Reynolds hardcore continuum event

[mos dan]

Oh the usual... Nuum heads are all sad old men with no idea of what the kids are up to today.

Some good points, but surprisingly bitter in tone...

sorry, that is just my tone seriously i wouldn't want to come over as bitter, it's all in the name of healthy debate and i continue to enjoy simon and mark's writing - it's just that last k-punk piece was reeeally off the mark in several areas, and called out several of my friends (bok bok, wordthecat, lots of others indirectly). so i didn't hold back. sorry if it sounded bitter - several journos/enthusiasts/people i see in raves *regularly* regard the continuum with actual anger and contempt, rather than bitterness, i think it's worth mentioning.

 

[heva]

Before we go much further here, I will try to get the video up by mid next week so you can see what Simon had to say about it - he addressed some of the grumbling about the continuum. We didn't have much time for Q&A afterwards which was a shame so maybe once I post the video I can try to twist Simon's arm into answering a few questions in response to his talk (only for those whose questions show that they've actually watched it and listened to what he had to say! )... we'll see though. Thanks to anyone who came out, it was a totally sold out event - big!

 

[swears]

Thanks heva, this was a really good event.

 

[nomos]

thanks heva. looking foward to that.

good piece, dan. didn't find it bitter - you gave your respects and responded to some odd commentary.

 

[whatever]

"In a profound sense, underneath two decades of relentless sonic mutation, this is the same music, the same culture. What's also endured has been the scene's economic infrastructure: pirate radio stations, independent record shops (often in out-of-the-way urban areas), white labels and dubplates, specific rave promoters and clubs (again often in the less glitzy, non-central areas of cities)." - Simon Reynolds, 28/01/09



This is from Reynolds's introduction to his series of excellent articles for The Wire on 'Nuum sounds' 1992-2005. The economic infrastructure he mentions provides some tangible signifiers we could use to test the theory's ongoing relevance, and I'm afraid it doesn't look good. A club like FWD>> may embody its own continuum of UK club sounds, but they're not the same ones the Nuum dictates. Meanwhile pirate radio is being supplanted by internet radio, mp3s and podcasts, independent record shops are closing, and white label dubplates replaced by leaked wav files, or the perennial web query, '320?', as in 'do you have the tune in question at 320kpbs, so I can play it in a rave?'.



I can't think of a way to ask this that doesn't sound petty, so I'm just going to apologise and ask: how much time do the proponents of the hardcore continuum actually spend in raves these days? It can't be a coincidence that the most vocal critics of the Nuum are the same people I see in raves every week, hearing these sounds mutating, evolving, and igniting, chatting to the producers and DJs, and working it out with their feet as well as with a pencil.

It's so nice to read someone as knowledgeable as Mr Hancox put his finger right on it: the embarrassing fact that Reynolds is in no real position to be talking about the "culture" of this music anymore, period. And it's only in the world of 'internet music criticism' or whatever, in which such utterly low standards continue to have influence. Just try to imagine if I were giving supposedly theoretical panoptic accounts of, oh, say, the music of one West African city, or, say, the local political traditions of a south Indian city, and it turned out that I had exactly zero experience with those communities in more than fifteen years. Dude would be dismantled and publicly skewered for tryign to do that, yet Simon Reynolds makes a career of it.

 

[BareBones]

it's just that last k-punk piece was reeeally off the mark in several areas, and called out several of my friends (bok bok, wordthecat, lots of others indirectly).

are you referring to his Fact article? Where was he calling out those guys? Or was this on his blog?

 

[crackerjack]

Dude would be dismantled and publicly skewered for tryign to do that, yet Simon Reynolds makes a career of it.

He makes a career out of being a very good music writer. It's only round here that people are obsessed with his musings on one particular area of it.

 

[whatever]

He makes a career out of being a very good music writer. It's only round here that people are obsessed with his musings on one particular area of it.

... by going to bat for artic monkeys, vampire weekend, and put donk on it? that's very good relevant contemporary music writign?

not here, no, and not a lot of other places (irl!) i know ... but glad you like him

i said earlier that i read his books and like them, up to a point (i think his actual writing style, his actual english usage, fairly well sux tho, to be honest, but that's not the point ..).

but no, i do not consider him a "very good music" critic anymore at all , in fact, there's no 'criticism' there that i can see,

 

[whatever]

oh, also, didn't you know, "grime is dead" !!!

add that to his list of recent 'critical insights'

brilliant, totally

 

[crackerjack]

... by going to bat for artic monkeys, vampire weekend, and put donk on it? that's very good relevant contemporary music writign?

not here, no, and not a lot of other places (irl!) i know ... but glad you like him

i said earlier that i read his books and like them, up to a point (i think his actual writing style, his actual english usage, fairly well sux tho, to be honest, but that's not the point ..).

but no, i do not consider him a "very good music" critic anymore at all , in fact, there's no 'criticism' there that i can see,

I never used the word 'contemporary', I just said he's a very good music writer. Rip It Up is pretty much the definitive book on that era.

