Just over a year ago, I wrote about the Amen Break, a drum break which has jumped from its original place on a single record and now resides on hundreds of tracks, like a piece of rogue DNA.
You can watch a handy video about it at YouTube.
Michael S Schneider, author of A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe, has also heard about the Amen Break, and being a mathmetician, decided to study it for its conformance to the principles of the the Golden Ratio. This proportion has long been held to be "aesthetically pleasing" and while I doubt if anyone knows why it should be, it certainly seems to be something people aim at, consciously or unconsciously, or say "That's the one I like" if offered a choice of two rectangles one of which is in the Golden Ratio.
Schneider finds that the Amen Break does conform to the Golden Ratio. I'll let him explain it here on his website. In my mind the Golden Ratio can't describe a rhythm, so this may explain why this frantic beat still sounds pleasing to the ear.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Roy Harper and Jimmy Page - video
YouTube has a new and exceptionally lovable 30 minute interview/busk with Roy Harper and Jimmy Page. It's from the OGWT, 1984.
They are, apparently, 2000 ft up in Langdale overlooking Blea Tarn. That's here.
The first video is the two of them talking to the Cheekie Chappie from OGWT whose name escapes me. Jimmy is extraordinarily candid, possibly because the air is too thin for him to oxygenate and smoke at the same time.
The second video is them playing Same Old Rock from Stormcock.
The third video is them playing Hangman from Jugula.
Lovely interview.
You can buy Stormcock from Roy Harper's website.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Jimmy Page and the Holy Grail
Paul Reeves, a London fashion designer in the seventies, has a sale with Sotheby's this month: “The Best of British: Design from the 19th and 20th centuries.”
Paul Reeves has been described as the man who dressed Led Zeppelin in the 1970's. As a connoisseur of Led Zeppelin's 70's clothing, I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to take credit for it, but ooookaaay, as they say these days. Now he's an art specialist. I hoped that he did not bring the same aesthetic to his art collection, and he does not seem to have done so. He has solicited items from a number of his rockist friends, and one item at the auction is a beautiful tapestry from Jimmy Page's collection. It is a 24-foot long piece called "The Quest of the Holy Grail: The Achievement", by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones. It was rolled up for some time after hanging in Page's Windsor House for many years. I can't really show the colors and sweep of this Pre-Raphaelite tapestry in the little photos allowed on a blog, so here is a small teaser.
I've seen a photo of it in situ, behind the billiard table, and it is immense. Apparently it took three weavers two years to complete, finishing in 1894. There are a number of other Page items on the block. You can download the catalogue from Sotheby's.
Paul Reeves has been described as the man who dressed Led Zeppelin in the 1970's. As a connoisseur of Led Zeppelin's 70's clothing, I find it hard to believe that anyone would want to take credit for it, but ooookaaay, as they say these days. Now he's an art specialist. I hoped that he did not bring the same aesthetic to his art collection, and he does not seem to have done so. He has solicited items from a number of his rockist friends, and one item at the auction is a beautiful tapestry from Jimmy Page's collection. It is a 24-foot long piece called "The Quest of the Holy Grail: The Achievement", by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones. It was rolled up for some time after hanging in Page's Windsor House for many years. I can't really show the colors and sweep of this Pre-Raphaelite tapestry in the little photos allowed on a blog, so here is a small teaser.
I've seen a photo of it in situ, behind the billiard table, and it is immense. Apparently it took three weavers two years to complete, finishing in 1894. There are a number of other Page items on the block. You can download the catalogue from Sotheby's.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Malls and Ninjas, Stanfords and Milgrams
The Shrine of the Mall Ninja website preserves the online posts of a person claiming to be an armed guard in a mall. He* didn't start out with that bald statement. He began on a board called GlockTalk asking for help on designing body armor. And then asking for help on armament. And then making strange, long, detailed comments about how much lethal force he was expected to expend in his job - which was guard in a mall.
A small sample, from the Shrine:
Gecko45 writes:
Thanks to everybody for the help. I am now thinking that the best thing to do is to have my wife make an “undervest” with pouches front and rear for the additional plates. This would let me have three plates in front (probably too hot and two in back. What I’m also asking her to do is to sew in a sleeve for an ASP collapsible baton. Right now I’m taping the ASP to my right calf (the left calf is where I have my G27). It’s okay for me to talk about my job, as long as I’m not specific. I am the Sergeant of a three-man Rapid Tactical Force at one of America’s largest indoor retail shopping areas. Although there are typically between fifteen and twenty normal security officers working the beat there, we decided a while ago that it would be best to have a specilized force for violent individuals. We use modified electric vehicles and can be anywhere on a given floor within eight and a half minutes.Naturally, the regular security people are unarmed. We “RTFers”, by arrangement with the local police, carry high-strength OC spray and batons. If we have a full tactical alert and permission from the local LEOs we also have a Mossberg 500 with less-lethal rounds and two K-frame Smith .38s loaded with 158gr. LRN.Basically, the situation is that we get the call, we lock up the situation, put everything five by five, and cordon the area until the local authorities arrive. We’re cops, we just don’t get the glory. I am not permitted to carry Glocks on duty; however, when my wife picks me up from work I strap on the “Deadly Duo” of a 27 and 23, each with Bar-Sto .357 bbl.
There are many more of his posts preserved at Shrine of the Mall Ninja, documenting what appears to the be the psychological peculiarities of a man maddened by his helplessness as a lowly functionary in what he would prefer to see as a position of heavily-armed unquestionable authority. It's kind of a fun read, in a scary and modern way. It beats reading supposedly true books about people who claim to be Jewish refugees from the Nazis who were adopted by wolves, anyway.
The website's archive reminds me very strongly of some of the psychological experiments from last century. The famous Milgram Experiment showed that people will apply deadly force if 'authorized' to do so, with really no training or indoctrination required. The equally famous Stanford Prison Experiment showed that if you divide a homogeneous group of people into two opposing groups, call one group "guards" and give them priviliges and call the other group "prisoners" and take away their privileges, then they will, in short order, begin behaving completely in character. To an outsider, these experiments are scary and weird; surely we ourselves would never lose our natural humanity if put in those positions? The Mall Ninja, a man with a uniform and a mission, seems to point in the same direction as the formal experiments.
Except with more gun porn than you can shake a Heckler & Koch at.
*Ok, "he" is an assumption. And he or she is probably a troll. But still.
A small sample, from the Shrine:
Gecko45 writes:
Thanks to everybody for the help. I am now thinking that the best thing to do is to have my wife make an “undervest” with pouches front and rear for the additional plates. This would let me have three plates in front (probably too hot and two in back. What I’m also asking her to do is to sew in a sleeve for an ASP collapsible baton. Right now I’m taping the ASP to my right calf (the left calf is where I have my G27). It’s okay for me to talk about my job, as long as I’m not specific. I am the Sergeant of a three-man Rapid Tactical Force at one of America’s largest indoor retail shopping areas. Although there are typically between fifteen and twenty normal security officers working the beat there, we decided a while ago that it would be best to have a specilized force for violent individuals. We use modified electric vehicles and can be anywhere on a given floor within eight and a half minutes.Naturally, the regular security people are unarmed. We “RTFers”, by arrangement with the local police, carry high-strength OC spray and batons. If we have a full tactical alert and permission from the local LEOs we also have a Mossberg 500 with less-lethal rounds and two K-frame Smith .38s loaded with 158gr. LRN.Basically, the situation is that we get the call, we lock up the situation, put everything five by five, and cordon the area until the local authorities arrive. We’re cops, we just don’t get the glory. I am not permitted to carry Glocks on duty; however, when my wife picks me up from work I strap on the “Deadly Duo” of a 27 and 23, each with Bar-Sto .357 bbl.
