Category Archives: music

Thinking Through Literary Interconnectedness and Dissertation Format (Another Cheap Rehash: Sonic Nurse Album Review)

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Working through analysis, I had a (brief and fleeting) moment of clarity in terms of structure of the dissertation and the opportunity to strengthen a literary reading of critical instantiations of student agency within the community. And while I’m still wading knee-deep into this theory building component of my dissertation, I was reminded of a bit of theoretical interconnections dealing with velocity and knot-tying I’ve written about in the past. I long ago linked back to this review dealing with the fleeting nature of the thrill in hunting the white elephant in popular culture. Below, I wax lengthily on the historical context and timelessness found in the continued output of Sonic Youth. (Review now updated with relevant links! Huzzah!)

 

Sonic Youth

Sonic Nurse

Geffen

By Antero Garcia 

It would be a simple and rather enticing affair to don the ubiquitous role of the Magister Ludi and play the ever-important Glass Bead Game with Sonic Youth, labeling, connecting, imbuing the band with the inner workings of the universe. And, I think, to a certain extent, the members of the band want us to play the game, to tinge the world an ecto-green with the noise yr witnessing on each record. We can play connect the dots and build the elaborate, if still unseen, spider web of connections between the band and every breathing, living, existing object in the world. There is a familiarity in each moment of this album, how are we to connect it? And to whom?

Immediately the first track echoes the charging, dismal feeling of “Hyperstation” from the awe-instilling Trilogy off of Daydream Nation. The off kilter riff, akin to the Mighty Mouse theme, harks that yes, Sonic Youth – the Sonic Youth you grew up with and fell in love with music by, that same Sonic Youth that stands in the face of all things conventional, that trumpet the outside and the unknown – is truly here to save the day. The same riff which felt utterly banal and sardonically hopeless as the band utters “Smashed-up against a car at three a.m. Kids just up for basketball, beat me in my head,” is now elevated to true heroics. We’re talking life and death, friends lost forever, growing up, being serious, 9/11. And it’s all purred lovingly by Ms. Kim Gordon. That the song is titled “Pattern Recognition” only further emphasizes the deliberate mimicry of the band’s past output.

Though “Pattern Recognition” is the most blatant nod to SY’s massive discontinuity, that sense of renewed vigor, it seems clear that the band was thrown back 15-20 years into their past the day two planes were jettisoned into the World Trade Center, across the street from the band’s office on Murray Street. This, artistically, is a deconstructed rupture. Though this is most clearly harked to on 2002’s stunning return to form, the post-9/11 American exterior is still a lurking presence on Sonic Nurse. We are still bruised as we listen and tenderly traversing toward the new musical terrain as the band takes its time to sift through the ashes and rubble and see what it can salvage of itself, what needs to be reinvented. If Murrary Street finds the band lost, in dispossession of itself, Sonic Nurse finds the quartet offering solace, searching for amenities, shelter, regrowth. Theirs is a record of reassurance and rekindling. By no stretch of the imagination am I labeling this as “happy,” but there is a sense of coming to accepting the past, of filing the last three years in a nearby folder for constant reference. This too becomes part of the familiar and interconnected world, and we again envelope ourselves with the fictitious role in Herman Hesse’s novel: there he is, the Magister Ludi, sliding the small pebble – completely unvictoriously as the Glass Bead Game is not one of wining or losing, but of maintaining balance, of keeping the world in check – into its slot next to the WTC, next to New York, and, in their own sense, nest to patriotism.

“Dripping Dream” opens swathed in a sea of feedback, it’s umbilical cord still tied to the band’s Glenn Branca-ian  past while simultaneously sucking on the teat of Washing Machine. Soon kicking into a traditional – snare on the 2s and 4s – ditty, this is Sonic Youth in a comforting niche. Slightly off-kilter from the mainstream, these are our music’s grandparents. They show us how to do it, and they do it well. So many bands would do well to learn the lessons being preached in such a song. Wilco, The Jicks, …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Le Tigre, Yo La Tengo (who, with the husband/wife thing also going, have a lot in common with the charging forward band), Weird War, and dare I even look to more “upstanding” and “mainstream artists?” This is, perhaps, a good enough portrait to see just how far the tendrils of the band stretch, whom they have penetrated, which they claim as their own, and whom are thus in debt to the band.

