A Paler Shade of White---Sasha Frere-Jones Podcast and New Yorker article Criticizing Indie Rock for Failing to Incorporate African-American Influences

i believe anthony's complaints are roughly mine, i.e. that even for a position i might agree with at times (that indie rock shouldn't be so scared of dr. funkenstein) this is a poorly constructed piece of rhetoric that falls apart before it gets anywhere near a finish line but that most egregiously ignores the fact that in many ways indie rock is more connected to "rhythm" than it has been in quite some time (coughcoughDFAsashayouchoadcoughcough). and that john and mr. que's weird pile-up mostly seems born out of unwilling to do the unpacking of the SEVERAL YEARS WORTH OF DISCUSSION WEVE ALREADY HAD ON THIS TOPIC including THE SAME SHIT SFJ TRIED FOISTING UPON US A FEW YEARS BACK CIRCA EMP TIME that anthony has managed to squeeze into his "one-line bitchouts" ala "basically limits to folkies and brian wilson fans" i.e. get the fuck out of here with that reductionist bullshit, to say nothing of the reductionist bullshit that automatically comes from "where has it gone, the fonky fonk of my youth," i.e. putting "black rhythms" up on a pedestal, or ignoring that the vast majority of 70s and 80s white folks music was about as funky as starland vocal band or goddamned wang chung, which also ignores that maybe wang chung and starland vocal band had something to contribute to popular music despite not sounding like either grand funk or the isley brothers.

i could kiss you all ovah

royal trux
spoon
ween

wow, strongo on fire & otm!

da croupier is anthony miccio for those keeping score at home

da croupier, it's not a question of liking or not liking it, I haven't really even thought that hard about it. I'm just sick to death of people reaching, at the earliest convenience, for dismissals as lame and phoned-in as "I'd criticize it if it were coherent!" and so on - it's the sort of thing you see on political blogs, lefties patting themselves on the back for their namecalling skills and righties spitting venom without any particular analysis of their targets, on the grounds that the targets "aren't worth" a thoughtful dismissal instead of ad-homs, nice zings, etc. It's worthless on political blogs and even more pointless when talking about music, though I would say that, since I care a good deal more about music than about politics.

Brad I'd suspect, just knowing sfj's tastes a little, and reading between the lines here (Clash reference, racially loaded words like "miscegenation"), that he's waxing a little nostalgic for stuff like Ludus or Cristina or Essential Logic even New Order: stuff that was in conversation with other genres, not always successfully but interestingly. Which is where his article doesn't go: making an "interesting" record, one that doesn't firmly place itself in one recognizable genre, is something of a risky business move; the more cross-genre an artist gets, the less likely he is to find an audience quickly, and a lot of people feel like if you don't find your audience fast, you're liable to miss the boat. I think he's lamenting how even when a band is said to be "taking risks," they seldom are, and that there was a time when more bands actually did take risks that might have alienated them from their audience but which made for exciting records.

My own position here is that I'm always very suspicious of any "it was better then" thinking. I hate eighties nostalgia with a fucking passion, even though there was a lot of music made in the eighties that I love intensely. But I also don't think it's necessarily a nostalgia trip to talk about stylistic shifts, and with respect to indie rock, it has failed/did fail to seek out the sort of musical cross-pollination that often makes music exciting. Purism's only good at extremes I think, and extreme indie rock is something of a contradiction in terms.

Just thinking aloud/onscreen here and doubt I could defend all this loose stuff but that's my first response.

haha I had no idea da croupier was anthony

the comparison with the white noise supremacists is cute but mostly seems like a lame attempt to draw unfounded connections with a rather virulent strain of direct racism on the cbgb's scene with OMG MUSICAL RACISM THE SILENT KILLER, as if win butler not being bootsy collins is somehow the same as someone writing songs about gooks or a member of teenage jesus hurling the n-bomb at an african-american kid, i.e. it seems to be suggesting that the arcade fire are somehow at some kind of <i>fault</i> for reflecting the music which interests them rather than some idealized polygot mutant sfj has in mind because his wig got flipped as a 13-yr-old to sandinista, which seems about as silly as castigating trae or ne-yo for not incorporating the majesty of born to run into their own little musical worlds. lol you ain't white enough.

i should note that i'm about five beers deep here

I have no beer and I must scream

okay okay i think he's right on the money as to why Wilco and Arcade Fire are so boring. Especially this part:

If there is a trace of soul, blues, reggae, or funk in Arcade Fire, it must be philosophical; it certainly isn’t audible. And what I really wanted to hear, after a stretch of raucous sing-alongs, was a bit of swing, some empty space, and palpable bass frequencies—in other words, attributes of African-American popular music.

