Works Cited (Final Research Blog Project

Works Cited

Boyle, Kirk. "Reading the Dialectical Ontology of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou Against the Ontological Monism of Adaptation." Film-Philosophy 11.1 (2009). Online.

Lee, Steve S., and Richard A. Peterson. "Internet-based Virtual Music Scenes: The Case of P2 in Alt.Country Music." Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual. Nashville: Vanderbilt UP, 2004. 187-204. Print.

                 

Lysloff, Rene T. A. "Musical Life in Softcity: An Internet Ethnography." Music and Technoculture. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2003. Print.

Jetto, Beatrice “Music Blogs, Music Scenes, Subcultural Capital: Emerging Practices in Music Blogs.” New Media & Politics of Online Communities. Oxfordshire, UK: Inter-Disciplinary Press 2010. online

Ryan, John and Richard A. Peterson “Disembodied Muse: Music in the Internet Age” Society Online: the Internet in Context. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2004. Print.

Final Research Project Blog Post Announcement

Due to the structural limitations of Blogger, I have posted my Final Research Blog Post on a WordPress Site.

The link is right here:

http://themesandmemes.wordpress.com/

Note on Methodology (Final Research Blog Post)

As a quick methodological note, I am here using the ethnographic form to portray from the perspective of lifeaquaticblog.com how it articulates its aesthetic, and conceives of itself in relation to other virtual and non-virtual entities. It is true that the criticism of this approach could come in two major lines: one that lifeaquaticblog is not the exclusive purveyor of a similar musical aesthetic. To this criticism, I reply that such a notion is not only not important to the ethnographic perspective, but it also renders impossible any sort of scholarship concerning micro-trend blogs of any variety. Few blogs are able to be monopolistic, or exhaustively representative over their content domain. The second anticipated criticism is that the music and photography here can be looked at from an entirely different perspective, as embodying larger genre or meta-stylistic trends. To this criticsm, I suggest that the ethnography approach constitutes a more organic understanding of the blog, and perhaps could dispel some of the artificiality that comes with the causality of genre-labeling by culture broker

One of the problems that studying blogs of this sorts presents is the issue of finding a representative blog. It is true that many blogs are effectively second-wave blogs. What allows one to be first-wave is not always the same, whether its access to newly released music, curatorial prowess, a niche sound. There are lots of distinguishing factors. Nonetheless, I have attempted to avoid this question by focusing on one blog, and attempting to articulate the view from this blog looking out — at other blogs, at music, at people. It is from this perspective that I hope to have began in my thesis.

Finally, certain avenues had to be neglected due to space concerns. The most missed of these is a more thorough account of the different online resources (Soundcloud, Dropbox, Tumblr, Facebook, Twitter) that Life Aquatic uses.

Songs for Final Project (post under construction)

<object height="81" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F25283210&amp;show_comments=true&amp;auto_play=false&amp;color=d8ae8a"></param> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param> <embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="https://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F25283210&amp;show_comments=true&amp;auto_play=false&amp;color=d8ae8a" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object>   <span><a href="http://soundcloud.com/kyson/company-for-us">Company For us</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/kyson">Kyson</a></span>

A Musical Analysis of the LifeAquatic Aesthetic:

Everything seems to be evocative of something I faintly remember. The warm and faded color editing, the saturation, the alternating beach and forest themes, the off-angled framing of candid shots of women. Then comes the music, and we go synaesthetic. The washed-out filters, the ambient whirs, the gentle off-kilter beats, the time-worn vocal flourishes. I begin to be overwhelmed by the aesthetic.

Indeed, this aesthetic turns out to be remarkably robust in defining the music of the blog.  Not the music style is any way homogenous. In his thinking about the  “life aquatic music taste”, Beeler sees a rough spectrum. The left pole of the spectrum consists of music dominated by more ethereal impulses. These songs, while still largely with beats and are generally less hip-hop influenced. Often these songs garner adjectives like “soft”, “ambient”, “minimal”, or phrases like “sun-washed”, “washed out”. These songs depend on certain wash synths, and often samples for “ambient” and “atmospheric” textures. The sampling of water is a particularly common one. The following track is a prime example of the leftmost pole.

