Research Entry: "The way of art" - Dancing in the Street

Robert Palmer's book companion to the BBC series, Dancing in the Streets, contains some very relevant and useful chapters about the punk and pre-punk scenes. He begins the chapter by distinguishing between rock and pop, with the main difference being art - art is the pursuit of rock, whereas it has no bearing on pop. This is certainly true of the early New York punk scene, where art played an prominant role in the homology between poets, artists, filmmakers, composers, and rock'n'rollers that was common and central to the scene. Palmer identifies the background of many of the important punk figures as 'arty,' with the head of Elektra records, Danny Fields, stating, "these were middle-class, spoiled, creative young people, and they took the record companies by surprise" (p.178). Dick Hebdige (if memory serves me correctly) also investigated the backgrounds of many punk leaders, noticing that they were typically art school students as opposed to lower class and unemployed. This is a reading I will revisit over the coming weeks, however, it is already clear that art, as a background and as a pursuit, is an important element in the identity and values of those operating in this particular subculture.

This pre-punk/art-punk movement, along with the garage-rock and glam scenes that followed it, is inextricably linked to the outsider status. As Palmer notes, this exclusion occurs not only in society but also in the heirarchy of rock. Though more acceptable in England, which had a history of the camp and such, this music found little support in America. Its images of drugs and androgeny were too offensive to the conservative mainstream, and the decadent and nihilstic sound was too alien to the rest of the hippie counter-culture. This no doubt helped this music flourish as a scene, as it remained contained in the lower East side of New York because it was the only place these bands could find an appreciative audience. This no doubt would help define and the typical sound and values of the region, which is important to the subcultural theory of locality.

"Without the Velvet Underground and the Stooges (and to a lesser extent, the Doors and the MC5), one has to wonder where the first wave of American punk rockers would have found inspiration" (p.185). This another quote that affirms the importance of the pre-punk bands (only one of which was from New York, but whose influence over the others extended so far as the Stooges seeking Cale to produce their album and give it the typically decadent New York sound). These important bands soon broke up, and it was then up to the New York Dolls - "New York's immediate punk precursors" (p.185) - to continue their work.

Palmer's book is the only one to investigate the changes that resulted in the booming New York live music scene. He identifies two main causes: the closure of medium sized venues around the state; and the distance between fans and performers increasing at a rate proportional to their monetary value.

"The punk -rock story, for all practical purposes, begins in New York city" (p.265), where "enough musicians found common ground in their dissatisfaction with the state of rock and roll to do somethign about it, trnsforming a gaggle of alienated individuals into a full blown movement" (p.265-66). This paragraph highlights what was one of the main impetus for the punk scene. These individuals drew from earlier New York bands and, like those before them, congregated around specific venues. CBGB's was the latest in a line of alternative venues - Max's Kansas City, home to the Velvet Underground, and the Mercer Arts Centre, where the New York Dolls regularly performed. Television were the first prominant band to perform there, drawing on the sonic experimentation of the Velvet Underground. Six months later, the Ramones debuted there. Word spread of CBGB's willingness to showcase unsigned and raw bands with original material, and so it quickly became home to a pulsing alternative music scene.

Lastly, and most interestingly, Palmer is the only one to mention the media in his article. Because the music business and press are centred in New York, even the underground movements draw attention and get coverage. This is useful as it often confused me how people in the UK like David Bowie were apparently influenced by Lou Reed when they never toured outside of the US and sold minimal records.
The relationship between this scene and the media was no doubt important to the progression of punk. I have heard or read somewhere that Lester Bangs was a big supporter of this early movement, and so it would be helpful to source some information on him as a link between the subculture and the media (since that is the focus of the course, after all).

This article is very helpful. It is full of the detail and analysis that has been lacking in the previously reviewed texts. It provides a greater understanding of the contexts that helped the scene developed and of the important values of the scene.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0375293/combined

(For you UQ students out there, the library has both the book and televisual counterpart of the Dancing in the Street series. http://library.uq.edu.au/search?/tdancing%20in%20the%20street/tdancing+in+the+street/1%2C4%2C6%2CB/exact&FF=tdancing+in+the+street+a+rock+and+roll+history&1%2C3%2C)

GREAT SUCCESS!

