theo parrish s/d

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.

x-post

it's akin to religion and not science because by definition there are no objective facts to change their minds.

If I show you a room full of dancing people and say "see? this record is good because it's danceable", they can counter "well, I dance in a different way" or "not important to me. I just prefer to listen on my little white earbuds."

A room full of dancers is totally an objective fact!

you're right. lets all put on our objectively good dave matthews albums and chill

pipecock i think theo has legit points but ronan made good pts in his blog post about how certain parts of theo's essay were vague which lets ppl assume they know what hes talking about and i think you're doing that here.

and yeah, larry and ron were powerful djs, but my point isn't just about how individuals can influence lots of ppl on a huge scale, but that lots of individuals can influence a community together ... a few kids get really into a certain track and they can have a broader influence over an entire scene, thus fads that will take over specific scenes for a moment (a certain style of drum sound or a pattern or whatever) and there's a lot more to it than devotion to an existing aesthetic

maybe most of the ppl in a community really hate on track, but 30% of the people in the community really dig it - suddenly the community is changing its aesthetic boundaries, even if some ppl arent feeling it. its more flexible than you're allowing, because individuals can feel very different ways even within a community. and thats what i dont get about yr perspective

Blimey, ILM's been going for 8 years and people still believe that judging music (or any artform) is something that can be done objectively! Someone should post that graph from Dead Poet's Society.

The problem with so much "soulless" techno and house isn't too much modification, it is lack of essential ingredients.

this is where the "subjectivist" point of view becomes so powerful.

i listen to sun ra. like, a lot. you don't want to know how many sun ra albums i own. actually i will tell you: between my wife and i we have everything except discs that were only issued on saturn (we have zero of those). literally everything. sun ra is really important to me / us. i can tell you for sure he'd be my "desert island" disc (not sure which one, though).

why do i like sun ra? well, sun ra speaks for *me*. yes, he does. i grew up an iranian in america. i had no place in the cultural history of southern california. i fit into exactly none of the stereotypes and expected behaviors of white people, hispanic people, asian people, black people. i was one of two or three iranians at my school of 2000 students (my sister and my cousin were the others). sure, there were a few conceptions of what iranians should be like, but we fit exactly none of those either. we were neither muslim nor secular - my parents (and myself) were devout baha'is, which by itself would have been a pretty confounding "other" category. nor were we exactly "immigrants", because my parents parents' had worked for americans in the 60s (ross perot's phone company and bechtel engineering) so they had attended american school as children, spoke fluent english, listened to american music, had american heroes, attended american universities, etc. so i grew up deeply "other" - i was neither an iranian (i fit in very very poorly among other iranian immigrants, who tended more conservative, had more sense of ethnic identification and spoke much better farsi) nor an american (sure, my parents and i spoke fluent english, and decorated our home with country americana, but we sure ate weird food ... and my parents didn't listen to country or rock, they listened to european classical music).

as a young person, i was extremely nerdy. i was fascinated by astronomy and science fiction. i watched star trek religiously. i tried to make atlases and encyclopedias of imaginary places. watching and rewatching reruns of thundarr the barbarian, space ghost, the jetsons and star trek i got really into exotica, moog music and space-age 60s aesthetics. i was also into magic, mysticism and ancient middle eastern culture, as a complicated way of endorsing my culture without endorsing the weird immigrant iranian-american culture that i had little attachment too. also, my biologist mom had always wanted to be an archaeologist, and loved to make us watch movies by thor heyerdahl, michael wood and so on and so forth.

later, i found a box of books from my parents college years. they had titles like "power!", "the left and liberation", "peaceful games for community action", etc etc. so as a teenager i got into the aesthetics of 60s activism and cultural nationalism. i was never seriously political, or committed, but i loved the look and feel of these dusty old pamphlets and books, with their deep humanism and their rational swiss design.

so when i found out about sun ra (1995, a freshman in college) it was like everything clicked. here was a guy who rejected all the easy binaries of race in america (calling all aliens). he made his own culture, out of bits of ancient archaeology, mysticism, science fiction, exotica, space-age modernism (check those early saturn sleeves), astronomy, cultural nationalism and so on. and somehow he imbued all of the sounds and rhythms and other formal elements of his music with those things, so that listening to piano solos sounded like blinking satellites, horn solos sounded like comets sprinkling animated stardust on a title card, rhythm sections sounded like mildly drunken processions of drunken animal-headed gods, moog solos sounded like the roaring of the beast from "forbidden planet" ...

