― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 00:04 (twenty-one years ago) link
Amateurist, count the hours, the few, the tiny hours remaining, and look out the window--SEE THOSE WINGS OF FIRE? THE JAWS OF DEADLY RESOLVE? THE GORGON HAS COME FOR THEE AND THINE...
Oh, wait, I should call the gorgon back. Sorry, Am.
― Sasha Frere-Jones (Sasha Frere-Jones), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 00:05 (twenty-one years ago) link
― hstencil, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 00:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
American Cream Team in touchy feely racial untiy shockah!
― Sasha Frere-Jones (Sasha Frere-Jones), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 00:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 00:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 00:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 00:56 (twenty-one years ago) link
― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:08 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
two things pop immediately to mind here. one is a quote from a raver (and ex-rocker) friend at a party when it came time to change the music. he demanded "NO POWER CHORDS!" (my first encounter w/indie guilt!) the other is going to a rave in Minneapolis 4.9.94 and Tommie Sunshine in the chillout room around 10pm dropping "All Apologies" in the middle of his set and the room erupting, and it felt less mournful than like people paying tribute to a fellow traveler, or maybe a parallel one.
also, the mid-90s were very much a keepin'-it-real time across the board: hip-hop and indie rock and rave were all going through it big-time, as I recall, in parallel. I wonder if that has anything to do with the explosion of sheer product becoming available at the time--more and larger boutique economies than ever before, something that has obviously increased even more since the Net grew to ubiquity. I've always thought people began thinking and projecting smaller because it became more feasible to do so and still make a living at it, as well as a way of preserving sanity and/or holding onto some semblance of roots. or am I repeating stuff already said upthread? if so, I apologize--I couldn't read the whole thing, either.
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:18 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
witnessed from the bus today: a girl with a bonnie prince billy record and a last poets lp. now only if she forms a band.
― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:31 (twenty-one years ago) link
― trife (simon_tr), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:45 (twenty-one years ago) link
Michaelangelo's Nirvana ephiphany reminds me also of the best review of "Teen Spirit" I've ever read (I think from '93), which was Chris Lowe calling it a "rave anthem," and singling out the video in particular as proof.
― s woods, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:52 (twenty-one years ago) link
― jess (dubplatestyle), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 01:57 (twenty-one years ago) link
― s woods, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 02:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― hstencil, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 02:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
― s woods, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 02:05 (twenty-one years ago) link
What about slam-dancing or moshing - a profoundly homosocial and EXCULSIVE style of dance?
― Michael Dieter, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 02:38 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 02:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 02:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
I'll happily take the '90s over any other decade, incidentally, not least because I lived through them (I'll hold judgment on the '00s till they're further along, but so far I'm with you guys on 'em, e.g. they're grate). but Blount's point is interesting because moshing = dancing and rhythmic propulsion = urge to dance. considering the jock contingent's hostile takeover of alternarock by mid-decade (I remember seeing people mosh at a fucking Liz Phair show in 1994), you might also argue that static rhythms on the part of indie bands were also their way of discouraging it, putting a wrench in the works--not necessarily on purpose, but instinctively, as a reaction. this isn't to discount the fact that indie rock was never exactly Deney Terrio territory to begin with, but still.
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 04:22 (twenty-one years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 04:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 04:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 06:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
There's styles and forms of dancing in 90's indie-rock that are consistent with its masculinist overtones, and if I'm being slightly over-determinist Sasha - I'm painting in broad colours to emphasize a point too often overlooked by male rock critics...
― Michael Dieter, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 06:45 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dan I. (Dan I.), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 06:45 (twenty-one years ago) link
― M Matos (M Matos), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 06:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 07:40 (twenty-one years ago) link
But to clarify one last missing term from the gendered reading. Indie-rock has a conflicted relationship to CONSUMPTION - the idea of 'selling-out', being commercial, being pop. This is a re-staging of the well-documented dilemmas of masculinity and consumption, something you don't find in pop because of its feminine orientation.
The idea of the body - which has somewhat led the thread astray toward dancing - was more a comment on the focus of consumption, 'technologies of the self' (ugh, Foucault) that are more compatible with the chart, boy-bands and teen-queens etc...
And btw, this is a well-rehearsed position in popular cultural studies. Gender/Music criticism does not merely begin and end with Sreynolds guys!
― Michael Dieter, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 07:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sasha Frere-Jones (Sasha Frere-Jones), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 09:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
not quite.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 11:42 (twenty-one years ago) link
Somehow those King Kong records slipped through.
― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:32 (twenty-one years ago) link
― hstencil, Tuesday, 22 April 2003 13:34 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 15:20 (twenty-one years ago) link
― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 15:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 15:24 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Jody Beth Rosen (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 22 April 2003 15:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
indie rock has no RIGHT to "inject danceable elements" into their music, because indie dorks can't dance for shit, nobody wants to see them dance, and because they've resigned themselves to a right of cooler-than-thou inward-looking mopiness, they are therefore not ALLOWED to dance, either.
word bond.
― Mike Drach, Thursday, 24 April 2003 01:05 (twenty-one years ago) link
― hstencil, Thursday, 24 April 2003 01:07 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 24 April 2003 01:34 (twenty-one years ago) link
― omit (omit), Thursday, 24 April 2003 03:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 24 April 2003 03:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
― hstencil, Thursday, 24 April 2003 03:34 (twenty-one years ago) link
― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 24 April 2003 07:42 (twenty-one years ago) link