Stop panicking, I accidently figured out how to format my blogs. I'm not entirely sure if I'll be able to reproduce those results, but the crisis is over for now.
Stay tuned, more research entries to be added before the day is through.
I can sense the antici... pation.

Research Entry: "The fight against complacency" - Punk: Attitude

The Don Letts film, Punk: Attitude, follows the lineage of punk from its origins in New York to it's heyday in London and beyond. The film is structed chronologically, with the information being presented through archival live footage of bands, and through interviews with many reputable authors, musicians, and zine writers. The film is, unfortunately, lacking in detail and thorough investigation, perhaps the result the limitted presentation techniques. Nonetheless, the film is certainly entertaing and provides at least a blueprint of the punk scene and its ties to the New York movement.

The film perpetuates the notion that the Velvet Underground were the forefathers of punk, situating their music and their scene prominantly at the start of the documentary. As Henry Rollins says, "Lou Reed and his crew making this a-tonal music coming from art and heroin and death in the middle of 'feel good' - that's punk rock!" Like previous texts, the film also acknowledges the importance of Andy Warhol, referencing significance he had in shaping the scene and the attitude from which punk developed. This point is mentioned only fleetingly. Further investigation is provided in Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart.

Whereas previous texts have suggested a disdain for the hippie movement, Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols communicates his admiration for them, and even ventures to say that hippies were the first punks. Whether they were reviled or respected, their existence is still important because it created a mainstream image of the West Coast counter-culture to which the East Coast could be diametrically opposed. This binary allowed for propulsion of the NewYork underground image into the media and formed the basis of a new culture with which those to whom 'hippie-dom' was too alien could relate. As Siouxsie Sioux states, "the Velvets stood out from that whole hippie culture." It is interesting to note that Velvet Underground were not just oppositional to mainstream society, they were also oppositional to other more wide-spread counter-cultures. (Now that's punk).

The importance of the New York Dolls is not ignored in this documentary. Thier influence in the UK is expanded upon, with Chrissie Hynde noting that all the punk bands owned their albums. This shows the influence they had on not only the local scene, but the emerging British punk scene. Their association with Malcom McClaron is also mentioned, an association that cannot be overstated as it evidently helped shape McLaren's important later work in the UK. It was McLaren who convinced the Dolls to adopt the red 'Communist' aesthetic in an attempt to provoke outrage. It was a shift that would, as John Holmstrom notes, mark the end of glam and the beginning of punk. Unfortunately, it also marked the downfall of this influential band. Members, noteably Johnny Thunders, would continue to play major roles in the punk scene.

It is easy to see common points of reference emerging between the New York scene and the subcultural theory of locality. Venues such as Max's Kansas City (home to the Velvets) and the Mercer Arts Centre (home to the Dolls) were popular lower East Side venues hosting many alternative bands. The motif of cross-dressing and blurring of genders is not only an affect of the embracing of postmodernity but an important link between especially the Velvet (in their early lyrics), then Lou Reed's solo image, and then the New York Dolls. Both of these exemplars had an association with Andy Warhol, and both produced their debut albums independent of a record deal in mind. Lastly, both recalled images of urban decay. Further research will surely uncover more similarities, but it is fair to suggest that New York itself was an important factor to these bands and therefore punk as a whole.

Soon after the demise of the Dolls, CBGB's opened its doors. This documentary includes a detailed look at the regular bands (such as Television and Suicide) and their different stylistic developments. "Some of these bands I wouldn't classify as punk, but they had the punk attitude," says CBGB's owner Hilly Krystal.

Popularity was the was an unfortunate result of and for the New York scene. The bands who constitued the core of the scene were signed to major labels, and were thus expected to tour. Soon enough there were few bands permanently situated in New York, and the concurrent death of punk and the New York scene seems to reinforce the importance of locality to punk. Further will be more fruitful, but I am inclined to think that this importance of Locality is tied to the importance of authenticity.

"Punk rock wasn't even a thought at that time... but the seeds for punk were certainly being sown by the Dolls and by all the bands that had come previous to that, such as the Vevlets and the Stooges and the MC5" (Roberta Bayley, photographer).