There are many more of his posts preserved at Shrine of the Mall Ninja, documenting what appears to the be the psychological peculiarities of a man maddened by his helplessness as a lowly functionary in what he would prefer to see as a position of heavily-armed unquestionable authority. It's kind of a fun read, in a scary and modern way. It beats reading supposedly true books about people who claim to be Jewish refugees from the Nazis who were adopted by wolves, anyway.
The website's archive reminds me very strongly of some of the psychological experiments from last century. The famous Milgram Experiment showed that people will apply deadly force if 'authorized' to do so, with really no training or indoctrination required. The equally famous Stanford Prison Experiment showed that if you divide a homogeneous group of people into two opposing groups, call one group "guards" and give them priviliges and call the other group "prisoners" and take away their privileges, then they will, in short order, begin behaving completely in character. To an outsider, these experiments are scary and weird; surely we ourselves would never lose our natural humanity if put in those positions? The Mall Ninja, a man with a uniform and a mission, seems to point in the same direction as the formal experiments.
Except with more gun porn than you can shake a Heckler & Koch at.
*Ok, "he" is an assumption. And he or she is probably a troll. But still.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Mixed metaphors
I know I rag on the LA Times. I wouldn't read it if I didn't usually agree with it.
Today they published a letter about corn farmers, ethanol production and fattening sweeteners that said in part, "The US is putting all its eggs in one basket and it's going to bite us on our ever-widening collective rear end."
To which I can only say, keep that damn basket on a leash already.
Today they published a letter about corn farmers, ethanol production and fattening sweeteners that said in part, "The US is putting all its eggs in one basket and it's going to bite us on our ever-widening collective rear end."
To which I can only say, keep that damn basket on a leash already.
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Reading and Gaming in 2008
E. Gary Gygax died this week. When he co-developed Dungeons & Dragons in the Seventies, I'm sure he did not realize that his passing would make all the major newspapers, including the New York Times.
The NYT Op-Ed on the subject says that geek culture has won - the types of people who sloped off and met up with a dungeon master for a weekend of D&D thirty years ago are now the people in demand because of their skills, and the vocabulary they - I guess 'we', although I've never played D&D myself - use is now the lexicon everyone needs to communicate in the modern world. I'm not completely convinced, but writer Adam Roberts makes a good case for it.
While I was reading the article, I noticed that NYT articles have an innovation that makes them rather modern themselves. If you double click on any word, your browser takes you to a thesaurus and displays the definition. I hadn't realized that until today, and I'm still rather gobsmacked by it. It's a simple enough thing, I suppose, but I've never seen it before (except in writing applications on my own computer). On the other hand, I've seen many sites that will link a word with a blue underline and when you double click on the word you get an ad for acupuncture or a balloon-thingy telling you that tires are half-price at Ed's Tires of [your town name here] or some other completely unrelated POS that has trained me never to click on those blue links. But this actually works.
It's not perfect, mind. Adam Roberts, according to the article, works for Wired (a magazine), and when I double clicked on the word 'wired', the definitions ranged in tone from fuddy-duddy to funky, but not one of them told me Wired was a magazine (or a website). I suppose they are deliberately trying to keep the Ed's-tire-iness out of the definition engine, but I still found it funny.
I wonder if a newspaper that is its own thesaurus will improve reading scores? There's always a kerfuffle about declining reading scores. I think Cassandra has been wailing about reading scores since approximately the time I first learned to read newspapers. People may have even whined about them before I learned to read, too. An indignant article in the Guardian last month pointed out that the studies which show a declining interest in reading often specifically leave out reading on the internet. To the framers of the study, the web simply doesn't count, I suppose because it they think it is a newfangled fad like Beatles Haircuts or Pet Rocks and will soon go away leaving us all feeling sheepish and vaguely fooled.
The Guardian article, Dawn of the Digital Natives, dissects a National Endowment for the Arts study called To Read or Not to Read, which says (I guess; I haven't *ahem* read it) that we are all Doomed due to a lack of literary culture. Teenagers' reading skills are down one percentage point from teenagers tested in 1988. The Guardian points out that we knew they were going to be - they didn't test well in 1999. But nine year olds, tested for the current study, jumped seven points (about 1.2%) over nine year olds tested in 1999. So today's youngsters are reading better than 1999's youngsters. Not so much of a crisis after all.
And the NYT's dowdy but clever dictionary can't help but improve that further.
The NYT Op-Ed on the subject says that geek culture has won - the types of people who sloped off and met up with a dungeon master for a weekend of D&D thirty years ago are now the people in demand because of their skills, and the vocabulary they - I guess 'we', although I've never played D&D myself - use is now the lexicon everyone needs to communicate in the modern world. I'm not completely convinced, but writer Adam Roberts makes a good case for it.
While I was reading the article, I noticed that NYT articles have an innovation that makes them rather modern themselves. If you double click on any word, your browser takes you to a thesaurus and displays the definition. I hadn't realized that until today, and I'm still rather gobsmacked by it. It's a simple enough thing, I suppose, but I've never seen it before (except in writing applications on my own computer). On the other hand, I've seen many sites that will link a word with a blue underline and when you double click on the word you get an ad for acupuncture or a balloon-thingy telling you that tires are half-price at Ed's Tires of [your town name here] or some other completely unrelated POS that has trained me never to click on those blue links. But this actually works.
It's not perfect, mind. Adam Roberts, according to the article, works for Wired (a magazine), and when I double clicked on the word 'wired', the definitions ranged in tone from fuddy-duddy to funky, but not one of them told me Wired was a magazine (or a website). I suppose they are deliberately trying to keep the Ed's-tire-iness out of the definition engine, but I still found it funny.
I wonder if a newspaper that is its own thesaurus will improve reading scores? There's always a kerfuffle about declining reading scores. I think Cassandra has been wailing about reading scores since approximately the time I first learned to read newspapers. People may have even whined about them before I learned to read, too. An indignant article in the Guardian last month pointed out that the studies which show a declining interest in reading often specifically leave out reading on the internet. To the framers of the study, the web simply doesn't count, I suppose because it they think it is a newfangled fad like Beatles Haircuts or Pet Rocks and will soon go away leaving us all feeling sheepish and vaguely fooled.
The Guardian article, Dawn of the Digital Natives, dissects a National Endowment for the Arts study called To Read or Not to Read, which says (I guess; I haven't *ahem* read it) that we are all Doomed due to a lack of literary culture. Teenagers' reading skills are down one percentage point from teenagers tested in 1988. The Guardian points out that we knew they were going to be - they didn't test well in 1999. But nine year olds, tested for the current study, jumped seven points (about 1.2%) over nine year olds tested in 1999. So today's youngsters are reading better than 1999's youngsters. Not so much of a crisis after all.
And the NYT's dowdy but clever dictionary can't help but improve that further.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Pitchfork and torches time!
You know those women who talk to other women through the stall dividers in women's restrooms? Well, they should be banned. Banned, banned, bannedity-banned. And because they should be banned, I want you to pay for policecritters to patrol women's restrooms and toss 'em in the pokey. Because women in women's restrooms say bad things about people, and that's bad. And I shouldn't have to put up with it. And if I shouldn't have to put up with it, it should be against the law.
The LA Times had an Op-Ed article on Saturday called Douse the online flamers which took something close to the above and ran with it. It's by Andrew Keen, author of Cult of the Amateur, which I haven't read but I'm sure I don't like. Apparently people are saying bad things about other people on teh intarwebs, so it should be banned. Not sure exactly what: the internet, people, badness. Something has to be banned. Oh, it's "anonymity", apparently. Needs to be banned. He begins by referencing some Web Creation Myth only he is privy to, "the innocent dawn of the Internet Age" when "the idea that we might all be anonymous on the Web promised infinite intellectual freedom. Unfortunately, however, that promise hasn't been realized."
