My Imperfect Offering: A Call for Contributions

A call for contributions

I am going to try to put together a zine this year and I'm inviting you to contribute.

It will be a one-time (with the hope of more times) publication about the intersection of popular music, religion, and real life. The plan is to get it printed here in China, where I live, where printing is way cheap, and make it available when I return to the US in the summer. It will be a short print run. I'm not sure how short - pretty short.

So, what I am looking for is personal/revelatory writing about the relationship between (pop) music and religion. The only theme I have in mind is the word "sacrament," which I think is broad and vague enough to drum up some non-broad and vague stories in which pop music is somehow a tangible force, an object that actually is part of things. Not a bunch of boring "analysis." Maybe like about 400 to 1000 words, but could be more or less. I'd be looking for something you have not published before and which you can agree to not put on the internet. In fact I don't care if you want to publish it again in another print form, as long as it will not be on the internet. If you feel like you can trust me, after one year I will split all the proceeds among all contributors (after printing and mailing costs). You will probably get, like, a dollar.

PLUS (appreciated):

+ conflict / crisis + stories  + "secular" music +  religious music approached in new/interesting ways + revelatory things about human nature + particular religious tradition(s) + albums no one has heard of

MINUS (less appreciated but not totally illegal):

- Making fun of Christian music -"analysis" - Writing about being a writer - Albums made in the 21st century - Using the word "culture" - "spiritual but not religious"

A few particular things that would be welcome aside from what's mentioned above:

- Reviews of obscure albums from the 20th century

- Interviews with relatively non-famous people who have done something unique with pop music and religion

- Writing by or about priests, nuns or monks, especially if you can find any who have been in rock bands.

Please get in touch in the next few weeks if you are interested. You can email me via the link on the right-hand side of this blog.

Not From Beijing: Chinese Indie Rock

Here is the piece that I tentatively titled Notable Indie Rock Releases of 2008 By Bands Not From Beijing, for Blurt (formerly Harp). I highly recommend Wang Wen's album IV - my favorite Chinese release of 2008 - and also Graeme Nicol's photos of their 2008 tour here.

Other notable Chindie releases of 2008:

Brain Failure - Beijing Calling EP (with Chuck D). This is "notable," but not good. Imagine an Irish-American punk band feauturig a Chuck D impersonator and you've got it. (Yes, I know it is the actual Chuck D.)

Two compilations from NeoCha.com's Netlabel - Tomorrow's Afternoon Tea (female indie s/s - download)and Post-Rock (um, post-rock - download). NeoCha is like MySpace for China, but a thousand times better because it's still "underground," if that's possible. Their NEXT streaming audio player is an excellent way to hear bazillions of completely unknown Chinese bands.

B6 - Post Haze. Shanghai producer and 1/2 of synthpop duo I-GO.

PK14 - City Weather Sailing (download or stream, try not to be scared of all that Chinese. Maybe you can start learning!). Fantastically dark and complex record from one of Beijing's longest-lasting indie bands.  One of the best resources for independent Chinese music -- especially if you don't read Chinese -- is the Rock in China wiki, an absolute goldmine of information. Very strong contender for best album of the year, but not in the Blurt article because they are from BJ.

Sulumi - Chaotic Dances the Function. (download) 8-bit chaos - notable but not my 一杯茶。

Finally: 0ne of the best resources for independent Chinese music -- especially if you don't read Chinese -- is the Rock in China wiki, an absolute goldmine of information. 

Can Bands "Do" Things Without Doing Things?

I happened to notice the headline for the article about the winner of this year's Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll: "The Revenge of TV on the Radio: Bob Dylan (and the Voice itself) finally humbled, Dear Science wins the 36th Annual Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll." Apparently last year, or two years ago, more people voted for Dylan (and the Voice ran a cover with a drawing of Dylan running over TVOTR in a car or something like that), but not this year. So here's the thing: to say TV On the Radio "got revenge" on Bob Dylan implies that the band did something.

The best writing about music -- or about anything, for that matter -- cracks things open, reveals things. Finding what's hidden and bringing to light what a band or album does is a worthwhile pursuit for the critic. But it's kind of funny when music critics (myself included) exercise this power to animate bands and albums, to suggest that a band or album has done something when what has actually happened is that the band or album has been written about or understood in a certain way. It's a kind of speech act by proxy (or maybe not by proxy, actually), but does it hold the same weight as a minister saying "I now pronounce you husband and wife?" 

The Voice declares that TV on the Radio got revenge, Bob Dyland and the Voice were humbled, and Dear Science won the poll. It seems that only the last act is true. If somebody writes "Band X has won Contest Y," where Contest Y is a critics' poll, the subject, the doer, is obviously Band X, but of course the Band had nothing to do with winning the contest. The implication, "I declare that Band X has won Contest Y," itself implies, "According to the rules, which are that if enough people say Band X is the best band, I will declare that Band X has won Contest Y." That all seems legit, but the other things can't be said to have actually taken place outside a few (hundred?) peoples' imagination -- or maybe not even that. I guess it depends on what you think of critics' polls in general.

Sad Robots / Why I Write What I Write

808s and Heartbreak in the NCJ,

Self-indulgent navelgazing at Good Letters.

Marco Collins on KEXP - "This is the first time I've been on the radio in Seattle in 11 years"

I am listening to KEXP right now and this DJ keeps talking about how he's nervous and it's his first show ever on KEXP. And it turns out it's Marco Collins! Former host of the Young and the Restless on KNDD (The End) a hundred years ago! Who remembers MxPx's live acoustic version of "Chick Magnet"?

Also he is playing a ton of Pacific NW music circa 1994. Awesome.

2008 Reviews

The Magnetic Fields - Distortion
Juno OST
The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
Be Your Own Pet - Get Awkward
Weezer - Weezer
Mates of State - Re-Arrange Us
Ben Folds - Way to Normal
Portishead - Third
P.O.D. - Where Angels and Serpents Dance

I guess that's all the album reviews I wrote this year. Was that it? I think a few more late reviews on 2008 releases will be forthcoming.

Why Yes, I AM Blogging For A Prestigous Literary Journal

Pretty much.

Semantics

You know what's funny? I was just thinking how "all ages" for rock music actually means about 13 to 21. Anyway. Finishing up a travel piece for That's Shanghai which has been interesting, but is not really the kind of thing I normally do. Tonight, I went to a music school jam session and heard some guys play "Why Not Take All of Me" complete with Sinatra-like vocals and also met a kid who is an a metal band called Death God. PS, I live in China.