Yesterday, for what we imagine won’t be the last time, Rowan Martin from your new favourite band The Rhythm Method created something that would soon be trending on twitter. Confessing a twee indie lyric he had once written about crying into his Ready Brek, he asked followers to share their #indieamnesty and share they did. With ex-members of ex-indie bands repenting and music fans throwing back to the best moment in their lives ever, the past 24 hours has surely seen not only a huge bump in MySpace use, but also a heavy blanket of nostalgia fall over those in their late twenties to early thirties along with the realisation that Up The Bracket was released 14 whole years ago and that we’re actually getting quite old. Trying instead to see the whole thing as a form of therapy, we created our own in-office indie amnesty by way of a totally anonymous shared google doc that may or may not show exactly who is typing what.
Warm up with a quick watch of this and get stuck into the secret lives of team i-D…
1. Lived with someone who was in a Bloc Party video. Snogged someone who was in a Test Icicles video. #indieamnesty
2. I threw a Crunchie at the lead singer of the Thrills from a moving taxi as he stood outside the Marathon Restaurant in Camden #indieamnesty
3. I went to the Marathon Restaurant in Camden #indieamnesty
4. I lent Alex Kapranos 50p to play the coin on the floating lemon game in the Old Blue Last and he never gave me it back #indieamnesty
5. I got into an heated argument with the drummer of the Ordinary Boys about who wrote Yellow Submarine (It was Paul) #indieamnesty
6. I started an indie night called Bert’s Apple Crumble and then discovered it was the name of a sex act #indieamnesty
7. I literally watched the Coral on Saturday #indieamnesty
8. My life 2002 – 2007 #indieamnesty
9. I threw up in Orlando from the Maccabees bin #indieamnesty
10. Snogged the guitarist from the Kooks’ girlfriend whilst they were going out and he cried #indieamnesty
11. Morrissey told me to fuck off #indieamnesty
12. I told Kele Okereke his performance at Reading was the best thing I’d ever seen in my life and he kissed me on the hand at Gaz’s Rocking Blues #indieamnesty
13. I watched Preston from the Ordinary Boys serenade his then-wife Chantelle Houghton from Big Brother who sat on the balcony at Brixton Academy #indieamnesty
14. At the drop of Bloc Party’s Helicopter, I was thrown emphatically in the air at Reading Festival in 2007. It’s still on YouTube somewhere… #indieamnesty
15. Went out with a girl with a Libertines tattoo #indieamnesty
16. Ed from Larrikin Love literally just started following me on Instagram #indieamnesty
17. I pushed to the front of a Kills gig and touched Alison Mosshart’s snakeskin boot #indieamnesty
18. I watched a member of the Black Rebel Motorcycle club smoke crack using a cucumber as a pipe on brighton beach #indieamnesty
19. Once I sang Paperback Writer with Alex Turner at a Cave Club night and thought i’d made it #indieamnesty
20. I have a stick and poke tattoo of Pete Doherty on my leg #indieamnesty
Credits
Text Francesca Dunn
Photography Ellen Von Unwerth
Styling Rebecca Corbin-Murray
[From The Pleasure and Pain Issue, i-D No. 298, April 2009]