The Unblinking Ear Podcast: All Grown Up

There's a lesson here. I think it's that if you commit suicide but leave your child with a lot of money, they may wind up using it for cosmetic surgery and awful text tattoos.

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Project Mersh 21st Century

This is surely old news by now, but even upon initial announcement the impending reunion of Pavement didn't exactly make me convulse in anticipation. This is for a couple of reasons. Despite more or less growing up on indie rock in the 90s, I never felt as deep a connection with Pavement as I did with other bands from that era. They were a band I respected but never really cherished.

Sure, Slanted and Enchanted was, and remains, a brilliant record. However, by the time of the release of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, I began to find the band's deep sense of sarcasm and undercurrent of privilege and entitlement to be somewhat off putting. I've never been a fan of over earnestness but when a band trades in ironic (and, frankly, elitist) detachment, it's difficult to form an emotional bond with them. A little sincerity and conviction go a long way. Malkmus had announced he was "crowned the king of it" back on "In the Mouth of a Desert" but actually appearing with a crown (and scepter and cape) in the "Cut Your Hair" video was really pushing things. One might be tempted to call me a snob for my less than total devotion to a band this well regarded but that's a bit hypocritical. Has there ever been a rock song more steeped in snobbery than "Range Life?"

Furthermore, the band's reunion seemed depressingly inevitable anyway. They can just be added to the ever growing list of bands who've recently reunited to capitalize on the new indie audience: My Bloody Valentine, the Jesus Lizard, the Pixies, Superchunk, Dinosaur Jr., Polvo. I could go on. And "capitalize" is absolutely the correct term. There's no reason to think these bands would be making music together again if it wasn't for monetary gain. The indie audience of the 21st century is simply much larger than when they originally played. I don't blame these bands for attempting to profit from a greater demand for the type of music they purvey. I wish them good fortune. Nor do I begrudge anyone for wanting to see a much-loved band they were too young experience the first time around. I was certainly front and center when Mission of Burma first reunited. However, there's something disheartening about bands who were once champions of music that was made without regard for commercial considerations suddenly getting on stage for little reason other than money.

This is representative of a philosophical shift in indie culture that's marked the last decade. Once a movement centered around independence from mainstream pablum and music industry (and, by proxy, capitalist) values, indie music (I hesitate to classify much of the recent vintage as any kind of "rock") has become merely a niche taste for a particular demographic, interchangeable with any other from a marketing standpoint. The AV Club's Erik Adams pretty much hit the nail on the head when he called today's indie "songs that are used to sell today’s iPods and Zooey Deschanel movies" in his recent review of Cymbals Eat Guitars.

In the pre-internet age, indie culture was driven by fans. That "fan" is short for "fanatic" is absolutely apropos in this case. It took a level of commitment and literacy. Knowledge was achieved by sorting though countless fanzines and record guides, word of mouth from discerning record store employees and college radio DJs, and trust in labels that reliably put out good music. Now, information on nearly any band is just a Google search away. Being a fan of a band like the Clean was once a sort of secret handshake. Coverage of the Clean's recent album, Mister Pop, was wide and unprecedented for a band that toiled away on and off for nearly 30 years in semi-obscurity. That the album (which is fine, by the way) is their first full-length since the release of Merge's easily available and modestly hyped, career-spanning 2CD anthology of the band's material is no coincidence.

The accessibility granted through 21st century technology, be it general information or the music itself via file sharing, eschews the cultural fluency of old school fanaticism. Whether or not this new approach is inherently inferior is debatable but it seems to me that there's a difference between reading about archeology in a textbook and actually going out on a dig. The dilettante can claim expertise with minimal amount of effort.

I am not such a Luddite that I believe that these modern methods don't have an upside. That a band as good as the Clean has gained greater recognition is undoubtedly a good thing. However, as the audience for indie music increases and it becomes more financially viable, its already loose defining qualities become even more amorphous. "Indie" has always been an umbrella term, used to cover an array styles and existing on a slippery-slope to meaninglessness. Not for nothing did Sebadoh's 1991 name-dropping, open fan letter "Gimme Indie Rock" have a large amount of eye-rolling mockery mixed in with its affection. Still, there was a sensibility and kinship there beyond being an alternative to pop. By contrast, that anyone has ever considered major label, chart-aspiring bands like the Killers or Kings of Leon to be "indie" is a joke, a fundamental misunderstanding that somehow got warped into a truism. In 2009, indie seems to exist only to cater to consumers of a specialized taste. It's not even an opposition to the Kaynes and Lady Gagas of the world, but additional product for those who crave something a little different.

