WOEBOT: When wholefood matters.

The previous entry might well be my last dump of printed matter. I thoroughly enjoyed enjoyed writing for FACT and The Wire but quite suddenly came to the conclusion my job was done. I'd like to thank Sean Bidder, Joe Stannard at FACT and David Stubbs, Louise Gray and Chris Bohn at The Wire for having me over the past couple of years.

Is there really so little exciting going on in music? I've been stuck contemplating this for weeks. Certainly whatever groove I had established for my own tastes that sustained me so well over the past few years kind of faltered on January the first. It's OK, I've been in places like this before, doldrums, and like getting a flat tyre on the motorway and being forced to contemplate roadside fauna and unnecessarily dysfunctional relationships, it can end up being an interesting place to be, a worthwhile place in retrospect. People felt this way in 1975 and some super music was made that year.

However if one's taking a strictly negative point of view - 2006(!) must be the worst most depressing year for music, I dunno, maybe EVER! The "Energy Flash" of Acid House which Grime for was for some time the last living manifestation of, finally flickered and faltered. I say "living" to distinguish Grime from Dubstep, which I'd argue is the first properly retrogressive manifestation of post-Acid dance music, it's Frankensteins monster, dead flesh propelled by a wholly artificial electricity. I know there are legions who enjoy the music, there are even articles like the new Burial CD, which are perhaps richly deserving, but for whatever reason it fails to enchant me.

Then there is the Indie axis, why sure, the Arctic Monkeys ARE sort of wretched. I guess I like them because in these times of over-inscription, of weighty codification, they represent a signal. I don't think you could argue that the musical pre-history of The Arctic Monkeys had any great significance to them, in the way history is so clearly important to something like Burial (even if he struggles to negotiate/negate that...) Like The Sex Pistols, who chromatised the most utilitarian and pedestrian of music, trad "Rock'n'Roll", and burnt through it, at least with The Arctic Monkeys there's a sense of a burgeoning elan vital. It's that which is cruelly absent from so much in 2006.

On a positive note, there are things which are good, great even; perennials like Ghost Box for instance. There's also the challenge for me of having to re-evaluate my own tastes. I've been following tips from Simon Silverdollar and have been checking out some Microhouse TM. I've been listening to Nathan Fake's excellent "Dinamo", Luciano's "Sci-Fi Hi-Fi" (which I was pleased to see a friend had done the sleeve for), checking the ultra-lush production of Villalobos "Ach So", picking up "Alcachofa" three years after I passed it over. My collection of this music in the past amounts to the Michael Mayer Fabric mix, Matthew Johnson's "Pipeline" and a couple of CDs Tim Finney burnt me a very long time ago. It's really nice. It doesn't quite set my heart aflame, but it'll do.

Likewise if over-inscription is the mantra of the times, then it's surely right to get my head around Prog rock. There's more posts forthcoming about further aspects of prog. My current pet theory is that in many ways the cul-de-sac I've arrived at has been a case of choosing Beefheart over Zappa. I reckon that may be the key musicological choice. I think you could trace the critical appeal of Rave music, at least in the way Simon Reynolds constructed it, to that crossroads. "Our" path stems from Lester Bangs's tradition of musical integrity and 'orrible prole racket. I've never gelled with Zappa, even though I've copies of "We're Only in it for the Money" and Freak Out" kicking around, but you couldn't deny his centrality to Prog rock. Zappa is like the strange attractor of Prog. So I picked up "Apostrophe" (the second time I've owned this) and am determined to get something out of it. When you've thought yourself into a corner, y'see, you have to work your way clear.

One final thought. Simon wrote very recently of the queue's around New York wholefood store Trader Joes. I have to admit I thought his angle was kinda nuanced. I reckon there's a sense that Simon is actually not wholly dismissive of that in the way that Mark Fisher seems to wholeheartedly deplore it. The case study you have to examine is the Third World. Revolutionary Art-Strikes in Third World culture are extremely rare (I get sick to death having to explain to tedious people what is meant by this, you know what I'm fucking talking about aight...). There's the Kalakuta republic (a one-man revolution essentially), there's Tropicalia and that's pretty much it. If day-to-day existence is a struggle people don't go Castlemorton-curazy. I read Bataille's "Accursed Share" too, and how I understood it (as an ethnographic study) was that what is abandoned is "the cream", the surplus in other words. In almost everywhere in the world apart from the disgustingly affluent US and Europe, there is no surplus. The hedonism of the sixties, for instance, was nothing if not a reaction to what appeared to be a never-ending prosperity.

I don't think people feel they have a tenth of the security they used to. Mark Fisher is ever-so slightly patronising about a generation of youth who haven't been inculcated with the same post-sixties values that he and I have through exposure to left-thinking university culture and the flaming rock press. From this point of view, crucially a global one, I think (fear) that actually we're entering a period of normalcy.

Comments

Sad post today :-( FYI - it's 2006, not 2005!
One related issue to the Death Of Rock/Pop/Rave (which Simon has never admitted to ;-) is AGE - how on earth can 30/40 somethings get the same out of youth culture as they did in their teens and 20s? I'm in the same boat by the way, heading for 38 this year yet still excited about the Burial album.