the point though, is that what animates sun ra, what makes sun ra powerful and personal and incredible and without a doubt the best music in the universe ever isn't any one of those elements, or even the combination of those elements. it's the fact that those elements are inside me that makes the music speak to me (and not to my dad, or winston marsalis or whomever else). and i have no doubt that the fact that my wife loves all those things too (she's half-egyptian, half-southern, 100% nerd, has troi and uhura costumes in the closet) animates sun ra for her, and makes our little sun ra fandom conspiracy so much fun.

do you see what i'm getting at though? it's not what's in sun ra that makes sun ra great, it's the intersection between what's in sun ra and what's in me that makes sun ra so powerful for me.

and i should hope to respect the fact that every listener has some combination of elements within themselves that as powerful, as personal, as worthy of autonomy and respect.

Great post. The problem with the ´objective´ ideal is it ignores what the listener brings to the experience.

Was ron hardy playing by the 'rules' of the community when he dropped nirvana in the middle of a set? fuck "the decision"

that was armando. ron hardy might have already been dead when it came out. (nirvana arrived and hardy departed in 1991)

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 ... it is simply an intuitive understanding from the music community in which I participate ... 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.

what is so terrible about this position is that it is so hegemonic and counter-revolutionary. music listenership in general (ILM, even) could be a thousand flowers blooming, instead you'd want to make it like an arboretum: look, but don't touch. ignore the wildflowers, weeds, succulents, etc. forget the scraggly-looking patch in your backyard, the one that you've cultivated tirelessly all year, even though you live on a coastal mesa with sandstone, salt and crushed shells instead of soil. that thing that you've fruitlessly squandered your love and attention on for months, forget that tiny little defiant 3'x3' patch of green and gold and pink. over here's the prize rosebush, certified by the appropriate experts and elected officials.

ok, i'm sure to many people this analogy seems ass-backward. after all, tiesto with his major endorsements and screaming crowd of thousands probably seems like the royal horticultural society and omar s like the backyard garden. but again, what's important here isn't tiesto or omar s, but rather the listener and what animates their reaction to the music. i am sure there are tiesto fans who take their roles and their relationship to the DJ every bit as seriously as mancuso's acolytes, whose ecstatic experience of tiesto is every bit as powerful as a dancer at the paradise garage would have felt. i can't say that i feel confident that i'll ever have that experience of tiesto ... at best i can suppress the sense of tedium enough to make it through a track or two ...

but i think we can find an easier illustration of why this attitude is so unhelpful. look at the modern jazz neoconservatives (the talking heads from the ken burns program). they would all agree that sun ra has little to say about the jazz tradition, that he's virtually not a part of that tradition (i am listening to "holiday for soul dance" as i read this, and there's a discussion of in the liners, by szwed, i think) and they'd be right. if you compare his career arc to, say, eric dolphy or lee morgan (i'm just naming a couple of people at random) you'd see he did little of the dues-paying and session-playing that other leaders had done by that point. he wasn't a part of the community that made the fertile atlantic / blue note / impulse! / etc scene of the 60s possible. and, in turn, he was more or less rejected by that community, and embraced by europeans, hippies and black american weirdos like henry dumas and amiri baraka.

the thing is, wynton marsalis (i think i called him winston about five times on this thread) fulfills all those conditions you mention. he is a "participant in the community" (i note that you don't explain what that community is), who certainly speaks from a privileged position. and yet, i don't see the value in listening to his dismissal of sun ra. how could it be powerful or transformative to do so? better yet, what would someone *unlike* me, who doesn't like sun ra, have to gain from it? a sense of satisfaction? self-righteousness? the warm glow of having your biases and prejudices confirmed by another?

this is why i think theo's statement (from the end of the interview) is so sad and lame, why i share ronan's sense of sadness and sickness about it (and the triumphalist reaction from some quarters: "see, theo agrees with us!")

i like hearing things from artists about the music they make. i was powerfully affected when i heard that sun ra had come up with the phrase "the magic city" from looking out his window at night and seeing a big neon sign at the outskirts of birmingham that said the same. i used to look out my window at night as a kid and dream about space, too. it gave me a sense of connection to sun ra (to another human being) that deepened my aesthetic appreciation of his music. and i liked hearing bits and pieces from omar-s and theo parrish about their import car racing hobby. it's funny, i haven't really contextualized it yet. i have a lot of friends into import car racing, and they listen to the worst shit ever, like blue man group and current d'n'b and japanese pop-techno anime soundtracks. but i look forward to the day when they explain their fandom of that music as eloquently as tim and ronan explain theirs: i'm sure it will be a powerful human moment, and maybe it will widen my field of meaningful aesthetic experience too, so that i won't be gritting my teeth when i ride in their cars but enjoying the vibe with them.

