Oldham and Academia

I spent over five hours yesterday in university, sweating; remembering the physical effort required to maintain concentration and follow ludicrously convoluted speech.

I attended a symposium on aspects of music and Will Oldham hosted by Lars Iyer and William Large.

The first discussion by Pete Dale entitled 'The Shape of an Event' led to the most maddening and esoteric discussion. His lecture cast a wide net, incorporating questions like 'what is an event?', is every relationship governed by fascism?, does punk rule ok? and is the human species the definition of the macromatic.

Quite a lot to fit in thirty minutes.

Here's a quick sketch I made of Pete. My drawing skills need a little work.

Despite doing my absolute best to concentrate and follow his line of argument, I became infuriated by his refusal to speak in language that could be understood by a generally intelligent person (me!). Continual references to philosophers I have never read, bandying around terms that sound like words I understand but actually signify something entirely different. And there were so many questions to ask, where did we start?

The group seemed fairly adept at pulling apart his entire philosophy from its starting point. I didn't feel like taking his defence. They bullied him with books he hadn’t read (or read properly!) and introduced further terms and topics rampantly. Each question from the room began with a slowly delivered ramble about things and stuff and shit, and after a couple of minutes they would stop, satisfied that they had seemed intelligent and well-read enough, leaving Pete to have to ask again, “what was the question?”

We were shown rather comical, Day to Day-esque, overlapping pie charts apparently denoting the possible 'shape' of 'an event'. It was a jumble of unintelligible words and pictures seeming to mask rather flimsy ideas. We were then shown some exciting footage of a Minor Threat gig from the early eighties. A tiny sweaty club with the band surrounded by a rather imposing mob of violent mosh deviants. This was clearly worth discussing. An experience the room could share in and find interest in. We were asked to note the audience's participation, how they were more involved than at your 'average' gig. It wasn’t exactly a particularly penetrating analysis.

And so on. There was such a confusing tone to the whole thing. Starting in with the most unpronouncable of words discussing high theories and concepts and then showing us a punk gig.

Through all the talk of fascism and conformity and actions and music, Pete suggested that Minor Threat's (and later, Fugazi's) purpose in making music like this, was to inspire the 'straight edge movement' of vegetarianism and abstinance from drugs and booze. Well, not to inspire that specifically, but to inspire an individuality of thought - that one doesn't have to get fucked up on shit to enjoy this kind of music. I asked him if he thought that this kind of music was actually successful in creating this frame of mind. Can music inspire a creative individuality in the listener? Because surely when one is at a punk gig, one does not feel individual so much as feels part of a scene, of a herd or a mob; moshing in or out of sync to the tide of the crowd. Lost in the noise and the sweat and the sexual energy and the violence - not feeling a political urgency or an individualism.

Unfortunately when I asked (a shorter version of) this, it was the last question of the session and everyone was pretty much ready for lunch, so I just got a few fumbling long words and a shrug.

It’s a shame, because I have a lot of respect for Pete Dale as he’s a founding member of Newcastle’s excellent twee punk band Milky Wimpshake, and also records humorous songs under his own name, as well as being an important part in the DIY music scene for a while. Well, if you’re gonna do a bloody PHD, you’ve gotta get into this parlance I suppose.

After lunch we were treated to Lars and Will's double act. A self-proclaimed tag team, joyfully obscure and entertainingly provocative. They set a slide show going behind them of images of Will Oldham and his album covers. The title was Ethics and Sincerity in the music of Will Oldham. Their aim was not to attempt musicology, but to jump into ideas of philosophy as inspired by the works of Will Oldham.

Lars spoke with a nervous passion, with rising cadences and almost evangelical persuasive excitement about Oldham. He seemed particularly interested in Oldham’s position in the musical community. Oldham wishes to remain a hidden secret, someone to seek out in the world defined by the commodity and the faked emotion. So is Will Oldham’s music sincere? Is that real emotion? He is an actor after all (and a good one, see ‘Old Joy’!) so can we trust him? But then what one creates is bigger than the creator.

Oldham seeks out old genres and reawakens them, assembling their spare parts into a new whole. Retaking old songs, minor forgotten songs to repeat what never happened in the past.

