writing about...other stuff

Douglas Wolk and Ann Powers have both lamented to me on separate occasions that a younger generation of music writers seem less obsessed with general "good" writing, and more obsessed with generations of music writers. That the profession has become inbred (my words, not theirs). And while we all need living, breathing mentors (Douglas and Ann are good ones), it is also imperative that a writer keep some kind of bookcase of influences, no matter how positive or negative, outside the relatively new field of popular music writing. While fiction is the staple, I am starting to notice among my friends a great trend: passion for other senses and writers who capture them well.

When I was in Seattle last spring, the lovely Kate Silver asked me "Who's your favorite film writer?" and in thinking about it, I began to pay attention to which critics my other music writer friends admired "outside our circle." Matos and Beta are foodies, and Beta has started his own blog about food, the Clean Plate Club.

Douglas is, of course, the master of deep thoughts on comic books (I recently finished The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, at his suggestion and gift, and I was thrilled by its fussy language, the characters' crispness, of how the characters seem to be enshrouded in melancholy), which means he must attend not just to the writing, but to the eye. He and I had a kind of brain-cracking conversation about "language about lines" or how to describe the signature way an artist makes their line. It made me start paying attention to how art critics discuss the elements of art when critiquing it. Is it more a question of formal language, accepted metaphors, or a series of relations? What elements of a work fit which parts of language better? Does time-based work need different language then spatial work? Why are there more grades of language for the eye than the ear? Who, besides food writers, attends to the most ignored (and most sentimental) of senses, smell?

This is the beginning of a confession for a crime I have yet to commit. I think I really, really love fashion writing. This piece by Guy Trebay, about the Milan spring fashion shows is an inspiration to me, managing to find a way to approach the nearly impossible subject(summarize multiple events a la CMJ) with a writer's eye, a fashion-addict's sense of detail, and some leveling as to the greater significant of the event in our time.
A year ago I went to dinner with a fashion writer, and I found myself listening enraptured to her description of her beat. I remember going home on the subway daydreaming about a subject swap. What would I do if I were to spend a few months writing about fashion? Would I be a heifer to the slaughter? Certainly I would have a lot of reading to do, a lot of touching and looking to do first, and I would likely never escape making reference to music (Clearly "Sexyback" was just made for this fall's runway, in spite of the fact that the beat isn't really in a walking gait) in my writing. But maybe that would be good, if not for fashion readers, then at least for my music writing.
Or is this the logic that has lead a whole generation of contemporary writers working with popular music/memoir to become the dominant style of "the rest" of music writing, aka, the slow death of the critical part of music criticism. I mean, how many books are there with music critics as characters? Who reads these books? Is is not the natural end to a cycle where music writers only pay attention to themselves? I mean, being Almost Famous is not a career goal, at least not for me, and while I respect my predesseors, mentors, even adversaries (who have shaped me too, maybe moreso) the one thing I see from the pop music part of my library is that each writer comes from a unique voice, attacks their subjects/themes with a new eye, writes with passion and quirk, and has something more to say than simply about music or writing. And you don't learn those things just listening to, reading (or writing?) about music. In other words, I see a lot more chiffon in my future, and I hope it improves my sillouette.

trans-siberian snorkistra, havel in nyc, dc nostalgia

Am poking around in Ohio, not much to report. I did buy for my family today tickets to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I have to tell you that I suspect it to be the most horrendous kitsch on the planet, the merging of my least favorite aspects of rock with my least favorite aspects of classical in a line not tred (or crossedover) since Metallica's S&M. I suspect that, Radiohead by even mid OK Computer tour, it's most favorable performance attribute would be its lighting design. Sigh, and I LIKE big budgets, and even prog rock, and even a well-placed rock cello. Well, at least they play a few Christmas numbers.