Photo

Photo

The right pole of the spectrum is the more hip-hop influenced work, that often features insistent hip-hop beats or faster-paced, more danceable beats (although these are almost always made off-kilter and slightly evocative.) as well as sexually evocative musical motifs like sensuous vocals, or prominent bass Often the use of vocal sampling, and production techniques such as sidechaining distinguish this end. It must remembered, however, that this spectrum is exceedingly rough and in many ways it can be difficult to decide where to place a song on it. 

 photo

photo

Beyond this spectrum, there are a variety of other sonic touchstones. The songs range in the intensity of the bass, with some of the song featuring assertive lead bass synths in either a slower more hip-hop fashion, or a more sped-up fashion, reminiscent of the “beat scene”. Indeed the chopped female (or male) vocals can appear all over the spectrum. Furthermore, there is great variation in tonality, and overall mood to the tracks. Compare, the sunny tropicalia revival of the Ruspo Capistrano track “Thank God…A Window! (from Sao Paulo) {consider more standard example} to the downright brooding of Galapagoose’s “Ploy”

Beeler’s role in lifeaquatic is of some interest.  Beeler, determines only a small fraction of the submissions, thus ensuring his role as both a protector/overseer of the aesthetic, and a quality overseer.  Ultimately, the blog itself must be filtered through Beeler. Then again, Jarred describes how his taste often diverges with the “life aquatic taste” and he is forced to limit posts to music that molds to that contour. In our interview, a track he dug, {name} he couldn’t post because it didn’t match the general aesthetic. This presents an interesting question about the ability of listeners to form to possess such a certain a priori formulation of genre, in that the aesthetic sensibility precedes the music itself.

  It should be noted that in now way does Beeler, express any proprietary feeling over the music. While he does appear to have some sort of status amongst Australian beatmakers (as well as international beatmakers), he recognizes that the “lifeaquatic music taste” transcends Lifeaquatic. This recognition is justified, seeing how other blogs are able to capture a similar aesthetic (although each with it’s own particular stamp defined by either the structure of the blog itself, or the taste of its curator). What makes lifeaquatic and its associates interesting is how these personal tastes can be magnified upwards and reified into becoming a disemboddied taste. Beatmakers who not know Beeler , often seek out the Lifeaquatic for their tracks because, as Beeler says, they "like my aesthetic".

{include link to the track}

Critical Review Set # 2/ # 4

Elijah Wald in “Polka Contrabandista: Mexican Ballads in a Modern Age” provides a neat introduction to norteña music, specifically the form known as the corrido. She provides first a musical introduction, tracing the genre lineage to a mix of Spanish-American musical forms and central European forms. He then tells the history of corrido, as it moved from its inception to its eulogizing role in the Mexican Revolution up until its initial drop in popularity at the hands of the bolero and romance. Nonetheless, his paper subsequently deals largely with the sudden resurgence of the corrido, and a special form known as the narcocorrido. She performs lyric analysis, discusses the origin of the most famous norteña acts, and ruminates on the nature of its folklore. A significant portion of the article deals with the cultural role of norteña currently. Wald argues that in this respect the form of the corrido functions (or at least sees itself) as both a newspaper and an arbiter of cultural legacy. This latter function is evidenced, Wald points out, by the way traficantes supply corrido writers with funding and details about themselves, in exchange for the immortalization of a good corrido. Wald concludes by noting that despite the moral hazard of its implicit condoning the drug trade, the corrido remains a remarkably resilient and culturally relevant musical form.

Elijah Wald makes an interesting point with regard to the popular attitude displayed in corridos. Towards the traficante heroes of narcocorridos, she writes that “unlike the big agricultural and industrial magnates, they come from the people and spend their money at home” (Wald 226), thus allowing them to be lionized despite the enormous costs of their profession. This juxtaposes sharply against the generally hostile emotions displayed towards fellow Mexicans who immigrated to the United States and found a modicum of financial success (exemplified in “La Jaula de Oro”, a norteña hit by Los Tigres del Norte). This seems to counter the charge that the corridos function like a newspaper, instead suggesting that they are more like nationalistic folk songs. Is this a valid observation?

Fieldnotes Set 2

Key Takeaway from Interview

           

-       The personal relationships between blogger

-       The way that Beeler conforms the music he selects around the “lifeaquatic” aesthetic

o   “straight up 9^th wonder…” clip from interview

-       The young age of the producers

o   “16 year old from Perth”

-       Interesting decision to import vinyl pressings from UK for releases

o   Is this dedication of some sort to the overall “aesthetic of the blog”

§  Pairing of mp3 downloads and vinyls is a direct reflection of the way the blogger conceives of the music.

