Indie rock is such an overused term that defining it and charting the genre’s evolution is almost impossible, but with his new film Just Gimme Indie Rock!: The Story of an Underground Uprising, Brad Katz is attempting to do just that.

Just Gimme will cover indie music history of the past 40 years, from genre pioneers Sonic Youth and Hüsker Dü to current heavy hitters Arcade Fire and Vampire Weekend. According to the website, the film, “will be the first to connect the dots between divergent eras of indie,” using archival concert footage and “insider” interviews.

For this epic undertaking Katz is relying on support from the fans themselves. Indie loving rockers can donate their funds to a Kickstarter account until August 23. Pledge today, and help preserve indie rock history so that future generations of hipsters can be as pretentious about their obscure music knowledge as the hipsters of today.

There has not been a music video this emotionally affecting in a long time. And it’s easy to say that the art form has lost its flare with every video online simply trying to be a viral success. But this Spike Jonze-directed piece for Arcade Fire’s title track from The Suburbs proves that there is still a definite need for beautiful music videos. This is absolutely beautiful.

I was pretty excited to hear a soul cover of “Wake Up.” With it’s hopefulness and positive energy I was really hoping this would be a banger. But I guess when the original is so huge sounding, anything else will always seem to fall flat. But if anyone can get away with this cover, I’ll let The Roots do it.

Tech nerds will rejoice because this interactive film showcases the potential of HTML5. For everyone else, this interactive video is a pretty cool film featuring the music of The Arcade Fire. Make sure you enter your real childhood address. We were dubious too, but it’s worth it to get the full effect. (Best viewed in Google Chrome). Oh, and for the portion of our readership who aren’t programmers and think HTML5 is some mysterious new venereal disease, here’s a definition:

HTML5 is a standard for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. The new standard incorporates features like video playback and drag-and-drop that have been previously dependent on third-party browser plug-ins such as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and Google Gears.

Long before The Suburbs debuted at #1 on both sides of the Atlantic and U2 accusations were bandied about, Canadians the Arcade Fire brought orchestral pop to the masses, unkempt, accessible and lo-fi, finally ridding it of Prog’s pompous, holier-than-thou trappings.

Even still, wind the clock back 2 years and no one is expecting Two Dancers by Wild Beasts. No one is expecting otherworldly evangelical indie to melt the Meatpacking Districts’ growing distrust of high camp. No one’s expecting a countertenor led band from Kendal, England in anything but a Mel Brooks musical, let alone as the latest capitalized Next Big Thing.

This could be a train wreck. The breathtaking castrato falsetto, the disco staccato percussion, high brow lyricism, it is moments from being King Arthur on Ice, but the confidence, the restraint, the alternating push/pull of twin vocalists Hayden Thorpe and Tom Fleming keep the reigns tight.

Instead of overwrought, aspirational 70 piece orchestras tonight we hear taught, refined, vignettes of a Lake District Springsteen; tales of bored skinheads starting fights for fun (“Hooting and Howling”), manic oompah lumpa vocals (“All the King’s Men”), we are left with tales of moonshine, sex and sadness, of Hounslow girls, of self-serving male Lothario’s bent on seduction, violence and cheap theatrics.

You could be forgiven for paying scant regard to the Wild Beasts first album Limbo, Panto anywhere but here. Along with new single “We Still Got The Taste Dancin’ On Our Tongues”, it is two tracks from their previous LP that garner strongest responses. Tom’s convulsive mic presence is matched by the epileptic lighting and spirited dancing of fans. By the time the Kendal choirboys return triumphantly for an encore led by “Hooting and Howling” the crowd are enraptured.

Bookmakers may have countrymen The xx placed as 4/1 favorites for the coveted 2010 Mercury Prize, but more than a few anglophiles left the Highline Ballroom last Wednesday night readied to place bets on these 8/1 outsiders.

–by Daniel Gill (Let’s give him a big FREEwilliamsburg welcome in the comments)

Since it’s pretty much Arcade Fire week in my world, let’s keep it going. Here’s a “behind the scenes” video with director Terry Gilliam goofing with the band before yesterday’s show.

Hey! This thing:

Looks like this thing:

I just spoke with the ARRL and will update shortly with their full response, which is basically, to the best of the spokesperson’s knowledge “there was no request that was made in any way.”

Intern Bryce at Seattle’s 107.7 The End posted :30 second snippets of each song from the new Arcade Fire album. As these things go, the band and the label had them remove the post from the site, so, Bryce updated, “Out of respect for the band and their labels wishes we have removed these streams for now.”

That’s it, right? Problem solved?

Ah, but clever little Bryce snuck the mp3 links up in the source code, there for all to hear who are smart enough to click through on his “Source Code” wikipedia link. Those links are pasted after the jump, and will probably work until The End pulls the files down.

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