Dissertation Website In the Works!

Well, a lot has happened since my last post in November. I wrapped up research in April, with the exception of a few remaining interviews. I began writing and have already submitted my first chapter to my dissertation chair. The second chapter is due in about two weeks. So things are proceeding quickly and on schedule.

In the last few months I've been frustrated by the number of spam messages I have received and been forced to moderate. I have also been considering if a blog is the best option for sharing information about my dissertation. In the end I have decided to move on from this current blog format and create a dissertation website. I hope to have the site up and running before I return to the States in October.

So stay tuned! I will share the site address as a final farewell on this blog in the near future.

Photograph: Bobi Superman Is Dead at Live Earth Run for Water in Bali. Photograph by Rebekah E. Moore

I'm Still Here...

Well that was quite the delay between posts! I've just been working on applications for writing grants again, and thought I might share what I came up with for a project statement. This after a failed attempt to compose a revised proposal that ended up being 100 pages in length!! FYI: it is very difficult to write a dissertation proposal after one has completed half the research, but a very good tactic to refocus on the core objectives of the project. I'm getting there. I want to submit the revised proposal December 1 so that I can hammer out an outline mid-January and start writing in February. That gives me ample time (I think) to wrap things up by June 2011. Anyway, so this is the proposal I submitted to AAUW for their dissertation fellowship competition:

"Indie Music in post-Bomb Bali: Participant Practices, Scene Subjectivities"

During Bali’s last decade of social and economic uncertainty, residents struggled to recover from terrorist bombings, a SARS epidemic, and the global financial crisis. Despite these challenges, a distinctly non-commercial indie music scene is thriving. The indie scene (sken indie), comprised of music producers and fans united by DIY ethic and disdain for the monolithic mainstream of the Indonesian popular music industry, has established a local music market comparable in output and genre diversity to the major indie markets of Java. Commercial recognition and financial success are tangential issues for scene members, however. What, specifically, preoccupies them is key to understanding the scene’s historical growth and staying power.

This dissertation examines indie scene participant practices including rehearsals, performances, recording sessions, album production and promotion, tours, and ritual “hanging out” (nongkrong) as the conduits by which core ideals of social and musical difference are created and shared. Through a theoretical framework derived from sociological phenomenology, I demonstrate that habitual, music-related activities, as social interaction, establish subjectivities that, as they come to be mutually valued, are directly implicated in the process of strengthening social alliances.

Research Method and Theoretical Framework

This research engages ethnographic methods for a two-part analysis beginning with the collection of qualitative data. Data collection involves twenty months participant observation in all focus activities, formal interview, feedback interview—the review, together with scene participants, of video, audio, and photographic documentation of scene activities (Stone and Stone 1981)—and examination of promotional materials including posters, stickers, t-shirts, and web-based promotions media.

In order to interpret my ethnographic record, I employ theories on the social constitution of experience drawn from sociological phenomenology (Schutz 1964[1951] and Berger and Luckmann 1966) and Blumer’s seminal work on symbolic interactionism (1993 [1969]). A combination of these theories treats individuals as pragmatic actors who deal with the things they encounter in daily life through communication with fellow actors. Scene activities are analyzed as examples of joint action to which scene participants assign meaning and from which they elucidate thematic preoccupations. Individuals, thus, actively interpret their social worlds rather than passively conform to overarching social structures. This theoretical framework opposes a structuralist or functionalist analysis which would treat the indie scene values examined here as “constructs” governing behavior rather than as dynamic ideals resulting from an ongoing cooperative effort to interpret shared experiences.

Research Scope

This project focuses on primary facilitators for scene sustainability, including musicians, band managers, sponsors, music journalists, publicists, recording producers, sound engineers, roadies, and venue owners, as well as informal support teams comprised of band members’ families, fans, and friends. Together, scene members engage in a number of frequent practices that determine overall scene dynamics and values.

