[lbo-talk] Let's Argue About Sonic Youth's "Retro-necro reverence"!

Mike Beggs mikejbeggs at gmail.com
Tue Aug 25 15:38:34 PDT 2009


Haha, coincidentally this was a link in a chain of events that led to a great war over Badiou in that corner of the British blogsophere.

It started with a mildly dismissive comment by Mark Fisher (k-punk) in The Wire, which was picked up and politely disputed by Zone Styx Travelcard (also a Wire writer, though anonymous). That led to Mark's blog post elaborating in a less-mildly dismissive way.

At some point Airport Through the Trees linked the discussion to the T-shirt Johnny Rotten wore, a Pink Floyd shirt with 'I HATE' scrawled on top. The idea was that at some point Rotten loved Pink Floyd enough to buy the shirt, but then reacted strongly against his old heroes as he grew up - and that he felt the same way about Sonic Youth. Simon Reynolds, venerable music critic (also a Wire writer among other gigs) picked this up and asked others who they would put on the shirt.

Among the flurry of responses was the inevitable 'I hate K-Punk', and the meme shifted into continental philosophy. Splintering Bone Ashes wrote 'I HATE BADIOU': http://splinteringboneashes.blogspot.com/2009/06/why-i-will-never-be-clean-again.html

This time k-punk was on the defensive and came up with this: http://k-punk.abstractdynamics.org/archives/011172.html

And the Badiou blogwar was born. See Code Poetix: http://codepoetics.com/poetix/?p=1200 and http://codepoetics.com/poetix/?p=1208 and, for links, to http://codepoetics.com/poetix/?p=1208

It may not hold your interest for long. But two highlights: http://adswithoutproducts.com/2009/06/12/badiou-baddles/ and, perhaps the epitaph for the whole thing: http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/2009/06/owens-interview-and-philosophy-mild.asp

Finally, in last month's Wire, things came full circle with a mildly dismissive comment about the blogs. Joseph Stannard reviewed Sonic Youth in concert and reported: "Given their current reputation for bloodless effieciency in the live arena, it's a genuine pleasure to disclose that Sonic Youth's headline set is almost ludicrously thrilling. In the face of the sheer rock power exhibited tonight, all the blogspot bitching regarding the group's relevance is rendered impotent, the title of latest effort The Eternal achieving clarity as Thurston Moore and co reveal themselves as still capable of grasping the now and making it resonate forever. As the dying overtones of cataclysmic final encore "Expressway to Yr Skull" ring out over the concrete and steel of the Parc del Forum, the departing crowd is bathed in a joyous glow somewhere between post-coital and post-apocalyptic. It's hard to imagine a more fitting end to the universe, let alone this festival."

Cheers, Mike Beggs scandalum.wordpress.com

On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 5:46 AM, Dwayne Monroe<dwayne.monroe at gmail.com> wrote:


>
> But the one thing we haven't argued about is Sonic Youth.  Let's
> correct that oversight.
>
>
> K-punk writes:
>
>
> I'm glad someone called me on the deliberately provocative, "boldly
> counter-intuitive and funny ... elision of Sonic Youth with Primal
> Scream and Oasis" in my review of the dreadful Brand Neu! 'tribute'
> album in The Wire 303 (www.thewire.co.uk/issues/303/).



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