HYPNAGOGIC POP

[SSR]

Where's me? What do you want?

I'm allergic to hypnagogics.

I stopped reading that policy mag called the Wire when they did a humor in music issue that contained not one joke.

Anything else?

[chrizow]

this scene is easy to mock, but i think the sound described in that article is pretty amazing.  it's like a particularly "west coast" crystallization of the psych aesthetic of blues control/black dice.  the latter's "creature comforts" i think would be an early classic in this genre.

[Damn]

this scene is easy to mock, but i think the sound described in that article is pretty amazing.  it's like a particularly "west coast" crystallization of the psych aesthetic of blues control/black dice.  the latter's "creature comforts" i think would be an early classic in this genre.

i don't think this is a scene. i don't think anything by black dice is a classic. i don't think bc and bd are about the same aesthetic. and i don't see anything "particularly 'west coast'" in that article. i like most of the bands though. some are even ama-ZING!

Anything else?

no. this thread is dying and we shouldn't interfere.

[Whet Bull]

Anything else?

no. this thread is dying and we shouldn't interfere.

'Cept to reiterate that Keenan sux colossal donkey dix and this is even dumber than The New Weird America.  

Also, Skaters: shut the fuck up.  

Oh, and music writers in general: musicians are famously inarticulate or unreliable or full of shit when it comes to analyzing their own music; do your job and don't take every twenty-year-old stoner dipshit at their word.

[SSR]

'pulco - with all due respect and your personal feelings about keenan aside, if you are going to rag on him for writing something on the type of music he sells, you need to take the following people to task: Me, Greg Shaw, Byron Coley, Jimmy Johnson, Don Waller, Kent McClard, Eric Oblivion, plenty of people involved with MRR & Flipside over the years), Cadence magazine, etc.  To state the obvious, the enthusiasm that dictates writing about something one digs often furthers in the feeling of "I need to get this to people" (or if you are a label, I need to put this out). Is there a conflict of interest here? On the surface, perhaps, but I think you have to dig deeper than "he wrote something on something he sells therefore he is bad and a fraud". If that is the case than crucify us all. 

[jwo]

Anything else?

no. this thread is dying and we shouldn't interfere.

'Cept to reiterate that Keenan sux colossal donkey dix and this is even dumber than The New Weird America. 

Also, Skaters: shut the fuck up. 

Oh, and music writers in general: musicians are famously inarticulate or unreliable or full of shit when it comes to analyzing their own music; do your job and don't take every twenty-year-old stoner dipshit at their word.

Seriously The Skaters sounded slightly better (which aint much) when I didnt have to think about that reheated Joseph Campbell babble

[Whet Bull]

'pulco - with all due respect and your personal feelings about keenan aside, if you are going to rag on him for writing something on the type of music he sells, you need to take the following people to task: Me, Greg Shaw, Byron Coley, Jimmy Johnson, Don Waller, Kent McClard, Eric Oblivion, plenty of people involved with MRR & Flipside over the years), Cadence magazine, etc.  To state the obvious, the enthusiasm that dictates writing about something one digs often furthers in the feeling of "I need to get this to people" (or if you are a label, I need to put this out). Is there a conflict of interest here? On the surface, perhaps, but I think you have to dig deeper than "he wrote something on something he sells therefore he is bad and a fraud". If that is the case than crucify us all.  

SS, I'm glad you took this up 'cos it's a thorny issue that deserves discussion (though I suspect I'm nearly alone in thinking so).  Virtually everyone I've met who's been involved in DIY / underground music has, by choice or necessity, worn a bunch of different hats -- musician, label owner, distributor, DJ, writer, promoter -- and when commerce, criticism, and art intersect it's important to be wary of conflicts of interest.  We all tread a fine line when we cross over from the "business" side of things into the realm of "journalism" or vice-versa.  So in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that my label dealt with Keenan's company on two occasions and while I found 'em to be a rather slow, rickety, "undercapitalized" operation, I have no serious complaints about 'em -- just your garden-variety bitching about distributors.

Other than that, I have no personal opinion of Keenan -- I've never met the guy and my only contact with him has been as a reader of his work in The Wire -- though I found Daniel DiMaggio's account of his encounters with the Great Scot to be hilarious and, I suspect, not wide of the mark.

