Retro

I'm partial to the idea of "something worth saving" becoming a part of the social fabric of the time, living on as the sustenance for newer, fresher growth. Decomposing plants enrich their soil, feeding other plants (I think - my biology's a bit rustic.)

Functional objects like cars, clothes, etc. - I can see those staying as they are. Something like music, though, doesn't strike me as being so functional and utilitarian as to actually withstand staying pat without losing that thing. Actually, I mean to say MUSICIANS. Besides, there's plenty of places / genres where this sort of idealized still-life is de rigeur.

"In 1986, Jae-eun Choi, a Korean artist and filmmaker, initiated a series of experiments that she calls the World Underground Project. She buried sheets of Japanese paper in the soil of 11 locations around the world. The first pieces were excavated from the site in Kyong-Ju Korea after four years. Others, including those buried at sites in Kenya, France, and Italy, were still underground in 1998. Japanese paper begins with a strong character, before a single mark is made on, or into its surface. The absorbency and texture encourages accidents and generates unpredictability. Those sheets that were excavated had been transformed by their internment into gorgeous maps of organic growth." - David Toop, "The Generation Game," The Wire May 2001

why those paragraphs are numbered - no idea.

on the other hand, the stuff that everyone takes for granted is what ends up looking and sounding the most dated. huge gated 80s snare drums. the haircuts in Zefferelli's Romeo and Juliet. "retro" is a conscious choice to appeal to these unconscious sore thumbs or to more conscious choices that have fallen out of style in some way (i remember my mother telling me that bellbottoms were retro when they appeared in the 60s - they aped the wide-cuff Fred Astaire-style sailor pants of the 40s).

anyway my question is: can retro be progressive?

see above.

jess that's a beautiful story but what does it have to do with "retro"?

Retro often feels like a regression to the style, but not the substance, of past ideas. Ie, bands like the Faint that play retro synth pop. They look and sound like synth pop of the '80's, but it seems to me that the spirit of '80's synth pop was to try and create music that was "modern" or even futuristic. So to be a retro synth pop band is to almost contradict the spirit of the original. Could say the same for Elephant 6-style bands (retro psychedelica), '77- style Clash/Ramones/Sex Pistols rip-off bands (retro punk), etc. In each case, the idea of retro completely nullifies the originality/"modernity" that made the originals important/fun/interesting in the first place.

"Those sheets that were excavated had been transformed by their internment into gorgeous maps of organic growth."

for japanese paper, read: electro, hardcore, capitalism.

at least that's what i first thought when i read the question (which, btw tracer, i'm not mocking: i think its one of the best ones on ilm in months which is the only reason i broke my no-posting rule), which is why i went for the magazine.

if something is changed by its internment in the underground of our consciousness (not to mention the "underground" of music) into a "gorgeous map of organic growth" (which i'd argue these musics are), does that mean its still paper when it comes out? or some bizarre new hybrid? is this how retro can be progressive?

(do you SEE what jess DIDN'T do there cos he doesn't post here anymore)

However faithfully you try to revisit/reproduce the past or attempt to borrow from it, you cannot recreate it exactly the way it was. You cannot help but take it somewhere new. Retro: realising that we have unfinished business to take care of, more like.

also, i have a feeling this thread is going to be a help to me in my human league opus.

boo - jess got in again first and spoiled my joke

aha!! but what if instead you substituted "light orchestral strings" for the paper?

i guess you'd get Esquivel

"Unfinished business" - is this more presumptuous when dealing with a single artist (or even a movement) than with a diffuse instrumental 'style' from the past?

Saying, "Nick Drake did not complete his work therefore I will" for instance seems a different sort of thing from saying "The potential of the gated snare was not fully realised therefore I will use it."

There are so many different types of 'retro' - "these sounds from the past are nice"/"these working methods from the past are nice"/"i want to work within the area defined by these people/records"/ and negative retro i.e. "today sucks i opt out" which is what a lot of people dislike as an attitude I'd guess.

i've been thinking about electroclash a lot lately because a. it's central to my essay and b. i've been trying to figure out how to write about it without having heard much of it...and because i think tom is mostly right in what he said on another thread: it DOESNT sound much like the human league or soft cell or any of the synthpop its supposed to be ripping off...but you'd have to be an idiot not to make the connection between them. the toop-ian metaphor is probably the best i've encountered thus far on the I-problem (haha mark to thread, plz.) maybe i'll take my copy of dare! or soft cell's 12" mixes out and bury them in my backyard for a year...

