theo parrish s/d

For me, despite believing in the subjectivity argument, I can see the merit and usefulness of deliberately blinkered gatekeeper viewpoints in developing an aesthetic among a group of artists.

HOWEVER I have to say that it's the whole "black urban realness" thing as a filter for what's good that really squicks me out in this whole debate. Now 'objectively' there's probably no reason for this being a WORSE filter than some kind of nerdy jazz purism, but 'subjectively' I find the raising up of black poverty as some kind of fount of all that's true and beautiful musically to be kind of disgusting.

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb115/melsfashion/peep_show_s4_ep1_jez_shotgun_400x25.jpg

"Being black isn't about the colour of your skin, it's about vibe, about hanging out, kicking back smoking a number, fighting prejudice and negative stereotypes wherever you find them, yeah?"

"i think you're being too harsh here. the belleville three were just teenagers with some cheap machines. they can't really be blamed for not producing "proper" italo; they were just too far removed from that community to really understand its values and heritage"

I thought he was talking about Burial and 2-step.

speaking of, vahid did you know that Kode 9 is now producing UK funky house?

That Dr Who joke is never not a classic.

I have a virtuoso ear. It can play the violin.

What is Kode9 funky house like? I thought he was all about the 8bit-wonky-aqua-crunk these days?

It took me so long to read this thread it's moved on, but anyway:

If person B says ok its not an objective fact, then there is room for dialogue. Perhaps even a beer.

Can't A win B over to A's point of view. or vice versa. They could hold the same subjective view.

It's all about shared subjectivity , isn't it? That's why we talk about records. Both in the sense of having similar notions of what sounds good, but also in seeking to hear things from another person's perspective - sharing in their subjectivity.

Pipecock (and actually Tim, when talking about how TP is part of a tradition even if sonically he represents a break in that tradition) are also both onto something as regards to communities - these are examples of larger shared subjectivities, that, as Pipecock says, might have disagreements or exceptions, but represent a "way of hearing" as much as they do a list of approved artists or techniques or sonic signatures or clubs/studios/labels.

I actually like good dog's definition of "radical subjectivity", priveliging your own personal taste to the point where you make no effort to engage with the subjectivity of the producer or the listening community of a piece of music/genre

That makes it sound like a bad thing, but it's often a radical approach that can highlight elements of the stuff you're listening to that might not have been focused on (or "there" at all, if we're going to be really subjective) by the original - can I say "listening community" again? (Not sure that's quite right, but you know what I mean). Beat diggers are an example.

Anyway, general point is that saying "musical taste is subjective" is kind of unarguable, but is surely a starting point to a conversation, not it's end-point.

Knock Knock

Who's there?

Uncle

I'll just finish this myself. Worst Joke ever:

Who's there?
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Uncle
Uncle who?
Knock Knock
Who's there?
Uncle
Uncle who?
Knock knock
Who's there?
Aunty
Aunty who?
Aunty'you glad I got rid of all those uncles.

OBJECTIVELY

I might go to Plastic People to see Theo Parrish next Saturday. If not then, then next month, maybe. He's got a residency till the new year, hasn't he?

"For me, despite believing in the subjectivity argument, I can see the merit and usefulness of deliberately blinkered gatekeeper viewpoints in developing an aesthetic among a group of artists."

Absolutely, but what is left to develop w/r/t Detroit techno? I mean, I like some Omar-S and Luke Hess too but I don't think you could claim that they're "pushing things forward".

At this stage the cranky defence of the detroit techno community's values is almost solely about stamping out heresy.

"What is Kode9 funky house like? I thought he was all about the 8bit-wonky-aqua-crunk these days?"

On the basis of the track I've heard it's kinda what you'd expect - a bit more serious and abstract, no vocals and vaguely dark ambient whining. His funky house name is Frankie Solar but I don't know the name of the track.

I totally agree Tim! But that's the crux of this isn't it? The disagreement doesn't stem from objectivity vs subjectivity at all but from the particular case of detroit and all the crap that goes with that.

None of us would be getting riled about this if we hadn't endured 15 years of people carping on about Detroit being the acme of excellence in electronic music confounded with all sorts of horrible exoticised nonsense about blackness and soul etc.

The 'objective' argument one could raise here, I suppose, is that clubs full of 'heads' tend to be really sucky places to have a fun night out at due to the aesthetic problem of being surrounded by ugly bearded men in shapeless brown clothing.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/f123/katiezo/marchb/VinceGallo.jpg

"But what I feel has happened in the case of the popularity of some musics is that these values are ignored by people outside the community who try to get in on their idea. This can sometimes lead to interesting results, other times to derivative but inferior copies. I think you can guess which I feel is more prevalent."

http://flickr.com/photos/1115/905544504/

http://www.residentadvisor.net/photos/2008/us080718dubwar/02.jpg

"i have a goddamn right to hate mainstream gay club culture and the music that is played there."

