Indie, of course, is short for Independent. The indie music scene seceded from the Mainstream on December 15th, 1997. A collective of some 127 solo artists and bands gathered in the mainstream capital of Richard Wilkins’ house and took it in turns to read the following declaration:

We, the founders of Indie, would like to declare these things, if that’s okay with you guys.

1. You guys have all totally sold out.

2. It used to be about the music.

3. We’re gonna get out of here.

4. Um, see you later, I guess?

5. We hope you keep well.

With that, whoever was holding  the napkin the group had written the  declaration on threw it into the nearest recycling bin. The group flipped off Richard and wandered off into the wilderness,  giddy with the joy their new independence. This positivity was to be short lived, however. The Mainstream was displeased with the separation, and was prepared to do anything to get the indie crew back. Industry big wigs offered the indie kids lucrative contracts, impossibly ostentatious backstage riders, and all the drugs and hookers they could want. But indie didn’t want any. They remained steadfast in their belief that it should be about the music. In the months that followed, bitter insults and minor gunfire were shot back and forth across the borderlands. Two artists were killed, seven injured and untold thousands were “hurt” or “emotionally wounded”. On the 8th of March 1998, a ceasefire was declared. Word was sent to indie that Mainstream’s main beef was that they had taken a few too many of the “good sets of speakers” and Mainstream wanted them back. Indie relented and an uneasy peace was restored.

After these initial setbacks, indie flourished, which is perhaps an even greater setback. Indie songs are being heard every day – in commercials, on film soundtracks, even as in-store music. The world’s continuing interest in indie is drawing it ever closer to the Mainstream. So please, for the sake of this fledgling scene, ignore it completely. I shouldn’t even be writing about them.

Exercise Nine: How to declare independence.

Are you sick and tired of living under the rule of “the man“? Do you think you would be better off striking out on your own? Who am I to tell you that you are wrong. Go make your mistake, you idealistic fool. The rest of the world will still be here when you get back.

Step One: Create an ethos

There has to be a reason for you declare your independence. It doesn’t need to be particularly grand. It doesn’t even need to be a good reason. You justify it however you want to. Want to live in a tax-free society? Declare independence! Think that English as a first language is passe and would rather converse in Quenya? Declare independence! Think that cats ought to be the ones in charge? Declare independence, damnit!

Step Two: Write a declaration

This is pretty much the same thing as step one, except you have to write it down.

Step Three: Declare independence

This is pretty much the same thing as steps one and two, except you have to read it out.

I think that’s pretty much it. Oh, I should probably say that this isn’t exactly a legal thing to do. Gotta have my bases covered.

There are two main components to every hip-hop: The “beatz” and the “whrap”. The beatz are an incessant going on that continues in the background from the beginning of the song until the end of the dang thing, with nary a pause for breath. Because it has no breath. Because it is not living. In fact, the source of the beatz is often dead, due to a process called sampling. To sample, a section of an artist’s song is surgically removed from the artist’s gall bladder or other internal organs. Gut organs are usually the most sampled as they are the most musical, however, other organs are sometimes used. Sampling lobotomies are not unheard of. Because of the extensive damage that can be caused by excessive sampling, most hip-hoppers will  sample from artist’s who are long dead. There are many sampling cryogenics labs throughout the world to facilitate this. Some hip-hoppers, however, prefer fresh beatz, and will sample from living artists when they can (or even when they can’t, as was seen in the case of Dirty Dan vs Petr Vlosky).

The second, and perhaps most crucial component to a hip-hop is the whrap. Whrap makes up 50 to 75% of a hip-hop, depending on the artist’s preferred hip-hop to whrap ratio. To whrap, a person must open their mouth and say some words. They are usually rhyming ones, but sometimes they are not. How is this different from just talking, you ask? It’s not. It is ridiculous.  If it were up to me, no-one would be getting away with this kind of guff. But it’s not up to me.  Indeed it is up to people who insist that it is this talking that turns some beatz into a proper hip-hop. And so these talking bastards must be utilised, I suppose. Whrappers are often found wandering around shopping centres, wearing short pants. They stand in front of What’s New to hawk their talky wares, as they enjoy the novelty bobbleheads and suggestive jubes within. There are many famous whrappers, but I will not give them the satisfaction of being listed here. Cocky bastards, the lot of them.

