I'm Out Like Flout
(plus a plug for Tramp Hall)
Away for the weekend and due to our little Spamalot problem, I've turned off comments. My apologies. We'll fix 'er up next week.
Speaking of, a reminder to Torontofunions that yers truly curated this Monday's Trampoline Hall (my maiden voyage!), with these lecturers, every one a headliner: Zoilus team member Erella Ganon speaking on "Friendship 202," friend-of-Zoilus (and Slate music critic) Jody Rosen on "The Jody Grind" and man-about-town Jesse Huisken on "The Curta Calculator: Its Construction, History & Aura." Tix now on sale at Soundscapes on College St, last-minute rush seats at 6:30 pm Monday at Sneaky Dee's, doors at 7:40, show at 8 sharp.
General | Posted by zoilus on Friday, August 15 at 3:17 PM | Permanent Link | Linking Posts
Thursday Reading:
HolyP-Orridge BonnieTyrannaLove
Holy Fuck responds to Eye's Marc Weisblott on being dragged into the Tory arts-cuts controversy. To paraphrase, "Oh, shit, here we go again."
This feature about Genesis P-Orridge (ex-Throbbing Gristle, Psychic TV, Temple ov Psychick Youth, etc) from the latest Radar magazine is the saddest, strangest, most stirring piece of music journalism I've read in a long moment. Further thoughts later if there's time. Caution: May produce tears.
I review the latest Bonnie Prince Billy joint, belatedly, this week in the Globe and Mail.
Vintage '78 Toronto punk band Tyranna (get it?) opens vaults, reunites for one-off Friday night at the Silva Dolla.
Audio interview with Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love (of The Thing with Ken Vandermark and other nord-meets-midwest projex). Nilssen-Love appears with saxophonist Frode Gjerstad on Thurs Aug 21 at the Imperial Pub (54 Dundas St East), 8 pm, $12. As promoter Ron Gaskin (Rough Idea) puts it: "In the vicinity of former jazz HQ the Senator, the oldest becomes the newest jazz room, within the neon shadows of Yonge-Dundas carnage." Stu Broomer of Cadence magazine says of the saxophonist: "Gjerstad has a voice of his own: he is a singer and a storyteller with his horn, with a talent for extended improvisations in which motifs are developed incrementally."
The New Yorker's Ben Greenman gives a holler to Ontario country-rock firebrand Fred Eaglesmith, whose new gospel-themed album Tinderbox is, incidentally, his best in a few, which is saying loads.
General | Posted by zoilus on Thursday, August 14 at 4:51 PM | Permanent Link | Linking Posts | Comments (3)
Long Long Overdue
I am updating this site's links page for the first time in, oh, two years or so. If you have a site (especially a Toronto/Canadian music blog or site) you think belongs, let me know. If a listed site is defunct let me know that too. (I've cleared away the deadwood in the first Toronto-music section only so far.)
General | Posted by zoilus on Monday, August 11 at 5:21 PM | Permanent Link | Linking Posts | Comments (1)
'Anyone Caught Doing Culture, It Was a Career Killer'
And Other Just-So Stories
Toronto band and federal whipping post Holy Fuck.
1. The Globe has a news story, an editorial and at fine column by Simon Houpt about the Harper govt's attempt at a stealth attack on the cultural sector. I'm often critical of the effect of arts grants in Canada - the sense that Canada Council dependency results in a blander, more "worthy," "healthy," good-citizen kind of art culture here that breeds mediocrity - but these two programs are the kind of pragmatic aid that I think is pretty free of such effects: they promote "soft power" for Canada internationally while broadening artists' horizons and career potential.
The bust on the not-very-expensive programs is not just yokel philistinism: The fact that they're being justified by invoking the naughty-sounding name of Toronto band Holy Fuck (who despite their name are a danceable, creative and hardly threatening electronix-meets-rock band, who coincidentally are on an international tour right now and may not even be that aware of their ideological exploitation) and grants to authors to read abroad who might sometimes have a different political agenda than the Conservatives (because, y'know, milquetoasty neo-con-ism has given the world so much great art), all recalls the Gingrich-era cultural attacks of the Republicans in the U.S. If it were an isolated case, that'd be one thing but in combination with this spring's film-funding-censorship bill C-10, we're seeing a consistent pattern. And this while the Cons remain in a minority position: If they gained a majority in this fall's likely election, it could (like a lot of their agenda) shift into warp drive.
If you're Canadian, please write your MP as well as trade minister David Emerson and Heritage (ugh) minister Joseé Verner. If you're not but you can attest at all to the fact that international cultural outreach for Canada or any other country matters, drop them a note too. I'm proud of The Globe for applying fire to Harperite tootsies on this.
