Questions from poptasticuk

[koganbot]

1. Why do you look so serious in your photo?
Because I've got a beard. Everyone looks serious in a beard unless he's Santa Claus.

2. Do your friends think it's weird that you like teenpop?
My online friends don't, since they take it for granted that good music can come from anywhere. Of my here-in-person friends, not all of them know much about my music tastes, the ones who do might well think teenpop is just another in a long train of Frank weirdness but they tend not to say so, but most feel so out of it in relation to current music that they're judging neither it nor me. And then a few are grateful that I'm feeding them some incredible music.

3. Have you only done music journalism or other kinds?
Well, I don't consider what I do to be journalism. In journalism, the model is that the writer imparts information or gives opinions or recounts his experience, whereas what I try to do is raise questions, primarily about where taste comes from and what's going on when people justify and explain their taste in the way they do. I'm more interested in the why than the what. Of course, in raising questions I often am imparting information and giving opinions and recounting personal experience, and as for what I get paid to write, since most mags have an anti-intellectual bigot somewhere up the chain of command, I'm usually forced into only writing record reviews, but the questions are always buried inside those reviews. Basically, I'm an agitational poet and anthropologist. I've written a little bit about film, and I did a think piece about high school social categories the week after the Columbine massacre. And I've engaged in some "philosophical" discussions over on ilX, though "philosophical" is in quotes because as I said what I'm really trying to do is get people to take stock of their social behavior.

4. Have you ever lived outside the USA?
In Rome for a year when I was three (1957) and again when I was ten; was there 'cause my dad's a political scientist who specializes in Italian government and history and international relations.

5. Do you have the same approach to films and books as you do to music?
Yeah, basically, in that I think good movies and good writing can come from anywhere, just as music can. But I don't use books and movies - that is, my ideas and opinions about books and movies - as social currency to nearly the extent I use music as my currency. By the way, believe it or not, I'd say my approach is "auteurist," except that I'm not obsessed with the question "Who is the author of the song or film?" (other than when I'm trying to figure out whether it's Kara or Ashlee I should fall in love with). I told Dave here a couple months ago that I'm willing to credit collectives and corporations and zeitgeists and audiences with authorship, if I feel like it. "Mise en scène" - which basically is about "musical or cinematic choices" - is the crucial concept, the auteurists' crucial idea, not "author." (But not necessarily the phrase "mise en scène," given that Otis Ferguson had the basic ideas in the '30s before the Cahierists were writing.) Where a Cahiers guy like Jacques Rivette would have called mise en scène the "artist's vision," I'm talking about "social relations," but it's still basically the same thing. And of course I like to bring audiences and critics into the game (their social relations/visions), so I'm as interested in your and my and poptimists' social activities/mise en scènes as I am in John's and Kara's and Ashlee's and Geffen's and TRL's.

Comments

[mooxyjoo.livejournal.com]

re #2: i tend to think of it more in terms of what your neighbors must think when they can hear your stereo through the wall.

[koganbot]

Or what the librarian thinks when I'm checking out Lohan albs and Cheetah Girls DVDs. (Might think I've got an eight-year-old daughter. Or might not even know or care who Lohan/Cheetahs are, hence have no opinion.)

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

Frank, I quoted you last week in my course on Kafka. We were talking about Adorno - and about how he uses Kafka instead of discussing Kafka. He basically takes a Kafka quote and then launches into his own creative expression - which is disguised as criticism. I quoted your answer to the question: Are there more great songs than writing about songs? And you said yes, but not for an essential reason. Then you explained that there aren't more great songs than conversations around songs, or dances to songs, or jokes about songs. And essentially, Adorno is using that with Kafka. He's dancing to Kafka - or joking about Kafka. For my last Kafka essay, I included a couple paragraphs about why I wanted to really write about DMX's use of dogs (instead of Kafka) and how my decision not to use DMX speaks to our prejudices around Kafka. (Ie: That DMX isn't on par with Kafka. Or that Kafka is a genius and DMX is a 'rapper' as though they are mutually exclusive. or that Kafka was writing intentionally using dogs and DMX's use of dogs are accidental. All premises I feel you'd reject.) Anyway, I felt that talking about why I wanted to do DMX on Kafka is a lot like making a joke about a song. It isn't inferior just because it isn't recognized in academia (and I remember your quote in the book about Meltzer - whether rock can save philosophy or not and the question of whether philosophy is worth saving).

Anyway - this brief interview above reminded me to ask you: where are the great jokes/writing/etc about music happening right now? ILX seems slow/tired and Poptomists is filled with polls and the names of participants - and it's more Hit Parade in terms of music, which is good in terms what it's trying to do, but isn't speaking to me. Where to look?