Scene Practices

Band rehearsals take place in home-based studios owned by scene participants or at formal rehearsal studios available for rent. During rehearsals, bands meet to prepare for a concert or recording session and discuss upcoming events and general logistics, such as scheduling issues and budget. Performance opportunities range from large-scale music festivals to university events, special community outdoor gatherings like a motorcycle rally or neighborhood bazaar, paid performances for large music venues such as Hard Rock Café, unpaid gigs at smaller clubs owned by scene members, store openings at shopping centers, political rallies and fundraisers, and special events at favorite indie hangouts, including family compounds and independently owned cassette/CD distribution outlets (distro).
Song recording and album production preoccupy a band and a production house’s staff for months. Indie bands release their albums independently; they raise the financial capital to record, mix, and master audio tracks, as well as produce, print, and distribute their albums without a contract with a Jakarta-based national or international major label. Promotional activities for a new album can include local performances and nationwide tours, design and distribution of band merchandise, print and broadcast media interviews, and a range of self-promotion activities on the Internet. Tours most frequently bring senior bands to Jakarta and Java’s major cities, including Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, and Malang. Touring is not only an essential means for indie bands to widen their fan-base and distribute their albums and merchandise, but it is also a strategy for strengthening bonds with indie scene participants in other parts of Indonesia. Thus, tours help to develop a national network of indie music producers and fans.

A final indie scene activity intersecting all others is nongkrong, hanging out. Together at cafes, music stores, the beach, friends’ houses, or studios, scene members smoke, joke, strum guitars, and talk about music. Nongkrong may be the activity least focused on music production, but it is critically important for deep, mutual reflection about scene ideals.

Scene Subjectivities

Ethnomusicologists frequently argue that music performance can strengthen social bonds by communicating shared values based on factors like, nationality, religion, race, gender, and class. This project suggests people also form social alliances based on their shared understandings of music-related practices. The indie scene is characterized by demographic heterogeneity; it includes the relatively affluent and poor, the university educated and high school dropouts, Javanese and Balinese, Hindus, Muslims, Christians and Agnostics. Women, who are largely excluded from active participation in many types of music making in Indonesia, are performers in the indie scene as well, and are even more frequently afforded crucial supportive roles as managers, publicists, and members of support teams. Principally, notions about music, rather than ethnicity, religion, or some other aspect of members’ social backgrounds, establish social connections in the indie scene.
Based on research to date, I have identified five shared—although flexible and frequently debated—scene subjectivities that are emergent within scene members’ habitual, music-related practices. Work ethic (etika kerja), artistic integrity (kejujuran artistik), genre (aliran), creativity (kreativitas), and talent (bakat) are collective values and, collectively, a primary means of identifying and sustaining the scene.

Work ethic is the most prominent preoccupation for scene members. While different artists have different professional goals, all indie musicians value a code of artistic independence they call the DIY (do-it-yourself) ethic. Musicians and their often-unpaid managers, publicists, and roadies must work hard to pursue their artistic and professional visions, and hard work becomes a primary value in the scene. The designation “indie” is a badge of honor for many artists, an indicator that powerful entertainment conglomerates do not influence one’s artistic vision. Being indie, thus, is a matter of artistic integrity, and this directly impacts aesthetic parameters. Scene members establish genre ideologies, aesthetic criteria by which they determine whether or not an artist’s music is considered indie. Certain genres, generally falling under the umbrella term pop, are considered mainstream, diluted, or commercial; these genres are not indie. Diverse genres, including blues, grunge, hard rock, death metal, grindcore, punk, hardcore, rockabilly, psychobilly, and electronica coexist within the indie scene because they are acceptably antithetical to mainstream music.

While scene members expect artists to meet certain expectations based on genre standards, they also tend to value musical creativity over strict adherence to a particular style. Artists should create something new or different—an alternative to the mediocrity of carbon-copy pop hits they identify with the national recording industry. Finally, indie participants take pride in the quality of indie performances. They have developed specific vocabulary for commenting upon the skill level of vocalists, guitarists, drummers, and other players. It is not sufficient, however, for someone to be a “good” vocalist; one is judged based on the genre(s) with which one identifies, so that one must be a good vocalist within the parameters of one’s chosen genre.

