this is a call

need some good advice:

As you likely know, I'm the new series editor for the Da Capo Best Music Writing
books. In an attempt to make my time with the title fruitful to me as a writer/editor and to understand and hopefully expand the way in which writing is viewed as "good" or "great" or "noteworthy" or "essential" or any of those other value-laden words, I am also working on an independent study through my ethnomusicology department on the subjects of valuation of "writing about music." This is where you come in:

I need advice from folks working as journalists, critics and academics who write regularly about music to tell me what writing has inspired you, shaped your voice/style/ethics/pursuits, or really challenged you in some way. To that end, I am asking for your biblios on the subject, however off the cuff (I'd actually prefer just the things that REALLY come to mind the second you read this).

I'm looking for books, essays, articles, reviews, and/or blog posts
that address:

-the craft of writing in general
-'good writing' in general that has inspired your music writing
-the craft of music writing in general
-'good writing about music'
-and the meta: critical writing about what makes writing about music
good

I am also ESPECIALLY interested in writing across disciplines and fields: journalism, criticism, fiction, creative non-fiction, English, cultural studies, ethnic studies, even...musicology. This is coming in part from my recent completion of a masters thesis in ethnomusicology, which has shown me that skill in pop press writing may not directly transferable to academic writing. Sigh.

So email me or give me some comments on the subject, okay?

built for performance

funny article about new electronic instruments" in the nytimes a few days ago, starring my friend Shawn Greenlee whose music is truly fierce, growling loudass noise, one of the few laptop dudes who really get it that raw.

Also good interview with Beth Ditto of The Gossip at the Stranger. I cannot tell a lie - I first saw them at Homo A Go Go in 2004 and was so mad at myself for not jamming them earlier. She is one tough, sexy mf and belts it like no one else i've seen.

33 1/3 news is in: long live the mall goths!

okay folks, in the world of good news, i am thrilled to see my name among so many friends here, and thrilled because my writing will take me back to ole' ohio this summer. will keep you posted.

"If You're Feeling Sinister" by Scott Plagenhoef
"Aja" by Don Breithaupt
"Shoot Out the Lights" by Hayden Childs
"Pretty Hate Machine" by Daphne Carr
"Use Your Illusion" by Eric Weisbard
"Horses" by Phil Shaw
"Double Nickels on the Dime" by Mike Fournier
"Pink Moon" by Amanda Petrusich
"People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm" by Shawn Taylor
"Achtung Baby" by Stephen Catanzarite
"20 Jazz Funk Greats" by Drew Daniel
"The Dreaming" by Ann Powers
"Rid of Me" by Kate Schatz
"Another Green World" by Geeta Dayal
"Songs in the Key of Life" by Zeth Lundy
"Trout Mask Replica" by Kevin Courrier
"Let's Talk About Love" by Carl Wilson
"Lucinda Williams" by Anders Smith Lindall
"69 Love Songs" by LD Beghtol
“Marquee Moon” by Peter Blauner
“Swordfishtrombones” by David Smay

The Veronicas: now there are two more Kelly Clarksons and they're both singing my song

warning, blog veers dangerously into per-zine land:

Until very recently, I had prided myself on being a relatively jealousy-free human. Jealousy seems to be the most poisonous relational emotion. There is always a triangle, and the anxiety is so often misdirected on the 'other,' when it is clearly primarily residing in the jealous one and in some way related to the one-in-the-middle. I thought I'd slayed my own jealousy beast but friends, it has reared its head recently in this ugly way that's got me feeling all down the line of bad.

Now here I am at 2:20 in the morning listening to The Veronicas "Everything I'm Not," so nearly a total ripoff pre-stage of 'Since U Been Gone,' and feeling that there is nothing more perfect than 20-year-old hot Australian identical twin pop genius girls lamenting that the dude they love just likes someone else better no matter what they do. Yeah, I'm still together enough to have an ego, and clearly so in the lady's song, which isn't disingenuous so much as just past the point of caring. It is a song of good bye, and in repeated listens I've come to think that the girl who's 'everything i'm not' is, as in all perfect pop, the unobtainable ideal. She's not there, the she he isn't getting, the one our faithful protagonist can't pretend to be any longer. And so the triangle of jealous collapses down to what it is - the feeling of envy and anxiety which manifests as feeling subpar in a way that stereopan new wave guitars building to noisewall jangle pop somehow makes feel universal and okay. Heh.

