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

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Melissa's piece is brilliant even if you neither know nor care about the HC debate. Her theory of soca aerobics is incredible (as is her ego-themed Paul White interview) and hopefully I'll remember to submit one or both to that Da Capo thing.

I basically agree that the critic should think him/herself more important, BUT it's so so important to remember a) that the artist is the primary source, and b) that criticism is a form of journalism and documentation, not just personal response.

[koganbot]

"Personal response" and "journalism and documentation" are not the only two choices. Writing is living a part of one's life on the page (even if you're only filling in columns as some temp at some agency), and music is source material for your life, and I don't see why your life (or my life) is any less a primary source than the music is, or any less art. But then, criticism can also be, you know, criticism, analyzing and questioning what's going on and saying what should be going on, or intervening in any way you think is good. I never had any interest in being a journalist or a documentarian.

[cis.livejournal.com]

that the artist is the primary source

I don't agree with this at all!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I don't see how you can get around it, or why you'd want to. I'm not particularly standing up for authorial authority and obv it depends what kind of writing you're doing, but if your thing is to be a journalist and cultural commentator, you need to report the music accurately and not misrepresent or dismiss the people making it. I feel v strongly about that!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

eg the whole "wonky"/ket fiasco - when none of the producers talk about ket or even take it, when no one at nights where it's played is on ket, you can't just write that it has a synergy with ket. BECAUSE THAT IS NOT ACTUALLY TRUE. except in your IMAGINATION, and - this is the point - I don't particularly care about what anyone imagines is the case, I would rather read about what's actually happening. this is especially true for a nascent not-even-a-genre which most people have never heard of, and young producers still on their first few singles.

[koganbot]

Again, you insist on giving us only two choices: (1) The artist as source, or (2) making up any old shit you want. Whereas, think if you're a person at that aerobics class: you most certainly need to take account of the beat, and the room, and the other dancers, and conventions surrounding aerobics, etc. etc. etc. You're not free to do any old thing, and if you acted as if you were, what you were doing probably wouldn't be worth much. But that doesn't mean that the person or people who created the sounds coming out of the boombox (what if it's a remix? who counts as the artist, the source?) are the source of what's going on in that room. They're only one element.

And the page-screen-conversation is our room. And, again, the "artist" is not the source of our room, is only one element - is only one of the artists involved in the room. Now, am I going to be an interesting part of the room myself, if I simply dismiss and make no effort to understand anything else, the world going on around me, everything that contributes to the room? Not very likely. If I only project what's already in my head, I'm not going to take in any new information, get any new stimulus or inspiration. If you looked at any of my Kuhn threads, you'll see that I tried to insist that we let Kuhn lead the conversation, that we tried to work out what he was going on about rather than playing our own familiar riffs. But for me, that's merely where we start, with his ideas. We're no more obligated to stick with his ideas at the expense of our own than dancers are limited to depicting the music and depicting their fellow dancers. But that doesn't mean we want to misrepresent his ideas, unless they're so boring that they can only be improved by misrepresentation.

What I'm reacting to is the tendency to consider musicmakers and streets and dance floors and kids on the bus as real but writers and pages and message boards and magazines as not quite so real, and the idea that it's the job of the latter to convey the former, that the former are the sources of life and we're but the mere reflection.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Well, I think we actually agree: by "primary source", what I mean is that the artist necessarily leads the conversation. And all of us can take it wherever we want, but if we start somewhere too removed from the primary source, I don't think anyone will get anywhere worthwhile.

I don't think writers and journalists are any less real than dancers and average fans, but they DO have...a historical responsibility, I guess, to be accurate to the empirical evidence. At least at a certain level. It's why we (technically) (bloody economy) get paid, but the dancers have to pay to get in the club.

[koganbot]

No we do not agree. The "artist" doesn't necessarily lead the conversation, unless you define "artist" as "anyone in the room I think has something to teach me, or whom an attempt to understand may lead to surprises." And even there, how much they "lead" - how much I attempt to start with their terms rather than my own - depends a lot on who the are. As I said elsewhere on this thread, I think K-Punk's view is distorted. How much do I let his distortions lead the discussion? I don't notice, in your interpreting K-Punk or Reynolds or Asher Roth or 3OH!3, that you seem particularly eager to let them lead the conversation. There are some pathological liars I came across on ilX who may be worth the effort to understand, but I'd certainly want to take into account that they are pathological liars. In any event, being accurate and letting someone lead the conversation aren't the same thing, and I don't see how one class of people (the artist) gets to have accuracy bestowed on it and gets to be lauded as a primary source in priority over everybody else.

