mark s: rockwrite conference to be broadcast on resonance FM

UNDERGROUND / OVERGROUND
The Changing Politics of
UK Music-Writing: 1968-85
Fri-Sat 15-16 May 2015
Birkbeck University of London

It was a success except not enough people came on the day :(

But for people who missed it it will be broadcast all day on resonance fm on 25 may (Bank Holiday Monday in uk)

(slightly edited version, 12 hours of conference to be fitted into a ten-hour timeslot)

details for those not up to speed:
http://marksinker.co.uk/birkbeck_under_over.html
http://marksinker.co.uk/birkbeck_panels.html
http://therockwriteproject.tumblr.com
https://www.facebook.com/events/441455952678166
http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2015/05/rockwrite-uk-its-roots-and-discontents-its-early-evolution-and-its-latent-potential

apologies i shd have promoted it more here but i only just discovered i still had a password :D

I went to the whole thing and it was tremendous; I've no doubt that there will be many hours of worthwhile listening. I'm amazed Resonance will have time between now and the Bank Holiday to edit out all the swears.

That was more of an observation than a question, by the way.

yes!!!!!

Nice, would like to hear Charles Shaar Murray, B. Hoskins and others

"Pub rock was a DIABOLICAL LIBERTY"*

I was also there for the whole thing, and it was excellent. Day One nudged towards a consensus, which Day Two dismantled: gently at first, then forcefully (the Laura Snapes Icy Thousand Yard Stare Of Death is one of my abiding images, and you won't get *that* on the radio). Elsewhere, Charles Shaar Murray was a total rock star, the extraordinary Penny Reel came in from the cold to heartwarming effect, Val Wilmer was a fascinating revelation... and I asked the punk panel a question so overloaded that none of them understood it, yaay.

I'm amazed Resonance will have time between now and the Bank Holiday to edit out all the swears.

I'm sure there will be an army of editors working round the clock on this.

I really regret not going to this but work and weekend both got ahead of me. Glad it's all been recorded (and if there's any way of chopping it up and archiving it in podcast-size chunks that would be excellent).

http://laurasnapes.tumblr.com/post/119299390972/enough-or-my-experiences-with-the-middle-aged

:)

Hilarious. Not surprised, she had a fairly bruising encounter (which you may be able to hear) as one of the audience tore into her over Pitchfork 'work for free = more exposure' (she denied but the old male person said he had an encriminating screen shot from the Pitchfork site so he is clearly reading the bits of online he wants to) towards the end of the 2/3rds female panel.

Weirdly enough I also came across this today:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-manonly-panel-is-bad-but-the-tokenwoman-panel-is-even-worse-10259160.html

The bruising encounter was with Mark Pringle from Rock's Backpages (who is equally outspoken about it on Facebook).

It must be pretty shitty to be the sole representative of the present day in front of an audience full of better-in-my-day giffers, especially one harbouring a lot of unspoken maybe-we-didn't-really-matter anxiety. I don't really blame her for that response.

(Okay maybe most prominent representative rather than sole representative)

I agree with some of Laura Snapes's frustration, though I think it seems a bit much to attack a conference which was explicitly about the history of music writing for being retrospectively focussed. It was fascinating to hear about the history of UK music writing, and I didn't think "the old days" were very much used to bash the now or the future. There was a bit of that in Laura's session but overall most of the bashing was of (a perceived) Q / Mojo tendency.

"Enough with conferences that focus on music journalism's past" / "Enough with giving the old British rock writer hegemony the platforms to dominate these events" really does make it sound as though there have been loads of these - have there? This was the first I've ever heard of. One might be enough, of course.

Hazel was also a representative of that present day. Shame that Kodwo didn't turn up.

idk if Laura was there from the beginning of the day (and the 2nd day is all I attended) but every panel had a woman (who contra that piece from Grace Dent) were hardly token or esoteric (if anything that goes to Penny Reel although he actually was never that, felt there was an affection for someone who has never felt to be in a 'canon' of music writing).

The 1st Panel was effectively not a panel but an interview with Valerie who was writing about a sometime popular sometime not popular black music at a time when almost no woman was in a overwhelmingly conformist male, racist, class-bound country.

Throughout there was a bigger range of topic than music writing and certainly one of the take aways from the panels were that the music was the conduit for doing other better, more worthwhile things. LOL @ attempt to overthrow the state.

xp = possibly the first conference, so yes that she would like to do more is a pretty positive outcome rather than 'conferences are boring'.

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2015/05/a-great-big-clipper-ship/

I don't think Mark Pringle is right about the necessity for paid journalism / a rockwrite career structure being necessary for "good" music writing; I don't see the correlation between paid and good when so much proper paid journalism over the decades has been so bad.

I do think Laura Snapes is right that there's more good, inclusive music writing available now than there ever has been before.

I also think that the reduction in opportunities for brilliant people to be paid a decent wage to produce brilliant writing for us all to enjoy is a matter of some regret, though I've no idea what to do about that.