These various preoccupations are implicated in processes of differentiation; subjectivities are a means for scene members to determine who belongs. Who the “Other” is for indie participants varies: it may at once be an artist whose pedestrian pop ballad becomes a number-one hit on the radio, a club owner who only hires top-40 cover bands or foreign DJs, or even members of a “former” indie band who compromised their artistic integrity in order to secure a major label contract. Scene membership is a matter of choice, and continued “enrollment” is contingent upon individuals’ engagements with key subjectivities. The subjectivities are not fixed scaffolding on which individuals hang their own interpretations. Rather, they are emergent within individuals’ interactions with one another.

This project is critical for illustrating the importance of musical practice as a strategy for communal bond forging. Through a phenomenological lens, I observe that interaction between individuals through habitual activities, rather than predefined social frameworks or codes of behavior, generates social meaning. The practices that give rise to these meanings are directly responsible for a scenic atmosphere of camaraderie and social closeness locally, and for a deeply felt allegiance to likeminded indie scene participants elsewhere in Indonesia.

Photograph: Wah Agus, lead vocalist for Orgasmatron during a guest spot at Kuta Carnival. Photograph by Rebekah E. Moore

A Short Film

As I mentioned in previous posts, a few weeks ago I took part in a Pecha Kucha night for Sanur Village Festival here in Bali. My presentation broke all the formatting rules, save the time limit (each presenter is supposed to create 20 slides or images, each 20 seconds in duration, for a total presentation length of 6 minutes), but luckily the merciful organizers allowed me to proceed with a viewing of a short film about my ethnographic research. In it I introduced the basic focuses of the project and the main bands with whom I am working. Essentially, the film highlighted the business of making indie music in Bali--it introduced scene participants and their goals, scene challenges, and possible new directions.

I always enjoy fiddling with photographs, audio, and video so much more than sitting down to write anything meaningful (that dissertation is going to be a bitch); and so instead of submitting a new dissertation proposal as I promised my dissertation chair I would this month, I have spent the last week or so playing around with my Pecha Kucha film--editing clips, adding photos, highlighting more bands--in an effort to make something that would serve a promotional function for the focus bands, as well as provide a simple introduction to my project. My plan, as soon as I have finished the Indonesian language version, is to get the thing up on Facebook, tagging performers, producers, and consultants featured.

Facebook is the number one, most popular forum for band promotion in the indie scene right now. I've actually been networking with scene members for the last year on Facebook, and I have won major brownie points for posting performance footage and photographs there. Now, I recognize potential problems with this. Most importantly, I can't highlight each and every indie band equally, nor can I include every single indie band in Bali in this 7-minute film. And I can imagine the finger-wagging State-side by a few colleagues who insist on a more "diplomatic" approach to research relations, one in which the ethnographer avoids direct impact on the lives of the people with whom she works. But I've never really agreed with that, nor have I ever thought that was possible.

So...a research progress report, this is not. It's a total indulgence...But what the hell. I've never been keen on neutrality.

Enjoy!

Video: Indie Music in Bali: A Status Report

Photograph of Scared of Bums at Twice Bar, Kuta. Photograph by Rebekah E. Moore

Response to Comments for "More Good News"

Professor Andrew McGraw posted a great comment to my latest post. Rather than responding directly to the comment, I thought I'd create a new entry. That way it's a bit easier to access for followers and passersby. I include his comment below:

"It would seem a good idea to try to account for folks like Balawan and attempt, if only tangentially, to discuss those artists that bridge the band and gamelan worlds. (since, apparently, Western researchers have thus far been unable to, including Baulch). this would seem all the more important considering contemporary listening habits; most Balinese young people I know listen to both gamelan and superman is dead. If sometimes the former only passively. but this is a really interesting blog. thanks!"