But if you want to reduce music criticism to a partisan contest in which people either like the right (ie same as you) or wrong (the rest) music, then go ahead. But be prepared to spend a lot of your time being very angry.

 

[droid]

And on come the petty misrepresentations.

If there is any justification for the whole 'generational resentment' tag at all, some of the the unwarranted, vitriolic, (and frankly sad) attacks on Reynolds' on various threads on this forum provides it...

 

[whatever]

Rip It Up is pretty much the definitive book on that era.

agreed. don't know that i would say 'era' but genre or period, yeah, definitely, great book

But if you want to reduce music criticism to a partisan contest in which people either like the right (ie same as you) or wrong (the rest) music, then go ahead. But be prepared to spend a lot of your time being very angry.

oh i agree with you down to the letter. my point certainly isn't that criticism is about agreement in taste,.

my point: when he makes big sweeping overgeneralizing statements (which he does pretty much constantly), he continually gets them wrong FROM THE POINT OF VEIW OF THE FACTS ON THE GROUND, from the point of hte view of the people actually doing it. which makes him sound like a romanticizing out of touch fool - the very definition of a bad critic, in other words

and when he does actually talk about individual records in the past years, it's ... arctic monkeys, vampire weekend, donk it on. speaks for itself

by the way, i'm angry, it's the opposite: love. love ov musik and decent thinking, and disdain and ridicule for lazy people who mangle both .

i mean, if your gonna go around making claims about pop music and hauntology (LOfuckingL) and the history of musique concrete and the lived realities of london underground music then you had better well be prepared to hear about it if you do it really really badly, no? PEACE.

 

[slackk]

these threads are always worth a laugh.

 

[swears]

One interesting thing on Wednesday night was witnessing first hand the obvious and touching bromance between Reynolds and K-punk. Awwwww.

<3 <3 <3

 

[crackerjack]

agreed. don't know that i would say 'era' but genre or period, yeah, definitely, great book


oh i agree with you down to the letter. my point certainly isn't that criticism is about agreement in taste,.

my point: when he makes big sweeping overgeneralizing statements (which he does pretty much constantly), he continually gets them wrong FROM THE POINT OF VEIW OF THE FACTS ON THE GROUND, from the point of hte view of the people actually doing it. which makes him sound like a romanticizing out of touch fool - the very definition of a bad critic, in other words

and when he does actually talk about individual records in the past years, it's ... arctic monkeys, vampire weekend, donk it on. speaks for itself

by the way, i'm angry, it's the opposite: love. love ov musik and decent thinking, and disdain and ridicule for lazy people who mangle both .

i mean, if your gonna go around making claims about pop music and hauntology (LOfuckingL) and the history of musique concrete and the lived realities of london underground music then you had better well be prepared to hear about it if you do it really really badly, no? PEACE.

OK, fairly put. I don't have a dog in the nuum, I just wanted to point out that Reynolds has done plenty worth reading outsde of it.

 

[whatever]

And on come the petty misrepresentations.

If there is any justification for the whole 'generational resentment' tag at all, some of the the unwarranted, vitriolic, (and frankly sad) attacks on Reynolds' on various threads on this forum provides it...

irreverence has a very, very long tradition in criticism, philosophy, and artmaking, so I'll bet that both you and Mr. Reynolds will survive such horrific "sad" vitriol as that which has been unjustly heaped here by unwarranted forum jokers such as myself ...

 

[Tentative Andy]

To be fair to Reynolds, his blog often suggests that he not only can take, but often actively likes a good argument.
Really looking forward to this video being uploaded.

 

[Tentative Andy]

Oh, and Put A Donk On It is a great record, of course
(Though a whole scene of that sort of thing could well drive you mad.)

 

[viktorvaughn]

The 'buffoon empiricism' of the wave of anti-hardcore continuum blogging and letter writing is a pretty dismal.

Long live theoretical music writing and speculative soniconcepts, no matter how bad, and sociologically over-determined their actual taste in music is.

From kode9s blog..

 

[Tentative Andy]

I think trying to reduce the whole thing to a theory vs empiricism debate is a bit of a cheap shot - not that I'm saying that's your position of course, you're not Kode 9 (right? ). But while, yes I can see that with some people there's a bit of an anti-theory thing going on, I think with most of the more interesting comments it's about a dispute within theory, about which theory is most accurate and useful.

I seem to be getting drawn back into discussing this after saying I wouldn't.....