Death-Media: on Indie Rock vs. Jam Bands

While on my own I've debated the merits of indie rock vs jam bands, the blog Death-Media has also commented on this topic drawn from Todd P. Roosevelt Island concerts and Animal Collective concerts. Summer is a time of the rare road trip for us New Yorkers. We embrace the chance to load up a car and move at speeds much faster than a subway train into the great greenery and explore rural geographies while shuffling through road trip mixes to help unwind.

Yet, at such times of real release, not the instantaneous sonic and/or olfactory vacation required when jamming into a packed summer subway, it is not the indie music or valued Brooklyn bands that I turn to but classic Grateful Dead, Little Feat, Phish or Tom Petty, classic rock, Wilco, Califone, older Modest Mouse, and the darlings Band of Horses and Fleet Foxes (either def. not from Brooklyn) or anything else that reminds me of the American musical landscape. You can't get into this stuff in 2 minute listens or listen to the last 17 minutes of a Dark Star jam without that first 10 minutes. Perhaps it is just that point why the Brooklyn scene (if it can be classified as a scene, ie hipsterdom, ie indie music - all of which have their merits but combined yield highly image-conscious snootyness towards the jam band scene, of which has also transformed in the years after the Grateful Dead and/or Phish's hiatus's) is more orchestrated into short songs. City dwellers need quick immediate releases from daily inconviences while the rest of the country is capable of absorbing sounds, not from earbuds or designer headphones, from their car stereo over their more relaxing and spacious commute.