Indie Rock Makes Me Tired


It’s not actually that the music itself does, mind you. I’m mostly unapologetic about being an indie schmuck. What I can’t handle is the volume. Which is to say that I can handle the actual volume, I can’t handle the physical volume. The amount of shit I need to hear. I can’t handle trying to keep up with 5 new albums reviewed on Pitchfork everyday. I don’t have the time to troll Kim’s for hours at a time, picking out CD’s and then putting them back because I can’t justify $15.99.

Vinny’s going to buy it anyway. Vinny buys everything, sad, nameless indie bands with stupid fucking names, bands that will never be heard by more than 400 people. Bands like The Fellowship of Brothers. Like Lulu Lulu. And Chapter 13: The Forgotten Chapter. He buys more stupid shit than I even knew existed, just because he loves to be surprised so much. When he can find a tiny band to love that he plucked out of the used rack, like a demigod, determining that this band won’t be forgotten, not by me, not today. I love that about him. He also makes four times more than I do.

But even if it weren’t about money, and I could just download whatever album I wanted, for free, I don’t think it would matter. I’d still be behind. I don’t feel the urge to read four music magazines a week, ten different blogs everyday at work. I don’t have the stomach to hit the Mercury on a whim, to see if whoever’s playing is any good, because it makes sad to sit through bad sets. I only hit safe and sanitized shows by bands that I already know, at safe and sanitized venues like Irving, and even then only rarely.

I don’t feel the pressing need to buy new CD’s every week, especially new bands, when there are so many bands that I love coming out with second and third albums. I’m still trying to weed out the bad bands that I liked too much their first time around—can’t figure out why I ever liked Fischerspooner the way I did—without worrying about a new batch I might realize I never liked much to begin with.

I could care less about The Knife. I could give a fuck about Tapes and Tapes. They’re probably great (the Tapes and Tapes video is a classic, the only thing I’ve heard), but I just don’t care enough to find out right now. Maybe that’ll change, and I’ll get a second wind and start buying discs and obsessing about every Next Big Thing again. I’ll blow hundreds of bucks and subscribe to NME, and I’ll take only my week off all year to go down to Austin next spring. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll never listen to music the way I listened to music when I was 15.

I know that makes me sound sad and old, but I know I’m not old. I’m just tired.