SATURDAY NIGHT FACEBOOK PAGE!!!

  HAVE YOU HEARD OF THIS THING CALLED FACEBOOK???? IT IS A SITE WHERE YOU CAN MEET WITH FRIENDS!!!!  AND PLAN EVENTS!!!!  YOU CAN COME TO THIS PAGE AND TELL EVERYONE YOU ARE COMING TO TIN CAN ALEHOUSE ON SATURDAY NIGHT TO SEE HEAVY HAWAII AND SLEEP OVER!!! (FACEBOOK)

Sleep Over Interview Daily Texan

(THE DAILY TEXAN)

SOFT PACK PLAYING DEL MAR AUGUST 13th

 FRIDAY AUGUST 13th SOFT PACK PLAY DEL MAR FAIRGROUNDS SAN DIEGO...

SUNDAY  AUGUST 15th SOFT PACK PLAY OUTLANDS FESTIVAL IN SAN FRANCISCO

SEPTEMBER 4th: FUCK YEAH FEST LOS ANGELES CA.

SEPTEMBER 10th, 11th @ BOWERY BALLROOM NEW YORK CITY

OCTOBER 8th  AUSTIN CITY LIMITS FESTIVAL

OCTOBER 16th: MEXICO CITY MEXICO


  

Communitas and Music Audience Reaction to Faster Internet Speeds

     Consistent access to high speed internet is the simplest way to turn a passive listener into an active listener.  You can talk about technology any which way, but there is no denying that the difference between someone who has high speed internet access and someone who does not, simply because the individual with access to high speed internet has the ability to synthesize more information.  This is not to say that all people who don't have access to the internet are passive listeners or that all high speed internet users are active listeners: quite the opposite.

     Unfortunately, this condition of high speed internet access does not comport with culture industry institutions and their ability to monetize the audience reaction to artistic products.  Culture industry institutions take rituals common to humanity and interpose themselves: writing a song that a theater crowd can sing along to, making player piano's for people to use in their parlor, selling internet downloads.  This insertion lessens the "communitas" felt by ritual participants.

   Thus, wherever you find a culture industry institution interposing itself into a music centered ritual, there will be a contrasting push against that imposition.  Observations along these lines constitute an absolute majority of the material written on music by possessors of a high speed internet connections.  The concern with artistic authenticity by contemporary music writers can be traced to a concern for preserving the communitas feeling of a successful ritual.

   The inability of culture industry institutions to interpose themselves upon audience reaction to artistic products should not be bemoaned.  Rather, it is the period when they could successfully impose themselves between the audience and the artist (roughly the 20th century) which is the anomaly.  Through out history people have used song and music to fulfill ritual obligations, only within the last 200 years have industrial institutions attempted to profit from music and song and it's role in our lives.

   By embracing technology, culture industry institutions sold themselves the rope to hang themselves with: classic capitalist move.

The Tennessee Rounders *BLACK CADILLAC*

2006!

OH SHIT Beach Fossils is Playing Tonight @ Bar Pink

Beach Fossils is playing tonight at Bar Pink.

Best Coast's Debut Album Inspired by Snacks the Cat

   If you had told me in 2008 that I would be casually linking a Spinner (AOL) feature on the relationship between Bethany from Best Coast and her cat, I would tell you to put down the crack pipe.  BUT: Not only am I doing it- I'm passing up links to about 8 other articles covering the same subject, including the London Guardian, whose RSS feed has turned into hipster catnip in the last four weeks.  Honestly, I think the quality of publicity Best Coast is getting trumps MIA's roll out. (SPINNER)

SATURDAY NIGHT: PLAY CITY BEAT OFF KEYBOARD CAT

ART FAG RECORDINGS PRESENTS
SATURDAY JULY 31st 2010
HEAVY HAWAII
SLEEP OVER
PURE ECSTASY
FIVE BONES
TIN CAN ALE HOUSE


Attendance is recommended.


