Songs for Cassavetes (2001): a shared strategy between US independent filmmaking and underground music scenes

1991 was indicated by Dave Markey and Thurston Moore as “the year punk broke” in a film that documented the European tour of some indie bands: in 1991 “punk broke out” as a mass phenomenon of consumption, and, contemporaneously, was “broken, it should be fixed”, in reason of a damaged underground identity (Moore 2011). This paper explores how Justin Mitchell’s DIY documentary "Songs for Cassavetes" contributed to fix the status of the so-called “American indie underground” (Azerrad 2002). Mitchell portrayed with b/w 16mm film the shared milieu of the DIY scenes, as the K Records with Calvin Johnson in Olympia-WA, the community-based activity of the Make-Up in Washington-DC, plus several indie acts interviewed in all-ages venues. Furthermore, the film displayed the map as a key-tool for visualizing such scenes. This convergence between independent filmmaking and DIY spaces and practices suggested a way to restore the image of the underground scenes.