But then again, I'm sure he digs Spoon and LCD, and both bands certainly do these things (empty space in their songs, swing) so I don't know. He doesn't talk about either of those bands in the article, so maybe he realizes this? Also, Arcade Fire are really easy to make fun of, so i dunno.

I just read his New Yorker blog post and he basically lists all the complaints one could have with the piece and then lists ten songs he feels are truly "miscegenated" (i.e., "Custard Pie") which would lead to what John's saying, which is that he'd like to see something a lot more imaginative than what we have now. An article like this post, describing what he seeks in music, would be a lot better than the half-assed rhetoric he offers instead.

also he REALLY should find a better word that "miscegenated" to describe what he finds fascinating, unless he really wants to be Norman Mailer.

To look at the brite side, I like the way that Sasha is willing to describe his own mixed emotions about how to sing and about singing as a raced activity, I thought that was a brave move. I think his final section is interesting too in its willingness to own up to a feeling of loss about the very phenomenon that he also criticizes. Counterexamples can always crop up (showmanship oriented indie: The Make Up, Quintron & Miss Pussycat; hip hop culture referencing indie: Cocorosie, Gravy Train!!!) but part of doing a New Yorker piece, presumably, is swiftly making a macro-scaled argument that New Yorker readers (i.e. not hipsters but the parents of hipsters) will give a shit about.

he'd be wise to slow down

earlier today and elsewhere one of my pitchfork colleagues (mr. hogan) responded to this article with what amounted to "oh hai remember jams murphy" and i kinda felt like that was all that needed to be said in response. like i wondered if that arcade fire show sfj talks about was one of the co-headlining shows with lcd soundsystem, and if so how he just completely, willfully shut out the existence of that strain of "indie" in order to make his "point." like, dude, you're the one that recently wrote the slob job over friggin vampire weekend, and i cant think of a whiter goddamn band out there despite their much vaunted "deep appreciation" of "african music." sometimes you can be head-over-heels in love with "black" music and still come out sounding like a goddamn musical j. crew ad. (as with a band like, i dunno, ui. o snap.)

royal trux
spoon
ween
and
battles (among others)
i thought when sasha went into full-disclosure, "ui was funk" mode, he was going to bring up battles

hip hop culture referencing indie: Cocorosie

Drew what you trying to start, total war?

"oh hai remember jams murphy" and i kinda felt like that was all that needed to be said in response.

a one-line bitchout? for shame.

there's something I find really awful about the way the flaws in his pieces are forgiven BECAUSE they're in a high profile paper, like we shouldn't expect impressive work in places where it'd be readily visible, and THAT'S where the rancor comes in.

in fairness jess vampire weekend kind of make that their whole point don't they?

there's something I find really awful about the way the flaws in his pieces are forgiven BECAUSE they're in a high profile paper, like we shouldn't expect impressive work in places where it'd be readily visible

you can't expect people that read the New Yorker who are older than 35 to really know who LCD are, though, can you?

isn't that why SFJ writes for them in the first place?

haha but they should know panda bear, right?
x-post

i mean i thought the whole idea is that he was presenting a cliffs notes version of hipster culture for those that purchase mont blanc fountain pens and expensive watches

"hip hop culture referencing indie: Cocorosie

Drew what you trying to start, total war?

-- J0hn D., Tuesday, October 16, 2007 3:02 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link"

see what I did there?

i guess what i'm saying is, he has to use the big easy examples (Arcade Fire, Wilco) in a piece like this, so his audience will "get" his point. . .either that or he didn't include LCD because he knew it would really undercut his point, which would really suck I guess.

indie is wicked white tho - even if there is lcd soundsystem and whatnot

but no one really cares right

see what I did there?

I kiss you so hard it leaves bruises

indie IS wicked white, but i think the point is that the "issue" deserves a better article than this

mostly he's probably just trying to figure our why so much of it is so boring

discloser: did not read article

i hestitated saying "the problem" because it strands me in the same mire sfj is in, i.e. WHY is it a problem that indie is so wicked white, i.e. the thing we never find out, other than that three hours of indie rock leaves sfj feeling tired and old

i think we should blame the arcade fire for making him write this article.

