Noise Pop’s 10th annual film series started out with a bang Wednesday night at the Roxie Theater with This is Noise Pop: a film that attempts to answer the question: what is indie rock?
Really, at this point, it means nothing. But at the inception of the Noise Pop festival in 1993, when it was a single night of unsigned local bands, indie was all about the do-it-yourself movement. And at the heart of it all, while the Noise Pop Festival has grown with the times, it still celebrates that idea. (Check out the Culture Club this Saturday.)
The name of the film is a little bit misleading and only uses the festival as a framework to pose the question, not really talking about the festival itself beyond that very first year. Drawing from 17 years of never-before-seen Noise Pop festival video footage and interviews, director Adam Werbach captures an era of American musicians, who through hard work and love, made what was originally known as “indie” rock: independent of major record labels.
Werbach catches up with musicians like Ben Gibbard, Bob Mould, M. Ward and James Mercer years after they had initially appeared at Noise Pop and finds that they have gone on to varying degrees of music making. Some have succeeded beyond their wildest fantasies and signed with small and large record labels and some, like Mould, DJ to pay the bills. Some have moved onto other things all together.
This film reminded me of how we are still right there in an age where musicians can’t make real cash from recordings and shows, and how it really comes down to hard work to make it happen. It’s interesting that the D.I.Y. movement of the 90s could not have existed with the internet, and yet we are still right there seventeen years later with the help of facebook and iTunes. The goal of getting the music out to the people is the same, it’s the means of how to do it that is different. Many of these musicians have embraced it, and some continue to struggle with it.
Did you see the film? What did you think?
The 2011 Noise Pop film series runs until Sunday night at Viz Cinema and ATA. Tickets are $10
Comments
that's interesting cuz i've always just assumed that "indie" music of any variety was more of a DIY, "let's 'rage against the machine' and buck the traditional labels and do things OUR way" concept. i like tha tyou pursued the actual history behind the genre. nice!
Right, but people still refer to "indie rock" now, and it certainly doesn't mean DIY anymore with bands signing to major record labels and getting commercial deals. Really, all bands want to make it somehow. And some of these guys int he movie said, it was a good think the major record labels never came a-calling, because we probably would have been stupid enough to accept their bad deal.
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