It hasn't? Oh noes! Write a nice print book about it, Andrew! Oh, you already did.
The article goes on, "[t]oday, too many anonymous Internet users are posting hateful content about their neighbors, classmates and co-workers; today, online media is an increasingly shadowy, vertiginous environment in which it is becoming harder and harder to know other people's real identities."
Evidently, everybody but me is spending their time hatin' on each other. (And I'm not doing so well either.)
Like this: "the case of a couple of female Yale Law School students whose reputations have been eternally sullied on an online bulletin board called AutoAdmit by "Sleazy Z," "hitlerhitlerhitler," "The Ayatollah of Rock-n-Rollah" and others. Having been publicly accused of lesbianism with the dean of admissions at Yale Law School, possessing "large false breasts" and indulging in exhibitionistic group sex, the two women filed an amended complaint...in...Court."
ZOMG! The internet has enabled rude people to be rude about people! Anonymously. And "eternally". Up until now there must never have been an avenue for expressing rudeness. Then the internet comes along and enables hate. Stupid internet. I knew there was something wrong with it.
Being accused by people called hitlerhitlerhitler of having unfeasibly large breasts must be an incredible burden, because of course, everyone on the planet is going to prefer siding with someone called hitlerhitlerhitler on the prestigious AutoAdmit bulletin board over siding with you.
He goes through two more cases. One, unfortunately, resulted in a suicide – it was a tiff between neighbors, a type of personal interaction that clearly was possible only after the invention of Internet Explorer 7 – and one was a fight on Yahoo. Have you ever been on Yahoo? Have you ever even heard of Yahoo? Don't see many hands up there. I have – I'm member of more than twenty Yahoo groups and we've had some knock-down-drag-out fights there, all of which would have been exactly the same, but much, much worse, if they'd been a fight at the Women's Institute, or the Church fete, or the school rummage sale. In fact, the major difference between a storm in a teapot and a storm in a Yahoo group is the wind speeds in a teapot are far higher.
After that thorough review of the hate coursing through the system of tubes we hold dear, he concludes, "these cases indicate that the U.S. Supreme Court soon might need to rethink the civic value of anonymous speech in the digital age. Today, when cowardly anonymity is souring Internet discourse, it really is hard to understand how anonymous speech is vital to a free society."
Yeah, freedom of speech sucks. Whose idea was it anyway? People only use it to hurt each other. Or they do nowadays. It's not clear from the article, but it looks like they didn't before the invention of the internet. Clearly punishing the internet is the way to go.
So what should we do about it, pundit? Apparently we should introduce "more legislation to punish anonymous sadists whose online lies are intended to wreck the reputations and mental health of innocent Americans."
Or alternatively, we could teach innocent Americans the rhyme about sticks and stones. Either way. Your call.
The LA Times had an Op-Ed article on Saturday called Douse the online flamers which took something close to the above and ran with it. It's by Andrew Keen, author of Cult of the Amateur, which I haven't read but I'm sure I don't like. Apparently people are saying bad things about other people on teh intarwebs, so it should be banned. Not sure exactly what: the internet, people, badness. Something has to be banned. Oh, it's "anonymity", apparently. Needs to be banned. He begins by referencing some Web Creation Myth only he is privy to, "the innocent dawn of the Internet Age" when "the idea that we might all be anonymous on the Web promised infinite intellectual freedom. Unfortunately, however, that promise hasn't been realized."
It hasn't? Oh noes! Write a nice print book about it, Andrew! Oh, you already did.
The article goes on, "[t]oday, too many anonymous Internet users are posting hateful content about their neighbors, classmates and co-workers; today, online media is an increasingly shadowy, vertiginous environment in which it is becoming harder and harder to know other people's real identities."
Evidently, everybody but me is spending their time hatin' on each other. (And I'm not doing so well either.)
Like this: "the case of a couple of female Yale Law School students whose reputations have been eternally sullied on an online bulletin board called AutoAdmit by "Sleazy Z," "hitlerhitlerhitler," "The Ayatollah of Rock-n-Rollah" and others. Having been publicly accused of lesbianism with the dean of admissions at Yale Law School, possessing "large false breasts" and indulging in exhibitionistic group sex, the two women filed an amended complaint...in...Court."
ZOMG! The internet has enabled rude people to be rude about people! Anonymously. And "eternally". Up until now there must never have been an avenue for expressing rudeness. Then the internet comes along and enables hate. Stupid internet. I knew there was something wrong with it.
Being accused by people called hitlerhitlerhitler of having unfeasibly large breasts must be an incredible burden, because of course, everyone on the planet is going to prefer siding with someone called hitlerhitlerhitler on the prestigious AutoAdmit bulletin board over siding with you.
He goes through two more cases. One, unfortunately, resulted in a suicide – it was a tiff between neighbors, a type of personal interaction that clearly was possible only after the invention of Internet Explorer 7 – and one was a fight on Yahoo. Have you ever been on Yahoo? Have you ever even heard of Yahoo? Don't see many hands up there. I have – I'm member of more than twenty Yahoo groups and we've had some knock-down-drag-out fights there, all of which would have been exactly the same, but much, much worse, if they'd been a fight at the Women's Institute, or the Church fete, or the school rummage sale. In fact, the major difference between a storm in a teapot and a storm in a Yahoo group is the wind speeds in a teapot are far higher.
After that thorough review of the hate coursing through the system of tubes we hold dear, he concludes, "these cases indicate that the U.S. Supreme Court soon might need to rethink the civic value of anonymous speech in the digital age. Today, when cowardly anonymity is souring Internet discourse, it really is hard to understand how anonymous speech is vital to a free society."
Yeah, freedom of speech sucks. Whose idea was it anyway? People only use it to hurt each other. Or they do nowadays. It's not clear from the article, but it looks like they didn't before the invention of the internet. Clearly punishing the internet is the way to go.
So what should we do about it, pundit? Apparently we should introduce "more legislation to punish anonymous sadists whose online lies are intended to wreck the reputations and mental health of innocent Americans."
Or alternatively, we could teach innocent Americans the rhyme about sticks and stones. Either way. Your call.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Industrial Ruins - and the Labyrinth of Minos
Jo Walton's post "The Industrial Ruins of Elfland" gives a very different view of abandoned industry. Growing up in post-industrial Wales, the abandonded Ironworks and coal mines and the "dramroads" between them seemed to her to be mysterious places abandoned by elves as they moved inexorably west.
My Aunt Jane lives next to an abandoned ironworks. It's notable because we actually knew what it was. We used to play in it, climbing over the walls. It was a great place for hide and seek, and for castles. I knew what castles were. We didn't have one, but Wales is full of them, I'd been to lots of them. I had no idea what an ironworks was -- if pressed, I'd have figured out from etymology it was somewhere one worked iron, but I wasn't ever pressed about it.
A lovely post, elegiac and yet practical and factual too. No photos, just a look into the mind of a child playing inside the uninhabited shells of the past.
My Aunt Jane lives next to an abandoned ironworks. It's notable because we actually knew what it was. We used to play in it, climbing over the walls. It was a great place for hide and seek, and for castles. I knew what castles were. We didn't have one, but Wales is full of them, I'd been to lots of them. I had no idea what an ironworks was -- if pressed, I'd have figured out from etymology it was somewhere one worked iron, but I wasn't ever pressed about it.
