Punk Fire or Indie Schmindie?

Inspired by this excellent post by fellow traveller Dan Mader, I've been doing some thinking about what it means to be an indie author in relation to this new publishing milieu within which we find ourselves.

On numerous occasions, Dan and I have discussed the parallels with the punk rock movement of the late 1970s (in the UK and in New York) and beyond (post-punk in the UK, hardcore and straight edge in the United States) leading to "alternative" music in the '90s. And they are indeed striking; with the long tail of minimally talented yet enthusiastically raw artists, the do-it-yourself improvisation, unrealistic expectations and the overall lack of financial success, the slightly dodgy/murky concept of not selling out, of "authenticity", even the sense that the rough-hewn fanzines of old have been replaced by blogs... all of which has contributed to a sense of deja vu for anyone who has been steeped in both cultures particularly.

But here is something else. If you extend the history of punk and conflate it (perhaps somewhat unfairly, although a case can certainly be made) with the musical genre known ominously as "indie", things are perhaps not so cut and dried. Indie as it was once identified, particularly in the UK in the '80s, referred to music that was not signed to a major label, literally to an independent label. And with innovative labels such as Factory, 4AD, and Creation, the music was rich, inventive and became a genuine alternative to the more "mainstream" rock and pop of the day. But something else happened. Soon, the term "indie" was being applied to a style of music and not to the commercial environs of the labels themselves. Mostly rooted in post-punk, it made its way across the Atlantic until, today, indie is a full-fledged genre unto itself... although here lies the problem. It's kind of stale. It's kind of rhythmically-challenged. It's kind of snobby. It's kind of soulless... or precious... or, worse, one-dimensional and gutless. So much so that some have taken to calling it Indie Schmindie to denote a very marginalized, very vanilla, very bland type of prettified ephemera.

So, here's the dilemma. If you even partially agree with my somewhat broad and no-doubt slightly unfair characterizations above, you might begin to worry about how it may all play out for indie authors. We're still at the punk rock stage, in which the initial euphoria and electric uncertainty of everyone being a producer and not merely a consumer is still palpable. A buzzing awareness of possibilities. Some dream of making it big, of being the Clash, if you will. Others just enjoy the sense of belonging while hoping to find the right audience. Now, Dan's post and my own sentiments fall neatly into the latter camp. Making it big is still a lottery. Playing for others, then returning the favour the very next night by showing up and watching those same folks don their metaphorical Strat copies and studded, zippered bondage pants, is the fun part... but where will it end? If it ends all stunted and ghettoized while the same tiny minority make off with pretty much all the pie, we'll have failed, no matter how much fun we may have had for a time. Preaching to the choir, writing only for other writers, however much it can be a blast, may be a good look but is not a sustainable one.

Epublishing should be a great leveller. The problem with that is nothing stays level, not for long. And in some ways, that's okay. A great many bands played to ten or fifteen friends in their garage and were pretty fucking awful, and so let's be honest here: many indie writers can't actually write, which is a pretty big handicap when you come right down to it. But where does that leave those of us with some degree of talent? Can the market sustain a Clash and a Pistols (Konrath, Hocking?) while also maintaining some level of success for the Slits and Wire and Gang of Four and UK Subs, not to mention the tens of thousands of equally worthy yet far lesser-known artists still?

The danger is, we'll be drowned in an oversaturated market in which everyone and his or her dog believes the gravy train is pulling into the station. Okay, excruciating mixed metaphors aside, it's all very well buying into a new and exciting landscape of DIY innovation, but if we descend into a future of mediocrity amid an environment in which the Amazons/Apples of the world simply replace the often exploitive practices of the Big Six publishing houses, and only a tiny handful of artists grow rich, what will we have gained? A sense of fun and cameraderie at the expense of a career. Because, really, why can't good writers plough those talents and that energy into an actual career? Why do they, or we, not deserve that?

None of which is a criticism of those very aspects which inspired this post. Like Dan, I am grateful to be surrounded by such positive and talented people, who often give of themselves for the pure joy of paying it forward and helping their peers. I simply hope that each and every one of them finds some reward over and above the satisfaction of belonging to a community, rich as that can be in and of itself.

I suspect fire in the belly—the fervor of innovation, the ardor of love—will be key ingredients in that goal.

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David Antrobus also writes for Indies Unlimited and BlergPop. Be sure to check out his work there if you like what you read here.