EMP Pop Conference 2007: Ready for more?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (272 of them)

I wish the EMP pop conference would come over to my house for beers tonight after Lost.

― Maria :D, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 20:21 (seventeen years ago) link

OK, and who's going to be the one next years whose presentation is called "Use of music as clue-dropper and plot-mover in the hit TV series Lost"?

― Maria :D, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 20:23 (seventeen years ago) link

year

― Maria :D, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 20:24 (seventeen years ago) link

lame request -- if anyone's using del.icio.us and bookmarking this year's emp papers, can you tag them "emp2007"? i want to read whatever's online, since i didn't attend this year. thanks!

― theoreticalgirl, Wednesday, 25 April 2007 23:27 (seventeen years ago) link

In some prior years The NY Times covered the event, but alas I've seen very little coverage of it in newspapers or online in blogs. Maybe those who were there will eventually post about it.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 26 April 2007 03:50 (seventeen years ago) link

I'm with theoreticalgirl, any directions to papers posted online would warrant a hug from da hoos.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 26 April 2007 03:55 (seventeen years ago) link

/uncreepy

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Thursday, 26 April 2007 03:58 (seventeen years ago) link

haha the seattle weekly wrote it up

they hate me

― mark s, Thursday, 26 April 2007 10:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Yea, only Seattle coverage. As no big name indie-rockers did presentations you don't get "first and fast" website coverage, and old-school media likely no longer wants to pay to send writers to hear other writers talk (as the NY Times did in the past) and figure their mainstream readers do not care. Oh well. I want to read a bunch of papers and especially want to hear more about Ned Sublette's presentation on New Orleans--all I heard about was his criticism of the current administration.

― curmudgeon, Thursday, 26 April 2007 13:25 (seventeen years ago) link

They are New Times bozos, Mark.

― Nicole, Thursday, 26 April 2007 13:53 (seventeen years ago) link

ok well yeah, i'm not entirely sure why i'm supposed to be apologising for quoting other writers and commenting on them in a panel on music-writing but i guess the fact she totally missed the point of my paper IS somewhat my fault -- the biggest larf i got on the day was when i sed i'd asked a key question on ilx once and response was "the usual bafflement"

note to self: work out what talking about AND CLEARLY TELL PPL WHAT IT IS WHEN YOU DISCOVER IT

― mark s, Thursday, 26 April 2007 13:57 (seventeen years ago) link

was it maria:D who sed thst ann powers had the gift of larfing at her own jokes on VH1? i am of course too fastidious for such crowd-pleasing shtick bah

― mark s, Thursday, 26 April 2007 14:00 (seventeen years ago) link

My notes on Ned Sublette's:

As with bumper sticker: “If you aren’t completely appalled, then you haven’t been paying attention.” “If losing an American city…the canary in the coalmine of climate change, as well as [social inequity], under an ultra-reactionary government, doesn’t radicalize you and get you off your ass, what does it take?” Stripping away drums (=culture=history) capital of slavery and of sex slavery. "On Sabbath evening the African slaves meet on the green by the swamp and rock the city with their Congo dances." --letter written in New Orleans. 1819 Roy Brown “Good Rockin Tonight.” LA 18th state in 1812. Previously isolated; then a hub of communications. NOLA wanted to be a French town but the French didn’t want it. 3 colonizations: French, Spanish, Anglo-American (colony of Virginia pre-statehood). 3 languages, 3 slave regimes, 3 black populations. Spanish=”Congo period.” Increasingly cosmopolitan African population in NOLA. French project by Canadians. Thomas Jefferson, one of the great villains of American history, if you look at it from a black perspective. HAITIAN REVOLUTION. Earl Palmer (NOLA rock drummer) stowed away on a fruit barge to Havana (the music! The music!) 1962 embargo of Cuba was also an embargo of NOLA & destroyed the cities’ link. NOLA is the point of intersection between Cuban importation and US slave-raising. Black experience in NOLA: 1. French, 2. Spanish (re-Africanization). NOLA ruled by Cuba. Large population of free people of color. Slaves could attend dances, own property and businesses (and other slaves), and buy freedom guaranteed (only in Cuba and NOLA). First mention of tango: the beat of reggaeton, of the second line, etc. 3. American, 4. ultra-reactionary ex-plantation owners (10K French-speaking refugees fleeing Cuba after fleeing what would be Haiti) 1/3 each, [white, free people of color (mostly female), and slaves] allowed to keep their slaves by act of Congress (because the slave trade was prohibited January 1, 1808). SC brought in 40K Africans for resale, undercutting the VA & MD markets, hence the 1808 prohibition. Clandestine privateering business (Laffittes) importing slaves illegally from ships bound for Cuba.

