EMP 2006 Pop Conference: 4/27-30

anthony, i thought your proposal was a shoo-in since it was so awesome. you should totally hold the anti-emp conference at your house the same weekend. you still have that keg, right?

(if I feel its worth the slap to my bank account)

Seriously, can anyone offer helpful tips to a conference rookie. Seriously.

http://www.coldproducts.com/ezglide.php

allows you to install an ice rink anywhere!

Unless they actually decided that my proposal involved an audience for whom the pleasure bore absolutely zero guilt (even though it probably should), which would be a reasonable reason although the neato form letter didn't get into specifics.

Yes, I'm a bitter bitch.

There is precedent that if you write a song with this title and release it that it will wind up on the Dean's List.

I say, go for it, man!

*and a quart of whisky

Ah fuckit. It was me trying to be funny. I mean, I called myself a bitter bitch.

xp - I thought it was about "guilty pleasures," which isn't the exact same thing because I maintain that there are *cool* guilty pleasures and vastly uncool ones as well. Maybe that's another thread. Or a winning proposal...

Oh, I got reee-jected too. Great, I just went gay and now I've been rejected. I'm like a character from a bad gay indie movie. I hope this doesn't mean that my dad's going to show up and announce he's found Jesus and I'm going to have to tell him that he DOESN'T UNDERSTAND.

I won't be going unless I can get my day job to pay for my plane ticket to SXSW. Which isn't terribly likely.

http://www.wah.org.uk/wah4/Around-the-world/cheapwhiskey.jpg

http://www.uk-wine.com/images/products/4305.jpg

i feel this would be a good look for you, jess.

I nominate Donut to go get the cheapest Canadian whiskey Vancouver has to offer and then we convocate an informal taste test panel.

xpost: i am deeply into that outfit

Elbow-deep?

http://www.figureskatersonline.com/johnnyweir/gallery/2004-2005/AdamsUN09.jpg

xpost: it's usually one or the other for me

I'm giving props to Eric W. who had to do an incredible amount of work. I'm lucky enough to know him, and I'm sure there will be lots of great pieces this year. I'm looking forward to it. Having my proposal accepted would have been a bonus.. but then again, a lot of extra work, and potentially missing other great panels, too... hence the flip.

Ned, I will be on Vancouver Island in mid-February. It's not Vancouver, but island people are more about the liquor anyway, good and bad. I'll seriously ask my cousin what the cheapest whiskey is, and if it's possible for me to bring back whiskey to the U.S.

I know one is allowed to bring back wine to the states if you stay in Canada at least 24 (or 48?) hours. Not sure about hard liquor, though. Anyway, I'll be in Victoria for at least two days soon.. so I may very well honor your challenge, Ned. (muahahaha)

http://www.vintagephotos.com/Image_415_Angry_Cat_with_Hat.jpg

my qualms with this year's subject notwithstanding, i am naturally very psyched! i love ELO totally unabashedly and have since 1977 and stuff, and i've never written anything longer than 175 words on 'em. (also, my proposal to write about the sanctified blues as its own 90 year old genre rather than some weird historical footnote was rejected for being too broad last year. if i'm honest i might admit to not even going last year 'cause i was sulking about the rejection months later, though i was also really sick.)

** x-p donut, when are you in vancouver island? i plan to head to the city proper late next week, then back down to bellingham for the weekend to DJ a wedding filled with indie rockers so i'm playing lots of etta james, lionel ritchie and sinatra, of course... email me if you want to get food or somethign if you're around there/ then. (odds of this are mighty slim, just saying...)

SO OTM IT HUUUUURTS!

(I'll bring a loop of the intro to Michael McDonald's "Sweet Freedom")

If you're looking for candidate stores to drop off copies of ye Yeti, I would go to Ditch Records.. not sure if they are big on zines, but if any store in Victoria would be, that would be the store.

oh man, that is the saddest keg ever -- the one you cannot kick. perfect for a rejection party!

I'm really excited, because all these other proposals sound great, and it'll be fun to go to Seattle and see people whose stuff I've read, though no fun to leave wife and baby. That's my true guilty pleasure!

(2xps)

Seriously, I kinda wish I would have proposed a brass band paper.

Meantime, I'll be there arguing for why the Monkees should be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I'm astonished that it was accepted.

i am really psyched to hear this too. i think they should be inducted, if only because they created "head".

Don't write your paper the night before. Practice reading it at least once. Do this with a watch, so you know how long the paper takes to read. If your paper is too long, make your cuts then. Nothing brings out the flop-sweat like having to drop whole paragraphs or pages in mid-lecture.

If you're using powerpoint, practice with that at least once. It's good to burn a copy of your powerpoint onto disc; it's also good to have the proper video cable for your laptop, especially if you own an Apple.

If you have audio or video, try to condense everything onto one disc or tape, so getting from example to example is easy.

Finally, arrive early if you can, to allow time to calm any last minute nerves.

I know at least ten people who gave papers last year and finished writing them the night before (in my case, the morning of!). It is a very bad idea, but everyone has busy lives -- lotsa deadlines for, you know, actual remunerated work. Still I'm going to try like the devil to finish writing before I get on the flight to Seattle this year...

dude, i know about busy lives. no need to state the obvious. but if you get two months, that means you can work on it here and there, *when time permits*, rather than one big crunch the night before.

"Dude," i did work on it "here and there," and still didn't finish until the last minute. You'll notice I wasn't advocating this as a good paper-writing strategy. Anyway, why are you so fired up about other people's bad work habits? Sheesh.

Now, a few more questions:

How long are the presentations supposed to be?

How many have audio/visual/prop elements and how many are just straight reading from text?

i dont know i was!

Roughly 20 minutes. About eight double-spaced type-written pages, spoken at a reasonable rate.

How many have audio/visual/prop elements and how many are just straight reading from text?

Most of the presentations I heard had some media element or other: a song or two, a film clip, a slide show, etc. This was almost always very welcome. Of course, a compelling paper doesn't need any bells and whistles. But it's nice to hear examples of the music that's being discussed.

okey doke.

Cool! I'm not sure I could make a compelling case for that one, though the story songs really are his bread and butter. Hmmm, you've made me wanna listen to that now.

the schedule is up! i am totally going to look like a chump on my panel.

Thurs 7-8:30pm

Love in the Shadows: A Conversation with Stephin Merritt
Fellow Magnetic Fields member LD Beghtol and Drew Daniel of Matmos talk with the man behind 69 Love Songs and other beautiful subversions about queering the pop song and bubblegumming the art song. Moderated by Ann Powers.

Also, my 33 1/3 birthday falls just prior to that & I'm gonna need to find some way to celebrate it.

Also, if anyone hears about any NYC-SEA flight deals, I'm all ears.

Hope everyone's papers are coming along more rapidly than mine.

Having no paper, I realize I can just go and be entertained. Hurrah!

Try the Days Inn on 7th? It's not the most amazing looking corner of downtown, but it's HELLA convenient for all intensive purposes... (right near Denny Way, can walk to EMP, can walk to downtown, many bus lines nearby.) Although I heard even that place can be expensive too.

Not super nice, but there's the Green Tortoise.. It may have moved sicne last time, but it should be near Pike Place market.

Mediterranean Inn is also very close, and ~$100 (though Exp3dia has it for less). Apartment-style rooms w/ kitchens.

though perhaps i need to cut down a bit to maybe 3000-3500 words as i am planning to show at least a minute from "xanadu" at the end, plus live footage (lasers!) as well. "xanadu" is so crazy/ gooooood. i used to hate it but it's so obviously a cocaine silk shirt unicorn roller skate outer space classic!

im wearing roller skates to your panel. and ice skates to mine.

xpost mts -- be careful on those stairs at the emp conference room with skates on!

xpost -- ned, why you awake so early? ohh, are you in providence already? would have loved to see bright last night, they're soooooo rad (and yes, acid mothers too).

I plan finish my draft by the end of Sunday, leaving Monday-Wednesday to edit, edit, edit.

but really, i never learned to do anything unless it's last minute. keep trying other ways but it's just not me, unfortunately. which is why i have an ear infection now from staying up all night getting other work done...

Actually I'm still in Boston, though will leave within a few hours -- while the pre-AMT show would have been great, I had already made my plans separately from that. As it was I had an excellent dinner here with Toby, Colette, Dan and Joei so no regrets. :-)

So with Xanadu, do we get a compare/contrast with The Apple?