I think he's doing Elephant Man's step pon chi chi man dance there.

This is not to say that an individual or even a subgroup of that community doesnt disagree with the community at large's decision, but that still doesnt change the decision.

-- pipecock, Thursday, July 24, 2008 2:47 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

"the" decision

this sentence is so reverent of 'the community' as if it thinks like a hivemind or some shit. J@cob otm about weird 'black urban' fetishization. im not saying folks should be ignoring the dynamics at work w/in the community that created the music by any means but only playing by those (perceived) rules is nonsense. Was ron hardy playing by the 'rules' of the community when he dropped nirvana in the middle of a set? fuck "the decision"

sorry forgot we're on lighthearted topics now :D

any community will have contradictory values within it, i think the responsibility to 'understand' that community's values and the inherent dynamics of the way ppl will react to one thing or another is the responsibility of the dj playing records for that community, not the responsibility of a message boarder getting off on telling ppl how truly down he is by dismissing music based on his perceptions of how 'the community' would react to something, eh comrade?

http://uzar.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/chairman_mao1.jpg

"This is not to say that an individual or even a subgroup of that community doesnt disagree with the community at large's decision, but that still doesnt change the decision."

We all saw how well The Committee worked for jungle. Maybe we need that in other genres?

haha

even if we take 'the decision' to mean 'how things pan out' (how the track in question is ultimately used) pipecock is acting like 'the decision' is the result of some sort of impossible-to-describe characteristic of blackness expressed through tastemaking rather than a community engaging in a discourse similar to this one

I think they've got a LiveJournal community they use to hash out any decisions.

The Committee (Pipecock 1 and Pipecock 2 are circled for ease of reference):

http://newtone.dyndns.org/photo/06_09_02/idjut.jpg

Wha? Is that Villalobos below Pipecock two? Say it ain't so.

Looks more like Steve Bug in Witness Protection.

i think that one of the things its important to remember is that there is an existing discourse w/in certain communities and that we should not discount that, and that certain communities may have a different perspective worth being aware of and understanding. i mean i feel like posting "dudes why arent you checking this natalie cole house remix" is about the best i can do there, just repping for stuff that has a bigger profile locally for me than it might in pittsburgh or australia, but to try and invent some sort of weird mystical-racial hierarchy of value ... its all very strange.

whats funny to me too is that the 'gatekeepers,' or really just music nerds, that ive met in chicago, the guys who work @ record stores and dj and all that shit, they might have a very pipecock-like certainty about what constitutes good/great music, but something about the scene here is so much more inclusive + trashy fun than the picture i get of detroit techno dudes ... maybe its cuz frankie knuckles spins brandy and janet remixes in his sets right now or because Larry Heard uses Hot Chip remixes in his or something but this whole argument just sounds crazy to me.

J@cob: You have obviously never been to a mostly black house or techno night in the US if you think it is anything like what you describe, or if you think it is anything short of a good time. Your lack of understanding is great. I also do not understand your correlation of "urban black music" with a "raising up of black poverty" this shows your lack of understanding even more.

Tim F: the "pushing things forward" meme is a hallmark of white dance music fans. In fact, I blame that for the weak results in the jungle genre that Raw Patrick mentions. This is further evidenced by the greatness that still had to come from the closely related 2-step scene in the UK. Aside from that, if you think people like Reggie Dokes or Omar-S arena doing new and interesting things you must be deaf. And there are plenty more beside them.

deej: the community doesnt sit there and discuss whether songs fit their ideal or not. They are played by deejays and the reaction occurs. The possibility of any song entering a community exists, but the criteria are already in place before the song is heard by anyone. As for your last post, it is all up to any given deejay's taste as to what he plays. If those didnt differ, it would be pointless to have more than one deejay per genre. The reality is that even if the song itself falls outside of a community's taste, that taste would influence how and when a deejay might play it in order to make it work for that community. You also seem to not know anything about the kind of music played by Detroit techno deejays.

Moonship: I was referring in part to the Belleville guys and their relationship with Italo and new wave, though since they had other influences it isnt a big part of it. I certainly wasnt referring to Burial whose music really is pretty close to straight up 2-step. I think you can probably come up with a decent number of examples for the good results, but a huge number of examples of weak knockoffs.