The documentary is very entertaining and definitely affirms the New York scene as figuring prominantly in the genesis of punk. It does lack an academic edge in that it uses little more than interviews to connect the dots, without researching the dots themselves. Nonetheless, it does reinforce the importance of the Velvet Underground and the New York scene as a whole and show, more so than other texts, how widespread the influence of these bands was.

http://www.punkattitude.co.uk/

Velvet Underground Documentary

I've already created my three research blogs (only one is currently posted, the others are awaiting proofreading), however, this is an interesting documentary I found on youtube.com.
To my knowledge, it's never been re-released or re-screened, which is interesting because it's one of the better documentaries I've seen on the band and that movement.
I thought I'd post it up in case anyone was interested. It's in several parts. Definitely worth watching.

formatting

Hey everyone. I don't know html code and so I'm having trouble formatting these entries. At the moment they look like one massive, uneditted paragraph. It's annoying me because there are actually paragraphs and indentations within that huge body of text. If any IT savvy person wants to fill me in, feel free.
Peace

Research Entry: "You gotta believe that it's real" - Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart

Lou Reed: Rock and Roll Heart is a documentary by Timothey Greenfield-Sanders that charts the career of Lou Reed from the inception of the Velvet Underground through to his work on the Theatrical Musical, Time Rocker. The documentary is helpful in expanding upon important points in Lou Reed's life and career and is certainly full of quotes that support the notion of Lou Reed as the founder of alternative music and punk. It also features many 'talking head' segments, which show the importance and wide-spread influence Lou Reed has had on the alternative music scence, not only in New York but in London, L.A. and Detroit, since the Velvet Underground.

There are many parallels between punk and subcultural theory and Lou Reed's early work. The quote used in the headline of this entry reflects the importance of authenticity common to both subcultural theory and Lou Reed's output. Authenticity was a central concern of the punk movement that would eventually arise, and it was evident in the Velvet Underground's early work. The lyrics are poetic and real, evoking strong images of the life that was surrounding him. This included previously untouched subject matter such as transvestites and, of course, drugs. As Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth) reflects in this documentary, the song Heroin changed lyric-writing thereafter. The recording of the debut album also embodies an authentic alternative attitude - recorded in spare time, produced by Andy Warhol, all without a record deal.

There are also strong ties to postmodernism in Reed's work, brought out by his association with Andy Warhol. Of Andy Warhol, Kirk Varnedo (Chief Curator, Museum of Modern Art, New York) notes,

"His art was built on a synegy of talents; he fed off having musicians, poets, writers, filmmakers - he wanted to explore all of this together; and that this idea of 'the Factory' as a group enterprise producing work in a kind of assembly line chain, is a completely anti-romantic notion of what the art is thought to be, and it made this place, 'the Factory,' the place to be in New York in the sixties."

In this we see the deconstruction of traditional binaries between what is classified as art and what isn't, what is high culture and what isn't; we see the blurring of boundaries between the different fields of art and of the circumstances in which art is produced. Also, in Warhol's 'Exploding Plastic Inevitable,' we see the combination of different forms of media and performance to create a show unlike anything seen before, often purported to be an 'installation' artwork rather than a music show. It was this embracing of postermodernity, along with the their authentic avant-garde interests, that led to the anti-romantic lyricism, and the scratchy, droning sounds that typified their debut album.

As for Lou Reed's influence on punk, it is clear that many of his ideals, if not his aesthetics, were adopted by later New York punk bands. The fact that his band operated completely out of the system is a charcteristic to reemerge in punk. "I was interested in communicating to people who were on the outside," states Reed, an audience which undoubtedly incorporated many of the later punk musicians.

"If punk means iconoclastic, if punk means rebellious, if punk measn outside of the system... Lou Reed embodied that spirit in a way nobody else did." This is a quote from an unidentified talking head, which is included in the segment linking Lou Reed to the CBGB's punk scene in New York.

As if to further Lou Reed's claim as the father of punk, David Bowie states: "In an iconic sense, I think [Reed] projects the image of the bad boy that we all, especially when we were younger, so passionately wanted to be." His image, his ideals, his music, and the way by which he made his music would all influence and inform the next generation of New York punk bands and help the alternative movement come into fruition. In layman's terms, Lou Reed 'wrote the handbook.'