I agree that it is inevitable that retro music would progress as such a lot of water has passed under the bridge between the 'then' and the 'now'. bands take what they can from the intervening years but work it into their overall then-ness.

so is this actually retro? all music bears hallmarks of what has gone before, so does an emphasis on a particular factor from 'then' make a band more retro than everyone else?

most of the bands described as retro seem to take their main cues from the same places on all their work; bands are let off this description (or even epitaph?) because they manage to spread their cribbing around the eras.

therefore isn't there a purity in bands who sound like just one band or period over those who are more indecisive?

Like in fashion, musical retro/nostalgia movements tend to mimic the aesthetics of the past rather than its structure or ideology. One might view it as an experiment to find out if the aesthetics of the past can give new insights and new inspiration to current culture. Most (every?) major artistical breakthrough had a retro component. From ancient Greece to the Renaissance to Rock 'n Roll.

"today sucks i opt out"
But isn't this a lot of the time presumptiousness on the part of the listener, not a statement by the musician concerned?

there's plenty of places / genres where this sort of idealized still-life is de rigeur

i have a feeling that, like Momus's European rooms of stillness, they they exist mainly as a kind of opposition to a culture that moves too fast and crazily. appeals to the past CAN be part of the same rush towards the future that stick-in-the-mud Milan Kunderas so abhor. yet, and this is the paradox I'm trying to unpack, this striving sometimes implies that this is what we should have been doing all along. there's something in the endless proliferation of newness that feels like it's reaching for rest, or an endless present. like the idea of heaven on earth it's a denial of death i suppose; "getting it right" means no future growth therefore no subsequent and necessary decline and decay. (what am i talking about??)

there has not been a year since 96 when i've felt like less "new" has been going on. so i've decided to dull my pain by making this my year of retro (which was what this year was supposed to be anyway, cf. old empty blog promises.)

Hurrah for both Tracer and Jess here -- you've said a lot of things that capture my own disenchantment with the year at this point. In particular I no longer trust what is seen to be the bleeding edge in music -- even the prospect of something 'new,' specifically in current r'n'b/hip-hop production, feels instead like its own cliche, and is often terribly uninvolving for me.

POP STRIKE!

Yowsa!

We worry and talk like this is some new problem or something... don't worry about it. Creedence Clearwater were definitely retro, as were the Flamin' Groovies... and the early glam scene was largely based on nostalgia for the rock of the fifties. Nobody expects anybody to update bluegrass, why do we have our undies in a bunch?

i"m listening to john martyn's london conversation (1968), and trying to work out how i wd describe the story of what went on between ewan mcoll and belle and sebastien say, via b.jansch <=> j.martyn <=> n.drake, WITHOUT using the i-word (or "drawing on a range of styles from ragtime to blues to c&w to indian raga")

for the last three years, as some of you know, i've been a sub editor at cr*fts magazine, which is kind of UK Central for that sort of toopworld, arts-wise, with a big long aesthetic-political history to justify and protect its apparent quietism and actual separatism, going back to william morris (who kind of melded classic indie-think with a yen for hippie free-love communes)

the paper is millions and millions of records made and sold or cast away, the earth is millions of minds listening and thinking

haha i have decided the past doesn't exist

one of the tictacs = using sterl's word, "ethos", to explain what folk was/is/could have been between 1960 and 1975, say

i think i said ages past that replacing "is influenced by" by "believes in" wd produce better ideas

in any genre, there's the clash between (eg) luther's idea of xtianity and rome's idea, to work everything through (the institution in its pragmatism vs the rebel in his/her idealism)

Influence implies people relate to one another directly rather than to society?

"influence" implies everything, and only exists in the realm of magic

I have decided the same about the word "retro".

There is only one word with a definite meaning in the whole english language and that word is cobblestone!

meaning of cobblestone = "beneath me, the BEACH!!"

