BBC Four to air documentary on indie music

The Story of Indie will celebrate the rise and rise of alternative music

This October the BBC will broadcast a definitive history of indie music exploring the labels and bands that birthed and shaped alternative music. Starting from indie’s birth in the 1970s the series will air across three consecutive Friday nights in October. The first episode looking at labels like Manchester’s Factory, Zoo in Liverpool, Glasgow’s Postcard, as well as Rough Trade and Mute in London all of which spearheaded the movement.

As the series continues it will focus on the growth of the scene, chart how small labels grew into viable businesses and discuss the rise of indie as bands like Oasis and Blur took on acid house and took off into the mainstream.

The series’ Presenter Mark Radcliffe says “This is really a story that’s been waiting to be told. We’re always hearing about the seismic shifts the music business is undergoing, but in many ways, this was the first – when the egalitarian independent spirit of punk and DIY broke the stranglehold of the men in suits in the posh offices of the major labels in that there London creating the soundtrack of our lives along the way.”

There’s also a host of guest interviews from Joy Division/New Order’s Stephen Morris, New Order’s Gillian Gilbert, Buzzcocks’ frontman Pete Shelley, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Malcolm Ross of Aztec Camera/Orange Juice, The Jesus And Mary Chain’s Jim Reid, ska artist Pauline Black, The KLF’s Bill Drummond, Cabaret Voltaire’s Richard Kirk, Jayne Casey formerly of Big In Japan, Throbbing Gristle’s Genesis P-Orridge, Chris Carter and Cosey Fanni Tutti, James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers, Shaun Ryder, Suede’s Bernard Butler, Stuart Murdoch of Belle And Sebastian, Cocteau Twins’ Simon Raymonde, Talulah Gosh’s Amelia Fletcher (episode two), Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand, The Libertines’ Carl Barat, and Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne.

The Story Of Indie begins in early October on BBC Four.