Final lecture notes, week 13

‘Indie’ and ‘Australia’

Last week: Indie as industry/style:

‘After money, credibility is the most precious commodity in circulation. As far as the majors are concerned, once you buy that the rest is easy.’ (Wark 1993: 108)
Geoffrey Hull: independents are ‘development area’ for major labels.
Hibbert: ‘new aesthetic’ + satisfies desire for social differentiation (cultural capital)
DIY: demystifying record-making process, but production usually does not meet radio/TV standards
Indie must perpetually seek out new sounds, ‘artistic elsewhere’: Athens, Georgia/Minneapolis/ Boston/Manchester/ Seattle/Iceland etc.

Noise rock/Post-rock/Math rock:

Post-rock: Tortoise, Mogwai, Godspeed! You Black Emperor etc.
Re-emergence of prog-rock, but ‘in a world where punk had happened’.
New York ‘No Wave’: Glenn Branca, Sonic Youth; ‘inspired by the intensity of punk’
Math rock: Polvo, Slint

Lo-fi:

Beat Happening, Guided By Voices, Sebadoh, Smog, Cat Power, Will Oldham etc.
Production values/musical style/often just ‘home recordings’
Much post-Nevermind ‘alternative’ music still conformed to industry production standards
Lo-fi: coarse sounds, hum, static, tape hiss, amateurish playing, off-key singing, ‘slacker music.
Art v. commerce debate: aesthetic choices, conscious reaction against prevailing standards of production, economic necessity?
Grajeda: lo-fi as ‘feminisation/domesticifation’ of masculine processes of music production/technological perfection
Avant-garde: ‘making strange’, foregrounding the apparatus

Australian Independent Labels and Globalisation:

Independent labels: for some, protection against cultural imperialism; but subject to international music economy.
Until 1950s, no local labels or recording stars
1970s: pub circuit/oz rock
Most pub rock bands signed to foreign-owned labels, thus these companies tightened hold on local music.
Marcus Breen: local indies a ‘working class challenge to the middle class respectability of the mainstream music industry’.

‘Glocalization’:

Australia’s recording industry sub-branch of global entertainment complex; foreign corporations control over 80% of local market (95% if you don’t count Festival as Australian).
Local artists signed to foreign-owned labels expected to contribute to global balance sheet; A&R look for those acts that display most international appeal.

Case study: Half a Cow:

Nic Dalton (Plunderers/ Lemonheads) began in bedroom, 1980s.
Local distributors: Polygram, Festival, MGM.
Various OS independent deals
Publishing arm: Moo Chewns

Dealing with the devil:

Indies need marketing and promotion muscle; majors want instant ‘indie cred’.
Polygram/Mercury deal: HAC pressured to supply product for company’s other media arms, movie soundtracks.
OS Polygram had first right of refusal; HAC waits nine months before dealing with other OS labels.
Currently distributed by MGM.