Thanks to Andrew Hamlin for this:
The Paris Review has a great interview with Michael Azerrad by Dawn Chan wherein he looks back on his classic 2001 tale of 13 indie bands from 1981-1991, “Our Band Could Be Your Life.”
“The most lasting significance of the eighties American indie scene might have been the way these bands conducted their careers. The point wasn’t to play loud and fast; the point was to make the music they wanted to make, without compromise, to find and cultivate an audience for it, and to live within their means so they could continue to do exactly what they wanted to do and not be beholden to anyone but themselves. That’s really what the best indie bands today are emulating.
Also, much of what the bands in this book did was to make very unconventional music that attracted unconventional people—or maybe even showed conventional people a different mode of thinking. Not necessarily because of anything in the lyrics, but just because of how challenging and unorthodox the music was.
I think a lot of indie bands now are similarly elevating and challenging people’s minds, just by the nature of the music they make. The Dirty Projectors are a great example, or Animal Collective. I really believe in the power of music—and I mean literally the power of musical tones—to rearrange the way you can think…
…And that sort of power can be used for good or ill. Fugazi’s drummer would sometimes do a roll around the drums, and not end with a cymbal crash but with the little ting! of a ship’s bell he’d carry around. And you thought, Wow, every drum roll doesn’t have to end with a crash. Which is not a huge thing in itself, but as a metaphor, rather powerful: defy expectations, think creatively, be alert.”
Complete interview is here.
