Filmmaker Brad Katz has started a Kickstarter campaign for a film he's working on which is to be titled Just Gimme Indie Rock. While I support what Katz is trying to do, I can't help but shake my head and weep quietly to myself while I try to make it through the pitch video without liberal use of the pause button so I can collect myself and not throw my netbook at the wall.

In the video, Katz says, "The battle that the punks started 30 years ago has been won," clumsily transitioning from early-'80s hardcore footage to Arcade Fire's Grammy win. I couldn't help but mutter under my breath, "Really? Fuck you."

The idea that "indie rock," whatever the fuck that means, has long lost touch with its punk roots has been bubbling under for a minute: Peep this conversation between Nation Of Ulysses' Ian Svenonius and K Records head Calvin Johnson. But, seriously, do you ever think Ian MacKaye and Lyle Preslar ever sat down and said, "You know what would be fucking awesome? If we could pave the way for a band that has absolutely nothing in common with us musically or aesthetically to win a Grammy in 30 years? High-five!"

I'm not advocating that every band associated with the "I" word do their best to sound like The Jabbers. Dear god, no. Howevs, a generation or two ago, it was quite easy to trace the lines from Mission Of Burma to Archers of Loaf, from the Buzzcocks to Superchunk, from Television to Polvo. These days "indie rockers" (btw, BAARRFFFF) are just as likely to namedrop Dave Matthews or Counting Crows or, god forbid, Weezer.

I realize that I'm getting dangerously close to "my 7-inches are bigger than yours" territory here, and this isn't a competition of who grew up with the best college radio, because folks in their mid-to-late 30s will handily beat me in that regard. Despite the fact that I like to dole out the snark, I don't really enjoy looking down on anyone with different musical taste. We don't all get to be born punk-as-fuck, and not all of us want to be. That said:

I have no beef with Fleet Foxes or the Head and the Heart, but can we please at least acknowledge that they have more in common with this than with this? (Can we also acknowledge that the former is one of the things that punk, and by extension, '80s and '90s indie rock, set out to destroy?)

Can we also admit that despite the fact that they paid half of Superchunk's mortages, the Arcade Fire do not exist on the same continuum as Minor Threat?

Can we call a spade a spade and just admit that 95 percent of these bands are just mainstream pop acts who just haven't gone platinum yet? No value judgment, it's just that your chocolate is in my peanut butter.

Perhaps "indie rock" has become a victim to hegemony, much like its bastard cousin "emo." It is possible that someone will have to invent a new word for "old-school indie rock" like some dorky Orchid fans invented "skramz."

Then again, I could be the only idiot that thought bands like Six Finger Satellite and Shellac could exist inside this paradigm, a place for punk-influenced music to exist without the limitations that Maximum Rocknroll placed on the "p" word circa '94. I AM an idiot, so it is very likely.

Maybe it's time that we remove punk from the "indie rock" conversation altogether. Can we take back SST, Dischord, and the Bad Brains and you guys get to keep, well, everything after Pavement's third record?

Wait! Gerard Cosloy more or less says the same thing. Too bad he's just as guilty as anyone else. I wanted to rip on some of Matador's wussier bands, but don't want to deal with a legion of butthurt Belle & Sebastian fans. They also have a handful of decent bands on their roster currently. So never mind. Also, as Cosloy hints, while significant, Dischord was not ground-zero for independent labels in the US. This might not be either, but is maybe just a little closer.