Afterthoughts of the EMP Pop Conference 2005, Go!

free t-shirts! 'have you got an xtra large?'

I'm emphasizing the panel on How To Rock Like A Black Feminist Rock Critic. This (and the Black Mass panel, which I will get to later in its own thread, specifically one piece in it) were definitely wrought with a combination of either emotion, frustration, fright, and/or humor.. They are the ones that "stood out" for me this year because while there have been so many great panels, these left a lot of really complex questions unanswered, and hence, leave me wanting to try to answer them as much as possible.

To be slightly serious, I think this belongs on another thread.

On the other hand, Michaelangelo's piece on "Apache" was wonderfully well-written and educative (Matos is also a fine extemporaneous speaker); the convo with him, Geeta, Jess, Tom, and J Smooth was fascinating; Douglas Wolk's Coke jingle history was marvelous; and it should not go without saying that Eric Weisbard and Ann Powers are two of the nicest people one will ever encounter.

Tom pretty much agreed with you, Joseph (again, I will let Tom speak for himself once he arrives back in London and is settled.). Tom and I, on our walk balk to our lodgings/home respectively last night, talked about the piece. He was horrified by the presenter as well, but he mentioned still getting something out of it.. namely, the presenter's horror of the Juggalos pretty much clearly exemplified the POINT of the existence of the Juggalos. I then facetiously brought up whether the presenter was presenting this "Oh, this is HORRIBLE!" thing as a calculate facade or not.

(This very last thought will segue into the Buddy Holocaust thread I will start tonight)

(and Joseph, I'm sorry I never got to see you... I hope we get to meet in the future.. but it seems, by not meeting, we apparently attended each other's complement of panels, which is great for this thread.)

I'd like to know more about this. What sorts of things were addressed? Last year's CMJ panel on "the future of online journalism" basically just talked about mp3 blogs the whole time -- which was fine and interesting (and gave Matthew Perpetua and Mark Willett a nice forum) -- but I'd hoped for something broader.

Other papers I liked: one on Steely Dan by Paul Anderson (though it got a little theory-heavy), one on Albert Ayler by T.R. Johnson, one on Lester Young and the "cool mask" by Joel Dinerstein, and one on Merle Haggard by Cotten Seiler (all of these but the Steely Dan one were part of the same panel). In order to catch the Steely Dan talk, I had to be late for the Black Feminist Rock Critic panel, but I caught the last of Kandia Crazy Horse and wished I'd been able to engage her one-on-one afterward, and caught Laina Dawes talking about being a black female metalhead. I would have preferred a more formal presentation from her, but it was still very interesting and she seems cool and I definitely don't feel like the I'll-go-to-yours-if-you-come-to-mine deal I made with her in advance was in any way a one-sided favor to either of us.

Folks I had a good time talking to one-on-one: Dave Queen, Allen Lowe, Matos, Jess, Tom Ewing, donut, T.R. Johnson, Joel Dinerstein, Geeta, and surely some folks I'm forgetting.

It wasn't a theory-drenched panel by any means.. I think the intent (and Matos, as moderator of the panel, can correct me if I'm wrong) was to be a more informal, round-table discussion of a sample of bloggers.

One of the things i remember most was Geeta explaining -- in the context of the relative dearth of females in the dedicated music "blogosphere" -- from her science/MIT edu background, that she's seen evidence that guys are more inclined to make "lists of things" than women are... something, as a list-making guy myself, didn't notice.

And of course the "Are all music bloggers the product of lost fathers in our childhood?" revelation which had everybody LOLing.

(to explain, Oliver Wang brought up an interesting comment about how parents might feel about blogs, "why do you do it? how is it going to make you money?", etc. which led Matos to ask the panel "What does your mother think of your blog?", to which everyone was able to actually answer. Someone in the audience then asked "What does your father think of your blog?", and -- except for Geeta and Tom -- everyone else didn't ever happen to know their true father after their single digit years.)

Did Dan threaten Motorbooty Magazine and not tell us about it?

Ringmaster and Riddle Box are fantastic albums and the "Tunnel of Love" EP is great, too. Everything else is patchy, although there are moments of greatness on Bizarr/Bizaar and The Great Milenko and "Redneck Hoe" has possibly the greatest hook ever ("Bitch, you's a hoe/And hoe, you's a bitch/Everybody knows/That you're a funky funky bitch").

the juggalo thing was disappointing to me because it probably should have been scrapped when she couldnt actually "walk with the juggalos". perhaps the title promised too much.

The one piece that absolutely FLOORED me was probably the most academic one of them all -- Peter Mercer-Taylor's piece on the breakdown (and I mean BREAKDOWN -- he had an extremely detailed hand-out containing outlines, diagrams, you name it!) of Cradle Of Filth's song "From The Cradle To Enslave". I was grinning non-stop throughout the piece because I rarely get to hear this genre examined in such a manner. The most academic presentation of them all rocked my ass off -- literally. I felt rectified. (NO PUN INTENDED!)

And yeah I was the guy who made the comment afterwards: "Why was everyone chuckling? If this were a Black Sabbath or Korn or Misfits or Venom song, no one would be chuckling, and those bands aren't any more worthy of being taken seriously in this context, IMHO."

quoting the Black Commentator blog: "'Black Americans do not need European models of fascism to understand the threat.'" (this is re: Bush's 2004 reelection)

"Slavery is a murderous business, but even compared to the rest of the West, American slavery was abhorrent."

at one point he showed a street sign crossing from N.O.: the names were RACE and RELIGIOUS

"Lots of murders means lots of work for brass bands at funerals."