This documentary was helpful in tying Reed's music and influence to the New York punk scene, and certainly helps prove that punk has its origins in New York's underground sixties music. The importance of Lou Reed and John Cale's partnership can, seemingly, not be overstated, and the interviews throughout this film continue to affirm the belief that without the Velvet Underground, alternative music would not exist the way that know it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138582/

(I also learnt that John Cale has aged much better than Lou Reed, and that for a period in the eighties, Lou Reed sported a horrible, full-bodied mullet).

Band Information and Clips

I've decided to post some of the brief research I'm doing to help visitors better understand the subculture under investigation. This is not a research entry, just a post that identifies the more important bands, a brief biography obtained from the Grove Music online database, and a simple clip from youtube.com.
There will be proper academic entries shortly. Until then, I hope this will suffice.

The Velvet Underground

Velvet Underground, the.
American rock band. Its founder members were lou Reed (b 1942; guitar and lead vocals), John Cale (b 1940; electric viola, bass guitar, keyboards and vocals) and Sterling Morrison (1942–95; guitar and vocals); drummer Angus MacLise was replaced early on by Maureen Tucker (b 1945; drums and vocals). Influences on the band ranged from rhythm and blues and rock and roll to the avant-garde music of John Cage and La Monte Young, the poetry of Delmore Schwartz, the novels of William Burroughs and the pop art of Andy Warhol, who became their first manager. With the vocalist Nico (Christa Päffgen; b Cologne, 16 Oct 1938; d 1988) they became the house band at Warhol’s arts collective, the Factory, and an integral part of his multi-media show ‘The Exploding Plastic Inevitable’ (1966). That year they also signed a contract with MGM’s Verve label and recorded their first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico (1967), which had little commercial success, although its long-term influence was considerable. With songs such as ‘Heroin’ and ‘European Son’ it exhibited an intense and abrasive minimalism new to rock music, the sound distinguished by the drones of Cale’s electric viola, the metronomic precision of Tucker’s drumming and Morrison’s rhythm guitar, and the dark irony of Reed’s delivery of his own lyrics together with Nico’s tomb-like and detached interpretation of his songs. Nico left the group in 1967 and Reed effectively took control. Much of the material for the second album, the savage White Light/White Heat (1967), was developed while Reed was ill and owes most to Cale and the other members of the band. The music is groundbreaking in its use of densely layered textures, distortion, white noise and feed-back, and with Reed’s lyrics graphically explicit in their references to drugs, sex and drag queens, it is probably the most disturbing rock album ever produced.
In March 1968 friction between Reed and Cale forced the latter to leave the band, his place taken by Doug Yule. The third album, The Velvet Underground (MGM, 1969), is very different to its precursors, with mainly restrained and quiet songs. An exception is ‘The Murder Mystery’, an extended piece characterized by Burroughs-style cut-up techniques, simultaneous spoken texts, obsessive minimalist chord patterns and anarchic piano clusters. In 1970 the group moved record label to Cotillion/Atlantic, and released Loaded (1970), the band now functioning largely as a backing to Reed’s vocals. By 1971 all the founder members had left the group, but in 1993 they re-formed temporarily; a European tour followed, and a live album, Live MCMXCIII (Sire, 1993), was released. After further brief reunions in 1994 and the death of Morrison in August 1995, the group disbanded for a second time.
Despite contempt for the music industry, lack of commercial success, lack of sales promotion and the absence of recognition beyond the avant garde of the time, the Velvet Underground has become one of the most influential bands in the history of rock music. At odds with the prevailing atmosphere in popular music of the late 1960s, the group developed a distinctively hard-edged urban sound, polarized between stripped-back rock and roll and avant garde. The Punk rebellion, the New Wave music of the 1970s, art-rock and the phenomenon of ‘cross-over’ can all trace their origins to the radical experimentalism of the group’s first three albums.



