Class, etc. pt. 4 - Did post-rock "kill" indie? (Also, did it realign the "rhythmic impulse" towards an alternative to funk-based rhythms?)

My only thought is that I'm not sure about the "kill" part, since indie audiences and ethos both seemed to glide very smoothly into post-rock and related areas as a natural progression -- or, rather, a natural turn from the previous ethos.

I mean, I would say post rock was at its most popular around the turn of the century.

Witness the whole Lightning Bolt/Hella super-versatile drummer worship thing happening right now. I don't think the presence of Tortoise or what have you would have changed that outcome at all.

I don't think 'post-rock' killed 'indie' as much as 'indie' kinda subsumed 'post-rock', and become more of that introverted monolith so loved/hated. Replace 'post-rock' with 'butt-rock' or 'exotica' (depending on the circle), and you'll find the formula still kinda holds.

Whether seeking out abstract, extreme, or exotic musicianship is just another side road trying to branch in the opposite direction as 'pop' is a debate I'll leave up to you guys.

http://www.scaruffi.com/history/cpt521.html

there's always lot's of wake surfers.

just like you (donut bitch) said... it's in every little nook and cranny scene that comes and goes...

did post-rock's jazz cool conventional musicianship kill the silly and unconventional approaches? maybe a little... but think of chicago and midwestness... smog and palace remained pretty large. watch all that emo sweater style braid, capnjazz, joan of arc, promise ring stuff that really is indie, but it's fans would rather fly a punk-style flag over it. (argh.) there was still plenty of indie as guitar bonk under the gullet.

?

post-rock as that style still looms... plenty of folks are digging on aerogramme's latest. and who's to say that all this hippie trance rock really isn't just post-rock with more drugs and drum circle in tow?

what am i talking about again?
m.

(this makes me sad, as Hella are actually the far more interesting band, but anyway...)

Lost me there.

as to the issue of class or racial shifts inherent in the post-rock phenomena, i can't say i see it. to my eyes, the prototypical "INDIE ROCK" band was pavement, whose singer went to university of virginia and as a rule wrote excrutiatingly literate and abstract lyrics. follow up to the modern day with joan of arc and the like.

isn't part of what separates indie rock from alt/radio rock a certain "intelligence" ("intelligent rock music"! oh god) or, in darker form, "smartypants-ness"? in the lyrical content, singing style, musical arrangements, diffident attitude, etc.? indie rock and post-rock BOTH went to college, but indie rock majored in womens studies and post-rock did the world music thing. msp is right to draw a vague line from post-rock straight to the hippie jam. fans of that style can spout useless trivia about their favorite bands and shows just like everyone on this board.

in light of all this, i move that we rename "indie rock" as "intelligent rock music", or "IRM" for short. this has been done once before, and to great effect!!

(on the racial tip, indie rock and post-rock are basically all white all of the time with very few exceptions (members of tortoise, 90 day men, etc) and that hasn't changed nor do i see how/when it will.)

more post-rock on the "progressive" history of the 90s
http://www.scaruffi.com/history/cpt52.html

...the "whatever" in question is mainly "super-cherry vintage analogue synths" & accompanying deep-poseur dedication to various obscure microphones (SovTek was trendy for a year or two), community-determined era-based fetishes ("the '70s were so weird!"), loosely understood/expressed aesthetic stances, etc. All this recently became a more complicated issue for me when I opened for T*rt*ise and they were effin' great guys. For me the fact remains however that once the stench of conoisseur-ism has wafted into a room (the room in question here being "indie"), that room hasn't got long before it stinks to high heaven.

Jess you just did this to see if you could get me worked up.

or economic status?

cause i see post-rock being more involved with schooling and technique than indie... but i don't think class really has much to do with it. you can be poor as butt ass and still get raised on "high" music... i mean shit... if you're like me and your folks studied music in college, you know what government cheese is all about!

will some tooling, you can pull any sound you want out of cheap shit. take one 15 watt fender practice amp ($20 ebay), one delay pedal (<$100), and one sk-1 casio keyboard ($20 ebay) and you've got something that sounds not so different from a $500 korg....
m.

