Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork
by Bill Martin
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bill MartinForeword: Robert Fripp
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2002-03-12
ISBN: 0812695003
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Open Court
Book Reviews of Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork
Book Review: Philosophy meets prog
Summary: 3 Stars
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.
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