Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork (Feedback) Paperback – February 12, 2002

I randomly found this in my local library. I can't help but be intrigued by a work on rock music by a bass-playing philosophy professor steeped in Deleuze and Derrida, seemingly having time-traveled to our post-punk era from a 1960s world I sometimes wish I could have lived through, where it was actually cool to read that stuff and get all worked up about social theory and "things that matter." It does turn out that the subtitle (why not something more like, to pull at random from the possibilities, "...from Red Crayola to The Books"?) is a reliable hint, if only a hint, to the book's huge amount of personal bias in selecting what's "good" and "bad" or "avant" or not in the history of rock music (or music in general, since the likes of Schoenberg, Cage, Coltrane, and Cecil Taylor play foundational roles in the presentation). But having already spent countless hours digesting Piero Scaruffi's encyclopedic online history of rock, in which the Beatles figure as one of the greatest pop industry swindles of all time and Bjork's avantgarde cred is attributed mainly to her producers, I thought it'd be worthwhile to absorb a different bias.And it was, for me. Not that Bill Martin has convinced me of the sensibility of his discography in the context of avantgarde (or even more broadly, experimental) music, by any means. Sure, for example, I had it in my head that Stereolab were just indie pop, but Martin made them sound more interesting than that, so perhaps I'll finally pull them off my "to check out later" list and buy an album. But I already loved King Crimson and Sonic Youth, and still think Yes is usually too pretentious, and still suspect the Beatles (though my respect for them has increased somewhat) were followers, not leaders, into psychedelia, and find them overrated even while liking their later stuff (and by later, I mean really later, not Sgt. Pepper's). And I still have no idea where to begin, to get into intriguing but intimidatingly-prolific artists like Bill Laswell or John Zorn.But reading about avantgarde music can often be more fun than listening to it. With some (notable) exceptions, the writing is engaging (at least, if you can follow the literary and musical name-dropping) and not apologetic for or dishonest about its personal/subjective nature, his reasons for his tastes are interesting, and, best of all, the connections he draws all over and across the worlds of music and ideas, are, if not always original, fun to take in, at least for someone like me who, similar to the author, is an amateur guitarist and philosophy buff prone to (thus perhaps sympathetic to) rambling.The bias is mainly in favor of late 60s music, the classical avantgarde, and especially prog, and against punk, metal, electronic music, and hip hop in general. He tries hard to convince himself and the reader this isn't just "old fogey-ism" where you only like the music of your formative years, and indeed forcefully resents the tendency of the rock industry to put listeners in generational niche-marketing boxes this way, and he does show a good appreciation for much post-70s music, and does some justice to, for example, some of the more "progressive" punk, of the 80s if not the 90s, and in that way, though I probably have more punk and related alternative rock in my collection than any other genre, maybe my tastes don't run quite so different from his as his emphasis might suggest. He even spends a fair amount of time on Japanese noise artists like Merzbow. In any case I don't have a problem with differing tastes, and indeed read the book in order to expand my own.The problem is that the conventional-vs-avantgarde dichotomy really doesn't map very well onto the prog-vs-punk or even prog-vs-pop one, and this does undermine the concept of a book with the words "avant" and "experimental" in the title. I think he would agree in general with that statement, and I can't help but oversimplify the book in saying it nevertheless seems to fall into some such trap. What it comes down to is that there are large swaths of experimental music (e.g. glitch music) deserving of attention that he completely misses, or at least passes over superficially (e.g. drum'n'bass, or "so-called Krautrock"), while spending a lot of time on already-well-known bands like Yes and the Beatles whose "avant" status is perhaps questionable. On the other hand, as he himself laments, no one (maybe not even Piero Scaruffi) can listen to and absorb the sheer quantity of new and challenging music being produced and so these are weaknesses one might expect in almost any such book. So on balance I liked this book and think it deserves respect for its effort and its unusually philosophical perspective, and for, importantly, Martin's obvious love for the music he writes about and for artistic innovation per se, but I hope to find more books that flesh out the world of experimental music from other angles, to cover the gaps in this one.

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.

Avant Rock: Experimental Music From The Beatles To Bjork by Bill Martin (Professor of Philosophy, DePaul University, Chicago) is a fascinating, informative survey of rock music made by artists who resist the inexorable pulls compromise their work in order to commercialize it, conform it to consumer demands, and simply sell out to the highest bidder. Taking a broad look at avant garde rock from Yoko Ono and 1970s punk to contemporary figures such as Sonic Youth, Avant Rock is a fascinating study, and a genuine tribute to rockers who consider their music, in and of itself, to be the most important part of what they do. Avant Rock is strongly recommended reading for students of 20th Century American music history, -- and most especially for anyone with a pioneering rock music vision of their own.

Great, quick delivery