the quest for inauthenticity
Ran across this review for Japrocksampler, and this bit (which follows a pretty glowing review otherwise) caught my eye:
With detailed accounts of the above incident and others, Japrocksampler stands as a pretty good social history of Japan in the '60s and '70s. However, the book will likely appeal most to serious rock music fans who will be sent into a collecting frenzy over Cope's Top 50 Japrock LPs index.
For all of its merits, it must be said that Japrocksampler is rather sloppily written and edited. There are a number of misspellings and factual errors, and Cope has a bad habit of repeating himself.
Yes and no. I actually acquired some of this stuff awhile back. Les Rallizes Denudes hasn't really done anything for me yet, and i've had the stuff for a couple of years at the least. I don't think Cope's praise of them is going to sway me yet.
As for Cope's style of writing, sloppy and repetitive, i don't fucking mind. When i first got on the internet in '93 or '94, one the first thing that i stumbled on with that damned Lynx browser was a Julian Cope site called Soul Desert, which included the old NME article, Tales from the Drug Attic. It was also partly complete bullshit, but it didn't matter. Cope's mythmaking is worth more for keeping the fires alive than getting every petty, mundane detail straight.
Nah, i'm actual into this book not to explore freaky Japanese rock, but to follow Cope's quest for inauthenticity. After all of those articles from Sasha Frere-Jones, Carl Wilson, and Frank Kogan, i was left feeling a little frustrated. Something was nagging at me that i couldn't quite place. All of this talk about miscegenation, class struggle, ect. had validity but something was bugging me. Krautrock. (Can was mentioned, but not Faust, Neu! or Amon Duul 2.) Tropicalia. You know, the hipster shit that falls outside of the usual range of white, middle class kids ripping off black working class musicians...the formulae seem overly simplified.
Then i dove into Japrocksampler last night to remember Julian Cope's complete contempt for authenticity. Cope & i don't share the same taste in music (that crazy bastard has gone far too metal for me over the years,) but some of his theories are gospel truth to me.
The act of creation through fucking up in copying a previously existing style or work is an extremely fertile one. Yeah, innovation can come about through conscious improvement, striving for some ideal, but it seems more common that these things happen through happy accidents. The indie rockers don't need to be copying black artist more consciously and carefully to be more rocking, or whatever the hell Frere-Jones was on about. They just need to be less formal, less conscious. Cope's interpretation of rock and roll as some kind of cosmic yawp is not perfect, but please don't try to con me with indie rock being too white. My black acquaintances frequently make it known to me that their idea of a good rock band is the Dave Matthews Band. Do i really want to trust what is authentic rocking music by the color of the listener's skin?
There are some fantastic points in all of those articles, but it feels like the real problem is the quest for authenticity.
Nope. I don't know where to go from there right now. The video file that i was waiting to compile has just finished compiling so i need to gt back to work.
The next step seems to be something to do with Will Oldham. He's had all kinds of articles written about him concerning authenticity, or rather the lack of it. that reminds me of the original article, by Sasah Frere-Jones:
Last month, in the Times, the white folk rocker Devendra Banhart declared his admiration for R. Kelly’s new R. & B. album “Double Up.” Thirty years ago, Banhart might have attempted to imitate R. Kelly’s perverse and feather-light soul. Now he’s just a fan.
Isn't it enough that Will Oldham has covered R Kelly's "Ignition?" Now he's covering "The World's Greatest." Why did he pick that particular folkie Banhart instead of Oldham?
Frere-Jones follows that though with:
The uneasy, and sometimes inappropriate, borrowings and imitations that set rock and roll in motion gave popular music a heat and an intensity that can’t be duplicated today, and the loss isn’t just musical; it’s also about risk.
Maybe self-consciousness and an abundance of information play a greater role in the neutering of rock than lack of miscegenation or class warfare. They are paralyzed by awareness.
Now for Kogan:
“The Song Is The Single,” which starts “You make the record at night, ’cause everyone knows that rock ’n’ roll is the language of night/But this got made in the day; it was bright.” So what’s happening here is that the language of night -- black night or white night -- is no longer available. What you come up with is awkward in the light, but seems more true. Of course, this truth, this awkwardness, has long since become a shtick, a common blah. This means that the voice has to keep searching for itself anew. Night doesn’t work, day doesn’t work. Maybe twilight.
Maybe the voice shouldn't need to search for itself too often in charted territories in rock & roll. Revel in ignorance. Tear up the maps and sail by newly invented constellations. We are chained to history otherwise, and its weight in paralyzing.
But how does this explain my affection for constant references to rock history in bands like LCD Soundsystem?
Back to work. The video that was compiling is done.
