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It can be really confusing for the average IU student to understand the vast complexities of indie kids today. Why do they listen to all sorts of music not found in the mainstream? How do they fit in those pants? Here's five easy steps to make yourself indie.\n5 - Move out of your house and into your bike.\nThe first step, of course, is to embrace the current environmentalist trend. Don't do it willingly; rather, reluctantly admit that global warming is a reality and that you're doing your part to reduce your carbon footprint. \nNow, in reality, you still won't recycle, change your light bulbs or switch off your electronics to conserve. Indie kids' pride and joy is built on false promises, so generating the appearance of trend-following is the only way to go. \nTake the plunge, you house-dwellers. Sell your home and move into your bike. Make sure it's a fixed gear, naturally, and ride it around incessantly. Attempt to do tricks with clever names and constantly update the features of the bike itself. Bull-horn handlebars, spray-paint paint jobs (notice the environmental irony) and mud flaps are just a few suggestions. \n4 - Replace your white Hanes shirts with white American Apparel shirts.\nIf you haven't caught on yet, outward appearance is a key aspect of turning indie. The same way you will turn your environmental efforts toward your new bike's image, you also must change your clothes. All of them. \nYour jeans must be tighter and the majority of your clothes must be found at a thrift store. Old is the new new, you know. \nThere are, like with all rules, exceptions. It is still acceptable for certain essentials to be new. All unreasonably expensive jean brands can and will be a part of your new wardrobe. \nAll other brand-name products must be worn ironically. Think about clothes a really rich friend would have. Pairing these with your ratty ensemble and your Louis Vuitton sunglasses and Gucci loafers will seem ironic. \nYour No. 1 item of clothing will be a white T-shirt. Dress it down with tight jean cut-offs that remind most of the homeless. Dress it up by wearing a cardigan you found in your grandpa's closet or in the $1 bin at Goodwill. \nAmerican Apparel is the new indie kid purveyor of plain. Although no normal kid will be able to tell, all the other indie kids will see that you chose American Apparel. This will offer the appearance of sparing sweat shop laborers from stitching your clothes. \n3 - Find a picture of yourself as an 8-year-old and cut your hair like that.\nOld is the new new; your entire appearance is wrong, remember? What did the 8-year-old version of you look like? A bowl cut? Good … A mullet? Better … A rat-tail? Perfect! Don't forget, no Indie kid will pass unless his or her hair color is entirely unnatural. One detail is left up to you: platinum or pitch black. \nOnce your hair is all 8 years old, don't be afraid to match it with some failed '80s terminology. It's ironic to draw on '80s teen cult classics and the roots of cheesy electronic bands for inspiration.\n2 -- Listen exclusively to artists who nobody knows.\nIf you are still looking for quality music, give up. The exclusivity of the music is far more important. Though you most likely just discovered talented song-writers The Shins or dramatic pop-sters Arcade Fire, pretend as though you do not like them. \nA rule of thumb might be that if more than 50 people like a band that you listen to, they've sold out. Selling out is suicide to an indie kid. This will be something that you will learn the hard way by name-dropping a band you didn't know ever had a negative connotation. \nI'm not talking about all the Top 40 rap and pop you will claim to like because of its irony. These artists are acceptable to listen to in party scenarios or whenever street cred is necessary. \nIn terms of rock music, choose carefully. Small bands from Williamsburg (in Brooklyn, not Virginia), Portland or an indie-electro band from metro-Milwaukee would count. In fact, simply determine the location of artist's indie label and discriminate based solely on that information. Most Canadian major cities count, most Scandinavian cities are OK (you can make strong arguments for most of Europe), college towns are a guarantee, but above and beyond anything, Brooklyn prevails.
