Festivals - EMP Pop Conference Highlights Part Six

I think this will be my final post about the 2008 Experience Music Project Pop Conference, held in Seattle April 10th-13th. There were tons of great presentations, including many that I missed...but that's always the case.

The "Festivals" panel on April 11th was one of the most cohesive panels that I saw, with presentations that played off of each other beautifully. First up was Regina Arnold (who you may remember from her Gina Arnold rock critic days), now a Stanford grad student working on her dissertation about rock crowds and power, from which we heard a tidbit, "Rock Crowds and Power: The Early Years." She focused her paper on a May 1969 festival at San Jose State called the Aquarian Family Festival (aka Aquarium Be-In or Aquarium Fair) and both the difficulty is researching such a festival from that era and the tensions related to it (free vs. paid festivals, licensing issues, crowd behavior, etc.). Posters from the event feature bands that never played and attendees looking back on it often misremember details as well. Some things that did happen were Jimi Hendrix being flown in on a Lear Jet, lawsuits, and Hells Angels being hired as security.

Next up, John Street from University of East Anglia presented "Performing Politics: From Rock Against Racism to Live 8." In discussing the history of Rock against Racism (founded in 1976) and Live 8 (2005), he looks at the role of musicians and music at these festivals. In some respects, organizers like Bob Geldof were up-front about hiring musicians who would draw the largest audiences in order to expose the causes to the greatest number of people.

Jennifer Stoever-Ackerman from SUNY-Binghamton gave her paper, "'Lollapalooza Every Day, Every Year': Music, Multiculturalism, and Whiteness in the 1990s," which seemed to evoke nostalgia from many of the GenXers in the audience (myself included) who had attended early Lollapalooza shows. She talked about the marketing of multiculturalism at early Lollapaloozas and argued that the lineups didn't live up to the multi-culti buzz and press hype. The audience was largely white and middle class and acts became increasingly less diverse from year to year. Yet, despite this, she claims the "dominant memory of Lollapalooza" is "multicultural." This was interesting for me to hear, as my memory of those early shows was more that the festival was attempting to present bands from a variety of genres that aren't typically on the same bill (metal, alternative rock, rap, and indie). To me, some of the most interesting bands were on the "second stage," where the lineup was definitely more diverse and at least featured some female artists.

Finally, Laurel Westrup discussed the UK Glastonbury Festival in her paper "When Subcultures Collide: The New Travellers at Glastonbury 1978-2005." She talked about the tensions between the a hippie subculture called the New Age Travellers and the festival organizers and mainstream concert-goers. She described the New Age Travellers (aka Crusties) as a diverse subculture that began in the 1960s with hippie sensibilities that now embraces elements of punk and rave culture. In 1992 a New Travellers band The Levellers played the main stage of the festival after concert organizers banned the "travellers" from the festival. This incident highlighted several tensions, including subcultural assertions that they were selling out, yet also a strange twist in that they were playing a festival that banned people from the scene that they came from.

Previous EMP Pop Conference posts:

EMP Pop Conference Highlights Part One

Strippers, Retro Divas, and Yoko Ono - EMP Conference Highlights Part Two

Music and the War in Iraq - EMP Conference Highlights Part Three

Sublime Frequencies' Experimental World Music - EMP Conference Highlights Part Four

Politicians Don't Know Pop Music - EMP Conference Highlights Part Five

Politicians Don't Know Pop Music - EMP Conference Highlights Part Five

In an intriguing presentation at the Experience Music Project Pop Conference on April 12th, Mike Barthel (a media studies grad student) and Rachel Arnold (a grad student in public administration) gave their paper, "Yesterday's Gone: The Use of Pop Songs in Presidential Campaigns."

Although I saw flaws in their research and its applicability to current campaigns, I was most interested in their assertion that people interested in entering politics tend to know very little about popular music and those who do are embarrassed by that. They used this finding to explain, in part, why so many random and inappropriate songs are often chosen as campaign theme songs.

Now, I always assume that political campaigns are overly researched and that people must be hired to pick music and theme songs. They suggest that it's much more random than this. I suppose that makes sense when you think about Ronald Reagan using "Born in the U.S.A.," George W. Bush using "I Won't Back Down," and McCain selecting "Little Pink Houses."

Barthel and Arnold decided to test the musical knowledge of future politicos in order to get an understanding of how these types of selections are being made. They surveyed public policy students, arguing that these students would be future political leaders and decision-makers. Their findings were horrifying, at least to the audience of music geeks at the EMP Pop Conference! They said that none of the students surveyed could name the lead singer of Blondie and only 58% knew all 4 Beatles. Nobody knew any of the current campaign songs. Additionally, the students had little interest in the question, "If you could pick a song for your own campaign, what would it be?"