Jamie T Smith: Your post on "shared subjectivity" hits the nail on the head, including the advantage of always viewing things through your own lens like with beatdigging. This is how communities can expand on ideas!

Have any of you guys seen Edward O. Bland's movie from the late 50's called "The Cry of Jazz"? It tries to articulate almost EXACTLY Theo's viewpoint that is still relevant 50 years later. Even more interesting is how in it he predicts techno by saying "something will come along that has jazz's spirit but doesnt use the same sounds". Brilliant, I would call it essential viewing.

Even when looking at some scenes like the US black deep house scene, there are huge local differences despite an overall similarity in taste. Some disco classics in New York never even get played much in Chicago and vice versa. Detroit has a different set altogether as well. Yet they are all just smaller subsets of the larger community.

um, 'discourse' = 'discuss'

does not = i mean

i never said that they sat around discussing it, im saying that discourse in the most broad sense - that when a dj elects to play a specific record, hes entering into 'discourse,' and when a crowd reacts a certain way, they're responding appropriately, and that a dj observing the crowd responds maybe by playing that track himself, or playing it differently for a different reaction, or by refusing to play it because this dj did, or whatever. thats 'discourse'

but its a living, shifting, constantly changing thing. Of course, yeah, there is a context already in place - but PEOPLES OPINIONS ABOUT MUSIC are a part of that 'context,' and if i like something you dont, and im a techno dj in detroit, just by playing that 'shitty' song im participating in this dialogue with you, and how other djs respond, and whether they agree with you or me or some of both, is how the song will be remembered ... its not like this shit is predestined. the right dj comes along at the right time and plays the right song a certain way, and suddenly the crowd and other djs and the culture at large react a certain way.

you treat culture like its static, and like individuals cant have any impact on how things are received

Actually I don't, I said numerous times that there are many variables that can and do change a community's standards. But it seems to me that you and others think that there is some sort of randomness about how that happens, as if every song has an equally likely chance of being adopted by the community. It is not like flipping a coin before playing a song to a given crowd. Music that comes from someone already within that community stands a much much larger chance of catching on even if it isn't exactly what the community usually prefers.

For example, countless copies/derivative tunes in the soulful house and techno genres that are produced in Europe never catch on with those communities in the US. At the same time, I am sure there are examples of mnml sounding tunes produced by US artists that do catch on. To assume that it is because of some European prejudice would be wrong I think, it has more to do with the cultural differences that don't have anything to do with the sounds or structure but more in the feeling that doesnt translate properly.

doesnt that have a lot more to do with concepts like 'tradition' and 'distribution' than 'unsurmountable cultural differences'?

look at this sentence again

This is not to say that an individual or even a subgroup of that community doesnt disagree with the community at large's decision, but that still doesnt change the decision.

-- pipecock, Thursday, July 24, 2008 2:47 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

how are you not arguing that this culture is static? that individuals dont have an impact on the 'decision'?

and again, tons of house djs in chicago spin euro-y stuff all the time

The decision is static, not the culture. I suppose it is possible that a later change or development could cause a song to be re-evaluated by the community but I am having a hard time coming up with a concrete example of that.

I also never said that the cultural differences were "insurmountable" for any given producer, but for a song that is already made I think that is almost always the case.

As for the Chicago deejays playing euro stuff, which music do you mean? Which deejays? Would those same records fly at Body and Soul? How about at one of the Beatdown crew's nights in Detroit? All of these places are part of the same community in general, even though each small sect has its own tastes on the group level and on the individual level. I feel like these "divisions" by city in the US scenes are pretty obvious. Why wouldn't the same be true along racial lines as well? The cultures behind them are different. This differs from the European model where dance music's roots and cultures seem to be ignored due to some almost hippy ideal that never existed in house and techno here. White or black people may not have been 100% segregated, but it was close. Those segregations led to different developments, the ones that became house and techno came from the black clubs. Which is what Theo was getting at in his comments that started all of this. It always ties in to the community, the culture, whatever you want to call it. And there are huge differences there!

larry heard played hot chip, not just lol euro but lol indie as well - and i dont even like them. but he made it 'work,' or i bet you that 99% of the audience that heard that mix was dancing along anyway, regardless of the artists origins

When I talk about music, I recognize that my opinion (which is mine and mine alone) is influenced heavily by that of the communities in which I participate with the music. I know that those things matter, and that it all has an effect on me and everyone else who participates. I seem to be nearly alone here in recognizing that this is a good thing! I am more interested in local cultures evolving organically while most of you guys seem to be interested in some kind of worldwide Coca-Cola type dance scene where everything is the same no matter where you go.

not really. its more that i dont care where good music is from
which is the way most good djs ive heard also operate

What you seem to be missing is that Larry Heard playing it and people liking it doesnt translate to the culture and community at large accepting it on its own. In fact, I guarantee the opposite would probably be true most of the time, regardless of the song or the deejay playing it.

