this is my year

Waking Up From History: Music, Time, and Place
The 2007 Pop Conference at Experience Music Project
April 19-22, 2007
Seattle , Washington

So before this was announced (click the link for a little more), the idea that's been brewing in my mind for a proposal is a look at ESL-rock ... bands whose first language isn't English, singing in English. That fits the "place" rubric, sort of, if we're talking about the countries the bands are from. I also had something in mind about music critic attitudes toward Asian women in indie rock (Deerhoof, Blonde Redhead, Cibo Matto, Asobi Seksu & so on), essentialism, & Orientalism.

Actually, I think there's a ton of essentializing done by critics regarding Japanese women in rock bands -- they are almost always seen as "cute" and "quirky."

This is my abstract that was not accepted last year. The form rejection e-mail mentioned a number of proposals about Christianity. (The theme was "shame.") I should have known. I never wrote this essay, but I should note that since I wrote the abstract, there have been several books and one documentary released about pretty much this very subject.

Not Ashamed: Teenagers and the Embarrassment of Christian Rock

There is an epic struggle to not be uncool that accompanies the quest to marry religion and rock. The author’s story (ca. 1995) is like that of so many other Christian teenagers who ditch youth group for rock shows without ditching the quest for Truth. Oh Lord, the embarrassment of being stuck between nascent faith and clutches toward high school conformity; the sincere desire to make sense of this world in some mystical sense and yet crumbling, too mortified to explain, when that older kid looked at my MxPx t-shirt asked “Is that, like, Catholic rock?”

Like anybody, I just wanted to navigate the hierarchies of high school. But couldn’t leave God behind, even though I only half- believed the industry that sold Christian bands and promised rewards, souls “won” and friends made if only I’d invite nonbelieving friends to concerts! We would show “the world”: we would make our ska/punk/emo/rap almost as good as theirs so they’d just HAVE to listen, HAVE to realize that Jesus was cool, that we were cool, please, just look at us.

It takes time to understand that Jesus is not cool and neither is the best music and that it is OK. This essay aims to find out what was at stake between the Christian Rock and the teen-cool hard place—money, sex, popularity, faith?—and, by examining the current Christian rock scene and the teenagers in it, to see if anything has changed or if it is still dc Talk and the library vs. Eminem and keg parties.