WIUX doesn't condone fake IDs because, let's face it, the ones they used to make in Eigenmann were terrible. Your older brother's ID won't work at Nick's, and the threat of being arrested will totally ruin your Thirsty Thursday. But if you're a music fan in Bloomington, it sucks to be under 21.\nAfter all, a lot of bars hold the real shows. Spoon came to the Bluebird, Modest Mouse was at Axis (old Jake's) and when Second Story was in commission, it was the place to go. The White Stripes, Neutral Milk Hotel, Tortoise, Guided By Voices, Jens Lekman, Rogue Wave, Yo La Tengo and the Firey Furnaces all played the best venue in town, but in a post-Second Story Bloomington, all-ages venues have taken over where fake IDs left off. Now the best shows can be seen at any age. \nRhino's\nCurated by the Harmony Education Center, aka the BeeHive's only private school, Rhino's Youth Center was founded in 1992 to cater to Bloomington teens. It was founded with a sort of "by the people, for the people" mentality.\nLater, United Way and the Bloomington Parks and Recreation joined Rhino's and it became more than just a venue. Rhino's serves as an after-school hangout for Bloomington teens. It holds many arts-based after-school programs and serves about 1,200 teens a month, according to its Web site. \nBut to the average IU student, Rhino's has a different significance. Sweet rock shows every Friday and Saturday at the South Walnut location are the draw. Its space, recently redesigned, features a large stage, local art and a professional light and sound setup. \nCheck out locals Busman's Holiday on March 24, the Romance on March 30 and the Purgatorium CD release show April 20.\nArt Hospital\nIn lieu of Second Story, the best shows in town now come to the Art Hospital. Named for its white walls and a hospital cross that used to be outside, the Hospital is both an art space and a music venue. It brings national independent artists, holds Electrocute (see previous "Live From the BeeHive"), and hosts private events. \nA lot of the artists who play the Hospital are related in some way to Secretly Canadian. Impossible Shapes, Early Day Miners and Ad Astra Per Aspera have all played there to name a few. \nIn the near future, check out Drakkar Sauna on March 19, Odawas on April 1 and Baby Teeth on April 7. \nLive From Bloomington\nUnion Board's Live From Bloomington does more than compile a CD of the best local music. It also hosts one of the coolest nights in town, Club Night, spread over a ton of venues in the city. This year Club Night is split into a 21+ night April 5 and an all-ages night April 6. \nLive From Bloomington also hosts NOISE, a live concert series Thursday nights at the Indiana Memorial Union Gallery. Check out Muzaic on March 8, 2 Mics and a Kit on March 22 and Husband and Wife on March 29. \nWIUX\nBloomington Vibes is a WIUX-sponsored music series at the station house, 815 E. Eighth St. With an emphasis on underrepresented and local music, Vibes has had national acts like Maps and Atlases, Gentleman Auction House and Men Women and Children as well as local acts Nearest Nova, Prizzy Prizzy Please and Totally Micheal. \nThe Giggles are coming March 23, Sentinel on March 30 and WIUX's annual large concert Culture Shock will be held April 14 in the field behind the DeVault Alumni Center on 17th Street. \nCulture Shock '07 is the biggest show WIUX has ever thrown. With headliners Xiu Xiu and Sunset Rubdown, the show will surely attract music lovers. The completely free lineup also includes up-and-coming artists Richard Swift and David Vandervelde, rockers Catfish Haven and Make Believe, and local artists Husband and Wife and The Coke Dares. The lineup hasn't been fully announced yet, so stay tuned to 100.3 FM and wiux.org for more.
The bulk of students at IU probably don't consider Bloomington an important music city. Sure, a lot of music comes through the Bluebird, they might think. And yeah, bands come and play for Little 500 every year up on the Jordan extension. The average student may even know that a student station that broadcasts on 100.3 FM (ya know, WIUX?) holds shows at the studio pretty regularly. But what every student may not realize is how important Bloomington is to the national music community. \nSo this week's Live From the BeeHive will be a brief refresher course in Bloomington's own record labels, an intro to the distribution companies and an entirely too-long string of band names that you will later Google to realize what you've been missing out on.\nSecretly Canadian, Bloomington's most prominent record label, is located on West Second Street. The label was started 11 years ago by Ben and Chris Swanson (yes, brothers and both WIUX alumni), Eric Weddle (who skipped town to start Family Vineyard Records in Lafayette, and Jonathon Cargill (who goes by JC, how cool is that?). Eleven years and more than 100 releases later, Secretly Canadian has made a name for itself. \nSecretly has an incredibly diverse catalog. Carrying local artists The Impossible Shapes, Horns of Happiness, Early Day Miners and others, Secretly caters to the Bloomington music scene. These bands collaborate on many projects and help spread the music love in the BeeHive by playing locally and assisting management at the artist community/venue, The Art Hospital. \nBut Secretly is not an exclusively local label. Swedes Jens Lekman and Frida Hyvönen both have releases on the label. Damien Jurado is from Seattle, the Danielson Famile is from the Armpit of America, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness --as dramatic as that sounds -- reside in Austin, Texas, and Catfish Haven and Magnolia Electric Co. (ex-songs: Ohia) both live in Chicago.