Lofty books about music, art, film, etc. (1 Viewer)

[Nate Champion]

Apologies for that thread title.

Anyway, I was thumbing through an old Wire issue last night and two book reviews caught my attention.

One by was Dan Graham called Rock/Music Writings that sounded fairly curious with a lean towards assessing the aesthetic/cultural validity of pop leading up to post-punk. That sort of thing.

And another was by Bob Ostertag who seems to have big opinions about electronic music and the guy reviewing mentions him in the same breadth as some American transcendentalists of the 19th Century. Which could be an unfortunate comparison if you ever encountered the pious rhetorics of Waldo Emerson.

So, I was almost about to make some impulsive online purchases, but does anyone know anything about these lads' writings? Are they worth a damn?

What other recommendations do people have?

I guess I'm talking about wilfully subjective essayists that maybe manages to be insightful or culturally perceptive as opposed to 'over-view', historic type tomes. or impregnably dense bollocks like Gilles Deleuze*.

Cheers.

*maybe he's grand. Read a bit of him for a Philosophy essay I did on David Lynch and thought he was talking abortive, abstract nonsense.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

These are my favourite academic but highly readable books on music:
Conversing with Cage by Richard Kostelanetz - an edit together of dozens of interviews with John Cage and Kostelanetz where they talk about pretty much everything in an entertaining and interesting manner.

Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music by Derek Bailey - there is an accompanying documentary series from the same time as this book which is also well worth watching. Improvisation from early music all the way through to free improv and everything in between. Again, it is a fascinating read that is very accessible.

The Rest is Noise by Alex Ross: A history of 20th century composition. Brilliant.

 

[hugh]

I've read most of that Dan Graham book. I like his writing. He's an interesting guy in that he's primarily an artist and consequently looks at music from an art-theoretical angle. There a short movie online somewhere that is a synopsis of one of his essays - it's called Rock My Religion and is mostly about Patti Smith. I first stumbled across him at an exhibition where they were showing a video by him which is basically Minor Threat playing in CBGBs. He has some sort of Sonic Youth connection too (of course) as far as I remember.

You might take this with a pinch of salt though as I like Gilles Deleuze too

There's a book called Audio Culture which is a collection of essays that might be the type of thing you are talking about. It's got a lot of academic stuff but also people like Simon Reynolds who I think straddles that line between "lofty"/theoretical and accessible/interesting really well.

For the ultimate in bananas philosophising about rock there is Aesthetics Of Rock by Richard Meltzer. I reckon he wrote most of this on acid. You would probably have to be on acid while reading it to get sense out of it though.

 

[nlgbbbblth]

In the middle of this.

Your mileage may vary - I can tolerate most of the PWL/SAW records and genuinely like some of them. Fascinating stuff nonetheless.

Amazon product ASIN 1901447529

 

[Jerry Twig]

Rock and the Pop Narcotic by Joe Carducci is an interesting read, and has a perspective that Nate would definitely relate to I'm sure. I like his take on why the three-piece is the best band structure.

 

[hugh]

I read Bill Drummonds book 17 a while ago. It's fantastic. Music as conceptual art. And it's funny and entertaining. And our own Denis McNulty turns up at one point in it.

 

[hugh]

I read Bill Drummonds book 17 a while ago. It's fantastic. Music as conceptual art. And it's funny and entertaining. And our own Denis McNulty turns up at one point in it.

 

[hugh]

I read Bill Drummonds book 17 a while ago. It's fantastic. Music as conceptual art. And it's funny and entertaining. And our own Denis McNulty turns up at one point in it.

Sorry about the triple post. My phone was messing with me.

 

[hermie]

Bill Drummond's 45 is pretty good as well. Had me drinking even more tea and eating even more soup than ever before.

 

[Lili Marlene]

Lipstick Traces by Greil Marcus holds up pretty well considering it was written in 1989. Unbelievably wordy but there's so much in there and he ties it all together in a really artful way. The idea that it's a book 'about' punk rock or the Sex Pistols is really misleading though. I've read the section on Michael Jackson a bunch of times and i'm still trying to figure it out fully.

I guess I'm talking about wilfully subjective essayists that maybe manages to be insightful or culturally perceptive as opposed to 'over-view', historic type tomes. or impregnably dense bollocks like Gilles Deleuze*.

In fairness, it might also be all of that but it's such a subjective history that it's still worth reading.


I think I was also just pleased how he was able to tear apart that whole Rip it Up and Start Again argument 15 or so years before that book was even written.



On that, Is Retromania any good, anyone?

 

[Nate Champion]

I think I was also just pleased how he was able to tear apart that whole Rip it Up and Start Again argument 15 or so years before that book was even written.



