The Meaninglessness of Style

Subcultures are defined not so much by their particular kind of commodities, music, clothes, etc., but by a particular relation to commodities. This relation runs the gambit from a strong sense of identification, which is usually exclusive (the rest of the world does not appreciate the genus of “blank”), to ironic detachment, “so bad its good.” Often it is the particular relation, and not the aesthetic values of the commodities concerned, that takes precedence. Case in point, the concern about “selling out” in circles of punk, indie rock, etc.: what is lost when the band moves to a major label is not so much its particular sound, but that feeling of exclusive identification. The band is no longer your band when all of he kids at the mall are wearing their shirt.

These are the thoughts that crossed my mind last night when I was watching The White Stripes perform. At one point I really liked The White Stripes, but then all of the exposure, the guess stints on The Simpsons and Cold Mountain, not to mention the fact that the records after “White Blood Cells” that lacked the geeky intensity of the early recordings, made it difficult to sustain the same level of enthusiasm. When the show began I was firmly entrenched in the existential position of jaded indie-rocker. The first thing I noticed was all of the kids wearing brand-spanking new White Stripes t-shirts; I thought to myself, have the rules of cool changed that much? You do not wear a new shirt of the band you are seeing, an old shirt from their first tour, maybe. Better yet, a shirt from another band somehow related, but more obscure than the band that you are seeing, in this case The Detroit Cobras or The Black Keyes. Then, I a said to my friend Ron, “It makes you wonder what were all of these kids with new shirts wearing to the show?” To which he replied, “Maybe there is a dumpster full of Killer’s t-shirts out back.” Yeah it went like that, at least at the beginning.

As Jack and Meg entered the stage to the sounds of “Boogie Chillin’,” I thought to myself, I wonder how many people here even know who John Lee Hooker is, let alone catch the reference to the Detroit blues sound, which is so important to the White Stripes? My bitter mocking may have something to do with the fact that, when I was in High School, I went to see John Lee Hooker play and the only person I could get to go with me was my father, my peers did not care. So perhaps I was just jealous of the fact that those cool points came nearly twenty years too late. Then something happened as The White Stripes played, I forgot all about kids with new shirts, the widely out of place mosh pit up front, and sad attempts as Mohawks, I just heard the music. I am not claiming an unmediated experience here, all I am saying is that they rocked. Sometimes it is good to remember that it can be about the music.

The All Seeing Eye

So I have made at least one mention of The Evens on this blog before, making a link to their song about vowels. However, I have not really expressed the particular fondness I have for this band, a fondness based in large part on their stripped down but intense sound. I also love the band for the way in which their aesthetic can be understood as an answer a very particular existential question: How to maintain fidelity to youthful rebellion as one gets older?

That is a little awkwardly phrased, but I thought that the Badiou term was appropriate. Let me explain. First, as a general background point, in the United States radical politics has been identified with youth culture, anarchism is tied to punks, peace to hippies, etc. (If I wanted to continue writing this in Badiouisms, I would say that radical politics has been sutured to adolescent counterculture.) Thus, making it very difficult to think of how one can maintain such political commitments into adulthood. A grown up anarchist, an adult anti-war activists, the phrases suggest the caricature of an aging hippy with a ponytail comb-over. Radical politics are for the young, for those who have not learned the ways of the world. That old saying about "anyone who isn't a socialist at twenty having no heart" and so on carries particular weight here.

One half of The Evens is Ian Mackaye, famous for such bands as Minor Threat, Embrace, and Fugazi. A living icon of sorts. Now he could perhaps follow the icons of a previous generation in continuing to market nostalgia, perhaps a Minor Threat reunion tour? After all it worked for The Sex Pistols. Or give up entirely. Instead we have The Evens. The Evens have what could be described a more mature sound, played sitting down, no more jumping around; so they have left some of the kid's stuff to the kids. At the same time they have not sacrificed the core of rebellion. If anything their songs are even more direct than at least Fugazi; the chorus of "Everyone knows," which is about the current administration is quite simply, "Everyone knows you are a liar."

So one can grow old and still be punk as fuck.

Of course given my age, I almost have to believe this to be possible. I just got back from seeing The Evens live. I wont say that I was the oldest person at the show, there were some adults who brought their kids to the all ages show. I did, however, run into a few students there. One of whom pointed out that I was probably old enough to have seen Fugazi. Yes, I am that old.

One final note on the show itself. Ian Mackaye was very much what one would expect. The title of this post comes from a comment he made about a kid who had brought his laptop to record the show for Youtube. Which prompted a rant about the all seeing eye, the desire to tape everything, record everything (one could add blog everything) rather than experience it. Mackaye's impromptu lectures are as much a part of the show as the music, and all of well known topics were covered, punk breaking down the wall between performer and audience, the war, and even a brief digression about cadence. Amy Farina has a quieter intensity, focusing on singing, only really speaking up to mock Ian as a walking encyclopedia . They complement each other well.

This is Fun

Updating and Outing

Gilles Deleuze writes, "Concretely if you define bodies and thoughts as capacities for affecting and being affected many things change. You will define an animal, or a human being, not by its form, its organs, and its functions, and not as a subject either; you will defined it by the affects of which it is capable...For example: there are greater differences between a plow horse or draft horse and a racehorse than between an ox and a plow horse. This is because the racehorse and the plow horse do not have the same affects nor the same capacity for being affected; the plow horse has affects in common rather with the ox."

