everyone else. It's become Topshop indie.' Sam and Sam, two boys a few years older again, who amusingly look like carbon copies of each other, think it's about more than that: 'Original indie still had a bit of danger - there's no danger in it today.'
Pavement T-shirt-wearing Johnny, 26, is just old enough to remember indie in the early Nineties, 'back when it meant groups from America too, and not just crap British bands'. It was about listening to Steve Lamacq's Evening Session until something jumped out; it was about a spirit of discovery. Inside, Clemmy and Mat say something similar. They think the term 'indie' has died but that something else is in its place - a new spirit of enthusiasm inspired by people who are fed-up of dull contemporary sounds, and who are buoyed up by the internet's capacity to store and disseminate music using next-to-no resources.
Just before Art Brut take the stage, I find the only people who actually like the term 'indie' - although they like it for very different reasons. First there's Aidan, 24, on a mission to reclaim the word. 'That is indie,' Aidan says, handing me a flyer for a club, Shot By Both Sides, that he started up with his friend Rob in New Cross. 'The word's become derogatory. We want to make it exciting again.' Dana, 19, likes the term indie because it's become more inclusive. 'I'm young and black, and I'd go to indie gigs five years ago and people would be, "What are you doing here?". It's become much more welcoming.' That said, her friend Ben, 21, says, 'Indie is something to make you look better next to the chavs.' And Emma, 23, and Jo, 26, two very well-spoken, pleasant girls with thick fringes, like the term because 'being indie made you cooler at school, because you were wearing the right kind of clothes'. They agree this isn't the kind of indie that ruled back in the Eighties, but a modern, fashionable strand. And how would they define indie now? 'Cool guitar bands,' they say, before running down the stairs to hear Art Brut arrive in a flourish of feedback.
After enjoying Art Brut's songs about unglamorous sex and the sadness of record shops being full of computer games, I catch a bus to the Young and Lost Club in Shoreditch, east London. I come here to investigate a related complaint about contemporary indie: that it has gone posh as well as cool; that the music of the underdog has been taken over by the rich kids, including ubiquitous gossip-column staple Peaches Geldof. Pop critic Simon Price recently complained about indie gigs being full of 'horsey young fillies canoodling with flush-faced bucks, fresh out of public school', deeming the indie gig the new 'social club for dressed-down debutantes to see and be seen'. Given that every pop culture movement from Fifties rock'n'roll through to punk and new wave has teemed with people of all classes wanting to be different, this isn't particularly surprising. But Nadia Dahlawi and Sara Jade, both 22 and founders of the Young and Lost indie club and label, operate a little differently. They are undeniably posh, and most probably wealthy, but they also use the tools of mid-Eighties indie to promote their passions.
We speak as Florence and the Machine, a confident, bluesy band far removed from the winsome indie template, take to the stage. The crowd are loud and stand-offish, but Nadia and Sara are gentle and affable, Nadia in smock and leggings, Sara in Blondie T-shirt and jeans. They met at boarding school when they were 11, and started making fanzines a few years later, inspired by a book about the DIY ethic of indie. They liked the idea that they were girls making things their own way - echoing a shift away from the masculinity of rock that was a huge part of the early indie manifesto. And the bands they promote on their Young and Lost label include Fear of Flying, whose first single was about a bus driver in love with another bus driver - a sentiment that wouldn't be out of place on any Sarah Records release.
But there the similarity ends. The girls describe indie as being music away from the mainstream that exists on an independent label; but then they tell me that their label is funded by Vertigo Records, which is an imprint of Universal. And then they tell me they'd like their bands to become mainstream too. 'Of course we would,' says Sara, sweetly and proudly. 'Because the mainstream should become a place for good music.'
It's this argument that reveals the flaw in the original indie kids' plan. The indie ethic as it was in 1986 - a protest against music that most other people liked - could easily become very snobby. A knowledge of obscure bands often became more important to some than the act of sharing this music for the pleasure of others.
But this isn't the case with many of the people reviving original indie today. The night after Young and Lost, I head to Seven and Seven Is in Highbury, north London, a Thursday-night club dedicated to the 'happier, simpler time of the seven-inch' and an offshoot of an increasingly popular, bi-monthly club night called How Does it Feel to Be Loved? The HDIF music policy is to combine jangly Eighties bands such as the Sea Urchins and Heavenly with girl groups and northern soul - music, crucially, that has its roots in pop rather than rock. Accordingly, indie-pop has become one of the terms these indie kids cling to, a term about sensitivity rather than contemporary indie's conventional rock swagger. As I walk down the stairs I see a small crowd of people wearing outfits from everyday jeans to tea-dresses and beads, dancing shyly and joyously.
