They withered.

Pendulum are a drum and bass outfit, nothing to do with indie.

I just wrote something positive about a new band (Lightspeed Champion) and you've only got to check my post history to see that is very rare for me ha ha!

I thought that about Pendulum! I mean I know I'm a grumpy old git but I do keep a look out for contemporary music, go to gigs, know musicians etc but still where the hell do these bands spring from?!!!? I'm guessing that they are products of this Myspace, Facebook thing - have they ever gigged?

Indie now seems to be a term given to commercially succesful bands on major labels - a complete contradiction in terms if you ask me! Back in my youth as a struggling punk rockin' musician - it was doing your own promotion, arranging gigs, releasing records on your own, doing fanzines - that to me was what was independent - the old concept - you know 3 chords now form a band - you don't like the NME then do your own fanzine.

Julian Cope is pretty independent but Scouting For Girls most certainly aren't!

P.S. be very careful - they might get the "Professor of Indie" back on the Podcast to discuss your blog...!!

http://www.concreteandglass.co.uk/

Although I expect Nathan Barley will...

To me, Scouting For Girls are not indie. They're just rubbish.

Haven't there been innumerable examples of acts who proved that it's perfectly possible to both indie and rubbish?

I think indie music's largely ignorable these days, but then I also hated it back in its "heyday", the late 80's, one of popular music's most barren eras. The indie professor podcast hit the nail on the head by comparing the indie ethos to puritanism, with all the joylessness and smugness that implies. There are only so many permutations for ways of combining four white boys, two guitars, a bass, a drumkit, and an audience who can't dance. I think they were more or less used up by the time the Smiths split up.

I have friends who used to like it, but left this crap British indie behind and have started listening to the American stuff. They've gotten bored of the endless slew of dull, uncreative British music (I'll put out a mea culpa as I was never into earlier bands like The Libertines/Arctic Monkeys either!)

I too have been impressed by the American indie groups like MGMT, Yeasayer, The Decemberists and Fleet Foxes, who cannot be dismissed with the standard 'boys with guitars' sentence which- let's face it- certainly applies to the vast majority of British indie. They've clearly heard lots of different music and their own work reflects this.

I can't see it changing any time soon. I see now another band, The Script, who came out of nowhere, are at Number 1 for a 2nd week and they can be dumped on the 'landfill' too

During the eighties a lot of pop metal bands were given the pejorative term "hair metal" implying that they spent more time backcombing and hairspraying than writing actual songs (not entirely unjustified when you consider the likes of Cinderella, White Lion and Poison - although Unskinny Bop is rather jaunty).

I find it odd that no one has ever talked about the equivalent in indie. The example that always crops up like a bad case of herpes is Razorlight - a bunch of blokes who clearly spend far too much time thinking about getting their hair exactly right (ie. so that they look like fuckers) and hardly any on writing a distinctive tune. I mean if "America" is a single I dread to think what the album tracks are like

...I'm sure I've seen the term 'Shockwaves Indie' used to describe The Kooks and their ilk!

Saw them last night and you may want to call them indie. They are the best new band I've seen in years. A significant cut above any contemporary guitar band of the moment and then some. Jesus & Mary Chain traps, lunatic giant on skyscrapping guitar, proper soulful numbers and a singer who's just the coolest thing this side of Joe Strummer.

Their influences may be worn on their sleeve but the sheer exuberance of the event makes them vital.

Sorry but I couldn't take them seriously after seeing them on Later, it was just too much of a J&MC rip-off - even had a standing up drummer!

Are they worth delving into more? I really have a problem with bands that are just too obvious with their influence, I'm thinking of Interpol/Editors and Joy Division for example.

who seems to think the fantastically named A Place To Bury Strangers are the GREATEST THING EVER. Which is lovely, as you can imagine. To me, they sound like Joy Division and Jesus & Mary Chain having a lock-in with Kevin Shields and Doktor Avalanche. The fact that my chum is 15, I'm hoping to blow his mind with the real deal.

They're at the other end of the Kooky Pigeon scale, and if olde worlde indie is what you want, try the likes of TV On The Radio for wonky artsiness or head down to How Does It Feel for cardigan caressing bowl action. Mentalness? Late Of the Pier. Cowbelling angst? Friendly Fires. Fleetwood Mac obsessed rock chicks? Ladyhawke. Oh, there's thousands of bands. If you can cope with half an hour reading the NME, there's usually a few things of interest.

are part of this The Fray, Daniel 'Bad Day' Powter, onerepublic worthy post-Coldplay, beanie wearing, Heart FM indie. They'll have at least one hit that will seem to stay in the charts longer than time itself and promptly vanish

I refuse to call any of that rubbish 'indie'. Satchel-wearing, hairslide-sporting indie is still going, just as much as it always was, but the word 'indie' is now simply applied to anybody who can play electric guitar or piano.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to think about Isobel Campbell and Liz Fraser whilst reading through Sarah Records catalogue numbers...

they should all be frogmarched down the Job Centre ASAP.

The dearth of imagination shown by the overwhelming majority of today's indie bands just astounds me.

Possessing a tiny waist, a tight-fitting leather jacket and a daft haircut doesn't mean you've got talent, knucklehead...

“Everyone denies that I am a genius but nobody ever called me one,” I've not actually heard Scouting For Girls seriously described anywhere as being 'indie'.
I do agree they and their ilk are rotten, though.

Are there any new rock bands in recent times that aren't considered indie?

It all sounds so horrendous. I'll just stick with Merseybeat I reckon.

The term `indie' does not mean the same thing to an 18-year-old as it does to a 40-year-old, in exactly the same way as the term `r'n'b' means a completely different thing now to what it represented in the 1950s or so.

The meaning of things has changed - pretty much any band with guitars now who are part of the festival circuit (isn;t everyone?) but don't play metal is described as an `indie' band.

Not my photo - it's far too good for me to ahve taken it

...it's a group called the Beep Seals at a festival on some wasteground in Ancoats, Manchester. The prostrate bassist (and it just makes the picture that little bit more perfect that it's the bassist rather than the guitarist) has now left the band it seems.

The problem is with the term “indie”. For people of a certain age it used to mean music that operated outside the mainstream and was, in theory (though very rarely in practice) more adventurous, imaginative, “cutting edge” etc. than mainstream pop music.
Now it means white boy guitar pop bands. Nothing wrong with that. They’re here today gone tomorrow pop groups that may be capable of mustering up one or two half-decent songs. Kids like them; so do a fair few adults. It’s only a problem if you expect the likes of the Kooks/Fratellis etc. to be the modern day equivalent of Joy Division. They’re not. They‘re the modern day equivalent of The Motors.
There is much more adventurous, interesting music being made today than there ever was in some perceived golden era of indie (most ’80s indie bands were rubbish). Just not by “indie” groups.