Chunklet’s “Indie Cred Test” charts the myriad flaws of the music geek

book-cover-indie-cred-testChunklet‘s The Indie Cred Test: Everything You Need to Know About Knowing Everything You Need to Know – Second Edition might be the perfect book to amuse me. Strange compliment, I know, but the fact remains: I’ve not giggled and read a book out loud so often in ages. My long-suffering wife’s probably been subjected to a dozen read-throughs, aborted half-way through as yet another selection disintegrated in a cavalcade of snickering.

Henry H. Owings and his crew have created a test that will — depending on one’s savvy — confound, frustrate, amuse, shame, entertain, or embarrass. It’s the sort of book where you’re almost loathe to point out how much certain questions apply. Frankly, I’m not sure as to whether or not reviewing a book that uses “god help you” in response to choosing writing as “which self-aggrandizing behavior […] you display” is a good thing.

Consider the fact that the one of the first ten questions is “Let’s get this out of the way first. What’s the address of your shitty blog?” Is reviewing this book on said shitty blog an act of indie cred, am I falling into a sterortype, or does this make me, in fact, quite hip by doing it despite the fact that I’m doing exactly what they mock?

Reviewing a book shouldn’t create a level of angst and confusion. I may be taking this a little more seriously than it deserves. Essentially, your level of hilarity and / or ennui is in proportion to how many sections apply to you. The record-collecting section was non-stop “hahahaha … oh.” The band stuff rolled off me like water off a duck’s back, but the college radio stuff almost had me in the fetal position.

Clever, entertaining shit. Buy it. Accept that you’ll be made to feel slightly less-than, and you’ll be fine. The Indie Cred Test might be the most essential guide to your own flaws that any music geek could want. It’s out today via Penguin.