So to Professor McGraw: Thanks so much for your response. Important suggestions. Jeremy Wallach also brought this up in his recent review of Baulch’s book (Journal of Anthropological Research vol. 65). I’ll do my best to respond now, but with the disclaimer that I’ll most certainly be better prepared to address your points after several more months of research.

Your comments suggest to me two potential, fascinating lines of inquiry. The first would examine indie artists experimenting with a combination of Balinese musical worlds, that of Balinese gamelan and Balinese popular music. The majority of the artists with whom I work do not play gamelan. And incorporating a gamelan orchestra into performance or recording is time consuming, compositionally challenging, and frequently prohibitively expensive. So this impacts the frequency of encountering hybrid experiments. But there are several indie artists who have experimented with combining some elements of gamelan with their own stylistic endeavors. For example, Superman Is Dead features the suling (flute) on their latest album Angels and the Outsiders. Navicula featured gamelan on Alkemis, their one and only album released with Sony-BMG. Lolot experimented with kecak (I would note that in all these cases, these bands feature majority Hindu Balinese personnel. And in two of the three cases the bands were signed with a major record label. So religious background and market demands certainly influence cross-genre experimentation).

I asked a few performers what is their motivation for experimenting with gamelan. Most responses suggest that artists naturally take advantage of the musical material available to them. In other words, it is just as natural for them to be influenced by the music they hear at a temple ceremony in their home villages as by the globally circulating popular musics they encounter on the television, radio, or internet. Robi, the lead singer of Navicula, says that artists who have been playing for years together will inevitably experiment with gamelan as their careers progress. So including Balinese traditional music is like an indicator of artistic maturity. Other artists say a hybrid project is a deliberate strategy to increase marketability outside of Indonesia. These artists are well aware that they’re only real shot at making it into a record store outside of Indonesia is to play up their regional distinction…that is, cater to market demands and international genre classifications such as “world,” or “ethnic” that would place an Indonesian band like Superman Is Dead on the world music shelf, rather than in the rock section. It is no coincidence that Superman Is Dead’s promotional materials for the recent U.S. tour featured photographs of the band mates wearing pakaian adat (customary clothing for Balinese Hindu worship) rather than their typical punk performance regalia. They (or their managers, or their sponsors) anticipated a more positive reception in the States for a Balinese punk band that looked Balinese.

The second focus I draw from your comments would examine reception of both “traditional” and “popular” music performance in terms of the ways in which listening habits bridge these two distinct musical worlds. Until now, I have focused on artists, producers, managers, studio owners, sound engineers, band support teams, and media folks as key scene agents. Unfortunately I have only examined audience habits through observation at performance rather than through interview. But I realize the crucial part fans play in community sustainability, and with the next year of research I hope to examine their agency more carefully. I can cursorily suggest some trends in terms of reception.

First I’d just like to clarify who the listeners are. By “most Balinese young people” I think you mean “most Hindu Balinese young people”. The current study is focused in the demographically diverse urban environment of Denpasar. Here, Hindu Balinese still comprise a majority of the population (as much as 85%, according to a 2005 census). But statistics aside, locally circulating discourse suggests a strong Muslim presence in the provincial capital. This is a unique environment for the production and consumption of music. I raise this point because artistic projects and listening habits vary widely in Bali, due in part to the religious background of participants—the average young Muslim or non-practicing Hindu living in Denpasar does not listen to gamelan and the average Muslim popular music artist is more likely influenced by popular musics from Bali and Java than by Balinese gamelan—and in part by residence—the musicscape of the kota (city) is very different from the kampung (village) (for example, most of the bands I research rarely perform outside of the Badung district in Bali; so a young person living in Tabanan could only experience this band’s music through audio recording or video clip).