He went on to explore Oldham’s use of the word God in his songs. The word sung as if to remind himself that God is there. The singing is holy, not the place from which it is sung. So does he escape cynicism? Is he (as Jeffrey Lewis suggests) a rich kid or a fascist or a charlatan or is he the real shizzle?

We heard the original version of Pushkin and another song (what was that song? – like much of the day, I felt slighted by my ignorance).

By the way, for those interested, you can read a similar version of this talk at Lars' blog here.

Will Large went on to discuss ideas of singing being inseparable from what is sung. Also of ideas of sincerity and honesty – that one delves into the unknown when one is sincere. He also mentioned a lot about Deleuze and Levinas and a whole other bunch of philosophers that I can say nowt about, having never darkened their ideas by reading their books. And to be fair, during Will’s talk, I made fewer notes, as I felt like making a quick sketch of the pair of them. (In this drawing it seems that Lars is some midget, one-armed thug, stroking his beard with his withered hand. While Will looks like Richard Branson's lost nephew, scratching his balls.)

Ahem.

The audience of immensely-read philosophers and musicologists seemed a little baffled by the whole affair. Lars and Will had to field a whole bunch of questions as to their authenticity – well, not authenticity - perhaps cheek, in attempting such a philosophical enquiry.

Can we discuss the ethics of a single musician through a personal anecdotal account? Is this philosophy? What is its value?

Do the pair of them like Will Oldham because he is wilfully obscure? Is it his outsiderness, his skirting around of the usual forms of musical promotion and media. But of course, Oldham is still a professional musician. His music is still a commodity, in that anyone can pick up a Bonnie Prince Billy cd in a shop and buy it. He still makes money. He still gives the odd interview, he still tours incessantly.

But one hopes that only the true seeker will find his music. Only those who ’deserve it’. At one point they suggested that a good person likes Will Oldham, and a bad person does not. These kind of assertions, despite their obvious comic intentions, are perhaps quite revealing.

But of course the music of the commodity can be emotive, can be touching. Not to everyone, all the time. But Mariah Carey love ballads, or stadium Coldplay rock, or pilled-up anthems (The Music Sounds Better With You Baby!) all have their place in our memories and our experiences, whether we like it or not. Oldham’s music, we choose to have in our lives, this is true – but is this distinction alone what makes him special?

I asked them if they had considered his recording techniques. The tape hiss, the almost-tuned guitars, the awkward throaty singing style, and the mistakes. Is this a cynical lo-fi presentation – or is this real? What is the difference? Either way, he chose to present it this way. It was no accident. Why does he do this? I told them that I would like to hear more from them on this subject. To pinpoint what it is about the sound (without getting too technical, sure) that appeals to them – not just the lyrics, which they admit are arbitrary when read aloud.

I can’t really remember their response so clearly, except to say that it prompted me to compare Oldham’s early recordings with his later reworkings in the Palace Greatest Hits. These recordings, despite being the same chords and words by the same singer, are entirely different entities. Nashville-styled and pompous. I compared my early listenings of that album to the scene in Spaced where you see Tim burning all his George Lucas stuff because of the Phantom Menace. It seemed obscene, like a cruel joke. But then, of course, like most Oldham recordings, it grows on you and a reluctant acceptance takes place.

While I enjoyed their romantic listening/reading of Oldham’s work, I felt that a few things were missing. And fair enough, a lecture can only be so bloody long. There was very little actual discussion of his specific works, or how his career has progressed, or his live shows, which see Oldham transform these recordings on a nightly basis. They are not so hidden and secret when played as straight up rock songs to a big room. Also maybe some comparison to contemporaries would be useful.

Well, whatever.

It was a fascinating experience, and inspired much further debate on the subject with Adam and Hannah and Liam throughout the day. It just reminds me how I miss an intellectual debate. That my debating faculties are close at hand, but have become dulled from a lack of use. Just to sit still in a room for a few hours, was quite a challenge (perhaps this is healthy). But I still felt that these debates relied too heavily on blinding one with obscure bibliography.

“Have you read Heidegger’s unpublished work on the duality of the new in the face of unprincipled reckonings regarding the torture that is being?”

No.

“Well, if you had, you’d understand all this. Idiot!”