And here I was all day listening to Leonard Cohen, Neil Young, the Verve, even Carol King trying to get just that right feeling, just the right words.

the angels forget to pray for us

"the best of leonard cohen" was given to me my freshman year of college by this red-headed girl from the midwest who had big round vowel sounds and beautiful eyes. i thought that she might be my best friend, or that i might be in love with her. shortly after christmas, she became one of those minor casualities of fast friendship: we exchanged a few rushed emails and then never saw one another again. the record however was just the perfect mix of depraved chelsea hotel poetry, weirdo folk production and tragic/romantic lyricism to keep me constantly returning and loving. i've always said this girl was the most bountiful stranger i'd ever known, and if i see her again in my lifetime i'll tell her so.
no one gets off free in cohen's songs, least of all him, which is why he's more my lyric hero than dylan (dylanologists be damned). i never trust someone who's always the hero of their story (least of all myself, in moments of selfpity or, as recently suggested, faux martyrdom) and the lyrics that cut aren't so obviously on 'you' as much as sensed someone said maybe to him, and he's letting himself languish in them. "you're living for nothing now, i hope you're keeping some kind of record," now there's one you wonder about. it's almost taboo, it's so dark.

music issue to lenny kravitz: you suck

friends. yesterday i was timidly extolling the virtues of being a poseur in the pantheon of over-rated rock gods. today, i am pointing the p-word to rock's least awesome, most awesomely bad ass kissing industry fool, lenny kravitz. there's nothing more simple, clear or perfect than the essence of cashing in,' he says. 'Once I'd done that, the track just came.' uhh, yeah. just.


A Groundbreaking Global Music Project Featuring a New Interpretation of the Brand by Lenny Kravitz

ABSOLUT is proud to announce the launch of ABSOLUT KRAVITZ - a new music project which sees Lenny Kravitz creating an exclusive new track based on his interpretation of the ABSOLUT brand.

'We are thrilled to have Lenny Kravitz with us on our creative journey and in this, our first high-profile music project' says Michael Persson, Global Brand Director for ABSOLUT VODKA. 'Not only is he supremely talented; his output, inspired by so many genres and eras of music, defies categorization, making him truly individual - a quality which means he is perfectly at home with the creativity of ABSOLUT.'

One of the pre-eminent rock musicians of our time, Lenny Kravitz is an icon whose bold, channeling sound has transcended genre, style, race and class. Over a remarkable 16-year career, Kravitz has managed to do it all with a contemporary urgency rivaled by none. All of his albums have been certified either platinum or multi-platinum. He has also been showered with accolades including MTV Video Music Awards, American Music Awards and four consecutive GRAMMY Awards for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. Kravitz's appeal has also been recognized by his peers; his collaborative efforts are as varied as his own influences, having worked with Madonna, Slash, Jay-Z, N.E.R.D., P. Diddy and Alicia Keys.

Famous for its creative collaborations with leading world-famous artists and designers, this collaboration marks the first time ABSOLUT has worked with such a well-known figure from the world of music.

"ABSOLUT has had a history of working with great artistic people - like Andy Warhol, Tom Ford, Jean Paul Gaultier, Gianni Versace and Kenny Scharf. I thought it would be interesting to do an artistic collaboration like this and be part of that heritage," says Kravitz.
Kravitz recorded a new song, entitled "Breathe", in New York, which will be featured in the campaign. Although this collaboration marks the first collaboration with an internationally recognized recording artist, the brief given to Kravitz was exactly the same as the one any world-class artist working with the brand would receive: present your personal interpretation of ABSOLUT and its core values. The result is a track that is a transition from Kravitz's traditional rock and roll to a distinctly dance music sound, with minimal lyrics, a memorable melody and pulsating beat.

