Here's a concert I'm pretty excited to attend: Russian Circles & And So I Watch You From Afar, June 22 2012 @ Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver. Russian Circles is an instrumental rock band I've liked for a few years now, and this is the first chance I've had to hear them live.
And So I Watch You From Afar (yes, that's the band's name) is a Belfast-based band also set to play that night. I'd never heard of them until I caught wind of the concert, but I checked them out, and I'm even more excited to go. This is the kind of music I want to make. Take a listen.
I read someone describe ASIWYFA as a "mathematically influenced punk" band. I suppose that's accurate, but the purpose of the comment was to point out that they're not a post-rock band. This is just silly to me. I honestly don't understand all the backlash against the term, "post-rock," or most genres for that matter. Remember all the bands that refused to be known as "emo" in the early- to mid-2000's? The same happened with "nu-metal" in the late 90's, and "grunge" in the mid-90's. You'll often notice artists, especially ones from alternative scenes, get really touchy when people talk about the genre of their work. (Just so we're clear, I'm not specifically talking about ASIWYFA.)
The thing is though, that these terms are not value judgements. Not originally, anyway. Genres are the territory of journalists and critics. They're descriptive terms invented to explain what a work (in this case, music) is like. Genre talks about the structure, style, and often the cultural context of the work. It's more for the benefit of the listener than for the artist, meant to set up appropriate expectations about how to listen to the music, not to put it in a box.
Many artists have a rather cynical outlook on genre. I've heard some dismiss it as an outdated system created by music shops to figure out how to stick which records where. [I'll leave the dirty jokes to you guys.] Others blame it more on music journalists, those guys who clearly don't understand music at all since they have to steal its soul by writing about it. It's an us-against-them mentality, and it may show my ignorance or naivete to say this, but my guess is that it's unnecessary for artists to be antagonistic about this. Other music business drama notwithstanding.
Personally, I find genre categorization fascinating, as a thinker, musician, and music lover. Genre is a critical thinking and listening tool, and this is what artists miss. Perhaps rather than fearing genre, they could study it and use it to their advantage. Categories and limitations are great creative tools. They eliminate the paralysis of the blank canvas, providing a place to start making art. At the same time, one doesn't need to be a slave to genre. If you know what the rules are, you also know exactly how far you can bend them.
So I guess what I'm saying is this: if the shoe fits, wear it. It not...
Become a cobbler? Or at least learn more about shoes.
No comments:
Post a Comment