Fieldnotes Post #1

March 30, 2012 – Black Pus, Mounds, and Buck Gooter at AS220 in Providence

• Outside AS220 – I heard a guy with a cigarette, on a bike, say, “I had a dream last night that I actually like noise.” He and another guy are talking about drumming, and making more time for “jamming.” 
• I can see Brian setting up his set through the windows. 
• Inside now… There are mixed media artworks on the walls. They’re abstract works (by Linda Louise King) with spatters of paint. One features a crushed idea can covered in gold glitter, a collage of photos, and other junk metal. One called “In Front of the Bar” uses pictures of graffiti, fences and tracks in Providence. There are jewels/beads, masking tape, and black electrical tape, as well as vague shapes of people.  Do these fit into some kind of “junk art” aesthetic? 
• Music is playing over the speakers, people are mingling (not many yet), some guys are setting up the merch table. (Earlier, I saw the same guys cutting up paper and putting stuff together for the merch table. It turned out they were the members of Mounds, making the sleeves for their EP.)
• AS220 seems to have a kind of alternative, graffiti-inspired, junk art aesthetic – is this similar to the music that will be performed here?
• The loudspeaker music is heavy, with fuzzy guitars, crashing cymbals and drums, receptive vocals (Is this punk? post-punk? noise rock?)
• Brian’s drums and amps are painted different colors and his bass drum is covered in stickers. Reminiscent of the graffiti in the artwork on the walls.
• Other artwork on the other half of the room – black & white pen and ink, impressionistic nudes by Jim Shelton
• One guy got on stage, with black boots and a black&white patterned dress. Told a story about changing his clothes in an alley when he dropped his change out of his pants pockets – “Oh no, someone’s sucking dick in the alley!” (It’s 9:45pm now)
• His music – programmed drum beats and synth loops, nasally vocals. He hits switches to add layers of reverb, fuzz, and other effects. He calls himself Baby Aspirin.
• More people trickling in (from the restaurant/bar), some drinking beers
• His next song features a buzzing bass, loud synths, with a vocal melody in the chorus
• Next song – dance-like beat, steady “hi-hat” sixteenth notes, dissonant synths, low machine-like sound, semi-spoken vocals
• Still more people trickling in. There are a few women here now. I hadn’t realized that before it was only men.
• Descending synth line, swirling “wind” sounds
• Baby Aspirin comes off stage and into the crowd sometimes. He’s joking around with his reverb effects now.
• Introducing the next song, Baby Aspirin said: “Could we turn all the lights off? …If there was a black light in here I’d ask you to turn that on so you could see the cum stains on my dress!” (Then: “Oh shit, now I can’t see my lyrics on my paper.”
• He seems to be toying with sexuality, going for a kind of shock factor?
• He ended around 10:15
• There seems to be a “counterculture” vibe. The music was heavy, abrasive, in your face. How does drag figure into this?
• Some guys are setting up for the next group, in front of the stage. There’s a theremin, a couple mic stands. People have gathered in front now, near the group. The next band starts. There’s one guy on an electric acoustic guitar (Terry Turtle) and one singing (Billy). Billy is screaming, thrashing, and in the first song plays theremin (seems like improv). There are heavy, pounding electronic/programmed drums.
• The singer lunges at people in the audience, ambles around. At one point one guy in the crowd, beer in one hand, seemed to be holding him up or holding him back. He’s thrashing and stomping the floor. Sometimes he stares down a person in the audience. Other times he pushes the mic into his mouth.
• Two guys started pushing each other / moshing / fighting. Afterwards they shook hands – all in good fun (they seemed to enjoy it)
• Now the singer is hitting some kind of electronic drum pad with a drum stick. There is a wash of feedback. This is “Buck Gooter from Virginia…on tour with Mounds for like 12 days.”
• The music is almost painfully loud.
• Billy: “We’re not a 1 more song kind of band. We’re either 2 more songs or 3 more songs.” Into the next song, the singer is tangling his mic cord around him. The guy from Baby Aspirin and another guy got in a “fight,” went t hug it out when Baby Aspirin put the other guy in a headlock and pulled him to the ground. The other guy poured beer on Baby Aspirin’s head.
• Billy: “We’re not gonna molest anyone. You guys can pull it in so it’s not like we’re jerkin’ off in the shower.” He seems to like interacting with the crowd. Is audience participation an important trend here?
• The next song has a dance-like beat, a receptive melody with screams. Guitar solo – fuzzy, kind of bluesy – improvisational?
