Fun Stuff > BAND
Arcade Fire Wins Grammy, prompting Americans to wonder who they are anyway
Johnny C:
those bands have fucking managers dude is my point though, like they do all that stuff and have someone with a calendar somewhere that says "john c – the carillon – 2:00 pm, sunday" and that calendar does not negate the awesome stuff they have done that is also totally antithetical to like corporatized ethos. unless you're going to argue that having a festival where shotgun jimmie is a headliner is corporatized.
--- Quote from: Ptommydski on 15 Feb 2011, 16:20 ---
--- Quote from: Johnny C ---it makes you an adult aware of how much work you can feasibly handle.
--- End quote ---
Ah, the benign implication being that absolute control is infantile.
--- End quote ---
what are you talking about dude what are you talking about
look, i think i was like really clear – i don't deny that other bands can do it. i'm categorically saying that is not the only way you can be "independent" and that it is completely arbitrary to draw any lines beyond "major label." and i'm saying that telling anyone out there looking to become a touring and recording artist that hiring a press guy officially makes you no longer independent is to basically do what a lot of other fairly insidious cultural forces in the 21st century are already conspiring to do which is to slowly and implicitly make the performance and recording of independent music that is viable in a long-term sense the province of the rich, a leisure-time thing for people who can afford to spend the time booking shows and stuff. you are constantly suggesting bands should have day jobs and do music as a hobby, dude – and while it may be feasible to do that and still have like enough success as a band to stay afloat, i think it's an unreasonable thing to force on someone if they want to wear the "independent" mantle.
i'm saying that if you're looking for independent ethics it's way more unethical to tell a kid that he's sold out if he's at the point where he's able to afford a hand in booking a cross-country tour than it is to hire that guy to book. not everyone's some kind of creepy weird middleman out to grease his own palms. these people have jobs and they do them really well and they frequently assist bands who are going to likely avoid major labels for the duration of their career because there's a huge difference between a major and ken from killbeat. there's no one true path to being independent. that's a hard-line position that's unrealistic not because it's impossible but unrealistic because it is unyielding to the situations of various people.
scarred:
--- Quote from: Ptommydski on 15 Feb 2011, 17:08 --- it's just not accurate to call a band indie because they no longer resemble the bands who are actually doing the absolute control thing.
--- End quote ---
I probably shouldn't jump into this discussion, but there's been such a deluge of people and critics calling shit "indie" or "indie rock" that it's gotten to the point that indie itself has become, in a lot of minds and representations of indie culture, a style of music rather than a way of conducting business.
imagist42:
I am pretty sure independent is not a thing you either are or are not. Like with just about everything, there are different degrees and I think it is fair to say Arcade Fire are leaps and bounds more "indie" than anything else that has recently been in the American mainstream spotlight.
Johnny C:
--- Quote from: Ptommydski on 15 Feb 2011, 17:04 ---Then don't wear it. It's completely optional. The fact that people desire to be considered an independent band but don't want to do the stuff which being an independent band entails is bizarre. So don't do it, find another way to do it. Don't torture yourself if it's impossible to you, just do what you like. My problem is all the bands who want the prestige and I honestly think the sales of being considered an independent band but don't actually want to do the actual work.
--- End quote ---
i dunno dude, that whole argument really strikes me as like a kind of macho "this is our way" sort of thing. i think it's infeasible for a lot of bands, bands who otherwise operate with fairly strict adherence to an ethos that says they're making stuff they like because they like it rather than because it's a thing that will Move Units. and like i think it's also again not even so much unfair as frankly wrong to suggest that all the bands i've listed who enlist someone to do press or booking or whatever want to be called indie but "don't want to do the work." maybe they do, and that work entails moving around the country and playing music and putting together records and rehearsing and working to be able to afford those tours, and working to run a record label, and working to run a venue, and etcetera, etcetera.
i mean these estates do stuff on the cheap and the quick & dirty and aim largely for DIY stuff but that's just because that's kind of the way we want to run things, not because it makes us more indie. and i don't look down on a band fortunate enough to be able to hire a booking agent or press guy so that they can spend hours in their day instead actually being able to make art. and i don't think that those bands are less independent than us. they're more stable, maybe. or they're more viable. or more successful. good for them. they're not less indie because of it. they've worked hard, and so have we. i'm morally very wary of negating that by saying "well you're no longer independent." what are they no longer independent from? their own time?
Johnny C:
"successful"
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