Beads, beads, beads. The world is a series of knots, suggests one exhibit at the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Through Sonic Youth, we are reinterpreting, unraveling the ball of twine that distances you and I like frayed wire on the head of Shakespeare’s maiden. We are pulled apart, dissected, and labeled. We find identity in being separate, as alien as the concept may be.

The few disparate moments in Sonic Nurse, those that do not comply with the ethic of adhering to their past, the moments that feel unhinged from both the outside world and the insular warmth of Sonic Youth’s unseen omnipotence, fee almost like place holders for areas that are to be ventured in the future, placards that would read “coming soon” in the barren, cantankerous museum hall of our minds. Are you seeing the frayed ends of the devilish know? “Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream” (which made a previous appearance on a split record earlier this year as “Mariah Carey and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream” … damn those fat wallets protecting Mariah’s good name!) is about as far as the band is willing to venture into the SYR-avant-garde the band quietly, independently releases. And even hear is a chorus, a verse, amid cacophony and grating noise this is still, unmistakably, a “song.” We can’t let our little chicks deviate too far from us, can we? While we’re here, discussing the rise of the Kim Gordon who can sing in a way that is actually listenable (at last!) (for once!), why not throw in some connections with the neophytes like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Peaches. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind. We’re all connected in here somewhere. Are you unraveling this knot like I am?

“It’s later than it seems,” the band warns on “Paper Cup Exit,” a building and tense song that wryly dares to remake a song that’s already been made before… new ears are listening. We are writing our own ending here, one that is continuing to be rewritten on the fly as we thrust forward, and parry to the left. [The end is coming soon now. Can you feel it? You’ve earned it. But, before you reach the concluding words in this rather long, uneventful treatise, I want to offer a bit of a warning. I intend to end with a quote from Sonic Youth that is not lifted from their last album. It’s going to be from an earlier album, one some would say is their most popular, others would say their best. I’m going to do this because – can you not see it by now? – the past and present and future have all commingled within the terms of Sonic Nurse. To look back we reach forward. Redeconstructionism gentrified, courtesy of Geffen Records for the unassuming time travelers at Best Buy and Amoeba Music. When I make this quote, I can say with a certain degree of confidence, I’m still quoting the present; by quoting a record from the ‘80s, I am directly quoting Sonic Nurse. My apologies for the lengthy interruption. On with the show.] Remember our past, connect it to the future, and with a massive power chord that’s improvised on the fly in a tuning that no one has yet invented, blow it away; a discarded kiss to everybody and nobody: “It’s an anthem in a vacuum in a hyperstation, daydreaming days in a daydream nation.”

Rethinking “A Call For Change”: Examining Sara’s Criticism of Tyler, the Creator

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Violence? Check. Homophobic lyrics? Check. Potential for social transformation? Check.

Currently making buzz amongst music geeks is this rant from Sara of Tegan and Sara regarding the lack of criticism about Tyler, the Creator’s homophobic, sexist, violent, lyrics.

Two caveats before I move forward:

  1. I’m not an apologist for offensive lyrics. Frankly, much of the violence – specifically towards women – in the album is troubling for me to hear.
  2. When his crew is causing riots and generally rabble-rousing, I kind of doubt Tyler will get an Elton John to come to his rescue.

That being said, I have a hard time in general lambasting the content of most work for being “offensive.” It reeks of elitism to shy away the ideas, language practices, and recurring tropes of one genre or another. Yes, Tyler’s album may be more violent and more homophobic than most, but criticizing this album, is no different that writing off the bulk of mainstream hip-hop. It’s a problematic genre for critical analysis, but the same recurring ideas, concepts, and language is prevalent in other genres and even other mediums if only slightly more subdued. Just yesterday, Daye and I discussed the racist overtones of the noble savage in The Game of Thrones series. Does the fact that it’s a polished work on HBO adapted from a lauded book make it a more excusable exercise in reinforcing oppressive social norms?