SAN DIEGO CITY BEAT RECOMMENDATIONS:

Saturday July 31st, 2010


PLAN A: Transfer, Lights On, Mister Loveless, Aaron Swanton @ The Casbah.Rarely does a band headline The Casbah twice in the same month—let alone two days in a row, as local big-shots Transfer will this week. (They’re also playing on Friday, July 30.) Tonight’s highlight is indie-rockers Lights On, who’re getting tons of buzz for their stirring, pitch-perfect debut, Here Comes the Ocean. PLAN B: Nero’s Day at Disneyland, Mincemeat or Tenspeed, Bubblegum Octopus, Take Up Serpents, Nerfbau @ Che Café. Oakland’s Nero’s Day at Disneyland mashes up 15th-century sacred music with break-core à la Squarepusher. (See our feature on Page 25.) BACKUP PLAN: The Vibe Out, Smalls Uno, Broken Dreams, OPhrap & 5thP, DJ InDJnous, Universal Greetings, Fifty Fathms, Rock Bottom, DJS Zole, Deprave, W. Steele @ Beauty Bar


PLAY SAN DIEGO CITY BEAT IF I WERE YOU SECTION OFF KEYBOARD CAT:::

Reflexivity (social theory)

Reflexivity




Reflexivity is considered to occur when the observations(intellectuals) or actions(artists) of observers in the social system affect the very situations(audiences) they are observing.  (WIKIPEDIA)



Reflexivity 

(HATER ALERT) Sleigh Bells

  I like to avoid the mean spirited material here: Rule no. 1: Respect the Other Guys Hustle.  But I actually PAID for the Sleigh Bells album and I LISTENED to it five times all the way through so I get one opinion.  Here is that opinion.


  When you read this sentence on Viceland:  


    You know Sleigh Bells right? They’re that pop duo signed to MIA’s label who play metal crunk to crowds of cool kids smashing bottles on their heads while the world’s media freak out at the possibility of a trendy blog band who actually kill live.  (VICELAND)


  That is a bad sign.  Normal people don't want to get behind that.  And how is that any better then what Nickelback does?

My New Website

  For my law office.  (WEBSITE)

Shakespeare, The Blues and Changes in Audience Taste

     I think it is clear that audiences create artists, and not vice versa.  If you read interviews with contemporary artists, it is clear that they create art based on earlier, audience based artistic experiences.   Historically, a commonality between mature artists is being an audience for artistic predecessors and contempoaries.  The same is true whether you are talking about Parisian impressionists of the 1880s, or the "local music scene" today.  Thus, if you are looking to explain artistic development, the only question is how do audience changes in taste influence artistic production?

   Although insight into this area is split between multiple academic subjects, basic analysis of the mechanisms involved requires nothing more then a passing interest in "current events."  Take Shakespeare, for example.  You don't need to be a fan to know how Shakespeare is viewed today: good for an occasional Hollywood movie and college students, but not a hit with the cable tv crowd.  You also don't need to be an academic to understand that Shakespeare used to be "the" artist in the United States, in the early 19th century.  In the first part of the 19th century, you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a Shakespeare fan in the head.  People memorized it, took the plays to the farthest reaches of the frontier, and went to the theater for fun.  They also loved to watch politicians debate endlessly and listen to church sermons.

   The failure to recognize the changed status of Shakespeare between these two time periods would be what you call a fallacy.  Specifically, the fallacy of presentism.  Presentism is when you look back at events of the past using attitudes of the present.  I think this is a fallacy that is often encountered in books written about Blues in the early 20th (and certainly 19th) century.  Today, the early examples of this music are revered and exalted.  The Kennedy Center has elaborate multi-day award shows.  "Halls of Fame" exist for multiple separate genres of popular music.

   The taste changes that "shakespeare" and "the blues" are different examples of the same phenomenon- the process by which groups of intellectuals decide to write about artists who already enjoy an audience and "elevate" the status of that artist within their own group.

     The intellectual attention paid to a specific artist is independent of the size of the artists' audience. Artists with larger audiences will have a tendency to attract greater attention, but that attention level often leads intellectuals to ignore that artist for reasons related to their particular interaction rituals with other intellectuals.