(EMMM PEEE!!)

In any case, I now have a brilliant proposal based on youth culture in Australia and New Zealand kids growing up on music in their respective countries back in the late 70s and all of the 80s, and how different it now all is in the new generation of Australians and New Zealanders, such that the latter kids need to reject their "elders" and sound as un-NZ as possible now whereas, to choose one example, disco just never died in Australia and it's been a guiltless continuum since the halycon Aussie disco days... and I could go on, but for obvious timing reasons, I can't submit this now. You'd have to get me a bit buzzed during an EMP weekend meal to get me to tell the improvised version.. :)

Goodness, Toby and Colette get around. I just saw them two weeks ago in Chicago.

Anyway, I had considered going to Seattle this year, despite my proposal not being accepted, but decided to take a trip to Montreal instead.

PHI TA KHON: GHOSTS OF ISAN
A Film by Robert Millis (75 minutes)
Location: Rendezvous / Jewelbox Theatre 2320 2nd Ave. / $5 cover
Date & Time: April 27th @ 10:00pm

Described as 'The Mardi Gras from Hell' and 'Thai
Halloween" PHI TA KHON is a ghost festival that
takes place every year in the Isan province of
Northern Thailand. Meaning 'ghosts with human
eyes' or 'ghost into human', Phi Ta Khon features
magnificent costumes, ornate masks, decorative
phallic icons of all sizes, ceremony, drinking,
dancing, and endless addictive Molam music in
higher doses than most souls can process. A
mind-blowing and obscure tradition hidden in the
interior of the Indochine peninsula.

Filmed on location by Robert Millis and Richard
Bishop in June 2004. Robert Millis is a member of
Climax Golden Twins and has released a number of
solo CDs detailing the sounds of far off places
including Leaf Drunks Distant Drums on Anomalous
Records and Harmika Yab Yum:
Folk Sounds of Nepal on Sublime Frequencies.
Richard Bishop has been knighted by the Queen.

And he's not moderating a panel this year unlike his bro last year? Storm The Panelz! The Peasants Know Not What They Discus!

http://www.mackron.com/random/floydsplace.jpg

Ms. Cow and Mr. Pig make a calm, caustic joyful pirouette if you stand directly underneath them, for sobering purposes.

No smoking inside almost anywhere now (except tribal casinos) as of December 2005... because of a smoking ban voter initiative that passed.

Smokers will have to smoke outside of rock/club venues and what not, now.

That said, there are hookah lounges in town that you can go to, if you're willing to pay a small nominal membership fee.

i think it's more a case of expecting seattle to change as drastically as nyc did after i left there in '93, the way i'd go back in 6 mos. and there'd be a baby gap on st marks, then come back a year later and the baby gap was gone, something else in place? anyway i'm boring *myself* here, sorry...

that rib joint seems interesting.

haha the cow and the pig. why do all my emp memories from last year have very little to do with the emp?

Do I need a car?

You only need a car if you happen to have chosen a place to stay that's in some out-of-the-way Seattle suburb, or you plan to do things that require driving before/after the conference -- like go skiing somewhere in the Cascades, summit Mt. Rainier (if you don't care for tourist bus shuttle service), go hide somewhere in the Olympic mountains or Puget Sound islands by yourself, go gambling at the Emerald Queen or Tulalip casinos, etc. (You don't need a car to go to Portland or Vancouver, even, unless it's an absolute short notice thing.)

Otherwise, if you just want to attend the conference, stay in the city, and have fun and stuff, but you don't want to deal with a car, you don't need one.

OK, fuck a car. How do I get from the airport to where I'm staying?

Depends where you're staying, but assuming you're staying somewhere either in downtown, or a neighborhood adjacent to downtown, or just part of Seattle city proper, you can get there by a bus or two.

The first step is getting from Sea-tac to downtown:

The 194 bus will be your friend. As you leave the airport, on the same level as baggage claim, just follow the signs that say or show "buses" or "ground transportation" or "public transportation" or similar. This usually means, go to this lower level and take a right and walk a while. Once you're outside, there should be a bus bay which has "194 Downtown Seattle" and "174 Downtown Seattle" on it. Go there.

The 194 bus runs from around 6am to 9pm Monday through Friday (until 8pm Saturday, 7pm Sunday).. eveyr 15-20 minutes between 9am to 5pm, half an hour or later outside this range. The ride takes 30-ish minutes to downtown, longer if there's Mariners game traffic (see below).

Failing that, there's the longer but later 174 bus which runs from 5am to 3am Monday to Friday (starts at 6am, Saturday -- 7am Sunday). This takes at least 45 to 50-ish minutes.

ASK FOR A TRANSFER IF THE DRIVER DOESN'T STUFF ONE IN YOUR HAND ALREADY. You may need that to hop onto another bus right after. They are paper transfers. Just wave valid ones in front of the driver, and they'll nod, grunt, and let you on.. even if it's slightly expired. (They usually last at least 2.5 hours.)

WARNING: Mariners games are in effect! Expect delays getting into town if you're arriving before a game starts or after a game ends!

WARNING #2: Yes, buses are free in downtown between 7am and 7pm, so there's the confusing "Pay As You Enter"/"Pay As YOu Leave" thing. Just don't take it personally if a driver gets cranky if you try to insert money entering a bus exiting downtown between 7am and 7pm. (Yes it's true, life-long Seattle people never get used to this.)

The fare in each direction from SeaTac to downtown is $2.00 -- Some drivers still think it's only $1.25 ($1.50 if it's weekday rush hour). Just humor them if they insist on the lower fare. Both buses travel north on 4th ave in downtown. Exiting between Pike and Pine streets is a good idea.. it's central, and you can walk a block west to 3rd ave. and pick up a bus (see below) to EMP very quickly.

Failing that, there are downtown shuttle buses that run to major hotels that cost $14 each way.

Failing THAT, you can taxi to downtown for usually no more than $25 bucks. (I think that's a legal cap for it, but I could be wrong.)

After getting to downtown, it's just a matter of finding which bus (if needed) will get you to your hotel/motel/hostel and/or the EMP. (There's the King County Metro Trip Planner page that can be helpful)

Buses that go from downtown directly to the EMP entrance: 3/4, 16. You can pick these up on the east side of 3rd Ave in downtown (going north), and they all run very often. They diverge on the fringes of their respective routes depending on the time, but all will get you between the EMP and downtown, no problem. You can also pick up additional buses on 1st. Ave (1, 8, 15, and 18 come to mind) that get you to central Lower Queen Anne, which is close enough, if you don't mind a stroll through Seattle Center. Just make sure you're at a bus stop with the bus number on the sign. Buses often alternate every other stop on a street to reduce downtown traffic problems, now that the bus tunnel is closed, and the monorail is still down. And yes, except at night, these will all fall under the "Ride Free zone/Pay as you leave" category.. so you just hop on and pay as you leave the bus (unless it's after 7pm.)

I can hopefully answer more bus questions if you're staying somewhere just outside downtown and need specific bus directions.

OK i fuxxord a car. how to get back to teh airport?

Both the 194 and 174 buses run south on 2nd ave. south of Stewart st. If need be, find a connecting bus to get there (again, there are several that will get you directly onto 2nd, or no more than 2 blocks away.). Usually, drivers will show you how to grab the 194 or 174 if you're slightly outside downtown. Then you're on your way back to where you flew in from or something like that.

(I can go to Portland or Vancouver without a car?)

(Yes. Amtrak and Greyhound are your cheapest options. Round-trip shuttle buses or trains between Seattle and the other city are usually around $50-$60 total. You need your ID/birth certificate or passport if you want to go to Vancouver (BC) though. The slight downside is that the Amtrak and Greyhound stations are each at the slightly seedy opposite corners of downtown.. nothing dangerous, just a bit confusing and not too pretty if you've never been to either station before. Also worth mentioning that QuickCoach will get you from Sea-Tac to Vancouver and vice versa in one shot, if you want to do that.)

You'll be wasting more gas in a car, and your taxi fare will go up should you hit gridlock just south of downtown due to a Mariners game.

