tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15916138.post7478767179349945983..comments2023-09-25T05:45:41.437-07:00Comments on The Art of Fiction: Impossibly Cool - eighties indie pop remembered.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15916138.post-80123678615130506232013-06-28T11:41:50.650-07:002013-06-28T11:41:50.650-07:00Yeah, its funny it getting the big box set treatme...Yeah, its funny it getting the big box set treatment. May have to put together my own version. At the time it was amazing how sophisticated its DIY ethos felt - fans putting on their favourite bands etc. Folk music by any other name, indeed. Adrian Slatcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13946068316432524571noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15916138.post-59372446101655145482013-06-28T10:26:09.833-07:002013-06-28T10:26:09.833-07:00C86!
Thanks for the essay. It's always hearte...C86!<br /><br />Thanks for the essay. It's always heartening to see a fellow fictionaut express affection for indie, out-of-the-mainstream musics. There's an aesthetic there that has nothing to do with the tunes emanating from the speakers. It has to do with looking beyond the formulaic—though there is, to be sure, a pop song formula—beyond the corporate, popular, big budget production to something like the garage band slinging out sounds for themselves and their friends, trying to find a niche in a world that doesn't necessarily reward the out-of-the-middle-of-the-road, DIY individual explorer.<br /><br />In a long-ago discussion with an uncle (big-time symphony patron), I made an analogy, calling it urban, teen folk music. Snobs of Brahms's day probably looked down on the gypsy folk dance musics as well, until the aesthetic bubbled up the cultural ladder.<br /><br />No different than, say, a dirt poor Doc Watson picking up a guitar as a boy and picking out folk and gospel tunes in the rural U.S. South. Or Robert Johnson in the Mississippi fields. This is the folk music of, dare I say it, disaffected youth in the Reagan/Thatcher urban blight<br /><br />Then, of course, we make the leap to the writer's experience, dealing with the mainstream of agents and editors in corporate houses. Lotta' bad stuff out there, but somewhere in that self-publishing scene there are some true literary gems.<br /><br />Again, thought-provoking essay.Jim H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/02088100982761595050noreply@blogger.com