but when theo says what he says: what does that really accomplish? how does that broaden me? how does it deepen me? do we grow as people when we think things like that, or is it just a self-congratulatory pat on the back? i could spread out all of my theo parrish and moodyman CDs on the ground in front of me (it'd be 30 or so), i'm sure i'd feel a rather hollow sense of accomplishment for having such good taste. what can theo's statement about european tech-house do for me, other than making that hollow sense even stronger?

"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."

No "objective technique" - but the "soul" can either be material or mystical, and if it's material it's a combination of sounds brought to the table by the creator and associations brought to the table by the listener. Of course what people call soul will differ markedly from cultural product to cultural product, not to mention that no two people will agree completely on which records are soulful and which aren't - this is one of the reasons that from a critical perspective I find the term's use limited. I don't object to its use, I just object to its use in isolation as some sort of tie-breaker, as if merely declaring the presence of soul turned any debate into a closed case.

It's a bit like saying "the difference is between X record and Y record is that X record has groove, and if you don't understand that you are deaf." The word "soul" or "groove" in this context act as a conclusion rather than an argument.

My immediate response is "what constitutes the good groove in X record?" And yes, the groove might be difficult to describe, but it can be described. Likewise, there is no bilderverbot in force that prevents us from articulating what the "soul" quality of a particular record is.

You wrote the following a while back in the Burial thread when we had the exact same argument:

"i mean, i do love me some lo-fi type shit, i cant lie about that. but being lo-fi is nothing in and of itself. the brilliance is that if you can make something sound beautiful and captivating without regard to the sound quality, you have something very special on your hands. it is about stripping away everything except that which is most important in music: expression, emotion, soul.

...but it is not about sound, thats why! these artists just go straight for the unquantifiables in their music, everything else is secondary. im sure there are people who are just into lo-fi sound, but thats a whole other area of distorted thought that may as well the same as people who are only into hi-fi sound.

the basic idea is that Burial has transcended his genre of music by stripping away the backwards thought that has driven the creativity in two genres of music that i have loved for a long time into the ground. people quit caring about music and started caring about nonsense, he took it back to the music alone and some people hate on him for that! how crazy. when making beautiful soulful music is the exception and it causes people to dismiss you, something is terribly wrong with the standards!

...there is nothing to add to it, though. his music has soul means IT SOUNDS LIKE HIS EXPRESSION. that's all. can you disagree with someone's expression of something? it might not be your taste, but whatever. when the criticism is comparing it to music that has nearly no room for expression in it, that comparison makes almost no sense. but dubstep and jungle were once expressive, diverse sounding music. not now. which is why burial has more to do with 2-step in 99 and jungle in 95 than anything that any offshoot of those genres is doing today."

On the basis of this argument, "soul" acts as this entirely content-devoid abstract category that gets awarded like a ribbon to whichever records you happen to like. But a descriptive term with no determinate content is not a descriptive term at all.

I think Teedra Moses has one of the most "soulful" voices in R&B (the fact that I'm using her as an example shouldn't be taken to mean I think the word has no application outside this genre). I get disproportionately emotional listening to it. I think some of that the aspects of her vocals that cause this effect on me are:
- her timing: the way she sort of lazily follows the beat at times rather than stay on it compulsively, which suggests a kind of instinctive grace.
- her very judicious use of melisma (usually just a quiver on the very last word of any line), which suggests a combination of strength and vulnerability-through-openness, rather than fragility per se.
- the way her Southern accent colours her vocals without becoming the focus of them - which (for me at least, and perhaps totally illegitimately) impliedly suggests the continuation of a tradition of wisdom and home truth rather than a scholarly explication of same (this is a really dodgy assumption but my mind has been shaped somewhat by cultural presentations of the South).
- ... and then the way all these things intersect with her lyrics, her melodies, the production...

All these things contribute to the sense of "soul" in Teedra's music, which simultaneously adds up to something that is felt to be more than the sum of its parts - I feel emotionally attached to Teedra as a person because the persona that her music creates (largely through her "soulfulness") feels so real and so... I don't want to use the word "inspirational" which sounds a bit extreme and hackneyed. But something along those lines.