Exercise Eight: How to make a hip-hop.

I really wish you wouldn’t, but if you insist, this is the way to do it.

Step One: Acquire the beatz.

If you are not a licensed surgeon, it is recommended you get your beatz from a cryogenics lab, or a beatz extraction clinic if you want them fresh.

Step Two: Acquire the whrap.

Go to your nearest shopping centre. Some will have more variety than others. Northland Shopping Centre, for example, is near overflowing with whrappers. It will not take much to coax one into your car. A box of cheezels will usually do the trick.

Step Three: Make a hip-hop.

Cram together your components. I’m not entirely sure how this is done, to be honest. Welding, perhaps?

Congratulations. You have made a hip-hop. Please keep it to yourself like a good kid.

The term ‘Grunge’ is a hybrid of the words ‘grease’ and ‘lunge’. The name was created to embody the manner in which band members would lunge at their audiences, threatening to prod them with their greasy fingers. Grunge players would always grease up their fingers before a show to enable their fingers to slide along the strings at the needed speed. Traditionally, this greasing was conducted by the band sharing in a feast of fried chicken, communally digging in to the soft flesh with their bare hands – a process that was known in the industry as “chicken pickin’”. However, in more recent politically correct times, many Grungers used synthetic chickens filled with various vegetable oils. Some of the more staunch fans of the genre believed that this method produced an inferior sound, and took to calling its practitioners “latex fondlers”.

Bands that  made Grunge popular in more recent years include Alison Chains, Nevermind and Sonic Sonic. Their success was short-lived, however. After nearly a century of going strong, Grunge ended on the 18^th of November 1998. A grand meeting was held by the Phoobars of Grunge at a deli in Wisconsin and they collectively decided that they had just had enough.  There was much dispute from the newer bands, who felt that they were just finding their audience, but there is no arguing with a Phoobar. None. And they should have known that.

Exercise Seven: How to make your own synthetic chicken pickin’ chicken

Although it is now illegal to form your own grunge band, it’s perfectly okay to merely grease your fingers in preparation for playing it.

You will need:

1 x whole chicken*

Some plaster

Some latex

3 cups of your choice of vegetable-based oil

Step 1 – Coat the chicken in plaster.

Step 2 – Set aside overnight to dry.

Step 3 – Carefully cut chicken from the mould.

Step 4 – Fill the mould with latex.

Step 5 – Set aside overnight to dry.

Step 6 – Pull the latex chicken from the mould.

Step 7 – Cut a hole in the chicken where desired and fill with oil.

Your synthetic chicken is now ready for the pickin’!

*Obviously there is a level of futility to making a fake chicken from a real chicken, but this, my friends, is what grunge is all about.

Indeed, most ‘natural’ or ‘accidental’ events can be traced back to a non-human being offended by folk. The Titanic rammed itself into an iceberg after an unknowing passenger began playing a record of Polish folk song ‘Hej Sokoli’. While the song was a rousing war-time favourite for its human listeners, to the boat’s ears it was a harrowing five-minute lecture about her weight problems. Mt. Vesuvius is said to have erupted in March 1944 after some US soldiers based in Pompeii played their music a little too loudly, inadvertently making some lewd suggestions about the volcano’s mother.

Non-human advocacy groups, such as Kinder Folk Commentary (KFC), have been working tirelessly to ban folk music. Group leader Georgie Fratelli recently stated in an interview that he would not stop until folk music has been completely wiped out. “Frankly,” he said, “I don’t give a crap about the feelings of the salt lake, the linen set, or the plank of wood. But if supporting them means I won’t ever have to hear that busker at the end of my street performing Born in the USA ever again, then POWER TO THE NON-PEOPLE!”

Exercise Six: Translating folk

Once you know how to decipher the many frequencies of a folk song, it is fairly easy to translate the messages hidden within. The task can be performed using even the most basic of audio editing software. In fact, it is such an intuitive thing to do, I’m not even going to bother explaining it to you. Here is one I translated earlier:

Verse One of Blowin’ In The Wind – Bob Dylan

(HUMAN)

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man ?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand ?
Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they’re forever banned ?
The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind
The answer is blowin’ in the wind.