NEWS:

You there in the (ny) metroarea: I highly recommend seeing some of the events related to Vaclav Havel's residency at Columbia this fall. Havel is of course the first president of the CZ after the fall of Communism and the country's most famous playwright. He's also really, really into Frank Zappa. Dig the topic: the meaning of citizenship.

On a related note:

You're my (Miss Washington DC): Holy mall punk Jem Cohen, it's a google map, text message and streaming video tour of the old DC punk scene. Now can zoom into the actual roofs of gentrified neighborhoods while Ian Mackaye lectures you about them! Dig the idea, reminds of me of a zine I got in high school in which the author wrote about all the places that used to exist in his city, and what remnants of them could be seen if you looked hard enough. Place and time, history history. Anyway, when Ian M. says the word "punk" it comes off his tongue like its just a group of great folks, his friends, who made rad stuff happen in the 80s/90s. There's none of that "I know what I'm saying is about History" halo that say, Ian S. gets (does 13 point program hold up, sadly no) when he discusses "the meaning" and "the impact" of (sigh...) "punk." Is Ian M. terminally termite? Maybe, but the monk lives in part to remind us that at some moments, we all should fast.

CALL FOR PAPERS: EMP Pop Con 2007

Alright folks, let's do this:

Waking Up From History: Music, Time, and Place

The 2007 Pop Conference at Experience Music Project

April 19-22, 2007

Seattle, Washington

Music happens, then it ripples. What is the relationship between the circumstances that produce music and our swirling notions of pop's past, future, and zeitgeist? How do the times affect the notes? What factors literally and figuratively change the beat of a city? Some decry postmodern "pastiche," while others defend pop concoctions as multiculturalism in action or intoxicating aesthetics. But what are the power relationships at work when music stops time and lets us dance in place?

For this year's Pop Conference, we invite presentations on
music, time, and place. This might include:

*Reading time and place into musical innovation. The breakbeat as a refunking of sonic structure and origin myth; or the social history of changing time signatures.

* The racial, class, and gender components that constitute a pop place or time's "we"; the mutating New Orleans of the hip-hop, funk, R&B, and jazz eras, for example.

*Evolving notions of musical revivalism: retro culture, questions of periodization in music, and the validity of the concept of youth culture as a sign of the times.

*Geographies of sound, or how place is incorporated sonically. Lise Waxer called Cali, Colombia, an unlikely bastion of salsa revivalism, a "city of musical memory."

*The dematerialization of the album into the celestial jukebox and other new media. Does the Chicken Noodle Soup dance live on 119 and Lex or on Youtube?

*How dichotomies of nearness/experience and farness/history affect music fanship, music writing, and music making.

*The "place" of pop now, culturally, professionally, and certainly politically.



Proposals should be sent to Eric Weisbard at EricW@emplive.org by December 15, 2006. For individual presentations, please keep proposals to roughly 250 words and attach a brief (75 word) bio. Full panel proposals and more unusual approaches are also welcome. For further guidance, contact the organizer or program
committee members: Jalylah Burrell (New York Press), Jon Caramanica (Vibe), Daphne Carr (series editor, Da Capo Best Music Writing), Jeff Chang (author, Can't Stop Won't Stop), Michelle Habell-Pallan (University of Washington), Josh Kun (University of Southern California) Eric Lott (University of Virginia), Ann Powers (Los Angeles Times), Simon Reynolds (author, Rip it Up and Start Again), Bob Santelli (author, The Big Book of Blues), and Judy Tsou (University of Washington). We are excited to announce that presentations from this year's conference will be considered for a future issue of The Believer.

The Pop Conference connect academics, critics, musicians, and other writers passionate about talking music. Our second anthology, Listen Again: A Momentary History of Pop Music, will be published by Duke in 2007. The conference is sponsored by the Seattle Partnership for American Popular Music (Experience Music Project, the University of Washington School of Music, and radio station KEXP 90.7 FM), through a grant from the Allen Foundation for Music. For more information, go to "Pop Conference."

