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Editorial Review Product Description
Critiquing avant-garde rock bands from the 1960s to the present, Bill Martin examines how social upheaval gave rise to this new form of musical expression. He covers early experimentation by artists such as James Brown; initiation into the mainstream and the resulting adaptations by the Beatles and the Who; and continues into the present looking at how groups like Stereolab, Sonic Youth, Jim O’Rourke, and others continue to innovate. An annotated discography is included. ... Read more Customer Reviews (6)
"The Music of My Perpetually 16 Year Old Self" by Bill Martin
This is one of those glorious non-fiction books where ultimately you learn more about the author-- his or her personality, pet peeves, neuroses, excruciating autobiographical vignettes-- than the actual subject they're supposed to be writing about.Another wonderful example is the stellar tome "Fish Cookery" by one Russ Lockwood-- a truly mesmerizing read.
Bill Martin is essentially writing a self-indulgent love letter to the music of his youth here with little regard to anything outside his narrow range of reference.To put the prog rockers Yes on a pedestal as the gods of "avant-rock" (a loaded term, I should mention, that Martin fails to unpack despite his hyperbolic verbosity) is ridiculous.To mention them 25 times (sometimes in great length and pseudo-analysis) in the course of a 250 page book is even more ridiculous.If Martin is so fixated on the idea that progressive rock=avant-garde, maybe he should have focused more on Fred Frith than Steve Howe.
Yet as Fripp says in his hilariously contrived and pretentious introduction, Martin's heart really is in the right place.He really has pure convictions about the music he loves, and is genuinely zealous about spreading the gospel truth about what he thinks the avant-garde is all about.But Martin is so out of touch with the developments in the underground experimental music scene that his efforts are painful to read.I just want to take him to a No-Neck Blues Band improv set, or a Boredoms drum orgy concert, or hell, even a Residents show (how could he fail to mention THEM?!?!?!?) and say, "Look-- There is life beyond 'Works Vol. 1'!"Oh Bill . . .
Philosophy meets prog
The strength of this book? Doubtless the first rock guide written by a philosophy professor (DePaul U., Chicago) steeped in humanistic Marxian and anti-capitalist social critique. This grounding in a field far removed from conventional music criticism-- which too often mixes hyperbole, b.s., trivia, and gossip-- gives Martin's observations in his opening apologia for prog and the avant-garde freshness by their intellectual diversity. As a bass player, his thirty years of playing allow him to comment on the music as a practitioner, informing his comments on what he hears and analyzes. His comments on punk are thoughtful; he succinctly targets the contradiction of a movement using technology to challenge the mass media. Finally, although I have not the slightest liking for many of his chosen bands-- notably Yes whom he slavishly admires (I know, we all have our favorite musicians whom others despise!)-- he does explain the appeal of progressive rock's "generous synthesis" (74) of varied influences into intelligent (well, depending often on your own tastes) music that challenges audiences and rewards the committed fan. It's pointless for me to cavil with his specific favorites; suffice to say they do go beyond whatever limits the poorly chosen subtitle suggests. (By the way, Martin does the near impossible for many readers; he defends Yoko Ono's artistic mission persuasively.)
The lists begin well prior to the full impact of the Beatles, by the way. If only Martin could have known at the time of writing of Matthew Barney and Bjork's future alliance-- this might have extended the cultural critiques within another fifty pages!! Why Merzbow but not Acid Mothers Temple? Any reader is doomed to pose similar questions. Still, a few of his choices, especially Scott Miller's bands Game Theory and The Loud Family, show that his interests, for once, intersect with mine! He remembers a very low-profile group like The Method Actors, and his range while uneven does show he listens to a lot of music across the innovative fringes, not only the keyboard-laden acid-tinged epics circa 1973 that one might suspect from the attention given the heyday of prog in the earlier 70s. Like any good critic, Martin allows you to understand his rationale for what he likes and dislikes even if you do not share his particular choices marshalled as support.
Weaknesses, however, make this book far less than it should have been. Typos and superficial errors mar the copy. This lack of proofreading discourages readers expecting that an established professor and author of Sartrean, Derridean, and postmodern philosophical studies would deliver a solid, carefully prepared manuscript. While I do not mind the easygoing nature of his prose, the more exacting academic may find Martin's laid-back style insufficiently rigorous, and the less brainy fan may find Martin's formidable intellectual references less than immediately comprehensible. Martin's decision to trudge year-by-year in the middle of his book with a list of pertinent albums annually released followed by his comments on them makes for scattershot coverage. It's as if part of a record guide fell into an Open University primer on the Frankfurt School.