\nSecretly Canadian poster boy of 2005 is the androgynous Antony Hegarty (Antony and the Johnsons), a British transgender singer/songwriter who scored a Mercury Music Prize in 2005 for the album I Am a Bird Now. \nAs a testament to the incestuous nature of the Bloomington music scene, Secretly Canadian's sister label, local Jagjaguwar, is owned and operated by Secretly exec Chris Swanson and pal Darius Van Arman. \nJagjaguwar is home to awesome indie acts like Black Mountain, Okkervil River, Odawas, Wilderness, Onieda, Ad Aspera Per Astra and the list goes on. Just like its sister label, Jagjaguwar does its best to be incredibly diverse, unreasonably awesome and support local hardcore.\nThis week the Swanson brothers, Van Arman and JC announced a third label, Dead Oceans. In collaboration with ex-Misra Records label manager Phil Waldorf, Dead Oceans already has a full 2007 lineup. Bishop Allen, The Dirty Projectors, Iran and Evangelicals will all release albums on the brand-spankin' new label. \nThe Swansons must have learned a lot in kindergarten. They are all about sharing. Dead Oceans shares a few old Secretly artists and along with Jagjaguwar, the three share owners, management, office space and a distribution company.\nSC Distribution, as it's called, is sort of at the middle of it all. SC distributes albums from 17 record labels from all over the country including K (The Blow), Asthmatic Kitty (Sufjan Stevens) and Orange Twin (Neutral Milk Hotel). Distribution is not a part of the business listeners often consider, but it is entirely essential to the music business. And with the list of artists SC distributes, we'd be nowhere without them.
As drum machines replace drum sets, keyboards replace voices and my new laptop replaces my old Tascam 4-track, electronic music is in full swing. Whether it's an '80s revival or a Web 2.0 reflex, WIUX DJs have come to embrace the vocoder and love the robots. \nMore and more electronic music has been filling 100.3 FM recently. Promoters have been sending us new electronic bands and our DJs have been finding many themselves. What is the new fascination with electronic music? I'm not entirely sure, but I've jumped on the bandwagon and have been enjoying the ride.\nWho Needs a Band?\nFollowing the success of electro-duos like Daft Punk, solo artists like Mylo and many others, new electronic indie bands have been shrinking. Not in numbers, but in size.\nI remember when I first saw The Blow in Bloomington at the-now defunct-Church on Adams Street. There were just two people performing. Khaela Maricich and Jona Bechtolt (now known as YACHT) danced around on a dimly lit stage while their Mac iBook, sitting cautiously at their feet, pumped out 8-bit jams while they added their vocal soundtrack. \nAt first I didn't get it. Coming from a pretty rock n roll only background, I wanted to see multiple band members on their knees, screaming at each other, wailing on their instruments. I didn't get it then, but after seeing local performer, Totally Michael, I began to find out.\nTotally Michael is a local performer and musician who plays simple, fun songs off his computer accompanied by his voice and occasional guitar playing. His shows aren't just about watching his lanky short-short-clad body bounce around the stage; rather, it's more about crowd participation. Like a DJ, Totally Michael wants his audience to dance and have fun. The days of the mopey, depressed hipster are over. \nDance Parties\nShows are less about standing nowadays and more about dancing. Though I learned all my moves from the seventh-grade bar-mitzvah circuit, I enjoy getting down. It's a less embarrassing work out, after all, and dancing hard while watching the newest indie craze is like killing two birds with one stone. \nIn New York, they have MisShapes; in Chicago, Flosstradamus keeps it real, but in the Bee-Hive we have Electrocute. Hosted by DJ Flufftronix and held at The Hospital on South Walnut Street, Electrocute brings a combination of live electro-acts and DJs. \nThere's no pressure at these shows. It's not like my (or anyone I know for that matter) dance moves can impress. Rather, Electrocute is about having fun and dancing hard. With acts like Matt and Kim, Scream Club, Southside Will and, most recently Yip Yip (although that show was canceled because of snow), Electrocute brings all the electro goods home for your dancing pleasure. \nThe Laptop DJ\nIt's a trend that I can happily say I fell into. Also known as DJ DumpTruck, I use a program called Ableton Live to simulate DJing on my computer. Using a computer allows Laptoppers to loop, sample and alter songs at the click of a button-light speeds faster than their traditional counterparts. \nLaptoppers can beat match. In other words, songs flow seamlessly without fade outs, awkward transitions and often with the DJ's own flair. Like all music trends, Laptop DJing started in major cities internationally and spread its way through the country. Bloomington is, surprisingly, home to a few Laptoppers: DJ PumpkinPatch, my mentor, another friend of mine Paul, Flufftronix, and others. \nOn March 3, Bloomington folk will be graced with the presence of one of the world's most famous Laptop DJs. Girl Talk (aka Greg Gillis) is a biomedical engineer in Pittsburgh, Penn., who leads a double life. Pop-music aficionado and science freak combine on his album "Night Ripper," revealing a very untraditional sound. Without creating music in the traditional sense, Gillis uses hundreds of samples of pop songs to create his own barrage of dance music. \nGillis capitalizes on songs that we're all embarrassed to like, strips them of their irony and does so all very musically. Plus, audiophiles get a kick out of all the name-dropping (I can almost hear the hipsters pat themselves on the back every time Gillis lays out a new sample): Bow Wow, Dire Straits, Annie, Young Jeezy, Weezer, Three-Six Mafia, Kanye West, and The Cure are only a few of the many, many artists sampled on "Night Ripper."\nExpect all of those artists and more March 3 when Gillis spins the hard drives at the Buskirk-Chumley. The event is a concert, fashion show and most importantly a benefit for the World Health Organization. So check it out, WIUX 100.3 FM will be there.
