ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the relationships between musical technologies and masculinities in indie. It proposes a traditional three-part argument, such as, thesis/antithesis/synthesis which delineates a set of oppositional relationships and a possible way that indie synthesised these opposing tendencies. The folk discourse in indie was reasserted through articulating primitivism in non-ethnic terms – as amateurism, infantilism, purism, irony and incompetence. The electric guitar's centrality to rock continues in indie/punk, but not as a vehicle of personal, expressive virtuosity. The electric guitar in post-punk music moves from being primarily a vehicle for individual expression, as in the blues/jazz/rock tradition, to a more impersonal sound source. The chapter concerns the (re)production of gender ideologies through sound technology and abstract systems. Mediation through technology is ubiquitous in popular music, but some types of popular culture and music comment on and amplify the implications of mediation, and these effects are achieved through technology and other apparatuses of modernity.