A lovely post, elegiac and yet practical and factual too. No photos, just a look into the mind of a child playing inside the uninhabited shells of the past.
Lost America Night Photography
When I first came to the American west, in 1989, some of the first things to catch my eye were the ruins. It was hard for me to grasp that a place which was virtually empty of people until 1930* could have ruins. American styles of this type, from 1930s to 1965-ish were completely foreign to me. I'd seen a couple of episodes of The Jetsons and I used to watch an MTV program that was set in a 1950s basement, but apart from that, this architecture and decoration seemed simply bizarre. I'd never seen them lived in or worked in, so to see them abandoned didn't really mean anything. It was as if they had only been built by aliens with only one purpose - to be abandoned.
Then, on a more deliberate search one year, I started seeing the Space Age ones. After that, I think I understood a lot more of J. G. Ballard's writing.
(Photo Credit to Lost America.
Reduced in size from the original)
The Lost America website has long exposure night photography of abandoned western ruins. They range from the gas stations of the Okie migration to the airfields and abandoned airframes of the old Cold War bases. Some of them are breathtaking. I spent a long time looking around this site and wishing I'd taken photos and then I read the descriptions about kneeling on broken glass for eight minute exposures and was glad I hadn't. Very interesting site.
*Recently devoid of people, I mean.
Then, on a more deliberate search one year, I started seeing the Space Age ones. After that, I think I understood a lot more of J. G. Ballard's writing.
(Photo Credit to Lost America.
Reduced in size from the original)
The Lost America website has long exposure night photography of abandoned western ruins. They range from the gas stations of the Okie migration to the airfields and abandoned airframes of the old Cold War bases. Some of them are breathtaking. I spent a long time looking around this site and wishing I'd taken photos and then I read the descriptions about kneeling on broken glass for eight minute exposures and was glad I hadn't. Very interesting site.
*Recently devoid of people, I mean.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
Lightning strike
Couldn't resist this picture from The Daily Mail:
(Feb 2008) Lightning strikes the 130ft tall statue of Christ
the Redeemer, which stands atop the 2,296ft Corvocado mountain
above Rio de Janeiro.
(Feb 2008) Lightning strikes the 130ft tall statue of Christ
the Redeemer, which stands atop the 2,296ft Corvocado mountain
above Rio de Janeiro.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Mike Smith, RIP
It was sad today to learn of the death of Mike Smith of the Dave Clark Five. The DC5 were a big part of the soundtrack of my childhood. In fact, I think they were the first band I ever saw, but if I say that my bruvver will probably write in and say that was The Hollies or something.
RIP Mike.
RIP Mike.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Her ways are high and steep
English Language mutation alert:
There's a buzz phrase that I've always pretty much disliked which appears to be changing meanings into something else I hate. The phrase is "learning curve".
A learning curve describes the "performance at the start of training, the rate at which learning occurs, and the flexibility with which the acquired skills can be used" (Koedinger and Mathan 2004). It's a diagram of the duration of learning plotted against the progress. A more nuanced way to describe it is to say it displays the rate of improvement in performing a new task as basic skills are acquired and practiced. It's a graph, one which is describing a dynamic process.
It's always been a problematic phrase because most people don't think in terms of charts or graphs and the concept of a "steep learning curve", has two opposite meanings. It originally meant quick progress as the basic skills are learned followed by some indefinite period of lesser improvements after practice. Nowadays, because "steep" sounds like "hard work", a "steep learning curve" is used to describe something that's hard to learn.
Here's an example, from the NYT, describing a TV show:
"Mr. Wolf said there were running plotlines involving the characters, most of whom are young and relatively new to prosecuting. "It's a learning-curve show," he said. "They're learning how to be what Sam is in 'Law & Order' "
And here the same article misuses "steep learning curve":
"The character with the steepest learning curve may be Nick Potter, a young lawyer from a well-off family who is giving the prosecuting life a try. "Each episode he's faced with some intense ethical or moral dilemma that he usually makes the wrong choice on.""
But that is not what I'm whining about. Oh, no. What I'm riled up about today is, I've recently heard "learning curve" used, as near as I can figure out, to mean "a body of knowledge", or perhaps "the tangible result of hard work or hardship". The association with progress and dynamism and the rate of change has disappeared. It's now a noun phrase with a definite implication that a process has finished.
Here's an example from an internet message board I read today:
Sometimes the most painful things can bring about great self revelation and learning curves.
Here's an English rock band called InMe describing sex and drugs and rock and roll:
"On our first tour we just went full on, drinking too much and smoking too much before the shows. But it's a learning curve. We now know our limits."
And here's Robert Plant, describing singing Bluegrass instead of Rock.
Transcription:
Interviewer: "Musically though, how challenging is it for you?"
Plant: "Well, it's just a learning curve. I mean, the music's beautiful. It's just learning how to sing demurely."
Of course, it's always difficult to keep a straight face when listening to Plant speak English. His choice of words is often so odd that fans give his speech snippets a new name – Plantations.
I know you're going to want to watch all of the Robert Plant interview, so here's the other parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtqr2AMS5-Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH40nHM7sY0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PVKL12i3jM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsrvAKW_LLs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWIOSjFDXU0
There's a buzz phrase that I've always pretty much disliked which appears to be changing meanings into something else I hate. The phrase is "learning curve".
A learning curve describes the "performance at the start of training, the rate at which learning occurs, and the flexibility with which the acquired skills can be used" (Koedinger and Mathan 2004). It's a diagram of the duration of learning plotted against the progress. A more nuanced way to describe it is to say it displays the rate of improvement in performing a new task as basic skills are acquired and practiced. It's a graph, one which is describing a dynamic process.
It's always been a problematic phrase because most people don't think in terms of charts or graphs and the concept of a "steep learning curve", has two opposite meanings. It originally meant quick progress as the basic skills are learned followed by some indefinite period of lesser improvements after practice. Nowadays, because "steep" sounds like "hard work", a "steep learning curve" is used to describe something that's hard to learn.
Here's an example, from the NYT, describing a TV show:
"Mr. Wolf said there were running plotlines involving the characters, most of whom are young and relatively new to prosecuting. "It's a learning-curve show," he said. "They're learning how to be what Sam is in 'Law & Order' "
And here the same article misuses "steep learning curve":
"The character with the steepest learning curve may be Nick Potter, a young lawyer from a well-off family who is giving the prosecuting life a try. "Each episode he's faced with some intense ethical or moral dilemma that he usually makes the wrong choice on.""
But that is not what I'm whining about. Oh, no. What I'm riled up about today is, I've recently heard "learning curve" used, as near as I can figure out, to mean "a body of knowledge", or perhaps "the tangible result of hard work or hardship". The association with progress and dynamism and the rate of change has disappeared. It's now a noun phrase with a definite implication that a process has finished.
Here's an example from an internet message board I read today:
Sometimes the most painful things can bring about great self revelation and learning curves.
Here's an English rock band called InMe describing sex and drugs and rock and roll:
"On our first tour we just went full on, drinking too much and smoking too much before the shows. But it's a learning curve. We now know our limits."
And here's Robert Plant, describing singing Bluegrass instead of Rock.
Transcription:
Interviewer: "Musically though, how challenging is it for you?"
Plant: "Well, it's just a learning curve. I mean, the music's beautiful. It's just learning how to sing demurely."
Of course, it's always difficult to keep a straight face when listening to Plant speak English. His choice of words is often so odd that fans give his speech snippets a new name – Plantations.
I know you're going to want to watch all of the Robert Plant interview, so here's the other parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtqr2AMS5-Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH40nHM7sY0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PVKL12i3jM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsrvAKW_LLs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWIOSjFDXU0
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Since I've Been Loving You
I'm posting this here as an antidote of sorts to yesterday's post on male bonding in rock music with special reference to misogyny. There isn't much original thought of mine in it, but since the Susan Fast's book can be hard to get hold of, here goes.