About the lack of criticism of Tyler’s music, Sara writes, “I don’t think race or class actually has anything to do with his hateful message but has EVERYTHING to do with why everyone refuses to admonish him for that message.” Again, I think she’s off on this. Tyler is now the scapegoat for a larger lack of attention to the origins of violent lyrics that neither starts nor end with rap. Will I recommend my mother listen to Goblin? Of course not, just as she’s ceased to recommend I listen to Dave Koz.

Tyler is unapologetic about blaming an absentee father for much of his verbal aggression. Adolescent rejection, issues with authority, and witnessed violence in the community all present themselves throughout Tyler’s lyrics. In essence, his is a life lived as an urban youth. It’s a quintessentially American album that Tyler’s released and I can understand how that is something that will make a lot of people uncomfortable. How we move forward with an album like this is what is interesting to me. With each swear word, each image of misogyny, and each hyper-violent threat, Tyler invites us to imagine what steps are necessary to move this democratic experiment a step further towards equity.

Funnily enough, I was thinking about the rise of ODD FUTURE WOLF GANG KILL THEM ALL as another example of a Beautiful Dark Twisted Pedagogy. Within months, the group has gone from  obscurity to the subject of derision for mainstream artists, selling out concerts, and getting profiled and reviewed by the majority of music press. This article not only captures the essence of ODD FUTURE’s approach, but it also provides key points to take away from the music group’s entry into mainstream popularity. Educators, it would be great to think more critically about the group’s approach to the sharing of information and engagement with audience. [Related, the post’s author also published a really useful series of interviews that point toward ways to redefine education.]

 

P.S. Free Earl?

 

EDIT: After 12 hours being up, here’s a summary of  the searches that lead people to this blog:

2010 in Music and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Pedagogy

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I can’t say I would have anything entirely surprising in a top albums of 2010 list. You can tell when an album stays with you when your favorite song skips from one track to another until you-one moment-realize that you’ve had secret trysts with all of them; Lisbon and This is Happening both hold this distinction for me. Of these, Lisbon gets the slight edge over LCD Soundsystem if only for the stunning one two sucker punch of the closing tracks.

However, as much as these were my favorite releases, I feel that the year was one for Kanye. His album was justly heralded by critics and I think West and Co. masterfully marketed it in a way that educators should be paying close attention to.

For the greater part of 2010, Kanye West has been on my cultural radar. He’s done this deliberately and he’s done it in a way that’s made his presence, his performances, and his music something of a conversation with friends, students, and now—dear reader—with you.

By the time the album leaked, weeks before it’s official release, its music was anything but surprising – Kanye had already leaked the majority of the tracks as free downloads over the months – one song a week, featured others in a short film, and even given away the album’s bonus track. Deliberately, I was privy to Kanye’s thoughts, his music, and his oh-so-famous rants.

Musically, the album is an assemblage of the best of what Kanye has to offer without ever seeming like pastiche. The album’s two-track finale is the surprising highlight for me and I’m glad to see the playful exchange with Gil Scott-Heron that now continues across three albums.

Just as the album was finally released and the G.O.O.D. Friday series concluded, I finished reading New Literacies by Lankshear and Knobel. The book reinforced a bevy of literature I’d been reading through for my own research. Near the end, the authors discuss the internet proliferation of “memes” and what they can mean in terms of education.

Kanye’s every step in releasing the album, from ludicrous twitter messages to on-air blowups to banned album artwork meant that there was not a day that I couldn’t catch up with the latest in the Kanye-verse. In all of these Kanye has evolved the hip-hop mixtape to its proper 2.0 configuration: it is, too, an always-on amalgam of music, personality, and hype.

[Queue hip-hop for dummies paragraph:] The role of mixtapes is one that (as far as rap is concerned) dates back to the early days of hip-hop in the late ‘70s. Splicing together popular rap verses with unreleased hip-hop beats, mixtapes were underground commodities traded and sold by the aficionados within a somewhat exclusive subculture. Though it’s been years since mixtapes have actually been distributed as cassettes, the idea is still the same; otherwise unreleased or un-cleared samples are released non-commercially. Transitioning from tapes to CDs and now to direct Internet downloads, mixtapes have lately been co-opted by mainstream rappers to sustain interest between album releases. Lil’ Wayne, in particular, has benefited from a plethora of mix tape releases that have helped make him a popular rapper with both mainstream radio listeners and with online media consumers. No longer are mixtapes simply an extension of the listening experience for rap fans. Instead, they act as previews and major marketing ploys for rapper artists. Additionally, they may signal an artist’s credibility with rap fans.