-       The way that Beeler’s Australian posts are informed by a growing network of personal connections with musicians across Australia. (remarks about how the blog is becoming increasingly personal)

-       General thoughts about the categories of pictures

-       Questions answered:

o   1. Origin of the tracks

§  either put into a soundcloud dropbox or sent personally

·      tracks are either sent by artists bombing blogs indiscriminately or by artists who chose lifeaquatic specifically due to its “vibe” (importance of the phrase “vibe” as an organizing principle for the blog)

o   perhaps “vibe” is what unifies the auditory and visual aesthetic

o   2. Origin of the pictures

§  Beeler’s process: collect pictures on Flickr. Save good ones then scroll through and decide while listening to the track

-       Beeler’s thoughts on the musical spectrum:

o   Songs that range from ambient to more hip-hop inflected (this distance is mimicked by the themes of the picture

-       Inter-Australian blog network

o   Good friend runs East-West

o   Connections w/ international bloggers (No Pain in Pop in Berlin)

Analysing the Blog Descriptions

-       Aggregating 11 pages of blog descriptions

o   Most common words:

§  Track (113): the referring to the songs as tracks conveys perhaps a certain attitude to the music (evaluate this)

§  Musical Terms: Vocal (57), Beat (52), Sample (49), Synth (49), Bass (29)

§  EP (33), Release (29),

§  Adjectives: slow (24), gem (14), layered (13), heavy (12) hip (10), waves (12), Australian (10*- excluding references to Australia as a noun), delicate (10), soft (10), ambient (10), soul(10), playful (9), beautiful (9), thump (8), minimal (9), chrome (8)

§  Frequent descriptions of texture of sound to describe atmosphere. Synaesthetic adjectives conflate visual with sonic.

§  Most descriptions feature a description of the beat in atmosphere terms and the vocals. The beats are often described as idiosyncratic.

§   

-       Frequent references to Friendly blogs

-       Consistent referencing to other blogs when he gets a track from them

o   In this the blog is not aggressively proprietary over its tracks

Critical Review Set 2/ #3

Jorge Duany’s article “Popular Music in Puerto Rico: Toward an Anthropology of “Salsa” attempts to do precisely what is described in that it provides a coherent discussion of “Salsa” as an anthropological enterprise, looked at from a standpoint that takes into account divergent factors. In order to describe “salsa” Duany lays out in parallel fashion the many musical traditions that make genre, which while a more or less “hodgepodge” label at its inception, becomes due to the way it develops musically alongside certain historical conditions, namely the socio-economic demographics (working-class), disparate cultures, and migrations the people that produce it. Subsequently Duany explains the reasons why music is both culturally esteemed and the mechanisms by which “salsa” depicts and, in turn, informs Puerto Rican culture. On this note, Duany writes about how “Salsa” is used by Puerto Ricans, from New York to San Juan, as a means of coping with the harsh realities of an often economically marginalized existence.

            A brief question that merits being asked is whether there is soundness in the implicit assumption of Duany that the very music itself, in its musicality, mimics the social conditions it is produced in. Duany treats the proposition that the violent brass and fast-paced rhythm of Salsa is a direct byproduct, or at least a conscious homage, to the conditions of quotidian existence in working class barrios as axiomatic. Is this reasonable?

Critical Review of BBC Jungle Documentary

In its serialized documentary, All Black, BBC focuses in this episode on the development of early 1990’s jungle. To begin the documentary focuses on the musical roots of the genre, shedding light on how it developed both out of a black rejection of the largely white rave scene, and a re-embracing of Black British music forms including soul, dub, and even, as one interviewee suggests, Jazz. The documentary then highlights the geographical character of the music, the affordable technological explanation of its ascendancy and the Black British identity that the music cultivates. The methodology of the documentary is fairly straightforward featuring digested narration, video clips, and interviews with scholars, and people with different places in the Jungle Scene. Beyond the musical character, the documentary discusses Jungle’s relation to the mainstream, the character to the places where it’s played (radio and clubs), and the dynamics of the music.

On this note, the documentary discusses the taste making politics that go behind a track. One of the interviewees, an influential female Jungle DJ shows how the musicians, while often the producers of the tracks, rely on a set of DJs for radio exposure, and musical legitimacy in the eyes of the Jungle community. The DJs themselves are distinguished not by their ability to find records that anybody could get at a record store (as in other styles of DJing) but rather in their way to find home-pressed acetates and then establish stylistic (though not proprietary) ownership over the subsequent vinyl pressings. This gives each DJ a unique sound when they play live. Beyond intra-Jungle dynamics, there is the external politics of mainstream record labels and there relationship to Jungle. Many musicians, and for not unobvious reasons DJs, resent this encroachment fiercely and excluded “sell-out” Jungle artists from their pirate radio stations. Indeed many artists, stay with “independent” labels that promise better profit sharing, and complete artistic control. Finally the documentary traces from the bedroom scene of the music’s production, to his dealings with DJs for exposure, to his first live performance, the music of an upstart Jungle producer to exemplify the music’s progenitors.