I mentioned that Susan Fast, who wrote In the Houses of the Holy - Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music, was "Zeppelin friendly". In her book she spends a lot of time going over, and in many cases rejecting, the anthropological scholarship that foregrounds the 'male gaze' and also claims rock music as masculinist. There is a chapter on the subject, Whole Lotta Love. In it she describes the experience of women listening to Led Zeppelin.
She submitted a survey to an internet fan group, For Badgeholders Only, and so has a lot of real life descriptions to draw on. One thing I found of tremendous interest was the results of the question about which member of the group the fan identified with. Of the women who answered, 30 identify most closely with Plant, 24 with Page and 15 had no preference. Of the men who answered who had a preference, there were 116 for Page, 25 for Plant, 24 for Jones and 25 for Bonham. I can't be bothered to type that into any statistical software but I'm pretty sure that's a real difference between the sexes and not a distribution you could get by chance. It's certainly the most statistically significant thing I've ever seen anyone set down on the subject, most of which seems to be derived from testosterone-soaked anecdotes. (Apart from the ones derived from estrogen-soaked anecdotes.)
She starts the chapter by describing the long reaction shot of the woman in the crowd in Since I've Been Loving You, in the Led Zeppelin movie, The Song Remains the Same (above). Why, she asks, if rock has always been coded as male, and Led Zeppelin has been described as misogynist, is one of the most memorable shots of TSRTS a female - a non-hysterical one - who appears to be concentrating on the music and musicianship?
To describe it, she recaps a whole busload of male reviewers who have said that Led Zeppelin is unfriendly to women - as I did yesterday - and then goes back to the image of the woman in the audience. Clearly the concert-goer was a female Zeppelin fan in 1973. There are other women in the audience too. The critics quoted are wrong. Fast describes her own experience with the music, which was basically thinking that Immigrant Song was well hard. She's a professor of music, so I think she uses a different term, but I know what she means. Her fantasies about the band (at 14) mostly consisted of seeing herself as a being a beautiful, accomplished musician, Plant's equal – and him noticing her. "Appropriating the power of those performers for oneself was as important for some as was the sexual freedom they suggested …and for some reason I thought that this was in the realm of possibilities, certainly not that it would be impossible because I was a woman." "I listened to their music with pathological exclusivity because it was such a powerful, liberating, intellectual, sexual and spiritual experience for me."
Of her questionnaire on FBO she says, "Most of the fans – male and female – who answered the questions on my survey relate similarly powerful experiences with the music." She goes through the comments in detail. The comments she relates don't differ much from the types of comment I see every day on internet fan groups. Women do like Led Zeppelin. It's an unavoidable fact. Her own experiences with the music sound like mine. I loved it because it was heavy; it didn't scare me, and I wanted to be Jimmy Page's equal so he would notice me. Same thing.
She refers back to gender and the so-called homosocial environment. She relates Frith and McRobbie's statement that "these shows are about male sexual performance and Weinstein's that this music culture is "masculinist" and that it is about male bonding." But Fast says, "female responses…reveal that they are also a source of erotic pleasure for women…I received no indication…that this kind of iconography was ever off-putting or frightening to women, even in the 1970s, as Frith and McRobbie claimed."
So, no real conclusions, just a rejection (based on the evidence of real fans on a message board) of the rock critics' view of Led Zeppelin as female-unfriendly. This chapter in her book is plainly "true" - the female fans aren't making it up - but Fast presents no alternative theory as to why women are so happy to be part of what has been so heavily hyped - not least in my post yesterday - as a male-bonding ritual. If I knew anything about anthropology, I might be tempted to remark that no alternative theory is forthcoming because the original theory about homosocial bonding is a load of crap made up as a just-so story to explain what the originators thought they saw (a sea of female-fearing boys) that wasn't actually true. Susan Fast's questionnaire puts that boner to rest. If I can call it that.
I suppose a good place to start a new theory would be to ask why the originators of the male-bonding theory thought they saw what they said they saw.
I mentioned that Susan Fast, who wrote In the Houses of the Holy - Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music, was "Zeppelin friendly". In her book she spends a lot of time going over, and in many cases rejecting, the anthropological scholarship that foregrounds the 'male gaze' and also claims rock music as masculinist. There is a chapter on the subject, Whole Lotta Love. In it she describes the experience of women listening to Led Zeppelin.
She submitted a survey to an internet fan group, For Badgeholders Only, and so has a lot of real life descriptions to draw on. One thing I found of tremendous interest was the results of the question about which member of the group the fan identified with. Of the women who answered, 30 identify most closely with Plant, 24 with Page and 15 had no preference. Of the men who answered who had a preference, there were 116 for Page, 25 for Plant, 24 for Jones and 25 for Bonham. I can't be bothered to type that into any statistical software but I'm pretty sure that's a real difference between the sexes and not a distribution you could get by chance. It's certainly the most statistically significant thing I've ever seen anyone set down on the subject, most of which seems to be derived from testosterone-soaked anecdotes. (Apart from the ones derived from estrogen-soaked anecdotes.)
She starts the chapter by describing the long reaction shot of the woman in the crowd in Since I've Been Loving You, in the Led Zeppelin movie, The Song Remains the Same (above). Why, she asks, if rock has always been coded as male, and Led Zeppelin has been described as misogynist, is one of the most memorable shots of TSRTS a female - a non-hysterical one - who appears to be concentrating on the music and musicianship?
To describe it, she recaps a whole busload of male reviewers who have said that Led Zeppelin is unfriendly to women - as I did yesterday - and then goes back to the image of the woman in the audience. Clearly the concert-goer was a female Zeppelin fan in 1973. There are other women in the audience too. The critics quoted are wrong. Fast describes her own experience with the music, which was basically thinking that Immigrant Song was well hard. She's a professor of music, so I think she uses a different term, but I know what she means. Her fantasies about the band (at 14) mostly consisted of seeing herself as a being a beautiful, accomplished musician, Plant's equal – and him noticing her. "Appropriating the power of those performers for oneself was as important for some as was the sexual freedom they suggested …and for some reason I thought that this was in the realm of possibilities, certainly not that it would be impossible because I was a woman." "I listened to their music with pathological exclusivity because it was such a powerful, liberating, intellectual, sexual and spiritual experience for me."
Of her questionnaire on FBO she says, "Most of the fans – male and female – who answered the questions on my survey relate similarly powerful experiences with the music." She goes through the comments in detail. The comments she relates don't differ much from the types of comment I see every day on internet fan groups. Women do like Led Zeppelin. It's an unavoidable fact. Her own experiences with the music sound like mine. I loved it because it was heavy; it didn't scare me, and I wanted to be Jimmy Page's equal so he would notice me. Same thing.
She refers back to gender and the so-called homosocial environment. She relates Frith and McRobbie's statement that "these shows are about male sexual performance and Weinstein's that this music culture is "masculinist" and that it is about male bonding." But Fast says, "female responses…reveal that they are also a source of erotic pleasure for women…I received no indication…that this kind of iconography was ever off-putting or frightening to women, even in the 1970s, as Frith and McRobbie claimed."
So, no real conclusions, just a rejection (based on the evidence of real fans on a message board) of the rock critics' view of Led Zeppelin as female-unfriendly. This chapter in her book is plainly "true" - the female fans aren't making it up - but Fast presents no alternative theory as to why women are so happy to be part of what has been so heavily hyped - not least in my post yesterday - as a male-bonding ritual. If I knew anything about anthropology, I might be tempted to remark that no alternative theory is forthcoming because the original theory about homosocial bonding is a load of crap made up as a just-so story to explain what the originators thought they saw (a sea of female-fearing boys) that wasn't actually true. Susan Fast's questionnaire puts that boner to rest. If I can call it that.
