Justin’s was on a roll yesterday on scenes and half-assed music so here’s my rambling response.
First off let’s jump onto the idea of scenes. Roberto rightfully made the point a while back that a scene is fluid and what is and is not a scene is pretty much in the eyes of the beholder. For me I’m just defining it as people within Houston and surrounding cities (Pearland, Pasadena, Spring et al.). Then I further define it as bands that I love. Since I will go see these bands I often will see many of the same people at these shows – voila a scene – the most utterly subjective scene ever.
 |
| Hearts of Animals |
Justin brings up in his commentary how, at Sound Ex this last Friday, many people were just milling about outside as some sort of problem. Well, part of seeing a band is social and there is nothing wrong with that. I’ve never been too worried about people talking, playing pool, making out, or whatever at one of the LP4 shows. Maybe my attitude comes from our laughably small draw, but I don’t mind simply being the background band in one of those 60′s teen party films. So what if people are outside? Are they having fun? Great. Maybe people at Sound Ex only caught one band, maybe they peeked their hear inside, maybe they sat outside with their friends and were chatting so much that they miss all the music – who cares? Were they having fun? Cool.
I remember a show at MECA and there was this person reading while listening to the music and one person I know was offended. Maybe because growing up I used to sit and read books while listening to music on my headphones, my reaction was “Oh man that’s so awesome!” There was a John Cage story I love in which there was some production he was attending and at some point the audience was told to move to another theatre as part of the production and Cage, of course, stayed in his seat while everyone else dutifully moved as suggested in a kind of “I will not be told what to do” kind of stance. Typical playful John Cage stuff. Or take a Cage exhibit at the Menil years ago. I remember walking in and there, on a table, sat a chess board. Of course everyone felt the pull of playing the game but, being a museum, the pieces stayed put. As we walked out, there were two kids playing chess. Brilliant! They got it and we didn’t! We were too busy worrying about how you are supposed to act in a museum instead of just having fun. So, given murder, wars, and shitty people everywhere let’s not concern ourselves with everyone else behaving properly and just worry about having some fun, eh?
But getting back to the scene, a scene is a scene and that is what keeps the happy flow of ideas moving. I think one of the reasons rap has stayed as vital as it has (though sales are supposedly down) is largely due to regionalism. Rap still retains that while Rock has lost a lot of that. Remember when back in the 80′s you had cities with clearly defined scenes – Minneapolis, DC, Portland, Seattle, Athens, et al.. Take the music released from those cities Were all of them great? No. A few of them were great, a lot were in the middle, and a few were terrible. But even though a band like Let’s Active never blew me away on record, I could see where they fit into the local discussion which counts for something.
I think the idea that every band must be genius is a bit much. There are different bands out there making great music on their own terms. Locally, here there is a band called Alarma and sure I’ve seen two shows that were complete disasters and maybe they aren’t great in the meta sense but for the 20 minutes that they are playing I am having fun and it DOESN’T matter if they are the second coming of Jimi Hendrix or not. Maybe they will become great in the meta sense, maybe not. I love their shows, I have fun, and that’s good enough isn’t it? There are other bands that I think clearly are great in a more meta way – Friday’s Hearts of Animals and the (soon to find a new name) Dimes are two of those bands. The HOA article I wrote for the Free Press is one where I completely stand behind every word I wrote; her music is that good. The Dimes, meanwhile, have that great combination of musicianship and writing that are just incredible. But the point isn’t great vs. not great the point is creating something and it does have value if it something you have a burning to get out. If someone sat down and said, “Man my mission in life is to create something that takes a spoon and a fork and makes them into one amazing utensil! Voila! I have created the spork!”, I’ll take it!
There is a James Kochalka book called The Cute Manifesto where he has two short essays called “Craft is the Enemy” and “Craft is Not a Friend.” Here are some excerpts which I think fit nicely into this discussion:
“You could labor your whole life perfecting your ‘craft,’ struggling to draw better, hoping one day to have the skills to produce a truly great comic…If this is how you are thinking you will never produce this great comic, this powerful piece of art, that you dream of….What every creator should, must do is use the skills they have right now.” – James Kochalka, Craft is the Enemy
“If you are burning up inside with the need to express yourself, if there is something you desperately need to say, when you sit down at the drawing table you think ‘How am I going to say this? How am I going to express myself so that people will understand?’ The art will be a slave to the content. Either the artist expresses the meaning, emotion, and power of their vision or they do not. The comic succeeds or fails on those terms. The notion of quality is meaningless.” – James Kochalka, Craft is Not a Friend (emphasis mine)
That pretty much says it all. Yes, I’m not going to prop up half-assed music (that’s just a strawman) but if it’s a band that has heart and I enjoy what they do – count me in.