All in all, it is a coherent, well-edited documentary and a more than adequate introduction to Jungle. Furthermore, it presents a couple neat discussion questions. On the question of race in Jungle, present is an interesting set of contradiction. Jungle, historically and musically, is about Black identity. It simultaneously owns this characterization and espouses the ability to transcend race in Britain amongst urban youth. The success of this double allegiance does not seem to be settled question. Nonetheless, one can also consider whether the dichotomy is even relevant. An interesting contrast to buttress this doubt is found in how the “ independent label” was owned by a white Brit, while the A&R of EMI Records, the major label trying to bring Jungle artists into their fold, was represented by a black woman.

Critical Review Set 2/Review 2

In his article “Drum n’Dhol: British Bhangra Music and South Asian Identity formation”, Raijinder Dudrah presents an interesting account of Bhangra. After laying out a brief historiography of the different accounts given by academics on the ascendance and character of British Bhangra, Dudrah lays out his thesis and methodology. He seeks to answer primarily three questions, namely how British Bhangra is used to formulate the “South Asian” identity in contemporary UK, how listeners negotiate often culturally dissonant conservative lyrics, and finally how Bhangra is used as a conduit for and obstacle to intergenerational connection. To do this Dudrah relies slightly on academic work but largely interviews with participants of the Bhangra Beat scene. Furthermore he does a textual analysis of lyrics to gain more insight into how expressed lyrical sentiments match up to the cultural values of listeners, and if not, how this gap is dealt with.

A question arises. Dudrah describes the traditional account of the ascendance of Bhangra that claims that 2^nd generation British Bhangra musicians naturally incorporated dub, hip-hop and British black music through technological mediums into the sound. This account makes the invention of “Bhangra beat” seem almost historically inevitable. It seems that there is a broad pattern of second-generation music, notably in Diasporic cultures, incorporating music. Is this mainly a function of the way in which the technology of music production itself intrinsically leads towards this, is it a characteristic function of Diaspora music-making, or is it a genuine innovation?

Critical Review Set 2- # 1

Musicologist Les Back in the 8^th chapter, “Inglan, Nice Up! Black Music, Autonomy, and Cultural Intermezzo”, of his book Racism and Working Class Leisure attempts to map out how due to certain patterns of racial exclusion, different leisure traditions, specifically within the realm of music, have arisen. The first section of the chapter focuses on the rise of the “Sound System” amongst Afro-Caribbean immigrant populations (largely Jamaicans). Back explains the nature of the scene, the practical exigencies that were met in its birth, its dynamic social character, the way it incorporates a more broad worldview already saddled with socio-cultural and political compromises and the way in which it in turn influences these. Back then switches focuses abruptly to write about the rise of the South Asian music scene through its representative music, Bhangra. Using a similar ethnographic methodology, Back charts the dynamics of Bhangra and the cultural allegiances it engenders. Back makes a point of hitting all the standard notes for this sort of ethnomusicological writing by addressing the interplay of the music and gender, the socio-economics of the musical production, and the marginalization of his protagonists. Finally Back briefly touches on the rise of Jungle, and certain musicians, that meld the music of both the South Asian traditions and the earlier "Sound System" dub. Back’s chapter suffers from a lack of focus both in its structure and its distracted nature. Sometimes Back gets caught proffering certain musicological buzzwords without really justifying his usage. In this way, the chapter’s thesis is all but clear.

Interview with Jarred of LifeAquatic

Houston: …What is the process for getting these tracks are you finding them or people submitting them. How does that work?

Jarred: It’s a bit of both. I get them mostly submitted on Soundcloud via Dropbox. They’ll drop a track in there and I’ll check it out. Other ways include following artists on Soundcloud. Soundcloud is the best way right now for finding music. It’s the most dynamic platform out there.

The blog started as a Tumblr?

I have my own URL but it’s still hosted on Tumblr but I’m still followable on Tumblr. It’s a really good thing. Pretty handy.

Do you feel like the people who are dropping these tracks in your Soundcloud, Are they wanting to get their track on life aquatic, or are they friends? I noticed half of the artists you post about are Australian. What is your thought on that?

It’s a bit of all that. Most of my submissions are artists flooding blogs with music.  Other ones, the best ones, will search out blogs they dig seek out blogs they dig. They’ll like the aesthetic on it so they’ll ask me to post one. Now, the last 9 months or so I’ve been hanging out with mostly Sydney-based, and Australian artists. I’ve been to Melbourne a few times and hung out with some Melbourne guys. A lot of friends will drop me their tracks. It’s been good that way. It’s becoming more personal.