Who DOES care though? If Europeans started putting out records that moved me in greater quantities, I would buy them just as I do now. But they dont, there are reasons for that, and that is what this discussion really is about.

the reason you cant think of any examples is because any time it does happen, where the community at large co-opts it wholly, it becomes a part of the community's canon, and the parameters of 'what is accepted' by that community shifts so as to accept it ... the goal posts are constantly moving, which is exactly my point! think about all the stories about djs who would say that taana gardner's 'heartbeat' was too slow, and how levan used to clear the floor when he first started playing it - of course now its a standard

But they dont, there are reasons for that, and that is what this discussion really is about.

-- pipecock, Thursday, July 24, 2008 1:15 PM (5 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

you seem to have a lot of trouble verbalizing those reasons, though, which is what tim's point seems to be, that you rely on the 'higher' authority of your perceived understanding of your local black community (or ... confusingly, the local black community of detroit, where you don't live) or just relying on myopic vagaries

is myopic vagaries redundant? i just mean when you say things like 'soul' and we're supposed to fill in the blanks about what that means

i cannot hang out on this thread all day again today, but i actually woke up this morning thinking about it and i think i know what i mean when i say that the "subjectivist" side of this debate is also quasi-religious: it's the implied dogmatism behind believing that anything can be explained and the refusal to acknowledge that some types of explaining are destructive or endlessly recursive. i say this knowing full well that a) i greatly enjoy and respect many types of critical discourse and b) the retort is going to be "how dogmatic can be be if we are willing to accept all views?". i think the answer to "b" is that you say that you accept all views, but you really don't which is similar to the thing you accuse the other side of. except in this case the other side has no argument and you have your endless discourse to dodge all bullets with so you de facto win. it is very very clever.

what 'subjectivists' are saying they accept all views? i clown ppl for their taste all the time

Larry Levan and Ron Hardy (amongst a few others) both occupied especially powerful positions within that community, it allowed them greater singlehanded influence over a large number of people. I am not sure that there are any people out there today who can carry that kind of weight. They also had that control at a specifically pivotal time period, again I dont think there is anything comparable right now. That period of rapid change is long over now, and I dont think that is necessarily a bad thing. They modified the rules of disco enough that it became a new thing: house. Since then, house has modified itself in different ways in different places. Too much modification resulted in other genres: techno, jungle, etc. The problem with so much "soulless" techno and house isn't too much modification, it is lack of essential ingredients.

It isn't me or anyone who listens to soulful dance music who has a problem with using the word "soul" to differentiate it from the other stuff, it is those of you who dont get it who have the problem. Tim F seems to think that if you analyze it enough you can find some objective technique that can make something "soulful", I couldnt disagree more. I think every person's soul music will be different in notes and scales used, techniques, etc. I think participation in the culture from which the soulful music is made and consumed is the best way for it to be found by people who dont get it instinctively.

BTW, my love for Detroit's music scene is based on the fact that it reminds me more of Pittsburgh's than Chicago or NYC's. They are hardly the same, but there is definitely a connection even if it is more socially than directly musically. That isn't to put down Chicago or New York (in fact, I probably like Chicago house moreso than any other form of dance music), it is just reflective of the fact that the Detroit model is closer to what I think Pittsburgh is capable of. I think the fact that the Pittsburgh crew has so many connections with a range of Detroit artists and much less with artists from other cities bears that out as well.

It also isn't a "higher" authority, it is simply an intuitive understanding from the music community in which I participate. I am truly unsure that it is possible to describe that in words, the fact that Theo Parrish in Detroit and Edward Bland in Chicago in the 50's have the same problem makes me believe that it isn't just me who has the problem. The fact that there are basically no critics who have successfully done so in dance music (or really that I have seen for any form of soul music) is what forced me into the dialogue. I may not be the perfect person to be the critic, but I speak from the proper position in the community and I try my best to keep the ideas that that community holds in the general discussion. I am a deejay and aspiring musician first and foremost, this is all secondary. The fact that many fans, producers, and deejays are glad to have someone speaking out for that viewpoint makes me even more confident that it is necessary. I may not be able to speak directly on behalf of each person in the community, but that is impossible anyway.