^{Slanted and Enchanted: the Evolution of Indie Culture
Kaya Oakes
Henry Holt
235 p., $14.00
June 9, 2009}

In Kaya Oakes’s new book, Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture, she seeks to answer the same question she regularly poses to UC Berkeley undergrads in her course on the history and future of independent music: What is Indie? She should know. While not presented as memoir, Oakes’ focus and interviews nonetheless hew closely to her personal history as laid out in the preface and the meat of the text is a nostalgic wandering through the indie landscape of the past few decades.

Oakes grew up in the East Bay, so she spotlights Berkeley punk from the early 80’s. She spent a year at Evergreen State, so the city of Olympia’s contemporaneous national export of the Riot Grrrl movement takes center stage. She published ‘zines in her teens and a full-fledged magazine, Kitchen Sink, later on and so the freedom of the former and the scrappy under-doggedness of the latter are heavily romanticized. All of which is fine.

The book is informative and fun. A quick read without being insubstantial. Oakes’ status as a participant-observer add insight to all of the scene-setting and scene-hopping without making them inaccessible. The people and movements that she encounters encompass a wide variety of disciplines and genres. Placed together in the context of the book they represent a wide-ranging and loosely knit community of like-minded individuals bushwhacking their parallel trails.

Oakes offers a compelling answer to her initial question. According to Oakes, ‘indie’ boils down to method rather than content; means more than ends. This is a refreshing insight on a subject often reduced to pure aesthetic and posture. Instead of the oft-referenced signifiers of skinny jeans and shaggy hair,  Do-It-Yourself, or DIY,  is the watchword of Slanted. Self-recording, self-promoting, self-van-driving bands are Indie. Self-publishing writers are Indie, better still if they personally physically bind their own books. Comics without super-heroes are Indie. Crafting is Indie. ‘Zines are definitely Indie.