I noticed you have a label you’re starting. What’s the deal with that?

I started about a year ago but I haven’t done much with that. I released one Melbourne kid, a 16-year-old guy. We released it on 7-inch vinyl. It’s just a friend of mine and I who do it. We get them pressed in the UK and then we shipped to Australia. There is no actual vinyl press in Australia.

Would you say, in terms of the music, there seems to be a certain zeitgeist-heavy style of music? You can’t say what genre it is. You could start from Post-Dubstep and go down. At the same time it’s cohesive and has a certain aesthetic.

It’s less genre-based and more atmosphere-based. I am conscious of that now, how I choose music to post on it to fit into a certain vibe. It’s not like this my entire taste of music; it’s the life aquatic taste in music. I’ll search out tracks to suit out that style. It’s a chicken and egg thing, I don’t know which came first.

Obvious question, the name, does it have anything to do with the movie?

Yeaaaa. It sorta does. I couldn’t find a name to start it. I think I just watched life aquatic for the 6^th time or something. It’s pretty boring, I was pretty upset about. Afterwards When I first started getting hits to the website, I was like “aw shit, I should have chosen something a bit more original”. Something a bit less sue-able. Oh well, I guess it works to the mood.

Amazing movie.

I would like to get Bill Murray to do a guest mix. That’d be a dream of mine. I should send some emails out to people.

---

On the pictures, I noticed that you linked to the photos. You can go straight to the flickr. Are you personally going and finding these pictures/

I hit up some tags on Flickr and find the photos that fit the blog mood.

I’ll have this huge pile of favorites. When I’m listening to the track I’ll flick through and find one that fits it nicely.

I find that an interesting thing with is that in souls sampling tracks or hip-hop tracks, I’ll generally find pictures of pretty women. That’s just what I generally associate with hip-hop. Just swag. I find myself doing that.

You’ve got the hip-hop inflected tracks.  It seems there is another side to that spectrum, the more ambient tracks. Is that fair?

I just have a soft spot for instrumental hip-hop. I was about to wack up something before. It’s this artist from the UK called Handbook. I don’t know if you’re familiar with his beats but it’s some downright Ninth Wonder Stuff. It doesn’t really fit the blog but I might put it up anyway.

So it happens that sometimes you like a track but can’t put it on the blog?

Oh yeah, all the time, definitely.

Catharsis Beneath the Competition

Everyone expects a catharsis at these things. The faces read expectation and the bodies read suspense. The lead singer, accompanied by a euphoric “wall of sound” is working up the scale to the climactic high note, his signature falsetto. Everyone knows this particular note and is waiting to hear it because they have heard the record too. This new record, Burst Apart, is the ostensible occasion for the appearance of the band, The Antlers, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on this downcast Tuesday evening.  The singer, Peter Silberman, donning a bicep accentuating, epaulette shirt and an oblique haircut likely culled from a jazz age mugshot is ready. Without hesitation, he achieves the sustaining note. In this moment, the crowd reaction in the crowd is evident and three-tiered. First is the impressiveness, the recognizing the record had not deceived them in their expectations. Second was crowd scanning for the reactions of other in the crowd. Third, and finally, if the sustained wail had not ceased yet, was the catharsis, the romantic and actualized moment in which place could be phantasmagoric. The faces lose their edge, the postures fade, and the crowd, for a brief second, if that, is left in awe.

            I arrive at the venue early only to wait on a damp patio with all the other overly eager concertgoers, impatiently killing time on their phones or offering speculative set list chatter (for those more knowledgeable fans) to their friends. Nobody talks to people who had not obviously come to the venue with them. In this way, there does not appear to be the slightest semblance of a regular community of attendees at the show.

The venue is a recently renovated warehouse with immaculate wood floors, several bars, clean lighting, and colorful realist portraits of legendary bluesmen Howlin’ Wolf. The feel is definitively sanitizing in a distracting way that makes the venue seem completely indistinctive to the area. Indeed, the tone for the disorienting sense of place of the show is set by the sensation of arriving in Pawtucket on public bus. The three sets of Caucasian students coming to The Met juxtaposed harshly against the largely Black and Hispanic population of the bus.

I ask around on the line into the show and among the early arrivers. Everyone is there to see the band. Possible explanations of this include the relatively steep price discount, and the distant venue.  I meet several groups in the audience. There is a group of twenty-somethings who came to “see the Antlers before they blow up”. There is a group of college students that respond to my question with suspicious body language, indicating a sort pre-emptive establishment of their authority to be in this place. One replies, “I saw this band when they played a small little venue by where I live and they put on a great show. I chilled with the lead singer. Nice guy.”