The Doors totally cobblestoned the Stooges then

WHOA there Tracer! That's an unfair paraphrasing of my statement. I did say clearly that I really like the stuff (Felix, Fischerspooner, Miss Kittin - all making great songs), and I have no problem with rehashes. I just feel like this stuff was already rehashed about 6 years ago (search the first Respect is Burning disc), and I can't understand why people think it's hip again.

I've been thinking about this and have a different idea; that a 303 and an 808 and a 909 and some analog synths now constitute an acceptable, *gulp*, Rock Band. In this case, obvious sonic innovation/experimentation is no longer an expectation.

''i"m listening to john martyn's london conversation (1968), and trying to work out how i wd describe the story of what went on between ewan mcoll and belle and sebastien say, via b.jansch <=> j.martyn <=> n.drake, WITHOUT using the i-word''

ha ha ha so mark s has used this word many times. he is trying to stop his addiction to that word and yet he kicks us in the kneecaps whenever other ILM-ers use it.

it's not hip, but people just THINK it's hip... ?? here's my take: it's popular = people have come up with some satisfying music and are performing it with some style and personality.

I've been thinking about this and have a different idea; that a 303 and an 808 and a 909 and some analog synths now constitute an acceptable, *gulp*, Rock Band

i am soooo ready for this, POINT ME TO THIS BAND!!!! and don't say Peaches because all her groovebox stuff is on minidisc at her shows, it's not live

In this case, obvious sonic innovation/experimentation is no longer an expectation.

yeah, like all those guys playing GUITARS couldn't possibly be innovative; I mean, their instruments are like 400 years old!

retro = realizing there's a idol worth killing

(still waiting for Tim Finney)

(don't worry I'm not going to kill you, Tim)

Tracer, please don't set me up for a fall like that. What are you waiting for exactly?

"retro - realizing that we came up with something worth saving?"

"retro = realizing there's a idol worth killing"

And of course these statements aren't necessarily antithetical (eg. "I killed my husband to save my family"). Nouveau electro has a certain pleasing disdain for the personalities and songs of the period it's modelling itself on, while focusing intensely on the trappings and superficial details. It's an "I can do that" move which necessarily removes pedestals, dethrones gods (a group like Fischerspooner are like the false idols we've been commanded not to worship). Like, the seeming fascination so many of these groups hold for Visage's "Fade To Gray" must surely stem from a recognition of Visage's fundamental ridiculousness - they as the least godlike of eighties groups thus shine through relatively untainted in the work of their modern-day counterparts.

Also: if there's such a thing as "future-retroism" (as opposed to "retro-futurism") it *must* be about obtaining the period-piece jacket by eviscerating the person who was formerly in it and allowing someone or something totally alien to try it on (eg. funk ==> hip hop, or funk ==> jungle, or disco ==> house, or garage rock ==> punk). This is why "Digital Love" is so good, probably.

see also: Girls On Top, whose bootlegs all express this idea better than I could.

Tim you couldn't fall if you tried. I just got impatient. Something about your jacket evisceration scheme, which is brilliant in this context I think, reminds me of "Thriller" by Michael Jackson, which I'm tempted to pull a Sterling with and say that it beats all nu- electro at its own game - dread complicated by feverish excitement - cold synth chugs complicated by warm bass-funk - but I'm probably just thinking of the video.

The Dirtbombs are a great example of retro-futurism. The sonics of the band aren't new and the songs they cover are deliberately out of fashion i.e. the new album is going to be all bubblegum covers, but the combination of the two is almost perverse in its novelty --> it's not just a statement about what's worth saving but on HOW we oughta save it: the Sally-let's- hold-hands sentiment of bubblegum, goes the Dirtbombs' argument, is an alibi for some pretty desperately howling urges and ugly instincts, and by using another strategy from the past - Troggs-type garage-rock moans and burning tempos - we're gonna show you this thing.

It's an aside from the thread subject, but that strikes me as about the most banal reading of bubblegum possible.

therefore the best, no?

No. The best is face-value.

Here's where I admit I've probably heard about 3 bubblegum songs in my whole life. To me it sounds like varsity-sweater parent-pleasing courtship music --> which is ALL ABOUT nasty urges by virtue of exclusion. What it turned away from - the seedier implications of rock n roll - is what it was most concerned with. What I imagine the Dirtbombs doing is wheeling the camera around and looking at precisely those areas where it pretended not to go.