2. Elsewhere: T'cha Dunleavy of the Montreal Gazette had an interview with me this weekend about my book, taste and of course La Diva Dion. I always feel like I come off much more equivocal than I mean to when I'm asked about my final feeling about Céline in interviews. It's partly a reluctance to give away "spoilers" but maybe I should just say Céline Dion is amazing. Other recent reviews/coverage of the book from Bricolage and Nigel Beale as well as a wonderfully reflective LiveJournal post and subsequent discussion from someone I don't think I know named Christopher Pratt. It's the kind of reaction that's truly a pleasure to read. The book also comes up in the comments section of this post on "Eclecticism and Class", a Bourdieu-oriented discussion of cultural omnivorism on the new-to-me-blog The American Scene that could have come straight out of the middle chapters of my tome. If I have a spare mo' the next few days I may respond at length.
3. Also note that Vespa is continuing its Scooter Head campaign by moving into yet another relatively fresh medium - first paste-up graffiti, now wall projection - one of the themes of my Toronto Life piece this month on street artist Dan Bergeron aka Fauxreel, which I don't think I've linked here before.
4. And finally I've been remiss in not mentioning to Torontonians that the current edition of the Summerworks theatre festival has added a very well-curated nightly musical component featuring a roster that should be quite familiar to Zoilus readers. It takes a break tonight (Monday) but picks up again tomorrow through Saturday, 10:30 pm each night at the Theatre Centre.
General | Posted by zoilus on Monday, August 11 at 1:35 PM | Permanent Link | Linking Posts | Comments (3)
They Say Everyone's a Critic...
... but in this case, the critic is everyone: Today in Slate, F.O.Z. Jody Rosen uncovers what just might be "in purely statistical terms ... the greatest plagiarism scandal in the annals of American journalism".
Update, Friday: The tale ends badly. It's worth reading the plagiarist Mark Williams' incredible aria of self-pity, quoted at the end of the blog post - it's very vulnerable underneath all the vituperation it aims at Jody. It's a case study in a pattern I've seen before, of people who end up kicking around writing/ publishing/ media jobs without the talent and/or energy to get anywhere, and end up extremely embittered at the more successful. And, in this instance, resorting to extreme measures to cover up their problems. There but for the grace of fortune... I do feel truly sorry for him, and hope he can bounce up after hitting bottom - into another field of endeavour.
General | Posted by zoilus on Wednesday, August 06 at 3:54 PM | Permanent Link | Linking Posts | Comments (16)
Whoopsie!
I found out today that the ALL CAPS Dufferin Grove Park show I had listed for today is, in fact, next Saturday. I apologize if I led anyone astray. If it is any comfort, I led myself astray too. Sorry, then, also to me.
Via Toronto | Posted by zoilus on Saturday, August 02 at 5:30 PM | Permanent Link | Linking Posts
Let's Listen to Them Talk About Let's Talk About Love
Finally CBC Radio has posted an online version of one of my favourite things that happened after my book came out - an edition of their entertaining chat show Talking Books all about it, hosted by my colleague Ian Brown, with guests Noreen Golfman, Jonathan Garfinkel and Beatriz Hausner. It's a smart but down-to-earth, rollicking roundtable, which ranges abroad into questions of cultural shame in general and the weirdness of music critics in particular. Listen here!
General | Posted by zoilus on Wednesday, July 30 at 4:59 PM | Permanent Link | Linking Posts | Comments (2)
Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Pop Montreal Edition
Dear Pop Montreal, You know I love you. And I know you're excited to have such a very prestigious guest star this year. But this -
"To begin we have the insurmountable songwriting legend Burt Bacharach, perhaps the single most important figure in popular music of the 20th [century]."
- is just silly. Pop Montreal, sweetheart, may I introduce you to Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, John Coltrane, Bing Crosby, W.C. Handy, Robert Johnson, Jimmie Rogers, Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Bo Diddley, Les Paul, Benny Goodman, Leonard Bernstein, Hank Williams, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, Paul McCartney & John Lennon, Phil Spector, James Brown, Berry Gordy, Joni Mitchell, Chet Atkins, Lou Reed & John Cale, DJ Kool Herc, Rakim, Chuck D ... and the rest? Burt's an icon and he's written some terrific tunes that stretched some boundaries in pop songwriting. But runaway hyperbole is no one's friend.
That said, I'm excited about this year's lineup, which along with Burt inclues Irma Thomas, The Persuasions (!), Nick Cave, Wire, The Silver Apples - and several musicians actually under 50. (Just kidding, Pop Montreal; I love it that you scampy whelps are so much into giving recognition to historical figures. Even if you're sometimes shaky on the deets.)
fondly,
Carl
General | Posted by zoilus on Tuesday, July 29 at 3:38 PM | Permanent Link | Linking Posts | Comments (10)
From Bad to Verse?
I'm writing a review, a bit belatedly, of the Silver Jews' great new album, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, and it occurred to me - aside from the Jews' David Berman, Leonard Cohen and Jim Carroll, are there any other English-language pop (or semi-pop) singers who have published books of poetry (not their lyrics) that stand up as excellent poetry with no jot of special pleading?