The audience is now congregated around the stage. The more aggressive members have secured their spot closer to the front. I meet a Brown University student, wearing straight-cut jeans, clunky sneakers. He makes it clear that he is here for the music by proudly displaying his shirt emblazoned with the name of the opening band, Yellow Ostrich. “I saw these guys a while ago, and loved their stuff,” he volunteers, “I came for them more than the Antlers.” Several audience members see his shirt and gesture derisively.

Shortly after, Yellow Ostrich takes the stage. The band is anchored by a lanky and youthful guitarist with shaggy brown hair wearing black Levi’s and a loose flannel shirt. The drummer is wearing a simple button-down, with self-cropped shorts. The bassist is notably older and wearing clunky boots, roomy jeans and a black t-shirt. Their songs are short and relatively homogenous, notably featuring identical mid-song breakdowns. The lyrics center around slightly personalized “you-subject” clichés. The guitarist-singer sings proudly but with a self-aware gaze. Meanwhile, the drummer is clean and upbeat in his playing, driving the songs with ample floor-tom drumming. The audience displays a blend of apathy, and respectful curiosity, customary to a modern indie-rock performance, a genre and musical-cultural milieu in which both bands squarely fit into. During the more upbeat numbers, there is an upsurge in interest as manifested in attentive looks especially from the females of the crowd.  Females constitute roughly a fifth of the now 150 attendees. At no point does the rampant texting decline. There is a noticeable amount of filming of the songs on IPhones, indeed to the point where several attendees make no direct look at the performance.

After forty minutes their set is over, and the band migrates over to the door to work their “merch table.” This maneuver establishes the band as approachable and therefore properly within the confines of indie rock conduct of non-fame. During the setbreak, I talk with some crowd members. A student at Providence College tells me that the band was decent but reminded him of a combination of several more known acts, or a “derivative version of Vampire Weekend and Spoon”.

Twenty minutes later, after ample technical set-up, The Antlers casually take the stage. All are wearing well-fitted outfits with boots, skinny jeans, and tight-fitting plaid shirts. All feature a similar hairstyle, although the keys player takes it to its extreme, with bangs at a length that require him to rescue his vision thrice a minute with a pronounced hair flip. The band begins with a more unsettling number, and continues a set peppered with a mix of songs deliberately ordered to offer an arc in mood.

The audience listens intently, indeed texting is down and no one talks during the songs or between the songs. Indeed, the extreme quiet between numbers is a source of awkward tension noticeable amidst the entire crowd until towards the end when Silberman makes a joke about it in his banter. The dancing comes in a range, from passive listening with empty facial expressions to exaggerated head nods, almost flailing, indicating a visceral receiving of the music. The musicians themselves move distinctly, with the keys player bobbing similar to a DJ might, while the auxiliary guitarist rocks, in the literal sense, his guitar violently at climactic moments.

The music ranges in tone but the hallmarks are found in the confessional tone and lyrics, the use of long melodic climaxes, lethargic but steady drumming, and ubiquitous use of the “wall of sound” technique to add auditory grandeur.

After an hour, the band breaks briefly and comes back to the approximately 300-person crowd for an encore. Running a little long, the crowd is visibly worn down by the end of the show. Nonetheless, this weariness juxtaposes against a steady stream of superlative declarations about the performance ranging from “what a transcendent experience” to “that sounded dope”.

The performance, in many ways, seems to anchor around the paradoxical tendencies of the audience members to bring certain cultural expectations about the cathartic nature of the music, with the exclusionary realm of attempting to establish one’s legitimacy in a setting where knowledge of, or even the production of the music itself, of the music is seen as indicative of subcultural capital. Throughout the show, many male concertgoers gave the impression that they seemed to accept the music as a meaningful enterprise only so far as to maintain it as a vehicle for their own theoretical advantage. They saw themselves on the stage, and the fashion of the bands matching the crowd encouraged this belief. Many crowd members, directly enquired into the specific gear used by the bands. Comments such as the earlier remark about “derivative” bands, illustrate a proclivity to marginalize the originality of the onstage performers. It is my analysis that this intense desire to be the performer of these romantically emotive songs with tender lyrics, and searing falsettos is to desire to situate oneself as the romantic center of attention of the room. Indeed the lavish attention poured onto to Silberman and the keyboardist, confirms this. Many of the audience members, in more tender moments, noticeably looked around the crowd for enrapt facial expressions. The lack of any evident community encouraged this notion. At no point in the show are the conventions about personal space broken or conversations among strangers abundant. Nonetheless, evidenced by the superlative commenting, and the momentarily rapt faces, it seems that beneath the certain audience ego, there is a real connection to the music. Beneath the fashion aesthetics, people are moved and it is conceivable that it is for this sensation that people are indeed drawn to these shows.