(chops cost no money of course. but you can't deny there's a difference between a bunch of hairy hessians obsessively practicing slayer riffs and solos and a guy who can play vibes like bobby hutcherson.)

(okay, no one in a post-rock band can play vibes like bobby hutcherson.)

(also, i'm purposefully defining "post-rock" as the chicago-axis and friends and travellers, as opposed to dream-rock/electronica/too pure types. and my beloved disco inferno.)

but growing up here... lower class = poor. upper class = rich.

?
m.

new money vs. old money fer instance.

That's never the case when even the gov'ment cheese set can bring an interesting aesthetic to the table, or create an art movement... it's a matter of your definition of class, really. For the purposes of discussing rock and roll, I think we can (should?) agree that actual money is not the capital that class is based on.

Distinction without a difference! or, rather, the difference is largely cosmetic

msp, you're talking about 140 bucks BEFORE recording costs - remember that the era Jess is recalling was pre-home-Pro-Tools an' shit - and you can't go recording the post-rock on a boombox. or even a four-track. no no no. it must be all-analog recording into ribbon mics in a big room with low humidity so the drums don't blah blah blah, etc etc martini-sippin' etc

This post-rock = money thing is another strawman thot up by the denziens of ILM to discredit something that's almost exactly the same as the thing they're defending from it! Lame.

now i see where your coming from.... and even with my fake-korg special #3 there's still a difference. i suppose when you do talk about being a connoisseur, it's all about the brands and labels. sound is almost irrelevant. "oh shit, it's same organ vanilla fudge used to ...."

and that would be considerably different from smog's earlier stuff, for example. (or am i throwing weirdness into the exchange by using a lo-fi example?)

(note how his records changed with jim o'rourke.... ???)
m.

I'd argue but I have no idea what you just said

(also, is it just me or do you take on a really hostile tone when you disagree with me? if this is a personal thing, then let's not fuckin' discuss it: how terribly boring.)

i like jim o.
m.

big room with low humidity so the drums don't blah blah blah, etc etc martini-sippin' etc

See, that's a class judgement right there, and you made it, not anyone else. It may or may not be present in the music. Result: inconclusive. But it's obvious you're bringing a lot of your own class baggage into this.

I don't think that Tortoise or GSY!BE are particularly rolling in cash tho. Neither are their fans for that matter - mostly Arts students or struggling musicians in my experience.

There's a argument to say that these guys are rich in SYMBOLIC capital precisely because they are denied real money. Basically, they are disproportially cool, because they are not financially successful.

okay, on to values:

...the "whatever" in question is mainly "super-cherry vintage analogue synths" caring about/being interested in equipment = MATERIALISM?

& accompanying deep-poseur dedication = AUTHENTICITY? (so funny to see this as a positive value on ILM again)

...to various obscure microphones = MATERIALISM again, maybe AUTHENTICITY or OBSCURITY as values too.

(SovTek was trendy for a year or two) = BRAND-NAME FETISHISM and/or LATE-PERIOD CAPITALISM (uh, did SovTek make mics?)

community-determined = wait so they're into COMMUNITY and yet are MATERIALISTS/CAPITALISTS?

era-based fetishes ("the '70s were so weird!") = AUTHENTICITY, HISTORICAL REVISIONISM, "P.C."

loosely understood/expressed aesthetic stances, etc. = ANTI-INTELLECTUALISM

For me the fact remains however that once the stench of conoisseur-ism has wafted into a room (the room in question here being "indie"), that room hasn't got long before it stinks to high heaven. oh no defend the barricades! Inauthentic post-rockers are at the gates!

but the whole "I-am-a-connoisseur" post-rock stance (which, amusingly, grows out of indie rock's cult-like dedication to thrift store shopping) IS a class issue! indie rock loudly insists that you don't need anything besides a good idea to make a great record; post-rock of necessity MUST HAVE MONEY = IF YOU DON'T RECORD LIKE ME, YOU MUST BE RICH!

