Hippies and Hipsters:The Worst! (Part 2 - Hipsters)

First, I just wanted to say how much I’m enjoying doing this – especially getting emails from people and seeing comments. I think college was the last time that I was really inundated with a wide variety of music. So it’s cool to get suggestions and have discussions and I encourage people to post more comments or even submit posts. I had fairly selfish intentions when I started (wasting time), but I would love for this to be a place where people can discover and discuss new music.

Oh, also, in response to a few people who posted about Phish, I’m inclined to agree that musical virtuosity doesn’t neccesarilly entail a good product, but perhaps that’s the joy of live Phish and improvisational music in general. Rather than reading a speech to the audience, the band attempts to have a conversation on stage; it may not be polished, often can be redundant or incomplete but every once in a while (See: “Wolfman’s Brother” on Slip, Stitch, and Pass), the back and forth between the musicians, creates something totally organic and unique, surprising even the band. To see musicians evolving before your very eyes and ears is something truly special. Improvisation at it’s finest is about just that. Now onto the hipsters:

I was wandering around Williamsburg, Brooklyn with my buddy Julian last year and we got to chatting about hipsters. For those of you who’ve never been there before, Williamsburg has become the gold standard in hipster hipness – Silver Lake, Wicker Park, and Portland are all jostling for the silver. Anyway, I asked Julian if he thought that a hipster would be insulted if you called them a hipster. He wasn’t sure, neither was I, but I think both of us shuddered at the thought of being considered one.

The hipster movement seems to parallel the Revenge of the Nerds trilogy. Think about it: hipsters were those kids in high school, who, having been ostracized by the jocks and cool kids, embraced non-conformity and developed their own funky style. Perhaps they suffered a bit in high school, but at least they had school musicals and tech. Then they went to college, and low and behold, lots of people in college weren’t the cool kids in high school. And much like the ending of the first two Revenge of the Nerds movies, the hipsters realized they outnumbered the cool kids and having that realization they were embraced by the masses, liberated, empowered, free to wear tight jeans and ugly sunglasses, and show off their tattoos. Then when hipsters graduated college, they congregated in hip little communities; they were now the cool kids. And much like Lewis in Revenge of the Nerds III (and the pigs in Animal Farm and pretty much any discriminated class that rises to power for that matter), now that the hipsters were cool, they turned up their noses and started shitting on all us regular Joes and Jills. Fucking hipsters.

That’s all well and good and I could really care less if I’m still a nerd and two years behind the fashion curve (It’s been that way since middle school). The problem is, hipsters are fucking up live music. Hippie music seems to be all about virtuoso musicians and jamming – innovation and originality seem to get lost along the way. Hipsters have the opposite problem. They put such a premium on unique, cutting edge music, that musicians seem to be focusing more on their sound then their abilities.

I’m not an indie rock junkie, but I’ve been to enough shows and listened to enough music over the past few years to both: really enjoy a band’s album and really hate them in concert. Live music is a beautiful thing when done right, but the indie rock scene (which prides itself on bands gaining a following due to their concerts) is helping to ruin it. Live music doesn’t have to be about improvisation, but it should at the very least cause me to have an emotional response to what I’m listening to. Whether it’s dancing, or a general sense of excitement, or being fired up, or being depressed – I should feel something at a concert. At far too many indie rocks shows, emotion is replaced with a dull swaying and numb feeling from drinking too many PBR’s.

The problem isn’t the music itself – it’s the people performing it. In a studio, with a producer and plenty of time, a band can with great vision but mediocre ability can achieve wonderful things. That same band struggles live. And yet the hipsters flock, rejoice, and proclaim their greatness… and then have the nerve to scoff at hippie and mainstream bands alike. Hipsters are perpetuating an environment where originality is valued and little else.

Now obviously there are exceptions to this. Christine got me into Built To Spill. Definitely an indie rock band, with an indie rock following, but the talent to put on a unique live show every night (My Morning Jacket is in the same vein). The ironic thing seems to be that if these much beloved hipster bands had a hippie following, hipsters would hate them (see the previous post for more on this).

I haven’t caught them live yet, but from what Christine and Vein and handful of other people tell me, the Decembrists manage to put on a great show, using a variety of theatrics and audience participation. I caught a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah show last year and was thoroughly impressed, not so much by their musicianship, but rather the sheer energy with which they played; it felt like seeing a real rock band, complete with a lead singer that had udder disdain for the crowd and was still beloved.

Still, a good live indie show seems few and far between. And maybe I’m demonstrating some serious ignorance here, after all, I don’t see enough shows and I’m probably not hip enough to know about some of the really cool bands. It’s hard you know, when you don’t have a myspace page and can’t become friends with three hundred indie bands. So perhaps this is more of a plea than anything else: please, educate my ignorant, un-cool ass. Show me some bands that will wow me if I see them live. If not, we’re approaching a scary time, one where I’d rather sit on my couch and listen to a band’s studio album, then go see them in concert.