Simon Reynolds - C or D

(formula "x and the ys", with its in-built and apparently overtly celebrated class hierarchy, is ALMOST NEVAH seriously adopted in UK rock/punk/pop self-naming, and when it is — Peter and the Test-Tube Babies? Slaughter and the Dogs — seems calculated to ensure failure to TAKEN seriously despite apparent pretensions; actually i wd term it a Strategy of Deniability, in that band in question were AFRAID to place themselves in role of responsiblity of ARTISTIC SERIOUSNESS)

(help me out foax, is this true: it FEELZ true...)

Didn't Mike Batt do a song called "I'm Snookering You Tonight"? Used as theme tune for top TV gameshow "Big Break." Now how would Mr Jim Davidson go down in Texas? (though he has worked with Greenaway, so some cred)

Golly! Would you like someone to fax over to you a nice cup of chamomile tea?

The Higher Criticism indeed. Any minute now they'll be recalculating Bishop Ussher's chronology.

Christgau and Marcus are indeed jerks and squares, but to be fair, I believe that Marcus went to Graceland and hung out backstage with Jon Landau and Springsteen. Probably drank Evian with Randy Newman and Robbie Robertson too on several occasions. Maybe even actually attended a Mekons concert and lectured to them on Johnny Cash's true place in the American Studies pantheon after the show. Probably tried to fuck Sally Timms too, who I bet wouldn't touch ol' American Greil with a ten foot pole. (Would you?)

Christgau undoubtedly attended appropriate industry functions and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame events, being the Dean of all things rock that the Dean of the Pazz & Jop poll would expected to be.

So how can you say that these twits are disconnected from the culture swirling round the gunk they write about in a way that your vaunted Simon Reynolds is not? I for one have no trouble believing that SR attended many raves, unsuccessfully tried to pick up many an ecstasy- addled sweet sixteen hot young thang, and noodled his (near) middle- aged arse in slightly-askew rhythm bump 'n grind, fancying himself a hotshot with culturally redeeming legit-reason-to-be-there, pausing occasionally and thinking through his halllucinogenic haze, fancying that rare A Certain Ratio cassette and his yellowing, autographed Crispy Ambulance flexi disc, and just remaining merely DAZZLED at how it ever came to all this ...

Do I KNOW you, J?

Terry, you're Marcello?

Uh...if you're a philosophy dude, aren't you much, much more disconnected from the cultures you've put under your own professional microscope than Reynolds or Marcus ever could be? I mean, it's not as if you've ever fondled hot slave-boy ass with Socrates or anything.

Anyway, for me the 'culture' of a music arises out of your personal experiences with it - if you try to force those experiences into some pre-determined model based on your mis-identification with the music's producers or primary consumers your insights are likely to be weaker. On the other hand if you're getting paid to write about music, getting tons of free records, interviewing musicians, editing your copy all the time etc. your personal experiences will be distorted and not worth much either. The best solution is just to be honest about your circumstances and opinions and let the readers decide, I suppose.

howevah i *LIKE* when RM talks abt himself re "music => sex" cf his piece on lawrence welk,m in which girlf is FOR ONCE not humiliated for daring to countermand RM's rigorous self-loathing (normally it's she likes me but i am horrible = she is stupid and/or a slut)

(punk traitor lite-ent TV theme tune shake down: CAPT SENSIBLE vs KEVIN ROWLANDS)

just coming back low-key style to talk about music. staying well away from ile and freds wot might get me annoyed.

For a nanosecond I thought J actually WAS SR, but I'm not sure now. Still that style is naggingly familiar from somewhere, wouldn't you agree?

I mean RM's own sneering = in-crowd logic => RM = effete fop

Where I worked at the time the theatre sent us some comps so we went along out of morbid fascination just to see how bad it was - and boy did it stink! Talk about rubbernecking.

David McCallum (obviously at a loose end at the time) was the male lead. And the thing started with the ultra-naff device of having each member of the cast stand in little boxes with their name projected in front of them, like TV credits. It didn't last very long.

Wonder where Pinefox is keeping himself these days - I'm sure he'll back me up on this.

I sure hope so!

I may have broken the chain, but I know for a fact that a leading hotshot analytic philosopher who teaches elite children of all stripes in an ivy-league covered structure somewhere in New York State not only carried on the noble tradition, he had a cavity filled by the very appendage that once occupied Foucault's own sorry ass.

Perhaps as we speak, some spawn of or relation to the Kennedys or the Bush brigade is receiving his education in the proper Greek manner.

If you want to know how to REALLY get ahead in academia, here's a clue, viz., by taking it from behind. Tenure and research grants await! (Reminds me of that "Mickey" post on the anal sex thread a few days back).