I think it's about both depending on whose take it is. Quite obviously for a lot of people here this is a combination of reflecting on (for lack of a better term) 'growing up,' finding out more about the music around you, and that is interesting in and of itself because we all do that, or so we hope. So that's why the thread is interesting to me even though I wasn't in Chicago in ground-zeroville or the like. But as it stands, I still think nothing of the music -- I'm not questioning Nabisco et al's fine reflections on the history of what impact Tortoise had, but I am bitterly disappointed in the vehicle and think the group's influence might have led to more explorations for some but resulted in a fairly dull and uninvolving genre-in-spite-of-itself in the end. Mogwai may be all about 'dumb rock songs' if one insists, but if the alternate is bloodless intelligence that gives no thrill, I will take the thrill.

but this has been explored elsewhere no?

I'm interested in the ideas abt class and how it all links to post-rock (as some ppl are hinting). I want ppl to make connections (john was hinting at some, he seeemed to phrase it as an economic issue and I'm interested) and a debate around those.

Disposable time is a very precious commodity; perhaps the most precious.

I think it's non-controversial to say that the idea of "influence" has a lot to do with the answer to this question. When folks (and now I'm talking about the musicians) find themselves wanting to incorporate influences that come from some cultural place that is an "other" to them, there's a tendency to get self-conscious about it--that's where the issues of "authenticity" and "appropriation" come up, and they certainly get a lot of people hung up. Now musicians have been dealing with this situation for a long time, and there have been many ways that these influences have been incorporated. I think Jess's original question on this thread is why the "post-rock" crowd, at their particular moment in time, were so serious and self-conscious about incorporating their diverse influences, as opposed to say, the mythic '79-'82 era when similar kinds of diverse influences seemed (in retrospect?) to have been incorporated with a lot more fun and vitality rather than timidity and "proper repsect" or something. I'd aruge that many post-rockers' (ugh) historian-type tendencies made them over-consious of their own class/race in relation to that of much of their influences, and this hyper-consciousness made for much soft-treading, boring "art" as a result.

Are post-rockers just receiving the same derision that post-punkers received? What affinities lie between the 1990s post-rock stuff and the late 1970s-early 1980s post-punk stuff, esp. Rough Trade-style bands?

"Did post-rock 'kill' indie?" sounds like a variation on "Is rock dead?"

This is why I want to concentrate on talking about fans and trends more than our critical opinions. The rise of Chicago post-rock was, so far as I can tell, the peak of influence of the attitudes that came with the mid-90s British "post-rock" more of us like: D.I., Main, all of that Too Pure stuff. I think it's fine as a critical opinion to say that the way some of the Chicago bands followed up on that stuff wasn't quite as interesting as the way it started, and that's an opinion I'd be likely to agree with -- but in trend of terms the fact remains that for loads of people the post-rock revelation was only just bubbling up with Seefeel and Bark Psychosis but really stepped up with Millions Now Living Will Never Die. (The bulk response, around here at least, would have been something like: Seefeel = "hmm, interesting," Bark Psychosis = "we really like this stuff," MNLWND = "we are climbing on-board!") There's a distinct line there, and it's even come full-circle: listen to current-day Chicago semi-post-rockers Zelienople, and you'll hear something that sounds about like Hex.

Anyway. I'm probably fonder of the Too Pure axis than the Chicago one, though I have loads more of the Chicago records just as a function of being here. And while Tortoise can indeed be sort of boring, I'm nevertheless completely baffled by the "Tortoise are boring" charges, because they seem completely point-missing to me. Just because Tortoise leaned on jazz doesn't mean they were trying in any sense to be exciting; just cause they had grooves doesn't mean they were meant to move. Make no mistake: for a great bulk of their listeners, Tortoise was lying-in-bed-stoned headspace music, and I'm really not sure how their approach to that was all that much more "boring" than that of their predecessors.

By the way, one thing no one's really spent much time on w/r/t to the Chicago stuff is the injection of something much like folk into the project. ("I blame O'Rourke!")

Some days it freaking feels like it! And if I have to read one more press release from a band approvingly saying both 'post-rock influences' and 'Tortoise' in it again, I will hunt and slay. Just as in a lot of discourse Led Zeppelin seems to be/is THEE heavy metal band in a wide context and Parliament/Funkadelic is THEE funk act and etc. etc. (and of course in all these examples there are plenty of counterexamples people prefer, etc.)

listen to current-day Chicago semi-post-rockers Zelienople, and you'll hear something that sounds about like Hex.