Kravitz said that he was inspired by the brand's core values of clarity, simplicity and perfection. 'There's nothing more simple, clear or perfect than the essence of true love,' he says. 'Once I'd felt that, the track just came.'

'The ABSOLUT brand is synonymous with a true and genuine passion for creativity. Using communication technology we are now able to share this creativity and distribute our collaborative artistic work with a global audience" says Michael Persson. Kravitz's new track "Breathe," part of the ABSOLUT TRACKS COLLECTION, will not be for sale as part of the ABSOLUT KRAVITZ project. Instead it will be available to download for free, along with is accompanying video, from www.absolutkravitz.com.

art-school kid pull quotes, pt. II plus pop poseurs EMP prop

Casey Spooner:

It’s very upsetting when you go into an interview and you have expectations and you expect the truth to be told as an interviewee and then you read the interview and it misinterpretation your intention or who you think you are or what you’re trying to say. So it’s so much more fun when you go into an interview and you don’t expect anything truthful at all. All you expect to be is entertained.
Before [on the first album] it was about making an image, good pull-quotes and as crass as you could be. Engineering it consciously and encouraging interviewers to write whatever they wanted. The NME piece – Gavin McInness --100 percent fabricated. It was more a portrait of him. That’s the thing I enjoyed – when journalists took liberties, it was a more honest portrait of the journalist. Which is really what journalism is – even though they say it’s objective, it’s not. That’s cool. I liked it when people lie because it was more about the journalist.

My 11th hour EMP popcon proposal (look, it's like i'm writing for cosmo):

Poo pooing pop’s poseurs:
An analysis of anxiety around liking art-school trained musicians and their work

Admit it, you too have sneered at art school kids. It’s hard not to, with all their hip hair, funny antics and wild clothes. Who do they think they are, rock stars? Turns out, art school has been a fertile breeding ground for pop musicianship since the Rolling Stones. Because of this, the inclusion of “art-school” in pop biography, scholarship and criticism has taken on a strong set of connotations and is, by this time, a well worn but under analyzed cliché.
With an emphasis on conceptualism over skill, process over result, and creative amateurism over technical virtuosity, art school-trained musicians have become icons of a certain type of pop performance often negatively connotated as ‘dilettante’ by rock(ist) audiences. When adding to their pedagogically-instilled predisposition towards appropriation and their often savvy eyes to the visual aspects of pop performance, these musicians often incur the ultimate insult in the rock fan lexicon: poseurs.
In my paper I will examine the prose record of words connotating art-school trained musicians as “dilettantes” or “poseurs” to show how hierarchies of value and the unspoken rules of rock tradition are challenged when art-theory and practice jump into pop sound and performance. What threat do amateurism, conceptualism, appropriation and the willful embrace of artifice pose to traditional concepts of popular music and musicianship, performance presence, gender and persona construction? And, when writers bite the artsy conceptualism/hype, does it lend them avant garde status or make them big dupes? Only Fischerspooner knows for sure, and that’s where my examination begins.

talking heads talk of talking heads (and one talks about making a talking head a talking head)

better than me blogging about being bored in front of my computer, its...part of my thesis:

Informant 4: Diane is a 32-year-old comedian from New Jersey, who has been a fan since the early 1980s, because, “It was innovative, it was different. I really liked how wacky he was, he’s really eccentric and there wasn’t really anyone, any band, any performer quite LIKE David Byrne at that time, especially in the big suit era.” By wacky she meant, “I guess it’s not so much lyrics, but his persona, his performance style. They way he presents himself, the way he moves. Definitely the Once In A Lifetime video, I remember that really well. I was watching MTV in 1981 when it was first broadcast and so I saw all that stuff. That was probably my first ever glimpse of the Talking Heads was that video.”
“David Byrne’s such an icon and I’ve never seen him.” She knew about Byrne’s hand in making the cover of More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) but “that is the only thing that I could point to and say ‘David Byrne did that.”’