• When Buck Gooter finished playing, Baby Aspirin shouted: “Buck Gooter, motherfuckers! YOLO! YOLO, bitches! You know what that means?!”
• Up next: Mounds, from southeast Michigan. They’re up on stage. First song has a slow, steady, heavy drum beat (mostly bass drum), a repetitive synth line (in a 3-eighth note pattern, descending, then repeating over and over against the beat of 4). The drummer is singing, with a headset mic. He has long hair in a ponytail, glasses, a long sleeve muted orange shirt. Somewhere between Hippie and Grunge. On keyboards, a guy in a red shirt, short hair, glasses, looking down most of the time. People are standing around, bobbing their heads. Another repetitive melody and persistent synth line. 
• There seems to be a minimalist/maximalist tension. Not a lot of parts, but what there is combines to create a think, heavy texture. Few people and elements involved, but they make a loud, heavy wall of sound.
• “This next song is called ‘Sequoia,’ about a man who invented a written language.” Four drum stick clicks and the song begins…. A steady ride cymbal, strong snare backbeat, high repetitive synths over held organ chords (He’s playing a Korg electric organ). Basic rock beat (boom, KA, boom boom, KA boom, boom, KA, boom boom, KA boom…) The melody doesn’t have a wide range.
• Next song: “Pontiac” – It’s about Detroit, Michigan, “an amazing place – a big city that failed, now being taken back over by animals….and people who want cheap space.”
• Around 11:40 – I had to step out. My ears were hurting and now they’re ringing. I can see/hear inside though. This song alternates between quiet sections of drum solo then everything (drums, organ, vocals). Lots of long held notes in the melody.
• There are other people outside the restaurant / performance space. Some standing, some sitting at tables. One guy with a joint in his hand, another guy rolling a joint. 
• Back inside now (I put toilet paper in my ears). Mounds is done playing. Brian Chippendale is setting up his drum set. People are gathering in front of and around his drums. About midnight: Brian warmed up a bit, moving around his set with ease. He put on his mask, with a mic inside or underneath it, and began testing the mic with nonsensical sounds. He’s setting up pedals, making electric high-pitched noises while shout-singing  strange babbling noises drenched in reverb. He started a driving beat in 3 with the bass drum pounding [1 2 3][1+ (2)+ (3)+], crash cymbal in unison with the bass, and steady 16th notes on the snare in between the crashes.  His hands are moving so fast I can hardly see them. The vocals are indecipherable. Occasionally he stops drumming (to adjust his equipment or because of some other technical difficulties I assume).
• Starting a new song, I think… In 4 now. Steady pounding bass drum, eventually a snare on the backbeat. I can feel the pounding in my body.
• I’m amazed one guy is making so much noise…
• How is he making the fuzz/guitar/bass noises? It sounds like feedback.
• Now – steady 8th notes in the bass drum. Ride cymbal, now crash. He dropped a stick and didn’t miss a beat.
• I wonder – how much of this is improvised and how much is planned?
• Some people in the crowd are bouncing their heads, others thrashing around more vigorously. 
• There are hints of a melody in the music now – vocal loops. Other times there has been less of a clear melody. The music seems almost formless, constantly settling in and out of different patterns, changing. There is a wash of fuzz sounds, now drums now as he adjusts his mask and mic.
• New song. In 4, a basic rock beat, repeating and changing.
• I can feel air blowing on me – is it from the drums? I can feel everything, every beat. The volume is so high and his playing his so physical/athletic.
• Brian’s stopped to take a sip of water, with a looped vocal effect repeating with feedback – an fuzzy, electronic, theremin-like sound. Gritty industrial bass sound.
• There’s a blurred line between songs. I can’t tell where one begins and another ends, and the feedback and testing in between songs blends in, especially . Is it all music? Is some of it just “noise”? 
• People have started moshing – guys thrashing around, pushing each other  (all of the moshers seem to be male). It’s not very crowded though. 
• 12:40 – the show’s over and the lights are back on. I talked to Brian after. He was covered in sweat. I said, “I don’t think I’ve seen someone play so athletically before.” “Yeah,” he replied, “it’s pretty athletic. It’s like sports. Maybe I should’ve done sports. This has a better product, though. It’s like sports making music.”
• He also said, “Sometimes I’m in control of the pedals; sometimes the pedals control me. I think tonight it was the second one.” He said he was sloppy tonight, getting his bearings, but the show tomorrow should be better (the basement show in Boston).
• He said he’s played at AS220 “so many times” in the past.

