A Paler Shade of White---Sasha Frere-Jones Podcast and New Yorker article Criticizing Indie Rock for Failing to Incorporate African-American Influences

Melody Of Certain Damaged Norwegians

"In The Arado Ar 234 Over The Sea"

Impressive knowledge of nazi aircraft there. Most people would have gone for the Me109.

There's a great thread on "I Love Aircraft" about the lack of African-American influences on the design of the Spitfire, btw.

You can tell whitey-designed planes. they don't loop and roll as well. too much emphasis on climb-rate and wing-loading.

if you must know, i pretty much searched wiki for german aircraft and picked the first one i saw that would work in place of "aeroplane," but thanks, haha. actually one side of my family is the kind of German-Americans that really suppressed/abandoned those roots for obvious reasons, my granddad was in WWII on the US side but there used to be a weird cringey family in-joke about him being a U-boat captain.

had no idea there was even an "I Love Aircraft" board, although that's one of those things that works as a great joke whether it's real or not (see also: Diplo saying "Gully is my mother's maiden name")

Will Oldham Covers R. Kelly, Bjork, Danzig on New LP
Sure, you knew he'd been hanging out with the guy. But did you ever think you'd hear Will Oldham's take on R. Kelly's triumphant "The World's Greatest"?

I suppose it's a little hard to say just what Oldham's gonna do next, but-- for now, at least-- we've got a notion: Bonnie "Prince" Billy's Ask Forgiveness, eight covers ably tackled in all their nimble glory by Oldham, Espers' Meg Baird and Greg Weeks, and cellist Maggie Wienk, due in the UK November 19 thanks to Domino Records (no word quite yet on a U.S. release).

SFJ from his New Yorker blog

October 23, 2007
Ultra Brite
Soon, I will post responses to the e-mails I’ve received in reference to my article on musical miscegenation. This will probably go on all week, with a short break for an elaborated review of “In Rainbows.” (This one-(link)- was written after only brief exposure to the album and cannot stand as my review of record.) The discussion will end on Friday with some good-natured, articulate, and exacting e-mails I received from a member of one of the bands discussed in the piece.

SWLABR

More discussion on blogs and in comments on blogs. More post-Slate column comments from Carl Wilson, and Wayne Marshall has weighed in:

http://www.zoilus.com/

I am not yet convinced by Wilson's theory that today's indie-rock is more upperclass than earlier generations of indie, and that hardcore punk was more class mixing (I think punk and indie has always mainly been middle and upper middle class with little to no change).

http://wayneandwax.com/?p=205
October 24th, 2007
Global Ghettotech vs. Indie Rock: The Contempo Cartography of Hip

You can tell whitey-designed planes. they don't loop and roll as well. too much emphasis on climb-rate and wing-loading.

african planes got syncopated propellers
have a hard time keepin track of the fellers

With this piece Frere-Jones has demonstrated himself every bit the racist—for buying into this pathetically regressive set of ideas—as any 1950s Southern preacher who decried white interest in animalistic, vulgar race music. That Frere-Jones’ delineates and fetishizes the other—this carnal, black backbeat, this jungle sexuality he insists on placing in contradiction to cerebral, “oblique,” “flat-footed,” white rock—should damn him alongside those who delineate and vilify the other; both visions assign the same traits to blackness.
http://www.playboy.com/blog/2007/10/paint-it-black-1.html

snap

Perhaps this new book will help lead ILM out of the wilderness on this confusing issue.

ok, THAT, of all the responses, is the one I most want SFJ to publicly address. (xpost)

For real though.

HOOS

Dave Allen (Gang of Four) responds:

http://www.pampelmoose.com/mspeaks/?p=1094

I guess.

http://infinity.cos.edu/art/strong/module/apprec/unit4/livalb4c/photo6.jpg
L.H.O.O.S.

You know one thing I was thinking about, since re-reading this thing in the actual print new yorker, was how he had to stop singing because he couldn't uhmm... find a style of singing that was informed by both black and white music but wholly unique, which is something Mick Jagger and Prince were both able to do.

