Music of the Week 22/09

A retro-filled Music of the Week this time:

• Maxwell: "Pretty Wings" (Columbia)
• Allen Toussaint: "Singing the Blues" (Bright Mississippi, Nonesuch)
  
• Archie Shepp: Kwnaza (Impulse, 1974)
• Cecil Payne: Zodiac (Strata East, 1973)
• Various - The Complete '1981' Box Set mp3s from Musicophilia
  

Music of the Weeks 20+21/09

• Pixie Lott: "Mama Do" (Mercury)
• New Boyz: "You're a Jerk"
• Lily Allen: "Not Fair" (Capitol)
• Staff Benda Bilili: Tres Tres Fort (Crammed Disc)
• Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: Infernal Machines (New Amsterdam)

Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor, and background

Forgot to mention an interesting interview with the author Colson Whitehead in a New York Times Book Review podcast (podcast link here) from a few weeks back. Whitehead, whose new book Sag Harbor is out now, talks with Sam Tanenhaus about background ("black boys with beach houses") which links to my arguments on afro punk and "indie" in the sense that personal backgoround is more complex than black and white (note his comment on "authentic black experience"). A quite obvious point, really, but nonetheless one which seems to escape some critics of "indie".

Sonic debacle

K-punk has a go at Sonic Youth and their followers, but misses the point the way I see it.

The prime argument seems to be that SY are faux alternatives to the (a) mainstream, when in reality they are squarly within the mainstream albeit another part of it. K-punk's claim is that the thought that SY represent an alternative is the "fundamentl (rockist) fantasy". Now, while I'm sure some kids (yes, kids) harbor the idea (illusion) that SY are an alternative to a mainstream they feel left out of or don't want to be apart of, K-punk's assertion is in and of itself rockist (post-Adorno) in that he claims to know why people like SY.

Whether or not SY are an alternative to the mainstream or operate within the mainstream is beside the point. I'd argue that noone really sounds quite like SY, and at the same time that SY don't really sound like anybody else. So, yes, they are an alterative. Whether within or outside the mainstream doesn't really matter.

Claiming that SY have been "making the same record for over twenty years" kind of proves that point; the records sound like SY records, nothing else. As a great band once sang: "Mr. narrator/this is Bob Dylan to me". His Bob-ness was himself part of the mainstream while at the same time nobody really sounded like him.

Still, what should be discussed is the music, and this is where I feel K-punk's biggest mistake lies. He doesn't mention it at all, apart from staking the claim that SY have made the same record over and over. That's a populist claim, a claim that doesn't say why this is so, but one that will resonate in the ears of the naysayers and irritate those who disagree.

I find it quite easy to hear a difference between Sister and Rather Ripped. The first is more abrasive, the second smoother. But what it boils down to the songs, the tunes. Both records have good tunes in buckets, and while they sound somewhat different, the classic SY elements are there; Moore's chiming guitar sound, Shelley's pounding and staccato-like drumming, Ranaldo's longer tones, and Gordon's growl, wheter voice or bass. That K-punk can't tell the difference I suspect is down to his hang-up on the mainstream/not mainstream divide. That he doesn't like them I won't hold against him, I'd just wish he'd argument on the basis of the music instead.

Good post by Matt Ingram (welcome back!) on the same issue.

The printed word

In a move to counter the decline of printed music writing *, tomorrow will see the release of a fanzine-inspired magazine simply named FAN (wordplay, indeed), to which I'm a contributing writer. My first conrtribution concerns Arfican-American punk and "indie" rock, in some ways a commentary to the argument that modern rock has become the domain of white middle class boys/men. It's true, admittedly, but then again most areas in culture, popular and not, are dominated by white middle class boys/men. I attempt to argue that that's no reason to forget the contributions to punk rock from people with different backgrounds, and that using background as a sort of meassure of quality is problematic, to put it mildly. Anyway, here's the cover of the above-mentioned magazine.



* Since the question's been put to me; yes of course that line was intended to be a bit tounge in cheek.

Miranda Lambert's "Dead Flowers"

The new Miranda Lambert single was released last week (and today world wide), at least digitally (iTunes link). Not sure what to make of this yet. It's certainly no "Famous In a Small Town" or "Guilty In Here". The consensus, though, seems to be that using "dead flowers" as a metaphor for a relationship passed it's prime is beneath a songwriter of Lambert's talent. Agreed.

Music of the Weeks 18+19/09

• Sonic Youth: The Eternal (Matador)
• Wussy: Wussy (Shake It)
• DJ Paul: Scale-A-Ton (Scale-A-Ton/Hypnotize Minds)
  
• Pretty Reckless: "I Really Fucking Love You" (single, unsigned/Uniersal?)
• Gallows: "Black Eyes" (Grey Britain, Warner Bros.)