Empire of Dirt
A Provocative Book on the Rituals of British Indie Music by “Professor of Indie Rock” Wendy Fonarow
This book taught me a lot about the business I thought I knew inside out. I loved the ‘audience zones’ and ‘trickster’ sections, and I’m looking forward to the next book—on lead singer syndrome! — Peter Hook, bass player, Joy Division and New Order
A brilliantly provocative book with rigorous research and lucid analysis. It also provides a witty insight into the machinations of the British music industry, and the behavior of musicians and their fans. Essential. — Lucy O'Brien, author of She Bop
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Empire of Dirt is the textbook you always wished your professor assigned you to read: rock ‘n’ roll, sex and the guest list are explored in detail through the observations and experiences of the Professor of Indie Rock. Dr. Wendy Fonarow took her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from UCLA and dove deep into the UK’s indie scene for a provocative examination of its culture and rituals from the early 1990s to present, becoming the first employee of famed independent label Domino Records (home to Franz Ferdinand and Arctic Monkeys, among others), seeing thousands of shows ~from Reading to Radiohead at a school gym ~ and becoming so ingratiated with the artists themselves, that she got to name a band (Mojave 3)! Her insider knowledge is unlike any other, thanks to the unprecedented access and trust afforded to her in this scholastic journey, which she embarked on 13 years ago.
“I was not studying from a distance. The goal was to get inside and I couldn’t do that by being dispassionate,” said Fonarow. “So many doors were opened with fans because I didn’t feel any vanity about being an academic. I was fascinated by being both an insider and an outsider.”
Wendy’s in-depth study of the British independent music scene explores how the behavior of fans, artists, and music industry professionals produce a community with an aesthetic based on moral values. She had incredible access to that entire community, and has created a book full of remarkable truths. It has the effect of the best pop song – once you’ve read Fonarow on this, you think “Of course,” and you can not imagine how you might have understood this in any other way. Even musicians who have lived the life she investigates are floored by her findings, which explore gigs as expressing the contemporary attitudes towards youth, the strategy behind guest pass placement, musicians as tricksters, guitar playing as symbolic sexual union and – everyone’s favorite -- “groupies” as sin eaters.
Empire of Dirt is the ultimate guide to the practices and aesthetics of indie music and no one has written it the way Wendy has, an outspoken intellectual who can win over anyone with her compassionate insight and dedication to the community she is studying and an important part of.
Wendy Fonarow is a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California Los Angeles. She has worked for music labels including Domino, Reprise, and MCA.
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Empire of Dirt - Publication in July 2006 University of Wesleyan Press
304 pp. 27 b/w illus. 6 x 9” Unjacketed Cloth 0-8195-6810-4. $65.00 EAN 978-0-8195-6810-6 Paper 0-8195-6811-2. $24.95 EAN 978-0-8195-6811-3
Rachel Reynolds
Gorgeous PR
http://www.Gorgeouspr.com
― Brian O'Neill (NYCNative), Thursday, 11 May 2006 09:46 (nineteen years ago)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments • Introduction • Beginnings • Theoretical Frame: From Observation to Communication • Active Bodies • The Audience and Subjectivity • Music as Activity • Subjectivity in Action • Turn On the Bright Lights6 • Methodology • From Plus One to A&R • Your Itinerary • Conclusion • What Is “Indie”? • Indie . . . What’s at Stake? • Indie as a Mode of Distribution: An Industrial Definition • Indie as a Genre • Indie as an Ethos • Indie as Pathetic • Indie as a Mode of Aesthetic Judgement • The Mainstream Is a Centralized Hierarchy • Dance Is Not the Way the • Future Is Meant to Feel • Indie: What Is It? • The Zones of Participation • The Event • Zone One • The Pit • The Front • Zone One • Spectatorship: The Initiates • The Psychosomatics of Zone One • Zone Two • The Mode of Comportment of Zone Two • Comportment Features That Vary over Space • Gigs as Social Life • The Process of Change from Zone One to Zone Two • The Heterogeneous Audience • A Move toward the Exit • Conclusion • Zone Three and the Music Industry • The Activities of Zone Three • The Liggers • The Guest List • Routine 1: Example of Professional Strategy • Routine 2: Example of Personable Strategy • Routine 3: Code Switch from Professional to Personable • Passes • Privileged Spectatorship • Conclusion • The Participant Structure and the Metaphysics of Spectatorship • Proximity, Affiliation, and Consensus Building • Verticality and Asymmetry • Contesting Spectorial Positions: Closeness and Distance • Age • The Metaphysics of Participation • African Expression in a Protestant World • The Nature of the • Moral Threat • A Ritual of Transformation • Conclusion • Performance, Authenticity, and Emotion • Indie’s Version of Authenticity • Indie’s Conventions of Being in Performance • Emotion and the Decay of Emotion • Sex and the Ritual Practitioners • Gendered Spectatorship • The Groupie as Sexual Predator • Indie Versus Mainstream: Groupie Troublesomeness • Offstage Behavior Mirrors Onstage Spectacle • Come Together • Sing for the Moment • The Tricksters • Indie Coyotes and Foxes • Afterword: My Music Is Your Dirt • Appendix 1. NME’s Top 100 Albums of All Time • Appendix 2. NME’s Top 50 Albums of the 1980s • Appendix 3. Select Magazine Survey, 1994 • Notes • References • Index
― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Thursday, 11 May 2006 10:03 (nineteen years ago)
two months pass...
how come the conclusion is right at the front of the book?
like some of the chapter headings:
• Indie as Pathetic • surely "is"?
• Dance Is Not the Way the • Future Is Meant to Feel •. the dot in the middle is superfluous for the indie fuxors, no?
― michael wells (michael w.), Thursday, 20 July 2006 22:20 (nineteen years ago)
three years pass...