The last few decades have been marked by promised of innovative new technology for the home. The presumption, of course, is that more technology is good for us and that, in the process, our homes will become “smart.” Yet today, as we consider the number of people whose VCRs still flash 12:00, we wonder just how smart our homes have become. (more…)
In terms of sheer “spectacle”, the ground rules for an elaboration of emotive movement (expressive action, the music “empowering and enabling the body, which expresses its movements symbolically”) are the reserve, in themselves, of tradition. Musicians do not “react naturally” to the music they are producing, they enact specific ritualized behavior that is the accepted language of movement for the genre of art they supposedly represent.
The tradition of metal, and black metal in particular, allows for an interpenetration between the Dionysian and the (supposedly) Apollonian order of “normal” reality, taking for granted, one would assume, that “normal” reality is controlled by some sort of “artificially” imposed array or effective category of imposed will, an overreaching, overarching, authoritative superego-in-action, and not taking for granted that ostensibly Dionysian events are nothing but an artificial, traditional representation/performances of symbolic “chaotic” happenings in order to impose, by logical supposition, an opposing Apollonian order that may not actually exist.
Vex
It is interesting in observing these kinds of behaviors…watching from the center of the action, as it were, and being held in the middle of their focus, at their apex or axis, where the expectations and wishes of the audience crystallize around the figures on the stage…to feel all of the subtle (because almost unconscious, or primal, not because they aren’t evident to one’s immediate view) influences of the mass audience, feeling the combined power of the audience’s focus (attention), desire, their anticipation of each note and shouted word, etc.
A collection of sentences arrogating to itself the notion of “randomness” in order to appear “natural”.
No, in this short essay I choose to reflect upon the most basic “meanings” we have given to musicians’ movements on the stage that is provided for them, and in effect detail the entire process of “representation” that is enacted before us, as an audience, as we watch musicians perform.
Limited to surface appearances because of exhaustion…
It was while searching through the various pictures available, Texas – although one of the members of this group let me know that they are now a little closer to me, being based for the present out of Austin, that I began to reflect on the possibility of an essay detailing the appearances, imagery, poses, behaviors, etc. of musical groups on stage and what these habits, expressions, supposedly “spontaneous” movements and gestures could “mean” when examined closely. I am an enthusiastic seeker when it comes to witnessing the ability imagery has to support or alter (depending on its own internal/native characteristics) one’s ideas and thoughts about a band and that band’s music, and so I often come across imagery – planned, manipulated, caught offhand or not, etc. – on the internet or in magazines that has the ability (I feel) to either add to my understanding of a band’s music, the personalities “behind” the music, the “image” they are trying to present to their audience, etc.
When Rhino records announced plans for R-E-S-P-E-C-T: A Century of Women in Music it seemed to many like yet another end of the millennium round-up. Too often these best-ofs collect the usual suspects (too often a group of white women popular in the last decade) and give way too much credence to the likes of Madonna and not enough attention to Bessie Smith. (See VH-1′s recent 100 Greatest Women in Rock, for a good example.)
And now that women make up more Grammy nominations than men and account for more music sales then their XY cohorts, it seems that everyone is trying to appeal to the chick factor. Fortunately, the all-woman development team at Rhino has actually succeeded in putting together a ground-breaking musical anthology that covers nearly every genre of music (big band, blues, disco, rock, hip hop, R&B to name a few) and features a brilliant and diverse cast of talented female vocalists.
I’ve just been inspired to write my feelings down
After my conversation with your stupid little head
You must have conspired with some tiny little fumes
Giving you information totally mislead
You called me a snake in the grass and that wasn’t all
It ripped like shards of glass into my skull.
You probably forgot about what you did but I will not
You let your superego id out of its little head
You called me a snake in the grass
Snake in the grass, snake in the grass and that wasn’t nice.
I’m growing tired of all your unimportant views
It’s breaking my concentration cause of the things you said
You may be right on your end but you’re not right on mine
I suppose you’ll try and pretend you were not unkind