Looks like the Mariners are away from Seattle this weekend, so that above traffic warning is now moot, assuming that schedule is accurate.

looks like some good stuff on at the henry if you have extra time

oh yeah, the 174 and 194 buses both go SOUTH of Sea-Tac airport as well. Just make sure your bus says "Seattle" on it and you wait at the right bay. Many lemmings people who don't pay attention often run to whichever 194 comes first and they end up in the wrong direction.

my girl and i are staying at the moore... also, the new-ish sticker parking method is pretty much everywhere for street parking, right?

The Queen Anne neighborhood where Seattle Center is doesn't have these installed yet. Here's the SDOT page with info on how to use them and where they are installed.

Like DOQQUN says, for free on-street parking, venture west into the residential section of lower QA. Lots that are run by the Center can be around $15/day, depending on what's going on.

anyway, if anyone is looking for me, i'll be the fat guy with a goatee, salt and pepper hair and thick black glasses!

i'm SURE i'll be the only guy who looks like that there... hah hah hah. i'm rotfl'ing the fuck out of my own damn self.

Comeback - Chop Suey Friday the 28th. Comeback is a great queer (and queer-friendly) monthly that goes on this Friday. It's not on the level of 'Italo Disco in San Francisco,' but it is marketed in the same way, like, gay + good taste=Comeback. It's a fun vibe, and was packed last month. So, if you're in the mood for electro house and prince and a 5 dollar cover and Sparks behind the bar, I can't think of a better Friday night. There's also usually an after-hours, at the 3gg Room. Ask around.

James Holden is playing across the street from the EMP, at Element, that same night.

I know Donut mentioned this on the other thread, and I wanted to as well: Bollywood Massive at Chop Suey Saturday night. I've heard it's a great monthly, but haven't been yet. I'll be there Saturday. If I knew what any of you looked like I'd be all ready for an impromptu ilxor sighting.

There's also Derrick Carter at the War Room Friday and Catpower at the Showbox Monday.

Someone did this last year and it was a disaster.

So I'll be arriving at the airport too late to catch one of the buses tomorrow night, so I guess I'm Super Shuttling it. Looking forward to the hellos and howdys. Donut: shoot me an email offlist. Thx!

PS: I'm also still editing my paper down, as the first draft, which ran 4,500 words, took me 27 minutes to read through. Damn! I have to take out pretty much everything I wanted to include about "33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee."

xpost - what other thread, jergins?

http://www.43places.com/event/place/106707

In brief, the Showbox will be exercising feet:

Friday: DJ Icey, Simply Jeff, Dig Dug
Saturday: Ice Cube, Tha Dogg Pound, Clipse (tickets are at least $30 tho, but hell yeah regardless.)

And there are a gazillion bands playing all day in Ballard for the SW music awards showcase...

There's simply too much happening this weekend as usual. Bollywood Massive sounds like the best choice really. It will be insane there, but in a get-yourself-lost-in-the-crowds-and-hang-in-the-corner kinda way while you hear great hanghra/bollywood hip-hop/dance music with half of greater Seattle's Indian residents coming out to go fucking nuts.

it's far far better than it should be (full disc: i helpedd organize the first years' one, when we had wally shoup, charlie from sun city girls, kinski peeps, sean nelson, and the smoosh girls in addition to the usual rockers...)

http://www.rocklottery.com/index.htm

Technically, there is no cap. BUT. All taxis have a "$28 from SEA to downtown/$28 from downtown to SEA" fare available. You have to ask for it specifically when you get into the taxi. If it's, say, 3 AM and there's no traffic, you'll save money by just letting them run the meter. But if it's rush hour or so, ask for the flat fare.

Also, are there any FAPs planned on Saturday or Sunday? This is my last weekend in Seattle, so I'd love to get together with some of you guys. If I find time between some packing type stuff this weekend, I'll be heading over to the conference for a bit on Saturday/Sunday afternoon.

-- Joseph McCombs (jmccomb...) (webmail), Today 5:57 PM. (Joseph McCombs) (later) (link)

I KNOW DUDE, BUT IMA DO IT RIGHT THIS YEAR

DON'T WORRY, I'LL STILL BE THERE ANYWAY

But Sunday afternoon/evening will be a time for the locals and straggling visitors like His Nedsome to catch many a breath... speaking for myselves and my elves.

That's the name of the new album by Pisscutter, right?

ANYWAY, EMP POP CONFERNENCE...

dave: aw damn. we will send our love to the Okanogans and Olivia Newton-John.

then it was 6 hours of turbulence.

now, i cant seem to find my hotel or hotelmate.

UGH. :-( I feel your pain. I hate turbulence. What's your hotel?

haha, sorry. that was just too odd a combination of phrases to let pass by.

mts, hotel?

I'm heading over to Lower QA in the afternoon to run some errands, then just mosey over to EMP for the reception. So, if you see a guy that looks like me if you know what I look like, that's me and not fred durst after rehab.

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/images/save-the-hoodie.jpg

Welcome EMPers! I hope you got to enjoy this afternoon's sunshine.

It's supposed to get cloudier later tomorrow, then a little wet over night, then taper off Saturday day, and that's it.. Sunday is sun day. Monday a little cloudier/wetter.

OK, FOR THOSE OF YOU LEAVING MONDAY AFTERNOON/EVENING:

I overheard on the King Country Metro intercom earlier today that there's a scheduled march/protest in downtown Seattle Monday May 1st from 4 to 7pm... (it's another monthly mass anti-Bush protest at rush hour...)... So those of you needing to get to the airport, I'd leave about 90 minutes earlier than normal.

Want to revive in honor of lyra. FAP FAP FAP FAP FAP on Sunday!

Sorry to miss today and this evening especially. It was a pleasure to briefly meet those of you I met and interesting to spot other of you in the crowd.

Anyone up for Two Bells or some place on lower Queen Anne?

so, how about that keynote folks?

So yes, the keynote and the 'girl group' panel =

http://www.purpledawn.de/pk/prince/controversy/81.jpg

http://herjazz.org/maria/emp2006

Many, MANY great people I met for the first time or 'properly' after having known them over the net for while, including Nate, Joe McC, Maria and many others. I was also deeply thrilled to meet J. D. Considine, whose thoughtful advice to me many years back strongly influenced my decision in how to approach writing as a commitment in life.

And of course, so many very grand presentations, in a wide variety of styles and subjects. The variety was easily the key to the whole weekend.

I would like to dedicate this post to Nick Sylvester. No, wait...

OMG, Glenn killed me with those slides. Nimoy with a guitar, captioned something like, "I'm not afraid to use this, motherfucker." I think I was most entertained by that, Tom Kidd's piece on Kim Fowley's Outrageous album, and Mike McG's trib to ELO. The conference had kind of a different feel this year, far more inclined towards indulgence than debate.

And, echoing Ned's words, I was so glad to finally meet and/or spend quality time with so many of you. Haven't laughed so hard in quite some time. Thanks! (And thanks to everyone who came to my Monkees thing. It was very gratifying to get such kind response to it.)

(But we should insist that his next EMP presentation be entitled I can't turn my face into a heart.)

Any scandalous gossip to report?

Well, there's kinda what I was hinting at above... ;-)

Frank's OTM, having now read Matos's piece in full.

Meantime, since I don't think it's been mentioned on this thread yet:

http://f32.aaa.livedoor.jp/~karasu/flashes/fla.img/numa.jpg

Mm, quite. And yes to the challenging of the theme as well -- my proposal (very haphazard compared to what got in) was going to in part be about something that doesn't exist, namely Anglican guilt. ;-)

it was so good to see all of you again!