Actually, I'm saving my unsullied ass for the only man who matters - Simon Reynolds. Hee hee.

Sinker is right about RM being an anti-rockist. Why? b/c he recognizes the extreme subjectivity of his fondness for certain rock groups -- a subjective fondness which wuz only with him for about 1.5 yrs total in his life -- every rock fantasy he had was virtually dead before it started. He writes about the failed promises of rock like Springsteen writes about the failed promises of life.

And on Reynolds more generally -- what distinguishes him is the ability to go fromt the specific (microtrends) to the general (broad social changes) and back again via the notion of scenus.

tho if so i mean hurrah obv

Too bad Momus is Scottish, then.

Is this about music?

It seems to be about humans with personal issues.

I can honestly say you music journalists/historians/critics/lion tamers are quite amusing.

I'm going to go back in time and bitch-slap Hegel with a Stratocaster. You know, for the kids.

wrt Bataille - SR's pretty much OTM, but maybe this isn't much of a feat. The Accursed Share is a pretty transparant read, and SR's use of Bataille's idea of expenditure in understanding rave culture seems not only tenable, but downright obvious. Not to mention applicable to a helluva a lot of other music forms that I like.

Deleuze&Guattari are tougher nuts to crack. But are we gonna take D's word for it that we need to be intimately acquainted with the western philosophical cannon in order to "get" his work? Isn't this a question of degree? One can "get" Marx by reading the Communist Manifesto as a freshman in college. But it is then possible to "get" Marx on a whole different level after reading Hegel's Phenomenology. And then again after reading Kant's Critiques. And so on back to Plato. Doesn't all philosophy work this way? SR's use of D&G is on one level totally valid in that he's practicing what they preach, perhaps better than they do. Isn't Anti-Oedipus meant to be articulating a new form of language that rejects the illusion of an I/you or origin/end dichotomy and locates meaning/agency in a non- ending process? Our sense of subjectivity is not the true agent, but a by-product of the true agent, which is the uncontrollable flows of a desire which does not properly speaking belong to any one person, etc... SR fits in extraordinarily well here - his writing always strikes me as being unresolved, moments in an on-going thought. No conclusions, just endless digressions. Which is the kind of writing I'm drawn to. Which is why I'm drawn to philosophy (curious, Mr. Sutcliffe, what drew you to the field)... (btw - when any philosophy claims to be something else, a conclusion rather than just a drop in a still-flowing river, then it's getting too big for its britches... which is to say that I agree with Sterling)

So yeah, his approach to lit/cult crit is half-digested. Is it possible to fully digest any of this stuff? That would seem to suggest that there is a possible end to the philosophical/analytical process, which I find both unlikely and frightening to consider.

My only problem with SR's use of crit theory is that it often seems to obscure more than it reveals. He drops phrases like "desiring machines" without qualifying them. Which can be attributed to him not having reached some "proper" level of understanding of the theory he's using. Or it could just be that he on some level (mistakenly) subscribes to the same principles as Mr. Sutcliffe wrt having to know, unequivocably, what yer talking about before opening yer mouth. I'd rather see Reynolds take a few more risks, go out on a few more limbs, even if he does risk exposing his own shallow understanding of the theories he's using. I'd rather see him say why borrowing D&G's concept of "desiring machines" to describe a piece of music is relevant and get it "wrong," thus opening up a new meaning, than play it safe and leave us to wonder what in god's name he's talking about...

Also really like his conflicted insider/outsider relationship to the music scenes he reports on. Very similar to what anthropology was before it became less fashionable to actually do field studies - problematic, sure, but full of potential new ways of looking at both yourself and whatever the object of your study is...

Bizarrely I was just looking in the google archives tring to find my first message on Usenet and there is a 1994 message to me on AMA saying 'Momus is Scottish'.

Anyway, still don't rate any writers who seem to want to rehash Ian Penman, especially Reynolds, sorry. I hated Penman the first time round (Aside - is there a worse set of sleeve notes ever than Mutant Disco?). Rehashing that limiting style just seems like the sketch show parody of a Modern Review type editorial meeting where 'stylists' write polemics on why Habermas would obviously prefer Danni to Kylie and then ask how suprised people are that they have such outre opinions. See George Orwells comments on book reviewing which he says becomes the act of saying something interesting on something you dont care either way about (paraphrase - sorry).

I do like reading interesting writers, even if they are only writing interestingly (rather that saying interesting things) but I find neither of these applies to Reynolds. Thats why I always rated Paul Morely, in fact its why I like reading Tom E's stuff (mostly).

I hate to be pedantic, but this is exactly the kind of misunderstanding....

The sense in which people like Derrida and D&G mean concepts like endless digression and the impossibility of closure has nothing to do with the idea that it doesn't really matter how much you understand a concept before you use it, because hey man, we can never achieve perfect knowledge...