I have mixed feelings about Dylan's Tarantula (I like it, but I like his liner notes better, and it feels impossible to know how one would feel about it without knowing Dylan's music). I think Patti Smith's poetry works a lot better when she's performing it than on the page. I generally feel that way about dub poets, too, though that could be a failing on my part. There must be more, but they're not springing to mind. (Oh, wait - Ed Sanders of the Fugs, though the Fugs themselves sometimes require special pleading.) The crossover seems a lot more common in other cultures, as in Latin America, Africa, France, even Quebec.
(If you say Gord Downie, I'll try not to be dismissive - I've only read a couple of poems from his book and I'm a bit kneejerk about the Tragically Hip.)
General | Posted by zoilus on Monday, July 28 at 1:06 AM | Permanent Link | Linking Posts | Comments (28)
Forced to Write About American Idol?
Call Our Help Line Now
My imaginary big sister Ann Powers has an essay today in the L.A. Times that seems curiously unpegged - perhaps rock-snob readers writing in to complain? - but neatly sums up the pro-pop shift among music critics, a subject discussed in my book, as she kindly mentions. She describes it as the result of a kind of generational coming-full-circle: pop criticism begins as an in-your-face challenge to elitism; as time goes on, like any other field, it tends to develop its own elitisms, but that founding iconoclastic impulse always surges up from somewhere to dethrone them.
I'm not quite sure what point Ann's making by pointing out that artists like Steinski and Fleet Foxes are highly rated on Metacritic now - she seems to imply that the next generation yet of critics (the post-Pitchfork generation) may make its own stand by challenging the poptimists to a duel, but I doubt it. Even the most pop-loving critics also have their more esoteric loves, because we're still all, like, nerds. But from what I've seen, younger critics don't tend to remain anti-pop purists nearly as far into adulthood as I and many of my peers did - partly because our positions were affirmed/enforced by a self-conscious counter- (or "alternative") culture that doesn't exist in that mode now. Which comes with its curses and blessings, its liberations and its blinders.
At Creative Loafing's Tampa Calling blog, Wade Tatangelo intelligently speculates that the trend may be economically based: With the crisis of critical authority brought on by the Internet and the (also 'net-related) decline of newspaper sales, he says, critics are losing their jobs and those still employed are in more vulnerable positions: Maybe they take an interest in American Idol because they can't afford not to? There's something to that - I remarked in my book that unlike, say, an academic specialist, a working critic has to address a broad audience, and one who wrote only about the ultra-weird and never about the popular eventually would be out of a job. In the book I add "(rightly)", but it's debatable.
Certainly I know people who've been required professionally to review shows they wouldn't have volunteered to watch. Tatangelo says that a couple of years ago he quit a job rather than cover Idol - and that he's not sure he would feel emboldened to make a similar move today.
But wait, imagine a film critic who proudly resigns his job rather than write about a popular movie or genre of movies - say, movies based on comic books. Would we think that guy was a hero, or kind of an asshole? Wouldn't we point to great film critics who have written favorably or unfavorably about blockbuster popcorn flicks and found insightful aesthetic and social analyses there? If you're being told what to say by your editors, that is cause to make a stand; if you're being asked to cover a major phenomenon in your field, that's the job, bucko. Granted, in the more flush past of newspapering, you'd probably have been able to slough off lower-status assignments to the junior critic, and today there usually is no junior critic. And nothing against Tatangelo making life choices that make him happier. But there's a boon to critics being pushed out of their aesthetic habits to observe what's happening out in what remains of the mainstream - it gives us the function of conducting that cross-conversation about common cultural objects that those lamenters of the semi-mythical, semi-extinct monoculture say they miss.
Whether we jumped or were pushed, then, the shift towards pop actually helps answer the substantive question of what professional critics are for, not just the marketing one. Ideally the "end of criticism" could be more like the end of thumbs-up, three-stars-out-of-the-crab-nebula reviewing (or rather its migration to the amateurs and Metacritic) and the renewal of engaged cultural journalism.
That sounds rather over-saturated in rosy hues, of course, but see for example my colleague Robert Everett-Green's new series in response to the fooforaw over the reduction of "classical" music on CBC Radio 2, where he takes a step back and says (in chorus with this weekend's festival at Harbourfront, about which more later), well then, "What is 'classical'?" (and whatever it is, why is the government obliged to provide it a radio station?).
It's a superb corrective that makes me very glad Robert's back from his couple of months on leave - but it's also indicative of the value of the pro-pop realignment: I wouldn't call Robert a "poptimist," but as someone with an extensive high-culture background and leanings, he probably wouldn't have had the same perspective if he'd been born a generation or two earlier; as it is, though, he (like, say, The New Yorker's Alex Ross) is able to appreciate and advocate for music in all its messy, unpigeonholeable, crosspollinated complexity. If you're for that, dial in and press "2."
General | Posted by zoilus on Sunday, July 27 at 4:46 PM | Permanent Link | Linking Posts | Comments (15)
