When did being part of a musical 'scene' become

[GirlinContempt]

about stagnant exclusionary bullshit? I was talking to a friend about this last night. I mean, no one is denying that music has an influence that goes beyond the initial aural experience, but more and more I see people who're in some 'scene' for the sake of the scene. They'd rather sit around tittering at people who show up at clubs in red shirts when the colour of the week is green than work on getting some great band playing a show or writing a new song. I've experienced it.

"Oh hey! I was talking to so-and-so and they said they'd bring in band x if we could get this and that local group to play with them, and I know this club owner who'd let us get the space at a great deal!"
And the response is "Well, I'M running this club night and YOU'RE trying to compete with it, and WE need to build up the club scene before doing anything like THAT".

Bullshit social engineering that stifles the only god damn thing I care about in ANY of these 'scenes'. The friggin music. Without the music they'd just be more washed up rejects pining for the days of the high school caste system. Go do it somewhere else and stop screwing with something GOOD.

Anyone else experienced this?

[RandomKoolzip]

1. That's one of the reasons I'm pretty sour on the post-punk generation...

You know, the people who chose The Smiths over Black Flag, The Cure over The Minutemen, and Duran Duran over Flipper. They all seemed so focused on the image, the persona, of their favorite artists, whereas those musically superior bands had NO look, dressed in whatever they could afford, and did the heavy lifting required to build a touring circuit for the underground back when Bohenia was perfectly happy to scarf up whatever Limey poodles pooted forth on major labels.

I just finished reading Simon Reynolds's "Rip it Up and Start Again," about the Post Punk years. Reynolds is a facile wordsmith, but his aesthetic is almost the exact opposite of mine. He prefers the bloodless, cold, anti-blues, anti-sweat, effete postpunkers like ABC, Malcolm McClaren, Spandau Ballet, etc. to the the real, physical presence of bands like The Meat Puppets or the Replacements. He documents every single dumb trend out of Merry Olde between 1977 and 1984 in this book, and leaves the reader feeling overwhelmingly sad.

What also comes away from the book is how rooted in reactionary thinking post-punk was. All the bands seemingly were formed around what they DIDN'T want to be ("No blues, no ROCK, no raunch," etc), rather than a creative, imaginative posture based on investigating the sea of possibilities inherent in the small band format. And for most of those bands, the clothes and the image (and the *yawn* politics...:eyes:) were far more important than the music. I find the influence of the post-punk years to be almost completely negative to the body of Rock music because of this shifted focus on the extra-musical elements; even instrumental facility was pooh-poohed as "rockist!" what a crock! It wasn't until later in the decade, when you could no longer ignore how good records like "Double Nickels on the Dime" were, that the ship began to right itself again, and the primacy of the small band format was re-established.

As Carducci says, "Style most often disguises not content but lack of content."

My heroes were always guys like D. Boon and Bob Mould and Chuck Dukowski, dudes who gave nary a FUCK about style, and instead channelled their energy and imagination into making powerful music and making sure that music got heard.

[Beware the Beast Man]

3. You're pretty smart. You should be on VH1 or something.

[GirlinContempt]

18. .

:rofl:

[Beware the Beast Man]

31. I'm glad SOMEONE appreciates "metal expert" John Ostronomy.

:D

[Tyrone Slothrop]

4. So....wait a minute

Are you trying to assert that the punk movement (or "most of those bands") WASN'T about the clothes, the image or the politics???

I guess the Sex Pistols were just all about the music -- so much so that they hired a bass player who couldn't play bass.

[asthmaticeog]

9. The Sex Pistols weren't the whole punk movement.

Watch any doc about any given early punk scene - I'd suggest the Decline and Fall of Western Civ. You'll see lots and lots of totally normal looking people who just happened to be into weird music. The Sex Pistols weren't at all representative - you don't see green mohawks or pink spike-dos on ACTUAL early punks (as opposed to management/media creations) like Television, Talking Heads, Dead Boys, Flag, Flipper, Minutemen - not a fashio-hound in the bunch. It was Malcom McLaren's insistence on the importance of fashion (specifically, fashions that he and his wife designed... hmmmmm...) that in fact ruined the whole party.