Marooned/Two Ton

Today Phil posted the final list and/or table of contents ofMarooned essays. I'm honored to be sandwiched between Douglas and Darnielle, and having read the Stereolab piece in advance, can see why Phil made it so. I'm most excited to read Miccio's and Breihan's pieces, and sort of overwhelmed and thrilled by how bizarre these writers' choices were. Popism sweeps, and there I am with an album of 40 Fenders and a kite-high psycrock koncepts. I accept it with good humor.

Motörhead - No Remorse, by Phil Freeman
Skunk Anansie - Stoosh, by Laina Dawes
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless, by Ned Raggett
Various Artists - History Of Our World Part 1: Breakbeat And Jungle Ultramix By DJ DB, by Michaelangelo Matos
Divine Styler - Spiral Walls Containing Autumns Of Light, by Scott Seward
John Martyn - Solid Air, by Simon Reynolds
Alice Coltrane - Journey In Satchidananda, by Geeta Dayal
Miles Davis - Bitches Brew, by Greg Tate
Scorpions - Virgin Killer, by Dave Queen
Stereolab - Transient Random Noise Bursts With Announcements, by Douglas Wolk
Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, by Daphne Carr
Dionne Warwick - Legends, by John Darnielle
Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, by Matt Ashare
Dio - Ultimate Collection, by Anthony Miccio
The Meters - The Meters, by Jeff Chang
Stephen Stills - Manassas, by Kandia Crazy Horse
Brand Nubian - One For All, by Tom Breihan
The Cars - The Cars, by Rob Harvilla
Sonny Rollins - A Night At The Village Vanguard, by Derek Taylor
Iron Maiden - Killers, by Ian Christe

IN OTHER NEWS:

What with the return to Ohio to finish work on NIN, I'm feeling the mood of this Two Ton Boa video, even if the song is a little early-90s industrial retro, no? The dude playing bass in cartoon flower field is just too much tho. Sherry Frasier is just so rad indie girl next store, which makes the video feel like something your proud your friend made. Ahh, the elder days of unslick-promo.

teachers, mentors, firings, the future

Read this obit for RS editor Paul Nelson, which includes this:

Longterm contributor David Fricke says of Nelson, his first editor at the magazine, "He was the perfect definition of 'mentor' -- someone who recognized talent, gave it a chance and made vital helpful criticism in terms of language and perspective. I learned a lot from Paul not just about expressing one's passions and opinions, but how to formulate them and make them live on the page."

And here's Jody Rosen (many props, this boy is ON!) on Bob Xgau's firing:

He also earned the "dean" title by teaching. A huge percentage of the working rock critics of the last three decades are graduates of the Voice music section, shaped by Christgau's mentoring and fearsome line-editing.

Here's a sample of the "new" Voice style gallery rap:

On "Rap O'Clock," they joke about how they "use rap words like 'word is bond' like 'to the rhythm yo.' " It's rap music about rap, downtown music about downtown, hipster music about being hip. Haters call it gallery rap—as in, you know, art.

(Hey, I'm confused, what genre is that sad cool kid the clown prince of? Rap, you say?)

So, in view of the crumbly towers of my loved profession, with art schoolers invading yet another genre and having waged my own covert year-long battle uptown, I announce to you all that I am now no longer a resident of NYC, that I'll be back to freelance after the 33 1/3 and that, well, I'll be back to blogging with a vengance and a renewed passion. What is the future of music writing? I've been asking myself this question every day, and since my commitment to it has become a major conflict in my life, I intend to spend this year off from Columbia passionately arguing and hopefully affecting change for the the profession's future.

And since blogging/web publishing has certainly been the key factor in professional criticism's paradigm shift, I'll end this purposefully vague announcement by simply quoting someone else who has spoken better on the subject in the near past:

So, since I have no intention of giving up rock criticism, all reasonable offers entertained; my phone number is in the book, as they used to say when there were books.

Be Seeing (More Of) You,
Daphne