...I feel I have to add to this "indie" thread. As I haven't been a teenager for ten years I have had plenty of time to reflect on the things that troubled me then, and some of those things were the same things that are being talked about now. When I was a kid the Dunedin Sound was in full swing, and if you wanted to be "Alternative" there were a couple of options. You could go Skinhead, tough, hard, pretty much fucked in the head. You could go Punk, still going strong in 1988. You could just adopt the black jeans and tatty black jersey that was the uniform of the New Zealand bands of the time. Or you could go "Goth". I went Goth. Now what happens is, you in your need to be "different" adopt the uniform of other people who are "different". This is fine, nothing to be ashamed of, and it serves it's purpose well, being both "different" and a "uniform". The problem arises when you start to discover that the other people who have set themselves apart from the rest of society are just as messed up and inadequate as you, (that's what attracted you all to the same thing in the first place). Which means that they are not always friendly, they are not always approachable,(for some reason people in the underground look to people who share the same signifiers as suspicious). They are prone to backstabbing and bitchiness, and then there is the hierarchy. Some have been doing it for longer than you, some for less, some intimidate you with their inherent coolness and some are laughable (oh no, now you're doing it) This can seem like a blow to you, as you are young, isolated (your parents don't even understand you) and somewhat vulnerable. To make things worse you are maybe smoking pot or dropping acid, mmmmmmmm PARANOIA! The good part is that eventually it won't matter anymore, It was terrible for me at the time but now it just don't matter. As you grow you discover more about yourself and your own individuality, you stop caring what other people think and you no longer have to hide that "embarrassing" record at the back of the pile or fret about the cut of your pants and one day you will laugh out loud about it all. (it may be easy for some to dismiss this cos I come from a very small country in the South Pacific, but if anything the small size of the "scene" only exacerbates the problems as everything is more insular and all the "subcultures" have to coexist) On another note, Renaldo mentioned the smiths line "it's so easy to laugh, it's so easy to hate, it takes strength to be gentle and kind". When my little brother was in high school two "hard kids" had him hoisted up by his neck against a wall and were about to beat him up so he said that line to them and they let him go. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+