(DOG)

How many roads must a dog sniff at
Before he figures out that it is a road?
How many seas must a dog piss in
Before she is banned from the beach ?
Yes, how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before we work out that they are really expensive and we could just be shoving dog in those cannons ?
The answer my friend is all too clear

The answer is that dogs are just the worst thing ever.

(SLICE OF BREAD)

How many roads must a slice of bread walk down
… Oh wait, slices of bread can’t walk can they?
How many seas must a slice of bread sail
Well none, because they just go soggy and fall to pieces.
Yes, how many times must the slice of bread fly
Yeeeeah, you can’t fly either, can you?
The answer my friend is that you’re only good for eating
The answer is that you are purely here to serve the humans.

It began with one man and a dream. The dream that  listening to music could be simple and painless. Dr. John Hasslebeck enjoyed music, but found that it was taking up too much of his precious time and energy. He couldn’t be sitting around, focusing on his Journey tapes all day. He was a doctor, for goodness sake! And so, John set up a laboratory in the basement of his parents‘ home – his residence at the time. Armed with a bunch of instruments he bought from a pawn shop, a loan from his mum and dad, and an infinite supply of time, John set about creating a style of music that you barely even noticed was happening as you listened to it. For six years, Hassleback continued his research, not even letting the death of his parents in a freak piano accident stand in his way. And yet, nothing he created was up to scratch. Listening still required effort. Some say the problem was that he was trying to invent the impossible. Others say the problem was that his doctorate was in philosophy and obtained via the internet from the University of Atlantis. However, he persevered, using his recently inherited millions to build up a scientific team par excellence. After ten years, and many inexplicable requests of fancy cars for ‘research’ from the scientists, they finally cracked it. Easy Listening was born.

There can be significant mental side-effects from attempting to listen to this genre if you are not careful, however. In 1987, a rival scientific corporation set about creating a new form of Easy Listening music, to get a piece to the market. Sadly, this was an evil scientific corporation and the genre they created was ‘Muzak‘, an infuriating crossbreed of Easy Listening and Jazz. To the untrained ear, Muzak sounds exactly the same as Easy Listening. However, due to the deliberate use of patented ‘ire notes’, extended exposure to Muzak gradually erodes the sanity cells of the brain, leaving the listener vulnerable to enjoyment of artists such as Kenny G and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.

Exercise Five: How to differentiate between ‘Easy Listening’ and ‘Muzak’

For your own safety, it is important to be able to identify Musak before you make any attempt to ‘get into’ Easy Listening. The following five features will help you quickly diagnose a case of Musak:

1. Does the song contain saxophone? 

2. Does the song contain clarinet?

3. Do you have a sudden urge to read the weather forecast aloud?

4. When listening to the song, do you find yourself  gaining a tolerance towards long-haired men wearing satin shirts?

5. Are you currently in an elevator?

If you answered yes to three or more of the above, you are listening to Muzak. Please press the emergency stop button and use the escape hatch in the ceiling to get to safety.

In the 1960s, Denny Harper and Martha Jones were bored. They had both just graduated from college and were spending their days lounging around the various night spots of Los Angeles. The venues were great, but the music was a problem in that there was none. Every nightclub they entered was an intimidating vacuum of silence. So this young couple set about creating the latest thing in music.

Combining the raw power of saxophones, trombones and French horns with the pounding bass of the double bass and (to a much lesser extent) the snare drum, Harper and Jones created a sound that was both riotous and jubilant. They called it disco (after the discothèques that were so popular at the time) and set about spreading it all over town (like the venereal diseases that were so popular at the time). The music, however, fell flat. Many astute listeners pointed out that what Harper and Jones were calling ‘disco’ was in fact very similar to the big band sounds of the 1920s and completely incompatible with the trends of the 1960s. They went back to work.

By 1971, they had perfected their sound. Of course, by this time, the music we know as disco had been well and truly pioneered by bands such as Bees Gee, the Johnson Five and that other one that did the song about Shaft. Harper and Jones drifted into obscurity, but their legacy remains. Disco can still be felt in the music of today, refusing to depart, like some sort of awful aftertaste.

Exercise 4: Learn to disco dance

You too can catch the Saturday Night Fever, by learning these popular disco dance steps!

