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

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In the hip environs where I've lived for 35 years, kids routinely pretend to be American Indians in a ploy for sympathy

^^^
where is this hip environ

hangs out with the village people

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viL3E_1zqU4

lol

In the hip environs where I've lived for 35 years, kids rountinely pretend to be construction workers, policemen and motorcycle gang members in a plot to create campy self-referential dance music.

High School Musical 3?

Their message was: Let's stop pretending we're Mississippi Delta bluesmen; we're nerdy suburban white kids with three digit IQs.

As opposed to Mississippi Delta bluesman with their two-digit IQs???

that's not really such a o_O line, there are tons of examples of people faking Native American backgrounds

http://www.laweekly.com/index.php?option=com_lawcontent&task=view&id=12468&Itemid=47

hurting i think that was implied when he first quoted it!

>As opposed to Mississippi Delta bluesman with their two-digit IQs???

Majority black people have sub 100 IQ's since they consistently score a standard deviation below whites on IQ tests.

Majority posters named Dethkiller don't know how numbers/grammar work

Majority Alex in Baltimore pretending to be an American Indian

haha I actually supposedly have tiny percentage of native blood on my father's side but I never bring it up because there are parts of the country where EVERY white kid is all "I'm 12.5% Cherokee, y'know).

" not )

your ploy for sympathy doesnt work on me, "chief"

>Majority posters named Dethkiller don't know how numbers/grammar work

If IQ tests are calibratetd so that median white IQ = 100, and blacks score a standard deviation below whites, then majority blacks have sub 100 IQs. Sorry you took Gay Literary Theory instead of Statistics in college.

Dr. Nabisco PhD, Gay Literary Theory

xpost, yeah reading it again I think the irony probably was implied

lol dethkiller no one will say you are otm

>lol dethkiller no one will say you are otm

On this here BBS, no.

Haha dethkiller, I think he said you don't know how numbers/grammar work because of the weird-ass construction "Majority black people."

Oh, I had way more reasons than that.

OK, my DVR tells me that maybe Sasha saw how good (or good/bad?) Alec Baldwin's Fred G. Sanford was and finally threw up his hands in despair.

Asking why Indie Rock doesn't have more soul is like asking your girlfriend why she wont do anal.

Lookin' for funk
in allll the wrong plaaaaces
Lookin' for fuuuunk

interesting piece about this by bob stanley: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/article2832828.ece

White music is not black enough, a New Yorker critic has argued. His remarks have caused a racism furore.

Carl Wilson, who wrote the Slate article, has done some follow-up pieces on class and bohemia at his Zoilus website (and he references a Frank Kogan alt-weekly column). I expressed disagreement in the Zoilus comments with Carl's inference that aesthetically better music is created by bohemians in a voluntary poor lifestyle than uh, garage rockers livings at home. I also mentioned American Fm rock radio where you hear major label rock but not indie.

Also, Frank talks about indie-rockers being afraid of singing (in the African-American, latino, and various other ethnic genre traditions including European classical). But is this anything new? There's a long tradition of unorthodox rock vocals. I remember someone making the point ages ago that many non-tradional vocalists at CBGBs would prove to be more memorable than Annie Golden (? not sure of the name) the singer of the Shirts. And I am not saying that some rock vocalists couldn't benefit from learning how to sing--there are many who could---I am just saying that it's a case by case thing.

The Shirts singer was Broadway trained I believe, and where is she now.

On Broadway.

haha--it just keeps on keepin' on:

http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/neko-case-deep-red-belle/17706/

She's an auburn-haired Caucasian woman of Ukrainian descent. Is Case also the blackest woman in indie rock?

she's way blacker than the black people in indie rock

this one's my favorite:

Neko Case’s voice is brassy, miscegenated and classic.

god that thing is retarded.

l.a. weekly used to be alright, too.

heh, yeah, not a very well thought out piece there. but hey, speaking of this article, i was listening to the new Iron & Wine record last night for the first time, and it's totally, uh, miscegenated! at least half of it is pretty obviously based on African-type rhythms. whether you like I&W or not (I do), it's well-nigh undeniable. Which is a little funny since iron and wine's presence on that Garden State soundtrack puts them squarely in the "why is indie rock so white" sights.

that's the sort of article that makes one wish that people besides editors don't really care about inside baseball.

does anything put off readers faster then critics writing about other critics?

The remedy Frere-Jones recommends — “indie rock must embrace soul” — is on par with Clement Greenberg’s championing of Abstract Expressionist painting in the ’50s to the exclusion of other styles, or Pauline Kael’s strident support of films with taboo-busting sex and violence in the ’70s.

no, SFJ writing ABOUT the bands that "embrace soul" would be anything near "on par" with those examples. What a fuckwit.

What glorious musical times. It’s like a perpetual pop avant-garde that pulls you in rather than pushes you away. It should make us listen widely and carefully. To music, that is, not to dumb pronouncements.

see how it just folds in on itself like that?

haha--it just keeps on keepin' on:

http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/neko-case-deep-red-belle/17706/

-- JN$OT, Friday, November 16, 2007 12:41 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

It's the Hannukah miracle of indie rock criticism.

isn't "Deep Red Bells" three albums into Case's solo career? How can it be an 'earlier composition' when it's closer to the endpoint of her solo career than the beginning?

yeah that struck me as odd too, was wondering if she did a previous version of it or something.

i think that is one of the worst things i have ever read

none more black

none more hack

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