And I wondered if this had anything to do with him not at all being attached to his sexuality, or expressing anything from his gut, or his entire band maybe being some intellectual sort of affair, all about putting together all his influences in some way that would be "interesting"

For some reason this sort of bothered me the most

Yeah, it's a cliché, but the appropriate lament is not "I couldn't sound black" or "I couldn't sound white" or "I couldn't sound like Elvis" or "I couldn't sing like Smokey" but "I couldn't make it sound good, I couldn't sing convincingly, I couldn't find my voice."

Dateline 1974: Forest Hills Vocalist Fails To Send Convincingly British, Breaks Up Nascent Punk Band

I was rap/hip-hop would incorporate some black influences. Sampling the past isn't good enough.

You know when you drop by some indie rocker's house after a gig, and you end up looking at their CD collection and go 'OK - interesting. They have Sonic Youth and Big Star etc etc etc, and also some folk music: Irish stuff, Bulgarian stuff... but no black music, no Indian music, no African, no Japanese no Chinese, no Balinese, no Australian indigenous, no Tibetan, no Mexican, no Spanish...' No non-European music at all. And therefore, no non-European influences in this person's music. This is not rare, is it, in recent years? How did this become indie music? When did that twist happen?

I think this is the core of the best part of SF-S's argument. Perhaps he framed it hyper-provocatively, and there really is no such thing as race. However, the point he is making can be refined, and it is simply this: when it comes to influences, in a world where a few mouseclicks can bring you music from any part of the world, why is so much indie music so tendentiously and relentlessly Euro-focussed? It's like people here in Australia who only eat pie and chips.

*SF-J, of course.

in a world where a few mouseclicks can bring you music from any part of the world, why is so much indie music so tendentiously and relentlessly Euro-focussed?

The "alternative to what" thing has been brought up already.

In a world where the singles charts are completely dominated by R&B, it is natural for the underground to contain those who dislike that kind of stuff and who are searching for something entirely different.

Singles charts haven't been "completely" dominated by R&B for about four years Geir, I don't there's been a single point in the past 18 months when there's been more R&B tracks in the UK top 40 than there has guitar tracks

You know when you drop by some indie rocker's house after a gig, and you end up looking at their CD collection and go 'OK - interesting. They have Sonic Youth and Big Star etc etc etc, and also some folk music: Irish stuff, Bulgarian stuff... but no black music, no Indian music, no African, no Japanese no Chinese, no Balinese, no Australian indigenous, no Tibetan, no Mexican, no Spanish...' No non-European music at all. And therefore, no non-European influences in this person's music. This is not rare, is it, in recent years? How did this become indie music? When did that twist happen?

Spain isn't in Europe?

who has actually had that experience?

i'm forever dropping round indie rockers' houses after gigs.

but sometimes i have to look on their computer for music, it can be a real grind.

but it usually pays off when i can out them for not owning any balinese music.

sometimes i check their dvd racks and bookshelves too, to see if they're up to date with tibetan fiction.

I don't really listen to much other than tiring, desexed white upper middle class because that's who I am. That really fucking sucks. I need a soul infusion.

It's like people here in Australia who only eat pie and chips.

plz not to hate on pies

Let's see when I do hear funk and soul it's when I'm preparing coleslaw and sauce at Raising Cane's on the lucky days my co-worker Avis is working, as the manager sometimes accommodates her. I am the only person who will, for 6-8 hours, take scoop after scoop of coleslaw and put it in cups, so people visit me occasionally to break up my ritual and inspect my slaw. Avis sings along and dances.

plz not to hate on pies

What is the Australian pie?

it's like a hand-held pot pie and was invented by God to express His love for the people of Australia

you can get sweet or savory ones

I would eat all these pies

x-post
Not sure what Moley is talking about. Hey Geir, r'n'b and now rap have been around in various forms for years now(with various folks in the charts), and from the Beats to the Beatles some folks have added African-American influences into their sound, if more indie-rock artists are spurning those influences now(that is not entirely clear), the question is why.