Informant 5: Jeffery is a 30-year-old singer-songwriter from Astoria, Queens, who has “been a fan since I was kid.” “I think he’s a visionary. He’s totally influenced me. He’s an inspiration and I’ve never seen him live. I’ve always seen the DVDs and the videos so this is the first time I’ve seen him live.” He was inspired by Byrne because, “I’m an artist…I’ve very outside of the box, and for someone to make a career, and be not what the norm is, and to be a real, genuine commercial success, and still stick to his authenticity, and be a visionary, and to stand out from the crowd head and shoulders is to me, inspiring. It’s very rare.”
He does not consider himself a visual artist, but considers himself a “singer-songwriter and actor, playwright kind of person,” who loves Byrne’s “storytelling, I love the visual and the music and sort of how he doesn’t just stand there. He’s a real, live, live performer.” He would also put “David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Prince and you know, Bob Dylan even though it sounds kind of odd” into the category, “visionaries.” After the recorded interview, Jeffery told me that he had attended a performance art camp in the 1980s where he studied the work of Byrne and contemporary Laurie Anderson. He said he was “developing a one-man rock opera about my dysfunctional Jewish family from 1980s Cleveland. So that sort of musical styling definitely inspires me very much.”

Informant 7: Chris is a 32-year-old television producer who has been a fan since about 1986, when he first saw, “Stop Making Sense. When Little Creatures came out was when I was heavily into music and it the first time that I really recognized him in the band.” He was drawn to Byrne because “he’s got a great combination of music and lyrics. I think his music is very fun and interesting and different and I think his lyrics are also different in a way – metaphorical and ironic, sorry…I’m trying to give you some sound bytes here, and yeah, I think he’s got a very interesting way of looking at the world and people on it, and what we do it and that kind of stuff.” He was “somewhat but not heavily” aware of Byrne’s art background, but added, “We’re actually producing a TV. show and we wanted him to host, because it was an art show.” Chris plays acoustic guitar – “some jazz and some rock.” He takes landscape, portrait and “some architecture” photography

decade (of...)

, originally uploaded by pinkgerl.

the summer after my senior year of high school i went to the recording workshop in chilicothe, ohio, to learn studio engineering. it was a six week course and there were 75 people in the program - four of them were girls. the three other girls and i lived in a house at the bottom of the hill. next to our house was the big stoner house where folks would congregate to do things like watch the wizard of oz synched up to Dark Side... and one one particularly rainy evening, to strip down and run around on the empty streets howling.
up the hill were little huts that the rest of the crew lived in, and on most nights they would make a big bonfire and we'd all go up and talk shit around it. as you might imagine, there was a lot of guitar playing too, and it was there at the workshop that my friend steve introduced me to neil young. i had always thought neil young was some kind of soft rock (comes a time era) coot, but steve insisted he was a genius.

songs of his have entered my life over the years - Old Man, which reminded me of my relationship with my dad just at 24 too, Sugar Mountain, which was how I felt when I lived in Wildwood that horrible summer - but I think now after my trip to LA i'm starting to understand the whole thing a little better, to get the monumental, ugly undertones of what's going on in that guitar and the world-weary voice.

borrowed tune

shop keepers sign in the CZ, originally uploaded by pinkgerl.

am burning through corrections to my thesis and listening to the entire neil young catalog, which by tomorrow should be pretty damn bleak i have to say. i find that when i'm doing work like this i can't reall intake any 'new' material, and that certain phrases, long known, lift themselves out of the background and get me singing and happy enough to continue through the bullshit.
that said, "Borrowed Tune" has captured me tonight - so absolutely miserable and self-soothing that it names its ripped off inspiration - the rolling stones' lady jane - explicitly, because Young is "too wasted" to write his own. it's an artless but heartbreaking admission of breakdown that feels really human to me - there's neil young, so sad he can only write dumb lyrics over someone else's tune to keep himself sane. it reminds me of being younger and loving a sad song so much that i had to write down its lyrics just so i could feel the words in my hands too.

IN OTHER NEWS: i'm going to be TAing a class on country music this spring, and decided to learn one new country song a week on the guitar.