'Indie used to be heartfelt, it used to be pure,' says Ian, a rosy-cheeked 24-year-old. 'It was never about triumphalism. Since it became that, it's been a meaningless brand.' 'What indie is at heart is a place for community,' adds Sarah, 27, from Glasgow, 'about doing things in your home town, not having to go to a big city to make it.' She's followed the scene in Glasgow for years, tracing the rise of bands such as Franz Ferdinand. But a visit to a large venue last year threw up a curveball - a 'new indie band' called the Fratellis. 'I'd never seen them before - they just came out of nowhere. And that really annoyed me.' There are some bands today, I say, whose approach to work and cost-cutting measures are properly indie, even though their sound and aesthetics are something quite different. 'That's right. But indie isn't a haircut, it's a work ethic.'
A large part of tonight's crowd come from the indie messageboard Bowlie, an international web community that grew out of the Belle and Sebastian and Jeepster label websites. Regular member Emma, 24, laughs as she tells me what a bouncer said to her recently: 'He said, "You're the most uncool crowd I've ever seen. You're like a disco for the computer club."' The messageboard's founder, David Kitchen, agrees. 'Indie initially was never about coolness. It was about the people that Pulp summed up so well - a little bit ugly, a little bit kooky, a bit fucked-up. It's for people who want to do things for themselves, and share things together, without fear of recrimination.'
HDIF founder Ian Watson is especially delighted that this culture is booming. Thanks to the internet, and a renewed enthusiasm for stuff away from the flimflam of popular music, he thinks we're now living in a golden age for DIY music. He mentions a new indie-pop festival, Indie Tracks, to be held in a station in Derbyshire this month, and how he keeps hearing about people setting up their own clubs, bands and labels. This reminds me of something Art Brut's Eddie Argos told me: 'You know why the real spirit of indie has to come back? Because everything else is so dull. And because it's time! Because something needs to happen!'
Ian agrees: 'At the end of the day, the only indie that works is indie that isn't based on fashions and hairstyles and profit and being cool. If that's the way anybody's indie project is heading, it will fail.' The logical conclusion of this is that if indie continues to get commercialised, it'll only end up annoying people - which will in turn only encourage the original indie spirit to reload and refire. So maybe indie will never really die? Ian drains his lager and grins. 'Indie as it used to be won't ever die,' he says. 'Because indie will always work when it's just about the passion.'
An indie summer: events for sensitive souls
Twee as Fuck Club
Buffalo Bar, Highbury Corner, London N1, Fri 13 July
myspace.com/tweeasfucknight, £6/5
New monthly club night whose organisers, according to their myspace manifesto, 'believe in fun. And indiepop and dancing till you're dizzy and snowball fights and early Creation Records and Sarah Records and cardigans and picnics and coach parties and Polaroids and janglecore and Molly's Lips and C86'.
Truck Festival
Hill Farm, Steventon, Oxfordshire, Sat 21 and Sun 22 July
thisistruck.com, £55, returns only
Tenth outing of the Truck label's resolutely independent, 3,500-capacity Oxfordshire festival where the stages are on the backs of trucks. Due to the organisers and punters not wanting the festival to change and get bigger, it sold out in a day. Line-up includes Idlewild, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Brakes and Electric Soft Parade.
Indie Tracks Festival
Midland Railway Butterley, Ripley, Derbyshire, Sat 28 and Sun 29 July
indietracks.co.uk, £45 for weekend ticket, £25 for one-day ticket
Two-day, two-stage event of 36 bands in a heritage station in Derbyshire reached by steam train. Headliners are recently reformed Sarah band the Orchids, and former Hefner singer Darren Hayman's new band, Darren Hayman's Secondary Modern.
Fortuna Pop! and Spiral Scratch Present...
The Luminaire, Kilburn, London NW6, Fri 10 August
fortunapop.com
Independent label Fortuna Pop! and independent club Spiral Scratch host 'queen of indiepop' Rose Melberg, singer of indiepop bands the Softies and Tiger Trap, and 'England's very own reclusive jangle pop genius' Harvey Williams, who released singles on Sarah Records under the name Another Sunny Day, and played guitars with indie band the Field Mice.
The Bowlie Alldayer 2007
The Rose of England, Mansfield Road, Nottingham, Sat 25 August
bowlie.com, £4 advance, £5 on door
Annual August Bank Holiday indiefest, this year moving from London to the Midlands. Bands confirmed include the School, Horowitz, Amida and Pocketbooks.
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