Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie

The year is 2003. I’m sitting in the backseat whilst my mum and dad ride up ahead. Behind me stowed in the boot of the car is a collection of boxes. These boxes contain clothes, books, memorabilia and my record collection. At the tail end of school, I had just got into music. Whilst everyone else in the 6^th form was a wannabe Garage MC, I was different. I wasn’t the same as them. I walked a different path. I took the road not taken. I was into Coldplay. And in my school to be into any kind of guitar music made you counter-culture. So in the boot of the car are my Coldplay LP’s and a rare bootleg copy of their complete B-sides. I was aware that every self-respecting music fan would have a copy of Parachutes and Rush of Blood to the Head, but I knew no one would be so fortunate as to own the illegal rarities album. In possessing this sought after piece of music history, I was confident it wouldn't be long before women were at my door requesting to be part of an intimate listening experience.

GIRL: Are you the man who has an album of Coldplay B-sides?

ME (affecting Bogart cool): I might be baby doll. It depends who's asking?

GIRL (purring sensuality in my ear): I’m asking.

ME (no longer affecting Bogart cool, but being Bogart cool): I might know such a man.

GIRL (biting lip in a way that connotes ‘I want you’ rather than ‘Get me a tissue, I didn’t mean to do that): I don't suppose you know where I could meet such a man?

BOGART (I’ve morphed into him now): He’s standing here, looking at you kid.

GIRL: (swoons)

Fade Out

I taught Bogart what he knew.

I arrive at university wearing my blue Coldplay t-shirt. The t-shirt design is très cool with the band’s name spelt with a periodic table motif. Ingeniously I knew the t-shirt would be a conversation starter: I wouldn’t have to regale people with anecdotes to confirm my status as arbiter of cultural taste, the apparel would do it for me. Entering the flat, I was greeted by another lad wearing the cover art to a band I had never heard of. “Coldplay, eh. Nice one. I'm Jim.” Looking under the landfill of slogans that adorned his top, I read the band’s name: “Radiohead, eh. Nice one. I'm Ryan.” Who were Radiohead? I thought I had the whole catalogue of Indie music in my plastic crate: David Gray’s White Ladder, Turin Brakes’ The Optimist LP and the complete works of Chris Martin. I wasn't overly concerned though; they were obviously a new band; it was nice anyway to meet someone into guitar music.
 
After I had unpacked I knocked on Jim’s door and he welcomed me in to look at his room. What I saw changed my life. All over the walls were posters. Posters of musicians I had never heard of. Bowie in one corner. Morrissey in the other. Next to him, Jarvis Cocker. Beside him, Nicky Wire. Under him, Bjork. To the side of her, Suede. Across from them, Robert Smith of The Cure. All of these pull-outs had come from magazines I'd never heard of, entitled Melody Maker and NME. Seeing those images was my Road to Damascus moment: the point where I stopped persecuting my ears and started embracing the word of Morrissey. Every journey begins with a single step, walking into that room and seeing those eccentrics was mine.

Jarvis can't get away from chipped wood.

 
For months after, what played out between Jim and me was the Indie music equivalent of Educating Rita. Instead of Frank using his study to educate Rita, Jim would soundtrack our games of Pro Evolution Soccer to the albums of Indie past. During those afternoons I was acquainted with strangers that would go on to be my best friends: The Queen Is Dead, The Stone Roses, The Bends and Screamadelica. Like Rita, I had found what I'd been missing, and I was going to make it my mission to catch up on everything I'd missed. I bought Q, NME, Uncut, The Word; listened to Steve Lamacq; read online fanzines and used friends as lending libraries to educate myself on this music that truly spoke to me.  

I was blind, now I can see. You made a believer out of me. I'm movin' on up now. Getting out of the darkness. My light shines on. My light shines on.

Over the past two weeks I’ve been watching Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie, following a recommendation from Jim. (Educating me on music is his vocation; just because I’m not next door to him anymore isn’t going to stop him.) The documentary presented by Mark Radcliffe, broadcaster and former producer on the John Peel show, tracks Indie music’s growth from the bedroom business record labels to the genre's burgeoning sales and increasing marketability.

Mark Radcliffe

 The first episode introduced me to labels I had never heard of: Postcard, Mute and Industrial; along with labels I had: 2 Tone, Rough Trade and Factory. Initially at least, all of these were run on a shoestring budget with the emphasis being on art over commerce. Tony Wilson, Factory Record’s impresario, famously lost money from the multi-million selling single, Blue Monday – the reason? the cover sleeve cut to resemble a floppy disc cost so much that they lost money on every record sold. These were businesses that weren’t run solely for profit but for love. Hilariously, Pete Waterman of Stock, Aitken and Waterman (SAW) also features: despite representing platinum selling artists, Kylie and Jason, they were still technically an independent label; consequently, the bizarre juxtaposition of seeing Jason Donovan sit alongside Jesus and the Mary Chain on the Indie Music Charts was an all too common feature.

Mark Radcliffe begins the retrospective by asking what is Indie: is it music independent of a major record company? is it a mindset? is it an aspiration? For me, it was a lifeline. I was a shy outsider at school unable to relate to the laddish culture around me; how I wish then I had Jarvis and Morrissey to guide me through those years, to make the social estrangement I felt feel normal, to make my decision to reject machismo and embrace books feel like the right one. But hey, what difference does it make? Non, je ne regret rien. I have them now. And I ain't ever going to let them go. 

The final episode of Music for Misfits: The Story of Indie concludes next Friday, BBC 4 at 10pm.