Empire of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie Music

337 Pages·2006·7.2 MB·English

by  Wendy Fonarow

Empire of Dirt

w e n d y f o n a r o w
✵
Empire of Dirt
t h e a e s t h e t i c s a n d r i t u a l s
o f b r i t i s h i n d i e m u s i c
✵
wesleyan university press
Middletown, Connecticut
Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT 06459
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress
© 2006 by Wendy Fonarow
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fonarow, Wendy.
Empire ofdirt : the aesthetics and rituals ofBritish indie music /
Wendy Fonarow.
p. cm. — (Music/culture series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978–0-8195–6810–6 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0–8195–6810–4 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn-13: 978–0-8195–6811–3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0–8195–6811–2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Alternative rock music—Great Britain—History and criticism.
2. Alternative rock music—Social aspects—Great Britain.
I. Title.
ml3534.6.g7f662005
781.660941—dc22 2006002876
"Cover design by Matthew Cooper."
For all of my ghosts

Contents
✵
Acknowledgments / viii
Introduction / 1
Beginnings/1 Theoretical Frame: From Observation to Communication/3
Active Bodies/4 The Audience and Subjectivity/6 Music as Activity/8
Subjectivity in Action/10 Turn On the Bright Lights6/11 Methodology/14
From Plus One to A&R/16 Your Itinerary/19 Conclusion/22
1. What Is “Indie”? / 25
Indie ... What’s at Stake?/27 Indie as a Mode ofDistribution:
An Industrial Definition/30 Indie as a Genre/39 Indie as an Ethos/51
Indie as Pathetic/53 Indie as a Mode ofAesthetic Judgement/57
The Mainstream Is a Centralized Hierarchy/62 Dance Is Not the Way the
Future Is Meant to Feel/69 Indie: What Is It?/77
2. The Zones of Participation / 79
The Event/81 Zone One/82 The Pit/86 The Front/92 Zone One
Spectatorship: The Initiates/95 The Psychosomatics ofZone One/98
Zone Two/105 The Mode ofComportment ofZone Two/106
Comportment Features That Vary over Space/107 Gigs as Social Life/109
The Process ofChange from Zone One to Zone Two/110
The Heterogeneous Audience/114 A Move toward the Exit/116
Conclusion/120
3. Zone Three and the Music Industry / 122
The Activities ofZone Three/123 The Liggers/125 The Guest List/128
Routine 1: Example ofProfessional Strategy/132 Routine 2: Example of
Personable Strategy/133 Routine 3: Code Switch from Professional to
Personable/135 Passes/138 Privileged Spectatorship/151 Conclusion/152
4. The Participant Structure and
the Metaphysics of Spectatorship/154
Proximity, Affiliation, and Consensus Building/155
Verticality and Asymmetry/160 Contesting Spectorial Positions: Closeness
and Distance/161 Age/163 The Metaphysics ofParticipation/166
African Expression in a Protestant World/175 The Nature ofthe
Moral Threat/179 A Ritual ofTransformation/182 Conclusion/184
5. Performance, Authenticity, and Emotion / 187
Indie’s Version ofAuthenticity/188 Indie’s Conventions ofBeing in
Performance/192 Emotion and the Decay ofEmotion/196
6. Sex and the Ritual Practitioners / 203
Gendered Spectatorship/204 The Groupie as Sexual Predator/207
Indie Versus Mainstream: Groupie Troublesomeness/212 Offstage Behavior
Mirrors Onstage Spectacle/216 Come Together/221 Sing for the
Moment/225 The Tricksters/228 Indie Coyotes and Foxes/240
Afterword: My Music Is Your Dirt / 242
Appendix 1. NME’s Top 100 Albums of All Time 251
Appendix 2. NME’s Top 50 Albums of the 1980s 255
Appendix 3. SelectMagazine Survey, 1994 257
Notes 261
References 289
Index 309
Contents / viii
Acknowledgments
✵
So if you’re lonely, you know I’m here waiting for you ...
Franz Ferdinand
This book has been a long journey. In some ways, it feels like an album that
took ten years to create. I am very grateful to many people for their intellec-
tual contributions and support during the research, writing, revision, and
rethinking of this book. I would like to express my profound appreciation
to my academic mentors: Alessandro Duranti, Jacques Maquet, Douglas
Hollan, Janet Bergstrom, Donald Cosentino, and Stanley Walens. I would
also like to express special thanks to Diane Drake Wilson, Ann Walters, the
eloquent Lucy O’Brien, the gifted Derek Milne, and also Barry Shank for
his brilliant comments on the earlier versions of this manuscript, which
made such an impact and pointed me in the right directions. My thanks go
to Alison McKee for her thoughtful copyediting, and to Sarah Thornton,
Charles and Majorie Goodwin, Paul Kroskrity, Phillip Newman, Emanuel
Shegloff, Elinor Ochs, Roger Bowerman, Ronnie Rivera, Steve White,
Sharon Denner, Kit Crawford, Kim Yutani, Chris Giannotti and Jim, Alli-
son Anders, Todd Silke, Terrylee and Eric, Tara Veneruso, Scott Scofield,
Peyton Reed, Rick Bowman, Brian Almazan, Amy Nelsen, Rachel Walens,
Peter Weingold, and the Museum of Jurassic Technology for their consis-
tent support, advice, and constructive comments on this project. I would
also like to thank the editors of the Music Culture series for including my
work. Wesleyan University Press has been extraordinarily supportive and
constructive throughout this process, and I thank Suzanna Tamminen, Poe
Benji, Sarah Blachly, Ann Brash, Leslie Starr, Stephanie Elliott, and Alison
Lerner. Special thanks to my family for driving me on: Barbara and Halei
LaPearl, Gregg Fonarow, and Charles Fonarow. I would also like to thank
Acknowledgments / ix