The Roshambo: Approach your partner on the dance floor and thrust your fingers in their face in a quick flicking motion, like a speedy jazz hand. After several shakes – judge for yourself how many you feel are appropriate. As a rule of thumb, two is too few, but fifty is too many – contort your fingers into one of the following three shapes: The fist, the flattened palm, or the horizontal peace sign. A fist indicates that you wish to physically assault your dance partner. The palm should be taken as a sexual proposition. The horizontal peace sign could go either way.

POINTS!: Point your fingers in the air like you just don’t care. Also your arms, legs, head, hips, feet, and neck.

The Aquatic Display: ‘Dive’ from the sidelines and land flat on your belly in the middle of the dancefloor. Flail your arms and legs about as though you are attempting to dig into the floor. After a few minutes, become increasingly distressed about your lack of movement. Finish with loud cries of ‘Help! Help! For the love of god, can’t you see I need help?!’

Now go bust those funky moves on that coloured light floor, you groovster!

            A distinctive feature of country music is the ‘twang’ that can be heard in the singer’s voice. This is a difficult craft and takes many years to perfect. An unfortunate side effect of this skill can appear in professional country singers. After significant exposure to the frequency of the ‘twang’, some of the male singers develop an udder-like growth on the top of their head that discharges a milky substance whenever they open their mouth. This led to the development of the 10-gallon hat, to be worn by these ‘cow boys’, so named for the amount of liquid they can absorb.

            The country music scene is becoming more diverse with every passing year, with subgenres such as Alt-Country, Folk-Country, Countrycore and Countropera rapidly gaining popularity. Some purists are quite alarmed by the radical changes in the genre, stating that these subgenres are removing all that is true about country music and replacing it with cheap gimmicks to attract the masses. These people are asses and you should ignore them. I will not be denied my right to experience Country/Rhumba fusion, thank you very much.

Exercise 3: Stage Your Own Hoedown.

When country music is played in a live setting, it must be done in a very specific way. Rather than staging any old concert or ‘gig’, country music must be played at a hoedown. The art of the hoedown has been perfected over many centuries and is an incredibly intricate and delicate event. The hoedown is not to be confused with the ‘ho-down’. They are two very different things.

Decoration

Country folk may have a reputation as being simple folk, but they won’t suffer an event done on the cheap. However, country fans still want to maintain the ruse that they are down-to-earth. You need to put effort into the presentation of your hoedown, but in such a way as it appears you have gone to no effort.  The style you are aiming for is faux-casual. If it’s warm, you can hold your hoedown outside in a field, scattered with hay bales. If not, you can rent out a hall and cover the floor by spreading out some hay bales. Be sure to set up a stage. You can obscure the structure from view with stacks of hay bales. And instead of chairs, why not put down some hay bales?

Entertainment

The entertainment is the most important part of holding a successful hoedown. Someone who can play country music is good to have. A band, or a singer, or a band that has a singer in it. Put them on the stage and they will play the country music and people will be pleased. Be sure to have spare hats on hand for the singers. Towels are also a good idea. Mentally prepare yourself for the possibility of assisting a singer with their milking. It will probably happen if your hoedown goes for more than two hours.

Guests 

 Actually, wait. Guests are the most important part of holding a successful hoedown. Make sure you have guests. Tell people that you are having a hoedown. Tell them where it will be, and at what time. Also, make sure the people you tell are aware that you are inviting them to come along, and not just rubbing it in their faces that you’re having a hoedown.

And that’s all there is to it! Happy hoe-ing down, everybody!

The term ‘Blues’ refers to one of the earliest practitioners of the genre – Nelson ‘Blue’ Andrews. Andrews had a distinctive blue skin tone, after being involved in an accident at the ink factory where he worked during the day. A boiler containing some 50 litres of blue ink exploded while Andrews was on shift. In hindsight, this was obviously going to happen, as ink should never and needn’t ever be boiled, but this was unknown at the time. Andrews was taken to hospital with severe ink burns. When he emerged, weeks later, the blue hue remained. Scrub as he might, that ink wouldn’t come off. Incidentally, the song ‘No Scrubs’ by TLC was about Anderson, and TLC’s absolute hatred of blues. Which is ironic, because Tionne ‘T-Boz’ Watkins was discovered while she was selling pens in a stationary store in Nelson, NV. Way to respect your roots, T-Boz!

