Music For Misfits: The Story Of Indie
10pm, BBC Four
For anyone who ever spent nights between the late 1970s and early 1990s sitting hunched by a bedroom radio for hours with a cramped finger held poised over the pause button of a tape deck, obsessively trying to capture elusive gems from John Peel’s show (or for younger retronauts who, more recently, hunted around for a few seconds, downloaded those old tracks at a click, then forgot to listen to them again), there is much to treasure in BBC Four’s new three-part history of Britain’s post-punk independent music scene.
At the same time, though, for anyone who has spent the past decade sitting in watching these BBC Four music documentaries, because the thought of actually going out on a Friday night has become terrifying, there will be a lot that is very familiar about the opening episode.
Presented by Mark Radcliffe, the series sets out to trace how the UK’s independent scene evolved from scattered beginnings as an inky-fingered cottage culture of disparate souls doing unlikely DIY records in places that weren’t London, into a network of survivors that could compete with the major labels. It also reveals how, across the same period, the meaning of “independent” changed, or shrunk, morphing from a description of the means of production, distribution and attendant attitude, into a generic term.
In 1980, “independent music” took in everything from the Buzzocks’ buzzsaw pop to The Specials’ jabbing ska and the sound of Throbbing Gristle rubbing a toaster on an alienated hedgehog in a nuclear cooling tower while thinking about William Burroughs in bondage gear, or whatever they were doing. By 1986, “indie” largely meant jangling guitars played by (mostly) white (mostly) men who looked like they bought all their clothes from either (A) a Velvet Underground party shop or (B) the Woolworths kids’ section.
Part One, spanning roughly 1977-1981, gives proper due to the Buzzcocks’ 1977 Spinal Scratch EP as the anti-industry’s big bang. Interviews with people who made it (Pete Shelley) and bought it (Joy Division/New Order’s Stephen Morris) capture how, before the Manchester group had the revolutionary idea to just do it, the very notion of making a record seemed beyond reach to anyone not in the business, wrapped in mysterious layers of magic.
From this inspiration sprung fabled upstart labels like Manchester’s Factory, Liverpool’s Zoo, Coventry’s 2 Tone and Glasgow’s Postcard, and Radcliffe spends a crammed hour jumping from one to another, which is where it begins to break down. The ground covered is vital, but most has been given far better treatment in fine BBC Four documentaries devoted to Factory and Rough Trade, and series like Punk Britannia and Synth Britannia. As it is, in this telling, the slightly less familiar stories, on Zoo and Postcard, feel rushed and disjointed – although Zoo/KLF mastermind Bill Drummond has a fun, speeding selfie-segment, explaining the nuts and bolts of 1980-era independent distribution.
Still, hurried and flawed as it is, it’s an ambitious attempt at corralling an awkwardly shaped story into a coherent narrative. Independent thinkers should stay tuned afterwards for this year’s John Peel Lecture (11pm, BBC Four). The annual event has produced memorable talks before – Iggy Pop and Charlotte Church spring to mind – but this year’s is particularly keenly anticipated, delivered as it is by the incomparable Brian Eno. Rounding off the night, it’s all back to Manchester yet again for a repeat of filmmaker Grant Gee’s excellent Joy Division documentary (midnight).
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