Posted by: dHarry | April 19, 2006 06:05 PM

er woops, that was a bit of a cock up with the year! thanks for spotting that one dHarry.

hmm. i dont know if i'm with you about the age thing. i think age is sorta immaterial actually. i remember feeling like this about music in 96, and well it was a lot of fun. i had fun scouring the past innit.

i'm not saying music is dead or nuffink. i mean, things will change, and it'll be cool when they do. and then i'll enjoy going to kiddies raves again!!! me, i'm the oldest kid on the blog.

also how old was mozart? those dudes were young when they were cranking out the tunes.

Posted by: WOEBOT | April 19, 2006 09:18 PM

i'm 37 and enjoying my clubbing more than i ever have done in my life before! i suppose i should be grateful that you at least acknowledge dubstep as a 'leading' scene worth dismissing, Matt!!

Posted by: Gutta | April 19, 2006 09:28 PM

btw, i never went to university or any other form of further education. 'A' level English is the height of my academic achievments! So I guess i'm basically a prole, which might explain why i'm less worried about things than u lot. I like Robert Gordon bleepy productions circa 1990-91, and I like dubstep in 05-06. its all the same thing man. i like the frequencies. they move my butt. what's not to like?

Posted by: Gutta | April 19, 2006 09:33 PM

i've been dissing dubstep for years gutta, ask anyone.

yeah we'll be raving together gutta on our zimmer frames ;-)

Posted by: WOEBOT | April 19, 2006 09:36 PM

but raving to what...?

Posted by: Gutta | April 19, 2006 09:46 PM

we'll just have to see innit

Posted by: WOEBOT | April 19, 2006 09:57 PM

I suppose the dubstep backlash had to start somewhere. It's just a shame it started with Woebot. I'd suggest you go to DMZ just to experience it properly but it looks like you've made your mind up. You're wrong to say it's retrograde music (rather it's got a history, as all music does), you're wrong to say it has Frankenstein energy. If it's not to your taste fair enough but I think your blanket dismissal of it does you a dis-service. And when we put some dubstep records out I'll still be hassling you to write about it :-)

Posted by: grievousangel | April 20, 2006 02:59 PM

backlash! what utter rubbish. i've *never* EVER followed the music........

Posted by: WOEBOT | April 20, 2006 03:02 PM

http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/002632.html

Posted by: WOEBOT | April 20, 2006 03:24 PM

Totally understand yr deflation, Matt...this happens from time to time w/ me too. I just lose interest in stuff...I have to either totally adore something or, oh, I dunno...

When I was chronically ill in the early 2000's it sucked all the joy out of a whole raft of music for me...about the only thing I could stomach to listen to for 2-3 years was alt. Hip-Hop: Company Flow, Anti-Pop, El-P, Mike Ladd...(of all the things, why that, I dunno)...everything else was just too much or not enough.

Since my health's improved, I feel more passionate about stuff than ever...my excitement levels are at Punk/Acid House levels...the stuff I'm diggin' right now ain't yr cuppa tea, I know, but stuff keeps arriving in the post that's stokin' my boiler to fever-levels...and it ain't just music...it's also underground art, homemade DVDs, etc that're stirrin' my stew...

I don't (personally) get the whole '2006 is the worst year ever...' deal (but I understand why people are saying it)...It feels like the best year since...last year!

I get yr comment about the Zappa/Beefheart split; but I've always loved both of 'em....hate that dualist stance of either/or, know what I'm sayin'...Zappa's group from '72-'75: a great, great band in their various permutations, but I also get why people are so down on his stuff (there's a lot of crap too)...I do hate how sniffy The Wire (Stubbs, in particular) are about him; Zappa's a critics' nightmare; a divisionary figure (he's too 'clever'/smug/arrogant/a control-freak/whatever) whereas Beefheart's place in history is 'easier' to assess; paradoxically, he's less contrary; he seems to line up w/ the whole anti-capitalist 'outsider' musician/artist thing (so therefore 'cooler')...where Zappa's concerned you're either a hardcore fan or not (I was at the Hammersmith Odeon the night that Ben Watson got on stage - see, I have no shame!)

Anyway, good luck w/ yr explorations (dunno why this feels like a goodbye..?)...I think yr totally right: Prog is the way to go (not that, uh, Zappa is Prog)...I've been, er, coming to terms w/ it myself over the last couple years.

(Interestingly, this seems to tie up w/ what Simon Blissblog recently posted about the need for 'difficulty'...every now and again, I have a craving for needless 'complexity' in music (but also film, etc) and I find myself reaching for the Varese, Berio, etc...maybe there's some sort of cyclic psychological/hormonal thing going on...every now and then we have to recalibrate our brains' listening bandwidth in order to refresh our own sense of satisfaction...)

Posted by: kek | April 21, 2006 06:56 PM

thanks for your weighty comments kek-w.

actually i'm ver' chipper right now, so it aint that. and i'm having splendid fun with lots of music (a huge backlog of posts...) just most of it aint from 2006 (shrugs)

i ought to qualify my feelings re:Grime, which is less a case of ennui than of burnt-out synapses, pleasure centres worn to nubs.

Posted by: WOEBOT | April 22, 2006 06:07 PM

By backlash I mean it's not just you Matt -- dubstep's reached a level of visibility where people are reacting against it. You just happen to have posted your negative piece about it when this backlash is building up.

I saw Mala play on Friday night and it was absolutely mindblowing. Intense, deep, spiritual, life-affirming music. If you'd witnessed it I very much doubt you'd have expressed these kinds of sentiments about dubstep in its entirety.

Posted by: grievousangel | April 23, 2006 08:25 PM