"Second, to jump on the only controversy of the week, I disagree with Jessica about what transpired at the opening panel talk with Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields. It wasn't the most dynamic discussion of all time, but it was actually quite good humoured and smart. And for anybody who's ever interviewed Stephin, as I have, it was glaring how he was receptive and engaged in a way he's not when he deals with the press. But as for the "racism"? The way I recall it, L.D. Beghtol brought up the fact that Stephin's said that Zipadeedoodah is the only successful happy song, and that prompted Stephin to say that he likes the music in Song of the South, "which is really hard to see now, for obvious reasons." I'm paraphrasing, but I certainly wasn't left with the impression of him celebrating Uncle Remus. And while you could critique the music in that film as being part of the minstrel legacy it uncritically perpetuates, you'd have to take into account the ways that legacy has been reconsidered, at EMP itself last year, as a much more ambiguous and complicated thing in its relationship to black culture, before you could label an appreciation of anything related to it as racist. I'm glad Jessica has agreed to reconsider.
But on the closer-to-home aspect of him talking about Celine Dion as if she were non-white: It was a gaffe, in its way, but a fascinating one in context. Of course, Celine is white, but Stephin was discussing production style and technology, and Celine is in many ways produced and positioned as if she were in the same niche as Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey - as if she did R&B - so he was just choosing the most awkward case for his point, which was that in that genre, highly mediated production for "entertainers" is not considered out of place the way it is for rock or white singer-songwriters. (He contrasted it with Belle & Sebastian's work with Trevor Horne, which I think was a case of them deliberately transgressing that line, but never mind.) And he was using Celine because Drew Daniel had brought her up first as an example of highly compressed, mediated production. But the point was odd because Stephin was saying that it's a basically racist perception of entertainers versus artists: That artists in non-white genres are just here to entertain us, so their production authenticity doesn't matter - they aren't individuals.
To me it was all telling about how Celine exists: First, that she's a white artist whose niche would not exist without a black precedent. (Is she the Elvis of power-ballads?) Second, that she's an entertainer rather than an individual. (She is entirely on-board with that role.) And third, that even though people know that she's French-Canadian (there's no category of Quebecoise here), her foreignness and, I'd argue, her class renders her ethnically Other in an American context, so "non-white" (did he ever actually say "black"?). Stephin's blunder was still a blunder, but it was an exemplary one, not a crazy one. If Celine were Lebanese, things might not be wildly different; if she were a pure white anglo American, her career would be nearly unthinkable. (And if she were black, it would also be radically different.) This entry is ultra-parenthesized because these questions are hard to address directly; I'm still unsure of how they will be dealt with in the book. So, sure, she's "unblack as hell," but doesn't that locution indicate it's impossible to say she is "white as hell", too?
| Posted by zoilus on Sunday, April 30 at 05:18 AM

Carl nails it. I don't feel that Stephin made any racist remarks whatsoever and find this whole thing pretty jacked up. But since I was on the panel in question I can't speak to how it translated to the audience, as that woud be special pleading. What did others who were in the audience think? I mean, duh, Stephin got the facts wrong with regard to Celine Dion (musician-lacks-expertise-about-music they-strongly-dislike-non-shocker) but I can't see how that got inflated into the serious charge which Jessica initially made. I hope she reconsiders, as I like her and her writing and hate to see two smart people at loggerheads.

In the middle of this, Christgau, sitting behind me, nudges the guy next to him: "I underrated this album. It's a D."

Just hearing what bits we did of that thing, my heavens. "ARE YOU STRAIGHT?"

In Carl's (awesome) talk on Celine Dion he talked at length about the Quebecoise context behind Celine's aesthetic choices, and in the way she talks/thinks about her work (a "we" is always used but it's not the royal we, it's a kind of team-spirit thing that he ties to her roots in a Catholic family with 14 children). But I shouldn't badly summarize his talk, we'll just have to wait for the 33 1/3 opus.

is this online anywhere? (not that i've paid any attention to ani difranco for the last few years)

In the middle of this, Christgau, sitting behind me, nudges the guy next to him: "I underrated this album. It's a D."

where is a serious documentarian who aims Xgau?

let's just hope that jet blue finds my luggage in seattle :(

I believe the quote over the Nimoy-with-acoustic-guitar photo was "Back Off, Motherfucker, I Know How To Use This Thing."

Other highlights: MTS, Matos, Drew, Dylan Hicks, Randall Roberts.

Actual highlight: going out for karaoke with about 20 people. Music critics and their friends sure are good at karaoke. Even though the place ended up ripping us off.

Much behind-the-scenes goXXip; nothing I feel like getting into here.

Several people tried to do "Do You Want To," but the machine wouldn't play it, for some reason.

(Sorry, Drew--they kicked us out at 10:30 because the room had already been reserved. Then they tried to charge us an extra $100--and "settled" for $50--because we'd brought in beer.)

Subject of an entirely new paper about musical shame!

I learned a lot from almost every paper I saw, including the (truly great) papers of some of the folks who've contributed to this here thread. Did anybody else catch Steven Rosen's Tiny Tim talk? It was an eye-opener, in a nice, understated way.

Douglas, Christgau was on my flight home last night, and he was raving about your talk...

Yeah, I thought that Monkees / TinyTim / Nimoy / Jem&theHolograms foursome exemplified the peculiar strength of this conference. Each paper turned things that get dismissed as novelty/jokes into something far richer, without overdoing it or ever resorting to the "spray on" academic-in-the-bad-sense cultural studies position (i.e. nobody felt they were "redeeming" the critical object by slapping a distinguished theorist on top, they just used a strategic redescription of what was going on in the artwork to argue for its weird power/relevance).

But to answer Drew's question about the audience reaction to Merritt's gaffe about Celine Dion..

Sure, after he mentioned Celine Dion in the context of R&B/mainstream singers, it only took me a few seconds to do a Kyle's mom ("Wha-wha-WHAAAAAAAT?") in my head, as did another pair of ILXors next to me. Seconds later, Drew, that's where you stepped in and very politely brought up the issue on the podium and asked for clarification, which was definitely granted.

BUT....!

....if anyone truly believed that, even for a second, Stephen Merritt thinks Celine Dion is as "black" as Erykah Badu, he or she is just being lame, or just trying to exploit a very innocent gaffe which is FAR easier to make when being overwhelmed and on the pulpit of a keynote for a 4-day music academic conference than it is to make when not on the hot seat, so to speak, speaking to a few friends in a circle off-hand, or in an audience whispering to each other, more to the point.

I mean Merritt was probably tired from travel, I gather, and he was just beginning to get over smoking, as he was sucking on nicotine lozenges throughout the public interview -- which probably had more to do with being in Nu-Washington State aka the new non-smoking state, and maybe not trying to give up the habit for good, but who knows! -- but in any case, to expect someone in that state of mind, either way, to deliver 100% purely clarified objective musical rhetoric, especially in response to questions one is not prepared for, and not make at least ONE gaffe is just unreasonable.

I loved this piece. Joseph sounded like he went over his piece and practiced it A LOT.. seriously, because he kept a very fast pace of talking throughout the piece, making it really intense to soak in, yet -- amazingly -- rarely tripped on his words, and it was solid and lean.. no fat at all, as far as content.. yet, incredibly enjoyable... especially the snippet of Zappa and talking cow cameo in Head that was shown... and also incredibly persuasive.

on your way back, consider stopping off at Dungeness Spit (but note the tide table warnings). if you have extra time, head out to La Push on the Coast. and if you didn't come that way, I recommend taking the Port Townsend-Keystone ferry back to Whidbey Island and then detouring up to Ebey's Landing. If you do so, and have the time (including for the short-ish hike to the beach) on your way South through Whidbey, a stop at South Whidbey State Park is worthwhile.

also, Douglas's "Live on Mars?" was exquisite. I've had that song in my head ever since as a result.

And yeah, I had to go that extra car dork mile re: the Carpenters and get all ultra-specific about the vehicle on the cover (A Ferrari 365 Daytona -- I restrained myself and didn't go off on all kinds of "fastest production car at the time" trivia) but I suppose it was a valid point in my attempts to explore early '70s class issues; whitebread middle-class suburbanites don't drive Italian supercars.

I am relieved that my paper went well and will post it (and hopefully the accompanying K-Tel Records bit) on my blog sometime tomorrow.

P.S.: Finally saw SEX! OVER THE PHONE! Good lord.

But I saw/ met so many awesome people, and I got a far better response for my super lite talk than I'd expected. For some reason, I wasn't too nervous either. Usually my hands start to shake and my voice quivers, it's weird.

I loved a lot of what I saw, especially PETER DOYLE, RJ SMITH, DOUGLAS WOLK, SARAH DOUGHER, NATE PATRIN, and DREW DANIEL. In combining personal anecdote with scholarly rhetoric in a truly enthused manner, I have to say that Daniel's was my favorite thing. JD Conisidine started strong and ended "meh" for me, and when I could focus on what they were saying I also dug the presenters I shared a panel with--Anthony Miler and Greil.