Note that my 1-4 list was enumerating what Sublette said was five stages so obvs I missed one.

― Nick Minichino, Thursday, 26 April 2007 14:42 (seventeen years ago) link

Nick coming through again! (And please send me those notes, sir.)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 26 April 2007 17:13 (seventeen years ago) link

was it maria:D who sed thst ann powers had the gift of larfing at her own jokes on VH1?

i think simon said that

― Maria :D, Thursday, 26 April 2007 23:19 (seventeen years ago) link

Nick, thanks much for those Ned Sublette notes.

― curmudgeon, Friday, 27 April 2007 03:21 (seventeen years ago) link

i dig this person's take on things:

http://musicology.typepad.com/dialm/2007/04/nerdcore.html

― scott seward, Friday, 27 April 2007 13:03 (seventeen years ago) link

SR's take on the conference. To meet your daily requirement of meta, he quotes liberally from this thread. he says nice things about my thing too, which is nice, but i'm posting this cuz i think it's a good wrap-up:

http://blissout.blogspot.com/

i'm tempted to dust off my blog and write something about the whole thing as well. i'm afraid my blog won't recognize me though.

― scott seward, Saturday, 28 April 2007 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link

I think Ulver's sales might have doubled from your presentation alone.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 28 April 2007 16:56 (seventeen years ago) link

ha! we can only hope.

― scott seward, Saturday, 28 April 2007 17:05 (seventeen years ago) link

wow, so i go to sign in to my blog and apparently google owns my blog now! who knew? i thought i paid attention to these things. it really HAS been a while.

― scott seward, Saturday, 28 April 2007 17:06 (seventeen years ago) link

I saw this via google:

http://invisibleoranges.com/2007/04/emp-pop-conference-2007.html

Invisible Oranges blog April 23rd posting. The guy also posts metal mp3s

I've been to wonderful places - most recently, the EMP Pop Conference in Seattle. What a strange experience. A convention of rock critics, an abundance of dudes with glasses, a celebration of unbelievable music geekdom.

I met great people, though, and took in some interesting presentations. One of my favorite talks was by Decibel's Scott Seward, who delivered a powerful, poignant meditation on folk metal. He and his wife make mixtapes together - unbearably cute.

― curmudgeon, Saturday, 28 April 2007 17:22 (seventeen years ago) link

That's Cosmo Lee's blog! he is a very groovy dude. It was great to meet him. It's funny, cuz i really don't read blogs that much, but i HAVE enjoyed his in the past. it's great. So, it was nice to tell the one person whose blog I read that I enjoy it!

― scott seward, Saturday, 28 April 2007 17:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Here's Ali Marcus' mix of criticism and praise on his blog re EMP:

http://alimarcus.wordpress.com/2007/04/23/emp-pop-conference-16-end-bits/

April 23, 2007
EMP Pop Conference #16 - End Bits

One thing that I continually find entertaning is the feedback loop at the conference, presenters quoting writers to help support their point, and those writers are literally sitting in the audience listening to their own words spoken back to them. This kind of validation (or cancellation?) is a kind of black hole, a weird moment in time when the reasoning behind an argument starts to sound circular. For some reason the fact that the original writer is in the room listening sort of serves to render the intellectual capacity of the argument null and void. Like anything that is circular, you have to wonder whether it’s useful to end up where you started. Of course it can be. And of course it can’t be.

Also.