"Journalism" to me is a bunch of bigoted and unexamined prejudices about who is considered important and who gets to lead the conversation. Whereas what the best story I have to tell and who or what the subject of that story should be are something I discover, not something I know in advance.

[theastronomymod.livejournal.com]

Melissa's piece is brilliant even if you neither know nor care about the HC debate. Her theory of soca aerobics is incredible (as is her ego-themed Paul White interview) and hopefully I'll remember to submit one or both to that Da Capo thing.

I can attest to this. I am still not entirely sure what the "hardcore continuum" even is (though the more I hear second hand about it, the more I'm sure that it's not for me) yet I thoroughly enjoyed Bradshaw's piece.

Because her invocation of a bunch of sweaty women getting down to music in order to try and improve themselves (their bodies, their moods, their enjoyment of the world around them etc.) has a hell of a lot more to do with my experience of music than a bunch of critics tossing about more and more exclusive re-definitions of what they think music is about or should be, and trying to rewrite art to conform to their interpretations of it.

If the artist isn't the primary source, then WHO THE HELL IS?!?!? One might argue that the fan is. But it certainly is not the critic - or their nightclub alter ego, the super-DJ.

Sorry, I'm only just starting to explore dance culture - almost by accident - and it's stranger than any indie world I ever inhabited, in oh so many ways I still don't entirely understand.

[theastronomymod.livejournal.com]

She does, however, remind me quite a bit of Miss AMP before the baby ate her brain.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Yeah - when your theorising has reached a state where it's completely unrecognisable from/to how the music is consumed in real life (whether in raves or at soca aerobics classes), this is surely a huge problem for you! And it's not to do with theory qua theory: Melissa's theory of soca aerobics, and the Kode9/Kodwo Eshun paper she mentioned, use theory in such a way that it's instantly recognisable to your own experiences. Which is what she said except not as eloquent I guess!

(It's so cool you're getting into ye newe dance musicke btw - I've very nearly been at some of the same nights as you, like the Bugged Out on Easter weekend - went to Paris at the last minute instead. I'm 90% going to be at the Sónar warmup on Fri though, I think you mentioned that somewhere? And that reminds me, I owe you mp3s...)

[theastronomymod.livejournal.com]

Yup, I'm at Sonar Warmup on Friday (and the BBC Radiophonic Workshop workshop on Sunday but I doubt you'll be at that!)

Also - are you going to School of Seven Bells tomorrow?

Going to see Richard Norris DJ next Friday at some new place called Cable in Sarf London - he seems to be someone who's very attuned to exactly the things that dance music and psych/dronerock share in common and highlighting those things.

It's strange, the different ways in which dance music impacts upon one when experienced in different contexts. Lots of things I couldn't STAND if played in a club will seem amazing when I'm listening to them while programming (I think this is as bigger reason for getting into electronic/dance music as the Alkan obsession - if not more - really repetitive dance music is fantastic for programming work) and vice versa. Also the physicality of sound - what FEELS good played on a giant sound system feels very different on headphones. Different aspects of the music leap out, different things work.

So I think it's fairly idiotic to commentate on what millieus music should be experienced in, without experiencing those millieus. Sure, setting can change music and music can change with the setting - and things can surprise you about where/how they do and don't work. But priviliging one over the other is really dodgy ground.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I didn't know SVIIB were playing! I can't go anyway, going to Night Slugs, but hopefully I'll see you at the Roundhouse. The DJ I'll definitely be checking out is Ikonika...

Yeah, it's funny how dance music - esp the minimal techno I've been into - is amazing on headphones, as hangover music, and on the dancefloor, but sounds completely different every time. And how really subtle tweaks can transform a track from one into the other. It makes it hard to be a critic of! Because you're listening to a promo mp3 through your laptop, trying to imagine how it would sound in Fabric...

I remember when I first started to go clubbing, and it was just...such a different way to experience music. SR understood this, I think, but has forgotten it - criticising new music on theory grounds, having never heard it in a club. KP, I doubt has ever understood it.