    

BC HRO dram cont

   To my mind, this is the best thing that has and ever will happen to hro.  Bigger targets, bigger sandbox.  But doing a sirius/xfm radio int makes me think it's all a plot.  A brilliant plot, but a plot. Still, the fact that I'm linking to it proves it's success. The BC record is #9 on itunes right now. (HRO)

San Diego Weather Officially Declared "ENDLESS BUMMER"

Clouds to continue 'endless bummer' at San Diego beaches.  (SAN DIEGO UNION TRIBUNE)

WOVEN BONES SIGN TO HARDLY ART///PLAYING SAN DIEGO IN AUGUST

  WOVEN BONES SIGNED TO HARDLY ART (SUB POP) AND ARE PLAYING IN AUGUST WITH CROCODILES AT THE CASBAHHHHHHHHHH.

PFORK BNMs BC CRAZY FOR YOU

So great after that shitty New York Times review.  Who the fuck does the New York Times think it is ha-ha?Paper of record or something? (PITCHFORK)

SATURDAY SAN DIEGO SHENANIGANS: SLEEP OVER & HEAVY HAWAII

ART FAG RECORDINGS PRESENTS
SATURDAY JULY 27th 2010
HRAVY HAWAII
SLEEP OVER
PURE ECSTASY
FIVE BONES
TIN CAN ALE HOUSE

Attendance is recommended.

Will Bradley Trio *Down the Road a Piece*(1940)

BOOGIE MUSIC: Boogie is a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm, "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie music.  (CONSTITUENT ELEMENT OF ROCK MUSIC.)

Description of My Panel @ The North Park Music Thing

North Park Music Thing Confirmed Panel Topics:


Creating a Music Town
        We’d all like to see our respective music communities grow and thrive, and this panel will feature discussions on just that. From increasing audience size and working with other artists to grassroots efforts and corporate tie-ins, discover methods that have worked to strengthen music scenes in the past as well as new techniques for the future.
Panelists include: 1 - Josh Feingold (SESAC), Scott Pactor (Law Office Of Scott Pactor), Scott Sheldon (RM64.com), Mitchell Frank (Spaceland), Tim Mays  (The Casbah)


    I will be quietly listening to the people on the panel who know a lot more about music then me. 


    The North Park Music Thing is August 13th and 14th and you can buy tickets here. 


     I will share all of my secrets, and after the panel ends I will be giving a lecture on the book that I'm writing on the troubled relationship of intellectuals to music in history inside the bar area at the Hotel.  My lecture will be 20 minutes in length and accompanied by a hand out.  You can register for my lecture by going to my law office website and sending an email through the link there.   You must already be attending the North Park Music Thing to attend my bar room lecture.  The lecture is limited to five attendees.  

Movie Review: Earl Scruggs *The Bluegrass Legend*

Earl Scruggs:
The Blue Grass Legend
Family and Friends: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, the Byrds
(2006)
(GOOGLE VIDEO STREAMING)

  One of the main issues with Netflix streaming is "what should I watch?"  I think philosophers, scientists and high school drop outs probably all agree that too much choice, whether it be in movies or soda pop, can be confusing and lead to wasted time and frustration.

  Earl Scruggs: The Bluegrass Legend, was one of the first television documentary specials- it aired in 1972.  It was released on video in 2006, and it is currently streaming on Netflix- it also looks like it is available on Google Video.

   This movie captures Earl Scruggs- legend of the banjo as he cavorts with 60s folk revivalists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and the Byrds.  In fact, one of the main points I gathered from this, the only feature documentary on Earl Scruggs, is how ridiculously huge the 60s-70s folk revival was.  I think, perhaps because I grew up in it (Bay Area early 80s) that I just simply refuse to acknowledge that the artists of the 60s folk revival had huge, monster hits.  The 60s Folk Revival is also interesting because it was a third wave revival:  The initial interest was in 19th century Germany and England, followed by a revival in the early 20th century thanks to radio and records, followed by the world wide revival of folk music in the 1960s.