====end rambling here====
Credits:
Craft is the Enemy/Craft is not a Friend (c) 2005 James Kochalka from The Cute Manifestohttp://www.indyworld.com/altcomics/ Published by Alternative Comics 503 NW 37th Ave. Gainsville, FL. 32609-2204
Justin brings up in his commentary how, at Sound Ex this last Friday, many people were just milling about outside as some sort of problem.
This is actually not what I said at all. What I said is:
Instead, they stood around in the parking lot. Which is fine as long as they don’t later talk about how awesome the show was.
In other words, the social experience is fine just as long as those people who were not even watching don’t say that it was a great show, unless what they really mean is that it was great standing around outside, half listening.
It seems there are different definitions of what a show is. For one person it might be strictly the music being played by the musicians, for another it might include their outfits, stage moves, and banter between songs, for other yet it might include who they talked to, who they met, how did the audience react.. on the other hand I know what you mean justin about people talking without knowing what they are talking about, i hate it too.
And BTW, the drummer for Let’s Active (a North Carolina band, though often confused with an Athens band) was none other than Sarah Romweber, sister of Dexter Romweber. And she is now playing drums with him and they sound great, go see them if you get a chance.
Werd! James Kochalka nails it. Who’d have guessed.
I think Kochalka is as wrong as anyone who argues the opposite position. I have often said that lack of talent shouldn’t prevent someone from being an artist, but I would also say that if you ignore craft and focus solely on the creative process without regard to quality, you will usually end up with crap.
I’ve watched Al Dimiola clones in pastel muscle tees, festooned with gold medallions, picking jazz scales so fast that it made my head spin, and even when I was in high school, I thought to myself, “If you’re so fucking great, why are you selling guitars at H&H in the mall?” So I understand that if you emphasize technical perfection over everything else, then you are basically just a robot, and that technique/craft/skill or whatever you want to call it is a tar pit.
But so is the lure of unfettered, undisciplined creative license outside of the control of any concept of taste, aesthetics, or quality. It may be fun for the artist, but it’s not really fun for anyone else.
Yes, I know… I just described one of our shows. I’m going to finish my double bourbon on the rocks now.
SOH, just to be clear I’m dropping an excerpt. Kochalka isn’t rejecting craft out of hand; he goes onto say in Craft is the enemy; “There is nothing wrong with trying to draw well, but that is not of primary importance.”
In the same book there is a comic called “The Horrible Truth about Comics” where he writes the following along the same lines;”Technical mastery of one’s medium does not an artist make. The only quality you need is the ability to open yourself with honesty and pluck out the truth. Resolve to put the skills you do have to work NOW and pick up more along the way. Craft is just a matter of personal pride and respect for one’s medium. You want your comic to be well crafted be cause to do otherwise would be an insult or an embarrassment….I have to pee.”
I’ll loan it to you at rehearsal.
I loved the Kochalka quotes, but yeah, I didn’t take them as an absolute rejection of craft. Just as I believe they’re meant to be, I took them more as a way of saying that craft wasn’t necessary to make good art. And the second quote is really the important one, especially speaking to what SOH is saying… it’s saying that the art succeeds or fails not necessarily on how much craft is behind it, but whether or not, using whatever skills he/she has, the artist is able to convey their vision fully. There is still a requirement for it to be good art, it’s just not related necessarily to craft. Craft could play a part, or it could not, depending on how well the artist can express the self with whatever skill he/she has.
Then again, as I’ve never had a lesson on any of the instruments I play, and have never bothered to pick up theory books or practice much, it’s obvious that this quote speaks to me more than perhaps others…
I’d agree that for most artists, falling in the trap of obsessing over your craft is much more likely than falling in the trap of not paying attention to it at all, so I understand where Kochalka is coming from, and his advice to make what you can with the skill you have NOW is certainly excellent advice.
the crowd said: we were milling around in the parking lot because inside it was too stuffy and it was so crowded and we don’t want our feets stepped on and besides we wanted to chat with YOU, darling.
and they wanted to smoke!
Umm, sorry, but, what is a “lawchair”?
Blogger clearly doesn’t spell check titles. But now you’ve doomed me as if I change the title now you comment is meaningless. You bastard!
Blogger clearly doesn’t spell check titles. But now you’ve doomed me as if I change the title now you comment is meaningless. You bastard!
That’s the chair the big man sits in when he makes laws. You know the big man? The one who makes the laws? The one who sits?