The Fugs

American avant-garde folk group. Formed in 1964 and disbanded in 1969, its core personnel were Ed Sanders (b Kansas City, MO, 17 Aug 1939; guitar and vocals) and Tuli [Naphtali] Kupferberg (b New York, 28 Sept 1923; percussion and vocals), with a number of other New York musicians, especially Ken Weaver, Peter Stampfel and Steve Weber. They were arguably the clearest link between the styles and subcultures of the beatniks and the punks. Sanders and Kupferberg were poets and activists, and their lyrics were often obscene, satirical and politically charged. The Fugs were among the first counter-cultural bands to sing openly about drugs, sex and rebellion. Their music was brazenly and happily amateurish; some of them could barely play their instruments, a few of which, such as the erectophone, were newly invented. Musically, they drew upon such diverse precedents as folk songs, Sacred Harp singing, Jewish melodies and rock and roll. The Fugs appeared at anti-war demonstrations and promoted greater freedom of speech and action through their concerts and their recordings, the first of which was issued by Folkways. They established precedents that were important for psychedelic rock and punk, and were significant influences on later musicians such as the Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa. They reunited several times during the 1980s and 90s.



New York Dolls

American punk rock group. Its principal members were David Johansen (b Staten Island, New York, 9 Jan 1950; vocals), Johnny Thunders (John Anthony Genzale; b New York, 15 July 1952; d New Orleans, 23 April 1991; electric guitar) and Sylvain Sylvain (Sil Mizrahi; electric guitar). In a brief and commercially unsuccessful career, the New York Dolls introduced several of the motifs that would characterize both the glam rock and punk rock movements of the 1970s. Like the more successful Kiss, the group members adopted ‘trashy transvestite’ stage clothing and make-up, with Johansen dressed as a parody of Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. Musically their sound was a regression to an imagined rock and roll simplicity based around the buzzsaw tone of the twin guitars played by Thunders and Sylvain. Johansen's hoarse vocalizing was buried in the recorded mix designed by Todd Rundgren, the producer of the group's debut album, New York Dolls (Mer., 1973). The group's original compositions veered thematically from conventional romance (Looking for a Kiss) to psychotic states (Personality Crisis). They recorded a second album, Too Much Too Soon (Mer., 1974), before splitting up. Thunders became an erratic participant in the punk scene of the late 1970s, while Johansen re-emerged in the late 1980s as Buster Poindexter, and convincingly recreated the jump band sounds of the 1940s on a series of entertaining recordings.



The Modern Lovers (Note: no biography was available on Grove Music. The Modern Lovers were another band who recorded their debut album with John Cale, forming not long after the demise of the Velvet Underground. Interesting trivia: the Shins are currently incorporationg a cover of the Modern Lovers's track 'Someone I Care About' into their live set).



Blue Oyster Cult (Note: Once again, no biography was found on Grove Music. More information will be discovered in further research no doubt. Once again, formed in New York City not long after the Velvet Underground. Jon Stratton mentions them several times in his that I reviewed in my annotated bibliography).



Holy Modal Rounders (Note: no biography available again, however, are said to have had a similar genesis as the Fugs according to Steven Weber in 'False Prophet.' This is the only decent clip I could find of the band - don't ask me why someone decided to film their record player, just shut your eyes and listen).



Iggy Pop (Note: Iggy was not from New York, however, has cited the above bands as major influences. The Stooges's debut album was recorded in New York with John Cale of the Velvet Underground).

(b 21 April 1947). American punk, rock and pop vocalist. He played the drums in blues bands (gaining his nickname in an act called The Iguanas) before forming the Psychedelic Stooges in 1967 with the brothers Ron Asheton (guitar) and Scott Asheton (drums), along with the bass player Dave Alexander, changing the band's name to the Stooges in 1969. He became known as an intense and transgressive performer who sometimes went so far as to roll in broken glass or otherwise wound himself. With albums such as Raw Power (Col., 1973), he made some of the harshest music heard during the late 1960s and early 70s, for which he is sometimes called the father of punk rock. In contrast to the peace-and-love messages of much psychedelic rock, his lyrics were bleak and perverse in their challenge to the status quo, and his music was unapologetically raucous and amateurish. The Stooges broke up in 1974 and Pop released a series of solo albums beginning in 1976, often working in collaboration with David Bowie. Pop's later work, such as Blah-Blah-Blah (A&M, 1986), was less noisy and closer to mainstream pop in its tone and techniques. (I. Pop: I Need More, Los Angeles, 1982)