The presenters asked if campaign songs would be "more effective if politicians had a greater understanding of pop music" and argued that "our study shows that those in power are really bad at using music to get their message across." Most disheartening to me was their point that, "politicians think music is fundamentally unimportant to politics."

Do you think music is important to politics? An audience member mentioned all the buzz around You Tube user-generated videos (especially with Obama) and that the new campaign songs may actually come from the people, rather than the political machine.

Previous EMP Pop Conference posts:

EMP Pop Conference Highlights Part One

Strippers, Retro Divas, and Yoko Ono - EMP Conference Highlights Part Two

Music and the War in Iraq - EMP Conference Highlights Part Three

Sublime Frequencies' Experimental World Music - EMP Conference Highlights Part Four

Sublime Frequencies' Experimental World Music - EMP Conference Highlights Part Four

I'm finally getting around to finishing up my summaries of the amazing Experience Music Project Pop Conference that I attended a few weeks ago in Seattle. The very first presentation that I saw was one that I was probably most excited about since it focused on an indie record label, Sublime Frequencies, that is a favorite of many college radio stations.

In "Experiments with World Music, Vol. 2: The Sublime Frequencies of Cultural Difference," David Novak of Columbia University discussed how the Sublime Frequencies label is presenting a new, more experimental take on world music with its many volumes of found recordings from places like Sumatra, Bali, Burma, Syria, and Vietnam (to name few), which include clips of radio broadcasts, music from cassette tapes purchased at flea markets, and other oddities. Their latest (and 43rd!) release is Bollywood Steel Guitar.

According to the abstract for the presentation:

"...Sublime Frequencies represents world music in a mode that is strikingly experimental, both in its noisy rawness and its obscurantist approach to the documentation of local music and cultural origins...In this paper, I consider debates around Sublime Frequencies appropriation of source materials drawn from regional media, and discuss how listeners experiment with familiar-but-foreign popular musical forms in the curation of distant media sources. I describe how recordings otherwise considered world music are reclassified among underground music fans..."

Novak discussed how Sublime Frequencies represents a second wave of world music which is more underground that what we traditionally think of as "world music." He used the term "ethnographic surrealism" to describe how their take on world is different from, say, Alan Lomax and Smithsonian Folkways' releases.

Novak didn't really discuss this, but I think that this surreal, experimental take on music from around the world may even make it more palatable to college radio DJs. As an example of this, at my station many DJs are scared off by world music, but are eagerly diving in to Sublime Frequencies releases, perhaps for their camp value (especially the 60s/70s/western-inspired rock and pop pieces), randomness (sound collages and radio transmissions), the hipster associations of the label (one of the founders is Sun City Girl Alan Bishop), and the hidden gems on every release.

One point made by Novak was that a characteristic of the Sublime Frequencies releases is that the origin of the music is not well documented and the real musicians are generally not given credit. Artists and biographies are downplayed and he links some of this to the punk and DIY spirit embodied by the label owners.

Toward the end of the presentation we learned that Alan Bishop was in the audience, making for, I'm sure, a very nerve-wracking presentation for Novak! Bishop alluded to the many misconceptions out there in the media about his projects, but acknowledged that he hasn't really worked to correct those misconceptions either...thus adding to the obscurity of the material being discussed.

If you missed my other summaries from the EMP Pop Conference, you can read them here:

EMP Pop Conference Highlights Part One

Strippers, Retro Divas, and Yoko Ono - EMP Conference Highlights Part Two

Music and the War in Iraq - EMP Conference Highlights Part Three

Lexington station WRFL celebrates 20 years of radio

An article in yesterday's Kentucky Kernel talks about University of Kentucky station WRFL 88.1 FM (Lexington, Kentucky) and its recent Alternative Music Week, which culminated in their first all-day music festival last weekend (featuring Hair Police, Jolie Holland, Apples in Stereo, The Coup, fire dancers, and other performers) in honor of the station's 20th anniversary (and to raise funds). According to the piece:

"The crowd at WRFL's FreeKY Fest on Saturday was as eclectic as the music the station broadcasts every day - some were children; others had grey hair and wrinkles. Some came dressed in tie-dyed shirts; others wore Polos and khakis. Some were pierced and tattooed; others had hair as colorful as the decorations hung around the concert venue.

'We had all the different shades of Lexington here,' said Chuck Clenney, WRFL's general manager. 'Everyone from the kids to the Indian community to the people who love crazy loud music came out. That's just what WRFL is about, offering something for everyone and bringing people together.'..."

