Stanley Fish and the Strokes

In a crass bid for hits (and also cuz Nitsuh and I have both written or half-written articles on them), FT is going to have a STROKES SPECIAL! issue so anyone wanting to participate should get in touch.

Every time I hear that one intro to one of their songs, it sounds just like the intro to Tom Petty's "American Girl." Soon, when you hear it, you'll know exactly what I'm speaking of.

But it's hype and it's chic and whatnot. Some kids want to be rock stars. Some kids wanna dress up like their hero, Tom Verlaine, and act like they're in TELEVISION.

It's their thing. I dress up like my hero, Abe Vigoda.

As for Stanley Fish--the new Postmodern Pooh book hilariously skewers that career shocker. Not that he needs any more skewering.

This is an indie prejudice that I just can't fathom.

It's true that The Strokes have a kind of generic-good flavour to them - the MOST interesting them about them is that they have been able to get noticed outside of the college radio ghetto. How is it more interesting for them NOT to be noticed?

Indie is so terrified of being more than a tree falling in the forest that nobody ends up hearing it. Besides which (at least in North America), no-one but college radio is playing them anyway so they should still fit your definition of "interesting". If the level of success achieved by The Strokes (relative to what is really popular) makes them uninteresting, you're not going to find very much to interest you.

They're divorced. I'm not all that enthralled with the White Stripes, but one hears things through the grapevine regardless.

Oh, and I sorta agree about The Strokes. The problem isn't that the music itself would be more interesting, but if they had time to develop, build a following, tune their sound, screw around a bit, then they might have developed into something more distinct and found a more solid voice, and thus when they did emerge been the better for it. Cf. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.

(An interesting article for the (tongue in cheek!) Strokes special would be "the Strokes' shadows" - the things people have told us we should be listening to that aren't the Strokes. From the French Kicks to the White Stripes to BMRC, what have people used to try and trump their Strokes-lovin peers...? And does this happen with every making- it-big band?)

I'm telling you, listen to early 80's Tom Petty.

And this argument about clothing "style" being important in music is the ole Elvis Costello argument about writing about music. If YOU SIT AROUND WITH YOUR HEADPHONES IMAGINING WHAT THE MUSICIANS ARE WEARING, GET A JOB AT THE GAP. Musicians should think about the process of love of music, not their worn out levi jackets. Read Jacques Attali "NOISE." You want to commodifiy the beauty of music?

Whether or not these guys are sincere about their music is one thing. But Rock is dead. That's why they sound like all the favorite bands from when you were still a toddler. Just about everything's dead.

The next big thing? Raccoon Rock. That's right. Real, live raccoons playing musical instruments. Trust me on this.

I think BRMC work like the Strokes in absolute miniature. I.e., the Strokes are uneventful but fun enough to seem otherwise, and you can spin the record again and again for a good three weeks before it loses its punch and goes back on the pile. The BRMC accomplish a much shorter version of this, which is that the record sounds surprising when you sample it in the store but then manages to go back to being vacant and dull before your receipt's finished printing.

bye bye respect integrity bye bye..then break up

is that four words?

(the lies frederick "pooh" crews resorted to, in a footnote offing thomas kuhn in his recent NYRB piece on darwinism vs non- darwinism, bring his whole career-dance crashing down, far as i'm concerned)

(crews comes crashing down i mean, not kuhn, who is important)

Mark S: Thomas Kuhn: An Philosophical History of Our Times

By Steve Fuller, who I believe is at Warwick.

First convincing attempt at demolishing Kuhn's influence. And refreshingly gonzo, for a philosophy of science text.

[end marketing]

Hmm ... since it's Saturday, and I'm still pushing Chicago books ... I think this means I get to take Monday off.

tho i quite like "an philosophical"

Note that I'm not claiming it's a successful demolition, but rather an interesting one -- the books more about Fuller than Kuhn, when it comes down to it. For what it's worth, his argument is Kuhn and his Conant influence sort of regimented, politically methodized, or generally tamed scientific inquiry. Fuller's response to this is a radically unworkable but sort of tittilating "democratization" of science, but mainly he just lays into Kuhn as the philosophical source of the Science Wars.

My marketing bit there wasn't so much a "Fuller is right" thing, but more of a "you might find Fuller interesting" thing. Most of the book's reviews came down to exactly that, really: "doesn't necessarily demolish Kuhn, but makes an endlessly entertaining case that his influence has been deplorable."