So I'll state it bluntly: the punk movement wasn't about the clothes, the image or the politics. To think so is to have been totally chumped.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

20. Where did I say or imply that the Sex Pistols were the entire movement?

Or, likewise, why do you assume my ignorance of the punk scene?

I've seen the doc you mentioned, and the presence of "normals" doesn't mean that there was no stress on fashion, image, etc. in the movement itself. Go to any "emo" or "hipster" populated show and you'll certainly find some normal looking people there too (myself among them sometimes). However, that doesn't mean that that scene doesn't focus on fashion, image, politics, etc. (Quite the contrary, in fact.)

But, apparently, I've been totally chumped because my opinion differs from yours! Lots of people have, apparently, because most of the contemporary punks I know think it is more about ideology than music. Likewise, the Wikipedia entry on "punk" features 1 small paragraph about the "Music" while it features a vast compendium of other subtopics focusing on things like "Ideology", "Fashion", "Visual Art", "Dance", "Literature", "Lifestyle", "Culture", etc.

As far as McLaren goes, I'm not sure exactly why you brought him up, particularly in relation to those "ACTUAL early punks"; McLaren began promoting the fashion that would become synonomous with punk in 1974/5 -- before the formation of ANY of the bands you mentioned as "ACTUAL early punks" (The Mintuemen weren't even around until the 80s; with the exception of Dead Boys, all the others you mentioned came around at least 2 or 3 years after The Ramones and The Sex Pistols) -- after a NY Dolls show; this was also incidentally the same year The Ramones started up shop. Funny -- the Wikipedia entry I cited on punk earlier also mentioned how all the kids were copying Joey's fashion sense.

But I guess I've just been totally chumped and am ignorant of the entire punk scene, right?

[GirlinContempt]

21. Sorry, what?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk_rock

[Tyrone Slothrop]

23. I said the entry on "punk"

Not "punk rock".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punk

Don't put words in my mouth, thank you!

[GirlinContempt]

25. Oh, I see

Don't link you to articles on the same subject that disprove your theory you mean.

Wikipedia is not a definitive source on punk, with or without more than a paragraph of information.

However, the article clearly states it's about the subculture, and links to the punk music entry, and as I have said already, there is no subculture without a driving force of music. The music was the catalyst for the subculture, and that's what we're discussing. The music. It exists independently, it did before the subculture and would continue to after the fact.

[asthmaticeog]

26. I guess so.

I could go graf by graf and tear your argument apart, but since you're a self-revisionist, apparently, I don't see the point, so I'll sum up. You implied that, because the Pistols were entirely about fashion and politics, punk writ large was likewise. You implied this by holding up the Pistols - a fabricated band created by a designer to promote his fashions, by the way, they even had his shop name in the band name, and that is why I brought him up, and that those fashions antedate punk MUSIC only proves their irrelevance to it - as your ONLY example, thus implying that they were the be-all-end-all of the definition. I brought up the '80s bands to underscore how punk carried on just fine without fashionate distractions from the actual, grubby work of making music. Any one of the bands I named, of whatever vintage, certainly dust dressups like the Exploited.

Also, I have to add, that even though "emo" has its ancestry in punk, it ain't the same thing by about 20 long shots. "Hipster" implies fashion-damage by definition, so sly move throwing that red herring into your chuckleworthy argument. And slyer still that you get all your info from Wikipedia. NO FUTURE, indeed.

[RandomKoolzip]

29. Malcolm McClaren: single WORST influence on rock music ever.

I honestly believe that. Read the Reynolds book; your capacity to hate McClaren will be expanded a thousandfold. Anti-feminist, anti-music, anti-feeling, pro-crap. Just the shit he put Annabella Lwin through should have been enough to send him to prison.

[Beware the Beast Man]

39. He has about as much cred as Simon Cowell, in my book.

[GirlinContempt]

10. The punk movement was NOT about image

Parts of it were about politics, but it's driving force was MUSIC. There is no 'trying to assert', it basically goes without saying. The sex pistols were not punk music, they were a band. A band that wouldn't have been able to exist if the music hadn't been driven enough to create a subculture of that magnitude.