Hm, now I'm intrigued...

Just because Tortoise leaned on jazz doesn't mean they were trying in any sense to be exciting

This sorta hurts my head. I mean, I see what you're saying, but it almost (almost) sounds like 'We're doing this! And we're not out to catch your attention in any way.' Ok, thanks...

The exotica comparison IS interesting. But in Denny's case, I think the sum was greater than the whole of the parts, whereas in Tortoise's, I think it was much, much less.

Nabisco, why after this:

Tortoise =/= all post-rock ever!

...then two and a half more posts on em?!

And here's more, to explain to Ned: I'm not trying to say they were just not trying and should therefore be forgiven! I think what I mean is that some people seem to get told that there's a supposed "groove" in there, so they listen to Tortoise records and find, well, no actual body-affecting groove or anything, and so they pack up their bags and go the fuck home -- "that was boring!" I just don't think that's what Tortoise were offering in the first place, so it's unhelpful to look for it and not find it there. Seriously, my Martin Denny comparison isn't meant as an "interesting perspective" -- it's the majority of how I and everyone I knew enjoyed Tortoise, especially on TNT.

Tortoise records on the other hand were readily available, not as some kind of new sound, more or less another indie rock band release with members from "x". Tortoise played a show in Muncie, Indiana for cripes sake, NO one ever plays Muncie. (Then again, Cluster played in Anderson, Indiana for some weird reason, so maybe it was some flux.)

"Make no mistake: for a great bulk of their listeners, Tortoise was lying-in-bed-stoned headspace music..."

Yeah, that is true, but you can say that about alot of music.

I checked out some Martin Denny, Esquivel, Steve Reich & Morricone after getting into Tortoise & Labradford, etc. Denny & Esquivel had some neat sounds, but it didn't catch me at all, it was too much lounge, which I guess was the point. I can understand why some people like their music. Morricone's spaghetti western music and some of the later symphonic soundtracks are great. I've never heard some of those obscure soundtracks with jazz group. The Steve Reich I have heard is quite interesting and good.

So are you arguing from a Satie-into-Eno 'this is music to be ignored' approach or from a 'concentrate on the mystic tones to find its heart' way? It seems like the latter, but the one or two times I tried to do that it just left me bored (that word again!) and annoyed. As background spacey tinkles, I'd probably just rather put on something else I liked.

Now if you're going to mention Labradford, Earl, THERE'S a band I can be captivated by several different ways to Sunday.

Growing up, I did see Dag Nasty and Rollins doing his speaking thing in Muncie early on. Big Black & Rapeman played there also, but I wasn't that hip in the know, to check them out until after that happened.

Cluster live in Anderson, thinking about it now seems as weird a booking as they come.

Problem is, they've worked with so many other bands that it does sometimes seem like this is the case.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/t/tortoise/tnt.shtml

(This is a terrible review, btw, but the sentiment is right.)

(..unless this thread was just an excuse to be a thorn on the side of Thrill Jockey and the Wire.. cuz I disagree that 'indie' has been permanently affected by them)

This might be more relevant for the other thread, but I think this might actually be one of those areas where focusing too much on a rigid genre definition is slightly misleading. When I say I like post-rock, I mean partly that I like post-rock and partly that I liked the general post-rock moment and era and trend, which had to do with way more than just post-rock: it had, from where I was standing, to do with a conventionally rocky scene suddenly opening up and folding in a bunch of interesting directions, precedented or not; it had to do with an indie scene that was suffering mightily under alt-rock gradually getting excited about electronics, ambience, dub, jazz, orchestral pop, folk, bossa nova, ye-ye, soundtracks, exotica, and loads of other things. Surely that was a good thing? I was a lot happier hearing people talk about their exciting "discovery" of Wagon Christ via the Tortoise remixes than I was hearing rockers defend Billy Corgan and gripe about whether or not the Smoking Popes were sell-outs.