   So this movie is clearly an example of participants in the 60s folk revival going out and attempting to connect their folk music to the earlier/contemporary folk music of hillybilly culture (here called "bluegrass" in good 60s fashion.)  What struck me was the ability of this 70s film crew, either by luck or design, to capture both the authenticity of folk/bluegrass music as well as the spectacle of the 60s folk revival within the same film.  Perhaps I'm just ignorant, but other then a live performance at the Grand Ole Opry (a big deal to be sure) Nashville and the country music industry seem curiously absent.

   Scruggs is pictured trying to adapt to the "new world": embracing the Anti-Vietnam war movement and mooning over Joan Baez (born in Staten Island, New York, seen here in her Kentucky/West Virginia hidey-hole at the top of her game.  That Scruggs is featured protesting the Vietnam war was no surprise to me.  One of the statements intellectuals like to make about white/european folk music is that it espouses conservative values, but that is simply wrong.  Furthermore, much of folk music is musically innovative.  Certainly the portion of folk music which has received attention during the three waves of intellectual activity has either been actively shaped to this end or conversely, been frozen in amber as an example of an archetype.

  What I'm saying is that you can't talk about folk music without understanding the perspective bringing brought to bear on writing about folk music.  Inevitably, any writing, speech or music involving folk music idioms, artists or specific works, is going to bear some mark by one or more of the three waves of folk music interest in western europe and america.  This movie represents a good example of that, and the music is amazing.  Scruggs picking bears the clear stamp of improvisation and technical virtuosity attributed to jazz musicians.

   Also, unlike jazz musicians, Scruggs plays within familiar songs- always a plus when audience reaction is taken into account.  Learning how to mediate technical virtuosity with song writing principles is one of the sine qua nons of artistic production within the culture industry.  Scruggs, like many jazz artists, is interesting because he evolved his personal technique in the absence of culture industry institutions or mass media.  Earl Scruggs recorded output doesn't really get chugging until the 1970s.

   Scruggs was born in 1924, so he would have come of age during the period when hillbilly music was popular on radio and allowed for regional touring, but before Hillbilly music was "discovered" by the recording industry.  During the time when Scruggs was perfecting his craft, hillbilly was played on the radio.  Scruggs was a sensation as a banjo stylists, but he was hardly a force on the pop charts.  On Allmusic, you can't even pull up a list of "singles."  In his list of recordings on Wikipedia- he has no number one hits.  So there you go, a group of musicians with a TON of number one hits making a movie about a musician who precedes them in time but has no similar hits.

   Asking yourself the question "Why did it take so long for popular culture to 'discover' Early Scruggs?"  The answer is: No hits.

The First Industrial Music

   A contemporary music fan identifies the term "industrial music" with artists like Skinny Puppy, Ministry.  Industrial music in this sense  emerged out of 70s styles like post-punk, music concrete and krautrock.  Perhaps this kind of industrial music has it's main figure in Trent Reznor (ex-Nine Inch Nails.)  Trent Reznor, in addition to being a consistent writer of hits, also has political opinions, making his influence even greater then what one would expect from his catalog.

  Of course, the Wikipedia article cited above is simply wrong when it claims (with no disambiguation reference preceding, mind you) that "While the term was initially self-applied by a small coterie of groups and individuals associated with Industrial Records in the 1970s, it broadened to include artists influenced by the original movement or using an "industrial" aesthetic."


  This is simply not true.  The term "industrial music" was applied as early as the 1940s.  For example, on March 27, 1943, Billboard magazine published an article, "Music Raises Production 11%:  Scientists Praise Benefits of Industrial Music as Morale Booster." (p. 61.)(GOOGLE BOOKS)


  I'm not making a statement about the content of the music described in each instance, only saying that "INDUSTRIAL MUSIC" was not invented by a bunch of German hippies in the 1970s, because Billboard was writing articles about industrial music in the 1940s.  I would bet you could be a fan of "industrial music" your whole life and never, ever, see a reference to the first kind of industrial music in writing about the second kind of industrial music.  

