Thursday, September 27, 2012
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Olympic Closing Ceremony
http://www.warrenellis.com/?p=14290
I know it's lazy to have some one else do your blogging for you, but I can't improve on this post from Warren Ellis on why the closing Olympic Ceremony was so disappointing.
I know it's lazy to have some one else do your blogging for you, but I can't improve on this post from Warren Ellis on why the closing Olympic Ceremony was so disappointing.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Can't Find My Way Home
Most of the time, this is my favorite rock song from the 60s. It perfectly conveys a whole structure of feeling -- being literally and metaphorically wasted yet still beautiful -- in just under three minutes. Winwood's spooky vocal is perfect, I think his finest (and that's saying a lot): in the pocket, but at the same time, barely there. What did producer Jimmy Miller do to get Ginger Baker's drums to sound that crisp? What ritual magick did he perform to get the sound of that final cymbal splash?
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Sneak previews
Expect these new blogs:
1) More on Retromania--but my Reynolds reading was interrupted when I picked up Patti Smith's Just Kids, so I'll probably discuss this first
2) I just finished writing an essay on the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street, for a collection of essay on the group's 50th anniversary. I plan to post some outtakes from the essay here.
3) In honor of Mick Jagger's 69th birthday, a post on the cosmic significance of the Stones' cover of Robert Johnson's "Stop Breaking Down" (from Exile). Sneak preview: What do these two songs have in common, aside from being released within one year of the other?
All will be revealed; stay tuned. Until then, ponder this: the Sly song was a No. 1 hit single in 1971.
1) More on Retromania--but my Reynolds reading was interrupted when I picked up Patti Smith's Just Kids, so I'll probably discuss this first
2) I just finished writing an essay on the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street, for a collection of essay on the group's 50th anniversary. I plan to post some outtakes from the essay here.
3) In honor of Mick Jagger's 69th birthday, a post on the cosmic significance of the Stones' cover of Robert Johnson's "Stop Breaking Down" (from Exile). Sneak preview: What do these two songs have in common, aside from being released within one year of the other?
All will be revealed; stay tuned. Until then, ponder this: the Sly song was a No. 1 hit single in 1971.
Pop music, Nation, and PiL
Yes, I know: Danny Boyle managed to incorporate the Sex Pistols' "God Save the Queen" into the gala celebration of Britishness that was the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics.
Proof to be sure, that along with the music of British Invasion Groups, '70s punk has become a vital part of National Heritage discourse, despite all of its anti-establishment rhetoric.
Rather than bemoan the fact, or even remark on it, I thought I would mention the canonization of punk as a reminder that John (Rotten) Lydon cannily anticipated the recuperation of his band by establishment culture as soon as he left the band. For at least five years or so, Lydon successfully constructed a self-consciously alternative musical identity, with the ironically named Public Image Ltd., or PiL. (I know that he does dairy commercials now, and the person who posted this "Country Life" ad blasts Lydon for it: but I think they're pretty funny. Besides, the new PiL record is great).
That the SP eventually received an establishment imprimatur seems less remarkable to me than the fact that Lydon, along side visionary musicians like Keith Levene and Jah Wobble, created a musical mode that resisted appropriation at the time, and still does to this day.
I'm pretty sure no one thought of using this song at the gala event last night:
Or this:
Proof to be sure, that along with the music of British Invasion Groups, '70s punk has become a vital part of National Heritage discourse, despite all of its anti-establishment rhetoric.
Rather than bemoan the fact, or even remark on it, I thought I would mention the canonization of punk as a reminder that John (Rotten) Lydon cannily anticipated the recuperation of his band by establishment culture as soon as he left the band. For at least five years or so, Lydon successfully constructed a self-consciously alternative musical identity, with the ironically named Public Image Ltd., or PiL. (I know that he does dairy commercials now, and the person who posted this "Country Life" ad blasts Lydon for it: but I think they're pretty funny. Besides, the new PiL record is great).
That the SP eventually received an establishment imprimatur seems less remarkable to me than the fact that Lydon, along side visionary musicians like Keith Levene and Jah Wobble, created a musical mode that resisted appropriation at the time, and still does to this day.
I'm pretty sure no one thought of using this song at the gala event last night:
Or this:
Friday, July 27, 2012
JImmy Cliff
Back and desitively kicking ass. I heard this on the LOFT following Jimmy Cliff's "Struggling Man" (1972), and prefer the new stuff! How often does THAT happen with a veteran performer?
"Struggling Man" :
And here's "Reggae Music" (2012). I could only find the live version on YouTube, but this gives you the idea:
"Struggling Man" :
And here's "Reggae Music" (2012). I could only find the live version on YouTube, but this gives you the idea:
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
RETROMANIA
Summer's here and the time is right for -- catching up on your reading before the Fall Semester hits you like a ton of bricks! I've finally had a chance to start reading Simon Reynold's latest book, Retromania, on the meaning of the nostalgia fetish evident in recent pop music.
