There are few personality types that have a higher cache of coolness than the independent music audiophile. They make their homemade websites with by-the-minute discographies and look down their noses at anyone who dares to hum a Top 40 hit of the week. The good news is that you too can become a part of this selectcadre of auditory connoisseurs. You too can make others feel as if they are ants before the breadcrumb mountain of your obscure band knowledge … or you can fake it as everyone else does.
Step 1. Never Ever Like a Band’s Current Project
A true indie highbrow never likes what a band is doing at the moment. Anytime someone in his/her presence begins to gush about a new album, the indiephile will look thoughtful and then respond with crushing gravity, "Yeah they are a pretty good band but I so like their old stuff better. I think a lot of the new sound they’ve been experimenting with is wanderingtowards a mainstream sellout." In one response you have separated yourself from the groupies who have just recently begun listening to your beloved band and made your own knowledge to seem incisive and everyone else’s shallow. Congratulations!
Step 2. Choose Your Bands Wisely
No self respecting indie snob would be caught dead listening to a CD that can be found at Best Buy or Sam Goody. Instead you need to find bands that have limited presses only or can only be purchased locally. The true grail of this sort of search is a local band with limited press found only on a split EP with an equally obscure band.
Step 3. Only Listen To Bands With Names That Threaten To Evoke Existentialist Questions.
The title of an indie band is a carefully crafted nom de guerre. It should both baffle and entice. Names like Death Cab for Cutie evoke a pondering of the demythification of beauty in an arena of social conscience and capital returns. Bright Eyes makes the reader think upon the true self and the gratification of self-stultifying endeavors in praxis to the mental environment etc, etc. It is as easy as that.
Step 4. The Indie T-Shirt And Other Paraphernalia
Few things separate the true obscure music lover from the guy who has a band from step three printed across his chest. It’s like turning your back on all the squares without even deigning to tell them that you are doing so. Never ever buy a band T-shirt with a certain "tour" printed on it. That is a screaming in neon color "Poseur!" Acceptable are the chunky emo glasses, Chuck Taylors with song lyrics written on the in-step and jet-black "Romulan" indie haircuts.
Step 5. Be the Indie!
Lastly being an indie snob is mostly attitude. You are superior because you know it to be so. Your tastes are above reproach and your musical canon has been arrived at after more academic thought than a doctoral dissertation on the "Ebb and Flow of The Mental Qualitative State Due to the Societal Imperatives of Pezz Dispensers." So be that cool! You are a lean sleek jaguar in ajungle of "Saliva" listening, "102.1 The Edge" tuning villagers. Be the indie and all others will bow to your polyphonic grandeur.
So there youhave them—the beginning steps to being an indie snob and wowing all those other coffeehouse sycophants.The journey will continue from here, just you wait till the Valley of Vinyl
[J. M. Shiveley hopes everyone knows how to have a good laugh once in a while.]
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