If anything it's the opposite. More about going all the way through Western rationality and coming out the other end with a radical sense of the bottomless pit that lies beneath it.... a more, not less, perfect knowledge by a matter of infinitesimal but not at all insignificant degree...

I think SR's use of theory is not too bad, all things considered. If anything I would fault him not for the theory he does use but for the theory he doesn't use (eg post-structuralism is rather weak as an edifice for thinking about class issues, as SR is wont to do in somewhat undeveloped fashion. It works for the purposes of blissed- out aesthetics, but not for considering quote unquote social movements a la Energy Flash....) My main complaint would be that he tends to get bogged down in heterogeneity=working-class=pop=women vs purism=middle-class=rockist=men binaries which are not all that interesting either way you flip them... Also that I think rave jargon and theory buzzwords mix v. poorly

Early period up till Sex Revolts : utter classic. After the move to NY and following the Death of Jungle: not as exciting.

desiring machine = very effective as rave jargon IMHO. Shit, they should name a brand of E after it.

I suspect that if one were to draw a venn diagram of reynolds' music tastes & mine, the intersecting bit would be the thinnest of thin slivers. He porbably hates most of the music I like, & would certainly not like my music. However, his writing is so smart & thought-provoking for the most part that for me he's an absolute classic. Blaming SR for his lamer imitators is like blaming hendrix for shit metal shredder twiddler rock guitarists. There are too few writers as gifted as he in the music press - almost none, in fact, and I think that's a shame.

Recently Reynolds has been very nostalgic for the late 70s, a time when language and politics seemed to be stable concepts. I look forward to reading his book on post-punk. In the late 70s bands like Scritti Politti and the Gang of Four were interested in Althusser and Gramsci, not Deleuze and Guattari. It will be interesting to read Reynolds' theoretical conclusions about that era.

There's a Crispy Ambulance flexi? And Reynolds has an autographed copy? This seals the deal, even if he does like that unlistenable rave music. Classic.

[Post referred to has been deleted for impersonation - yeah we know who it was. And no it wasn't Simon Reynolds). - Moderator]

There's a Crispy Ambulance flexi?

Mr. Darnielle, you are a man of goodness. :-)

1. I don't think "retro" and "shiny and new" are necessary opposed.

Neither do I. Is Adele retro or something new? I think she's both really. That's the core of the problem I have with Reynolds' thesis. Doing a slightly different spin on something old is one of the primary ways that art evolves into new forms.

A lot of SR's writing since the book has come out focuses on the intertwining of these dynamics in current pop music

I'm just getting around to commenting on the book itself so that probably shows how closely I've been following his writing since then.

2. Never said retromania is something new. Again, the idea that something may be an increasingly prominent quality in current popular culture and the idea that it's been with us for a very long time are not necessarily opposed.

I guess that describes the weakness at the heart of the book to me. Reynolds acknowledges that revivalism is nothing new but he thinks that it's currently reached a degree that makes it notable. So in order to strengthen his thesis he downplays how prevalent it was throughout the history of art imo. And I guess that blurry line between something being new and something being old but reaching such a degree of popularity that the surge in popularity becomes essentially new is exactly what happens in the music too.

xp

Haha how do you even propose to distinguish between these.

I don't. That's the point. Stagnation, innovation, and "retro" are all far more relative and subjective than Reynolds lets on. There might be just as much difference between a "garage rock" band from 2013, '03, '93, '83, or '65 as there is between say house music from '13, '03, '93, or '83.

So, for example, in the internal-mainstream of middlebrow contemporary dance music, the fondness for early 90s US garage has been on the rise for several years, but not as part of some explicit early 90s garage revivalist scene. That's just what (for a lot of people) house happens to be in 2013.

haha, so how do you distinguish which is retro? an interest in 20 year old music isn't retro, it's just where that music "happens to be"? Why can't another form of music happen to be in a mode that looks back 40 or 50 years?

I guess it's the difference between a continuous tradition vs. a revival of something that was lost or forgotten. But to me the latter is actually more interesting and holds more possibilities for coming across as something genuinely new, while the former often feels like stagnation.

I think an important point is that NOW!ism doesn't only relate to whether or not the sounds are new. When I've been to an EDM-concert, the NOWish feelings come a lot from the structural lack of patience, the incessant dropes, at least 70 per hour, which keeps everyone forgetting about what happened more than five seconds ago.

Funnily enough, I sorta get the same feeling from the hipster-black scene. A complete lack of deference for the past, and a focus on constant dynamic bliss.