Really psyched to see a number of pieces up on blogs already. Am bummed the Richard Pryor presentation never happened, and that I missed so much: Matos, Grubbs, Dayal, Daddino, Wald, Thomas, Sanders, Reighley (and El Vez who doesn't have a last name that I know of to use).

Was surprised at how UN-academic this one was compared to the two others I've attended. Could just be the panels I did see. Also, it seemed far less international this year. Those aren't even quibbles, just things I noticed.

Glad you all had fun at karaoke despite the apparent lameness of that place. I left really tired (it was a crazy packed three days -- I also: helped get a dear friend into a treatment center for recidivist alcoholics/ addicts I mean assuming he stays there, played with my 7 year old nephew anf got him a cool-looking science kit toy, hung out in the markey and shopped at at the rack with my girl, hit my favorite restaurants and coffee places, went to a going away party for two friends and a birthday dinner for myself, saw the sun city girl/ sublime frequency peeps, and got paid for yetis by a few record shops -- whewww) but I also feel just energized, ennervated, psyched by the entire thing.

Obviously, a lot of people are freaked about "the future of the profession," and that was expressed a lot, but I've made much or most of my living as an e-hack since '98. On a related and self-serving note, a lot of people responded with enthusiasm to my idea of starting up an inexpensive monthly review perhaps similar to what Sound Collector Audio Review was trying to be, with more emphasis on long form, newer stuff, and hopefully better than that was, not that it was bad. Anyway, I don't think this is the place to go on about that anymore, besides this post is way too long already.

Ohh, one more thing in the very off chance anyone's read this far: how was James Hannaham's "Schizophonic"? I was pleased and slightly horrified to see the word "outsider" used in several abstracts, but then in my brief tenure as US editor for"Raw Vision" magazine, in the early '90s, I had several banal fights with art world academics that "outsider music" is an impossibility.

Me missing Geeta's paper = k-lame & her losing her wallet = xl-lame but was nice to meet her anyway and between her & Donna I learned that I am better at handling my unease about The Fall in real-life social situations as opposed to the internet where I go all surly.

I am still on Pacific time and it's fuckin' 1:40 AM here, blagh bleegh blech. Also fucking Mariners beat the Twins like Ziggy Modeliste so now I am cranky at my hometown not being as cool as Seattle.

On to Wonder Showzen & bed.

at this last pop music conference, i finally gathered at least a bit of why so many people hold xgau in such esteem.

i got a sense of how much he cares about the right things and how little patience he has for the wrong ones, and what a clear and strong advocate he's been. it's clear xgau has a proper sense of humor, and also that he cares so much about criticism -- specifially, both academic and non-academic advancements in music writing.

i dunno, i just used to have this huge imaginary axe to grind about the dude, and all of a sudden it's gone. definitely not saying i now love his writing or that i agree with him much, but of course that doesn't matter anyway... most importantly xgau's helped a *lot* of other writers out, and i think that's pretty rad.

if it means anything, i know L4r1s has plans to put out another issue sometime in the near future...

i can't honestly remember the last time i was this tired.

this was also brilliant. i propose that at next years conference, there's karaoke set up inside the EMP, for some hot in-between-panels action.

i know this sounds corny, but i really want to rewind back to saturday because i had so much fun. all the unhappiness of my return flight on sunday ruined it for me.

:-( But I'm with you on how flights can suck the joy out of things, the return from Terrastock for me was a trial and a half.

Surely there's a recording of this karaoke session...somewhere. ;-)

I have to say that attending this was good not merely for ideas for future proposals but how to prepare for them if one is accepted, given what you describe.

And I noticed a half dozen copies of "Silk Degrees" in the Sony midline-sale bin at Easy Street on Friday. Hope you helped move a couple over the weekend. That record really does rule.

I went on about some issues spinning out of the Stephin Merritt "controversy" on Zoilus today if anyone's interested.

Can't wait for next year. Especially as someone who doesn't live in the U.S. or London (and where were the Londoners this year?), my critical life has been enriched by EMP more than anything else since the internets.

Thanks for the Leonard-love. For the record, the slide caption was "Back Off, Motherfucker [line feed] I Know How to Use This Thing"

Although the line could have been taken from a blaxploitation flick, I never intended to imply that Nimoy is African-American or that his music was stylistically "black" or that he was enmeshed in the production apparatus that generates black music. His Ukrainian Jewish-American heritage is a matter of historical record I do not wish to dispute.

http://del.icio.us/tag/emp2006

add yours [or others] if you got 'em.

I learned this when I did karaoke with nine Stylus writers last fall, all of us drunk and bellowing out My Chemical Romance songs in a private room.

Actually, there probably is a paper to be written on the Jewishness of Spock, given the origin of the V-shaped Vulcan hand gesture (which doubtless has a Treknical name that escapes me at the moment) in a rabbinical blessing with which Nimoy was familiar. I know of no such provenance for the Vulcan nerve pinch. Nimoy just made that shit up.

They have us taped
They have us pat
They are extraterrestrial, extraterritorial
Where did they come from? No-one can say
One possible explanation is that they

Are Space Jews
Jews from outer space
Sent to walk amongst us
To improve the human race
Space Jews
Jews from outer space
Jews from outer space
They gave us a messiah
They gave us a morality
They help us lead good lives from up above
They are Space Jews
They're giving us a message of love

For them we're clear
They see right through
All the stupid and murderous things we do ..... or would like to
The Nobel prize never goes to the goys
Who split the atom?
Einstein, Oppenheimer and the Freuds
Every one of them

Space Jews
Jews from outer space
Sent to walk amongst us
To improve the human race
Space Jews
Jews from outer space
Jews from outer space
They're doctors and they're lawyers
They're astronaut philosophers
They're holding up a mirror from above
They are Space Jews
They're bringing us a message of love

We are from Earth
But they're from space
And that's where we'll all go one day
If we have enough faith
Together we'll colonise the stars
They can take us that far
Mr Spock on the Enterprise will be our guide
Vulcans too are .....

Space Jews
Jews from outer space
Sent to walk amongst us
To improve the human race
Space Jews
Jews from outer space
Jews from outer space
And I really admire them
I really want to be like them
And when you want to be one
That's all you need to feel like one
For in the words of one of them
Theodor Adorno:
"Soul is just the longing
Of those with no soul
For redemption"
So why don't you come and join them?
Space Jews
We're bringing you a vision of love

I think it was the Maxwell and Stevie Nicks renditions that convinced me this was love.

Or, to expand on this slightly: Don't do anything you'll be ashamed of; don't be ashamed of anything you do.

That said, it truly baffles me that some people are taking what Merritt said (as well as some things he didn't say) at face value. In interviews, Merritt has always been a bombthrower of Warholian proportions, meaning that his conversational style has a precedent at least 45 years old. Shouldn't we know the steps to this dance by now? I mean, I was cruising on a rather generous double Knob Creek (better than Aleve for flighthead), and I knew he was fucking with us.

...but why would you post a picture of ld beghtol under this?

hawt pawp tawk gawssip

"I was there! I cried when I found out Celine was black. It was a very bizarre and weird scene. Then the police take me away."

Didn't know Jody Rosen wrote for Slate. My bad.

xpost: no need to apologize! I was shocked when I saw it too.

sfj's blog is
still read I guess but who cares,
blog's a blog's a blog

and merritt is more
on panels than making songs
at this point it seems

why would slate run this
"article" about nothing,
by some who's-that guy?

..just stressing the key phrase of contention: "being PC/racially-sensitive enough"... which is often highly warranted, and also often highly abused.

He ought to take the things he writes on his blog seriously.

He ought to take the things he writes on his blog seriously.

He ought to take the things he writes on his blog seriously.

He ought to take the things he writes on his blog seriously.

and Hopper's so quick
to give him YE OLDE SMACKDOWN
that it's just as weak

it's the perfect storm
of two people who should have
so much else to do

Would you say that four posts in four posts in two years from me, and two from Sasha really qualify as a vicious campaign against "tender" Stephin Merritt? I mean, I know I'm a zealot and all, buuut really now... To reduce the argument specific to the varying things either of us have written about around SM (see also in those posts: rockism, playlist meme, SM saying he does not like any music made by black people past Duke Ellington) down to that I think dude's ish on race and music is questionable because he doesn't like Beyonce is to miss the point entirely.

Lastly, I resent being called a journalist. I'm not and never have been.