I'm SO TIRED of hearing 'Sex Pistols' by default in any discussion of punk rock, as if they were some sort of epitome of punk ROCK. Thats kitchy punk CULTURE, period.

[RandomKoolzip]

32. Okay, take away McClaren's suspect sociological impulses.

Then take away the cultural brinksmanship and the media hype surrounding the Sex Pistols. Take away the "image." Forget everything you know about the Sex Pistols's personas...NOW: listen to the music with an objective ear.

It kicks ass.

All that shit about the Pistols not being able to "play their instruments" was millenarian bunk. They had an individual instrumental approach emphasizing the interplay between the drums and guitar, and Glen Matlock's songwriting was strong and traditionally melodic. And Lydon's incredible, almost mystically expressive voice is one of the defining sounds of the age.

And that's the test: does the music stand on its own, apart from the "image?" For the Pistols, it does, and the music was so strong it justified the extra-musical nonsense surrounding it (if not their impresario's despicable machinations). You can't always say that about many of the postpunk groups, many of whom put so much time in crafting a manifesto and a look that they forgot how to play.

And I think it's established that "punk movement" (boo) is a vastly different thing than "punk rock" (yay).

[GirlinContempt]

16. First I gotta ask

Define post punk.

[RandomKoolzip]

28. OK, I'm back. Here we go:

Post Punk: loosely, the era between Wire's "Chairs Missing" and Frankie Goes to Hollywood's "Welcome to the Pleasuredome." (downhill slide intentionally implied). Mostly a Limey phenomenon. From my understanding, it was motivated by fashion and subverting the rock process: the musicians were conciously stripping away all rock "cliches" in an intentional "challenge" to what they saw as an entrenched, complacent Rock establishment.

Sometimes this could produce some great music (Throbbing Gristle, Gang of Four, This Heat, L. Voag, Kleenex, Raincoats, The Fall, Flying Lizards), when the creators were instinctually musical enough to come up with something substantial to replace those traits deemed gauche by the tastemakers of the time (blues changes, raunch, drive, the word "baby"). Most artists weren't this imaginative.

The majority of postpunk groups derived their music from a few primary sources: Eno, Bowie's "Low" album, Kraftwerk, and Georgio Moroder's mechanized EuroDisco. The machine rhthyms of the factory were emphasized, the flexible, human rhythms of the sex act and the heartbeat were squelched - robotic gestures and complaints/celebrations of dehumanization were rife. (I'm beginning to think C-3PO is thee ultimate postpunk).

What drove postpunk's engine was a reactionary fuel: the subverting of any "cliche" before it caught on among the public. Joy Division's moroseness begat "positive punk" ala Echo and the Bunnymen; Scritti Pollitti's harsh Marxist moralizing was replaced by their somersaulting rationalizations once they became a shiny pop machine as a way of rebelling against their former image (i.e they sold out) ; Heaven 17 created the "corporate look," as a way of "rebelling" against the more Bohemian punk style, etc. Looking back, it seems as though most of the artists were doing more tearing down than creating - they couldn't make a move on their own, they had to be moving against something at all times. Among all this overturn, overturn, overturn, and the rampant image makeovers that went along with it, the music kinda began to fall by the wayside. It got so crazy that by 1984, a band as bluesless and drab and anti-rock as the Sisters of Mercy could proudly call themselves a "rock band" as a gesture agaisnt the now-prevailing postpunk establishment, and still not really BE a rock band (they had a drum machine). Whole lotta posin' goin' on....

I have to admit to a deep-seated aversion to most of this stuff based on my childhood first impressions of most of it; I spent most of the 80's desperately wishing that it wasn't the 80's anymore. Duran Duran made me gag, Depeche Mode were even lamer. I still can't get beyond an adolescent hatred of synths.

[GirlinContempt]

30. Jesus, some times

I just hate you :D

[RandomKoolzip]

33. You and me both, babe.

[GirlinContempt]

36. Well, doll,

rather than risk further groupie-dom, I must bow out with a quiet "I agree, you fucking genius"

[Dr Fate]

51. Athens in the 1990's seemed to be Indies vs. Hippies

But I liked Big Star, Guided By Voices, Flaming Lips AND The Grateful Dead the Stones & the Beatles. Merle haggard, George Jones and Uncle Tupelo too.