Challenge Question Response

Katie’s Question: 

Much of what we’ve read in class, seems to share theoretical roots with contemporary anthropology. For instance,

“I found the dialectical tension between the individual and the ‘terrain’ of Bulgarian society captured in metaphors musicians used to describe the music they performed.” (385, “Metaphors of Power”, Buchanan)

What distinguishes the field of ethnomusicology from similar or related fields, such as anthropology? For instance, besides using a musical lens, in what ways does an ethnography by an ethnomusicologist differ from an ethnography by an anthropologist? Are there fundamental differences in theoretical framework(s) or methods? How do these similarities and/or differences affect the interpretation of the information produced through ethnomusicology?

My response:

Just as Buchanan, an ethnomusicologist, “found the dialectical tension between the individual and the ‘terrain’ of Bulgarian society captured in metaphors musicians used to describe the music they performed,” anthropologist Abu-Lughod observed a “dialectical tension between the individual and the ‘terrain’” of Bedouin society captured in the language used in the poetry of Bedouin women. In each case, the ethnographer uses a specific aspect of the culture under study as a window into the society as a whole.

Clearly, anthropology and ethnomusicology are closely related. For much of ethnomusicology’s history, the field has borrowed heavily from the theoretical models of anthropology. For instance, Malinowski’s functionalism, Evans-Pritchard’s structural functionalism, and Levi-Strauss’s structuralism have been fundamental to the development of anthropology and, subsequently, ethnomusicology. Additionally, ethnomusicology’s research methods, such as interviews and fieldnotes, are largely derived from anthropology; most notably, participant observation was used extensively by anthropologists like Bronislaw Malinowski, E.E. Evans-Pritchard, and Margaret Mead before spreading into ethnomusicology. More recent work by ethnomusicologists such as Gregory Barz have helped shift the focus of ethnomusicological fieldwork away from representation of data and toward experience, yet a similar shift has occurred in the development of anthropology, which has for years emphasized subjective experience as a defining feature of an ethnographers’ understanding of a culture. Adapting to increasing globalization and mass mediation of music, ethnomusicology has been influenced by Popular Music Studies, with its emphasis on music as commodity. This is not so different, however, from material culture studies within anthropology, which takes into consideration object fetishization and the symbolic meanings of objects (influenced both by Marxism and by semiotics/linguistics). It would seem that anthropology and ethnomusicology may not have any important theoretical distinctions besides ethnomusicology’s use of a musical lens.

The two fields do have different theoretical roots, however. Unlike anthropology, ethnomusicology has roots in comparative musicology. When the Society for Ethnomusicology began in the 50s, however, the name “comparative musicology” had been abandoned and the system of comparative methods was considered obsolete (at least by F.A. Kuttner). But the early issues of the SEM journal that we explored suggest that comparison was still central to the work of ethnomusicologists. Much of their work discussed broad stylistic trends and often made sense of “folk” musics in terms of Western art music structures. These ethnomusicologists were in the vein of the founder of comparative musicology, Bela Bartók, who focused on music as representative of national identity. His approach compared musical styles and initially treated cultures as bounded entities. And though ethnomusicology has come a long way, no longer treating music cultures as bounded entities and de-emphasizing Western musical ideologies, a common thread can still be traced back to these roots. Many ethnomusicologists’ primary object of study is still music itself (if not in actuality, then at least as seen from some perspectives outside the discipline).

This can be seen in the work of Alan Merriam, who observed the emergence of two paths in ethnomusicology, one focusing on sound and the other on behavior. Merriam, who wrote The Anthropology of Music, promoted ethnomusicology as the study of “music in culture,” or later, “music as culture.” The more musically-inclined Mantle Hood, on the other hand, focused on studying music in its cultural context. An important question remains: does an ethnomusicologist study music for music’s sake, because it has some intrinsic value as music, or does she or he study music to understand the social processes of the people involved? Even in modern ethnomusicology, both approaches can be observed. And where the former approach is preferred, ethnomusicology begins to veer away from anthropology.

Perhaps because of these different theoretical roots, ethnomusicology is largely yet to be embraced by anthropologists, and I think this separation between the fields results in different interpretations of their work. Though ethnomusicologists have spent years working against the Western notion of music as a special realm accessible only to musicians (a notion historically encouraged by Western scholars of musicology) the reality of their work may pose a contradiction. For even if the idea is not promoted by ethnomusicologists themselves, outside perspectives cast music as the central focus of the field – ethnomusicologists, as musicians, have a unique insider perspective unavailable to non-musicians. Thus it is possible that ethnomusicologists, by their very existence, may inadvertently perpetuate the Western notion of individual musical talent within academia. Perhaps this is why many anthropologists have been reluctant to study music, despite the many commonalities between the fields.

