I'm starting to work on a book chapter that I was asked to write for a collection on music geographies, an area with which I'm pretty familiar and have written about from an "old media" perspective, especially concerning identity, locality, space and place, and all that (as in my book, Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes and a long-ago article in the journal Popular Music called "Subcultural Identity in Alternative Music Culture.") This chapter thus updates my old research/book on indie music scenes by specifically focusing on the effect that the internet has had on notions of locality, local scenes, and local sounds. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a fair amount of popular media attention to local music scenes -- e.g. Athens, GA; Manchester, UK; Seattle; etc. -- and assertions (in many cases spurious) that particular "sounds" were associated with these local scenes. And whatever the validity of these claims, there was little doubt that within localities there were complicated, incestuous genealogies of bands over the years. The persistence of many local players, even as they moved into different bands and collaborated with different people, may contribute to the existence of a local sound or sounds to varying degrees. The key question that I'm interested in is to what extent, if any, MySpace, file sharing, iTunes, lastfm, and the like have changed/diminished the perception that there are local music scenes, changed the way that participants identify with a local scene, and affected the places and spaces of local music. Clearly one consequence is the demise in many places of the local indie record store as a gathering place and source of local knowledge. I'm also re-reading Kembrew McLeod's work on the internet and music/indie music. As much as anything, I'm interested in people's musings on the internet, music, and locality... even just the internet and locality and local identity. The internet and local community work (e.g. the Netville studies and others) and internet and globalization work is all very interesting to me, but I'm not sure how applicable it is to this particular project. Thanks in advance for any reactions and insights! Holly -- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication The University of Tulsa 600 S. College Ave. Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse@utulsa.edu http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~holly-kruse
A must-read on the topic Butch Lazorchak (founder of Squealer Music) CH-Scene: Communication Theories and Musical Communities http://www.ibiblio.org/squealer/butchhome/Ch_Scene/ch_scene_communication.ht... On Wed, 9 May 2007, Holly Kruse wrote:
I'm starting to work on a book chapter that I was asked to write for a collection on music geographies, an area with which I'm pretty familiar and have written about from an "old media" perspective, especially concerning identity, locality, space and place, and all that (as in my book, Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes and a long-ago article in the journal Popular Music called "Subcultural Identity in Alternative Music Culture.")
This chapter thus updates my old research/book on indie music scenes by specifically focusing on the effect that the internet has had on notions of locality, local scenes, and local sounds. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a fair amount of popular media attention to local music scenes -- e.g. Athens, GA; Manchester, UK; Seattle; etc. -- and assertions (in many cases spurious) that particular "sounds" were associated with these local scenes. And whatever the validity of these claims, there was little doubt that within localities there were complicated, incestuous genealogies of bands over the years. The persistence of many local players, even as they moved into different bands and collaborated with different people, may contribute to the existence of a local sound or sounds to varying degrees. The key question that I'm interested in is to what extent, if any, MySpace, file sharing, iTunes, lastfm, and the like have changed/diminished the perception that there are local music scenes, changed the way that participants identify with a local scene, and affected the places and spaces of local music. Clearly one consequence is the demise in many places of the local indie record store as a gathering place and source of local knowledge. I'm also re-reading Kembrew McLeod's work on the internet and music/indie music. As much as anything, I'm interested in people's musings on the internet, music, and locality... even just the internet and locality and local identity. The internet and local community work (e.g. the Netville studies and others) and internet and globalization work is all very interesting to me, but I'm not sure how applicable it is to this particular project.
Thanks in advance for any reactions and insights!
Holly
-- Fred Stutzman claimID.com 919-260-8508 AIM: chimprawk
Thank you for that link, Fred. She may be too modest to say so, but Holly's own book 'Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes' Peter Lang, 2003, is also required reading. A couple of other relevant things I have in hand since I am exploring this topic as well: Michael Ayers's edited collection "Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual Music Culture" and Kenton O'Hara and Barry Brown's edited collection "Consuming Music Together: Social and Collaborative Aspects of Music Consumption Technologies." I would be particularly grateful for any additional recommended readings specifically regarding online music fans. Nancy
A must-read on the topic
Butch Lazorchak (founder of Squealer Music) CH-Scene: Communication Theories and Musical Communities
http://www.ibiblio.org/squealer/butchhome/Ch_Scene/ch_scene_communication.ht...