Think the whole 'work for free' issue operates v differently when it gets to writing about music. Digital is putting a new spin on what I feel to be a very old problem. Hard to tell whether it has made it worse (i would want boring things like peer reviewed studies covering this topic, boring shit like that).

Most of Mark's POV was garbage. But his interaction w/Laura was complicated by what the facts might or might not be at Pitchfork.

Whether Pitchfork is an honourable exception or part of "the problem" (as he perceives it) is beside the point, I think, and even if it was not beside the point, it is hardly LS's job / fault if her employers have chosen a route which Mark doesn't like. IIRC he was rather more ready to excuse The Quietus for not paying writers the day before.

Isn't LS an editor at PF? In any case LS denied they carried that practice Mark was accusing her and PF of, as if she knew what was going on..

Agree its not her fault, its a much wider problem.

She said, from an apparent position of knowledge, that Pitchfork pays its writers. Mark claimed, IIRC, to have a screen cap of something from Pitchfork soliciting unpaid contributions. Either way it's a side issue to the broader point of how we should balance celebration and lamentation in respect of current economic conditions around music writing.

I thought LS made the most convincing case in that panel, FWIW, I'm sad she perceived herself as "scapegoated".

and now for a break

Also note: http://www.cjr.org/analysis/what_is_the_role_of_the_digital-age_arts_critic_superscript_hopes_to_have_answers.php

That said, anything framing itself in part with a Ted Gioia 'how dare you all not be like me' complaint...

has anyone banging on about the good old days actually READ pre-digital age rock criticism in the harsh light of today, because i have read a lot of it for school purposes and there is a lot of awfulness. not like there isn't crap now but good lord, the clueless dude hegemony all over the place is a sight to behold.

i still use “Buzzfeed” as a pejorative

Maura OTM, one of the reasons people get so excited about the high points of Ye Olde Rock Journalism is that they shone out from seas of mediocrity (and worse) inside and outside the music press; sadly even some of the old high points can look fairly crap now.

I think all of the underground press era people we heard at the conference are more or less horrified at the casual sexism and "clueless dude hegemony" of those times; I got the impression that they can't really understand why they didn't know better.

As an increasingly middle aged (and consistently clueless) dude I am sorry to say that I feel the same way about many of the unexamined nonsenses of my own 1980s youth; I guess that is something which will come to all of us unless we give up thinking and learning.

yeah i mean that's part of why i think the old guard is reacting so negatively to the way things are now — they know they can't get away with a lot of the unexamined bullshit they used to. this includes tsk-tskers like austerlitz and gioia, too.

imo framing this as a young (female) writers vs. old (male) writers thing is a huge mistake, given how many young writers are being pushed and/or starved out of the democratic new industry

and I'm not just talking out my ass here, the statistics back me up: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/newsroom-diversity-a-casualty-of-journalisms-financial-crisis/277622/

So from just reading that headline this was certainly discussed as an effect of "work for free". The only people that can afford those periods of doing so have family support, so only people of a certain class and race can get there.

a couple of the panelfoax at my thing are (a) past retirement age and (b) by no means well off

at some level part of the point was/is to bring them back to public mind as worth knowing about

hi, it's laura. i double checked after getting home from the panel and i was definitely right, mark was 100% wrong. and no such advert ever existed.

i feel i need to stress that the mark that is 100% wrong is another mark and not me :(

dude chill.

Lets all chill now.

Know nothing about this yet, but just came to say- Revive the Sluglords podcasts!

RESONANCE FM broadcast reminder: 10am-8pm BST tomorrow (25 May)

It's just started. The first panel has Charles Shaar Murray in full flow, recommended.

has anyone banging on about the good old days actually READ pre-digital age rock criticism in the harsh light of today, because i have read a lot of it for school purposes and there is a lot of awfulness. not like there isn't crap now but good lord, the clueless dude hegemony all over the place is a sight to behold.

quality of writing generally much higher now imo but the internet echo chamber results in long and very good pieces who publication could not have been conceived by the old guard, careful and very good pieces, which repeat and cosign one another infinitely and interest mainly the people to whom they are responding. which may have been the case anyway idk

Just now started listening: Jefferson Airplane suggested as punk spirits, Grace Slick in particular. Female commentator says Slick is now fat and grey-haired and makes bad art and no bones about it, so still punk. Male says he interviewed Abbie Hoffman, also punk in spirit, and "punk was the revenge of the hippies."