But this is where the mixtape ends and Kanye deconstructs it; instead of the mishmash of 40-70 minutes of free music, Kanye slowly strings along track after track over months. Enticing the listener, responding and changing music as responses are blogged and status-updated. The silly mashup of unexpected artists that is typically reserved for mixtapes becomes a centerpiece for the album: indie darling Bon Iver’s lilting voice is paired earnestly with the hip-hop/club encounter on “Lost in the World”.

The pervasive nature of Kanye’s approach to marketing My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is something educators can lift. How can we deconstruct classroom pedagogy to move beyond traditional application of emergent technologies? Is it really the best we can do to simply duplicate textbooks and textbook practices when equipping students with iPads and mobile devices? Screen reduced to nothing more than digital page? And what about the continuous nature of Kanye’s approach? His persistence and personality are what helped transfer knowledge, interest, and passion for his work. How can this 2.0 approach be adopted for classroom use?

Listening to Zaireeka: Participation, Learning, and Community Engagement

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Sep 16, 2010

I was munching on a sandwich at one of my favorite local eateries reflecting on the random small accomplishments we often make during our off-track or vacation time. For some finishing recording an album, an early start on lesson planning, perhaps housecleaning long postponed. For me, I’m basically entrenched in pages of dissertation proposal writing. However, that hadn’t stopped me from setting goals regarding trying new cooking recipes, sketching out more time for creative writing, and making a dent in the to-read book heap (that continues, to this day, to grow like the weeds and wildflowers that pester the hedges and front garden of my apartment – perhaps another domestic area that should be added to the list of goals for the remaining month and change). In any case I realized there is something else I want do: I want to listen to an album.

No, not any album mind you – I mean I’ve got plenty to choose from (too many, depending on whom you ask). Specifically, I realized I wanted to listen to Zaireeka.

Released in 1997 by the Flaming Lips, Zaireeka is a four CD album – no, it’s not some epic prog-rock behemoth that goes on for hours. Instead of playing the four discs consecutively, Zaireeka requires – at least to be heard “properly” –  for all of the disks to be played concurrently. This, for several obvious reasons poses a considerable challenge. For starters, I don’t actually own four separate CD players (fine, with a couple of laptops, I suppose I do, but who wants to listen to the album through paltry computer speakers?). Secondly, the act of trying to sync and play four CDs simultaneously isn’t the easiest skill to muster.

To be clear, I think these challenges are my favorite part about the album. Since first purchasing my copy around a decade ago, I’ve only listened to the album twice. Yes, there are mixed-down versions pirated and readily available for download, but that defeats the experience – defeats the very idea – of Zaireeka.

Listening to the album becomes an event. Like today’s remix culture in which the lines of consumption and production are reversed, flipped, thrown out the window, Zaireeka predicts the relationship between artist and fan years before the (problematic) phrase “Web 2.0” ever traipsed out of Tim O’Reilly’s lips. At the same time, the conveniences of new media that make remixing and social interaction so easy for most today are utterly beyond the unwieldy challenge of playing four CDs together. You can’t listen to Zaireeka easily by yourself – you can’t slip on headphones and add it to your favorite playlist as you drive to work, shuffle around the grocery store, or walk the dog. It is a community event, one that is to be experienced as a group, even more so than a concert.

Having dinner with a friend recently, she mentioned the sense of feeling alone in a concert. Zaireeka is the frame for establishing and creating a non-digital social network; it is a network where participation and interaction is key. We laugh, nod along, and giggle at the odd noises and melodies that Wayne Coyne and co. enact with us.

I also like the notion that the process of participating with the album can utterly and beautifully fail. I remember on the two occasions I’ve tried listening to the album the numerous false starts and failed attempts to get the discs to correctly sync. It was a learning process and one that was bolstered by the shared interest in making the album “work.” The Flaming Lips were counting on us, after all.

