Just Gimme Indo-Rock!
by Molly Lambert
The information highway’s jammed with broken blog links on a last chance power drive. We remain extremely thankful that you read This Recording. We do it for you, and we do it for free, and we do it for the children like Wu-Tang.
The 20th century is often historicized as a series of musical movements. The Blues gave way to Ragtime, Ragtime to Jazz, Jazz to Rock, Rock to Jazz-Fusion, Disco to Punk, Punk into New Wave. New Wave into Indie Rock, Funk into Rap.
There are no subcultures anymore. Or rather there’s only one, and it’s the internet. No cool trend can exist in secret anymore. Things don’t spread gradually, they spread immediately. The cool scene in every major city is identical now. The independent culture is more homogenized than ever before.
Everything continues to happen at once all the time. It seems funny that people use musical preference to define themselves against one another. Music is clearly intended to bring people together, not divide them into camps.
I like learning about new musical genres as much as I ever did. I spent a few nights recently reading about Indo-Rock:
The Netherlands had a fascinating subculture of emigre Dutch-Indonesians (Indo’s, Indonesian Eurasians and Polynesian Moluccans) who hit the instrumental rock scene in the years 1958 – 1965 and constituted the “Indo-Rock” movement, with groups like The Tielman Brothers, Electric Johnny & his Skyrockets, The Black Dynamites, The Crazy Rockers, Oety & his Real Rockers, The Javalins, The Hap-Cats and many more.
Anyway, in case you feel like the internet has killed your will to be a music geek because of all the poseur assholes now, we sympathize. Here are some lesser-known genres to check into. Hopefully one will re-ignite the flame of your love for jams.
The Aguinalderos (Carabobo, Venezuela, 1953)
Big Bumba-meu-boi in the Paço Alfândega cultural center, Recife
Jan Werners, a Dansband – yes it’s real
Bronze statue of Enka singer Takashi Hosokawa, Hokkaidō
António Chainho, Portuguese fado guitarist
Brian Eno, fan of Generative Music
Venezuelan Joropo, drawing by Eloy Palacios (1912)
Buddy Holly, popularizer of the Lubbock Sound
Neoclassical Dark Wave
The Shaggs are Obscuro
a Progg rock band
Stars of Schlager
lady wailin on a Tagonggo
Wassoulou musicians
Molly Lambert is managing editor of This Recording
even more stubs for obscure musical genres
WFMU’s Beware Of The Blog
Galactic Fun – Dam-Funk: (mp3)
I Gots To Be Done With You – Dam-Funk: (mp3)
NightRyder – Dam-Funk: (mp3)
PREVIOUSLY ON THIS RECORDING:
Brian DeLeeuw’s call to Judas Priest
Brittany Julious is No Wave New York
Tyler Coates talks Sid & Nancy
THIS RECORDING IS COME ON, LET’s SLOP
This Recording 
Your mention of Progg prompts me to mention the similar, though more specifically communist progressive rock that was popular throughout the 1970s in Finland. Some of it is terrific, but unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be one all-encompassing name for it. The wildly popular 1990s band was heavily influenced by this leftist pop genre of the 70s. Some videos are available at .
is another pop genre that is unique to Finland – a slavic inflected electric guitar ensemble sound that has remained popular and productive for more than thirty years. are probably the most internationally well-known rautalanka-influenced band. Rautalanka music is also often featured in the films of Aki Kaurismäki.
awesome list! possible additions: Zydeco and Mento
How could you leave Hyphy off this list??
(Relax. I still don’t know what Hyphy music is.)
dark disco???
…Dead Soul Music… Noise & Western…