|
|
 |
Sleater-Kinney.
 "I've noticed the crowds have changed," ponders Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss. "I've noticed that people's relationship to music has changed. Crowds don't seem to get involved anymore." And after 15 years and seven albums, the trio should know something about crowds.
"Everyone's just holding up a cellphone, you know, taking a picture. People are just watching and observing and taking notes, not participating as much. I don't see crowds going crazy - not for us, not for our kind of music. I've also noticed that people already know what the show's going to be. They've gone on the Internet, they've read about the show the second it's done, they know all the songs people are playing, they can go and look at pictures online, and there's no more mystery. You used to wait months. You'd buy your tickets in advance and wait and wait, and you would have no idea, except for maybe what you had read in a glossy magazine. It seems like a lot of the underground bristling excitement has kind of been disseminated."
This crowd response, Weiss suggests, has precipitated a small evolution in the kinds of bands running around the American alternative circuit. "A lot of bands just sound like a TV commercial. When I listen to supposedly alternative music stations, it's like every song sounds like the song from the car commercial. It's like music has been totally co-opted - underground, alternative punk music. Punk is dead, it's really sad. The minute there was an alternative section [in record shops] it was over. I feel like young people don't know what punk was, they don't have any connection to it. It doesn't mean anything to them. I really feel old, thinking, 'you just don't understand!' And they're like, 'Fuck you, you're old!' The generation of commercialism is here, and it shows in the music.
"What about music as being what saves you, what makes you fit into this world? There are people I look up to that, you know, are non-conformist and doing things differently. Maybe that's gone, you know, having that sort of importance in your life. Music is everything, there's nothing I would trade for it. I don't think people have that passion anymore. That's why I'm so glad that the Stooges are playing the Big Day Out. Although they've used Stooges songs in commercials, I don't think you can keep Iggy down. He's just too weird! That's another reason why I'm thrilled to come to Australia. I think they're going to be more like how I wish crowds were down here. More engaged, more open, more kind of emotional."
I think there's a challenge in that, folks. I mean, after all, it wasn't too long ago that Adelaide had a reputation for its crowd. We might not have been the biggest - but, having been consistently done over by bands who would only tour the eastern states, we used to be the best. And we should count ourselves lucky that Sleater-Kinney are even on the bill - guitarist Carrie Brownstein's unknown allergy reactions have already forced them to cancel quite a number of the dates on their European tour.
That said, practically nothing could stop them from coming over to our fine, brown shores. Weiss in particular is rather enthused. "Everyone just keeps calling it the 'Big Day Off'. We should adjust as we go along. I guess we don't play festivals all that often."
This strikes me as being rather unusual; I was under the impression that the underground community in the States required bands like Sleater-Kinney to play these national festivals. Instead, Weiss informs me, they came through a different phase in the evolution of American music: the era of small, localised scenes. And again, the change seems not to be for the better.
"The idea of globalisation just took apart the community where great music was made. There would be six or seven incredible bands, and a scene would be born. A label would start up, fanzines would start up, and a whole support system would be created. And eventually this scene would burn out, but it seems like 'global' has brought everything so at our fingertips all the time that there aren't those two or three years for scenes to grow. It's just exposed right away without ever reaching its potential. There just hasn't been a scene like the Minneapolis scene, the Seattle scene or the Olympia scene. It's true it's all changing, but what is it going to be? I'm just waiting around. We're not the band that's going to be in the forefront of the change. We had our time. Hopefully we'll just make some great records.
"But I'm counting on these youngsters to do something vital and important and passionate. Video games are okay, but not as good as a great record, come on!"
Ben Revi
 | Sleater-Kinney play at the Big Day Out on Fri 3 Feb, and 'The Woods' is out through Sub Pop/Stomp. |
|
|
The latest issue
available now!
|