On Wed, 9 May 2007, Holly Kruse wrote:
I'm starting to work on a book chapter that I was asked to write for a collection on music geographies ... -- Nancy Baym http://www.ku.edu/home/nbaym Communication Studies, University of Kansas Bailey Hall, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 102, Lawrence, KS 66045-7574, USA Blog: http://www.onlinefandom.com
Thanks to everyone for the responses so far -- very interesting. I perhaps should just clarify that I am especially interested in work, and just plain ideas, that relates to local music identities and the internet. I am pretty well steeped in the popular music studies canon, including music and notions of community and social networks (I've published on that) so I don't really need help on that end. And again, thanks so much! Holly -- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication The University of Tulsa 600 S. College Ave. Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse@utulsa.edu http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~holly-kruse
Holly. Great topic! A response from my own (on-going) survey of indie musos (see http://polling.nationalforum.com.au/index.php?sid=4) that seemed related (and very common): "26. In 100 words or less, please describe what you see as the biggest barrier to growing your career as an artist: the market for our stlye is not huge in tasmania. so we have to find international clients. " For the record, "style" in this case means "Dark/Experiental/Ambient" ... respondent is Male, 17yo, quite active in Internet promotion of his band. Make of that what you will. To put people who would otherwise not get this into persepctive, Tasmania is Australia's smallest state (pop <1million) and is notoriously conservative. It's the one that attracts the redneck jokes about in-breeding and so on ... Hope this helps. Feel free to contact me for more info if you like. My survey is not specifically about location, though that's one important element ... Cheers, Hughie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Holly Kruse" <holly-kruse@utulsa.edu> To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 7:33 AM Subject: Re: [Air-l] indie music scenes + internet
Thanks to everyone for the responses so far -- very interesting. I perhaps should just clarify that I am especially interested in work, and just plain ideas, that relates to local music identities and the internet. I am pretty well steeped in the popular music studies canon, including music and notions of community and social networks (I've published on that) so I don't really need help on that end. And again, thanks so much!
Holly
-- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication The University of Tulsa 600 S. College Ave. Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse@utulsa.edu http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~holly-kruse
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Hi Holly, all, the following might be useful: Caspary, Costa, and Wolfram Manzenreiter. 2003. "From subculture to cyberculture? The Japanese Noise alliance and the Internet." Pp. 60-74 in Japanese Cybercultures, edited by Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLelland. London: Routledge. Williams, J. Patrick. 2006. "Authentic Identities: Straightedge Subculture, Music, and the Internet." Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 173-200. Also, Widerstand records (http://widerstand.org/) recently released a half-hour documentary, 'Notes on Breakcore', currently circulating as a torrent. In this documentary a number of breakcore producers and DJs discuss the reconstitution of the 'scene' by the internet and the role online plays offline, as it were. Hope this helps. Best, Andrew On 5/10/07, Hugemusic <hmusic@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
Holly.
Great topic!
A response from my own (on-going) survey of indie musos (see http://polling.nationalforum.com.au/index.php?sid=4) that seemed related (and very common):
"26. In 100 words or less, please describe what you see as the biggest barrier to growing your career as an artist: the market for our stlye is not huge in tasmania. so we have to find international clients. "
For the record, "style" in this case means "Dark/Experiental/Ambient" ... respondent is Male, 17yo, quite active in Internet promotion of his band. Make of that what you will.
To put people who would otherwise not get this into persepctive, Tasmania is Australia's smallest state (pop <1million) and is notoriously conservative. It's the one that attracts the redneck jokes about in-breeding and so on ...
Hope this helps. Feel free to contact me for more info if you like. My survey is not specifically about location, though that's one important element ...
Cheers, Hughie
----- Original Message ----- From: "Holly Kruse" <holly-kruse@utulsa.edu> To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2007 7:33 AM Subject: Re: [Air-l] indie music scenes + internet
Thanks to everyone for the responses so far -- very interesting. I perhaps should just clarify that I am especially interested in work, and just plain ideas, that relates to local music identities and the internet. I am pretty well steeped in the popular music studies canon, including music and notions of community and social networks (I've published on that) so I don't really need help on that end. And again, thanks so much!
Holly
-- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication The University of Tulsa 600 S. College Ave. Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse@utulsa.edu http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~holly-kruse
_______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
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this is a very interesting topic. if the indie record store is understood as a space of communication that creates social bonds in the cultural realm and also symbolic capital that differentiates lifestyles from other lifestyles, then the question is if the indie record store is going to vanish due to p2p and web 2.0. my contention is that indie rock fans don't stop buying music in local indie record stores, they now consume more music, from more different sources. they don't just download everything from the net, because there seems to be a certain passion for collecting original records, especially of artists whom one likes. also they don't just order on amazon because there seems to be a certain distrust in economic monopolies, and indie rock fans more like to support small distributors and stores. this might be due to the traditional values immanent in this scene. maybe the indie music scence is now more globalized because fans from different localities meet in cyberspace on myspace etc. then this seems to be a networking of local scences and people, i don't think that local scenes and spaces vanish. indie rock concercts are still important, record stores are as well, as places to talk about and listen to music, network with people, etc. it seems to be necessary for indie rock fans to accumulate a certain symbolic capital of distinction in social relations together with others. my contention is that this is still done offline, and functions better offline than online. indie rock fans now seem to have the possibilities to network locally and globally, the global doesn't destroy local scenes, but networks individuals and localities. mtv in the 1990ies was a sort of globalization medium of indie rock. but it was one-dimensional and one-to-many, web 2.0 now seems to be a networked glocalization (roland robertson) of indie rock functioning in many-to-many-communication. maybe there is a potential for a shift from discursive indie rock globalization to dialogic indie rock globalization in the sense of vilem flusser's notions of discourse and dialogue. i also find it interesting to think about how web 2.0 changes commercialization and economic colonization processes in indie rock, if there can be a certain decolonization in the sense of strengthening independent distributors and weakening transnational corporations that are interested in micro-marketing alternative rock. these are some subjective impressions that i have as an indie rock fan. christian -- _____________________________ Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs Assistant Professor for Internet and Society ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Fax +43 662 6389 4800 Information-Society-Technology: http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at/fuchs/ Managing Editor of tripleC - peer reviewed open access online journal for the foundations of information science: http://triplec.uti.at Forthcoming BOOK: Fuchs, Christian (2008) Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge.