I thought of this quote while I was watching both an ox pull and a horse pull at the Fryeburg Fair. I thought of because first it is true (draft horses are huge, and strong), but then I thought about the fact that I was thinking about it. I am not sure, but I think that I was the only person at Maine's largest agricultural fair watching a livestock competition thinking about Deleuze's comments on Spinoza. Yes, the fair was a glimpse into another world, a world where adolescents have their own teams of oxen to train for competition. As my father said, it is good to get out of one's world. In my case a world where everything reminds me of some philosophical reference, The Simpsons, or Buffy (usually all three). It is also good to see that there still are different worlds, it is all to easy to imagine the world (or even this country) to be more homogenous than it is--to imagine a world in which people "now read the same things, listen to the same things, see the same things, go to the same places, have their hopes and fears directed to the same objects" (That last quote is J.S. Mill, or maybe Rupert Giles, I honestly cannot remember which). Yes, I am glad to live in a world where there are still agricultural fairs.

Speaking of outings, this weekend I attended Sacred & Profane, an art show held in a decommissioned WWII Bunker on an island. It starts with a ferry ride and ends with a picnic, and who does not like that. I just like the idea of an old military bunker being used for art. However, this was if not my world, at least an adjacent planet.(Photo by Scott Whitton)



On the general theme of updating I have to say that I have been pleased with my music purchases as of late. I have the new TV on The Radio, The Decemberists, and The Thermals in heavy rotation, and they are great in their own unique and special way--like snowflakes.

The Youth of Today, and the Youth of Today

Perhaps nothing separates me from the kids of today (by which I mean college students) than the concept of "selling-out." It is utterly alien to most of them. They have no problem with the fact that the bands that they like are appearing on television shows and commercials.

(There used to a lag between a song being released and it appearing on a commercial. It used to be years. Then it shrunk to less than a year. Now it is a commercial before it is a hit. Think of Nick Drake, that Volkswagen commercial was the best thing that happened to him, too bad he was already dead.)

Now I cannot pretend to speak for my entire generation, but for at least a certain section of quasi-punk/hardcore kids "selling out" was not just an issue, it was the issue. It was the entirety of critique of capitalism, and more than that it was our existentialism, or politics, our bread and butter. We would spend hours discussing who sold out and exactly when. It still haunts me.

In fact I may have pinpointed the exact moment when I sold out, it was when I bought these:

100% Organic Hemp, 100%Recycled tire, Union Made shoes. A product that complete expresses my particular combination of social and ecological concerns. Not to mention all of that exposed stitching. (And I am not going to mention the kicking corporate ass part, because that would be embarrassing).

There is something about identifying with a brand any brand even if it meets you halfway that just feels like selling out.

Since I am plugging products I will say that I am thoroughly enjoying the new album by The Thermals, "The Body, The Blood, The Machine." I will spare you the attempt at rock journalism and just say punk rock concept album, that is right, complete with tales from a dark fascist-christian future (or is that present?).

Dialectics (part one) and Cover Bands

As I mentioned earlier I have been reading Badiou's Theorie du Sujet. In many ways I find it be comparable to Althusser's For Marx. In each case there is an effort to draw out the philosophical implications of some of the revolutionary slogans of the past century (One divides into Two) as well as an attempt to revive the dialectic. In Althusser's case this takes the form of overdetermination while in Badiou's case it entails splitting the dialectic itself into one of places and forces.

What interests me about this is that at the time that I became interested in philosophy the dialectic was the enemy. The charges were so well known that they did not even need to be articulated: the dialectic totalizes, it simultaneously elevates and reduces all difference to contradiction, etc. Now these criticism are for the most part true, but at the same time there is a whole series of attempts to push the dialectic into new directions, to think difference, singularity, and antagonism: I am thinking of Adorno, Althusser, Badiou, and to some extent even Sartre.

In some ways the situation is similar to Marxism itself. On the one hand, Marxism appears to the very model of dogmatic thought, the repetition of key formulas as doctrine, but on the other hand there are real innovations in the work of those who call themselves, or are called, Marxists. Most notably while the various other philosophical "isms" restrict themselves to the topics that the philosopher in question cover, there are Marxist (Marxian) philosophers of language, literature, and film, even though Marx wrote nothing on these topics.

Innovation at the heart of repetition: one divides into two.

It is too long of a story to tell, but I ended up at a bar last Friday night listening to what could only be described as a bar band. They were not one of those cover bands that dedicate themselves to one band, like "In the Spirit of the Doors: Riders on the Storm"etc, but a band that covered a wide variety of different songs (not a wide variety, there entire set could have been an hours listening of any classic rock station on a no repeat Monday--Zeppelin, Sly and the Family Stone, Bob Marley, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Peter Gabriel). There range was perhaps the only thing impressive about them, although it was unintentionally amusing to watch the horn section try to look busy during the sans-horn- Zeppelin covers. Couldn't someone at least give them a cowbell?

Since I was bored by the experience it did leave me thinking about two things:

1) Classic Rock. When I was in high school classic rock was the default music selection for most Frat Boys, all of whom owned their copy of Bob Marley's Legend, assorted Zeppelin cds, and related music. Even during the late eighties this seemed odd, a bunch of kids living off of someone else's nostalgia. Given that I was older than most of the drunk and enthusiastic crowd on Friday it would appear that this has not changed much. Classic rock will outlive the babyboomers.

2)Continental philosophy. It has occurred to me before that most of the Anglo-American Continental Philosophy scene is structured sort of like the world of cover bands. You have your Nietzscheans (who write on Nietzsche, or in "the spirit of Nietzsche"), Heideggerians, Derridians, Deleuzians, and so on. All of whom produce very interesting commentary, but it leaves you wondering if anyone will ever write any originals. But perhaps I am being too harsh.

Innovation at the heart of repetition: one divides into two.