Image Bands and their Discontents

Another thing I'm trying hard not to think about because: Carlos D is the whole overlap between the Goth/Industrial scene and the Fetish scene?

And then you end up onstage at Reading wearing a negligee and suspenders? My eyes may never recover.

(After I typed this, I realised that with its jokey sentiment, it might seem hypocritical, or even gender-queering-phobic, but I just wanted to say that my discomfort was not with a man dressed in lingerie. It was with Kevin Rowland dressed in lingerie, and very specifically, Kevin Rowland simulating rimming with two women dressed as sex workers at 2pm in a field in Reading. Stuff plays differently in different settings, and that was something that just really came off as tacky and gross, rather than intriguing or provocative or interesting or naughty.)

interesting idea, but hard to say. mould's dress sense hasn't changed much over the years.

Why would Mould's dress sense change? What would that have to do with it?

::really resisting going in on a massive spree of ~the semiotics of suits~ right now::

And no, I think that history has written the image of the 80s so completely that Duran read as "following fashion" when they were the ones that set the style?

Not so much talking about the original romo, but that kind of "Nagel prints come to life" white trousers and pastels thing - they predated Miami Vice with that look, though that look has come to read "80s" through Miami Vice. That's my memory of it, and I was around them.

Ah ok right, I hadn't realised that, I always thought it was just an extension of the new romantic thing.

Why would Mould's dress sense change? What would that have to do with it?

― "righteous indignation shit" (Branwell Bell), Wednesday, February 12, 2014 5:16 AM (6 minutes ago)

less reason to suppose he's still trying to pass, more to think that's just his style. calls himself a bear, etc.

I think that history has written the image of the 80s so completely that Duran read as "following fashion" when they were the ones that set the style?

― "righteous indignation shit" (Branwell Bell)

yeah, i'd be more inclined to say they were "engaged with" than "following" the fashion of their moment. but inhabiting it from the center either way.

Feel like there is a history of "the gay scene in the 80s" and "the hardcore punk scene in the 80s" and how they intersected and didn't, and how signifiers evolve, that could be written, but neither of us are experts enough to do it, so should probably drop it. The evolution of the term "bear" and "bear" gender presentation could probably be a whole book in and of itself.

Feel like talking about uniforms for a bit, and "flirting with fascism" but trying to think of way to do this without posting 8000 photos of Interpol.

Hmmmmm.

Like, the whole 80s psuedo-military regalia thing that a *lot* of bands went through, kinda like post-Falklands jingoism collides with commentary on Thatcher's sabre rattling or "dealing with the fallout mess of the British Empire".

Like, the punk era "played for shock value" Sex Pistols' swastikas and Joy Divisions flirtation with the imagery felt like a very deliberate "fuck you" to both the Greatest Generation and swinging 60s iconography, deliberately doing the thing that would be most offensive to their parents and the Bill Grundys of the world.

But, the way Echo & the Bunnymen did military gear, and the way Duran Duran did military gear were miles apart, but part of the same general fashion. Part of it was post-apocalyptic Mad Max iconography, but Duran's uniforms were... different. Part leather boy fascist, but always positioning themselves as "the good guys in the resistance" (New Moon On Monday video?) and the handsome, smiling troops in the Is There Something I Should Know video? Like, they were playing both sides?

Is There Something I Should Know...

http://www.vobvip.com/v7/svcs0907/04.jpg

what are you doing with your life? Searching for a picture of Simon LeBon's epaulettes...

http://www.xtcian.com/lebon.jpg

This is just before they took the turn off to Billy Burroughs Boot Boys...

Is it a million miles from that to this?

http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Jan-Feb-05-Urb-Carlos-Article-interpol-151180_700_886.jpg

Feel like talking about uniforms for a bit, and "flirting with fascism" but trying to think of way to do this without posting 8000 photos of Interpol

Was just coming here to mention Death In June actually, Douglas P's obsession with uniforms seems relevant here. Actually the early DIJ (when it was a proper band, not just him) didn't wear uniforms but dressed all in black and had a nice line in symbolism, iconography and anonymous photo shoots – very seductive

feel like mentioning Test Dept and their Stakhanovite image as well – all vests, sweat and industrial hammering

Feel like there is a history of "the gay scene in the 80s" and "the hardcore punk scene in the 80s" and how they intersected and didn't, and how signifiers evolve, that could be written

― "righteous indignation shit" (Branwell Bell), Wednesday, February 12, 2014 6:07 AM (9 minutes ago)

otm - 80s american hardcore seemed repellently jock-bro masculine to the me at the time, which kept me away from the genre's mainsream, especially when it came to the east coast scene. the stuff i dug was generally less musclebound aggro and formally constrained. then again, extreme performance of masculine stereotypes is no more intrinsically representative of straight than gay culture. there are a few regular ILM posters who seem like they'd be able to comment on the bleed between the two in 80s hc, but sure, that's not really my area.

