I liked it, but I’m also not Phil Greaves enough to expect my entertainment to be revolutionary eduction.
EDIT: also, it led to Ali referring to Flex as the “Mayor of Icetown,” so that is a net positive.
I liked it, but I’m also not Phil Greaves enough to expect my entertainment to be revolutionary eduction.
Weird to me that so many people do that.
Marxist cultural criticism, in general, has value inasmuch as it treats culture as a site of indoctrination and resistance, which is to say that it necessarily draws from ideological currents at its creation, distribution, and consumption. Appreciating that any cultural text is not somehow ideological immune or neutral is important. But I agree with your point about the lack of practical value. I'd already become somewhat jaundiced about the left and cultural matters when I started my doctorate and it only grew as I progressed. I maintain that the left (less a statement of monolith than generality) went off the rails in the 70s when it switched from politics and economics to culture. It ended up playing right into neoliberalism, as it synched up well with questions of consumption and identity. Capitalism was fine to manufacture and sell all the "resistant" culture well-meaning leftists could buy to smugly assert their autonomy. Heath and Potter's The Rebel Sell is a solid critique of the left's cultural folly.eumaas wrote: ↑25 Apr 2018, 6:21pmI think almost all Marxist cultural criticism is bad because it’s 1) a meatgrinder—any text that goes in comes out the same and 2) offers nothing to actual socialism. When our friend Jack said Wuthering Heights was a proto-fascist book I strained my eyes rolling them so hard. I would rather people read Marxist political economy and history over the cultural stuff—the former categories have practical value.
You mean the audio file was corrupted? Take that Communists!Silent Majority wrote: ↑29 Apr 2018, 1:52pmSpeaking of counter revolutionary, the audiobook of Capital went "...the factory act d##ffffffffffffffggggffffff..." forever. I checked that this was a change from the original text, and now I've pulled out a dusty kindle to finish the rest of the book.
phil greaves on the streets, hermit thrush in the sheets
As a teen, I liked reading about the gigs and such. Very inspiring.Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑30 Apr 2018, 3:53pmFinished Dance of Days today. The first half to two-thirds was pretty frustrating to me, as it seemed more biography than history. That is to say, it was mostly just a narrative of this person and that person and this band and that band, but it lacked any meaningful context or significance. Why does it happen in Washington? Why does it happen in the 1980s? Why do these kids find each other and express in that manner? There's a distinct lack of historical curiosity there. Here and there tensions pop up—e.g., one figure considers that "our" violence is superior to Nazi's violence because it's ours—but don't get pursued. Is it a strength or a weakness of the scene that people rotate in and out of bands almost interchangeably? Is that instability or vitality? Is Ian MacKaye the conscience of the scene or is he an outlier? Those are just a few questions that popped up as I was reading.
Then, in the final chapters, as punk goes mainstream and the question of signing with majors and whether it's important to stay focused or expand the audience, that's where things get good. Tensions and ideals are clear. It's not explicit, but you can see how fragile everything is and what a beast capitalism is. There's a lot to chew on about how that kind of scene could survive or, indeed, whether it's capable of doing anything of significance. Corporate music is certainly an enemy, but envious ambition is also lethal. I would have liked to see more of that kind of problematizing in the earlier chapters.
That said, I know that the audience for the book is chiefly music fans who actually do want to read about gigs and crashing guitars and all that—that stuff went on too long for me, with little pay-off—so I'm a bit unfair in critiquing the book for something it wasn't meant to do. Still, when you can see these things peaking out, you want them to be better developed. In the end, I'm still not certain whether this is actually a story of success or failure. Which might be a good thing inasmuch as it's a good point for argument. Generally good, but more bio than history.
Which is fine for that entry point into punk—that romance of energy. But it is just an entry point, which I know you get now that you're old and bitter.Flex wrote: ↑30 Apr 2018, 4:27pmAs a teen, I liked reading about the gigs and such. Very inspiring.Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑30 Apr 2018, 3:53pmFinished Dance of Days today. The first half to two-thirds was pretty frustrating to me, as it seemed more biography than history. That is to say, it was mostly just a narrative of this person and that person and this band and that band, but it lacked any meaningful context or significance. Why does it happen in Washington? Why does it happen in the 1980s? Why do these kids find each other and express in that manner? There's a distinct lack of historical curiosity there. Here and there tensions pop up—e.g., one figure considers that "our" violence is superior to Nazi's violence because it's ours—but don't get pursued. Is it a strength or a weakness of the scene that people rotate in and out of bands almost interchangeably? Is that instability or vitality? Is Ian MacKaye the conscience of the scene or is he an outlier? Those are just a few questions that popped up as I was reading.
Then, in the final chapters, as punk goes mainstream and the question of signing with majors and whether it's important to stay focused or expand the audience, that's where things get good. Tensions and ideals are clear. It's not explicit, but you can see how fragile everything is and what a beast capitalism is. There's a lot to chew on about how that kind of scene could survive or, indeed, whether it's capable of doing anything of significance. Corporate music is certainly an enemy, but envious ambition is also lethal. I would have liked to see more of that kind of problematizing in the earlier chapters.
That said, I know that the audience for the book is chiefly music fans who actually do want to read about gigs and crashing guitars and all that—that stuff went on too long for me, with little pay-off—so I'm a bit unfair in critiquing the book for something it wasn't meant to do. Still, when you can see these things peaking out, you want them to be better developed. In the end, I'm still not certain whether this is actually a story of success or failure. Which might be a good thing inasmuch as it's a good point for argument. Generally good, but more bio than history.
Oh no.
Oh no.Dr. Medulla wrote: ↑03 May 2018, 12:32pmI'm an hour and a half into this thing and I don't know whether I'll be able to finish. It's dumb conspiracy theory, Secret Sun kind of stuff. All the key members of the Laurel Canyon scene—John Phillips, Jim Morrison, Frank Zappa, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, etc—were connected to military intelligence (either consciously or they were brainwashed—he hasn't said yet)—and all the various deaths over the years were apparently connected. There's an occult connection to it all, too. The takeaway is that the counterculture we know was devised by sinister government forces to preclude a genuine counterculture. All those songs were, apparently, open clues about their real evil intentions. There are no coincidences, there is no social because real people have no influence—it's all a big secret plan hiding in plain sight.