Presentations from Underground/Overground: The Changing Politics of UK Music-Writing 1968 - 85, programmed by Mark Sinker at Birkbeck, University of London, 15 and 16 May 2015. The first panel dicussion in entitled The trades meet the underground and features Charles Shaar Murray, Richard Willams and Mark Williams. It is followed by How well did the mainstream press deal with rock music in the 60s? What alternatives did the undergrounds offer? with Tony Palmer, Jonathon Green, and Mark Pringle, chaired by Esther Leslie. Then bringing us up to lunchtime is Handling rhetorics of outsider style in a commercial context — the implicit politics of critical stance with Barney Hoskyns and Jonh Ingham, chaired by Toby Litt. More follows throughout Bank Holiday Monday till 8pm. [Does not repeat.] BST 7 hrs ahead of EST

Paul Gilroy talking about early influence of Leroi Jones, Ralph Ellison ("People are still plagiarizing him"), hard to get into "tired of same old arguments about what you can say or not say about black culture in this country," mentions MC5 and Funkadelic on same bill, racial complexity of rock etc history and its relation to rock writing not sufficiently addressed often enough, difficulties he encountered in finding UK music editors interested (I gotta read his Black Atlantic).

Several writers from different backgrounds talking about influence of Charlie Gillet, DJ, TV presenter, reviewer, editor, author of the illuminating Sound of the City

"hard to get into" misplaced and meant to be deleted, initial attempt at what became "difficulties encountered"

Simon Frith dance music central to history of popular music in Britain, but often under-represented in histories, he and other panelists mention Davit Sigerson as rock writer with unusual emphasis on dance music, before Simon Reynolds (Vince Aletti was another, in the early 70s)

Frith: UK editors didn't care, just published what he sent 'em, unless an extra ad, they'd cut last graf, so had to make sure it was always inessential. Then started writing for the Voice, would get "these terrfying Transatlanctic calls from Robert Christgau for 21/2 hours, asking 'What does this part mean, why do you say it like that?' " Various writers on learning to be aware of "the conventions you had in your head."

Frith says a lot of writing about dance is your basic compulsive insider baseball, no sense of what the music sounds like or what the dancing is like; mentions Simon Reynolds as one who does try to describe those things.

Had to switch players, came back to long discussion of working for "exposure" taking a turn: guy indignantly mentions Pitchfork ad looking for new writers, fine print re no pay, disputed by someone who works for Pitchfork (gotta find podcasts, captures of this whole thing)

That is, I believe, the Mark Pringle-Laura Snapes spat referred to upthread.

Hazel Robinson's response to Laura Snapes: http://piratemoggy.tumblr.com/post/119350594961/enough-or-my-experiences-with-the-middle-aged

Resonance in their wisdom omitted my killer incomprehensible question to the punk panel! I wrote it up and tweeted it anyway - turns out nobody on my timeline understands the final para either, OH WELL...

hi, it's laura. i double checked after getting home from the panel and i was definitely right, mark was 100% wrong. and no such advert ever existed.

― snake, Tuesday, May 19, 2015 2:40 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
ended at 7:10 BST, not xpost 8. Cool, listening to dynamic Asian music on there now.

I listened to this whole thing today, too hungover to get out of bed. drifted in and out but I can safely say that I too have had ENOUGH of the first and last conference about the history of uk rock journalism from the 60s to the 80s

also it really sounded to me like that one woman said "I'm not from manchester, I'm from tumblr"

haha i think hazel did say exactly that :)

and then plan a six-day follow-up next year

there's also a discussion of it on the freaky trigger comments thread: http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2015/05/a-great-big-clipper-ship/

Ha, assumed I had misheard it in my addled state but couldn't think of where she might actually mean

i keep seeing the TT as:

Mark S. Rockwrite!

which is a great name. and reminds me of the time that i wrote a review for a magazine that shall remain nameless and they made me re-do it over and over and finally i told them to use the name Rick Rockrite instead of my own name on the review. they didn't think that was funny.

https://www.mixcloud.com/Resonance/

^^^for the time being at least, the broadcast elements are up on the resonance mixcloud

mark's followup post: http://dubdobdee.co.uk/2015/06/02/whalers-on-the-moon-curious-despatches-from-an-old-dream/

it good writing

mark is kickstarting a book of related stuff.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/253164519/a-hidden-landscape-once-a-week-an-anthology

ppl should back it.

He also started a separate thread for it.

A HIDDEN LANDSCAPE ONCE A WEEK: the kickstarter for the book of the politics of rockwriting conference

is this online somewhere?

"Frith says a lot of writing about dance is your basic compulsive insider baseball, no sense of what the music sounds like or what the dancing is like; mentions Simon Reynolds as one who does try to describe those things."

i have a lot of time for SR but am honestly tired of him being seen as the token only person who can write well about dance music in the 21st century. though perhaps frith meant SR is the only person who can explain it to old rock critics.

the purpose of the kickstarter -- linked above -- is to get transcripts of the panels published (alongside a bunch of other excellent stuff): this is my primary focus right now :)

I knew you couldn't keep away :)

obviously for maximum impact i should have structured my appeal as some kind of POLL :D

(actual ilm & ile structures below)
A HIDDEN LANDSCAPE ONCE A WEEK: the kickstarter for the book of the politics of rockwriting conference
running a kickstarter in a time of plague and panic

Especially as you only came back to partake in the metal poll thread though you forgot dj martian this time YOU PLANK!