The xx. Also might be a good idea to listen to indie internet radio and see what style of indie you like.
My favorites in this genre: Sufjan Stevens The National The Shins Modest Mouse Phoenix Spoon Air Band of Horses Black Heart Procession Blonde Redhead Broken Social Scene The Decemberists Doves Interpol The Strokes (guess they're not really indie anymore, but whatever) I'm not at all a music person -- and I can never keep up with this junk -- but there's a new blog about Indie music that I recommend. It's way less pretentious than Pitchfork. Frontier Psychiatrist Their "Top 25 Songs of 2010, So Far" is a good place to start.
If you have Sirius or XM... Listen to Sirius XMU. They play a nice variety of music and you can see what you like and go from there. Use Last.Fm to find artists similar to the artists you enjoy, you'll have a nice list of music to listen to after a few hours of doing that.
Is Gogol Bordello indie? Probably not anymore but still a freaking awesome band unlike any other... <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AJz-T9GabjY&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AJz-T9GabjY&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>
If you haven't already listened to the Shins, then do it soon. There are a lot of other great suggestions already.
If you're into lo-fi music, then you should definitely check out Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti... their new album Before Today kind of abandoned their more lo-fi sound in an attempt to create something more instrumentally coherent... but I'm not in love with any of the songs on that album to be honest with you. Deep Sea Diver is a band that has impressed me. Jessica Dobson's guitar work is pretty good. I keep listening to Thirst for God by Nicole Kidman over and over again. It's really that guy's only good song, and I haven't found any albums by the guy online, so I don't know if he's actually a musician on a label or not...
The Shins get a lot of flak for being mainstream but that was Garden State's fault. James Mercer is a lyrical genius.
sam: any new tunes you been listening to bro? brightside: yea man for sure. i heard this new band from iran. i think tehran or something. sam: oh really, what's their name? brightside: hypernova sam: sweet, what do they sound like brightside: they sound like a mix between joy division, interpol and editors sam: cool, bro. where did you hear about them? brightside: actually i was walking near bowery ballroom a while back after the farewell voxtrot show and this guy in a bear suit was handing out their demo cds. brightside: i was about to chuck the cd, but then i saw a picture of the iran flag with blood over it. sam: sweet, a bear. that dude is definitely keepin it real. sam: i'm def. going to have to check it out. can you rip the cd and bring it to the beach house show at the music hall of williamsburg show next week? brightside: yea for sure. sam: you want to go to that dollar pizza place off of bedford avenue?
Your backstory angers and confuses me. What is this a flashback? Naw dude it's happening at the same time? wait...what? f%ck this show
Although mentioned I didn't see anyone really back the whole Elliot Smith, Bright Eyes, Two Gallants flavor of "indie".
Ever threw out some made up band names to some indie hipsters and see what their reactions would be? Names like The Angry Samoans, Nebulous Fart, Fromunda Deez, Domesticated Aborigine....
The Angry Samoans are an American punk rock band in the first wave of American punk. Formed in August 1978 in Los Angeles, California by early 1970s rock writer "Metal" Mike Saunders and his brother lead guitarist Kevin Eric Saunders, along with co-conspirator Gregg Turner (another rock writer, for Creem Magazine during the late 1970s-mid 1980s) and original recruits bassist Todd Homer and drummer Billy Vockeroth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_Samoans
so a good punk band name then huh? Spoiler I vaguely remember Cobain mention that in a book and thought he made it up