Conflicts of interest are a pretty straightforward matter when it comes down to it, and there's a simple way to avoid 'em.  Many of the staff members at WFMU have a hand in record labels, booking agencies, distributors, etc.  The way the station avoids COI's is through a simple rule: don't play shit that you released, don't promote shows on the air that you booked.  That's it.  Of course, 'FMU is a non-profit organization that answers to a board that includes community members and so forth, so the stakes are somewhat higher -- but the principle remains the same.

Keenan's company is the single most important European distributor of US underground music.  As such, I don't have a problem with him writing breathless, hyperbolic reviews of the music he sells on the Volcanic Tongue website.  (Anyone who's stupid or naive enough to unreservedly accept "recommendations" from a mail order catalog deserves all the Pocahaunted cassettes that money can buy.)  But to present himself as a critic, or worse, "public intellectual"  in a publication that presents itself as a serious, journalistic organ, and to use that platform to hype releases that his company sells, is plainly dishonest.  Conversely, Keenan's blurbs on the VT website are written in the same haughty, pseudo-academic tone he uses to write his "think pieces" in The Wire.  Sometimes he uses the same exact words to describe a record in both places.

To borrow two of your examples:  Unlike Shaw, who wrote for a magazine that bore the same name as his record label, or Byron Coley and Jimmy Johnson, who wrote for a fanzine that doubled as a distributor, Keenan's words are backed by the reputation of The Wire which, for what it's worth, is widely considered the authoritative source of music criticism within its field.  (In your case, Scott, I've found you to be admirably cautious about appearing to promote SSR releases in Z-Gun.)
 
I'm not suggesting that there's much money to be made in underground music -- on the contrary! -- but you don't need to have your hand in the till to be corrupt.  

And in that article, I see nothing but naked self-interest.  "Hypnagogic pop" is clearly a marketing term -- a stupid one, sure, but after Keenan's success with the New Weird America, you can't blame him for trying.  More tellingly, Keenan goes to great pains to connect artists like Zola Jesus and Gary War to the U.S. Noise scene, which he was instrumental in promoting; and conversely, to dissociate his pet band, The Skaters, from the Noise ghetto -- hence, "post-Noise."  

The whole thing strikes me as a naked attempt to preserve his own relevance and to justify his sudden embrace of indie-pop (not to mention punk).

All of this, of course, isn't Keenan's fault so much as it is The Wire's.  In the final analysis, Keenan's cardinal sin is his stupidity, his credulousness, his penchant for bad prose and lazy analysis.  

[Whet Bull]

Also, Scott (and I know this sounds nitpicky but while we're at it), that article isn't simply about the "type of music" that Keenan sells through VT.  It's about specific releases, and he uses typical retail tropes -- "essential," "the logical extension of the International Artists catalogue," etc.

[SSR]

You give the Wire too much credit. I don't think it is any more important or influential than Bomp or Forced Exposure. Unlike the aforementioned the Wire is not a fun read. If Keenan has a pseudo-academic style of writing credit the Wire's style manual. There is a reason I call it a policy mag, that is what it reads like. Having done more than one music mag, I doubt that Keenan is injecting himself in the Wire. The editors wouldn't want him there if they didnt buy his schtick and think that his "pseudo-academic" style didn't fit nicely in their rag. His thing on "hypagogic poop" will draw more readers than him customers, so who benefits in the end? His rep for writing for the Wire? Only among people who give a shit about the mag. I don't. Really, the Wire's one consistent asset is Coley. Every once in a while there is something readable. And like I wrote before, a magazine that produces a humorless humor in music issue (not to mention neglects Lol Coxhill and VVM in their rundown of music's funny people) is overall worthless.

A little history lesson: Before Shaw started Bomp Records, he did a mail order in conjunction with the zine. From the time he first started selling music, the line in Bomp between music writing and promotion was very thin and at times non-existent. He often plugged the records that were in his mail order (siting the page in the mag where the mail order list was). Earlier than that he actually reviewed records that he compiled (but didnt put out). When he started the label, Bomp did multiple features and updates on its bands, especially 20/20. And so it goes. Is this bad? Only if Shaw was trying to hide it. But he wasn't. He was as out front about his involvement with everything as he could be and considered all of it a result of his music fanaticism.