One could make the case that the accessibility granted by the hyper-communicative nature of the internet has opened up possibilities for independent bands. The popularity of a band like the Shins earlier in the decade is probably at least partially attributable to this. On the other hand, one could just as easily argue that these new avenues have been readily co-opted and exploited by savvy music marketers and have all but obliterated any grassroots connection to the music. Pop music mechanisms of "breaking" new artists remain firmly in place, even if they travel through different paths. The mass marketing infrastructure of the source broadcasting to the target has been adapted to appear hipper and less obvious, gradually usurping legitimate word-of-mouth. It is perhaps naive to think that the taint of commerce had never previously been a part of indie culture but it's inarguable that that taint has ever been more prominent than it is now.

Tom Lax of Siltbreeze Records, on sending the first Times New Viking album to Pitchfork:

I did send one to Pitchfork for review and after a while I e-mailed to ask if they got it. In response I got an e-mail asking me if I'd like to advertise. I didn't and it never got reviewed. So the more things change, the more they stay the same, don't you think?

Then again, when I saw Times New Viking around the time of Present the Paisley Reich, they played a cover Pavement's "Box Elder." Perhaps, the flood of 80s and 90s band reunions shows that today's indie audience craves something more authentic and is resisting the hype machine. That may just be wishful thinking.

Speaking of which, I hope they play "Debris Slide."

This Moment in Slack History: Morsels from the Last Great Era of the 7 Inch Record

For those of you who lived through the 90s you may remember that it was a remarkable time for music. If you think that's hyperbole or nostalgia I will remind you that 90s were a time when someone like Lou Barlow could have a side project that was little more than a tribute to the Sliver Apples score a top 40 hit. The 90s were also the last time when the market for 7 inch records was viable and healthy and 1000s of bands took advantage releasing 45s on their own imprint or (if they were lucky) getting an indie label to press it up and distribute it for them. It was the perfect way to introduce a band to the listener: 2 or 3 of the band's best blasts in a small, attractive and affordable package. The bubble burst on this market around the same time that the mainstream alt rock boom went bust and the insidious beasts known as post-grunge (in the mainstream) and emo (in the underground) rose to prominence. Bands are still releasing 7 inches today but in lesser numbers. Why waste the money on making a material item that you then have to go through the process of getting into hands of the public when you can just throw a couple of MP3s on your website (or myspace page) and potentially have the entire world able to hear your work? It's certainly more convenient and economically sound. I won't say which approach I consider better but speaking as someone who is a collector by nature I do miss the ability to possess an actual object as a memento. But that's neither here nor there.

Unfortunately, this era has yet to be documented in any kind of meaningful way. (Hell, I'm still waiting for Rhino to release their inevitable alt rock hits of the 90s compilations.) Certainly, a few labels and artists have released retrospectives of their own 7 inch releases but there's been nothing in the way of a "Pebbles" or "Killed by Death" style collection for 90s indie 45s. So being the semi-ambitious fellow that I am, I took it upon myself to right this wrong. But being the somewhat lazy fellow that I am, I decided, much like the hypothetical band I described above, that pressing up and distributing records would be too much of an undertaking and that converting 7 inches to MP3s and posting them seemed like the more practical thing to do. (Not to mention having to track down all the bands and pay them. I could release a comp as a bootleg and bypass this step but I'm the above board, straight and narrow type.)

Thus, this feature will be something of a piecemeal compilation. I'll provide you with the track and a little background info and you can go ahead and assemble you own comp if you'd like once there are enough cuts posted to fill a CD. Or you can just take it as it comes. That's really up to you. What's up to me is providing you with quality. Though not the kind of quality that one would file under "sound." This was the lo-fi era after all. So all that surface noise you hear from the vinyl to MP3 is there for ambience. Ambience or the fact that I can't figure out how to make them sound any better.

(Note: If any of the artists responsible for these songs object to them being freely available please get in touch and I will delete them without hesitation. I'm not here to tell you that you should be giving your music away though you should consider that maybe demand for those 50 copies left in your mom's basement will suddenly and sharply increase. Another note: The claim that no one else is documenting this era is not entirely true as the good folks at Static Party have been posting cuts from 90s 45s for some time. However, their focus is entirely on the garage punk genre and while some overlap is possible and even likely this feature should be a bit broader in scope. But do go and pay them a visit, will you?)



Sammy "Babe Come Down"
It's fitting that the first installment of "This Moment in Slack History" would start with a very slack track indeed. When I picked up this 45 from Sammy (released on Steve Shelly's Smells Like Records label) I would've sworn that it was Pavement working under a pseudonym. Just listen to it and tell me it's not a perfect slice of "Slanted and Enchanted" era Malkmus and co at their lackadaisical apex. But no, Sammy was indeed their own entity and even put out an album on DGC in 96 or so. They get a big fat zero for originality but one has to admire the craftsmanship of their sonic forgery. They put so much care into imitating the singular sloppiness of the originators that you may have to conclude that they expended more effort into sounding like Pavement than Pavement did themselves. Yes, it's borderline embarrassing but for the couple of minutes this track is playing you probably won't care.

Play or Download Sammy "Babe Come Down"