Hi Christian: Thanks so much for your thoughts -- very interesting! Holly -- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication The University of Tulsa 600 S. College Ave. Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse@utulsa.edu http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~holly-kruse
Hi Christian: I'm wondering if it would be okay to quote from your email correspondence with me in the book chapter I'm writing on indie music scenes and the internet for an anthology on music geographies. If it is okay, how would you like to be labeled: e.g. "internet scholar and indie music fan"? Best, Holly -- Holly Kruse Faculty of Communication The University of Tulsa 600 S. College Ave. Tulsa, OK 74104 918-631-3845 holly-kruse@utulsa.edu or holly.kruse@gmail.com http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~holly-kruse On 5/10/07 5:52 AM, "Christian Fuchs" <christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at> wrote:
this is a very interesting topic.
if the indie record store is understood as a space of communication that creates social bonds in the cultural realm and also symbolic capital that differentiates lifestyles from other lifestyles, then the question is if the indie record store is going to vanish due to p2p and web 2.0.
my contention is that indie rock fans don't stop buying music in local indie record stores, they now consume more music, from more different sources. they don't just download everything from the net, because there seems to be a certain passion for collecting original records, especially of artists whom one likes. also they don't just order on amazon because there seems to be a certain distrust in economic monopolies, and indie rock fans more like to support small distributors and stores. this might be due to the traditional values immanent in this scene.
maybe the indie music scence is now more globalized because fans from different localities meet in cyberspace on myspace etc. then this seems to be a networking of local scences and people, i don't think that local scenes and spaces vanish. indie rock concercts are still important, record stores are as well, as places to talk about and listen to music, network with people, etc. it seems to be necessary for indie rock fans to accumulate a certain symbolic capital of distinction in social relations together with others. my contention is that this is still done offline, and functions better offline than online. indie rock fans now seem to have the possibilities to network locally and globally, the global doesn't destroy local scenes, but networks individuals and localities.
mtv in the 1990ies was a sort of globalization medium of indie rock. but it was one-dimensional and one-to-many, web 2.0 now seems to be a networked glocalization (roland robertson) of indie rock functioning in many-to-many-communication. maybe there is a potential for a shift from discursive indie rock globalization to dialogic indie rock globalization in the sense of vilem flusser's notions of discourse and dialogue. i also find it interesting to think about how web 2.0 changes commercialization and economic colonization processes in indie rock, if there can be a certain decolonization in the sense of strengthening independent distributors and weakening transnational corporations that are interested in micro-marketing alternative rock.
these are some subjective impressions that i have as an indie rock fan. christian
Sorry -- obviously I meant to send that message privately to Christian! Please carry on as if it never happened :-) Holly
Holly Kruse schrieb:
Hi Christian:
I'm wondering if it would be okay to quote from your email correspondence with me in the book chapter I'm writing on indie music scenes and the internet for an anthology on music geographies. If it is okay, how would you like to be labeled: e.g. "internet scholar and indie music fan"?
Best, Holly
hi holly, of course you can quote from our email correspondence. it would be best to label me "internet & society scholar, indie music fan". i am interested in reading your book chapter once it is finished and in commenting on it. some of the things that i have been saying in the mail about glocalization etc can also be found in an article on a more abstract level: http://triplec.uti.at/files/tripleC1(2)_Fuchs.pdf best christian -- -- _____________________________ Univ.Ass. Dr. Christian Fuchs Assistant Professor for Internet and Society ICT&S Center - Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication Technologies & Society http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at University of Salzburg Sigmund Haffner Gasse 18 5020 Salzburg Austria christian.fuchs@sbg.ac.at Phone +43 662 8044 4823 Fax +43 662 6389 4800 Information-Society-Technology: http://fuchs.icts.sbg.ac.at http://www.icts.uni-salzburg.at/fuchs/ Managing Editor of tripleC - peer reviewed open access online journal for the foundations of information science: http://triplec.uti.at Forthcoming BOOK: Fuchs, Christian (2008) Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age. New York: Routledge.
participants (6)
-
Andrew Whelan -
Christian Fuchs -
Fred Stutzman -
Holly Kruse -
Hugemusic -
Nancy Baym