Critical Review: Novak – Cosmopolitanism, Remediation, and the Ghost World of Bollywood

In this article Novak discusses remediation in regards to Bollywood music, specifically the song-and-dance number “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” from the 1965 film Gumnaam. Bollywood music was embraced by American “alternative” culture beginning in the 1990s. Remediation, he argues, doesn’t just translate media into new forms, but transforms their meaning as a production is removed and distanced from its original context, given a new meaning in its new context. When does musical remediation become inappropriate? Is there an element of exploitation in the case of American alternatives as depicted in Ghost World?

Critical Review: Greif – Epitaph for the White Hipster

In this article Mark Greif discusses the white “hipsters” of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s. The hipster subculture developed in Manhattan’s Lower East Side as “entitled whites” moved into the area, which was previously made up primarily of lower class Puerto Ricans, Blacks, and Jews. Unlike bohemians or artists, the whites who moved in during this gentrification did not integrate with the local groups, but instead marked themselves off as different, with their own unique style, “coded ‘suburban white.’” They were, in the words of Greif, “pro-consumer, pro-consumption, amoral, pro-lifestyle.”

 

I was familiar with the hipster style of trucker hats and “ironic” t-shirts popular for a brief time in the early oughts, but I was surprised to read about how this hipster identity played with whiteness and had overtones of homophobia and racism. Clearly the hipsters Greif discusses are very different from hipsters post-2004, as I understand them today. What caused this shift in hipsterism? What role did music play in white hipster identity before 2004?

Critical Review: Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff, dir.)

Ghost World, Terry Zwigoff’s 2001 “indie” film based on the comic book of the same name, follows two girls, Enid and Rebecca, during the summer after their high school graduation. Outsiders at their school, they are cynical and sarcastic. Their observations of the suburban sprawl and the people around them are dripping with irony, revealing their keen awareness of the absurdity of American consumer culture. 

One day, Enid and Rebecca play a prank on a man named Seymour, a social outsider in his own way who obsessively collects records and other old things. Feeling bad, Enid gets to know him, initially amused by him but eventually coming to like his honest, un-ironic “dorkiness.” Enid and Seymour’s relationship becomes central to the rest of the film, as Enid and Rebecca grow distant.

 

Ghost World offers a critique of consumer culture in America, and portrays two girls (Enid especially) attempting to find an alternative culture and authentic identities. But ultimately there is no alternative culture free from the trappings of consumerism. 

 

How does the film show different ways in which people use music to define themselves?  How is Enid’s interest in the Bollywood song “Jaan Pehechaan Ho” different from her later connection with Skip James’ blues classic “Devil Got My Woman”? What attracts her to each? How is the context in which Enid experiences those songs removed from their original contexts, and how does this difference change their meaning for Enid?

Critical Review: Meintjes – “Paul Simon’s Graceland, South Africa, and the Mediation of Musical Meaning”

In this essay, Louise Meintjes discusses the meaning of Paul Simon’s Graceland in semiotic terms, describing the album as “a complex polysemic sign vehicle that comes to stand for social collaboration.” The music itself, for example, includes numerous signs from a variety of musical and linguistic style types, some indexing Western traditions and others indexing South African traditions (with the distinctions between the two blurred by Simon’s mediation). Though Graceland was not conceived in political terms, politics are embedded in the musical terms because of the historical complexes of meaning associated with these various signs.

Because of the album’s integration of many styles and the collaborative process involved in the album’s creation, the musical collaboration of Graceland becomes an “icon for sociopolitical collaboration in the South African context.” Yet the meaning of this icon is highly variable. The listener must perform what Meintjes calls “interpretive moves,” negotiating the meaning of the album based on their position within the cultural and political landscape of South Africa.

Some Black South Africans criticized Graceland for exploiting Black South African culture. Other Black South Africans embraced the international exposure garnered by the project and emphasized its value as an expression of an indigenous Black identity separate from the ruling faction. I was most surprised by the reaction of some White South Africans who attempted to construct a national meaning of the sign Graceland (as Meintjes would call it). In doing so, they attempted to establish a “White African (as opposed to colonial) identity” and diminished the impact of Black South African music as a form of resistance to White domination

It seems everything can be examined through a political lens. Are politics always embedded in music to some extent or is this a special case? And how does Meintjes’ analysis of the various interpretations of Graceland show how culture can be commodified?

Also…Given that “cultural rights” are the rights of people to access culture and participate in the culture of their choosing, does musical appropriation somehow infringe upon the cultural rights of the musical originators? In the case of Graceland in South Africa, does the appropriation of Black South African music by White South Africa inhibit Blacks from expressing their own culture?