He's written a piece on LCD in the last couple of years, or at least on "Losing My Edge".

and the new yorker's fiction sucks ass

u go q

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/reviews/recordings/2007/03/26/070326gore_GOAT_recordings_frerejones

"About five years ago, indie rockers began to rediscover the pleasures of rhythm."

-SF/J

i mean of all his examples of "miscengenation" prince is the only one that really stood out for the fact that i get so many different...things from his music. rock and funk and dance-pop and whatever. as "funky" as the stones and zeppelin are, and as much as that funk contrbutes to the quality of their music, i still turn to them because they "rock," even if that funk allows them to rock in a more supple (and therefore even more rocking?) manner. i think its idiocy to start earnestly comparing them to james brown.

i stopped subscribing - i mean i love factiods but i dont really need a whole magazine full

hahaha mark for the win. lock thread. go home. nothing to see here.

who's that french chanteuse he creems his jeans over all the time?
i guess chicks can sound white in sasha's world.

lol its from march

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In regards to his discussion of "racial sensitivity" I keep thinking about Yo La Tengo and others embracing avante-jazz. Is it easier to play such sounds and not have folks questioning how well you swing or sing (I think this has been discussed on ILX before), than other African-American styles or do the band members of such groups merely gravitate musically to such genres--yea I know that Ira Kaplan was a critic and djs on WFMU etc.). But on the other hand others have embraced and incorporated current popular African-American approaches with varying degrees of success apparently without worrying as much about 'racial sensitivity' (Eminem, uh Maroon 5, even, ugh, jam band Galactic).

Maybe he sees LCD more as a "Dahnce" act than one that incorporates African-American sounds. If Vampire Weekend were not based in NY would they get a quarter of the attention they've gotten?

Oops, great find Mark.

I mean, given that we all agree that indie bands such as Battles, Vampire Weekend, CocoRosie, etc do have some elements of black music, I think the question he's really pussyfooting around with this whole piece is more "Why do we STILL have boring, revisionist, funkless Leave It Beaver bullshit bands like Arcade Fire and Band Of Horses and Clap Your Hands and Hold Steady when everyone has such easy access to such diverse music?"

Splintering of the market. Each niche of music need only do one thing. It doesn't have to appeal to a huge swath of people.

It blows my mind that people still get excited by regular rock bands, but my Sandinista was Pork Soda, so what the fuck do I know?

my Sandinista was Pork Soda

worst lunchbox ever

Nitpicky point: "Grizzly Bear has no relation to black music" As evidenced by the their cover of "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)" that they've been doing all year?

a sandwichnista and pork soda

I think an important thing w/ a lot of the "white" bands that he mentions is that they seem anti-technology, old-fashioned, and perhaps more authentic to some people because of that. Contemporary associations with hip-hop and r&b now are a far cry from the Isley Brothers and the Meters. People associate these genres now with technology and celebrity culture. So for people looking for something removed from that, a lot of these bands fit the bill.

^This picture is notable as it is the first time in his life SFJ ever visited a receiving dock, although it was on a Sunday, after a scrumptious brunch in the LES! #workingclass

"A Perfect Day for I Zimbra"

In 1983, Frere-Jones played Capulet in a St. Ann's production of "Romeo and Juliet" directed by Nancy Fales Garrett. Mia Sara played Juliet. In 1984, Frere-Jones's "We Three Kings" was one of ten plays chosen for the Young Playwrights Festival. The original reading starred John Pankow and Željko Ivanek. The final production at the Public Theater starred Adam Klugman, Jack Klugman's son. His follow-up play, "Jump Down Turn Around," was performed at St. Ann's and starred Frere-Jones and actor Josh Hamilton.

― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Monday, October 27, 2014 10:43 PM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark

Figures that this guy went to St Ann's

He could pretty much write his own ticket and the life he chose is explaining his friends' music to his parents' friends.

Can't really hate him though.

and this was the guy who traced Timbaland + Magoo's origins to "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker."

so he kissed mia sara possibly several times

right on

ok so why does he go by sasha exactly?

Sasha is the diminutive of Alexander and Alexandra.

Yeah I had an Alex/Sasha friend growing up. Parents were actually Russian though, not sure about this one.

i've been an Alexander my whole life and i didn't know that. using the first 1 or 2 syllables of the name seemed like the natural diminutive.

put this in the solange thread, but thought that might be the wrong place for it. some excerpts from a new book on solange and indie rock, whiteness, race, etc.

https://gal-dem.com/why-solange-matters-book-extract-stephanie-phillips-indie-microaggressions