simon reynolds: classic or dud

10:11 - so tired of austere postpunk vibes, just wanna "wail out" and "grow my hair" y'all.

classic haircuts all around

I recall seeing him on some VH-1 chat segment back in the day, touting (well, maybe not touting so much as recommending) Omni Trio as "one to watch" in the coming year...I don't think too many casual VH-1 viewers rushed out to pick up Music For The Next Millenium forthwith, but what a wonderful world it would be if they had!

http://www.nndb.com/people/340/000022274/poundstone-9930-pic.jpg

Interesting to see that clip, 'cause when I read Reynolds' writing I always picture Andrew Sullivan. And in the video, their speech patterns are somewhat similar.

I think on the video he resembles Patrick Marber playing a weird character on The Day Today.

Do u feel 'saddled with' chillwave?

hi piece in the current issue of the wire about the digital revolution repurposing music is just about the most on point, on the money thing i have read all year. classic all the way.

I'm guessing that's not online? He's been obsessed with the varying definitions of "boogie" on his Blissblog blog.

Is it taster of his new book?

yeah, looked for it, couldn't find it. wire seems to keep the latest issue out of the archives, for good reason, i suppose.

the boogie thing is in reference to the delta swamp rock compilation that defines itself as "boogie rock".

we were talking about the book (extensively!) over here. is the Wire piece an actual extract can anyone say?
Retromania: Pop culture's Addiction to its Own Past. (New Simon Reynolds book).

I've only read half the article and none of the book, but The Wire describes the former as "a sequel to his new book".

the boogie thing is in reference to the delta swamp rock compilation that defines itself as "boogie rock".

― broodje kroket (dog latin), Monday, May 16, 2011

But he then references other uses of the term with videos and more---in disco, etc.

Had no idea he'd moved to LA until I read the hypnagogic pop thing in Frieze. Welcome, Simon!

Archived interview w/ him on Domino Radio pop-up station, recorded earlier this past week:
http://dominorad.io/show/all_things_reconsidered_richard_king_simon_reynolds

x-post-- he's been in LA for about a year

Reynolds is moving to Los Angeles. His wife, writer/editor Joy Press, got an editor job with the L.A. Times.

― curmudgeon, Monday, June 7, 2010

he shouldnt do radio interviews. he comes off too imperious/unimpressed/unbothered. like he thinks hes too smart to field questions from anyone else. then again he comes off like that a lot of the time on his blog, but at least there i dont have to hear his voice.

wow, I don't get that impression at all.

Yeah, kind of strange... I've seen him speak a few times and he's been unusually personable and polite - especially given the field he works in and the amount of bile a lot of people seem to have for him. Likewise when I've spoken to him.

about done with rip it up and start again. good read.

tho i kinda wish he would have just cut out america altogether if he was gonna do such a halfass job on the non-devo/pere ubu stuff

sandwiching B52s into the NYC chapter with liquid liquid and etc was weird enough but having it be the only oral history style chapter just seemed to be an admission of "oh fuck it, here ya go"

the New Pop stuff was fascinating, didn't know much about that, outside of hearing those hits

It's an excellent book, rip it up. Don't know why it was decided to have the whole mutant disco bit done in interview format, but if you get the outtakes/bsides book Totally Wired, it has a prose chapter devoted to that stuff.

The US published version of Rip It Up is shorter than the Brit published version. Someone wrote on amazon.com:

Three chapters have been cut in their entirety and portions of other chapters have been cut or shortened. In total, the US version of the book is nearly 200 pages shorter.

yeah i'm reading the Brit one i think? not 100% but i thought that what my friend said...it has an SST chapter...

i dunno, anyway i've really loved the book.

yeah iirc he talks about Huskers, Black Flag and Meat Puppets and... that's it. Seems more or less arbitrary, I get the impression he doesn't really know anything about hardcore (related: some 90s piece in Bring The Noise which is like a semi-jokey faceoff between oi and gangsta rap, hamstrung by the fact he clearly has no actual interest in the former)

yeah i bothered me that he basically acts as if hardcore was just the american version of Oi, a retrenchment to rock tradition after a period of experimentation, when it's pretty clear if you have ears that hardcore didn't really sound like any other rock music that had ever been made, there are so many classic hardcore songwriting tropes that feel unique to the genre...and hardcore was actually moving towards something too, it can be felt in tons of stuff that came later like thrash etc.

oi sounds like folk songs play by slade

i mean i get the comparison to some degree...the macho stuff, the assholism, violence, closemindedness of the audience (or parts of it)

But you're right re the differences.

The American and Brit versions of the book have different covers.

He does veto hardcore from his agenda throughout the book, citing other people's work on the topic

my cover is bright yellow with pink large kinda "cut up" font type stuff

Pretty sure thats the U.S. version, iirc.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=rip+it+up+and+start+again&x=3&y=17

UK version is yellow with pink letters

while US version has pink with photo

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_44?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=rip+it+up+and+start+again+postpunk+1978-1984&sprefix=rip+it+up+and+start+again+postpunk+1978-1984

mine is uk version!

in any case i should be so nitpicky overall it's been a great read and i've learned a lot!

I'm not too bothered to re-read Rip it Up, but it was hugely formative for my music taste when I read it at 15 or 16. It got me into dance music in a roundabout way: Remain in Light -> Ze Records -> disco etc.

my version had twenty or so pages switched out with some cowboy book about Reagan or something. LOL publisher fail

This and Our Band Could Be Your Life kind of invented college for me.

my version had twenty or so pages switched out with some cowboy book about Reagan or something. LOL publisher fail

No, that was just the chapter on the Mekons.

loll

hahahahahahahaha

The US published version of Rip It Up is shorter than the Brit published version. Someone wrote on amazon.com:

Three chapters have been cut in their entirety and portions of other chapters have been cut or shortened. In total, the US version of the book is nearly 200 pages shorter.

― curmudgeon, Monday, June 13, 2011 11:09 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

ARGH fuck you publishers

Wow what a joke.

There's at least a chapter missing from the us version of Energy Flash (generation ecstasy), right?

http://www.vanityfair.com/style/2012/01/prisoners-of-style-201201

Kurt Anderson on retro culture. I haven't read this yet. Wonder if he refers to Reynolds book?

IIRC, no.

That article was rough. Pointless musing and avoiding any question of technology and its relationship to art. Ugh. (not to mention writing something like this and not mentioning Retromania seems a little goofy (though I might be playing up Retromania's impact)).

New book

http://shockandawesimonreynolds.blogspot.com/

a book about glam rock and art pop - 1970s mostly - but also tracking its echoes and reflections through the 80s, 90s and into the 21st Century - footnotes to follow here soon