I suppose a good place to start a new theory would be to ask why the originators of the male-bonding theory thought they saw what they said they saw.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
John, I'm Only Dancing
In another forum I was asked: For example, have we ever examined quite what was the attraction of almost exclusively male rock bands in the 1970s to other men? I went and looked.
Heavy rock music, prior to Glam Metal, provided masculine role model for boys who had to go through puberty during a time of significant changes in gender roles. It was important for them to have a space where no girls were allowed – or at least where they believed that no girls were allowed – which rock in general seemed to offer. Led Zeppelin's lyrics and music combined to affirm their fear of women while simultaneously providing a hypermasculine model onto which both feelings of alienation and sexual feelings could both be projected.
The sixties. We've all heard about them. The seventies were worse.
The sixties and seventies – the Sexual Revolution – was a time of significant change for gender roles. It was an unusually difficult time for a male adolescent to grow up, and the extreme image fluctuations of rock bands during this time both mirrored these changes and helped drive them. Jack Burton, in Dude Looks Like a Lady [10] says the fact that Robert Plant "continues to be all man, while simultaneously looking and sounding like a woman, suggests that the straight camp of the rock god provides a more complex function than the questioning of gender roles," and that "this commercialisation of gender ambiguity takes place at a time of extensive social change is no coincidence. After any revolution comes a period of uncertainty, and the sexual revolution of the 1960s was no exception. With the contraceptive pill not only allowing people to engage in seemingly risk free sexual intercourse, but also, more importantly, allowing women to take control of their own reproductive potential, traditional gender relations were suddenly shown to be problematic."
No girls allowed.
Music critics over the years have generally assumed that rock music is a male-only preserve. Simon Frith and Angela McRobbie say of rock, "the general atmosphere is sexually exclusive, its euphoria depends on the absence of women."[1] Sue Wise said, "it is undoubtedly a prospect threatening to men and many women that male rock stars' power and sexuality could be understood, appropriated, or even controlled by a woman."[2] Camille Paglia, quoted in the Washington Post article below says, "Rock is a male form. For an adolescent boy, your guitar speaks for you, it says what you can't say in real life, it's the pain you can't express, it's rage, hormones pumping. Women can be strangers and all of a sudden have an intimate conversation. Boys can't do that. The guitar for a boy speaks to an aggressive sexual impulse and suppressed emotionality, the things that boys can't share, even with other members of the band. It's a combination of rage and reserve and ego."[3] According to Chuck Klosterman, author of "Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota, "metal stops being good when it develops a female audience, in turn, alienating its primary male audience." Frith and McRobbie add, "Cock rock shows are explicitly about male sexual performance, which might explain why so few girls go to them – the musicians are acting out a sexual iconography which in many ways is unfamiliar, frightening and distasteful to girls who are educated into understanding sex as something nice, soft, loving and private."[1]
Clearly, there aren't many female rock stars. In the Washington Post article, David Segal says, "Reasonable people can argue about whether there are any guitar heroines" and "women buy just 7% of all electric guitars in this country…the electric guitar…is considered unladylike". He writes, "Boys learn guitar to meet girls. For a girl, outplaying the boys onstage isn't necessarily a key to the male heart." [4]
Soul of a Woman…something to do with legs…
For young boys in this phase, Led Zeppelin provides a supportative environment backed up with lyrical examples. Critics have noted this tendency in Zeppelin lyrics many times over the years. "…Plant's overt misogyny fused with Page's obsession with the occult… since that combination allows adolescent males to reconcile the alienation of unhinged teenage sexuality with their own inescapable geekiness." [Chuck Klosterman, 7] "On their masterpiece, "Dazed and Confused," for example, Plant made the same old misogyny sound like profound insight, while Page thundered through his orchestral guitar rumble."[Rolling Stone, 8] "Led Zeppelin's music is based almost entirely on misogyny. Their defining lyric is 'soul of a woman was created below'. (Although this is partially contradicted by the line 'a big legged woman ain't got no soul'.) Whenever Robert Plant ran out of something to sing, he fell back on the woman-worshipping-woman-chastising clichés of the blues. And if all else failed there was always, 'Baby-baby-baby... waaaaaagh!'" [Toby Litt, 9]
"When the Levee Breaks" has been read as the singer fearing "feminine engulfment"[5]. Susan Fast (a Zeppelin-friendly female critic) disagrees. She has doubts about Reynolds and Press's description in their take on Levee in which they say "women often loom as a demonic threat in Led Zeppelin's songs". "Reynolds and Press do not tell us, specifically, where or how the "fear of feminine engulfment" occurs in the song." However, I believe Fast is wrong; it can quite easily be read that way. When the levee breaks, it says, it's enough to drive a monkey man from his home. To hammer home the point, the mix turns inside out, washing out the entire band in a flood, and Plant, half afloat, moans "going down, going down" – a double entendre eminently readable as representing a man overwhelmed by female sexuality. And Fast does agree with Reynolds and Press in their gloomy take on Dazed and Confused. "Love is disorientation, debility and paralysis. Dazed and Confused is the definitive take on this scenario". They say of the singer, "his mind is poisoned and befogged by the noxious fumes of her feminine miasma. He's at death's door, flaccid and enfeebled."[5, 6]
Hieros Gamos and suchlike.
How does a rock band provide a substitute for the female companionship it claims you are better off without? Why is the spectacle attractive to young male fans? There is a major analysis in Jack Burton,[10] which is available in its entirety on the web. I'll briefly recap his argument here. Frith and McRobbie, in Rock and Sexuality[1] define Cock Rock thusly: "Cock rock performers are aggressive, dominating, and boastful, and they constantly seek to remind the audience of their prowess, their control. Their stance is obvious in live shows; male bodies on display, plunging shirts and tight trousers, a visual emphasis on chest hair and genitals - Cock rock shows are explicitly about male sexual performance."
At the same time as the performers are acting out the hypermasculinist fantasies of their male audience, they are providing a mixed message of masculinity and femininity to their already dazed and confused devotees. Chuck Klosterman says, "They sound sexy and sexist and sexless." Burton points to the symbolism of the guitar, "Firstly: the obvious phallic symbolism of the guitar. Usually worn at crotch height, the long, straight neck is wielded like a weapon. Drawing focus away from the musician and onto the instrument the guitar serves as phallic symbol of the performer's potent masculinity. Secondly: the mastery of an instrument is an example of the acquisition of technical skill, again often associated with a traditional masculine posture." But to that must be added the femininity of the singer, "Plant's physicality on stage deliberately emphasises this almost feminine sexual allure. He is described by one male reviewer as "breathtakingly beautiful, rather like a choirboy possessed by the spirit of Gene Vincent." Burton quotes Helen Davies as saying, "Singing is generally regarded as natural. Anyone can do it and it is wrongly perceived as not requiring practice and work, and therefore undervalued - I would argue that it is generally assumed that singing is a feminine skill." In The Popular Music Studies Reader, Susan Fast quotes Robert Plant as saying, "My vocal style I haven't tried to copy from anyone. It just developed until it became the girlish whine that it is today." [11] She quotes from various critics who make a point that Plant's vocal style, from the throat and not the chest, is not "bodily" – "It's as if in rock convention… the sexiest male voice is the least bodily" – but she disagrees saying, "it is precisely this straining and the use of distortion that puts the body into the music" and "this high male voice opens another interesting space for the consideration of gender performance…male fans have commented on this [girlish whine] as a desirable attribute." She goes on, "the moaning, screaming, and 'overflowing of channels' characteristic of hard rock signing points very strongly to an emotional landscape that has traditionally (and also essentially) been associated with femininity."