BOSKO

  Bosko is a racist cartoon character from the beginning of animation (1920s-30s.)  In his book, Of Mice and Magic, Leonard Maltin states that this early version of Bosko "was in fact a cartoonized version of a young black boy... he spoke in a Southern Negro dialect." (GOOGLE BOOKS)


  My feelings about racism is that it's super important to understanding the past, but less important for understanding the present and not important for understanding the future. 

FUGAZI LIVE SERIES

FUGAZI LIVE SERIES DISCHORD RECORDS

London Guardian Ruling It

  Hey it's cute to see a Sunday Style Section take down of Snookie in the Sunday New York Times but I'm gonna have to run with the London Guardian when it comes to old dogs/new tricks.  Love their coverage of the Southern California Indie Sound:

  It's much more pleasant to be in an indie band in 2010. In 1986, you had to be heartbroken in a rainy northern town, then play the resulting songs in student unions. For the likes of Best Coast, Crocodiles and Dum Dum Girls, the music still sounds like British indie of 25 years ago, but at least they're playing it in sunny California. Dum Dum Girls are part of an upsurge in shoestring pop, the influences of Phil Spector (tunes) and the Jesus And Mary Chain (noise) operating in tandem. Album I Will Be is enjoyable, but their Jail La La single best displays their breezy charm. (LONDON GUARDIAN)


  I'm about to add the London Guardian to my links page.

2010 San Diego Music Awards Nominees: WHERE IS THE FAN VOTING????

       I really hope this is just something that has yet to be announced, but I can't find where I get to VOTE for all of the San Diego Music Awards.  Voting for the "best genre x artist" category is a ritual I cherish- I love to express my opinion about who should be honored for best san diego based country and americana artist (call that one folk?).

     I'm not here to step on anyone's hustle- go San Diego Music Awards, but might I suggest some category rearranging.  So I encourage everyone to VOTE FOR THEIR FAVORITE ARTISTS but if that option has been taken away I'm really just speechless.   I guess I'll just wait and seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

   Look at the nominees at the official 2010 San Diego Music Awards: Celebrating 20 Years of the San Diego Music Awards.  Some of my favorites:

BEST COVER BAND:  Dude- Styletones?  NUFF SAID!!!
  BEST ACOUSTIC: Zank
  BEST WORLD MUSIC: Skelpin (Irish/Celtic)
BEST HIP HOP: 12 GAUGE SHOTTY


 CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE NOMINEES!!!

  

The First Rock Indies: A Glorious Failure.

    If you were to make two stacks: first stack- all the words that have been written about the UK punk scene and it's impact on the culture industries;  second stack: all the words that have been written about the US post world war II indie  rock/hillbilly/race indies;  I'm guessing that even though the Post World War II indies have a twenty year jump, it would be the first stack that would be taller.  Especially when it comes to the United Kingdom.  The sheer amount of verbiage that has been devoted towards the punk movement and it's associated sub cultures is quite extraordinary.  So extraordinary that American citizens who are interested in independent music are often sadly ignorant of their own past.

   If you look at the post World War II independent record label environment you see two markets that had started to generate indies before World War II (New York, Apollo) and a tradition of recording jazz music and hillbilly among the majors prior to World War II.

  To a man, all of the Independent Record Label owners in the immediate period after World War II shared two charactersitics:  An early understanding and appreciation of the possibilities of magnetic recording tape, not widely available until after the end of World War II, the resources to acquire a lacquer cutter for records. These two devices were widely combined to create a "studio" and then the record label would be formed to reproduce and distribute the recordings.  All of the post World War I record labels were run by men (almost all by white men who were 1st or 2nd generation immigrants) and they all featured the capacity to record and cut masters.

James Brown *Please, Please, Please*

   This is on 78.  On Federal Records (imprint of King Records.)

History of the Afghanistan War: 2004-2010

A history of the United States war in Afghanistan: 2004-2010.  Afghanistan: The graveyard of empires.  The squalor of war. Etc.  Let me tell you something about America- we could do this for another 20 years and not break a sweat.  People don't care. Sad but true.

HUFFINGTON POST
LONDON GUARDIAN
CNN
NY TIMES

Freddie Mitchell Orchestra *Doby's Boogie* (1948)

  Released on Derby Records... 1948.