The jump from this:

http://www.theawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/duranduran-e1339162343321.jpg

to this:

http://www.todayonline.com/sites/default/files/blogs/duran-duran_2011_show_2683.jpg

(At what point did someone just start taking too many of the wrong drugs?)

Wanna come back to Death in June and Test Dept and loads of early proto-industrial bands and their iconography. Because one of the things that irritated me about that Carlos D interview was him talking about how his leather... thing was supposed to be a homage to Blixa Bargeld, and I wanted to shout... but Blixa's iconography actually *meant* something in the context of divided Berlin, you're just using this as a fucking *accessory*, an affectation, a knowing ~reference~ not to the thing itself, but to someone else's representation of the thing?

This is halfway between "we won the Falklands War" shoulder pads, and the full Mad Max, and this is a fucking bizarre, semi-fascist leather boy image:

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/39107313/Duran+Duran+PNG+Cropped+Version.png

but Blixa's iconography actually *meant* something in the context of divided Berlin, you're just using this as a fucking *accessory*, an affectation, a knowing ~reference~ not to the thing itself, but to someone else's representation of the thing?

but isn't this precisely where the privileging of the Image leads? a very Baudrillardy state of nothing but decontextualized images?

maybe not so much decontextualized as endlessly referring to other images, i mean

NV, I L U. "The Baudrillardisation of Blixa Bargeld" is possibly the most ~ILX~ thing anyone has ever said here, and yet... yeah.

But, I have to agree. The ultimate expression of the privileging of The Image, endless reflection and no significance to the signifier. This is why I *love* Image Bands.

(You don't understand, Blixa Bargeld was the name of my cat.)

I think it was a member of Yo La Tengo who said "There's a difference between playing a gig looking like you just walked in in your street clothes and actually playing a gig in your street clothes."

Which made me start thinking about Husker Du again - Husker Dudes, more like - and wondering how much of that beflannelled, down to earth "we don't have an image" was about coding as Straight Acting (Butch) Gay Dudes in the hyper-masculine hardcore scene out of which they grew. Husker Du's workmanlike clothes stop seeming to be about being "authentic" but about another kind of *passing*.

honestly i think ppl not from MN read a lot into how the Replacements and Husker Du dressed and a lot of it was just like, i dunno everyone wore lots of flannels shirts, my dad, grandpa, whoever, they are warm shirts....I'm not sure that a whole lot of concept went into it. I see those dudes just as Minnesota type dudes from that era. The older guys who were in my little farming town high school wore shitty jeans and t-shirts with flannels over them, way before grunge.

also like all those guys were South Mpls or working class St Paul dudes at the end of the day. I know ppl from that era and it was arty in a sense but still very much "dudes" still very much midwestern beer drinking shit too

also there wasn't really that much of a true macho hardcore scene in minneapolis, and it certainly wasn't dominant, the mpls "punk" scene godfathers were the suicide commandos, who were really more of a 60s band, and there was also guys like curtiss A who was still basically a 60s pop guy....and the nascent post punk stuff that was prefiguring chicago like rifle sport, NNB, etc

in reference to this:

Which made me start thinking about Husker Du again - Husker Dudes, more like - and wondering how much of that beflannelled, down to earth "we don't have an image" was about coding as Straight Acting (Butch) Gay Dudes in the hyper-masculine hardcore scene out of which they grew. Husker Du's workmanlike clothes stop seeming to be about being "authentic" but about another kind of *passing*.

Sorry, my mistake. Regular, ordinary "just dudes" masculinity is never constructed, in any sense at all, it just *is*.

well no shit

Straight Acting (Butch) Gay Dudes in the hyper-masculine hardcore scene out of which they grew.

^the mpls punk scene wasn't really like that. you're wrong.

I have no idea what the Minneapolis punk scene was like, I was only comparing it to the NY hardcore scene in which I grew up, which was very butch, and full of constructed masculinity, and was often really, really unfriendly to girls and queer kids, of which I was both.

But the idea that "regular guy" masculinity, flannel shirts and all, is somehow not *constructed* is just straight up bullshit of the highest order.

Straight Acting (Butch) Gay Dudes in the hyper-masculine hardcore scene

^also p sure being masculine isn't "acting straight" as far as i know.

also no shit everything is constructed but why does it have shit to do with husker du having 2 gay members? how did the way they dress differ from how the replacements dressed? hint: it didn't.

Can I just ask, Upper Mississippi Shakedown, are you gay? I honestly don't know, and I'm trying to establish your angle here.

