Entry 6

This is my "armchair analysis" based of of two documentaries I watched on the sam person and the people who constitute his band. I like to think of them all as a community.

This first video is the whole documentary, One of my Kind and it pretty much describes how one musician went in to record a solo album but ended up making a bad with the other individuals who were just going to play on the tracks. 

This second video is a clip of spend an evening with saddle creek. Unfortunately I couldn't find the whole thing online, but it's of the same individual, Conor Oberst and how his whole musical foundation was started.

I chose to analyze these videos because in them, they mention important themes or topics that I consider to be a crucial part of the folk scene.

For instance in Spend and Evening with Saddle Creek, there is a heavy emphasis on community music. Or at least this is how I interpret it. It essentially was a group of friends that started playing at a cafe every week once a week, this snowballed into a larger group of friends and family who would play for each other and ended up making a record label with all the music they made of and for each other.

This helps to answer my question as to how much, or how important is the overlap of indie/folk and open mics. Although it is not stated that the coffee shop hosted an open mic, one can assume it was something of the like because one of the musicians mentions that individuals could go up and play on Thursday nights, and this is pretty much the set up of an open mic.

There are certain quotes in this film that emphasize a sense of community, for instance
"everyone was playing on everyone's record and it became a collective ideal"

or others that deal with the loose lines of what defines this genre
"it wasn't country and it wasn't folk"
"It was informal"

these short but helpful quotes help to support the idea that it was a group effort and what mattered was not necessarily the type and quality of the music, but the fact that these people were gathering their creativity to make music.


One of My Kind tackles different topics within my overall topic. It gives more insight to the process of writing and how songs are perceived in their quality and purpose.
 For instance, one of the musicians, Conor Oberst describes a single song in its different forms. For him it exists as the song in his head, then as the recorded version, meant to exist for others to hear, and finally the live version which is always changing to accommodate new players and new parts. Understanding this view of a song displays the flexibility within the folk/indie community along with the sense of community and oral tradition because in order for those new members to join in they need to learn the song, and as it was described in the documentary, songs are learned though observation and spoken word. This is how a community forms, a type of mutual dependance is observed but more of a welcoming to allow other to join in to a song that might have originally been started with one person.

Some insight gained to the writing process coming from different members:
- the melody is always first
-the melody and the lyrics are inseparable
- "wait until it comes to me"

conclusion: there is no set method. Songs are written as the musician sees creatively fit. But for the most part it is evident that they start out simple. It's not complexity or skill that is emphasized but rather creativity and honesty. One of the musician's described his bandmate's songs as ,unique, organic, pure, and with no greed. Another is described as having learned the guitar "from the heart not a text book". Again this emphasizes that honesty and creativity are paramount.

Another instance during which these values can been observed is when the frontman is talking to the audience very informally that he hates it when bands say the same thing to the audience every night. One can infer that this is because it is not sincere but rather planned and mechanical.

This concludes my armchair analysis!