Basically what I'm saying is that "soul" may not be able to be objectively measured but it can be subjectively described. What it's not is a mystical property of genius musicians that is beyond our powers of understanding, even though I can see how it can appear that way.

It's a bit like a good film (and this returns to my slash fiction point): some films feature characters so real, so moving, so likable, that you feel like you know them in real life. Your relationship to that character does not feel like it can be completely "reduced" to a technical discussion of the script, of direction decisions, of choice of actor etc. And yet undeniably all of those things contribute towards your relationship of the character - they combine to create something that seems to be more than the sum of its parts. But this is a function of good art or expression and it can be thought about just like anything else.

P.S I misspelled 'bildeverbot' there which is punishment for using it in the first place - I'm referring to a religious ban on images of God, heaven etc.

if we had more posts where people explained why they liked particular things from a personal context then we wouldn't need threads like this.

for me, the music I like is boosted massively by the fact that over the years it's reached a point where almost all of my friends like it too, or at least like to go out and hear it.

sometimes these threads frustrate me hugely because of the vast brush strokes used to describe people or their music taste. it's silly. people can't be categorised based on what music they like, and if they could I'd expect a better attempt than some of those that go on in techno.

I mean, the reason I cite Europe sometimes is because I really think if some people grew up in or eventually grew into a circle of friends (and enemies!) who all liked dance music, the generalisations would just seem so fucking stupid.

Some people don't define their entire personality by the music they listen to. Most people probably don't. It's not a crime.

People are completely different, no two are the same and this second guessing is horrible misanthropy. Saying "this person is a moron cos they like this". It's so childish and stupid, I can remember arguing in favour of objectivity at 14 when I liked indie rock music cos it made me feel like a smart person. How dumb it was.

And what about people who don't like any music in particular, who shock horror, are decent people? Intelligent people like ALL sorts of things, and have all sorts of opinions, people are a tapestry of opinions and ideas and if you force yourself not to think so then something has broken in you.

As I said, nobody ever cites objectivity in a neutral way, or as a passive analysis. For example when does somebody say "this record and that record are objectively AS GOOD AS each other, exactly as good as each other". never. yet somehow once "better" or "worse" are added in it makes sense? ludicrous.

the reason clubs are important is that they create an illusion of unity or of a united purpose, and it's vaguely true, people are there to hear a certain type of music, maybe to see a certain DJ, to have fun. but they do it in their own way and nobody controls why or how they do it, how they dance, what they take, whether they own 10000 records or none.

it just seems quite crazy that so many people dismiss people and an entire scene because they don't like the records, and then go on to tell you how vital and important a scene and a community is in whatever genre they do like.

if people fought ignorance consistently that'd be fine, but objectivity on an ILM dance thread just says "oh how can people ignore this and this, in favour of that unmitigated deplorable bullshit", "how can people furiously hate this when they have only heard that absolute fucking nonsense", "how can people be so blind to real music when all they listen to is fake crap?"

objectivity never seems unselfish or outward looking does it? or if it does, yet again, I want to read it, probably in academia somewhere it might.

and yeah I know I can be an asshole about music, anyone can, but christ just saying "this is good, that is bad", that's just GIVING UP.

the hour of the bevilderbot

Vahid, I like your story, and I especially like how your wife is also a Sun Ra fan, because it makes it a conspiracy of more than one. If it’s shared, then it exists. For myself, my standpoint is derived from coming from a background of playing music, and hearing music live, and hearing dance music at the clubs, or even sharing enthusiasm for records with friends, and somehow that interaction (the church if you will) has always been innately a part of the whole pleasure. It’s not enough to collect a bunch of records ore make a track and listen to on my lonesome. It’s also about the shared enthusiasm.

It’s luddite, but maybe the access to stuff like Sun Ra that we gain through technology means we also lose something as well: people used to have to go somewhere to listen, but wax cylinders created a whole new thing, and now the net is taking this separation & atomization to its logical conclusion, eliminating the physical thing, the physical place, the need for other people, and just plugging your right into the sound itself for you to take however you like. This is what I was saying about comedy: who wants to listen to a Richard Pryor record by themselves? Half of the fun in the other laughter in the room…

"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."

Tricky, I can guess where this is going but I'm not sure. Are you saying that some kinds of explaining destroy the "mystery" of music listening (we should feel rather than think)? Or that some fictions are too precious/productive to be held up to the light of reasoned analysis - that irrationalism ought to be protected if it's culturally significant?