Yeah but by that 'logic' why is rock n roll not secretly concerned with parent-pleasing varsity stuff? Judging bubblegum by rock'n'roll values/aesthetics is r*ck*st if anything is. Bubblegum is basically cash-in kids' music with a few dirty jokes in there - quite intentionally - to give the grown-ups a chuckle, and with generally great tunes (probably the attraction for the Dirtbombs). It doesn't need or really benefit from the American Beauty-style ooh-look- the-dark-side-of-conformity/suburbia treatment - for more proof check out the Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth book, about 300 pages of really tiresome "dark side of bubblegum" smugness and about 50 really terrific pages of unabashed enthusiasm, most notably by Peter Bagge.

And Chuck Eddy!

What if we were getting it more and more "right" with each passing year? What if we realized that the artifacts our culture is producing now actually answered people's needs (distraction, engagement, catharsis, contentment) much much more efficiently than they were thirty years ago or a hundred years ago? Would this conclusion -- and what it said about human needs -- make anyone happy?

"by that 'logic' why is rock n roll not secretly concerned with parent-pleasing varsity stuff" I think a lot of it is. I think G.G. Allin needed to please his mother, for instance, and became so frustrated when he couldn't that he crapped all over himself just to show her up. I mean there is very much a "discipline me please" aspect to the nastiest rock expressions. Not all though, by any stretch, and you're right that the Mendes-style show-the-dark-side points are easy to score and boring if that's the only point.

But this "you can't show the reverse" proof is the weaker part of your arg I think - I like better the idea that bubblegum is worth hearing and playing simply because it was enthusiastic and catchy. And there is something v. cool about desperate intentions bundled in a shiny package. I mentioned it because the Dirtbombs are bundling the shiny package in a fuzz-tone blast of desperate intentions, like a gift turned inside-out - "dragging the guts" of these two supposedly opposed modes through each other to signal what's worth saving/killing about each. (I'm talking about an album that hasn't come out which is itself covers of music I haven't heard so by mark s logic I can be completely rational about it :P)

hurrah!!

This would be lurvely Daddino because once catharsized and satisfied and distracted we could concentrate on important things like farting properly, but most of us are too obsessed with pretending to be complicated for this to ever happen

yeah, like all those guys playing GUITARS couldn't possibly be innovative; I mean, their instruments are like 400 years old!

C'mon Tracer, now you know that's not what I'm saying. I just mean that some of these synths/drum machines are as easy to identify as a Strat through a Marshall stack. The sound itself is familiar enough, but not necessarily what one does with it.

What if we realized that the artifacts our culture is producing now actually answered people's needs (distraction, engagement, catharsis, contentment) much much more efficiently than they were thirty years ago or a hundred years ago?

Yes, but back then all people needed was porridge and a blanket, and now they want iPods and PlayStations.

so we're disagreeing how?

(vaguely more seriously: I sympathize with this approach, but as Tracer has just idly referred to with his alias, I wonder about this being the best of all possible worlds)

(Ned my last post was in response to s. chow so eschew any implication on yrself) (for "farting properly" feel free to subsitute "ending poverty")

I posted before your one-line post which has turned prompted this followup post of yours that is prompting my post here and...

Stop being so retro, Ned.

Dammit!

Tracer, I sensed a trace of sarcasm and just wanted to assure you that I believe there's still interesting sounds coming out of guitars. It's just that some of these electroclash acts are using a TB-303 as if it were, like, 400 years old.

ok 

"And there is something v. cool about desperate intentions bundled in a shiny package. I mentioned it because the Dirtbombs are bundling the shiny package in a fuzz-tone blast of desperate intentions, like a gift turned inside-out - "dragging the guts" of these two supposedly opposed modes through each other to signal what's worth saving/killing about each."

"Dragging the guts" is an excellent way to put this - any attempt to mix ideas, genres etc. that doesn't at root contain an element of violence will be unsuccessful or , ahem, eclectic ("violence" of the "intentional stylistic" rather than the "resulting aural" sort). This is also the secret of the best bootlegs - maybe bootlegs are simply the more "efficient" form of stylistic crosses that artists and bands formerly made careers out of? (see also The Avalanches and 2 Many DJs - both projects rest on the conviction that there is something worth saving *and* killing at every turn, a strung together series of "desperate intentions")