As I wrote in “Some Characteristics of the Indie Scene,” my focus community is much more ethnically and religiously diverse even than the profile of the demographics for this region. Indie scene participants are bercampur…there are practicing and non-practicing Hindus as well as Muslims, Christians, and atheists. Javanese, Balinese, Medanese, and even expats consider themselves part of this indie community. The ethnic and religious diversity leads to a diversity of artistic agendas and listening habits. Further, with the exception of the bands Superman is Dead and Navicula, indie bands have had difficulties securing a strong fan base of Hindu Balinese young people living outside of the Badung province. That fan base tends to demonstrate loyalty for a) pop Bali bands such as Nanoe Biroe, Bintang, and XXX or b) well-known bands from overseas. So my project focus actually doesn’t include the “average” Balinese young person, if by that I mean a demographic majority—most Balinese are Hindu and don’t live in Denpasar. The indie scene is kind of an alternative community in this way, too.

Now, about Balawan: Balawan’s projects “Batuan Etnik Fusion” and “Bali Guitar Club” experiment with combining Balinese gamelan and “modern music,” as he phrases it. His projects are classified as pop Bali or lagu pop Bali rather than “indie” or “alternatif” music, according to my informants and genre classifications for local music charts (in Bali Music Magazine, Radar Bali, etc.). Balawan self-identifies as a “jazz ethnic musician.” While several of my focus artists indicate their immense respect for Balawan as an innovative composer and phenomenal guitarist, they distinguish their own projects and target audiences from those of artists performing subgenres of the pop Bali category. I address this a bit in the posts “Some Characteristics of the Indie Scene” and “Remodeling,” but I’ll try to go in more depth here:

For the most part, indie artists do not identify with lagu pop Bali musicians, Hindu Balinese artists who more frequently experiment with ways of “gesturing locally” (Baulch 2007)—such as by including the instruments or compositional elements of gamelan in performance, nostalgic images of Hindu Balinese life in video clips, or lyrics in the Balinese language—than is characteristic of the indie scene. According to research consultant and local indie music heavyweight Rudolf Dethu, Balinese popular music can be divided into two camps: the Balinesia camp, as he calls it, or musicians singing in English or Indonesian who generally form artistic and fan alliances across Bali and Java rather than only locally, and the Bali-Bali camp, or pop Bali artists, exclusively Hindu Balinese. Indie musicians would fall into the Balinesia camp. Thus, genre identification becomes a key means for all of these artists to define the boundaries of their socio-musical communities. Balawan, as a Bali-Bali artist, would not be considered an “indie” or “alternatif” artist by scene participants.

Further, the DIY ethic is an important value within the indie scene, and Balawan has signed with Sony-BMG. Thus, he is further distanced from this community. In fact, quite a number of artists and fans have suggested Superman Is Dead is no longer an indie band because they, too, are currently signed with this major label. But while he may not be a member of the indie scene, Balawan and similar artists are already a part of my project in that they constitute an Other for the indie music community on which I primarily focus.

Professor McGraw, thanks for reading and contributing. You have inspired me to think more critically about my project scope and key research themes, particularly those of genre and reception.

Photograph of Chalie and Deddy Said of The Wheels during their last performance at Twice Bar, Kuta. Photograph by Rebekah E. Moore

More Good News...

Media Support

This is a continuation of my previous post on scene challenges. Here I'd like to address formal means of promotion. Band promotion tends to proceed smoothly and cheaply. Media support for indie music is generally good. Locally and nationally-broadcast radio stations such as Oz Radio include an indie hour featuring local musicians, and musicians frequently secure slots for on-air interviews or live performances (particularly during a nationwide tour or following an album release). National magazines like Trax, Hai, and Rolling Stone Indonesia, as well as locally distributed magazines like Bali Music Magazine, independent zines in Jakarta and online (see IndieGO!), as well as the phenomenal Musikator site (which includes detailed profiles of local and national bands, songs for download, a social networking feature, and events calendar) feature articles, editorials, and reviews of bands, tours, and concerts. While in the past television was a somewhat important medium for building a fan-base through the broadcast of band video clips (and while today local stations continue to feature local music videos), the internet—and particularly the social-networking sites Facebook and MySpace—is, by far, the most popular and successful medium for DIY album and concert promotion, as well as for sharing audio files, video clips, and other audio/visual documentary materials.