Bjork, Coltrane, Glenn Gould, Cecil Taylor, Miles Davis, and King Crimson (the latter you'd assume as Robert Fripp contributes a brief forward) gain considerable attention (as does Yes en passim) at the expense of the lesser known, often indie releases (such as those by Scott Miller's bands mentioned above, or Faust and Pere Ubu to take two random examples) that need increased exposure to the audience that would read this book. I know one progresses from the more to the less familiar in engaging details that the general reader can follow, and Martin needs to build his investigation upon better-known musical inventions. However, he does not move into less explored territory, where less-heralded artists keep experimenting, enough. The connections between the more famed and the still overlooked needed to be drawn tighter and plotted more clearly. Instead, it's a jumble of musicians you've heard of and ones you haven't. Not bad in itself, but how the two groups intersect remains too sketchy.
The more prominent musicians here have much ink spilled and bytes devoured already devoted to their every recording; the amount of detail that Martin gives over to the "stars" of progressive rock and its offshoots often makes the familiar artists seem too familiar by critiques that rehash what a diligent fan would already know. This book falls between two chairs: it will tell the prog fan much he or she already knows, but it will frustrate the curious who wish to delve deeper. It's too shallow a guide to what the less-familiar musicians actually sound like. Many of the lesser-known musicians receive but a nod in passing. Thus the choices of less-familiar music will remain uncertain and the curious will likely stay only that. Repeatedly, the bias towards these name artists leaves the obscure artists he includes with often only a bare mention or an aside much too vague. The focus of his analysis, if it was to capitalize upon the mention of works famed and overlooked, needed to stay on the lesser-known musicians at least as steadily alongside those that any prog or avant-garde fan would already be more or less aware of. By alluding to more obscure works without explaining their appeal, Martin does those musicians needing attention too small a favor.
The critical forays that mark the last third of the book show his academic side returning. While his points on "sci-fi medievalism" (223) and the rise of a "screen mentality" (226) shared by students and musicians employing the Net deserve hearing, this portion is-- perhaps inevitably?-- not as accessible as the opening and middle sections, thus leaving the book rather disjointed into its three sections. It's also far too scattered, wandering from Deleuze & Guattari to Radiohead to chess to cognivitist vs. emotivist ethics. Martin mixes personal reflections with rock criticism and intellectual digressions. Certainly not a mix usually found in pop music writing, and for this fusion of intriguing fields, Martin's attempt deserves recognition. However, this book I suspect will be much improved upon by the efforts of future scholars-- if they can have the advantage of academic training, a steady post at a university, and enough time to pursue a love of music and a passion for thinking.
In our late capitalist times indeed, such a combination afforded a privileged few critics (or even more those rich enough to buy all the records and keep up with all of the trends that far surpass output in the 60s) becomes rarer to find in our corporatized universities, bottom-line suppression of pursuits such as philosophy, and lemming-like chain-store herded instincts towards buying a SoundScan success. Martin may bemoan his paycheck, but he occupies a key position in academia that bridges musical practice, pop music, and sophisticated critical analysis; may he use his power well. Although he seems here rather undisciplined as a writer and the book lacks cohesion, he shows a lively mind able to bridge connections to examples as disparate as Larry Bird, "Frasier," and Courtney Cox in a "Friends"-related video!
He also cites William Gibson's novel All Tomorrow's Parties on urban spaces for alternative subcultures and their decline due to their being "harvested" by commodification before they could "ripen." This analogy supports Martin's claims well, but he abandons it too early and he drifts back into arcane philosophical debate. I wish Martin had expanded his conclusion considering the dispersal of music and musicians due to computers and the effect this has on band cohesion and the marketing by photogenic "faces" of musicians. These intriguing points are mentioned, but too briefly elaborated. In the questioning of mass culture vs. a subculture placed in opposition to it that claims itself more authentic, this circles back, naturally, to the opening of Martin's book and its positioning of counter-hegemonic musical forces within as well as beyond a mass media marketing monolith. I do admire the associations Martin makes between his bass and his brain, his ears and his tomes. He must be quite a lecturer, for the book shows an ease with handling quite disparate pursuits. But the handling slips, and the seams are left half-stitched. It'll be intriguing too to see how blogging critics in our wireless, MySpace, iPod era that seems to have already superseded that he writes of a mere four years ago will expand upon the theoretical and musical directions that Martin's trailblazing, flawed but brave report suggests.