Word Count: 1,429

           

Critical Review Set 1 / # 4 (5)

Andes sets out to elaborate on the process of commitment, or the bridge that has, “linked the macro level of social structure and culture to the individual,” as it pertains to youth cultures (Andes, 213). First she establishes that commitment has several dimensions in that it can vary across time and between individuals. To examine this notion, she chooses to focus specifically on “Punk” subculture as her case study. To do this, Andes carries out an ethnographic detailing of  “Punk” with various affiliates, of the culture who while not wholly emblematic, are in some ways demonstrative certain characteristics of it. By interviewing a host of people at different points in their punk careers, Andes is able to derive a generalized trajectory of the punk career, it’s different stages, and each stages different version of subcultural commitment.

While detailing her research methodologies, Andes mentions that she did not interview pre-adolescent punks. This maneuver she takes as self-evidently ethical. I must say, that this limitation seems overly timid. It seems that many ethnographers tow this line of extreme sensitivity to their subjects. Is it possible that in this delicate approach the scholarship is diminished?

Critical Review # 4(3) - Set 1

In her chapter of Music Scenes, “ ‘Tween Scene’: Resistance Within the Mainstream”, Melanie Lowe posits architects a thesis around the meaning, more accurately the social construction of meaning, involved with Tween Pop music and scene. She looked at here exclusively as it is listened to by young teen girls and organizes an ethnographic research opportunity to study the way these girls view the music themselves in relation to its content and image. Lowe details her methodology quite thoroughly and is careful to establish the influence of her role as an observer, and conversational participant in a self-reflexive way.

            Low offers a well-constructed analysis of the feminist elements of these girls’ approach to the music. Through analyzing the way these girls talked about the sexualized lyrics, and gaining insight into their values, Lowe realizes that Tween Pop plays a unique role. Lowe writes that girls can “, explore their own budding sexuality while protected from actually “meaning it” by the guise of derision”. (94) This role is that it allows these girls to operates with a sort of pre-emptive ironic reflexivity. Lowe provides examples of a feminist consciousness genuinely felt by these girls and shows how they rectify this allegiance with the hyper-sexualized discourse they feel the need to participate in as exemplified by the prevalent use of  “slut” and related epithets. Indeed Lowe’s success in the article comes through the way, she is able to sense tease out these conflicting lines of thought in the discussions she had.

            As food for thought, I would like to ask the class whether there exists an equivalent space for boys. Is there a place wherein young males are able to engage in self-defensive ironic behavior while simultaneously exploring what they mock? Furthermore, is there a culture for youth at this age that does not encourage young children to divide into their own genders?

           

Fieldnotes - Set 1

Fieldnotes on Lifeaquatic.blogspot

I’m assuming blog takes it’s name directly from the Wes Anderson film, The Life Aquatic feat. Steve Zissou

- is this an aesthetic borrowing? Elements in both saturation/nostalgic color editing, evocative of half-existing places, appeals to a similar subcultural sensibility

- what does the underwater aesthetic of the title have to do with the music?

Major themes/Questions:

1.the way in which aesthetic is converted into music/defines the music (reflexivity between aesthetic and music)?

2. How does this blog conceive of itself and its role in relation to a larger blogosphere/online community?

3. Is a blog as virtual and placeless as it might seem?

Formal Aspects

- What vocabulary is used in the blog descriptions?

- Words/themes/aesthetics that come up often in description?

- What level of technical description is necessary for the blog?

- Common technical words: 808s,

- What is the way in which the site seeks to incorporate other music sites/communities (bandcamp, soundcloud, etc…)

- What level blog is life aquatic?:

- What size is the readership?

- Which blogs follow life aquatic? Which blogs does life aquatic follow? (*How does the blog incorporate it’s twitter presence?)

- How close to the bedroom are the producers?

- Are the AU producers more small-scale than the foreigners?

- What is relationship between Life aquatic’s fledging label and it’s music? (Is the self-conception of life aquatic something beyond a simple tumblr-blog)

- Interesting point: do the labels anchor the the blog down to a certain place (the labels tend to be geographically centered e.g. mine is mine records)

- Is the tumblr-style & host an issue of convenience or aesthetic?

- How does this aesthetic take hold?

- Observation: sometimes Beeler seems to impose photos on work that already has different artwork on the band/artist’s bandcamp

- What is the history of this aesthetic?

