The arrival of Titus Andronicus's fantastic debut The Airing of Grievances last year signaled something of a return to indie rock's hardcore roots (Fucked Up, Pissed Jeans, etc.) In an interview with the D.C. branch of the A.V. Club, Titus Andronicus frontman Patrick Stickles weighed in on the relationship between punk and indie in 2009:

There’s a lot of these bands out now, I won’t name any names, but these NPR bands who people think of as being indie-rock. Back in the ’80s, people would have thought that was much closer to The Doobie Brothers than Sonic Youth or whoever. That’s not necessarily bad, but it’s interesting to see how it branched off into this much more sophisticated thing that we think of as being indie-rock. Really, it has nothing to do with the place indie-rock originally came from, as near as I can tell.

If Stickes had named names, we'd have a genuine blog feud on our hands.

In any case, he is correct: indie rock began as an offshoot of the hardcore punk movement as many of those bands started to grow up. As documented by Michael Azzerrad in the constantly (and deservedly) referenced Our Band Could Be Your Life, the breakthrough of Nirvana into the mainstream produced a divide between major label indie rock veterans (now deemed "grunge" or "alternative rock" bands) and their still independent counterparts (now deemed "lo-fi" or "Pavement"). That divide has been confused (sometimes willingly) in the present by younger bands with little to no memory of pre-Nevermind days.

Also of note was Stickles' insightful commentary on the high art/low art divide that Titus Andronicus distinctly explores. He notes that Shakespeare was a low artist in his time, and also the low expectations people currently hold for punk bands:

We’ve had all these things imposed upon us, all these indoctrinations they say are mutually exclusive, like you can’t be a punk and be smart. People think punk is supposed to be brainless. That’s just a completely arbitrary ruling, you know? If you’re a dude who likes to rock, you’re not a dude who likes to think. To me, it never seems like that would be the case.

All in all, it's a fascinating read.

Read Prefix's review of Titus Andronicus' The Airing of Grievances.

[AV Club]