#ninno

MCA’s Get Music Indie-Go is lame. If you think it’s cool, you’re objectively wrong. And you’re lame. You’re more basic than the new Harry Styles record. 

The line-up (save for NINNO because I love that guy) looks like it was assembled by some corny dad who’s trying to win over the affection of his high school daughter whose knowledge of “indie music” begins and ends with Arctic Monkeys’ AM. They really just took some of the most bland and commercial-ready local artists and lumped them together in one gig. The final nail in the coffin is guest band An Honest Mistake, a generic pop punk band from Malaysia (signed to Warner, mind you) that belongs more in PULP’s Bazooka Rocks than anywhere else. 

Despite that, I do think that GetMusic Indie-Go, as stupid as the event’s name is, can do a bit of good to local music. Aside from the fact that they are giving some “college acts” (a term they love using that makes this whole thing sound even more ham-fisted) the opportunity to get exposed to a huge audience, this event may become a gateway for many to more interesting music. The cheapest ticket you’ll get is P1000, and that’s already a huge difference from the standard P150-P300 + one free beer at bar gigs. And by doing that, I think MCA already knew that if you’ve angrily commented on MCA’s Facebook about the ridiculousness of the price, then you’re not their target audience. If you regularly go to bars to watch gigs, you’re not what they’re looking for. The audience that they’re trying to get are the people that are young, dumb, and sheltered enough to think that this is worth it. Honestly, that’s not entirely a bad thing. Because if these young, dumb, and sheltered kids can’t be bothered to go to Saguijo to watch real indie, at least they’ll get a lengthy swig of it here. And although one of the most problematic parts of this event is that they use “indie” to describe something that contradicts the literal meaning of its root word, they are at least spreading the term. They’re planting it into the minds of the people who are clueless about it. By doing that, MCA makes people curious, makes them want to learn about it more. This is like how getting into Blink-182 can get you into The Clash, how Slipknot can get you into Morbid Angel, and how Kanye West’s Yeezus got a lot of hipsters in training to check out Death Grips.