Don't get us wrong, we play a lot of Indie rock. It's not that we've given up on classic rock, that we don't seriously crave Akon at a dance party, or that, if we could, we'd rank JT at number one last year, but at WIUX we have a mission statement that we love to adhere to. \nUnderrepresented artists and local music take priority here. Whether it's Phyllis Chen's classical show, "Toad's Wart," Paul Hoff's Monday night, "Metal for the Masses," or Tony Cak's eclectic, "Electro-ambient Soul Music," WIUX DJs strive to expose listeners to new music while, as trite as it sounds, "giving a voice to the voiceless."\nThis column documents our passion for pretension, but invites you to indulge with us. There's another side of the Bloomington music scene than you may be familiar with. Check back here every week for show updates, leaked tracks, DJ profiles and a spin on music (pun intended) that might be new for you (rhyme un-intended). \nLike John Cusack's character in "High-Fidelity," we can list all day. In fact, each week, this column will be accompanied by the top five most-played songs at the station, top five album additions to the WIUX studio, and five recommended downloads keeping you on top of music like American Apparel on a hipster. \nIn 40 years of broadcasting, WIUX has gone from a Top 40 carrier-current station to an entirely independent and locally-focused, full functioning, 24-hour FM station. We've carved ourselves a niche along with college stations across the county. \nYet there's something we have that not every college can boast. Bloomington is home to two internationally recognized record labels, an assortment of inviting local venues and well-equipped record stores that understand the importance of Bloomington music. (Don't worry, we'll go into more detail later.)\nSo please, check out our tracks and let us know what you think. Music is only as good as its listeners and our ears are as open as our flapping mouths. Drop us an e-mail with your opinions, your tastes, and your suggestions for topics you'd like to know more about. Until then, see you next week!
Don't get us wrong, we play a lot of Indie rock. It's not that we've given up on classic rock, that we don't seriously crave Akon at a dance party, or that, if we could, we'd rank JT at number one last year, but at WIUX we have a mission statement that we love to adhere to. \nUnderrepresented artists and local music take priority here. Whether it's Phyllis Chen's classical show, "Toad's Wart," Paul Hoff's Monday night, "Metal for the Masses," or Tony Cak's eclectic, "Electro-ambient Soul Music," WIUX DJs strive to expose listeners to new music while, as trite as it sounds, "giving a voice to the voiceless."\nThis column documents our passion for pretension, but invites you to indulge with us. There's another side of the Bloomington music scene than you may be familiar with. Check back here every week for show updates, leaked tracks, DJ profiles and a spin on music (pun intended) that might be new for you (rhyme un-intended). \nLike John Cusack's character in "High-Fidelity," we can list all day. In fact, each week, this column will be accompanied by the top five most-played songs at the station, top five album additions to the WIUX studio, and five recommended downloads keeping you on top of music like American Apparel on a hipster. \nIn 40 years of broadcasting, WIUX has gone from a Top 40 carrier-current station to an entirely independent and locally-focused, full functioning, 24-hour FM station. We've carved ourselves a niche along with college stations across the county. \nYet there's something we have that not every college can boast. Bloomington is home to two internationally recognized record labels, an assortment of inviting local venues and well-equipped record stores that understand the importance of Bloomington music. (Don't worry, we'll go into more detail later.)\nSo please, check out our tracks and let us know what you think. Music is only as good as its listeners and our ears are as open as our flapping mouths. Drop us an e-mail with your opinions, your tastes, and your suggestions for topics you'd like to know more about. Until then, see you next week!