Returning home, jobless and a new shade, Andrews found himself at a loss for things to do. So he picked up his father’s old guitar and taught himself to play. He wasn’t very good. His wounds restricted his movement quite a lot. He could, however, just manage to play four chords: C, F, G and some weird one that was sort of like C, but played incorrectly so it sounded a bit different. Repeating these four chords, Andrews struck up a rhythm which he used as a background to tell his tale of woe to passers-by. Many would give him their spare change out of pity. Eventually, other better musicians caught on to this money-making scheme, leading to the more popular form of blues that we know and tolerate today.

Exercise 2 – Write your own blues lyrics.

Writing your own blues song is easy! The music is already figured out for you. You can strum any old guff as long as it’s in the right four chords and goes for twelve bars. And if you can’t manage that, you can always call yourself experimental. The key part of any blues song is the lyrics. They have got to be sad. Really sad. Like, imagine how upset you were the last time you went to get some ice-cream from the freezer and there was none left. That sad. So to help you along, here’s a handy template for writing your own lyrics. Just fill in the brackets with the word of your choice and you are on your way!

My (________) went and left me. My (________) went and died. My (_________) will soon forget me and I’m (_________) and (____________) inside. I’ve got the (____________) blues. Oh yeah, the (_____________) blues. I got them blues and there ain’t nothin’ I can do.

Whoooaaaaaa mmmhmmmm ooooohhhhhhh doooodooodeee mmmmhhhmmmmm. Ahhhdoooodeedooohmmmmmmm. Scaaaadoooodeeedoooohmmmmm. Ahhh haaahaaahmmmm. Doodeeeduuunndooohmmmmmmm.

* Repeat as many times as you can stand, replacing your lyric with a new one in each verse until you build up an unfathomable cavalcade of depressingness.

Although it is difficult to pinpoint the exact origins of ambient music, many say it was created on the 18^th of July 1983 at 4:03am by Ralph Emerson (No relation to Keith Emerson of Emerson, Lake and Palmer (unless you mean blood relative, in which case yes, they are very much related)). He was tooling around in his studio late at night, trying to create the perfect backing track for a rap about Pablo Escobar,  when he fell asleep at the mixing desk. His neighbours, notorious users of party drugs, were coming home from a rave, heard the noise coming from Emerson’s studio, and had an irresistible urge to break into his apartment and begin chilling. Thus ambient music was born.

The genre had rocky beginnings. Not everyone could see the musical merit in a style that focused on long, drawn-out, repetitive, often bland, repetitive sounds. There are all too many stories of struggling ambient artists of the 1990s taking to the streets and selling their tracks for whatever they could. Daniel Jefferson of The Daniel Jefferson Experience famously sold his first song for a ham sandwich. It was particularly delicious.

Yet today, ambient music is as much a part of our culture as the polka, or hotstepping. Ambient albums have consistently topped the charts for the past decade – most recently with artists  such as DJ Snoozin’ and Winkle Von Nod. It has also spawned the incredibly popular ‘slothing’ dance craze, which has caused an innumerable number of lethargy-related injuries.

Exercise 1: Make your own Chillout Den

Décor is as much a part of ambient music as the music. Actually, that’s a lie. You could listen to the music anywhere, really. I guess it complements it, but it’s hardly essential.

Step One: Beanbags

Get some beanbags and throw them in a room. None of your fancy beanbags that look like chairs or beanbag ottomans. You want the cheapest, scummiest beanbags you can find. If you can’t find any bean bags, get a hessian sack and fill it with regular beans. That way, you also have something to serve to your guests.

Step Two: Lighting

You don’t want too much of this or people will start partying. But you don’t want too little or people will start ‘partying’. It’s trial and error.

Step Three: Floaty Stuff

This is up to interpretation. You just want something that will give your den a relaxing atmosphere. Some use tulle by hanging it from the roof and getting a fan to blow it around a bit. Others prefer to use a bubble machine. Personally, I’m a fan of mountains of Styrofoam peanuts. Not for a chillout den. Just generally.

And there you have it! Your own Chillout Den. Now you are ready to enjoy you some ambient!