From Scott's column>...Meanwhile, another volume by Avakian is due this month from Open Court, an academic publisher in Chicago. Marxism and the Call of the Future: Conversations on Ethics, History, and Politics is a collaboration with Bill Martin, a professor of philosophy at DePaul University.
Bill Martin is an good writer on the avant-garde sectors of rock and jazz. Was just reading his, "e Avant rock : experimental music from the Beatles to Björk / Bill Martin ; with a foreword by Robert Fripp.
Scott 'sez this about the book
http://chronicle.com/free/v48/i47/47a01601.htm
Safety Pin as Signifier
25 years after punk rock exploded, scholars ponder its role in cultural history
>...Safety Pin as Signifier
Mr. Gendron may be the first scholar to have dug into such rare
sources as the early fanzines Who Put the Bomp? and Sniffin' Glue --
and his discussion of No Wave is among the very few accounts of that
noisy scene available in print. By contrast, Mr. Martin's approach is
less historical. His earlier work includes a number of studies of
poststructuralist thought; his analyses of music periodically turn to
the philosophical texts of Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze, as well
as Theodor Adorno's sociological analyses of classical composers.
But raw enthusiasm outstrips theory in Mr. Martin's writing on music. His commentary has the digressive quality of a lecture by a well-informed aficionado playing CD's for a few friends, immediately after drinking a very large cup of coffee. Although he played bass in punk bands while in graduate school, during the early 1980s, Mr. Martin sounds ambivalent about the genre.
He suggests that the music was compelling for reasons owing as much to politics as aesthetics. "When world tensions were to the point where it seemed like the whole thing could just blow up," he says, "the times demanded a more direct expression [than the virtuosos of art rock provided]. The greatness and the fundamental weakness of punk was that immediacy. But the problem with radical negation is that after a while, it just becomes cynical and formulaic."
His analysis of the intersection between avant-garde ideas and popular music treats punk as one example of "the refusal of technique" -- an aesthetic strategy Mr. Martin finds in the work of experimental composers such as John Cage. But he also argues that any account of the history of music must recognize the drive for increasing complexity as an inescapable part of the creative process. "What's a young punk to do," he says, "once you've learned that one chord?"
http://www.opencourtbooks.com/books_n/avant_rock.htm Martin follows the development of avant rock through the sixties, when it was accepted into the mainstream, with bands like the later Beatles, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, The Velvet Underground, King Crimson, and Brian Eno. His narration takes us into the present, with an analysis of contemporary artists who continue to innovate and push the boundaries of rock, such as Stereolab, Mouse on Mars, Sonic Youth, and Jim O'Rourke. Martin critiques the work of all important avant rock bands and individual artists, from the well-known to the more obscure, and provides an annotated discography.
"...Vital and balanced, intellectual but engrossing, this is rock criticism in which to sink one's teeth while shaking one's hips." —Mike Tribby, Booklist
"An invigorating, broad-minded survey of pop music's experimental fringes . . .
"Martin addresses excellent analysis to a smart selection, including Cecil Taylor Sonic Youth, Jim O'Rourke, John Zorn, Totoise, the New Klezmir Trio, and Game Theory (one of many artist whose chess obsession he discusses). Martin relates their music to parallel developments in philosophy and literature, citing influences from Adorno and Debord to Nahokov and Harry Crews, and manages the neat trick of combining the the sharp personal enthusiasms of underground rock's fanzine culture, with the cooler head of academics explorations, so that the reader perceives why rock enthusiasts have stuck with it all these years . . .
"A trenchant and witty exploration, several cuts above typical surveys written in the wake of the 'alternative' era." —Kirkus Reviews
-- Michael Pugliese