WRFL is hoping to do some major transmitter upgrades to increase their coverage area, so they are doing serious fundraising right now, no doubt a big reason for this awesome week of music. One of their many slogans is: "Revolutions Don't Happen Between Commercial Breaks!"

Wouldn't it be great if every college station could put together a week like this for their local community? Has your favorite college radio station every undertaken something like this?

WERS playlist from XMU Student Exchange

The folks at XMU just sent me yesterday's playlist (April 27th) from The Student Exchange Show, featuring Emerson College's WERS-FM. Here's the list:

WERS-FM, Emerson College (Boston, MA) on XMU's Student Exchange
April 27, 2008

Radiohead - 15 Step - In Rainbows
Bell X1 - Rocky Took A Lover - Flock
Spoon - Don't You Evah - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Jose Gonzalez - Crosses - WERS Presents Music for the Independent Mind

BREAK 1

The Heavy - Set Me Free - Great Vengeance and Furious Fire
Vampire Weekend - A-Punk - Vampire Weekend
Coconut Records - Nighttiming - Nighttiming
She & Him - I Was Made For You - Volume One

BREAK 2

Phoenix - Long Distance Call - It's Never Been Like That
Josh Ritter - Mind's Eye - The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter
Sia - The Girl You Lost To Cocaine - Some People Have Real Problems
Angus and Julia Stone - Paper Aeroplane - Chocolates & Cigarettes [EP]

BREAK 3

The Epochs - Love Complete - The Epochs
Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks - Gardenia - Real Emotional Trash
Jack Penate - Got My Favorite - Matinee
Death Cab for Cutie - I Will Possess Your Heart - Narrow Stairs

BREAK 4

Nicole Atkins - Maybe Tonight - Neptune City
Jason Collett - Out of Time - Here's To Being Here
A.C. Newman - The Town Halo - The Slow Wonder
Pinback - Good To Sea - Autumn of the Seraphs

BREAK 5

DeVotchKa - The Clockwise Witness - A Mad & Faithful Telling
Destroyer - Dark Leaves Form A Thread - Trouble In Dreams
Band of Horses - No One's Gonna Love You - Cease To Begin
Tunng - Bullets - Good Arrows

BREAK 6

Fujiya & Miyagi - Uh - Live At WERS 2007
Ingrid Michaelson - Die Alone - Girls & Boys
Matt Costa - Mr. Pitiful - Unfamiliar Faces
Cat Power - New York, New York - Jukebox

This coming Sunday, May 4th, Colorado State's station KCSU-FM will be on the Student Exchange from 1-3pm Pacific Time. I'm going to try to publish playlists from this program every week and would love to hear what you think about the music selections from these stations.

Mix-Tape Memories in SF Chronicle

Yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle "pink section" had a great cover story about mix tapes, celebrating their special qualities and lamenting their demise. They shared some touching and funny stories from people who had particularly interesting mix tape tales. According to the article by Peter Hartlaub:

"Music compilations are more popular than ever, in part because of the ease of getting the songs you want to the people you care about. On your own or with sites such as Muxtape.com, you can click a mouse 20 or 30 times and create and share your audio files with whomever you want. But as the process gets easier, the gesture becomes emptier as well."

It's a great point about the amount of labor and care that was required to craft a cassette mix tape in real time using old school audio equipment, like turntables and cassette decks (and even radios!). Peter Hartlaub writes:

"The biggest advantage of making a mix cassette tape was that it almost always forced the creator to hear each song. Using your computer to create mix CDs without listening to the music is like grabbing five random items at the grocery store...

There's a merit to picking a bunch of your favorite songs for a friend to listen to, but if you really want to impress or seduce, those songs need to tell a story. And the best way to do that has always been a mix tape."

To see a bunch of personal mix-tape tales, see this accompanying SF Chronicle article and to contribute your own story, visit their hilarious parenting blog The Poop.

Do you have any interesting tales from the mix tape era? Is the nostalgia justified, or can mp3 mixes be just as personal?

WERS on Student Exchange AGAIN this Weekend

I just read in the Emerson College newspaper The Berkeley Beacon, that college radio station WERS-FM will be featured on the Student Exchange program on satellite station XMU this Sunday, April 27th (1-3 pm Pacific, 4-6pm Eastern time) and 3 more times this summer. They've already had quite a run on the show (according to my math this will be their 5th appearance, including one "re-run") and seem to be a favorite of the folks at XMU.

Remember a few weeks back XMU was seeking out stations to be on the air in the coming months? Did any of you contact them about this? I'd love to see more station diversity on their airwaves, so I'd encourage college radio stations that haven't been on yet to contact XMU about claiming a spot on an upcoming Sunday afternoon.