The masculine and feminine elements on the rock stage have often been described as "a marriage". Jack Burton: "That the relationship between the lead singer and the lead guitarist of a rock band is often referred to, in the music press, as a 'marriage,' suggests a level of gender complexity beyond the theatrical camp of Mick Jagger's stage persona. In these 'marriages' the guitarist usually assumes the more masculine role." Burton quotes an interviewer who asked Keith Richards, "How's the wife?" Richards answers, "He's a good bitch." Burton adds, "Page and Plant took the features of the rock marriage familiar to us from our analysis of the similar relationship between Mick and Keith, but amplified the ambiguity as much as they amplified the music."
This marriage ritual serves to supply the masculine and feminine aspects entirely through male figures, thus achieving the exclusion of women that the audience is seeking, while still providing a balanced and satisfying image. Burton again: "Ruth Padel comments on Plant's willingness to express a feminine sexuality in this track, terming Whole Lotta Love: a cock-proud slam. "I'm gonna give you every inch of MAH LURVE," howls Robert Plant, and roars out the woman's orgasm for her. They are his achievement. Here Padel identifies the main purpose of Robert Plant's vocal cross dressing; to express the complete exclusion of women from the world of hard rock."
Burton concludes of Led Zeppelin, ""At the same time as providing a model of masculinity more rampantly sexual than ever before, their music contains this sense of sexuality within the safe fantasy of a homo-social world, an all boys club where even the voice of women is produced and controlled by men."
In conclusion then, the attraction of exclusively male bands to men in the seventies was driven by a combination of standard adolescent and post-adolescent fear of women's sexuality sent into overdrive by the rapidly changing gender roles of the 1970s. The love and worship of these bands provided a safe masculine zone complete with a hypersexual model of masculinity.
References.
[1] Frith, Simon and Angela McRobbie. "Rock and Sexuality." On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word. Eds. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodman. London: Routledge, 1990
[2] Sue Wise, Sexing Elvis (1990).
[3] Camille Paglia in No Girls Allowed? In the World of Guitar Boasts, Few Women Let Their Fingers Do the Talking By David Segal Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page N01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19175-2004Aug20?language=printer
[4] David Segal, Ibid.
[5] Simon Reynolds and Joy Press; The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock and Roll 1995
[6] In the Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music; Susan Fast 2001
[7] Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live.
[8] Rolling Stone, http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/ledzeppelin/albums/album/197643/review/5944431/in_through_the_out_door
[9] Toby Litt, in http://www.hamishhamilton.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,214511_9_1,00.html
[10] Jack Burton, Dude Looks Like A Lady: Straight Camp and the Homo-social World of Hard Rock. University of Edinburgh. Available in full at http://forum.llc.ed.ac.uk/issue4/burton.html
[11] The Popular Music Studies Reader, Andy Bennett, Barry Shank, Jason Toynbee p 367
Excerpts from the books quoted are available on Google at
In the houses of the holy; http://books.google.com/books?id=lZslRYfLlKEC&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=%22led+zeppelin%22+%22male+fans%22&source=web&ots=y5u2lUuLUC&sig=WdUc7n5g6vMnu0jDDGXy96xF8mw#PPA167,M1
The Popular Music Studies Reader,http://books.google.com/books?id=QQZ...MH3A#PPA367,M1
Heavy rock music, prior to Glam Metal, provided masculine role model for boys who had to go through puberty during a time of significant changes in gender roles. It was important for them to have a space where no girls were allowed – or at least where they believed that no girls were allowed – which rock in general seemed to offer. Led Zeppelin's lyrics and music combined to affirm their fear of women while simultaneously providing a hypermasculine model onto which both feelings of alienation and sexual feelings could both be projected.
The sixties. We've all heard about them. The seventies were worse.
The sixties and seventies – the Sexual Revolution – was a time of significant change for gender roles. It was an unusually difficult time for a male adolescent to grow up, and the extreme image fluctuations of rock bands during this time both mirrored these changes and helped drive them. Jack Burton, in Dude Looks Like a Lady [10] says the fact that Robert Plant "continues to be all man, while simultaneously looking and sounding like a woman, suggests that the straight camp of the rock god provides a more complex function than the questioning of gender roles," and that "this commercialisation of gender ambiguity takes place at a time of extensive social change is no coincidence. After any revolution comes a period of uncertainty, and the sexual revolution of the 1960s was no exception. With the contraceptive pill not only allowing people to engage in seemingly risk free sexual intercourse, but also, more importantly, allowing women to take control of their own reproductive potential, traditional gender relations were suddenly shown to be problematic."
No girls allowed.
Music critics over the years have generally assumed that rock music is a male-only preserve. Simon Frith and Angela McRobbie say of rock, "the general atmosphere is sexually exclusive, its euphoria depends on the absence of women."[1] Sue Wise said, "it is undoubtedly a prospect threatening to men and many women that male rock stars' power and sexuality could be understood, appropriated, or even controlled by a woman."[2] Camille Paglia, quoted in the Washington Post article below says, "Rock is a male form. For an adolescent boy, your guitar speaks for you, it says what you can't say in real life, it's the pain you can't express, it's rage, hormones pumping. Women can be strangers and all of a sudden have an intimate conversation. Boys can't do that. The guitar for a boy speaks to an aggressive sexual impulse and suppressed emotionality, the things that boys can't share, even with other members of the band. It's a combination of rage and reserve and ego."[3] According to Chuck Klosterman, author of "Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural North Dakota, "metal stops being good when it develops a female audience, in turn, alienating its primary male audience." Frith and McRobbie add, "Cock rock shows are explicitly about male sexual performance, which might explain why so few girls go to them – the musicians are acting out a sexual iconography which in many ways is unfamiliar, frightening and distasteful to girls who are educated into understanding sex as something nice, soft, loving and private."[1]
Clearly, there aren't many female rock stars. In the Washington Post article, David Segal says, "Reasonable people can argue about whether there are any guitar heroines" and "women buy just 7% of all electric guitars in this country…the electric guitar…is considered unladylike". He writes, "Boys learn guitar to meet girls. For a girl, outplaying the boys onstage isn't necessarily a key to the male heart." [4]
Soul of a Woman…something to do with legs…
For young boys in this phase, Led Zeppelin provides a supportative environment backed up with lyrical examples. Critics have noted this tendency in Zeppelin lyrics many times over the years. "…Plant's overt misogyny fused with Page's obsession with the occult… since that combination allows adolescent males to reconcile the alienation of unhinged teenage sexuality with their own inescapable geekiness." [Chuck Klosterman, 7] "On their masterpiece, "Dazed and Confused," for example, Plant made the same old misogyny sound like profound insight, while Page thundered through his orchestral guitar rumble."[Rolling Stone, 8] "Led Zeppelin's music is based almost entirely on misogyny. Their defining lyric is 'soul of a woman was created below'. (Although this is partially contradicted by the line 'a big legged woman ain't got no soul'.) Whenever Robert Plant ran out of something to sing, he fell back on the woman-worshipping-woman-chastising clichés of the blues. And if all else failed there was always, 'Baby-baby-baby... waaaaaagh!'" [Toby Litt, 9]
"When the Levee Breaks" has been read as the singer fearing "feminine engulfment"[5]. Susan Fast (a Zeppelin-friendly female critic) disagrees. She has doubts about Reynolds and Press's description in their take on Levee in which they say "women often loom as a demonic threat in Led Zeppelin's songs". "Reynolds and Press do not tell us, specifically, where or how the "fear of feminine engulfment" occurs in the song." However, I believe Fast is wrong; it can quite easily be read that way. When the levee breaks, it says, it's enough to drive a monkey man from his home. To hammer home the point, the mix turns inside out, washing out the entire band in a flood, and Plant, half afloat, moans "going down, going down" – a double entendre eminently readable as representing a man overwhelmed by female sexuality. And Fast does agree with Reynolds and Press in their gloomy take on Dazed and Confused. "Love is disorientation, debility and paralysis. Dazed and Confused is the definitive take on this scenario". They say of the singer, "his mind is poisoned and befogged by the noxious fumes of her feminine miasma. He's at death's door, flaccid and enfeebled."[5, 6]
Hieros Gamos and suchlike.
