Article Response: Indie Kids

I grew up in a suburb of Georgia and removed completely from any scene at all, until high school when i made the periodic trips to Athens to see Olivia Tremor Control or Elf Power and started making pseudo-Flaming Lips songs on my 4-track at home. I had read alot about my parents' 60s revolution and was in love with the music; the way people dressed at these shows felt good, Mr. Roger sweaters and all, like a cheerier, more fun version of Nirvana. At school i wore ties and blazers and t-shirts cos I saw a picture of Syd Barrett and he looked so dandy and experimental at the same time. My parents thought I was crazy and/or on drugs, and asked me several times in fact.

Around this time I started hanging out with people in Atlanta, who had impeccable thrift store post-Grunge fashions and were making improvizational music with old synthesizers and cheap guitars and stuff. They referred to each other as 'kids' and this was the first time I ever heard the term. It seemed to ecompass a lot of the musical/stylistic ideas i was pursuing at the time.

My little brother was into hardcore and screamo and i would drive him around to all these shows and i looked weird enough to fit in and get into the pit and all that. I moved into a punk rock house with some kids that were members of a band that is now A Small Victory, and they were nice guys, we stayed up late nights dumpster diving and listening to Bjork and all that. I met and fell in love with a goth girl and died my hair black, which has since then morphed from a shaggy-haired George Harrison '68 look to an Oliver Twist look to a Classical Greek cherub look. I never thought that i should imitate others but i did like the look of black and ran with it.

I tried to listen to At the Drive In and couldn't get into it. My roommates also had a lot of non-ironic pop around like the Dirty Pop of N*Sync and Britney Spears and all that. Anyways, over the years I bounced between hanging out with different scenes (mostly the local punk scene), becoming increasingly conscious of the Stylism that worked its way into them.

It's funny cos today maybe I would be a stereotypical indie kid; last week my mom called me up to say that she went to a department store and all the styles looked exactly the way i dressed in high school.

Nowadays I go to school for art and live with two private art-school kids, and they constantly look like models. It seems like that whole group kind of stems from the indie kid elitist model (especially since they're all at the right age) but more elegant and self-defined. Sorry for the long post.

Oh, and I do love The Smiths and The Cure (go ahead, cruxify me).

#15 (plus 16 and 17) articulates something I've been sensing for some time. This shrinking of the genepool is progressive, such that you can't possibly have too many more generations of some of these strains of indie before the perpetual inbreeding between simplicity and amateurism results in collapse into demented whimpers. It's like generation 0 offered a refreshing DIY reaction to the most ornate popular music of the 70's. But by generation 23 or whatever those living in the self-referencing cave so long without allowing themselves to appreciate a truly swinging brass arrangement first hand or, I dunno, even a genuinely driving or complex or funky rhythm, are going to have too few tools to construct even the most rudimentary pop song. Presumably most have broader tastes, it sounds like it in fewer and fewer cases, and I can feel my brain cells dying.

When did the cool kids (who usually are considered to have ample spending money) start copping the style? How can two stereotypes at opposite ends of the social spectrum be so similar?

or are indie kids the popular kids in high school now, like the jocks? I'm confused...maybe things have changed....I would think the popular kids all listen to rap and play sports, etc....or maybe Dave Matthews band or something....

Man....I guess maybe the indie folks I know are different or something but the people in bands I know pride themselves on being able to play....good drummers are revered....every "indie" type person I know loves James Brown and Miles Davis...I guess I know more people that are punks not indie or something...but it seems like "indie" on this thread is becoming some kind of wierd catch-all for everything people hate or something....

what the fuck are crumpets anyway?

I think that kid Chris Herbert upthread was pretty funny, and misogynistic, but i think the big tymers are funny too so whatever.

Really? That sounds like a character from Dickens almost....or something....that's an awesome name.

-- M@tt He1geson

OTM

genius.