I'm all for it. And then teen-pop returned in force and hip-hop ruled the roost and people cried and went, "I learned about all this other stuff and I don't want to learn about this!" (I am exaggerating.)

Ew. Don't link me to that! That's horribly written! Why don't you just link me to pictures of shit-eating or something!

(rejoining thread 14 hours later...)

Sure it does. Liberalism as a conceptual framework is a generalization. I could even concoct some kind of argument about how generalization is fundamentally liberal and specialization is fundamentally conservative, but I won't reach that far. How all that relates to class issues takes some dot-connecting, but I think it's pertinent to the alleged subject at hand. Post-rock didn't "kill" indie or anything else, and it made some nice music and arose from/created what from all accounts was an energetic, creative scene (or scenes), and that's all to the good as far as it goes (or went, depending on which tense you want to use). I'm just saying that it didn't go all that far, in a socio-cultural sense, and more to the point, it was sort of designed to not go all that far. However much fun it was on the inside, it was pretty hermetic. Now, you can blame the rest of the culture for not lining up at the door to get in, just as you can blame it for not buying enough free jazz or Tom Ze albums. You can also say you just don't give a fuck how accessible or inaccessible, elitist or populist, any particular band or subgenre is and you only care how good it sounds to you. Which is fine, too -- as far as it goes.

"using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbres and textures rather than riffs and powerchords."

I know he was describing Bark Psychosis/Pram/Seefeel/Disco Inferno et al, but it's a blindingly vague catch-all for any textural use of a 'rock' instrument that goes back to, well, by it's own definition the start of rock & roll music.

Bollocks from the start, basically. No wonder it's such a disliked and shamed term.

wow they really left you hanging, marc h.

I guess “indie” is alive and well, huh

although now pop and electronic have the DIY cred John was going on about. indie needs, like, a studio.

“Post rock” music like that if explosions in the sky just makes me think of fundamental Christianity and children’s hospitals

of

Fundamentalist

isn't part of what separates indie rock from alt/radio rock a certain "intelligence" ("intelligent rock music"! oh god) or, in darker form, "smartypants-ness

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True he likes the Breeders
He thinks Green Day's pretty swell
But what about the Bartlebees and Neutral Milk Hotel?
It's okay for a sunny day but that Sting album won't do
So when I play you Allen Clapp, you'll know baby I love you!
Hey hey
Pop songs your new boyfriend's too stupid to know about
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Sure he buys you records
If you like them by U2
But if you want the Pastels
Baby, here's what you should do
Get on your bike and take a hike
And meet me at our spot
Just you and me and Halo Benders
Hey that's pretty hot
And we'll sing ...
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Break it down, go!
Here's a way to spend our day
With Lois and the Crabs
We'll have some fun and visit Cub
And maybe we'll hold hands
We can keep the Lemonheads
And Weezer he gave you
Cause you and me got Heavenly and Nothing Painted Blue
Hey hey
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3-2-1
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For me the fact remains however that once the stench of conoisseur-ism has wafted into a room (the room in question here being "indie"), that room hasn't got long before it stinks to high heaven.

One more time
Pop songs your new boyfriend's too stupid to know about
Hey hey
Pop songs your new boyfriend's too stupid to know about
Pop songs your new boyfriend's too stupid to know about
Hey hey
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Go!

remember that the era Jess is recalling was pre-home-Pro-Tools an' shit - and you can't go recording the post-rock on a boombox. or even a four-track. no no no. it must be all-analog recording into ribbon mics in a big room with low humidity so the drums don't blah blah blah, etc etc martini-sippin' etc ... please do point me in the direction of some lo-fi post-rock played on shitty instruments though, it'd be a subgenre that managed to completely elude me

Were Dymaxion "post-rock"? I'm pretty sure all their music was recorded or assembled in SoundEdit 16 or less.

indie rock loudly insists that you don't need anything besides a good idea to make a great record; post-rock of necessity MUST HAVE MONEY

I think Mogwai took this a major step further. Part of the appeal of Young Team to a 13 year old wannabe like myself was in demonstrating that you don't even need an idea to make an exciting album, you can pull it off with just enthusiasm and maybe a couple of fx pedals.