There seemed to be an exceptional amount of political commentaries built into the arguments I saw. The theme of the conference, “Waking Up From History,” propelled many writers to arrive at the concusion that we should actually wake up TO history, to learn from history, and to draw conclusions between the cultural sphere that our work covers and the political sphere of which we are citizens.

Some examples:

-Robert Bennett on the Jazz Diplomacy program and the things we should learn from it.
-Scott Nelson’s timely mention of “abortive gun policies” in the paper about John Henry’s exhumation - I’m not sure how he managed to reference the VA. Tech shootings in that conversation but at the time it made perfect sense.
-Brendan Greaves’ talk of Terry Allen’s border politics and the ways in which the Texas/Mexico border is treated by the government versus the inhabitants.
-There was also an entire panel about New Orleans, as well as a smattering of other related papers throughout the weekend, all of which contained a fervent expression of the power of music and solidarity and the essential character of the city.

In general, as there seems to be in more and more things these days, there was a real sense of urgency that was more palpable than in previous conferences. It may have been the effect of the theme, but in general people’s research was very much rooted in the grim realities of life and music’s ability to help maintain and even create hope where all seems quite hopeless.

― curmudgeon, Saturday, 28 April 2007 17:32 (seventeen years ago) link

That's Cosmo Lee's blog!

Ah cool -- he was with Donut B. and I and others for the Earth show.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 28 April 2007 17:33 (seventeen years ago) link

oh, and Cosmo named his blog after the famous Decibel Magazine invisible oranges story. okay, it's not really famous, but it was awfully funny...

― scott seward, Saturday, 28 April 2007 17:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Ali marcus has a bunch of postings about the conference:

[url][Removed Illegal Link]

excerpt from: April 23, 2007
EMP Pop Conference #8 - John Henry

In a different panel later in the day, Scott Nelson walked us through the process by which he tracked down the sequence of events in the real John Henry’s life to city records and signed contracts to buried bones in the Virginia clay. Literally de-mythologizing the hero of the song, Nelson brilliantly unveiled a mystery, revealing a narrative that is just as much a part of American history as the legend.

It turns out, John Henry was a prisioner at the Virginia Penitentiary. Along with hundreds of other convicts, he was leased out to the railroad companies to build the tunnels, work that men would not volunteer for due to the incredibly high risk of death (Nelson says that in 1866 the highest export from the state of California was Chinese bones, the dead men who came to America to work in the tunnels). Anyways, Nelson found records of a steam-engine drill at Lewis Tunnel, across the WV border but near the Big Bend Tunnel of the “John Henry” ballad. He found contracts that fined the railroads In a different panel later in the day, Scott Nelson walked us through the process by which he tracked down the sequence of events in the real John Henry’s life to city records and signed contracts to buried bones in the Virginia clay. Literally de-mythologizing the hero of the song, Nelson brilliantly unveiled a mystery, revealing a narrative that is just as much a part of American history as the legend.

It turns out, John Henry was a prisioner at the Virginia Penitentiary. Along with hundreds of other convicts, he was leased out to the railroad companies to build the tunnels, work that men would not volunteer for due to the incredibly high risk of death (Nelson says that in 1866 the highest export from the state of California was Chinese bones, the dead men who came to America to work in the tunnels). Anyways, Nelson found records of a steam-engine drill at Lewis Tunnel, across the WV border but near the Big Bend Tunnel of the “John Henry” ballad. He found contracts that fined the railroads $100 for every man not returned to the Penitentiary, which explains the hundred of skeletons found buried in mass graves, Henry’s presumably among them.00 for every man not returned to the Penitentiary, which explains the hundred of skeletons found buried in mass graves, Henry’s presumably among them.

