It sounded so much like all other rock I knew, I never considered the fact that The Velvet Underground was the influence for these “alternative” bands and not vice versa.
I'll admit that I thought they sounded “retro” but I had just thought that was part of their style. It was only at this point, when my brother said something like, “ Oh, The VU – the guys who used to run around with Andy Warhol? ” did I realize that they were not a contemporary band. Robbie gave me the burned-CD copy of the album that his sister had given him and I must have listened to it forty times before I decided to show my older brother that Christmas. “I'm Waiting For The Man”, for me, represents looking for trouble but not being old or “cool” enough to find it. Age fourteen or fifteen was about the time I started listening to The Velvets, and it was also about the same time my friends and I had our first experiences trying to buy weed or waiting on someone's older brother to buy us alcohol. And although I didn't (and hopefully never will) have any idea what it's like to head “uptown” in search of heroin, the concept of waiting on a drug dealer - “The Man” - was not entirely alien to me. The Strokes, Nirvana, The White Stripes, Weezer, everything I had come to associate with “indie” rock music seemed to have an influence on these songs. In fact, it sounded like everything I had heard before. I remember listening to The Velvet Underground & Nico there in his room and although it was entirely new to me, it sounded like something I had heard before. Hell, I have difficulty remembering what it was like before Facebook.Īt some point in 2005 I was sitting in my friend Robbie's dorm room discussing whatever fourteen year old boys usually talk about, when he introduced me to what would eventually become my favorite band. I also belong to one of the first generations to have difficulty remembering a time before the internet. Not unlike many young men, I've always considered myself a rebel. These two driving forces, the anti-authority/DIY attitude and technology, are very significant with regards to my own life as well. Just as technologies like the sampler allowed new forms of music and music production to emerge in the landscape of American culture, technologies like the internet and auto-tune have drastically changed the way we make and distribute music. There are countless causes for this change, but the two agents I wish to focus most on are: an anti-authority/do-it-yourself attitude and also technology. To generalize, this shift has essentially been away from major record labels and their traditional practices.
The simplest way to explain it is as a growing change in how people make music. In terms of shedding light on an aspect of American culture, what I wish to analyze in this project is a trend in American music that has been developing since at least the sixties. It was also the location where I began to consume music passionately and perhaps also obsessively, a practice I continue to this day. It was at this school that I began to form many of the opinions and beliefs that make me who I am today. Although I was initially hesitant, going to Stevenson was more or less the most fun I've ever had (aside from UT). Like most young teenagers, my transition into high school was a jarring experience, exacerbated by the fact that my parents had elected to send me to a boarding school over a thousand miles away called Stevenson School. Before I was old enough to discover just how incredible this city is, my family moved to a North Texas town called Amarillo where I attended elementary and middle school. My name is Conway Stiles and I was born in Austin, Texas in November of 1990. I suppose when dealing with a personal project such as this one it is beneficial to begin by introducing myself.
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