Meanwhile others are discussing Sasha's loaded language:

From Wayne Marshall's blog:

Sasha’s conclusion then, a winking reference to the etymology of rock’n'roll and the “risk” that came with it, brings us right back to what Monson calls, in reference to Mailer’s celebratory tract of 1957, “the bald equation of the primitive with sex and sex with the music and body of the black male.” And though I’m not accusing Sasha of perpetuating these stereotypes too blatantly (and indeed, I think we should go easy on Sasha and applaud him for painting in bold, broad strokes), there’s no avoiding the resonance, the lurking essentialism, no matter how explicitly we may decry or attempt to avoid it.

http://www.wayneandwax.com/

I need a soul infusion.

-- trashthumb, Friday, 26 October 2007 13:00 (9 minutes ago) Link

hahaha

The only thing I can think of that's equivalent are the greasy and amazing pudding or fruit pies at the Hostess outlet and a Smuckers
Uncrustable, which was the funniest food item until Hormel? started producing individually wrapped hot dogs. If the Australians have a ready made meat pie does that mean they have a higher standard of living than us now?

Did anybody note Carl Wilson's followup?

http://www.zoilus.com/documents/general/2007/001123.php

xpost trashthumb you need to get yr ass to Oz, you'll see

Andrew Ross wrote a genealogy of the hipster?

x-post

Carl did several more postings in addition to the one linked to above. Liquid Liquid rejected the mainstream yet chose to incorporate elements that were arguably from it. The Ramones rejected the mainstream in a different manner and I doubt Sasha would take them to task. Maybe we need to examine how the need of some but not all to reject the mainstream fits in with popist and rockist views of whats on the charts and what's happening in niche genres. And why don't major label popsters and jam bands feel the same need to rebel (for better or worse). Also, as mentioned on the Indie Beat World Music thread (about the Will Hermes article) one could arguably connect the punk enthusiasm with reggae on through Stereolab and others enthusiasm for various international genres. Or is that just an exception to the norm?

I think the mainstream elements thing is way bigger than any of this is letting on. If there's anything rock and roll, and being American and all of this is really about, it's being rebellious, and pitting your identity against the norm.

Also as a side note: I know people who think that if you write something other than a pop song, you're a pretentious dork, and I know people that think anything short of Reich is pointless. I hear a lot of debate over accessibility, and I hear a lot of snide 'Oh this sounds like,' with an aim of discrediting the creator rather than establishing a listener-friendly link. What I haven't heard a lot of until now was, "that's not quite dark enough" not coming from metalheads.

Lenny Kaye (with Nuggets) and the NY Dolls with their approach were rejecting aspects of both the pop(mainstream rock) and underground(hippie and art-prog)themes of the time.

I mean Kaye was reaching back slightly to one brand of popular rock that was sneared at by some.

Frank Kogan weighed in on the class theme over on the poptimists live journal in response to Idolator Maura's posting there.

I would eat all these pies

-- J0hn D., Friday, October 26, 2007 1:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Link

WHO ATE ALL THE PIES WHO ATE ALL THE PIES
HERE GO J0HN D THERE GO J0HN D HE ATE ALL THE PIES

to me the bigger issue is that indie rock is so privileged in the first place in rock crit discourse and blaming indie rock for not fulfilling the lofty 'most progressive/important music in existence' expectations critics have is totally missing the point

I agree that indie rock is privileged in rock critic discourse (and at lots of mainly low wattage university radio stations) but it is not priveleged in American commercial radio(still listened to by many in cars and elsewhere despite new higher-tech alternatives) and on MTV(when they bother to show videos), and this factor plus its historical ties to college rock and punk rock and diy rebelliousness and early rock crit writing play a role in solidifying its dominant status in the print/web world.

Every year at critics poll time, Christgau and some others (including folks here) bemoan the percentage of support that indie-rock gets compared to rap, r'n'b, and various international genres, with others responding that they like what they like and are under no affirmative action obligations to write about anything. Broken record me insists that there are some writers out there who are covering other stuff but are not sought out by poll organizers (or by editors at general interest publications who one would hope would seek to have varied coverage). I am not saying Decibel or rock blogs have to cover other genres, but it surew would be nice if alt-weeklies did. Then there's the education/economy issues affecting who can start writing at universities and publications and established websites plus the role of editors in seeking out writers and getting coverage beyond the traditional...