There's probably quite a good argument to made on that basis. The difficulty is that you can't make it without acknowledging the irrationality, which results in the very destruction you're trying to ward off.

"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 I would acknowledge is that no person, however open to accepting the views of others they claim to be, is free of prejudices and assumptions that they choose not to critically examine or open up to debate (if they are even aware of them). Yes, there is an in-built partiality or one-sidedness to any use of "reason". Inevitably my arguments support my own ecumenical musical tastes wherein I reserve the right to like many different things for many different reasons and not tie them together in some master theory about soul or community. But insofar as I do have reasons, I am also a "gatekeeper", and I'm trying to shape the standards of musical acceptability through debate on here, and my use of reasonable argument is funneled through my own gatekeeper persona.

Once we're viewed as being on the same argumentative level (both partial), the next step is to ask on what criteria either side of the argument might be considered more persuasive than the other. On my side there is reasoned argumentation. On pipecock's there is "come and live in detroit and join this community and you will understand."

If I "de facto win" this is why.

If as you say the devious quality of the reasonable participants is that "the other side has no argument", that's not a de facto win but a win outright. It's not my cleverness that determines the quality of the argument anyone else brings to the table.

It’s not enough to collect a bunch of records ore make a track and listen to on my lonesome

see, even this i would disagree with. there are plenty of musicians who worked at some point in isolation. brian wilson and lee perry in the isolation of mental illness made some of their most incredible music. on the other side, the solo guitar work of mystics like john fahey or roy montgomery. eno by himself in his hospital bed, composing "broken head". moondogg by himself on the street, blind and homeless, composing duets for flute & tugboat or hand drum & seagull choir. basic channel, 3000 miles (and how much gulf of culture) divorced from their chicago inspirations.

actually, i imagine that loneliness (of the individual, of the musician sitting down to practice, of the record-collector, etc) is one of the most powerful motivators for great music, because it's an emotional state we all have access to, regardless of experience or background. one time i put on some chain reaction (ridis "foto", and "octaedre" IIRC) for my mom, who loathes all electronic music and she said "wow, this sounds sad, and lonely, and far away. turn it off". so she gets it, too.

and anyway didn't carl craig and richie hawtin make all of their early music under the influence of taking lonely late-nite drives around the city together, listening to electrifyin' mojo? don't tell me it's about being part of a club like the paradise garage or something ...

Which chimes in with the fact that pretty much whatever can be ascribed as good in music or good for music can also be proved in the reverse.

Community or exile; soulful or soulless. These are factors and their significance and meaning depends on the constellation in which they appear.

that was armando. ron hardy might have already been dead when it came out. (nirvana arrived and hardy departed in 1991)

-- elan, Thursday, July 24, 2008 6:01 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

ha yah my bad i misspoke obv, im the one that posted the story about armando!

the objectivity thing is also very western to me.....surely there are ways to consume music that I can't conceive of, to conceive western music that I can't conceive of, in different countries all around the world.

vahid u on fire on this thread, those are some great posts

yes i find them very 'soulful'

yeah, vahid, wow. best of ILM, easily...

moonship journey to baja for president

yes we can

u should write a graphic novel abt ur childhood i bet u could win some award

surely there are ways to consume music that I can't conceive of, to conceive western music that I can't conceive of, in different countries all around the world.

Once I was in Sumatra and this local girl took me to this shack in the middle of nowhere. And there were drummers, and flute-kinda things, and about 70 people dancing to that trad Indo music in this smelly old shack, including all the old ladies from the village. Especially the old ladies actually. And the music peaked & intensified and people starting having fits, dancing like they were possessed, rolling round out the floor. Proper trance musically, basically, and I’d never heard anything like it.

I got a lot out of it.

The question is: if I’d made a recording of it, and someone bought it on Aquarius Records, and fell in love with it and constructed a whole fantasy world about how they’d always wanted to ride on elephants in India, and this record reminded them of the Jungle Book, which was a book which they always loved as a kid because it was adventurous, etc, etc – the question is do these points of view have equal legitimacy?

I think not.

so what makes yours more legitimate

what power does your memory have that the other person's doesn't? what does it do for you that it doesn't for the other person? what do you have that they don't? what can you do that they can't? how does it benefit you while not benefiting them?

furthermore, do you want an award for going to sumatra?

so what makes yours more legitimate

Because it actually exists outside of my head