Posted by Jessica at 04:38 PM | TrackBack (0)"

May 05, 2006
A NOTE
I have gotten the transcript of the Stephin Merritt panel I walked out on, and apparently missed Merritt qualifying his thoughts on Song of The South with the following:

Stephin: Well, one great song. The rest of it is terrible, actually.

So, I retract my earlier statements about what I took as his appreciation of the cartoon and am sorry whatever grief that has caused him.

Posted by Jessica at 04:13 PM | TrackBack (0)

What a total prude.

Amatuer gadfly is fine with me. Journalist is not.

Careful readers will note that this is six posts spread over thirteen days in 2004, followed two years later by an excerpt from an email originally received in May of 2004. Perhaps the editors of Slate consider this a "campaign."

I appreciate Cook's kind words about my band, and apologize to Merritt for misspelling his first name. I have never appreciated or tolerated sloppiness. My hyphen has feelings, too.

After reading Cook's piece, I tried to remember what had led me to accuse Merritt of such a specific and nefarious ideological bent: "Southern strategy." That seems excessive, doesn't it? What would have got me going? Why would I pay special attention to a musician and rock critic who just doesn't care for African-American music? I mean, he's hardly alone. This is a free country, even if irresponsible bloggers like me are ruining the discourse. (Though blogs like mine and Jessica's, which both receive fewer than 1,000 visitors a day—blogs called "narcissistic" and "revolting" by some of those who went and read them anyway—merited [sorry] an entire column's worth of redressing in Slate. Odder still that Cook's piece ignores Jessica's retraction, and my own wandering qualifications. But whatevs, as the internets say.)

Then! Simon Reynolds rode in on a metallic horse—my apologies, Simon, but I imagine an animal taken from the artwork of a 1996 jungle compilation CD—and excerpted the first interview with Merritt I read, which Simon conducted in 1995:

"These days, Merritt is more of an anti-rockist than ever. 'Rock should have consisted of only the Paul McCartney branch, not the Lennon/Jagger/Richards one,' he mourns archly. Detesting the very idea of white blues ('it’s fundamentally racist'), he admits that his own aesthetic universe–from Nordic synthipop to redneck C&W–is 'so darn white!' 'I’m not so concerned with rhythm or syncopation, which are the main concerns of black music after Duke Ellington,' he says. 'I think my records could be listened to by the Ku Klux Klan!'"

(You'll notice that neither Duke Ellington, Prince nor Beyonce are hip-hop artists, and that the act of "not liking hip-hop" does not accurately describe the work of Merritt's public statements, especially his Time Out list. The Times playlist seems kinds of small beer now and would have been better left out of it.)

I feel silly for taking Merritt's obvious bait, and not choosing to focus on the question of whether a song, or statement, can be essentially racist, and what might make it so. There's a book lurking in that question, hopefully to be written by someone more patient than I.

But maybe Merritt kept throwing up these poisonous skeet because nobody has bothered to shoot at them. (When the original set of 2004 posts went up, nobody seemed very agitated.) I am guessing that Merritt explicitly rejected, and rejects, the idea of white musicians (Lennon, et al) engaging black music to distance himself from the notion of roots music, to create a sense of fearlessness, to tweak the PC mindset (a la Morrissey) and make clear that his present will be his own. These are not inappropriate stances for an artist. But why is anyone surprised that the comments ruffled some feathers? That such comments might lead you to believe that the speaker had a problem with black music? If the speaker—as quoted in the New York magazine Q&A with Sufjan Stevens—prefers Prince when Beck is channeling him? Aren't these comments designed precisely to puncture, like those spikes that prevent you from driving out of Avis with your rental car?

Yes, I do like some Magnetic Fields songs. From memory: "I'm Lonely (And I Love It)," and "I Don't Believe In The Sun." There might be a few others on i.

Posted by Sasha at 05:49 PM | TrackBack (0)

And then in the next graf SFJ goes right on advancing his silly meme. The only feathers that Merritt ruffled are the people whose paranoid fantasies of finding a bigot under every bush lead them to spurious accusations. SFJ (and others) cling to the belief that somehow there is a nefarious underbelly of all personal taste, and in this case use intellectual laziness as an excuse to justify their ends. Those spikes are harmless unless you aren't paying attention.

The Perils of Poptimism
Does hating rock make you a music critic?
By Jody Rosen Slate
Posted Tuesday, May 9, 2006, at 7:18 PM ET

In an offhand remark, Merritt called Amazing Grace by Aretha Franklin the best recording of the 20th century.

What was the last hit song you actually liked?
STEVENS: Some of the stuff on Justin Timberlake’s album was sort of outstanding.
MERRITT: I think you have to be a certain age to appreciate Justin Timberlake. I don’t think I’ve heard one of his songs twice. I’m not really exposed to him except as a photographic image. He gives good photo shoot.
STEVENS: He’s got an interesting voice. And his album borrows a lot from Michael Jackson and Prince.
MERRITT: Beck has started appropriating Prince in an interesting way. I wish I could sing like Beck. He’s got a gorgeous falsetto and that low, husky voice. It’s very sexy and very soothing in a way that I will never be.

I really liked the Jody Rosen article on rockism, btw -- really clearheaded and well-articulated.

Hm.

sfj in yet another willful misreading shocker! but no, he really isn't looking for "evidence" against SM, no, he's just stating TEH TRUTH!!!

Surfjan: "Oh yes, I don't know who that is either."

Start here: the thing no one but white supremacists wants to discuss is that white people have a culture, too. If you're going to point to hip-hop as a modern-day black idiom (one of many), then you have to acknowledge equally that music like Stephin Merritt's lies in a modern-day white idiom (one of many). Merritt seems to accept himself as being part of that idiom and not another. He may even be a partisan for that idiom: it's his and he believes in it.

Hopper and SFJ do the standard music-talk thing of interrogating his taste to figure out why he's not open to other idioms, particularly ones having more to do with blackness. I can understand that. Cook's Slate take -- that it's just a matter of taste and coincidence -- really isn't sufficient, in a way that most black people recognize in other arenas: when matters of "taste" and "coincidence" just happen to always stack up against blackness, it's not unfair (or at least not unnatural) to start asking out loud whether there's an ideology hidden somewhere in there. Cook's piece does the usual end-run around that.

But here's the other issue: what responsibility does Merritt have to be anything other than a white-music partisan? SFJ gets annoyed with the idea that Merritt's given a platform to talk about music, as a whole -- an opportunity to pick discs for a magazine -- because he's seen that Merritt's tastes are partisan, that Merritt's against a huge segment of what music is today. That's actually fair. Sasha's asking that someone who gets the opportunity to write about and talk about music should be someone who's willing to engage with the full breadth of it.

So it's funny to me that Hopper says she's not a journalist, that part of what she does it fanzining: how much, then, can she take Merritt to task? How much can she ask him for breadth and balace, rather than fanzining partisanship for his home white-music idiom? (It's not like he attacks other idioms; he just seems disinterested in them, which isn't irritating because he does it but because of a sense that the rock and rock-criticism establishment does it. That's why this kind of interrogating taste for ideology doesn't work outside of our rock-crit circle here. Taste and ideology in the real world are varied enough that this isn't a workable way of attacking it. This interrogation only works -- and only developed -- because of the sense that this music-talk circle itself contains endless iterations of the same tastes, the same "coincidental" tastes over and over again, to the point where people who are discontent with it have to ask what's replicating that taste again and again, and why it's dominant here even when it's not dominant in the actual public.)

Maybe Hopper's not asking Merritt for the same balance she doesn't personally want to be responsible -- maybe it's just a good reasonable personal attack, "that guy's taste sucks in the same irritating way that everyone else's taste sucks." But in that case I don't know how much the problem is really with Merritt. The problem is still with whoever it is that gives Merritt the platform to talk, whoever takes him up as a partisan of one thing and holds that up as valuable. And that's more complicated, because that "whoever" is some combination of Hopper and SFJ's employers and readers. Merritt takes the hit by proxy.

I think you need more evidence then just someone does not like hiphop to start infering a hidden ideology. Lots of older African-American soul singers have expressed a dislike for hiphop also.

