a few words about Glenn Frey
They say the deaths of significant cultural figures come in threes. It seems you don’t get to choose those three, because here we are: Lemmy Kilmeister. David Bowie. And now, Glenn Frey. Growing up a music snob, certain groups you naturally come to disdain and mock. The Eagles and Glenn Frey in particular filled that...
favorite music of 2015
Shilpa Ray – Last Year’s Savage This year there was hardly a more fearless, unique voice in rock music — where my listening preferences once again tended toward — than Shilpa Ray. Her style is quintessentially rooted in a bygone era of born-to-lose rock (cf. “Johnny Thunders Fantasy Space Camp”), but Last Year’s Savage finally...
sustainability and quality of life in the Hudson Valley
[I was asked to give a ten-minute “mini-keynote” talk to a meeting of academics, nonprofit and public agency execs, and civically minded business leaders at Marist College for its 2015 Sustainability Day event, at the invitation of Peter Bienstock (Hudson River Valley Institute) and Ann Davis (Economics). My subject: the Hudson Valley’s quality of life, its...
in exile: the rootless cosmopolitanism of Jeffrey Lee Pierce and the Gun Club
I’ve never quite understood why the Gun Club, one of the all-time great Los Angeles bands, had an estranged relationship with their city of origin. It seems to me no local critic or serious music fan can deny their impact on L.A.’s music legacy. One of the great cult bands of rock music, the Gun...
metro music: creativity, place and alienation in the career of Martha & the Muffins
[Presented at the University of Toronto Department of Sociology on May 1, 2015. Thanks to Judith Taylor and John Hannigan for this opportunity.] It’s a pleasure to speak today on a new research project I’m working on. In anticipation of this talk, I had a couple of other topics I could have lectured on with...
scenes in the 10.0 era: a conversation with Pitchfork editor Mark Richardson
On April 15, the Musical Urbanism seminar brought Mark Richardson, editor-in-chief at Pitchfork, to Vassar College for an informal conversation about independent music, online journalism, and the relevance of places and scenes in an era of digital music. With hardly any effort made to publicize the event, the lecture hall was packed with Vassar students....
looking for the new Brooklyn: creative migrations & musical landscapes in upstate New York
For the Musical Urbanism seminar, Hua Hsu and I were pleased to invite Piotr Orlov to speak about his research on musical legacies and migrations in upstate New York. Here’s the video of our conversation (apologies for the way his mic drops in and out between 7:30-27:00). “Leonard Nevarez and Hua Hsu of Vassar College’s...
how I discovered Martha and the Muffins’ “Metro Music”
In ninth grade, my musical interests shifted from hard rock heard on the radio to the new wave and punk I discovered from tape mixes and recommendations passed on by the new kids I was hanging with. I chalk this shift in listening habits up in some part to the attraction that the city held...
has the Hudson Valley become the “new Brooklyn” yet?
In the endlessly diverting media game of finding the next Brooklyn, the Hudson River Valley gets referenced a lot. I suppose there’s good reason, since it’s not so much that this region rivals the urban upgrading and cultural attention associated with the New York City borough some 100 miles to the south, but that the...
a video playlist of Pulp and other Sheffield music
In preparation for the Musical Urbanism course readings on Sheffield, England, we’ve put together this playlist of music documentaries and promo videos to get you further acquainted with the city, its music scene, and our point of departure, the band Pulp. PULP VIDEOS When reading Owen Hatherley’s book Uncommon: An Essay on Pulp, it...
I survived the grunge era: introduction to a screening of “Hype!”
Welcome to the first of a series of “lab sessions” this semester in conjunction with the Musical Urbanism seminar. Tonight we’re screening Hype!, a 1996 documentary that’s currently out of print. This means the version you’re watching was torrented by your professors. Although as we heard it’s also available on YouTube, I promised our students...
art worlds and music scenes
An interesting thing happens when you intersect two texts, Howard Becker’s essay on “Art Worlds and Collective Activity” (1982) and David Byrne’s essay on “How to Make a Scene” (2012), with each other. Somewhat anachronistically, the former enlists the latter into its thesis. To begin, Becker’s text is not especially directed toward the contemporary interest...