Shortly after setting my sites on setting up a listening party for the near future, I found out that the 33 1/3 book series published a small tome on the landmark album. The book is a fun description and contextualization of the book. Like this post’s musings on the album, little groundbreaking revelation is offered about the album, but for fans of the Lips, it’s a text I found entertaining. The author, Mark Richardson, points out that recording for Zaireeka coincided with production for the critically lauded Soft Bulletin. Opening with the sweeping orchestrations describing “Two scientists […] racing for the good of all mankind,” the album’s hopeful exuberance captures best the delicate and boisterous act of becoming a co-creator and acting out another performance of Zaireeka.

Optimum Conditions

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This is from the booklet of the new Gil Scott-Heron album, which I recommend (though I realize buying CDs kinda puts me in the minority these days):

There is a proper procedure for taking advantage of any investment.

Music, for example. Buying a CD is an investment.

To get the maximum you must

LISTEN TO IT FOR THE FIRST TIME UNDER OPTIMUM CONDITIONS.

Not in your car or on a portable player through a headset.

Take it home.

Get rid of all distractions, (even her or him).

Turn off your cell phone.

Turn off everything that rings or beeps or rattles or whistles.

Make yourself comfortable.

Play your CD.

LISTEN all the way through.

Think about what you got.

Think about who would appreciate this investment.

Decide if there is someone to share this with.

Turn it on again.

Enjoy Yourself.

Gil Scott-Heron

The title track, a cover of a (smog) song, comes across differently after having read this.

The situated moment, the connection with the music as an object (like my current studies of information as a thing), and the duality of music as both individual and collective experience point toward the ways I hope learning can create kinship, enrich identity, reify space as a fluid negotiation. Perhaps music, like dancing and photography, can become a totem of student agency. A totem of a mutual agreement to do away with the hegemonic “rings or beeps or rattles or whistles.”  What will make our students want to “turn it on again” when the CD player clicks itself back to its point of origin and we are returned to our uncontested space? What will it take to feel transformed in this space? To feel “new here, again”?

Words Read & Melodies Hummed

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[because one of my more neurotic routines is that I keep a small notebook with the books I’ve read arranged by date.]

Books read in 2009: 91
Comics and graphic novels included in reading total: 12
Books of poetry included in reading total: 5
Books reread included in reading total: 6
Education related books included in reading total: 28
“YA” books included in reading total: 7

Clearly, a significant chunk of the books I read this year were related to school and to school. The thing about grad school is that there are often a whole bunch of articles and papers I’ve read that aren’t reflected on this list (they become part of the collective flotsam that is my EndNote library – itself another haphazard list of materials read). Why do I keep such a list? Most practically, because I’ve come to accept that I have a terrible memory: flipping through the notebook, there are several titles I don’t even remember (I read this? And this? Really?).
A few highlights in my year of reading:

As far as music goes, considering that I got this computer a third of the way through the year, my iTunes most played list serves as a useful indicator of what was what (how Squirrel Nut Zippers made it so high up the list is beyond me… though I think frequent use of the song to wind up Sadie may have something to do with it).

Looking Through You: The Beatles and Critical Pedagogy

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I’ve been in serious Beatles mode lately. You can chalk it up to the full court press marketing effort behind the recent remasters and Rock Band if you’d like.  In any case, as I have been re-listening through the discography, I’ve been drawn to some of the songwriting refrains that pop up now and then. Most explicitly, I’m excited by the way that I think the Beatles represent aspects of Critical Pedagogy within their catalogue.

I am pleased by the dialectical nature of many of the later Beatles songs. Though I don’t claim to be an expert on their songwriting practices, looking at the writing credits as well as post-Beatles albums, I’d attribute most of this trend to John Lennon. [While I’ll generally appreciate the patient, spiritual acceptance of circumstance that plods throughout George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass, I think that Lennon comes across as the more needed voice apropos critical pedagogy.]

The dialectic at the heart of many Beatles songs is one that finds discussion of differing viewpoints and a synthesis toward understanding and consensus. It is a deliberative process, if still imbued into the structure of a standard three-minute pop song.

Let’s look at “With a Little Help From My Friends” as an example:

Would you believe in a love at first sight?

Yes I’m certain that it happens all the time.