In the 1800s, N.O. was the U.S. capital of sex slavery (he talked extensively about how slaves were bred for specific purposes of sex slavery, both male and female; the figures he cited were staggering--something like an increase from a quarter-million to four million over a certain number of years, like 50 or so). Slaves were primarily a cash crop: "We could just call it the slave-breeding industry."

"Why am I looking at slavery so much here? Because in New Orleans it's right in your face."

He discussed the book Mandingo at length. The author was on the list of writers Cyril (I think) Neville (or whomever the youngest of the Neville Brothers is) mentioned as people he read to learn about black history in the Neville Brothers' oral autobiography. Mandingo was--in one of the abolute greatest lines of the entire Conference--"A turd on the front door of Eisenhower's America" that sold five million copies. "One of the kinkiest books I've ever read," said Sublette, who went on to note that it is, in fact, a meticulously researched book that is also a total "potboiler."

He talked about how the Indian tribes in N.O. parades cannot be pinned down, origins-wise.

Most haunting part of the presentation: Sublette is a fast, loud, authoritative speaker with a pronounced and quite engaging twang. (He spoke about his childhood in Louisiana, and having to play "Slave Auction" in class at age nine, quoting self-written dialogue from a classmate playing the auctioneer: "I hate to break up families, but I must do my job." He's been living in N.O. for a year, which inspired the presentation, and I think he spent a good amount of time in Texas as well.) Three-quarters into his talk, he spoke about hearing the sound of one of the tribes coming up the street: "Congo . . . Congo Nation," he sang, softly. It was like someone had broken the air in the room apart, and you could hear a pin drop in the gap between the two "Congo"s.

I already raved about my faves on the other thread but now that I think of it some extra points . . .

Yes, me too, I really loved that Mendellsohn scholar that gave the Cradle of Filth talk- he ruled, and so did his handout.

I loved how the old blues and jazz geezers with beards would bust each other's chops about facts and historical "firsts" during Q+A time, it gave that part of the talks a certain treacherous feeling.

I loved Judith Halberstam's discussion of the concept of "temporal drag" in relation to queer cover songs.

Ned Sublette truly did kick a lot of ass it must be said

but so did that Morissey paper about his "artful evasions", and the Morrissey Q+A time got really confessional and weepy from some quarters which was fun and awkward

the talk about, like, how like Sun Ra was like this, like, totally far out guy into drones dood and like how, like free folk is just like Aleister Crowley dood who was like this really freaky old guy from like 1903 and stuff and like weed helped me hear Animal Collective this whole new way man etc. made me kinda cranky . . . but perhaps I'm not the intended audience, to be fair it seemed to be a survey for the uninitiated and I think we were all hitting conference fatigue at that point

aside from technological burps and gaps as people struggled with recalcitrant PowerPoint presentations it was all pretty much
totally fun and rad

Heh heh, I think this exemplifies the "within the art" angle to the highest degree, for better or worse.

I actually really appreciated the execution of his presentation, because I think he was trying to make the presentation itself analagous to the music itself he was describing. Busy, out of sync, then in sync, then out of sync, again, background music, long quotes/rants appearing and disappearing, "like, DOOD" enthusiasm. It was a fun presentation overall.

However it didn't really endear me to the bands he was talking about per se, but I think that's because of my specific background. I've played in many improv noise-rock bands for the past couple of decades, and I've never cared much for "magick", the occult, "mystery", or did any drugs other than have the occasional beer or girlie drink... and after performances I've done with friends, I'd have people come up to me saying "dude, you totally, like, blew my mind.".. However, I can appreciate that this would have been interesting and informative to people who never heard of No Neck Blues Band, SUNN 0)))), Sun Ra, Sun City Girls, etc., so I have to give J. Farrar credit here.

(Matos, thank you for the C.L. and Sublette)

It's like, University Challenge, Family Feud, WHAT?

"Toxteth O' Grady..."

christ, i just need to shave my head already.

"Look, it's quite alright, everyone. The R-word does get dragged out every now and then, but in these times, we just must collect ourselves and move on, right? The offending gentlemen has been taken care of... now then."

But I thought people liked me. *cries*

Am I reading too much into Christgau's piece to think there might not be money available to do this next year? Or maybe they've got to try to get Boeing to kick in even more bucks?

http://themusicissue.blogspot.com/

i'm looking more like my dad every year

&, yeah, props on the beard(s) all around - I wish I could grow one, but I fear I'd make like a dying lawn more than a hirsute stud.

Clearly. Then again, you don't know my brother.

Jason King, Tim Lawrence, Sharon Mesmer, and *especially* Steve Waksmen were great.

Waksmen did a piece on Alice Cooper's influence on stage/camp in a rock setting, and did so vary convincingly. I like how he started his piece with Easy Action and its album cover, front and end (puns completely intended), and then ended his piece with the Billion Dollar Babies era, because after that (skipping the contract breaker album Muscle Of Love), it was essentially Cooper out-Coopering himself -- to good degrees, and after, to *cough* not-so-good degrees.

*ok and Matos. But he could!

Right now it is Eric Martin Usner - Sounds of Starbucks (time is 6:30pm Pacific)

I work with a person whose husband works for the Seattle Channel and went to the conference and did a bunch of taping, so I know they have some of it on tape...

Thank you - my inner sociology student is going to have geekasm reading these!!!