- Is the blog meant to give legitimacy/attention to the local beat community (how wide is the net of this community (Sydney? New South Wales? Australia? Oceania?)

- Cities in Australia:

Melbourne (Andras Fox, flashforest), Sydney, Adelaide (Slamagotchi), Sydney burbs, Perth (Maxxy Bills, The Blank, Taku), New Zealand (Ben Jamin), Canberra (One Talk)

- Observation: beatmakers outside of Australia usually don’t have their location mentioned in posts (exceptions to places of wider beat note, established electronic music presences/histories/lores etc… (e.g. Berlin, Brooklyn, UK)

- Point: lifeaquatic plays an interesting role in asserting the musical space of Australia (+ NZ, Tasmania) into a larger context

On the music?

- What musical motifs are most present?

o Ideas: wash synths, chopped female vocals, field recordings, vinyl haze/fuzz , fading, off-kilter beats, euphoric repitition, slight flaws/glitches

- What disparate musical elements are combined in the blog?

- What tropes are being refererred to?

- Is there an attempt to explicitly mimic/riff on/emulate/improve certain artists?

- Panda bear, J Dilla, post-dubstep,

- Anti-Downtempo? A more personalized, affecting downtempo (off-kilter beats as opposed to precision breakbeats)

- What is the process of curation for the blog and how does this relate to the maintenance of the blog aesthetic/cohesion? (Discuss with Jarred)

- What more established bands are referenced in other descriptions?

- Mount Kimbie, Washed Out

- To what degree does the blog attempt to give the music submissions genres?

- Is this a necessary organization tool?

- Are artists making their music with the blog aesthetic in mind or does lifeaquatic seek them out (questions of directionality, reflexivity)?

- What is the age/demographic/location of these music makers?

- Several instances of younger beatmakers (16 years old)

- What is the process by which one finds out about the blog and submits their music (via soundcloud, megafire, dropbox, email, etc…)?

-Some look to have been sought out or heard about then posted (this distinction is not made explicit by Jarred on the blog)

- What is the role of the blog in music distribution?

-Note: every single post has free downloadle MP3 (hosted on site)

Most posts have links to either downloadable bandcamp albums (majority cost the price of an email), or otherwise megafire mixtapes, soundcloud sets, etc…

- What is the role of remixing on these blogs? How much emphasis is placed on the intra-artist referencing?

o Does remixing the other artists have an impact on creating cohesion in the scene or is this nonsense?

Guerre // See The Birds (Albatross Remix) ( June 10, 2011)

Slamagotchi + Panorama + Galapagoose // Sleeping Pill

-announces a Galapagoose show (info on facebook)

Research Methodology Brainstorm:

1. Direct contact of life aquatic people

a. Jared Beeler

Contact: email or facebook

2. Thorough website analysis

A. d notion: thorough extensive categorization of “Friends”

-goal: create blog-spatial profile of Life Aquatic Blog

B.. notion: investigate comments

- see who is posting (other musicians, frequent readers, both, etc…), what they are commenting about (which tracks are praised, what is the tone of the dialogue, technical jargon, vocabulary used to indicate approval/censure?)

C. notion: collect all post description & analyze

- run through word aggregator to pick out recurring ideas

D. notion: Photographic analysis of photos

- collect information and categorize different elements of aesthetics in each photo

· type of filter: warm, saturated, (Eggleston?), “hipstamatic” canon

- meant to evoke nostalgia?

· content of photo:

- barren landscapes, semi-notable landscapes, bedrooms, women (unsexualized & sexualized), Architecture (uninspiring tableaux), lagoons, smoking (kept to a minimal), obscured & obliqued shots, land-water points (beaches, docks, coves, ponds), underwater shots, making out, ostensibly nothing, people gazing, Francis Bacon style facial warping, fetishized relics & household items (mooseheads, tool walls), balloons, low-key party residue, people-less road trip shots, airplane shots (views from the wing), chandeliers, snow, skies, thighs, palm trees,

· connection between mood of photo & music

· notably absent: bold ironic statements, aggressive/upsetting subjects/tones

3. The Ethnographic Element

a. Questions: How to gain an insider perspective into this online community

i. Is it necessary to access as a musicmaker

ii. Participate by commenting, reposting, etc… through multiple means (site, fbook, twitter, bandcamp)

iii. Interviews (moreso discussions) with Jared Beeler, immediate circle of blog friends, contributors

iv. Music listening (further hashed out in # 4)

4. Listening to the music

a. What approach should I take to listening to the music (listen to whole catalogue?)

b. Establish a definitive list of musical motifs and repetitive instruments