murkage

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I was gonna post this on my own LJ but it's a welcome counterpoint to that k-spunk article from yesterday, I think. The other week, I went to a symposium on the hardcore cuntinuum at the University of East London, which is WAY WAY WAY OUT EAST, Cyprus is so far out but I love the DLR so it was all good. I missed k-spunk's talk because I was interviewing Tori Amos (and tbh her academic babble is so much more preferable) but that didn't matter - I was there to support Dan Hancox and Joe Muggs and they were both excellent, v funny and incisive in debunking the cuntinuum. I don't think either has put their speech online but I was particularly pleased that Dan brought up the issue of dancing, which ~for some reason~ is rarely discussed despite the cuntinuum consisting of dance genres. ANYWAY, my friend Melissa Bradshaw (who is the kind of smart, knowledgeable writer who should be linked up all over the place, rather than fauxthorities like k-spunk and SR) was in the audience with me, murked k-spunk at one point and has now written about it, as well as comparing the symposium to the soca aerobics class she left early to go to, and a vg read it is too.

Comments

[cis.livejournal.com]

Sort of related to M Bradshaw's thing-- I was thinking, recently, about what the core of my problem with S Reynolds is, and might have worked it out: it's that he so strongly believes in the idea of the music critic as intermediary&intercessory between musician and fan, and I so strongly believe in the relationship between music and fan. So, basically, catholic v protestant! Something like the SY/portals thing a while back, where his image of 'the portal' was 'the non-musical influence that you are guided to by reading Portrait of the Artist of the Consumer in the NME' (ie artist mediated through music critic), and mine was 'the thing you happen upon through over-attention to sleeve notes and b-sides' (ie artist's interests as hidden treasure in music-as-object). Obviously as a music critic it's all to the good that he considers himself to have an essential position in the act of music appreciation! I mean, otherwise-- what would be the point? How can you write music criticism unless you think you're fulfilling a necessary role? It's just, unfortunately, easy to slip into hubris.

We can overstress the dancing thing: yeah i think it's dumb to talk about a specific form of dance music w/out experience of the situation in which it is primarily experienced, but it'd be equally dumb to locate it only in that world and only in that instant, and to never try and see it in any wider context. S Reynolds has got carried away with one of his own ideas, and unfortunately he's establishment enough that he's carried away some others with him, and unfortunately that idea doesn't really hold any sort of water. But the act of making up a prism through which to view the world and marvelling at the funny shapes it makes is still essential.

i dunno why but while i find "hardcore cuntinuum" funny I'm uncomfortable w/ yr using "k-spunk": it seems, well, bullyish frankly although i'm sure it's not intended that way. If he's wrong, his wrongness can speak for itself.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

i preferred k-plunk myself. juvenile > sexual in my puritanical connotations book.

[cis.livejournal.com]

yeah uh i have called him kerplunk before myself! so maybe I cannot talk. But I feel like sexualising someone's online pseudonym when you disagree with them crosses the line and becomes what we might call "a d1ck move".

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

ha, it's a long-standing thing with various of us, we went through all the possible puns and this was def the best! though actually I was getting uncomfortable typing it repeatedly, but couldn't bring myself to actually type "k-punk".

[cis.livejournal.com]

if it's a thing with a whole gang of you that kinda makes it worse!

(also surely more of a rhyme than a pun?)

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

yeah but you can't really bully the establishment...

[cis.livejournal.com]

haha ok i know k-punk seems to have nailed SR's colours to his mast but he's still nowhere near as establishment as Reynolds is!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

he's way more establishment than we are!

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

Dude, you write for the Guardian! In what possible way could you be more establishment?

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Is this "murkage"?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Well no, failed murkage maybe but I fail to see how that makes me establishment given my age, the length of time I've been doing professional writing, the fact that everyone involved in this has pretty much written for the Grau at some point. Etc.

[cis.livejournal.com]

...okay, i'll bite: how is k-punk way more establishment than we are?

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

as I said above - he and SR are the ones writing the books and the articles which will (and do) get taken as gospel by people wanting to learn about the history of UK club music. Maybe in 10 years Melissa, Dan and I will be establishment but if nothing else we're all too young right now.

[cis.livejournal.com]

I think you're overestimating K-punk's position. Writing for the Wire he gets an engaged but v specialised audience; writing for the NS he's reaching an audience of people who aren't necessarily engaged and are therefore more likely to repeat his arguments until they become received wisdom, but we could say the same for yr position in the Friday Graun. Age doesn't mean much unless it's backed up by a publishing/tastemaking history, which KP doesn't have in anything like the way that SR does.

[koganbot]

Also, my impression of Reynolds is that he's not interested in having his ideas be taken as gospel. I think he thinks that ideas are to be put forth for the general conversation, and that many hands will be involved in their shaping. That said, I don't always trust his ability to listen and to take in surprising and contrary viewpoints. But that said, I don't see this thread - for instance - as being an example of people trying to discuss his or K-Punk's ideas. And as I said I'm pretty distant from the scene and its convo.