Empire of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie Music.Wendy Fonarow. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press,2006.

Empire of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie Musicprovides an engaging look at the richly varied facets of the indie musicscene in Britain. Wendy Fonarow’s ethnographic account of theaesthetic foundations and ritual practices of the British indie (orindependent) community offers a compelling case study of acommunity long neglected in academic scholarship. Through well-documented participant observation, interviews and textual analysis,Fonarow, a professor of anthropology at UCLA, reveals the innerworkings of a community that is simultaneously held together andbroken down by the very culture upon which it is built. Because indieculture is celebrated almost exclusively through live performance, thegig (or music show) is the primary site of cultural expression in whichmembers of the community express themselves according to their levelof commitment/involvement in the community.

Musical performance in the indie community is framed as a ritualthat expresses cultural values and moral precepts. Although theseperformance rituals build ties within the community, repeatedinteraction between audience members and performers over time (aprominent feature of indie gig culture) often leads to the disintegrationof the community. For Fonarow, indie music is likened to an empire ofdirt that perpetually collapses and reconstructs itself in the image ofthose cultural practitioners that subscribe to the tenets of the culture.What emerges is a study of the behavior audience members cultivate asmembers of a puritan, elitist youth culture and how that behaviorshifts over time with repeated exposure to the indie scene.

In setting the groundwork for Empire, Fonarow begins with abrilliant account of what ‘‘indie’’ is, but also problematizes the questionof how to define the parameters of indie culture. Indie, unlikemainstream rock n’ roll, is not a monolithic structure. It adheres to itsown moral and ideological framework and measures its worth againstmainstream conceptions of music and cultural membership. Indie isusually described as a genre, an ethos, a means of distribution, a style oran aesthetic. Fonarow argues that indie ‘‘is located ultimately in itsdiscourse about its boundaries, in discussions of what it is and is not,

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because what it is constantly changes’’ (77). In other words, to giveindie a fixed, rigid definition would be to rob it of its cultural currency.Rather, indie is best described in terms of the culture it reflects (andfosters): a social group that places a premium on authenticity andcredibility and finds in the performance and reception of music thearticulation of its moral and aesthetic ideologies.

What makes Fonarow’s work so engaging is the way she uses thephysical space of the gig (what she calls ‘‘zones of participation’’) todescribe the different levels of involvement of gig participants.Fonarow’s reading of these different zones explains how differentsubjectivities are created through performance rituals. She is mostinsightful when she describes the performative aspects of eachrespective group (fans, audience members, industry professionals).Performance in this context is not limited to the band members onstage; rather, performativity is described in terms of the ways in whichdifferent social actors perform or enunciate their own cultural codes.Each social actor is inscribed with a different set of cultural valuesbased on his/her performance at a gig. The indie gig, then, is anexperiential playground upon which subjectivities and gender/sexualroles are not only tested but articulated as well.

Because Empire of Dirt explores an increasingly influentialsubculture, Fonarow’s work is a significant contribution to both musiccriticism and reception theory. Her work lays the foundation for futureresearch on audience studies in indie culture. This book’s final chapterson sexuality, the metaphysics of spectatorship and the musician astrickster figure point to some of the ways this research might be carriedout.

Ian ReillyUniversity of Guelph

Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of theAmerican Grown-up. Christopher Noxon. New York: Crown,2006.

Anyone paying even cursory attention to popular culture trends isaware of the adult kickball league phenomenon. The game most

398 Book Reviews