On the opposite end is Coley's relationship with YOD. You know there's a relationship because you found out from something other than Coley's writing. He's rarely pimped YOD. He also doesnt seem to spend much time on it. But whatever.... the line there is pretty easy to see.

I see Keenan's relationship of his music writing and mail order closer to Coley than Shaw. That he uses the same writing voice in both ventures is irrelevant. To expect him to change voices for different sources is unreasonable. Personally, I think it is wise not to reproduces your reviews in your ad copy/catalog listings (and especially not good to use your ad copy/listing in your reviews). If I review something I've sold (usually after I sold out of it), it is a whole new piece, ie the content (not the style) is different. But to approach things that way requires a certain amount of insight into what you are doing and some restraint. It also requires extra work. I think any one sucked in by their fanaticism realizes this and acts accordingly. Even super pimp Shaw didn't cut & paste his copy to his music writing. He might have blurred commerce and music writing but his respect for the music was too much to rehash promo as reviews or vica versa. I think most fan/writer/hucksters (at least the ones I mentioned) at least keep to that.

Zip to non-label/distro running music writers: Two legends, Meltzer and Bangs, at times wrote stuff that could have pretty much doubled as ad copy. While they weren't on record company payrolls, the amount of swag and goodies they got handed to them was worth a paycheck. Meltzer is very upfront about it to the point of calling is anthology "A Whore Like All the Rest." Bangs wrote about it. The thing that separates them from some hack at Pitchfork is that they were great writers. We read them to read them, not just to get music tips. I mean, how many times have you read "Psychotic Reactions" or "James Taylor Marked for Death"? A dozen? More? I know I've read the part in "Psych Reactions" about bringing a record home and putting it on the turntable at least a hundred times. In a writing genre that is so inherent with conflict of interest, it is the quality of the work that has everything to do whether the shit is valid or not. I'd like to think that art does transcend commerce.  

[smiller]

First, Hypnagogic Pop is not going to catch on as a phrase. Ever. New Weird America was annoying enough to catch on, Hypnagogic Pop is totally forgettable.

Second, I'll take Aquarius & Volcanic Tongue's overly-hyperbolic reviews any day because at least THEY write them. Eventually you're able to read between the lines & figure out what you might like. Dusty Groove is another long-time offender of the overly-enthusiastic review. I have visions of the exclamation point key on their keyboard being a blank, broken nub. But again, they write them & it takes a lot of work & time to write something about a bunch of new releases every week.

Fusetron & Eclipse on the other hand are good mailorders (roughly in the same vein as the ones mentioned above) but they mainly just cut & paste bullshit from the labels. And the underground weirdo tape label shit is easily the most uninformative nonsense you could possibly read about a new release. Might as wel print it out & throw a dart at it for all you're gonna learn from some nonsense review about "pacific ocean third-eye jamz" or whatever they're going on about.

[Whet Bull]

Scott:
Mm-hmm.  I don't disagree with you.  I know about Shaw's mail order business, and about Yod and I think they're good counter-examples for the reasons you listed.  And Meltzer and Bangs' were candid about their pay pieces, too.  My point is that Keenan is disingenuous.  Or maybe just stupid --  I dunno which is worse.
I remarked on his tone in his VT blurbs not because I think it necessary that he switch voices when writing for commercial purposes, but only to state the obvious: that when your commercial prose and your criticism are indistinguishable from each other, you demolish your credibility on both fronts.  It's clear enough that record store blurbs are written with an eye to moving product, so when you read a blurb that attempts to come across as "authoritative" or "scholarly," the effect is a bit preposterous.  When you hear that selfsame pseudo-academic voice purporting to "make sense" of a new "scene," well, you can't exactly take it seriously, can you?

Is The Wire more or less influential or important than Bomp or FE?  I dunno.  Depends on what you mean.   But I would wager that its circulation surpasses both of those magazines.  It reaches a global audience across many genres and audiences.  It presents itself as a "serious magazine" in a way that neither Bomp nor FE did, and regardless of whether one likes it (I mostly don't care for it), it's there, it's a force, and it has tremendous influence.  For improv/experimental/noise/drone/weirdo bands outside the TermBo orbit, a feature in The Wire means you can tour Europe and sell your records there.  Until recently, it was the only print publication consistently covering those scenes (unless you count Signal to Noise -- I don't.)

