punk-rock dads in suburbia: reflections on “The Other F Word”
I’m still thinking about “The Other F Word,” Andrea Nevins’ new documentary about punk rock musicians who became fathers, since I saw it a week and a half ago at the Woodstock Film Festival. Featuring the dads who play in Pennywise, NOFX, Blink 182, Rancid, Bad Religion, Black Flag, Rise Against, U.S. Bombs, and Fear (represented by...
utopia sound: Todd Rundgren’s Woodstock
Awhile back, I argued that Woodstock—at once a place, a culture/nostalgia industry, and a sensibility—exerts a tremendous hold on geographical self-imaginary of the surrounding Hudson River Valley in which it’s located (and where I live). To pry back the myth of Woodstock a bit, I’ll occasionally share some historical research on Woodstock’s musical geography. In this...
Pitchfork urbanism
The award for Fun Read of the Week goes to “On Pitchfork,” Richard Beck’s smart, caustic review of indie rock’s überblog Pitchfork. You can’t find this lengthy essay anywhere but the latest issue of n+1, an NYC-based journal of politics, literature and culture, and yeah it’s worth the $10 PDF download. (The issue also features a...
why I’m not listening to music to commemorate 9/11
Three days from now, many of us will spend some time remembering where we were and what we were doing on that day ten years earlier. I remember learning that two planes had crashed into New York City’s World Trade Center at a morning department meeting, then passing on the news to my 10:30 am...
what’s local? a review of “The Dears: Lost in the Plot” by Lorraine Carpenter
Does it diminish a musician’s accomplishments to view them through his or her place of origin? Does the prism of the “hometown” assign the stigma of parochialism or, worse, artistic failure, implying that the musician never got out of the minor leagues, or never wanted to? Consider how we don’t find it fundamentally necessary to...
institutionalizing utopia: the predicament of the music festival
These are fat days for music festivals, it seems. Festivals for alternative music, heavy metal, electronic and dance, classical and jazz, festivals featuring music and film, festivals featuring music and academic lectures, festivals featuring acts who reunite just to play festivals—a whole lot of music festivals! Not to mention the music festival’s baby brothers and...
under the shadow of Woodstock: listening to the Hudson Valley
Another problem with the “Brooklynization of Hudson River Valley” thesis that I discussed in my last post is that the music in these parts isn’t very hip. That’s not a judgment, just a statement of fact if by “hip” we mean the product or embrace of 20-something hipsters who disproportionately reside in Brooklyn. However, the Hudson Valley...
looking for the Hudson Valley hipster
In the town where I live, there’s been a lot of chatter over a recent NY Times article which reports how Brooklynites (an apparent synonym for NYC’s mobile, creative types) are descending upon the Hudson Valley area some 75 miles north of the city to live, visit, consume, and generally do their Brooklyn thing. Local businesses,...
the end of the line in Sheffield: Sex City? a review of “Uncommon: An Essay on Pulp” by Owen Hatherley
With the horribly regressive debt-ceiling legislation passed by the U.S. Congress today, the West took yet another step toward making the neoliberal dream — gutting social programs, enshrining the market as the means and end of social well-being, idealizing upward mobility and the consumer good life, and leaving the lower classes to their own fate...
musical urbanism: statement of a scholarly project
It’s promotion review time for me, and in writing a research statement for the three anonymous sociologists evaluating my work, I’ve had the occasion to compile and synthesize my thinking on musical urbanism into a single essay. Think of this post as a users manual for understanding what I’ve been up to academically with this...
how Joy Division came to sound like Manchester
[Update: this blog post has been expanded and revised into an article for the Journal of Popular Music Studies.] I’m always puzzled when I hear how Elvis Presley or Mick Jagger “sounded black” when they first appeared on the radio. Back in the 70s, when I was a kid listening commercial radio that played pop,...
totally PV, “Totally Go-Go’s”: the ambitions of Los Angeles new wave
It’s Friday night, December 4, 1981, in Palos Verdes Estates, California, and tonight the Go-Go’s — the Los Angeles band of the moment — are playing your high school. OMIGAWD! Palos Verdes Estates was probably not a big stomping grounds for the Go-Go’s. A tiny, coastal municipality sheltered from the rest of Los Angeles County...