The issue is that when we see systematic repetitions of the same tastes, and when we have media in which a particular pocket of tastes seems overrepresented -- when it begins to seem, in a particular sphere, like those "personal, varied, and coincidental" matters of taste seem to always stack up a certain way -- it's completely natural to ask why they seem to be stacking up that way. "They just do" isn't a sufficient answer, the same way it wouldn't be quite sufficient for (let's say) a college admissions officer who -- making subjective decisions -- Just So Happened to rarely admit Asians, or something.

The problem is that the people who do those interrogations, on this issue, tend not to acknowledge that one important thing, which is that white people have a culture, too. And it's important to remember that if we want to understand why some white people may -- naturally and without malice -- be partisans for that culture.

according to what scale? who determines the parameters?

And it's important to remember that if we want to understand why some white people may -- naturally and without malice -- be partisans for that culture.

And so Merritt or anyone else is just supposed to accept SFJ's declaration that they are partisan to a particular culture? Because speculation is fact?

It's completely natural to be curious about the origins of personal taste, but declaring yourself judge is the height of arrogance given the minscule amount of data that Jones and Hopper used to draw conclusions. Particularly when it involves slinging polarizing terms like racist around.

Journalism is not necessarily "objective" or "balanced" by definition. Journalism is just contemporary nonfiction meant for timely publication and based on reporting. Most journalists will tell you that they aim to be true and fair. Striving for objectivity and balance is one way of achieving those goals, but not the only way. My favorite journalism is usually highly opinionated, or written in the first-person. Criticism is just journalism of the mind.

Nabisco, I'm with Don on this--it's natural to be curious, but to declare oneself judge upon the miniscule data Hopper and SFJ used is arrogant and wrong. As for systemic repetitions of the same taste--I have heard both age-40 and 60 something African-Americans and age 20 and 30 and 40 and 60 something White Americans (some of a liberal political bent, some conservative) express dislike for rap, so it seems a little iffy to me to throw the term racist at Merritt (although he could use a few SFJ made mixtapes that might change some of his presumptions).

"The problem is that the people who do those interrogations, on this issue, tend not to acknowledge that one important thing, which is that white people have a culture, too. And it's important to remember that if we want to understand why some white people may -- naturally and without malice -- be partisans for that culture."

-- nabisco (--...), May 10th, 2006.

I am not sure I get this. Merritt likes Aretha Franklin but not hiphop, and SFJ & Hopper like hiphop, rock and probably Aretha too, and so who is advocating for "white culture(however you define that) here and how does it affect the discussion and portrayal?

This sort of interrogation (and the kind SFJ and Hopper led) never works without explicit, obvious examples of bigotry. That's why so many people rightly see it as a witch hunt. And BTW, I'm surprised more people aren't curious of SFJ and JHopp's motivation in all this. Professional jealousy (they're all writers and been in bands)? Hey, it's natural to be curious.

*****************************************

FULL DISCLOSURE

Not to slow down the campaign to have me impeached—you can't play on the Internets and bitch about getting tackled—but what if we moved the discussion away from the big bad "r" word, and go a little something like this:

1. Do our tastes say nothing about the choices we make as social actors? If so, why? If not, why not?

2. Do we expect critics to have an unusually catholic range of hearing, or do we see them as "normal people" broadcasting their preferences to a readership?

3. Is it possible to look at your own preferences and find something that your consciousness was not letting you in on?

4. Are some people just terrified that entertainment might be tainted by the problems of the social sphere that entertainment is so often employed to block out?

And. Jordan Davis is down with us. Joshua Clover is down with us. They are known accomplices: take my links with a bucket of salt.

*****************************************

IDEÉ TRIX

An apology? Because I used an unkind term in a snarky post? "Sorry" will make you feel better? Sure. I am sorry I called Stephin Merritt a cracker. It's not nice, and it's distracting. I don't know dude, and even if I did, I wouldn't be able to see into his soul. Wild-ass conjecture about someone's intentions does not usually produce intelligent debate. SM never punched me or caused my loved ones harm, and I get no pleasure from the hurting of a dude's feelings. He was very entertaining at a long and dull evening last year at Angel Orensanz.

But. What. Are. Any. Of. Us. Doing. Except. Critiquing each other's words and deeds? Where are we finding meaning except in the things we do, which likely have some relation to who we are? It is the work that his words were doing that intrigued and troubled me. If Merritt's critical exclusions and preferences were totally unique to him, it might not have irked me. BUT BACK IN 2004, the indie retreat from the Big Bad World of pop/hip-hop/youth music, etc. was driving me, as it had for years, batshit. In 2006, after K Sanneh's rockism piece, all of these issues are fairly old news. I can't say I feel the same fire about these issues. Fire? Absolutely. But not melt-the-windows type fire. A lot of people have taken up this matter.

But explain to me—no fooling around—why you wouldn't be a little bit nervous, upset even, to read a music critic who lives in New York City draw a map of the 20th century that seemed so intent on diminishing or excluding the work of African-American musicians? Is distress such an odd reaction? Mean words aside?

And aren't we, like, blogging?

I can't help but see a parallel between her situation and Kaavya Viswanathan's--two people misrepresenting events, getting caught doing it, doing half-assed mea culpas, and then (thanks to the internet) getting much, much more attention than they ever would have otherwise.

Back at the opening panel discussion at the EMP conference, the singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt (of Magnetic Fields fame) professed his love for all pop music "except roots rock," a line that elicited hearty guffaws. (He said other things at the panel that caused a stir—but that's another ball of wax.)

What did he say that caused a stir?

if we did that, then no one would be interested in reading it. Why? Because the answer to most of those questions is a resounding, "SFW."

This is all some sort of vague calling for transparency in criticism that is probably impossible and thus, pretty vain to even aspire to. Nobody's saying that taste "a magically self-formed capacity that doesn't bear the imprint of social relations" (Clover); the point is that devining the causal relationship of social/cultural relationship is pretty damn arrogant.

SFJ = uh oh, BACKTRACK BACKTRACK BACTRACK

I guess Susan Orlean refuses to speak to him.

i kinda wish SFJ would defend himself w/o this kinda sulkiness

Because my whole point is that you can't judge individuals based on tiny bits of data. I understand that, and that's why I say Merritt is taking this hit by proxy, as a stand-in for something else, something faceless. This is a dynamic we should recognize from other spheres, from other accusations of bias. Imagine you have a board of 100 college admissions officers, and they're all meant to interview two people -- one male, one female -- and recommend one for admission. Now imagine that 90 of them recommend the male candidate. There will never be evidence that any one of them let gender affect his decision; it will always be unfair to accuse any one of them of having done something wrong. And yet, and yet: something is off! Something went wrong that nobody can be blamed for! And I say that because I think that's the dynamic that's motivating SFJ and Hopper here: the frustration of feeling that there's something off (they clearly feel this) but not having targets, and thus leaping onto Merritt as someone who's said just enough that he can be singled out as one. I'm not saying they're right -- I'm describing the kind of frustrating dynamic that leads to this.

It doesn't matter who determines the parameters of what constitutes "off" -- the point is just that SFJ and Hopper seem to have made a conclusion about that. And not a completely unreasonable one: it's not particularly radical to conclude that certain tastes are somewhat dominant in the field of what we consider "high-level" or "serious" music criticism, dominant out of proportion to the general public's tastes and relationship with music. (I have my own personal opinions about how much that's true and why, but I'll leave that for another post or discussion.)

As for Merritt, I don't think he's supposed to just "accept" SFJ's declaration that he's aligned with a particular culture: I think he's said it himself, he knows it himself, and he's fine with it. You talk as if it's a fearsome allegation. But why? Why are we concerned that a middle-class white person might have tastes that align with middle-class white idioms? Why is this any different than pointing out that Jay-Z grew up in a Brooklyn project and has tastes that come from a particular hip-hop idiom and culture?

I mean, to put it bluntly, I feel like white people often try to make themselves neutral, to kind of run down their own particular experience and culture as non-experience and non-culture -- often (maybe) out of fear that admitting they have a culture means further dominating everyone else's, further oppressing everyone else's. They want to step out of the game and act as neutral parties observing everyone else's culture. But that's even worse, but it puts them in an even more dominant position, and a patronizing and untruthful one, too. The trick here can be for people like Merritt (and even non-white people like me) to admit to being aligned with a particular conception of art and taste that we're identifying as a white idiom (at least as much and as accurately as you want to call hip-hop a "black" idiom -- neither description is very good, obviously). It's possible to own this experience and get the fuck over the fact that it's not, in this country, "special." And it's possible to have a certain self-awareness about where that experience is useful and where it isn't (which is what this country expects of everyone who isn't white).