More than anything, I take issue with the substance of Keenan's piece.  The dude is full of shit when, for example, he draws a line from the Elevators and "Noise" straight to Gary War.  And I think the reason he's full of shit is because he's guided not by "enthusiasm" but by ego and self-interest.  

[SSR]

pulco - what you are talking about with Keenan is bad writing or not liking his writing. that his writing style is the same on VT and the Wire is no issue. i'll even give him a pass for repeating lines in either forum, simply because there are only so many ways to describe this shit. i know i repeat myself in my catalog listings. i try not to repeat myself in reviews and am always going back and rewriting. my writing style in both instance is exactly the same, same voice except when it is something that is mediocre than I deliberate write as flat as i can or if it is horrible and then i get to have fun. it is easy to get creative when going negative and being excited and negative never reads like hype. being excited and positive often reads like hype. and when you do catalog listings you are hyping, whether you like it or not, whether you try or not. i try really hard not to hype the stuff i sell, but as smiller says its easy to wear out the exclamation point key doing mail order. i counter the hype by making sure the shit i carry is worth carrying, is stuff i listen to myself. VT seems to have a good filter, so once you've learned the language (as smiller again sagely points out [i'll meet you behind the hub tonight and you can rub my back, smilly) you know what you are gonna like (more frustrating than the hype is - at least with Aquarius - reading the hype and ooops long sold out!).

on the other point of the lame grouping, well, what are you gonna do? its all apart of rock writing, coming up with some lame subgenre name or pseudo-movement and blabbing about it as if it is the god given truth. blame the fucking art world. at least since impressionism there's been critic/collector created "movements." some wind up being legit, some arent. some are created just to write about or move product, some are organic. and sometimes it is pure sarcasm - weird punk, sh!tgaze - taken seriously by idiots and hacks. i think it is a horrible writing device and lazy, but people like that shit, as they like lists.

as far as kennan's motivation for hypnagogic pop, i dont know him so i cant say whether it is enthusiasm, ego, or self interest or all of the above. he might have created the term and wrote the piece because he woke up one night with an "eureka" moment or he figured it was a good angle to get into some indie kid's knickers or maybe he's chuckling to himself "they bought new weird america, i bet that they'll fall for this shit." and if he was trying to draw attention to himself, congratulations, you took the bait. now we are on page three of kennan talk.   

[teenagegurls]

[erickelric]

The simple fact is that article is annoying as hell.

[Whet Bull]

I admit that meta-discussions like this one always end up with one (me) chasing his (my) own tail!  Whattaya gonna do?  

The wisest approach is probably to laugh it off or ignore it

The simple fact is that article is annoying as hell.

but I can't help myself -- I enjoy these polemics and I think in the end they're useful in ekeing out some kinda "truth," or at least some healthy, irresolute navelgazing.  If nothing else, it forces me to question the extent to which I might be guilty of the same shit, and makes me more vigilant than I would be otherwise.  
For these purposes, a shitty article is just as useful as a brilliantly written one.

Call me naive or blockheaded, but I still carry with me some grad-school baggage that tells me it's worthwhile to examine the way in which we discuss "art," how we frame it, how we use it to serve one agenda or another.  Not becasue I think some great, irrepairable harm is done if Zola Jesus and Pocahaunted are lumped together as a "movement" or if people buy this limited cassette instead of that one; but because it's interesting to track the way "culture" takes shape, particularly when it intersects with commerce.  

The past three years have been pretty interesting in this respect: the early-aughts Noise scene reached a critical mass and began its slow dissipation into irrelevance; people jumping that ship (if I may mix metaphors) and scrambling to find dry land in someone else's scene; Sniper/Woodsist/et al. meanwhile engineering the bridge between underground music and Pitchfork-ready indie-pop... It's yielded some pretty interesting and funny results.

I don't seriously think Keenan is sitting at home rubbing his hands at the prospect of coining a cynical new marketing term or any such thing.  His work speaks for itself and I couldn't care less what his "actual" motivations are -- even if I knew him I wouldn't know, would I?

All that being said, I find it a little disheartening that so little of the writing I see about the kinda music that interests me -- about contemporary music in general -- has any real critical teeth, how seldom people attempt what Keenan purports to do in his article, which is to try to make sense of why people are making the kind of music they are, what it says about us as people, and yes, what it says about... well, capitalism.  There, I said it.