I always prided myself in being able to straddle the genres.

I agree- the cliques are useless- a good song is a good song.

[ghostsofgiants]

53. Dude, your musical knowledge intimidates the fuck out of me.

[SteppingRazor]

2. What you're talking about in your second paragraph...

is just the clash of egos that has probably been going on since music was created.

As for the problems of insular scenes, it's true that a local scene is more easily fostered by an inclusive, cooperative mindset. You then have to worry about homegenization, but one hopes that creativity can overcome that.

As far as specific advice, I don't really have anything to offer, except that if you have problems with a promoter who runs a club night, go over his head to a club owner, convince him that you can turn him a profit, and screw over the problematic club promoter. Happens all the time.

[Squeech]

6. Yeah, that too.

But it might just be something as simple as people protecting their income stream.

Back in the hippie era, there were two promoters in San Francisco. Bill Graham staged dance concerts at the Fillmore, and Chet Helms booked the Avalon Ballroom. The scene was big enough for both of them, but they butted heads often enough that finally Helms (who was more hippie than businessman) decided to get out of the business, and sold his operation to Graham.

Where I live, in Boston, the scene is largely fragmented into little exclusionary cliques. The band I'm in hangs out largely in goth world, because that's who our friends are (and our attitude!), but our real aesthetics are closer to the musos-- free improviser escapees from Berklee. But a bunch of them are busy trying to worm their way into those leftover outposts of the art scene that still get funding, and I can't blame them for that either. Wanting to get paid for what we do is the crux of the problem...

[GirlinContempt]

11. No, it's a clash

of interests. One group is interested in being the queen of the ball, the other in music.

The thing is, no one on the music-driven side wants to screw anyone over, and doing shit like that in an already stiflingly small 'scene' just divides even more, and creates even more social drama bullshit. It's like a catch-22.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

5. Sort of

???

I'm not sure I get exactly what you're trying to say. I do know that my friends who promote/book for clubs/shows/festivals/etc. generally try to select bands that play to the "theme" of the event or what have you.

Is this what you have a problem with? Because a booking agent won't squeeze, say, a thrash punk band in between the other two bluegrass acts he's got for the night? 'Cause that just makes sense to me. If you have a club, you want to build up your following on specific evenings by doing a theme-type of thing. That way your bluegrass devotees will be more likely to come in every Tuesday night when the club would be dead otherwise.

As far as the competing nights/building up the scene thing, I live in Brooklyn. Maybe I don't see that here so much since there's a pretty well-established scene here kind of permanently.

[GirlinContempt]

12. It's not about events

Or about promoters. It's about people who turn scenes based on music into popularity contests and exclude music and expansion of the scene because they don't care about the music. They care about the 'scene' as a social and personal idea. The problem is musical 'scenes' getting over run with 'scenesters' instead of being driven by a collective musical passion.

[Bombtrack]

7. You actually wore a red shirt?

[GirlinContempt]

13. Red is like, so 2001

[Magrittes Pipe]

8. The existence of the scene takes precedence of the existence of the music.

A "scene" is a social construct. Music, on the other hand, is an art form. How one chooses to define oneself always trumps what one chooses to do with one's time. I pity those who define themselves by their scenes, but it happens all the time.

For me, the music is more important. Always. That's why, although I do like it when there is a sense of community among local artists, I could never be a real scenester.

[GirlinContempt]

14. Exactly

:thumbsup:

[sendero]

15. Music used to be..

... 10% business and 90% music. Now it is 90% business and 10% music.

If it weren't for the net, I'd have no chance whatsoever of finding new music worth listening to. Viva la internets!

[SteppingRazor]

17. Great book for you to read:

"The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-On Collision of Rock and Commerce" by Fred Goodman

Describes the music to music business evolution in agonizing clarity

[XNASA]

19. Music fans weren't always so cliquish as they are now.

When I was a scenester, people enjoyed more than one type of music. But it seems these days people are more locked in to one type of music or another. If they like Trance, they don't like C&W. If they like Punk, they don't like Dylan, etc., etc.

My friends and I have always liked the best of every kind of music. The more varied the genres were, the more we liked it. People, music fans included, are too narrow minded and divisive these days.