What do you see when you turn out the light?

I can’t tell you, but I know it’s mine.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends,

Mmm I get high with a little help from my friends,

Oh, I’m gonna try with a little help from my friends

That the song’s verse becomes a literal exchange between two voices demonstrates how dialogue helps move ideological bodies toward common visions, goals, understandings. It offers a problem-posing model of inquiry aligned with revolutionary pedagogical practice.

Similarly, “Hello Goodbye” finds the dialectic between opposing voices. The song is a one-sided take at the vexing process that often yields consensus. Talking with my advisor about the difficulties in determining content within my classroom, it’s clear that the dialectic between the “social justice” content and the necessary, “traditional” content is what’s at stake. A dialogue between these two, typically polarizing areas is the place for student exploration – the distance between the misunderstood “Goodbye” and the whimsical, portentous “Hello” is one that reflects this tension. Listen for the contradictory background vocals running throughout the second half of this song (“I say yes, but I may mean no” & “I can stay ‘til it’s time to go” as examples).

And again, while praise for the Beatles is not exactly in short supply – and yes there are those contrarians that downplay the influence of the Beatles or even claim that the Animals are their more preferred group (?!) – I think what I’m presently finding most interesting about the group is the way they embrace tension and conflict within songs. As I type, “Penny Lane” is playing in the background (I threw on The Magical Mystery Tour solely based on my ever-evolving fascination with “Your Mother Should Know”). What would have been a typical, plodding – and still highly successful – pop song is elevated by the inclusion of baroque instrumentation –a motif the Beatles would regularly revisit. The syrupy vocals of “Penny Lane” are thrown into discord by the unexpected French Horn. And then, later in the album, you hear the way the dialectic extends across time: “All You Need if Love” finds the Beatles reframing “She Loves You” and even Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” into a more contemporary vision of “love.” Likewise, “Glass Onion” on the White album revisits Lucy, the Walrus, and perpetuates the Paul is Dead hype.

I realize there are tomes and dissertations and academic gobbledygook that intellectualizes what the Beatles have done. And while most of this post may be cast-off as yet another example of academic navel gazing, I’m sincere in my efforts to point toward the pedagogical suggestions that Lennon and company are making; the revolutionary potential of the dialectic is one that can’t be downplayed here.

To conclude, I want to compare two statements. In “The Word,” the Beatles harmonize while singing, “Say the word and you’ll be free.” Similarly, Paulo Freire, in so many words explained that to name the word is to name the world. A literal change is made manifest through the power of literacy and the power of dialogue. I think it’s a vision shared by the Beatles and Freire and it’s a vision that we can share, together, as educators.

Adam Lambert: Change We Can Believe In

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[Note: this post is about pop music, network television and American Idol. I kept it rather short, but you’ve been warned.]

I realize this will only further fuel my friend Daye’s vitriol about that fact that I’m a “cultural dumpster.” However, I can’t say I’ve ever been excited about watching American Idol until this season. Adam Lambert and the falsetto that will destroy the world is the most interesting thing happening on prime time network television by a mile.

I’d also add that I’ve lately become Ann Powers’ number one fan as a result of her insightful Idol commentary (plus the fact that she was basically assigned to attended three Prince concerts on the same night seals her as one of the last great things left at the LAT). In any case, if you’re not going to take my word for the GLAMbert craze, at least read about “Why Adam Couldn’t Go Disco on Disco Night.” A great piece of writing that also sent me to the equally tremendous non-Idol performance of “Crazy” by Lambert.

I realize that a lot is being written (and not a whole lot being said by Adam) about his sexuality, but I find that way more refreshing than the typecasting of LGBT cast members on Survivor, the Amazing Race, and the Real World. While I realize there is a real election taking place in Los Angeles today, I will indeed be casting (numerous) votes toward change in pop music I can fully endorse.

[Here’s another take on the Idol showdown.]

Lastly, I kinda suspect that if Lambert pulls off the win after the votes are counted tomorrow (defeating the tween-backed Kris and his John Mayer-isms) there will be a not-so-select group of people wanting to dance and hug and celebrate in the streets like real change has come again and the voice of the people has spoken for the second time in about six months. I say that only half tongue in cheek.