[koganbot]

Well, a couple of obvious recommendations, but Cure For Bedbugs incl. Haloscan comment threads is the best thinking about music and culture I'm running into; and Kelefa Sanneh is doing an amazing job at the New York Times, finding a way to write with character and wit within the Times format/formalization. ILX isn't what it was - too many bores - but when Tim Finney shows up the convo is usually good, and he and Lex in tandem talking about how something sounds can be quite excellent (e.g., last year's Cassie thread). I think both rolling country and rolling teenpop are suffering from the relative off years both genres are having, and also from the general absence of some of the people like George Smith and Abby McDonald and Jessica Poptastic and Jeanne Fury and Dom Passantino (and Tim Finney and Tom Ewing and William Bloody Swygart, for that matter), who used to pop in more.

I think that over in poptimists Tom's figuring out how to deal best with the limitations of livejournal, the set-up of which makes it impossible to sustain a good conversation over several days or over 50 posts; so he's making it fun-and-games, where intellectualism can dart in and out. Is frustrating for someone like me who wants follow-through, but nonetheless it's doing a good job of creating a world and is a good example of people using music as currency in a world. And I'm learning a shitload from it. You might be interested in the new League Of Pop thing they're doing, since the way to score points is by getting people to like something they haven't heard. Also, if you haven't, you should take a look at Popular, which is much like your albums project. I wish I had time to keep up with it more. Also wish I had time to keep up with Eppy's blog, and Fluxblog, and stuff like that. Tom Breihan churns out so much that of course quality varies (his review of Love Is A Mixtape was ridiculously vacuous; he doesn't do well with word limits), but I wish I had time to read him every day rather than once ever couple of weeks.

Dave and I keep raving about and quoting from Brie Larson's blog. I can imagine Brie's deciding she's a writer more than a singer (not that she shouldn't do both).

My favorite critic right now is Paul Zimmerman, who writes about football, not music; not afraid to intellectualize and go detailed, not afraid to fuck around, knows his shit, is passionate, is funny.

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

I love the Dr. Z writing. He's the kind of critic that makes me want to know more about what he's talking about - just so I can understand his brief asides, mentions, etc. Which I think is the greatest kind of critic. Thompson's stuff is like that. It's writing that treats you like an adult - a reader that doesn't have to be held by the hand. I agree with you on Breihan - plus a lot of the time he doesn't seem to be saying anything new/novel/interesting - just rephrasing something older. Sometimes he writes great stuff though. Flux+Stereogum (which you didn't mention) don't do anything for me - like most "indie" writing doesn't. PFM only writes one piece a month at the most that catches my attention, and I don't feel like Sanneh (or Sia Michel for that matter) get enough words in the Times. I always read SFJ, even when he is saying what everyone else has said in NewYorker-Speak. And I think I like Cristgau on MSN much more than I like him in RS (where he does Cristgau-RS-Speak).

But you know what would be awesome? I had no idea about the Cassie thread on ILX. How can I get clued into threads that are burning up on ILX without haven't to open every single one (do I really need to read another thread full of pictures and anti-Ultragrrl comments? -- Btw: Confession - since Sarah Lewitenn is one of the few Jews in the music industry who openly deals with a religious heritage (ie: her family being Orthodox) I feel a certain affinity to her. Which is probably a better reason to like her than almost all the reasons to dislike her.)

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

Btw: If it wasn't clear - I hadn't read Dr. Z until you mentioned him. So that first paragraph is a Thank You for the recommendation.

[mcatzilut.livejournal.com]

Have you seen this thread? http://www.ilxor.com:8080/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=42658#unread

I wondered how you think it relates to your writing about highschools. (Ie: Cool kids picking on uncool kid. Trying to find the bounds of music criticism, etc.)

[koganbot]

No way am I going to read all the posts to that thread, but (1) I think the kid who started it was still in high school himself (he's the poor guy who posted that he found the rolling teenpop thread intimidating) and followed up with a thread asking people to delete the thread, and got upset when people kept bumping it back onto the New Messages board, (2) the people whom one might actually consider the ilx cool kids (Tom, Jess, Nitsuh, Maria, Andrew F.) immediately jumped in to object to the tenor of the thread. So it was the cool ilxors attacking the uncool ilxors for trying to take out the uncool ultragrrrl. It seems to me that there were as many people objecting to the thread title and defending ultragrrrl as there were people attacking her. That was 2005; I just jumped to the end of the thread, 2007, and the same still holds, with Nitsuh and Jess still there (Nitsuh not happy with Tricia Romano for failing to notice that the thread had people defending ultragrrrl and taking issue with other posters' way of attacking her), Tom and Andrew F. and Maria no longer around and I hope that's because they're too bored to participate anymore.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

the people whom one might actually consider the ilx cool kids (Tom, Jess, Nitsuh, Maria, Andrew F.)

I've not seen myself on this kind of list before, and I'm a bit stunned. I'd claim that it's not true, but I suppose it's a 'proof by acclamation' things, so I suppose it must be a little bit true. But I don't think it's much more than a little bit!

I'm pretty certain I was aimed at that thread, that it was mentioned elsewhere (either on ILE or more likely a friends-locked LJ discussion), which sent me over to it. Like a bad breakup, I can't even remember being so concerned about ILX that I'd police the tone of a thread.

I've just checked, and my post there was the same day as my first LJ post!