The rush to embrace "counterculture"

counterculture is at all times necessary for capitalism

Twenty-plus years ago Robert Palmer wrote musically astute criticism of skronking no wave like early Sonic Youth in the staid New York Times. And even The New Yorkerran a big feature on DJ Red Alert ten years ago when exactly NONE of their readers would've been listening to him every Saturday night on WBLS

I think it's been going on so long it's institutionalized. The culture/counterculture distinction is meaningless now, these terms have been reduced to marketing categories.

But it might be that in some ways the Guggenheim's appeal to High Cultural values is as much a schtick for the benefit of its wealthier patrons than an organisational policy.

What you call "the establishment" are pissing themselves with glee at the thought of all the money they'll make by signing the next, up and coming counterculture phenomenon to a contract, commoditizing it and selling it to you at $25 a pop.

Then, when you are fifty and have a grey scum over half your brain they'll sell it to you all over again as nostalgia. For $250 a pop.

oh they find ways believe me

This fall don't miss our popular First Fridays at the Guggenheim. This season the Guggenheim presents world renowned DJ's: Tommie Sunshine and James Friedman, Oct 7; Matthew Dear & Ryan Elliott, Nov 4; Funkstörung, Dec 2; and Diplo, Jan 6. Come and feel the buzz, enjoy great music, grab a cocktail from the cash bar, and explore our fall exhibition RUSSIA! — a major exhibition of over 275 masterpieces, many never before seen in the United States. All galleries are open.

So it seems to me, from the Guggenheim's POV this is an exercise in fund-raising and maybe getting a few new faces through the doors? Clearly it's got nothing to do with their Mission Statement.

1/20 - New York, NY - Joe's Pub
1/22 - Boston, MA - Museum of Fine Arts

Sonic Youth at least had and have some explicit connections with (or 'pretensions to' if you prefer) 'high art', most obviously in that members played in Glenn Branca symphonies (which is apparent the moment you put on an early album), also in frequent literary allusions, art world associations, etc. This is even true of The Beatles, who were also discussed musicologically in the NYT in the 60s IINM (and certainly of other Palmer faves like the Velvets and Television). Now I know nothing at all about Diplo so it might not be all that different but if he really is a "sex-obsessed dance DJ", then it's a somewhat different issue, more comparable perhaps to Robert Palmer discussing, I don't know, the B-52s in musicological terms.

That said, I don't know Elvis, Picasso, OR Byron (or even Diplo probably) necessarily represented countercultures as I understand the term. (Maybe they did; I don't know that much about any of them; a little more about Byron than the others.) A counterculture is more than a controversial artist. I think of it as meaning a whole subculture, not just a couple renegades, with a set of values, some of which are oppositional to mainstream society's. So 60s/70s hippie communes or Hare Krsnas or Crustie squats or stuff would count.

I don't know how counter Romanticism was when Byron started writing, but Wordsworth and Coleridge were definitely opposing some kind of mainstream, so it's fair enough to include Lord B with them.

Friday January 20
7:00 PM
$15.00

Buy Tickets

Tickets available at The Public Theater box office or through Telecharge: www.telecharge.com or 212.239.6200.

Featured artists include:
So Percussion http://www.sopercussion.com
Matmos http://www.brainwashed.com/matmos

Musical mavericks So Percussion and electronic gurus Matmos collaborate or the first time on stage. Performing sets separately and then together, the groups will no doubt be breaking ground in this collaboration as well as showing off new music within their always impressive bands. So Percussion has been called "Consistently impressive" by the The New York Times, while Billboard asserts that "The range of colors and voices that So Percussion coaxes from its menagerie is astonishing and entrancing." Regarding Matmos, the SF Bay Guardian writes ". . . always evocative, sometimes incredible, and usually more musical than abstract: one track suggests an army of creatures roller-coastering through a dark forest, another matches Daft Punk's flair for ear-drilling high-frequency 'melody'."

To be fair, I think there's a bit of a wink in what he does, but he's certainly not the *art DJ* type that's been showing up in galleries for years.

The time lag is basically nil by now for cultural manifestations that can be packaged as suitably piquant for the mainstream. Gatekeeperdom is still very much in effect, but the gates are different.

Man, I am CAFFIENATED AND THINKING THOUGHTS

Heehee! WOO!

what even is the counterculture now

kids

How will our children outsmart us when we can instantly hear about everything they like on All Things Considered?

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Saturday, January 7, 2006 3:38 PM (twelve years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

curious how this turned out

pay no attention to the words on this image. i just want to illustrate my belief that the counterculture is now at the bottom of the mysterious, unknowable ocean

https://i.imgur.com/PPXcYNE.png

no manifesto criticizing popular culture and describing a revolutionary path to freedom from current outmoded ways of thought = no countercultural cred

of course, these days such a manifesto would have to appear on Facebook as a meme, so there's that

making bullets that will immediately blow up upon attempts to fire them, and then sneaking them into the supply chain imo

Musical mavericks So Percussion

https://blog.malwarebytes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/NDjEpXQ-900x506.jpg

so basically:
https://i.imgflip.com/2mtozx.jpg

lol

me irl

juggalos