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.

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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.

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