In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera explains the daunting feeling of vertigo. He describes it as the bending of two extremes, paradoxes merging together and evoking the sense of collapse in a world of seemingly stable constructions. Of course in the realm of indie rock, the sensation of vertigo—and its consequences—aren't so drastic.
What does it mean when the esteemed quartet, Sonic Youth, does an in-store performance at the Urban Outfitters on the notorious (-ly commercial) stretch of the Third Street Promenade in bourgeoisie Santa Monica—all made possible by Toyota—under the crusading banner of independent broadcasts such as Free Yr Radio? The whole thing crackles 'twixt far and disparate poles, switching electric between feelings of vague wariness and audiophile excitement (it is the ahistorical Sonic Youth por gratis after all), ultimately creating that funny feeling of dizziness. Vertigo: is it good or bad? Does it even matter?
The Free Yr Radio campaign (or is it the hip Toyota Yaris campaign? Or Urban Outfitter's new line of wacky fall hats?) keeps on going. On October 20, you can go to your local Urban Outfitters and pick up (along with a pair of vintage boots, vintage skinny jeans and a vintage gaudy brooch) a benefit compilation CD in support of Free Yr Radio. I apologize for the disdain; I'm having difficulty abandoning the wariness, but I'm gonna give it a shot.
Let's allow the end result to speak for itself. The compilation boasts of 14 indie heavyweights, bands with enough leverage to be headlined on your favorite blog but murky enough to keep out of the oversized arena rock venues. Basically, it's small enough to still be yours, and isn't that what obscurity is all about? The album is a collection of unique recordings, either live performances or raw audio footage, showcasing the myriad span of what now represents indie music. We've got The Rapture with their punchy, mildly electro pop, compelling listeners to shake it down as well as El-P's stuffy basement hip-hop—a little out of place but a decent effort at variety. Gems on the album include Grizzly Bear's “Little Brother,” with its thick guitar licks pulsing forward in slow and calculated measures. Another stand-out track is The Long Winters' “The Commander Thinks Aloud.” At first it sounds like another piano pop-rock song (groan) but Roderick's cathartic yawp and imaginative sentimentality bears itself desolate enough to be true. Above all, it allows some good bands to take part in the valiant effort to keep self-reliant and unique media possible. Nonetheless, the album is loosely organized, lacking cohesion except for that slightly underproduced quality that runs through all the songs. It jumps in leaps and bounds between tracks due to a jarring arrangement, switching from The Pony's smoldering gloom to Voxtrot's dulcet easiness, and somewhere down the line jolting you awake with Man Man's raving wild vaudeville jam that follows the indie pleasantry right before. The compilation's got its moments, both good and bad. It calls in mind the craft of making mix-tapes, which if you love John Cusack you oughta know, is a fine art.
Corporate involvement in independent endeavors is nothing new. At the Sonic Youth show, I ran into my friend, Carlos Mendiola, a DJ at uclaradio.com (also an independently run online radio station). Mendiola defended corporate support, pointing out the huge Heineken advertisements that flanked each chain-linked fence at Coachella, of which seemed to bother no one at the festival. Probably 'cos we were all heat-stroked and quite fucked up, but we still shouldn't be hypocrites. Everything runs on dolla' dolla' bills, ya'll.
What's really at stake with corporate involvement? Artistic control? Even when Sonic Youth signed to Geffen in 1989, they were famously known for their creative sovereignty, proving that going major meddled little with the inventiveness of the work. And appropriately enough, the Sonic Youth stage for their UO performance was decked with silkscreened images of Goo's album cover.
After the Sonic Youth show, I had the chance to sit down and talk to Craig, Toyota’s marketing representative. After establishing his genuine sympathy toward fans (he wrote his thesis on the history of punk rock) he reassured me of Toyota's desire to "enable" and "fuel" and hopefully brings listeners to "consider" the Yaris. Certainly they're directing their money into wonderful things, and to be fair, Craig emphasized Toyota's aim to be "subtle," if by subtle you mean the Yaris signs all over the place, then sure.
I know I'm an innocuous looking little person, but I'm no fool and he's a fraud. It's certainly a valiant goal to bring great music, and in the case of Sonic Youth’s music that's hard to get a hold of otherwise, to fans. However, the exploitative undertones of it are too persistent for me to view it simply as a performance for the evening because indiscerningly milking whatever the trend is worth for marketing, branding and image, selling commodities is too much of a swindle for me to easily enjoy a post-punk evening. But I'll admit that the end result spoke louder than the hoax: the Sonic Youth show at UO was amazing. They cleared out the entire store, packed it with people and played a mighty set atop a beautiful stage. It was intimate and pitch-piercingly dissonant.
When it comes to something personal like music, the stakes are higher and more delicate than just the artist's creative independence. Things are different now since Sonic Youth's shift from SST to Geffen. The band has shed itself of the underground process: they've sold CDs (and maybe even their soooouls) to Starbucks Recordings. Indie rock is now a genre, a type of sound, not an artistic process. Even further, indie rock and other creative processes are OUR facades, extensions of our identities, our proclivities, and ultimately great parts of ourselves—and this is nothing new at all. In effect, it's hard not to feel a personal sense of betrayal when Sonic Youth is on sale at Starbucks next to the James Blunt album and the exclusive holiday flavor egg nog latte. It's hard to brush aside the wolf of disingenuity of deft marketing strategies that don the hipster sheep's wool.
When the poles merge, when corporate and independent seem to blur the lines in faces and outcomes, one can't help but experience that shaky ground of true meaning, and I personally feel an exploitative sense of taking what is rightfully ours (or just fully us). Ironically enough, Zach Rogue sings “Never Publish My Love”—perhaps a self-reflexive nod that you can record and sell and fangle your way through trends and facades, but there is something ethereal and too true that can never be captured.
How does this compilation portray radio? Does independent radio need corporate sponsorship? Read the staunchly independent story of Ian McKaye and the Dischord house that scraped by and succeeded through community involvement and a gritty DIY attitude. If we want things to remain independent, then we should do something about it. If you don't like it, fix it. And if we're lazy (I am totally implicated in this reprimanding waggling finger) then we should hush up and allow ourselves to be impalpably manipulated into getting a car and a fake vintage gaudiness.
If you believe in independent radio (and you should), buy the CD. Let Toyota cut a fat check (it's the least they can do). And if you don't care to check out UO's collection of overpriced socks, then contact your local independent radio station and get involved. As Zach Rogue warbles out at the end of “Publish My Love,” "Support independent radio for the love of God!"
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The Free Yr Radio benefit CD will be available exclusively at Urban Outfitters stores, catalog and website on October 20, 2007. All profits from the CD will be divided among participating radio stations: WLUW (Chicago), KTRU (Houston), KEXP (Seattle), Y-Rock On XPN (Philadelphia), KZSC (Santa Cruz), 89.3 The Current (Minneapolis), WERS (Boston), WKNC (Raleigh/Durham), WBWC (Cleveland), KGNU (Boulder), WHNU (New Haven) and KXLU (Los Angeles).