― curmudgeon, Saturday, 28 April 2007 18:03 (seventeen years ago) link

http://alimarcus.wordpress.com/2007/04/page/2/

― curmudgeon, Saturday, 28 April 2007 18:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Simon's blog post did an excellent job of articulating my queasiness after that last panel.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Saturday, 28 April 2007 20:17 (seventeen years ago) link

http://wishiwerethere.typepad.com/pgwp/

More blogging about Amy Phillips comments

― curmudgeon, Sunday, 29 April 2007 04:35 (seventeen years ago) link

See the April 26th posting

― curmudgeon, Sunday, 29 April 2007 04:37 (seventeen years ago) link

photos on flcker

― curmudgeon, Sunday, 29 April 2007 18:11 (seventeen years ago) link

whoa. I've finally caught up (one hour link following, reading)

--> http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/ April 21 posting by Steven Shaviro on the Wu-Tang panel and his presentation
This was awesome and OTM. I don't think it could be described any better. I've tried discussing similar thoughts with my Wu-Tang friends but I'm not sure they think about the characteristics of the members this much. (Except for U-God--he seems so out of place in Wu-Tang ("Black Shampoo") and we're always trying to nail down exactly why.) But this was muy refrescando!. I want to read the other Wu-Tang related presentations--please?

scottpl's response to Amy Talk/Pitchfork "is THE PIT" is interesting too and unfortunatley seems accurate. I've never had a conversation with anyone on the intricacies of the Stax horn section or the relevance of mall-punk today and perhaps that's a good thing: 1. Is it really that important to talk about? 2. I'm probably not smart enough to carry a conversation on such matters. Nonetheless while I'm always looking for interesting and well written incite on even the lamest elements of music/culture(?) the discussion of ideas where it still occurs (ILM?, Stylus features, Pitchfork) seems like a dying art. And yes!, the "longform review" being percieved as pretension/snarkiness seems so commonplace among some of my friends and ILM (maybe?) that it must be really frustrating for people who really want to give even a little bit of a shit about all these aspects of popular music/culture.

Anyway, I'd like to see this thing one year. Congrats to the presenters.

― earinfections, Monday, 30 April 2007 04:47 (seventeen years ago) link

"Black Shampoo" is awesome and totally Wu-Tang! It's not a far step from there to some of Masta Killa and Ghost's stuff at all.

Best part is when Meth is like "Fuck these hoes" and U-God is all like "Naw, naw chillllllllllll......." (I may be imagining this, I haven't listened to "Forever" in quite a spell)

I've never had a conversation with anyone on the intricacies of the Stax horn section or the relevance of mall-punk today

I'd love to have these convos. Start threads on them!

― The Reverend, Monday, 30 April 2007 05:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Simon Reynolds made my week when he called me lovely on the interweb.

― Maria :D, Monday, 30 April 2007 13:13 (seventeen years ago) link

On the localism discussion...

http://www.zoilus.com/documents/in_depth/2007/001032.php

― Pete Scholtes, Monday, 30 April 2007 15:21 (seventeen years ago) link

I missed so much. Including Wayne Marshall's presentation...

http://wayneandwax.com/?p=128

I met him at Matos's, but then missed him DJing at... a gambling speakeasy????

http://wayneandwax.com/?p=130

"I met up with Filastine at about 1am on Saturday night, post-Matos’s-post-conference party, and he took me to an all-night underground speakeasy type of thing, complete with cabaret and craps tables. It was something else. Lots of kids dressed to the nines, pretending it was the 20s, wading through warehouse puddles in their finery. The proprietors asked me to DJ, and lucky enough I still had my laptop with me."

― Pete Scholtes, Monday, 30 April 2007 19:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Holy fuck!

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 30 April 2007 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link

I mean seriously, that's ten papers right there.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, 30 April 2007 19:23 (seventeen years ago) link

so if anyone wants to read my paper, just e-mail me. i've got a final version all sorted out. i think. if i send it to you don't put it on the internet or anything, cuz i'm gonna give it to someone to print. i mean, i don't know why you would...
anyway, in case anyone is interested. i'm still gonna write up some late thoughts on the whole thing for my blog, but haven't finished, um, reflecting. hey, i'm a slowpoke, sue me.

― scott seward, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 23:41 (seventeen years ago) link

Pete, I seem to have missed you. You did that great article on the Minneapolis reggaeton scene, correct?

― The Reverend, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 23:53 (seventeen years ago) link

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.