After I had pretty much finished writing this post a friend told me about the "Rebel With a 401(k)" article that ran Thursday in the NY Post. It focused on some comments by the head of a local record label and a recent article by the Columbia Spectator. In it, FoC and Vice Recordings GM Adam Shore bemoaned the current "indie-yuppie establishment" and asserted that much of today's popular indie music -- he singled out The Postal Service, the Arcade Fire and the Shins -- is "comfy music." (Then it recapped the "You Might Be An Indie-Yuppie" contest at Stereogum.
The timing couldn't have been better. The other night I saw Built to Spill. Now, I can't argue with the legend of BTS. They're a great band. But...it didn't do it for me. It had been five or so years since I had last seen them. What happened during that span? Was it a different band or was I a different person? I had the same feeling the last time I saw Death Cab For Cutie, after a span of five or so years had passed since I last saw them. Just like with Built to Spill, it did absolutely nothing for me.
The best I can sum it up is this: Indie rock has become too self-aware, too predictable, too safe, too self-perpetuating. As its popularity has risen its sound has become a mirror of a mirror of itself, the result of the indie scene's exclusionary, cliquish mentality. At that BTS show, it was as if rock had been stripped of its energy, sexuality and stagemanship. To my ears and eyes, the extreme highs and lows of rock music had been clipped -- I was seeing and hearing a narrow channel in the middle of rock's spectrum.
Over the last few weeks, I've had the feeling that rock is back. Not rock in the white trash chic of Vice magazine or ironic trucket hat flirtations with middle class rock culture. (Drinking Pabst from a can doesn't mean you're into rock.) No, I mean rock as opposed to indie rock. There's a crop of bands that have skipped Joy Division Mach II, probably find The Strokes to be too staid and never picked up on Nick Drake when Volkswagen made him famous.
This next wave is bringing back such diverse and until now relatively untapped sounds as Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak, Rick Springfield's Working Class Dog, Pat Benatar's Crimes of Passion, Damn The Torpedos-era Tom Petty and even old Iron Maiden -- in addition to the usual rock standards like the Stones the Stooges.
Labels are edging -- one could even say hedging -- toward this kind of rock as well. Razor & Tie (yes, the label that has a bursting bank account thanks to the Kidz Bop series) has signed two NYC rawk bands, Danko Jones and The Giraffes. Matador signed neo-metal band Early Man. Kemado released an EP by Diamond Nights. TVT signed LA glam rawkers Tsar. Majors will follow suit. No doubt. Kings of Leon have been doing well with their modernization of classic rock. I think majors will go back to their "core values" in this year and the next (as soon as they get tired of trying to find the next Killers). If Kings of Leon become huge, you can bet majors will bring up the ranks similar bands.
So who will represent this new wave? Hard to say who -- if anybody -- will emerge from the underground, but here are a few bands that have caught my attention for one reason or another.
Diamond Nights (pictured) just released an EP on Kemado Records. I haven't heard the EP but I'm told for every Thin Lizzy moment they have a Loverboy moment. The song I downloaded and have played quite a few times, "Destination Diamonds," is one of the band's Thin Lizzy moments.
Last week I finally got around to seeing The Fame. This four-piece is a shot of early '80s album rock radio. Rick Springfield was one of the first that came to mind. They did a nice cover of Devo's "Girl U Want" that kept the punchy riff but threw a nice pop spin on the song.
Bona Roba is a band that I've heard great things about but haven't mananged to see yet. Four guys from the Bronx who like to rawk. The songs on their website are impressive. I'd like to hear more. Friends tell me they're great.
Tsar will have an album out on TVT next month. You may have seen them playing "Band-Girls-Money" on a Nestle Crunch commercial. They're not in an '80s or classic rock vein like some others I've mentioned, but they're certainly a band that stands apart from any of the current trends in rock music.
A friend told me about Jessie Diamond last week. A few years ago I couldn't have imagined much attention being paid to a spandex-clad siren who sings like Pat Benatar. In May of 2005 it's not such a stretch.
Playlist:
Diamond Nights: "Destination Diamonds"
The Fame: "Lost In You"
Bona Roba: "The Slip" and "Cunningham Park"
Jessie Diamond: "American Hero"
Danko Jones: "I Want You"
The Giraffes: "Having Fun"