And then there is the Ring-back Tone

A few bands are able to secure contracts with telecommunications companies for the creation of ring-back tones as a profitable means of promotion. A ring-back tone is a customized ring purchased by individual hand phone users that callers hear when they dial the user’s number. Users dial a special code, depending on their cellular service provider, which they find in the liner notes of purchased albums or, more recently, on bands’ official websites or social networking pages. A band can create a ring-back tone for each song on their album, or a small selection of singles. Many bands think of the ring-back tone as more of a necessary evil than a positive medium for promoting a single; but at a charge of IDR 5,000-9,000 per song purchased by the SIM card owner, profits from ring-back tone sales can substantially supplement a band’s income (See interview with the Indonesian singr Oppie in the last issue of Insight Bali for more her comments on the ring-back tone).

Photograph of Nymphea at the Merah Putih Motorcycle Rally and Sunset Road 2009 Concert Series, Kuta. Photograph by Rebekah E. Moore

Indie Scene Challenges

I've had some time to recover, but also think more deeply, about the remarks of Mr. Europa after Pecha Kucha night (see the previous post), and I've realized I shouldn't disregard everything he had to say. One important and useful point I think he was trying to make is that my passion for these artists might make it difficult for me to identify the dark underbelly of the scene. It is good to be reminded that I, too, must think critically about scene discourses. These artists are my friends, but they are also my research consultants. And we are mutually obligated to examine carefully the indie scene characteristics we take for granted.

Mr. Europa is also right, that not every artist is committed to artistic innovation, community sustainability, or even hard work. But I would still argue that most of the bands with whom I work are. Maybe that has something to do with why we found each other in the first place--shared values. But in fact, creativity, community, and work ethic are recurring topics of conversation. Indie artists, producers, and fans frequently contrast their own values in terms of these three categories with those of other spheres of music making in Indonesia, particularly the sphere of what they call pop or mainstream music.

I'll have much more to say about local discourses and values throughout the next year of research, but here I'd like to address some of the scene challenges I may have failed to explicitly outline previously (maybe in part because I was trying to validate this scene as a worthy and fascinating new topic for my dissertation research). Several of these points made it into the Pecha Kucha presentation that unleased the wrath of Mr. Europa. But maybe I didn't emphasize enough that these challenges create an environment characteristically unstable--the Balinese indie scene always appears (from the outside and from within) to be on the verge of complete collapse, whether due to a band's breakup, participant gossip, poor album sales, a lost gig, or other factors.

Finding Gigs

Musicians working in the tourism sector in Bali include gamelan performers, top-40s bands, and nightclub DJs. Indie musicians are almost completely excluded from the tourism industry and, thus, the financial security of working within one of the most profitable sectors within the local economy. Indie musicians, venue owners, and event organizers site a number of similar reasons for indie music's exclusion. For example, some are concerned tourists will not be interested in hearing unfamiliar, local popular music, particularly the harder genres and songs performed in the Indonesian language. Venue owners also prefer to hire bands whose music is most likely to move the most drinks (in other words, whose music will create a "fun," "party-like" atmosphere that will encourage patrons to increase their bar tab throughout the night). For this, venue owners typically turn to what they describe as the "party" music; reggae bands that evoke a carefree, island lifestyle or top-40s bands spinning out the latest hits to which audience members can sing along. The typical bar or club in Sanur, Kuta, Tuban, Legian, or Seminyak, the Balinese neighborhoods most frequently trafficked by tourists, is designed to generate sufficient revenue from food and beverage sales. And the average bar or club owner is not yet convinced the indie musician will help facilitate that.

