Thursday, May 15, 2008
At Seattle's Pop Conference, 500 academics and journalists swap theories on Springsteen's ass, racism in indie rock and Blue Oyster Cult's use of the cowbell as a "party signifier."
May 5, 2003 | From a treatise on Bruce's butt to an essay on Prince's half-naked ass, more than 100 scholarly presentations at a recent Seattle conference uncovered the deeper meanings of pop music. Titles like "Supa Dupa Fly," "White Noise Supremacists," and "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" lured some 500 academics and journalists to the second annual Pop Conference at Experience Music Project, the institution funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, from April 10 to 13. Jampacked with the politics of bebop and deconstructionist analysis of hip-hop, the conference might sound ponderous to outsiders. But then, rock 'n' roll has never been about following the rules or being predictable.
Actually, the full name of the presentation on Springsteen's behind was "Bruce's Butt: Masculinity, Patriotism and Rock's Ecstatic Body." In an era of acronyms, from "btw" to J.Lo, it's somewhat daunting to burrow through "papers" with 17-word titles, interrupted by semicolons -- and even more astonishing to find them illuminating, inspiring and fun.
In a frenzy at the overhead projector, Tony Mitchell of the University of Technology in Sydney flailed photos of global hip-hop acts in a kind of poetry slam, as if proving that rap exists outside the U.S. Both the style and substance of his performance wowed the crowd of fellow professors, grad students, writers and musicians.
This meeting of writers and thinkers from around the pop-culture globe was meant to find common cause, according to Eric Weisbard, head of EMP's education department. Was it a culture clash? While some attendees wore both academic and journalistic hats, both parties came slinging lingo, peppering their papers with music-industry slang or critical terms like "conflation" and "commodification."
This brainiac approach may seem jarring. Highbrow analysis of pop music seems, at least at first, antithetical to rock's spirit of rebellion, wreckage and debauchery. This kind of examination seems suited to loftier subjects than punk, disco, techno and karaoke. When references to Iggy Pop share a podium with Bela Bartók, it's not about "lust for life." Or is it?
Through the corridors of this colorful blob of a museum built by leading postmodern architect Frank O. Gehry, past the gift shop with its Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain posters, Beatles lunchboxes, T-shirts and paraphernalia, attendees crammed into the Learning Lab to hear University of London prof Marybeth Hamilton read an intriguing account on the unearthing of a rare collection of "race records."
"Who knew the Delta blues was discovered under the bed of a closeted gay alcoholic living in a Brooklyn YMCA?" exclaims the wide-eyed Weisbard, grabbing a bite of turkey on focaccia between panels. The former Spin and Village Voice editor who organized this hybrid seminar explains, "It's less formal than academic conferences and more risk-taking than industry conventions." It might also be the only music gathering with empty hallways once a session starts. Everyone seemed as content with ivory-tower pursuits as they would be at Tower Records; collectively, they've written more than 50 books on subjects from Muddy Waters to heavy metal.
Greil Marcus, the author of "Lipstick Traces," "Mystery Train," and "The Dustbin of History" (and a former Salon columnist), launched the shindig with a keynote speech that tenderly invoked a series of songs spanning time and genre -- from a 1929 version of "Man of Constant Sorrow" to the snappy rendition in the Coen brothers' "O Brother Where Art Thou?" The plaintive promise and power of the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" sucked the audience into his reverie.
Early the next morning, we heard Dionysian festivals compared to mosh pits, Pentecostal speaking in tongues connected to scat singers, and the tango linked to jazz. The so-called dean of rock critics, Robert Christgau, who's been grading record albums from A+ to F for his Village Voice column since the 1960s, likened the revelry of ancient Greeks to "Rock's Ecstatic Release."
The conference's airy theme, "Rewriting the Story of Popular Music," was a revisionist's wet dream. After all, it's still early days for the study of 20th century tunes. While "Chicken Boogie" sounds as lively today as when it was brand-new 60 years ago, even Grace Jones' hits are now more than 20 years old. Is this historical and sociological dissection a form of spindle-gazing contemplation to pump up the volume on "low" culture -- or a worthy inquiry? Rock music isn't rocket science, but the gobs of insightful material at the Pop Conference rendered what might seem to some a ridiculous pursuit into something sublime.
Synapses snapped when Ned Sublette of Qbadisc Records suggested that not all roads in pop-music history lead to rock 'n' roll. He proposed Cuban music as the elephant in pop's kitchen, arguing its central influence from the big band era to a string of rock hits ("Rock Around the Clock," "Daytripper," "Louie Louie"). Dazzling his audience with facts and sound effects, Sublette described a fertile musical crescent from New Orleans to Haiti, with Havana as its clearinghouse.
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