Reynolds' book addresses our current situation of music overload, now that digital media has made it possible to both access and archive music in vast quantities. This technological capacity means that the musical past is always with us, and in fact, Reynolds argues, has become a killing burden on the present. One consequence of accumulating music is that it's become, as Mark Paytress notes, "increasingly detached from everything but itself." Disconnected from any social reality other than the desire of "exquisitely discerning consumers" (Reynolds), pop music has become literally monstrous, i.e., no longer existing on a human scale.
It's not just that pop musicians have given up on originality; they've also renounced the attempt to imagine the future. Such progressive projects used to be the pop singer's raison d'etre (think of David Bowie in the 70s). Currently, Reynolds argues, pop music at its best recasts the musical past, and at worst, merely recycles it.
I will try here and in future posts to consider some of the broader implications of Reynolds' argument. If Reynolds is right, I think we need to reconsider the claims Simon Frith puts forth in Performing Rites (1998). Here Frith argues that behind every music genre lies "an implied community." Music serves a primary social function, binding the individual listener to a larger collective. Yet does looking over the virtual shoulder of your Facebook friends to discover what they're listening to on Spotify constitute community building in any meaningful sense? Frith's sociology of genre would seem to presume a now outmoded psychology of listening. It no longer describes the current moment, where music mostly refers to itself, not the world. I incline more to Reynolds' opinion, that we mostly listen to music in ways that tend to isolate us.
Reynolds combines his argument about pop nostalgia with a fascinating alternative history of rock music, relevant to my own work on 60s British rock. Reynolds make a point of differentiating hippie subculture from the genuinely progressive moment of British rock circa 1965-66, represented by the Yardbirds, the Who, and UFO era Pink Floyd.
By the feedback solo here:
Or this long form improvisation:
Or the sonic collage/guitar solo here:
Severing the Who from hippie makes sense given that band's always ambivalent relation to the movement, despite their having played the two signal festivals of the hippie era.
Contrary to a consensus that maintains that hippie looked forward to utopia, Reynolds maintains that the subculture was nostalgic: for "authentic" indigenous cultures, fin-de-siecle graphic art, and "vintage" clothing. And despite received notions about punk as anti-establishment, Reynolds argues that Malcolm McLaren was as nostalgic as the hippies he vilified. Before there was SEX, McLaren's first business venture was Let It Rock, a vintage clothes store specializing in Teddy Boy fashions. The self-declared pop Situationist was also looking back, obsessed with the Teddy Boys he recalled from his boyhood in the late 1950s, revering them equally for their style and hooliganism.
If you don't know what the Teds were about, click here:
(end part one)
Reynolds' book addresses our current situation of music overload, now that digital media has made it possible to both access and archive music in vast quantities. This technological capacity means that the musical past is always with us, and in fact, Reynolds argues, has become a killing burden on the present. One consequence of accumulating music is that it's become, as Mark Paytress notes, "increasingly detached from everything but itself." Disconnected from any social reality other than the desire of "exquisitely discerning consumers" (Reynolds), pop music has become literally monstrous, i.e., no longer existing on a human scale.
It's not just that pop musicians have given up on originality; they've also renounced the attempt to imagine the future. Such progressive projects used to be the pop singer's raison d'etre (think of David Bowie in the 70s). Currently, Reynolds argues, pop music at its best recasts the musical past, and at worst, merely recycles it.
I will try here and in future posts to consider some of the broader implications of Reynolds' argument. If Reynolds is right, I think we need to reconsider the claims Simon Frith puts forth in Performing Rites (1998). Here Frith argues that behind every music genre lies "an implied community." Music serves a primary social function, binding the individual listener to a larger collective. Yet does looking over the virtual shoulder of your Facebook friends to discover what they're listening to on Spotify constitute community building in any meaningful sense? Frith's sociology of genre would seem to presume a now outmoded psychology of listening. It no longer describes the current moment, where music mostly refers to itself, not the world. I incline more to Reynolds' opinion, that we mostly listen to music in ways that tend to isolate us.
Reynolds combines his argument about pop nostalgia with a fascinating alternative history of rock music, relevant to my own work on 60s British rock. Reynolds make a point of differentiating hippie subculture from the genuinely progressive moment of British rock circa 1965-66, represented by the Yardbirds, the Who, and UFO era Pink Floyd.
By the feedback solo here:
Or the sonic collage/guitar solo here:
Severing the Who from hippie makes sense given that band's always ambivalent relation to the movement, despite their having played the two signal festivals of the hippie era.
Contrary to a consensus that maintains that hippie looked forward to utopia, Reynolds maintains that the subculture was nostalgic: for "authentic" indigenous cultures, fin-de-siecle graphic art, and "vintage" clothing. And despite received notions about punk as anti-establishment, Reynolds argues that Malcolm McLaren was as nostalgic as the hippies he vilified. Before there was SEX, McLaren's first business venture was Let It Rock, a vintage clothes store specializing in Teddy Boy fashions. The self-declared pop Situationist was also looking back, obsessed with the Teddy Boys he recalled from his boyhood in the late 1950s, revering them equally for their style and hooliganism.
If you don't know what the Teds were about, click here:
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