Not that that'll solve SFJ and Hopper's problem -- they'll surely still feel like those spotlight music circles still have bias, still trend toward a certain way of thinking.

I do understand that sometime discrimination is alleged via disparate impact, as opposed to a more obvious and openly expressed dismcriminatory intent. But as Don has argued, and I agree with, one needs to prove that case before throwing around the term 'racist.' You need to make the case why 90 of the 100 officers in your example reached the result they reached.

It's not simple.

As I said on the other thread, I think Merritt by authoring his top 20th century list, and by penning pretentious criticism has set himself up to have his views questioned, and I wish he would widen his musical parameters, but I do not think that makes him a racist (or anyone else who boastfully states they like Aretha and gospel but not rap) no matter what methodology you employ to determine it.

In our insular little music crit world, as I noted above, I think it is important for editors at alt-weeklies and dailies and non-genre-specific publications and websites to go beyond their own cultural wordview by seeking to employ writers and to cover subjects that provide a multicultural, multi-class perspective. That is the best way to confront the disparate impact problem.

-- nabisco (--...), May 11th, 2006. (later)

in other words, "I WAS OTM"

"A few years ago, in the heyday of indie crossover, he met with the staff of one major label, where an employee boasted that artists retained full control over album art. Ever the skeptic, Merritt asked, 'So it would be OK if I put child porn on the cover of my record?' Needless to say, the label passed."

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/9948,tannenbaum,10576,1.html

but books are kinda sold this way...

but yo check it out:
r&b came BEFORE rock;
what's this "church" genre?

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that this matter sort of hinges on an elusive form of critical transparency, one that for the most part does not seem possible to me.

That statement's actually more accurate the further you go back in time, I think. There are ways in which it's on, but dissecting what's off about it is actually a pretty good way of sorting out the distinctions we make between black and white idioms. Blues and folk, for instance, can be inseparable, but in the end Muddy Waters is not the same as Peter, Paul, and Mary (for whom we use those words, respectively) -- and we can point to specific concrete things they do differently that place them in different idioms, even historically. (E.g., "white" folk employs a lot of European classical-tradition choral harmonies.)

xpost
"Cracker" is (a) a word, not a phrase, (b) employed heavily by the Nabisco Corporation in our effort to provide the world with crisp healthy snacks, and (c) surely not something that hurts white people's feelings so very much.

It doesn't matter if "cracker" doesn't hurt most white people's feelings, and that is totally debatable. I do believe many rural white folks would not appreciate being called cracker. However, the word does seem to possess enough derisive weight that SFJ saw fit to toss it a white person he thinks is a racist.

It's racist...hmmmm...word. No doubt about it.

WFMU, Friday, May 12, noon-3pm

Tune in tomorrow from noon-3pm as guest DJ Stephin Merritt joins Monica Lynch for a celebration of the song “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.” My, oh my, it’ll be a wonderful day.

I don't care if it's black-to-white, white-to-black, black-to-yellow, yellow-to-black etc, etc, etc. Redneck, honky, cracker, nigger, porch monkey, kike, jigaboo, chink, slant, gook, and on, on, and on. It's all hateful speech based on color/culture.

And if this SFJ character didn't were interested in more than just spitting venom and wanted real understanding from this Magnetic Fields dude then the word "cracker" wouldn't have been used.

"Black Or White
And We All Know It's Wrong
And We're Gonna Fight To Make It Right
And Mighty, Mighty Spade And Whitey
Your Black And White Power
Is Gonna Be A Crumbling Tower"

And yes, I'm a bit crazy.

"It's all hateful speech based on color/culture."

But, keep trying, buddy.

don't you think maybe
there was something similar
in the "cracker" crack?

oh forget it dude
yes you're right and righteous and
far above us all

don't you think maybe
there was something similar
in the "cracker" crack?

If you are saying that SFJ's use of the word "cracker" is somehow similar to my use of all those others words then the answer is no. I wanted to show graphically how racial slurs used in a spiteful way against whites are the same as racial slurs used against any other race by listing them all together.

Does believing in that make me better than anybody else? I would hope not. I don't feel better than anybody else. BUT as an outside spectator, this whole episode bummed me out a little because all these two characters had to do is approach the Magnetic dude earnestly and with open minds. But that doesn't seem to have been the case. And when a word like "cracker" or any other racial slur is used in a context of cheap exhibitionism and adversary then it's racist. Definitely. That's my take.

And as Nabisco (who is perpetually OTM) implied, a term like "cracker" (to say nothing of "redneck" and "honky") is NOWHERE NEAR as offensive as any of the other names you dropped. And you certainly don't need to get up on your high horse about one white man calling another white man that name.

This is a non-issue. Move on, please, thanks.

Leave alone when it's a white person slinging it at another white person as part of the whole weird "nervousness and/or embarrassment about being part of middle-class white culture" issue that white people seem to have going on. (Your list of directions you don't approve of didn't include white-on-white: you know SFJ is white, right?)

I do want to drop an anecdote: I'm from upstate New York, and I went to school in southwestern michigan. I was dating a smalltown Michigan girl, and I went to her house on a farm for Thanksgiving. I made a joke about rednecks in the woods in front of her dad and 2 uncles. I almost got the shit beat out of me. And they gave me a talking about an east coast person coming to their town and talking about rednecks. Now mind you, these were decent people not KKK freaks. I was simply referring to the cliche image of a redneck. From that day on I realized that those terms are very, very hurtful to certain people.

Good talkin'!

Grindloch -- fair enough
Haikunym -- fair enoughx2. I'm just a dramatic man who gets on the high horse.

I do want to drop an anecdote: I'm from upstate New York, and I went to school in southwestern michigan. I was dating a smalltown Michigan girl, and I went to her house on a farm for Thanksgiving. I made a joke about rednecks in the woods in front of her dad and 2 uncles. I almost got the shit beat out of me. And they gave me a talking about an east coast person coming to their town and talking about rednecks. Now mind you, these were decent people not KKK freaks. I was simply referring to the cliche image of a redneck. From that day on I realized that those terms are very, very hurtful to certain people.

Good talkin'!

- you play the east-coast city boy (of the type who RUNS STUFF)
- they play the rural working class (of the type who fix cars and get picked on by the people who RUN STUFF)

Try to think of words they could have called you in response that would have gotten that heated reaction out of you. What word could they have pushed at you that would really have hurt you down deep on the level of your identity?

But to play along -- In all honesty, I don't know. Maybe if they called me a "dude who likes to have sex with inflatable dolls" then that would have made me super pissed because way, way back then I was still hiding the secret that when I was 13, I tried having sex with an inflatable doll. But nowadays, I've come to terms.

My sincerest apologies to anyone who thought I totally hijacked this thread for a few hours; the caffeine is now wearing off.

You're trying to be funny, but it looks like you can't come up with anything that can hit at your group identity the right way. I think the only time that white Americans even get close to experiencing this is when they go to western Europe and someone starts yelling at them about how Americans are all fat war-hungry idiots. Because the thing is that these things aren't just insults, they're messages -- backed by a history of force -- that certain types of people just Don't Matter or Don't Belong Here.

You're trying to be funny

Kinda...sorta...I'm of Italian and Puerto Rican descent (first generation). But I've never been called a racial name; my father was a lot. (But then, he is a racist fucker himself.) I have had some odd comments thrown at me from a tour guide woman in Memphis (relating to North-South bullshit) and one of those uncles kept saying I-talian (with a long "I") after I corrected him. Ha! In total honesty, the most hurtful thing they could have said would have been something referring that rubber doll. But you are right, I have no idea what it feels like be an African-American who has been called something shitty.

Having said that, are minorities allowed to call whites racial names because it somehow rights some historial wrong? I have never been able to determine how I feel about this (even though I might act like it at times).

Where'd you go?

Haha OMG me too -- I remember they were playing a Steve Reich record in the store, and I was 18 and was all, "Ahem, is from that new box set that came out?" just to show that I knew what was what.

(I went to K College.)

http://img85.imageshack.us/img85/9907/xwfeaturesufjanstevens8dd.jpg