For indie musicians, opportunities to perform are scarce, and of these, even fewer are paid. Musicians playing harder genres, such as thrash metal and grindcore (but even grunge), face particular difficulty securing permission to play local venues. Once a space is secured, artists then must contend with the limitations of local venues. Some bars, like the longstanding Twice Bar or Peanuts in Kuta, are too small for the audience capacity of many well-known indie artists; other venues, including the corporate giant Hard Rock Café feature sub par sound systems or (in other cases) inattentive sound engineers.

Production and Distribution

Distribution places a huge financial burden on artists and their support teams, and album sales are quite low, especially with the ever-rising problem of CD piracy. Album production can also be incredibly expensive, in Bali or in Jakarta. While ideally these bands pool resources from previous album and merchandise sales, live performance, and tours to pay for production, most bands come up short. Some artists overcome this challenge by securing a sponsor or music producer who agrees to foot the bill for production in exchange for a percentage of gross profits later. Others (as a result of previous demonstrated success or the personal musical tastes of local music industry heavy-weights) are able to sign a contract with a local PH (production house) to produce an album without pay.

Tours

Touring both island-wide and nationally (usually to Jakarta or other major cities in Java) becomes an essential means for Balinese bands to widen their fan-base and distribute their albums and merchandise. But this, too, is prohibitively expensive for many bands. There are two primary ways to secure the financial capital for a tour: a) find a sponsor or b) secure paid gigs locally to defray the cost of future tours. Income earned from performance during tours is almost never sufficient to cover promotions, travel and per diem expenses. In any case, even the most well-known artists will necessarily live meagerly on the road; they will overnight at friend’s houses and only in the rarest of cases at cheap hotels. They will eat at street-side stands and generally drink beer or hard alcohol only when it is offered for free by the performance venue or fans. They will frequently travel exceptional distances by ferry, rented van, public bus, or train to save money on airfare.

Day Jobs, Personnel, and Fanbase

While the majority of indie musicians maintain paid jobs of various types—such as playing for a top-40s band, working at a local recording studio, bartending or owning a local bar or café, freelancing in graphic design, or developing a career in a totally unrelated field—a small number of artists are attempting to work full-time as indie musicians or producers. Given that so little money can be made within this market, full-time musicians and producers place quite the financial burden on the their families. Further, album production and live performance, as time-consuming activities, lead some artists to neglect their familial duties, which in turn leads to marital problems and, in some cases, divorce. Work and family responsibilities also result in a rather fluid personnel line-up for many of these bands—substitute guitarists, bassists, and drummers are a common feature of live performance—which subsequently poses a challenge to the long-term sustainability of bands and their fan-base. And a loyal fan-base continues to be difficult to secure in Bali; in general, loyal fans (or fans fanatik) in Bali generally follow artists recording lagu pop Bali, pop music in the Balinese language. Almost all indie music artists, for a variety of reasons (such as a lack of fluency in Balinese, the hope of expanding their fan base to Indonesia and beyond, or an implicit or explicit desire to disassociate with the language of Hindu Bali), record their songs in Indonesian or English.

Other Bumps in the Road

Finally, there are many unforeseen challenges for indie artists: a tour might be canceled after the ink has already dried on venue contracts because a bassist is unable to leave his day-job for a week in Jakarta. A coveted Dobro purchased by a friend overseas is damaged, and there is no way to secure replacement parts or a new instrument locally. A paid gig is canceled because the venue closes unexpectedly. A band's support team (tim) breaks up as a result of negative gossip, jealousies, miscommunication, or simply waning interest.

The Good News...