Critical Review: Feld – “Notes on ‘World Beat’”

In “Notes on ‘World Beat’” Steven Feld discusses musical appropriation and the cross pollination of African and American/African-American musical styles. Using Paul Simon’s Graceland as an example, Feld demonstrates the dual nature of musical appropriation. On the one hand, it can be a way of paying homage and “a source of connectedness, creativity, and innovation.” On the other hand, appropriation can have negative political implications concerning power and control, demonstrating an “asymmetry in ownership and commodification of musical works.”

Though African and American musicians had been influencing and borrowing from each other for years (as demonstrated by James Brown and Fela Kuti, for example), musical appropriation becomes an issue in the case of albums like Graceland and Talking Heads’ Remain in Light because of the high economic stakes and the imbalance in ownership, despite those releases drawing attention to the musical originators. Should Paul Simon be criticized for musical appropriation and his sole ownership of the rights to Graceland (despite his efforts to repay the musicians he worked with) or should he be excused because he was limited by the system in which he was operating (i.e. record companies)? Feld attributes the issues of power to record companies and their “cultivation of an international pop elite with the power to sell enormous numbers of recordings.” Are record companies by their very nature bound to perpetuate “the hegemonic”?

Also…..Is some degree of musical appropriation inevitable in any music? Where do we draw the line between “influence” and “appropriation” or between “roots” and “rip-off”?

Critical Review: Helbig – “Representation and Intracultural Dynamics: Romani Musicians and Cultural Rights Discourse in Ukraine”

Challenge question

In “Sounds Like the Mall of America,” Jonathan Sterne mentions “Bruno Nettl’s call for an ‘urban ethnomusicology’” and refers to his essay as “a suburban ethnomusicology” (27). For years, sociomusicologists studied “the West” while ethnomusicologists studied “the rest,” but as more ethnomusicologists study Western/urban societies, that pattern is changing. Is the distinction between ethnomusicology and sociomusicology still clear or even important? Are their methodologies still unique? Are there particular challenges for  ethnomusicologists studying Western/urban societies, and if so, how must their approaches change/adapt? How might sociomusicology inform ethnomusicological study in these environments? How have some of the authors we’ve read dealt with these issues (in particular: Sterne, Miller, Sakakeeny, and Nettl)? Some things to consider: urbanization, the growth of mass media, the position of Western academics as “wholies.” (You don’t necessarily need to answer all of these questions in your response, but it might be helpful to touch upon them.)

Critical Review: Buchanan – “Metaphors of Power, Metaphors of Truth: The Politics of Music Professionalism in Bulgarian Folk Orchestras”

In this article, Donna A. Buchanan traces the history of Bulgarian music from its folk roots in the early 20th century to illustrate the tension between individual values emphasizing folk tradition and the values promoted by the socialist regime. He also explains the evolution of music professionalism (playing music for economic gain) throughout the 20th century. Traditional folk music, or narodna musika, that was prominent before the socialist period emphasized solo performance and linear, melodic development. Through the socialist period of 1944 to 1989, however, the government of Bulgaria promoted folk orchestras that used traditional Bulgarian instruments (sometimes modified) in a Western-influenced orchestra structure. These state-sponsored folk orchestras played music that blended elements of traditional musical styles of the different ethnic regions in Bulgaria with Western “socio-aesthetic ideals.” Because government-sanctioned music became the only economically viable route for musicians to take, musicians who valued traditional music played “from the heart” sometimes had to adjust, performing what was “politically or economically expedient.” By placing Bulgarian music (on the local and national level) in its global context, she illustrates how the shaping of identity and musical style is influenced by cultural performance, the playing out of cultural identities on an international stage. Additionally, she suggests that, though the cultural hegemony of the powerful imposed certain images of “truth” on Bulgarians, the musical changes Bulgaria underwent can not be attributed solely to political domination. Instead, she adopts a post-structuralist view: musical style is closely linked with the forming of personal identities, and the its transformation is shaped by an interaction between individual musicians and the ever-shifting political, cultural, and social forces around them. 

Buchanan writes, “In Bulgaria musicians continue to play a vital role in this process of identity reconfiguration, because they hold the keys to the heart of tradition, while serving simultaneously as their nation’s emissaries to the outside world.” Does music play a similar role in American culture or other cultures? How is it’s role different here? When can a musical performance be interpreted as an honest representation of a person’s “self” or identity? In the case of Bulgarian music during the socialist period, could it be said that the music promoted by the government worked counter to the “habitus” of traditional Bulgarian musicians (i.e. did the “field” change before the “habitus” could follow)?