How does a rock band provide a substitute for the female companionship it claims you are better off without? Why is the spectacle attractive to young male fans? There is a major analysis in Jack Burton,[10] which is available in its entirety on the web. I'll briefly recap his argument here. Frith and McRobbie, in Rock and Sexuality[1] define Cock Rock thusly: "Cock rock performers are aggressive, dominating, and boastful, and they constantly seek to remind the audience of their prowess, their control. Their stance is obvious in live shows; male bodies on display, plunging shirts and tight trousers, a visual emphasis on chest hair and genitals - Cock rock shows are explicitly about male sexual performance."
At the same time as the performers are acting out the hypermasculinist fantasies of their male audience, they are providing a mixed message of masculinity and femininity to their already dazed and confused devotees. Chuck Klosterman says, "They sound sexy and sexist and sexless." Burton points to the symbolism of the guitar, "Firstly: the obvious phallic symbolism of the guitar. Usually worn at crotch height, the long, straight neck is wielded like a weapon. Drawing focus away from the musician and onto the instrument the guitar serves as phallic symbol of the performer's potent masculinity. Secondly: the mastery of an instrument is an example of the acquisition of technical skill, again often associated with a traditional masculine posture." But to that must be added the femininity of the singer, "Plant's physicality on stage deliberately emphasises this almost feminine sexual allure. He is described by one male reviewer as "breathtakingly beautiful, rather like a choirboy possessed by the spirit of Gene Vincent." Burton quotes Helen Davies as saying, "Singing is generally regarded as natural. Anyone can do it and it is wrongly perceived as not requiring practice and work, and therefore undervalued - I would argue that it is generally assumed that singing is a feminine skill." In The Popular Music Studies Reader, Susan Fast quotes Robert Plant as saying, "My vocal style I haven't tried to copy from anyone. It just developed until it became the girlish whine that it is today." [11] She quotes from various critics who make a point that Plant's vocal style, from the throat and not the chest, is not "bodily" – "It's as if in rock convention… the sexiest male voice is the least bodily" – but she disagrees saying, "it is precisely this straining and the use of distortion that puts the body into the music" and "this high male voice opens another interesting space for the consideration of gender performance…male fans have commented on this [girlish whine] as a desirable attribute." She goes on, "the moaning, screaming, and 'overflowing of channels' characteristic of hard rock signing points very strongly to an emotional landscape that has traditionally (and also essentially) been associated with femininity."
The masculine and feminine elements on the rock stage have often been described as "a marriage". Jack Burton: "That the relationship between the lead singer and the lead guitarist of a rock band is often referred to, in the music press, as a 'marriage,' suggests a level of gender complexity beyond the theatrical camp of Mick Jagger's stage persona. In these 'marriages' the guitarist usually assumes the more masculine role." Burton quotes an interviewer who asked Keith Richards, "How's the wife?" Richards answers, "He's a good bitch." Burton adds, "Page and Plant took the features of the rock marriage familiar to us from our analysis of the similar relationship between Mick and Keith, but amplified the ambiguity as much as they amplified the music."
This marriage ritual serves to supply the masculine and feminine aspects entirely through male figures, thus achieving the exclusion of women that the audience is seeking, while still providing a balanced and satisfying image. Burton again: "Ruth Padel comments on Plant's willingness to express a feminine sexuality in this track, terming Whole Lotta Love: a cock-proud slam. "I'm gonna give you every inch of MAH LURVE," howls Robert Plant, and roars out the woman's orgasm for her. They are his achievement. Here Padel identifies the main purpose of Robert Plant's vocal cross dressing; to express the complete exclusion of women from the world of hard rock."
Burton concludes of Led Zeppelin, ""At the same time as providing a model of masculinity more rampantly sexual than ever before, their music contains this sense of sexuality within the safe fantasy of a homo-social world, an all boys club where even the voice of women is produced and controlled by men."
In conclusion then, the attraction of exclusively male bands to men in the seventies was driven by a combination of standard adolescent and post-adolescent fear of women's sexuality sent into overdrive by the rapidly changing gender roles of the 1970s. The love and worship of these bands provided a safe masculine zone complete with a hypersexual model of masculinity.
References.
[1] Frith, Simon and Angela McRobbie. "Rock and Sexuality." On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word. Eds. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodman. London: Routledge, 1990
[2] Sue Wise, Sexing Elvis (1990).
[3] Camille Paglia in No Girls Allowed? In the World of Guitar Boasts, Few Women Let Their Fingers Do the Talking By David Segal Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, August 22, 2004; Page N01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19175-2004Aug20?language=printer
[4] David Segal, Ibid.
[5] Simon Reynolds and Joy Press; The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock and Roll 1995
[6] In the Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music; Susan Fast 2001
[7] Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live.
[8] Rolling Stone, http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/ledzeppelin/albums/album/197643/review/5944431/in_through_the_out_door
[9] Toby Litt, in http://www.hamishhamilton.co.uk/nf/shared/WebDisplay/0,,214511_9_1,00.html
[10] Jack Burton, Dude Looks Like A Lady: Straight Camp and the Homo-social World of Hard Rock. University of Edinburgh. Available in full at http://forum.llc.ed.ac.uk/issue4/burton.html
[11] The Popular Music Studies Reader, Andy Bennett, Barry Shank, Jason Toynbee p 367
Excerpts from the books quoted are available on Google at
In the houses of the holy; http://books.google.com/books?id=lZslRYfLlKEC&pg=PA168&lpg=PA168&dq=%22led+zeppelin%22+%22male+fans%22&source=web&ots=y5u2lUuLUC&sig=WdUc7n5g6vMnu0jDDGXy96xF8mw#PPA167,M1
The Popular Music Studies Reader,http://books.google.com/books?id=QQZ...MH3A#PPA367,M1
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Transformers (DVD, 2007)
I just saw Transformers. Not sure why; I didn't order it. It was actually far better than I thought it would be. Great production values and some astonishingly well-framed shots, particularly of violence and mayhem. (It's a Michael Bay film.) I particularly loved the girl's slo-mo scream during a rocket attack near one of the endings. Bravo!
However it went on approximately four thousand hours too long and the creepily obvious attempt to stuff in every single stereotype character from every film ever made - I couldn't possibly begin to list them all, I'd fall asleep - makes me give this a thumbs down.
And for its implicit assumption that the only humans ever to have lived on Earth are Southern Californians from the year ca. 2000, I sentence the writers and directors to be hanged from a bridge by their feet pour encourager les autres.
However it went on approximately four thousand hours too long and the creepily obvious attempt to stuff in every single stereotype character from every film ever made - I couldn't possibly begin to list them all, I'd fall asleep - makes me give this a thumbs down.
And for its implicit assumption that the only humans ever to have lived on Earth are Southern Californians from the year ca. 2000, I sentence the writers and directors to be hanged from a bridge by their feet pour encourager les autres.
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