here’s a little inspiration for your february wednesday 2009:

lots is said about “indie rock”, but now that the majors are all shitting their respective beds (and now that hip hop is the dominant force in music and is more experimental and inclusive than any popular music-thread in history (which is a subject for a different day)), is this even a viable mark anymore? as far as i’m concerned, the important thing right now is “indo rock”, aka rockabilly music of the 1950s and 60s made in the netherlands by people with indonesian roots (though not neccessarily of indonesian descent).

wikipedia:
Indorock is a musical genre, originating in the 1950s in the Netherlands and Europe. It is a fusion of Indonesian and Western music, and has roots in Kroncong (Traditional Indonesian Music).

After Indonesian independence on August 17, 1945, many Indo (Dutch-Indonesian) musicians repatriated to the Netherlands. One of the effects of this cultural process was that, in the mid-1950s, an instrumental music genre called Indorock became popular.

The guitar was imported to the Indian archipelago by Portuguese explorers in the 14th century. The traditional Portuguese song styles, saudade and fado, played with guitar accompaniment, later became krontjong music. Krontjong is characterized by guitars which seem to be “talking” to each other.

massive colonial weirdness at play here, but for me the indorock lesson is: take what you want, or think you want, and approach it through what you know. balls→walls, with soft-soled shoes, circumnavigate the instrument, backwards, and you’re in!

i try to watch this video every few weeks.