Image Bands and their Discontents

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?)

there's a wealth of historical literature wherein commentators identify "the English" as being peculiarly addicted to novelty btw

sorta trying to find some examples here but gd work etc

Adam and the Ants were prob the first band I was ever really interested in when I was a pre-teen. The image thing was probably what drew me in and I remember the Stand and Deliver video being the first MV that I ever really noticed. I didn't know that they'd ever started as a punk thing. I didn't have any clue what they were.

It strikes me that most of the obvious US examples (at least within rock) are bands whose image was kind of cartoonish/trashy/'lowbrow', like they intentionally set out to define themselves against bands who made Serious Art - thinking of people like KISS, the Ramones, New York Dolls, The Cramps.

Are "Image Bands" just a decadent European thing?

nope.

http://originalmattress.co/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ThePolyphonicSpree_V_large-1.jpg

you could even say with their normal robe attire that this lot are an 'image' band.

plus devo, the b-52's, the locust, alice cooper, blue oyster cult, the white stripes, motley crue, slayer, etc. but "image band" isn't limited to white guy rock music, is it? thinking of james brown's crews, natty jazz tailoring, prince, p-funk, public enemy's stage show & dress, TLC, bikini kill, the runaways, abba, fleetwood mac, etc.

sunnO))) (lol, but only kinda)

female or female-fronted punk bands too: Siouxsie Soux, The Slits, X-Ray Spex etc.

blondie, the cars, the go-go's, talking heads - lotta 80s bands, really

err, 70s/80s...

new wave in general

female or female-fronted punk bands too: Siouxsie Soux, The Slits, X-Ray Spex etc.

― Kim Wrong-un (Neil S), Thursday, February 13, 2014 11:53 AM

Wait, wait, what is this in response to? Because all of these bands were British!

And also, were Siouxsie and the Banshees really more of an image band than The Cure? Were The Slits more of an image band than the Sex Pistols? Really? I don't get what you're trying to say here.

hah sorry got the wrong end of the stick, just listing some women fronted punk bands I guess, following up contenderizer! I suppose they are interesting insofar as they set the aesthetic agenda so far as punk was concerned, along with Malcolm McLaren of course.

But yeah... agree, Contendo with both the first post that US bands tended towards image as a reaction *against* SRS ART (while UK bands posited the image AS "srs art")

Oh wait, now I see what that was an answer to: but "image band" isn't limited to white guy rock music, is it? <- OK, the Siouxsie/Slits stuff makes sense now. Sure! Yeah!

punk without Siouxsie would arguably have been the much more functional "long grey coat" look of lots of the Manchester bands, though that of course is an image of "we are the young men, the weight on our shoulders"

"projecting an image of..." above

Feel like there's a lot that could be said about "natty dressing" in Black music whether that's jazz dudes in suits, or the deliberate ostentatious competitive dressing of hiphop acts and "GucciGucciGucci" but that's a HUGE massive blind spot for me, because jesus christ, how have I got this far into this thread without bringing up Parliment/Funkadelic. Who are one of the most image image bands of all time, but I didn't think of them as an "image band", I just thought of them as aliens from the planet Funk?

Wow, that was a seriously bad omission on my part and a blind spot I have to acknowledge.

pfunk was a whole package not just limited to image.

Death Metal band in corpse paint

wait did no one point out something here? (i think you mean Black Metal)

http://www.thenation.com/article/p-funk-politics

trying to find an article with Clinton's involvement with that crazy sect that I momentarily have forgotten the name of.

but before i say anything else

SUN RA

Process Church of the Final Judgement is what I was thinking of re Clinton

the process church of the final judgment

dagnit