I think the drop-dynamic is fundamentally different from the attack/decay/sustain/release-dynamic, but admittedly I get most of my knowledge of dance-dynamics from Simian Mobile Disco-covers.

hipster-black?

not just parenthesizing a racially loaded term but wondering what music is being referred to

Neither do I. Is Adele retro or something new? I think she's both really. That's the core of the problem I have with Reynolds' thesis. Doing a slightly different spin on something old is one of the primary ways that art evolves into new forms.

He doesn't disagree with you. Perhaps one way to frame the debate is whether as a matter of probability the first slightly different spin on something old is more apt to give rise to new forms than the twentieth, esp. if that twentieth is also informed by spins two through nineteen?

One of the issues here is precisely the other factors you raise: the availability of new technology or potentially untried genre fusions to enliven and render unfamiliar the "something old" component.

These intervening factors don't break the causal connection though, because I always get the impression that SR sees increasing retromania as partly responsive to those factors.

haha, so how do you distinguish which is retro? an interest in 20 year old music isn't retro, it's just where that music "happens to be"? Why can't another form of music happen to be in a mode that looks back 40 or 50 years?

No, I'm saying it is retro, and consciously so, but this is not part of some scene-wide decision to abandon the present in favour of a particular moment in the past. Next year the same DJs / dancers may be interested in something that doesn't sound remotely like US garage or the early 90s for that matter. So that's what makes it a really good example of what SR is referring to: the fact that here is a scene where people are listening and dancing to sets full of tunes from 20 years ago and contemporary tunes that have been recorded specifically to sound like they're from 20 years ago, while those people may not even be committed genre-revivalists per se.

I don't. That's the point. Stagnation, innovation, and "retro" are all far more relative and subjective than Reynolds lets on. There might be just as much difference between a "garage rock" band from 2013, '03, '93, '83, or '65 as there is between say house music from '13, '03, '93, or '83.

Sure. And? I think Reynolds would agree with you.

I guess it's the difference between a continuous tradition vs. a revival of something that was lost or forgotten. But to me the latter is actually more interesting and holds more possibilities for coming across as something genuinely new, while the former often feels like stagnation.

Isn't that the basic reason SR offers for the attractiveness of the past as a source for potential innovation/newness? The issue then becomes how much possibility is inherent in repeated revivalism of a particular idea. And there's never gonna be a hard and fast rule, never a moment where we can say "that's it, garage rock or straightforward house music will never surprise us again". But I would hazard a guess that it becomes harder to pull off over time.

In general terms I think you're punishing SR for not being able to isolate some pure retro-gene which can be distinguished from newness or nowness or whatever, whereas to my mind he's not even remotely trying to do that.

xp

skrillex is the musical analogue of the transformers films - except much better - so, yeah

nobody got irremediable brain injuries in the making of a skrillex lp

well idk, ray manzarek didn't last long

Perhaps one way to frame the debate is whether as a matter of probability the first slightly different spin on something old is more apt to give rise to new forms than the twentieth, esp. if that twentieth is also informed by spins two through nineteen?...

The issue then becomes how much possibility is inherent in repeated revivalism of a particular idea. And there's never gonna be a hard and fast rule, never a moment where we can say "that's it, garage rock or straightforward house music will never surprise us again". But I would hazard a guess that it becomes harder to pull off over time.

I think it's the other way around. It takes time for new forms of music to evolve and emerge. The idea of overnight revolutions is a fiction manufactured by the music press. I think it's possible that music that's currently being written off by some critics as being too retro is going to evolve into distinctly new genres that will become unrecognizable from their roots. Look at the evolution from the blues revival into Hendrix/Cream/Zeppelin style electric blues, and then the subtle shift into heavy metal with Sabbath and then trace that lineage all the way to something like black metal. It was a slow and continuous evolution that led to a result with no discernible connection to its blues revival roots. The critics who wrote off Sabbath in the '70s couldn't anticipate how influential they would become.

In general terms I think you're punishing SR for not being able to isolate some pure retro-gene which can be distinguished from newness or nowness or whatever, whereas to my mind he's not even remotely trying to do that.

No I'm annoyed by the fact that he takes all of these processes that are totally natural and even necessary to the creative process and gives them the dismissive label "retromania." I'm not the one trying to reduce everything down to some kind of retro-gene.

hipster-black?

― the most promising US ilxor has thrown the TOWEL IN (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), 10. juli 2013 01:24 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Metal. As in Liturgy and such. The most nowish concerts I've been to lately has been with EDM and BM. But yeah, hipster-black was way too vague a term, especially in this discussion.

http://www.factmag.com/2013/07/11/filmmaker-and-massive-attack-collaborator-adam-curtis-on-why-music-may-be-dying-and-why-need-a-new-radicalism/

this adam curtis interview could be simon reynolds speaking. i wonder if hes read retromania. or maybe its reynolds whos read adam curtis.