Pages

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Week 2, What's Up?

Reading music centric words is one of life's gargantuanly grotesque guilty pleasures. In my life. As ego would have it, though, my life is not the equivalent to the majority of the human experience. Yet this premise itself can be translated to fit any number of different scenarios. Sports writing that makes a fan research historical facts; dig deeper into statistics. Film critiques that pique a film buff or casual ticket buyer's interest in viewing moving images from a different angle. Improper sentences that make an average citizen want to seek out a book on syntactic theory for the sole purpose of beating the pompous ass of a writer looking to bend a rule from time to time over the head with it.

A better constructed thought, really, is that reading extended material on a hobby or area of interest is one of life's simplest joys.

Like swerving to avoid hitting a smaller, but nonetheless living, creature that stands to be no fit match against a thousand pound piece of deadly metal on wheels, good learning is akin to a warm comforting feeling right below the navel. The art of hugging is not necessarily a multi-person act. Care for yourself, love yourself...feed your brain, eh? It was perhaps for this reason that I recently read We Got the Neutron Bomb: The Untold Story of L.A. Punk, a literary concept co-created by Marc Spitz (not the Olympic swimmer) and Branden Mullen. An insider and a journalist who take a retrospective glance at the Los Angeles California punk scene, via Glam Rock, from 1969-1981. The book really does have a narrative that stands on it's own; fascinating in it's own respect. Most interestingly, though, is the fact that it is not written in prose. Spitz and Mullen's book is not second hand source material. Rather, while the individual tales and overall thematic idea is impressive and worthy of contemplation, the true source of formidable essence is in the gargantuan editing job required for publication. The book tells a coherent, linear story strictly through interviews.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, reading about a hobby carries an associated risk: developing a prolonged interest or “phase” in an especially niche area. Nietzschean nuances, really.

So I thought about it. I reflected for quite some time. I stopped short of meditating because, frankly, the otherwise “spent” time on pondering prevented an actual excursion in exemplary tree discovery. So why not dedicate a week's worth of posts to this region wide scene of musical community? Why should I not cover records like Germs GI, X Los Angeles, Black Randy and the Metrosquad Pass the Dust, I Think I'm Bowie, Fear The Record, so on and so on? After all, thanks to Discogs the full catalogs for Slash Records, Dangerhouse Records, Bomp! Records and SST Records are free to peruse through. The internet is a wonderful thing and any and all desired music is also readily available to curious parties

The reason for avoiding this path is because ultimately resident philosopher Mike Watt's words reign supreme, “I still think of punk as a state of mind and not a style, so how can it go out of fashion? […] 'Punk' can mean anything.” (283) Come one, punk rock changed Watt's life; him and D. Boone had been playing for years. Real names be proof; John Doe. History lessons are best left to teachers: a clan of educators which I am decidedly not a part of. But I will say that the underlying beauty of punk rock is its inception; regular people with the simple desire of having something new and unabashedly taking the ownership of creation. Their is no need to fall into complacence. Pretending I understand the music of a time period I was not alive for, from a part of the country I have never lived in would require being faced and facetious.

For this reason I have chosen to dedicate this week to contemporary musicians with a relative punk streak. For one will B-Side A-Hole will host pieces on artists who are making something wholly different. Five posts written in admiration for the projection of fresh worldviews in the form of musical sounds. In this sense the present day Latin American electronic music scene is very much like the 1980 American underground. Sure, Tribal Guarachera, Funk Carioca, Electro-Cumbia, and Electro Tango all suffer a case of genre peer-pressure, but artists whom have taken a relatively isolate approach to creating sounds exactly of their desire exist. Nortec Collective, Chico Mann, Visitante Calle 13, to name a few, have been demanding auditory attention for a number of years already. This week shall be interesting.

The best part of being a fan of contemporary music is the mere idea of being able to tell future generations about it; tales the perspective of having experienced it hindsight advantage.

Jonathan Cohen is a recovering college radio DJ,discover-er of Jimmy Hoffa Tourettes, and once lauded expert on shrubbery. You can follow him on Twitter through the handle @BoggleUrNoggle

No comments:

Post a Comment