Because, you're right. I know jack shit about the Minneapolis scene, from the inside.

But I know a lot, from personal experience, about existing as a queer kid in a small city music scene, and dressing and acting in a way that coded just "straight" enough not to get beaten up at a VFW show, but also just "queer" enough to signify interest to potential romantic/sexual partners.

The Replacements, to my eyes, did dress quite differently from Husker Du; Tommy Stinson was a bit of a dandy. I have no idea if Tommy Stinson is gay or straight. I do know that dressing foppishly codes differently for straight men and gay men.

from the man who traded a target t shirt for a boiler suit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6S3LklS1PiY

(Friendly reminder, please - if you're using YouTube links as examples, it's really helpful if you state artist/title you're talking about? Thanks!)

a more unsettling piece of glam-rock gender-bending history: according to Charles Connor, Little Richard's band dressed up in pseudo-drag so they could play to white crowds in the South without being perceived as a sexual threat to women in the audience.

Wow, yeah, OK, that's kinda fucked. I was actually going to bring up Little Richard as an image innovator much earlier on this thread, but got distracted by something else, so thank you for raising that.

(the irony being that, as many bands have later found out, a certain amount of "pseudo-drag" can actually heighten the sexual *appeal* to women in the audience.)

Military garb goes back before punk too and was used in a way that was equally, if not more provocative at the time.

http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080810184218/woodstock/images/9/98/Country_Joe_McDonald04.gif

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0dmxoApnlpo/TgDYvBwFFiI/AAAAAAAAEjA/_dIKfFo_sIs/s1600/JOHNNY%2BKIDD%2B%2526%2BTHE%2BPIRATES_1.tif.jpg

rare shot of the last time dressing like a pirate was cool

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0dmxoApnlpo/TgDYvBwFFiI/AAAAAAAAEjA/_dIKfFo_sIs/s1600/JOHNNY%2BKIDD%2B%2526%2BTHE%2BPIRATES_1.tif.jpg

Oh yeah, totally. Deconstructed Military garb in the 60s as being anti-Vietnam War statement.

It's just interesting how it got slanted from "anti-war" in the 60s to... more complicated and "flirting with fascism" in the late 70s early 80s.

(The Clash's use of military chic was much more in line with the 60s, though. The whole "Sandinista" thing.)

x-post

The hippy scene may have been the first time that musicians and the audience started self-consciously using image as a form of play and intentional "dress-up" (victorian clothes, cowboys and indians, military surplus, mixing and matching different styles and eras). I would imagine that previous youth style movements like mods and rockers just thought they were being cool and fashionable and the other side wasn't, in a much less knowing way than what we're talking about in this thread.

I feel like you could make some kind of weird matrix of band, audience, and awareness. Like there are scenes where the bands and audience all dress alike and everyone seems completely unaware of it being a constructed image (we're just a bunch of midwest dudes). And then there are scenes where bands and audiences all dress up in a knowing way (as in some retro revival scenes). Then there are scenes where the bands are possibly more self-aware about what they're doing with their image than some of the fans who simply try to mimic their style (early punk maybe? glam?). And then there are bands who achieve a look that nobody in the audience would ever try to attempt.

is there a distinction between "image band" and its japanese connotation? this is the first time i've heard it used in a western context.

I don't know enough about Visual Kei to even begin to answer that question! But I would LOVE if anyone with any knowledge of the Japanese scene addressed it?

i have no idea if this has been discussed upthread or not but my friend who lived in japan is really into this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takarazuka_Revue

^^^ wow, that's amazing! Just looking at the productions they've adapted: Books (Zorro), musicals (Guys and Dolls), films (JFK... wait, what?!)

I know the sharp drop-off of posting on this thread probably had more to do with NV going home than anything else, but still, I did suspect that the thread was probably going to die when it went over to American hours, haha.

Because despite that reference to "image band" and its Japanese connotations, the (not counter) examples in this thread are overwhelmingly British (well, European, since Germany has made several appearances, and jeez, you have only to watch Eurovision to think about image and presentation in pop music!) artists. And talk is about American and Australian *resistance* to Image Bands, in which the exceptions prove the rule?

Are "Image Bands" just a decadent European thing? (In which case, where do Prince and the White Stripes and Marilyn Manson come from?) Or is it that thing that someone brought up above (sorry, I've forgotten who), about "bands that look like they are from 1964" that American culture is so overwhelming seen as default that anything that looks even slightly "British" or "German" or whatever, is seen as "An Image"?

(I don't think the latter is true at all, FWIW, I think that there is some odd quirk of both British and Japanese cultures which actively encourages Image-Making, though I am not awake enough to work out what it is. Anyone? Noodle?)