An admirable effort, but...
Sonic Youth. Jim O'Rourke. Yes. Bjork. Get used to these names right now, because Bill Martin is going to repeatedly ram them down your throat until he is certain you've gone out and purchased their entire discographies. Although perhaps I'm being too harsh - I can think of worse artists for Martin to focus on. However I am inclined to agree with what's already been stated - Martin tackles this book with a disturbingly narrow scope. There are two main reasons why Martin's book does not rise above an average rating.
1. Bill Martin himself. While the man clearly knows a great deal about music, I don't think he is necessarily the right man to write a book about such an all-encompassing term as "avant rock" (more on that later). As I said before, Martin's personal bias intrudes on almost every single page on this book. In fact, as soon as I read on the back of the book he had written books both about Yes and about progressive rock, I knew there would be trouble. I have no qualms with the inclusion of progressive rock in this book, as it has obviously made extensive contributions to the avant rock genre. But when the name Yes appears on twenty nine pages and, say, the Boredoms (who are THE band that jump to mind when I think of avant rock) appear on zero, I think there's a bit of a problem. Just leafing through the index will tell you who Martin's favorites are simply based on sheer numbers of pages they occupy; not whether or not they were crucial to the avant rock scene.
As he approaches the end of the 90's, it becomes increasingly clear that save for a few of his favorites, Martin has lost touch with whatever avant rock scene might exist. For example, in his list of essential avant rock albums for 1999, Rage Against the Machine's Battle of Los Angeles is included. Perhaps fitting if this were a book about the history of nu-metal or rap-rock, but horrendously out of place in a book such as this.
Or how about including bassist Kev Hopper's Spoombung in his 1998 list (which is just one of a meager five albums he feels noteworthy enough to list)? Would it surprise you if I told you that Martin himself is also a bassist?
2. The title. In choosing "Avant Rock" as the title to the book, Martin is basically free to drop the names of whatever musician he feels like without even having to justify their inclusion. Artists like Merzbow, John Cage, Cecil Taylor, Arnold Schoenberg,John Coltrane are discussed at length, and while all are outstanding musicians with obvious contributions to the avant-garde, I don't see how their connections with rock music are so deep as to warrant such extensive discussion at the expense of other musicians (perhaps no one transcends the avant-garde and rock/pop music like Mike Patton, yet he is relegated to a blurb in Martin's rambling making-up-for-lost-ground essay at the end of the book).
This book could have been (and still can be) done with someone who is a lot more involved in the avant garde scene. Martin's heart is indeed in the right place (as Robert Fripp's foreword states), but he just doesn't have the knowledge of the genre that this type of book demands.
I gave this book three stars because it is a sort of "winner by default" book. There are not too many other comprehensive guides to this kind of music, so Avant Rock would probably be a great place to start if you are just getting into the genre and want to do a little exploring. Experienced fans, however, will find it harder to look past Martin's glaring omissions, blatant idol worship, and awkward topic- and chronology-jumping.
Engaging, but chock full of errors
There are several facts that just aren't right in this book, and it bothered me. I mean, saying that Sterling Morrison is still teaching "to this day" should have been a showstopper (memo to the author: he died some 5-6 years before the book was published). And "Sweet Ray" ain't a VU song (though from the context it's pretty obvious he meant "Sweet Jane"). I'll stop here, but there's plenty more. Greg Kot and Jim Derogatis supplied blurbs for the back cover; did these guys actually read the book? I can't believe they would have let these obvious bloopers slide.
On the positive side, I did enjoy reading it and it's great to see someone who champions new rock from Tortoise and Jim O'Rourke and is unafraid to connect them to "prog", and not just the "prog" that's considered "cool" (King Crimson) but the "uncool" stuff like Yes and ELP. One last thing: why no mention of My Bloody Valentine? "Isn't Anything" and "Loveless" were avant rock milestones arguably just as important as "Sister" and "Daydream Nation", but they didn't even merit a sentence in this book.
From Yoko Ono to King Crimson and beyond
At first glance the term "avant-garde rock" may be a contradiction in terms, but upon further reflection it provides an umbrella term for trends which emerged through the cultural and political upheavals of the 1960s. From Yoko Ono to King Crimson and beyond, Professor Martin's Avant Rock cogently analyzes both artists and groups, offering new insights into the emerging styles of this musical genre.
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