On that, Is Retromania any good, anyone?

I take it you mean Marcus tore apart Rip it Up's central thesis?

I've read segments of Rip It Up. It's more the overview model, although it's quite subjective... He sort of emphasizes what he feels like and ignores what he deems less important? There's hardly any Swans in it which shocked me. I liked the chapter about Ohio. Allen Ravenstein's comments about having a ball of money and loads of free time and recording space as an allowance for making experimental music blew me away a little. It's pretty much the opposite of the cliched impoverished argument - that having no money facilitates great art that you often see trotted out by people like Meg White.

I'm curious about Retromania. It might be good to read it presently...

Anyway, I suppose someone like Susan Sontag is a good example of what I was on about (although more for literature and film). Although maybe her essays have dated a little now.

What do people think of hardcore post-structuralists (Like Deleuze, I suppose) or even their modern residue? Apparently (a mate was telling me this in the pub) Chomsky was absolutely hammering Zizek lately for being a careerist academic stating that he was making simple things needlessly complicated out of envy for the complex idiom of modern science and inspiring bad intellectual habits for third world intellectuals... as if Chomsky wasn't a careerist academic himself. Anyway, I love it when these lads cut lumps out of each other.

I personally love Zizek's counter-intuitive take on film (and he makes Lacan accessible) - and he makes some insightful, concise comments, although there seems to be a few different Zizeks doing the rounds. The one who obfuscates wildly under a canopy of incomprehensible jargon is probably the one Chomsky was referring to.

 

[Lili Marlene]

I take it you mean Marcus tore apart Rip it Up's central thesis?

Yeah, he pretty much defines the argument and says why it's wrong. In 1989.

I've read segments of Rip It Up. It's more the overview model, although it's quite subjective... He sort of emphasizes what he feels like and ignores what he deems less important? There's hardly any Swans in it which shocked me.

That's what really rankles me, he goes on like he's being completely comprehensive but when someone does that all you end up doing is constantly finding huge gaps in what they're talking about.

If he had just admitted he was talking about his favourite bands and why they're important, like that Our Band Could be Your Life book, it would have been fine. His tendency to find an excuse to take a dig at the Clash at every opportunity gets tiring pretty quickly as well. Unnecessarily petty.

I liked the chapter about Ohio. Allen Ravenstein's comments about having a ball of money and loads of free time and recording space as an allowance for making experimental music blew me away a little. It's pretty much the opposite of the cliched impoverished argument - that having no money facilitates great art that you often see trotted out by people like Meg White.

Yeah, I mean, it's still good and worth reading for the bits he's actually interested in, but so much of it annoys me. The 'oral history' chapter on the Mutant Disco/No Wave scene, for example, is dreadful. Just paying lip service to a scene he seems to have no interest in. Apparently the US version of the book has a proper chapter about this though?

 

[Lili Marlene]

Anyway, I suppose someone like Susan Sontag is a good example of what I was on about (although more for literature and film). Although maybe her essays have dated a little now.

What do people think of hardcore post-structuralists (Like Deleuze, I suppose) or even their modern residue? Apparently (a mate was telling me this in the pub) Chomsky was absolutely hammering Zizek lately for being a careerist academic stating that he was making simple things needlessly complicated out of envy for the complex idiom of modern science and inspiring bad intellectual habits for third world intellectuals... as if Chomsky wasn't a careerist academic himself. Anyway, I love it when these lads cut lumps out of each other.

I personally love Zizek's counter-intuitive take on film (and he makes Lacan accessible) - and he makes some insightful, concise comments, although there seems to be a few different Zizeks doing the rounds. The one who obfuscates wildly under a canopy of incomprehensible jargon is probably the one Chomsky was referring to.

Regrettably I've actually never read any Zizek and my Sontag reading is pretty much limited to whatever I skimmed through as an undergrad. Probably should remedy this.

 

[hugh]

I've never read Rip It Up but I've been looking for a copy of Blissed Out for ages. Seems to be out of print ..... Would have thought he would more likely be writing about Swans in that one. I thought Retromania was good. It comes across a little bit moany in places in that things-are-not-as-cool-now-as-they-were-when-I-was-25 way but there's a lot of good stuff in it. I like the way he connects things that are happening in popular/rock music to larger cultural/philosophical issues.

About Zizek (who, by the way, I first heard of on Thumped). That accusation of being willfully obscurantist is one that analytic philosophers and commentators have been throwing at continental types for decades, so it's no surprise to find Chomsky at it too. It doesn't mean there is not something in it, but it just get's a bit old after a while.

A Susan Sontag for music ... yes, that would be good.