Despite the apparently insurmountable challenges of making music on the fringe, the indie music community in Bali continues to survive. In fact, the scene has received a lot of attention from Jakartan musicians, producers, and label owners alike who have visited the island and noted (in magazine and radio interviews, conversations with scene participants and this author) the musical diversity and characterstic cameraderie of this small alternative community. I believe this is due, in large part, to the individual agency of its members. Indie musicians and their managers, publicists, assistants, runners, and roadies work hard and, frequently, without pay to produce albums, contract with venues for live performance, and build a network of loyal fans. They literally build venues, scrape together the financial capital to record and release albums, open sites for distribution or hand deliver their albums and merchandise to local distro (independent CD and merchandise distribution outlets usually owned and operated by former performers and/or current scene participants), and contact radio and television stations and magazines and newspapers for media coverage. Their dedication to meeting the challenges of the Balinese and national music markets demonstrates a high level of commitment to community sustainability and artistic development that cannot be explained simply by an end goal of commercial or financial success (as Mr. Europa suggested).

Photograph of Dadang, lead singer of Dialog Dini Hari and lead guitarist for Navicula, during a studio recording session at Pregina Studio, Sanur, Bali.

“Thoughtlessness is a child’s most basic right.”--Paul Carvel

Ahh, running across this quote helps me to come to terms with my close encounter of the expat kind last night. I took part in a Pecha Kucha night in Sanur. I made a short film about my dissertation research on indie music. Immediately after the presentation I received a slew of name cards from various media folks and fans; and my friend Robi, lead singer of Navicula, was able to move quite a few of the CDs he brought with him (a compilation album from the latest Granat Fest, a huge metal festival here in Bali). So I was feeling not a little bit proud of the reception, when I was approached by a European "blues" guitarist who has been living on the island for more than fifteen years. He wanted to bend my ear about all the things that were wrong with my portrayal of the indie scene.

Intrigued, I caught up with him at the beer break. He proceeded to berate me for displaying such passion (and compassion) for musicians he described as "stupid" and "lazy." He said they were nothing like the Jakarta musicians he gigs with (his favorite is the pop-reggae group Steven and the Coconut Treez), and there wasn't one local musician who wouldn't shed his artistic integrity to make a buck. He said the reason none of them can make a buck is because they know nothing about music or how to make an album.

I was surprised by his candidness, but not by his opinion. I'm quite accustomed to meeting the kind of egotistical and ethnocentric person incapable of critical thinking. It's not just the expats, of course. Thinking outside our very small boxes of personal experience is a challenge for each and every human being. And the best way to succeed? Engaging with other human beings so that we may hear different ideas.

So...instead of blowing him off as a privileged but uneducated colonialist asshole, I proceeded to engage him. I explained that just as he cannot make music without passion, I could never conduct research without my full heart. I admitted that I was completely head-over-heels for these bands, but that my subjectivity would only enrich my ethnography (provided I fess up). I suggested that Indonesians might have different perspectives than his own on "work" the "consumption of music," and "professional success." I asked him many questions, like has he ever worked with any of these artists (nope, none of my informants know him) or does he realize that Jakarta-based artists have different opportunities and access to resources than Balinese artists--in other words, the difference in character and size of the two indie markets is quite large--(that went in one ear and out the other)... The man continued to describe his disdain for local musicians (and, really, Balinese in general) with such vehemence that I finally asked him, "do you like living here?" He said "of course, I love it. I go surfing everyday."

Hmm...The angry child in me must retort. Mr. Europa: these so-called "lazy" artists will outshine you every time. They have talent, intelligence, and class. They work hard and work willingly for free. They play their guitars until their hands are numb and bleeding; hand deliver their CDs to local distros; scrape together enough rupiah to take a 24-hour bus trip to a gig; go days without sleep working on their albums in the studio; juggle their musical careers, day jobs, family and religious obligations; and even make time to answer the many questions posed by this bumbling ethnomusicologist. You know nothing about the indie scene here, sir. And you don't know much about music or humanity either. But I cannot blame you or hate you. You are simply a thoughtless child.

Photograph: Made Muliana Bayak, lead guitarist for Geekssmile, during his Pecha Kucha presentation combining live music with photographs of a selection of his visual artworks.