It's a shame.

[GirlinContempt]

22. Shame, shame indeed

Maybe next time I guest-spot I'll give in to the urge to announce "Guess what, even if none of you were here I'd STILL be doing it because this isn't about you." :D

[asthmaticeog]

27. I can't stand that, either.

When people tie their identity to a specific little subscene SO tightly that they don't even want to hear about the existence of another, I can only groan, because in three years when the fad they're attached to fizzles, it'll just be on to the next one to the exclusion of all else. I know only a handful of people now who can get as excited about for example Neko Case as for example Parts & Labor. That used to be the norm, I wonder why the stratification has become so intense?

[XNASA]

38. When did it happen?

I think a couple of factors led to music's malaise. The first is that the major labels bought up everyone else. The other is that everyone now has access to horrible music all the time. It's become dilluted.

Signed,

Old-Timey Guy

[johnnie]

37. That's how it was when I was young

We liked everything that was good. Back when I was working recording sessions I would tell the younger kids that they are doing themselves a big disservice to only listen to their "scene" because those come and go, but good music stays.

I've never understood the scene thing. The best musicians I have met will know their craft and that includes it all.

[NNadir]

24. It's always been that way.

It was this way for as long as I've been aware of the existence of music.

[GirlinContempt]

44. Well, it wasn't this way for my father

:shrug:

[WCGreen]

34. It's that way until you get a little older and realize how

Inane it all really is after all...

And then, when you go back to the places that you thought were really cool, they will look at you and snigger....

I trace this all back to Andy Warhol.....

[GirlinContempt]

45. I don't think that's what this is about

I mean, if getting older means losing my passion for music, then I'll stay young, thanks. It's not even like these people are all kids. We're talking many in their 40s.

I think that maybe the issue is the social image focous of a lot of music, that's changed too, and in some ways is getting worse. That's the thing, some of these people look at places they think are cool for different reasons than I think they're cool. I think they're cool because thats where I go and hear fantastic music that speaks to me, that inspires something in me. Going back there and having people 'snigger' at me wouldn't matter, because it was never about them. but the people that giggle, they're the problem. They're what makes finding this space an issue.

[kiraboo]

35. Well it was certainly like that way the hell back when

I was in highschool and then college. Choosing your music according to others' taste is just another way people try to conform. Or stand out. Or whatever they need.

[GirlinContempt]

46. I don't think they're choosing it based on others taste

but they're being messed up about it based on the creation of social scenes and stratas surrounding music.

[kiraboo]

55. I was being flippant with my choice of words.

I know what you mean. I was a semi-skinhead (half bald) in my youth and listened to music I could barely tolerate because it fit my "persona".

[atomic-fly]

40. comments by hugh cornwell...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbnmiIYdU04

[GirlinContempt]

47. I disagree with him

But cool video

[bedpanartist]

41. It has always been this way

stay away from the word "scene" at all costs.

It's all about high school politics.

[GirlinContempt]

48. The word doesn't mean anything negative.

Call it whatever the fuck you want, a group of similar musicians and venus for listening to music of a similar style. Thats unwieldy, so it's a scene. Calling it that doesn't turn it into a highschool-esq ego battleground, theres something rotten beyond that.

[bedpanartist]

56. the word doesn't necessarily mean bad

but trust me, the high school drama abounds in any "music scene" I've been around. It's ridiculous.

[izzybeans]

42. I have

as an outsider to "hip" scenes everywhere.

I find them tragically funny. But sadly most of the time I feel as if I'm talking to an elitest contradiction.

[GirlinContempt]

49. Who said anything about hip?

[izzybeans]

52. Well that's an eye of the beholder thing, hence the quotes.

;)

[GirlinContempt]

54. haha

sorry I'm just confused cause I didn't even mention which scene ;)

[RedStateShame]

43. Come to Louisville some time

And hold your nose. Plenty of it here. Makes me want to talk my bandmates into moving to Chicago. Sure, there are probably too many bands there already, but I like their public transit.

Edited for writer's inability to check grammar before posting.

[GirlinContempt]

50. Really?

That bad? Yick. Get outta there :P