NF009 Winter 2022
No Fidelity is...
Nicole Collins (ed.) Leander Cohen (ed.) Luisa Cichowski Anna Halladay Elise Hudson Olivia Ho Alberto Leon Will Prim Nelson Serrano
“Self Portrait” - Elise Hudson NF009 | 1
Contents
Considering Connie Converse by Olivia Ho ............................ 3 Melancholy Music from the Middle of the World: Pánico by Nelson Serrano ............................................................................ 5 Kate Bush and the Power of the Feminine by Elise Hudson.. 7 A Short History and Sample Platter of the “Think” Break by Leander Cohen ............................................................................ 9 Steely Your Face: Lot Culture Within Steely Dan by Will Prim ...................................................................................................... 12 Meditations on Dad Rock by Anna Halliday ......................... 14 Interview: Eduardo Pávez by Alberto Leon .......................... 15
From the eds........ Sup.
Oddly enough, the “new” NoFi was released as NF001 on March 6, 2020, almost a week before COVID had its way and classes became unbearable. The previous iteration of NoFi puttered out in what seems like the spring of 2015. So creating the first issue of the new version of the magazine was a one-person job, something like sixty to eighty hours spent alone in 4th Libe writing and editing articles, deciding how we’d swing funding, and trying to figure out how the hell InDesign works. What kept in the back of my head throughout all this was the fear that NoFi would be a one- or two-off thing that would then be forgotten on account of A) a lack of any kind of established magazine “staff ” and B) the COVID-precipitated Zoomification of Carleton student life. But—and this isn’t a particularly complicated point, or whatever, but it’s something I like thinking and talking about—No Fidelity has grown into something much larger than I really ever expected working until 1am on Fridays and Saturdays that Winter Term. A self-moving creative force. Especially with the now second iteration of KRLX Board members (Henry Holcomb and Owen Roth) taking over the management of the publication and music imprint, it’s endlessly exciting to me that the Carleton student body is maintaining its music-critic and music-music voices. Sanguine. And in an important, personal sense, seeing NoFi’s success over time, going beyond where I thought it would, and persisting despite all the logistical issues that should’ve killed it, has been one of the most touching and sentimental things to happen (or happen to me, I guess) during my time here. I won’t veer into clichés about inspiration or hope here. Just know that this thing is good and that it is loud. Nicole Collins ’22 NF009 | 2
Considering Connie Converse Olivia Ho
It’s difficult to place ’50s musician Connie Converse in time. The nostalgic lilt of her voice and the steady progression of her narratives identify her as a product of earlier years, yet her lyrics and strange metaphors place her more among modern singer-songwriters. This penetrating sense of untimeliness is present in her other writings. In a draft of a letter she would later send to her family before disappearing in 1974, Converse wrote: If I ever was a member of this species, perhaps it was a social accident that has now been canceled… To survive it all, I expect I must drift back down through the other half to the twentieth twentieth, which I already know pretty well, to the hundredth hundredth, which I only read and heard about. I might survive there quite a few years—who knows? But you understand I have to do it by myself, with no benign umbrella. Human society fascinates me and awes me and fills me with grief and joy; I just can’t find my place to plug into it.
Art by Luisa Cichowski
Converse’s story always seems to begin with her disappearance. Perhaps those attempting to describe her recognize that part of her appeal lies in her mystery: the temptingly brilliant image of her, newly fifty, driving her Volkswagen Beetle into the great unknown. In her wake she left behind nothing but a series of songs, cryptic letters, and a meticulously organized file cabinet. Her work has influenced artists like Greta Kline of Frankie Cosmos, who wrote in Under the Radar magazine that Converse’s lyrics are “like perfect poems,” after the release of the latter’s recordings in 2009 by Squirrel Thing Recordings. Before the release, her music and life story had remained largely undiscovered. Connie Converse was born on August 3rd, 1924, in New Hampshire to a strict Baptist father. The influence of her teetotaling upbringing made itself clear in her music, which often alludes to feminist themes. After her disappearance, Converse’s family speculated that she was a communist—which sounds both like something that could’ve been true, or possibly just the misinformed reaction to any political peculiarities of a woman in the 1950s. Her brother Philip, a notable political scientist, described her openly as a polymath and genius. After attending college at Mount Holyoke for two years, Converse dropped out and moved to New York, where she began to write songs in earnest. There, she met friend Gene Deitch, a music enthusiast who regularly recorded Converse’s performances for their friends. The height of her musical career was in 1954, when she performed on The Morning Show with Walter Cronkite. No recordings of the show exist—and though family and friends had regarded the opportunity as Converse’s NF009 | 3
verse had decided to leave New York. After moving to Ann Arbor, she took on a series of responsibilities, including activism work, several demanding academic jobs, and writing a novel—all of which eventually culminated in a major breakdown. In August 1974, nearly a week after she turned 50, Converse packed up her car and drove away. Today, she would be nearing the end of a century of life. Her songs are characterized by a sense of reserved yearning and melancholy tempered with a sharp wit. Her unique melodies provide a sense of folksy etherealness to her work—yet, as if to not allow her to float too high above the earth, her lyrics ground her. In “Roving Woman,” for instance, Converse dancingly pokes fun of ’50s societal expectations—noting how, at the conclusion of her habitual saloon visits, “Someone always takes me home”—while also infusing the song with a self-deprecatory note (“Don’t see why they always do it / Can’t be vanity; must be sheer humanity”). While Converse was never known to have any romantic relationships at all, the tragically romantic elements of her songs are incredibly present. In “One by One,” she sings of a longingly tense nighttime stroll. But, though she can make out the form of her lover in the dark, “It’s not as lovers go / Two by two, to and fro / But it’s one by one / One by one in the dark.” In a wistful, lofty conclusion, she’s lost something she never had: “If I had your hand in mine / I could shine, I could shine.” In this song, as in many songs, Converse is singing about a specific type of love, the type in which a bouquet of flowers picked at the park are pressed into her palm (“Playboy of the Western World”) and paying the doctor’s bills is celebrated with a waltz (“Empty Pocket Waltz”). Converse observes this love, or perhaps creates it, while always staying on the outside—painting a picture of a woman who was, it seems, very lonely, and who did not want to be lonely. Every source I’ve read seems to conclude Converse’s story with a shrug, stating that she was “before her time.” There’s something logistically true about this. She wrote songs that are almost better contextualized in modern terms, and seems to always cast a somber wink towards her listener. She knows something, it seems, that the rest of us have yet to pick up on. Yet picturing Converse as some tragic figure “before her time” almost gives credit for her genius to the modern age, as if everything would have ended differently had she been able to publish her home recordings on Bandcamp or gain a following on YouTube. But what makes Converse special and lasting is her universality. Regardless of when and in what context she was writing, her songs would always have had the same melancholic and wry resonance. Perhaps Converse described the trajectory of her life best in “How Sad, How Lovely”: “Like life, like a smile / like the fall of a leaf / how sad, how lovely / how brief.” The real tragedy lies in the fact that she would never discover exactly how sad, lovely, and brief her body of work would come to be considered. ◆ NF009 | 4
Melancholy Music From the Middle of the World: Pánico Nelson Serrano
The rainy season looms over Ecuador once again. The sky deepens in shade and cobblestone streets darken with water stains. The often vivid capital, Quito, seems to be thrown into a bout of seasonal depression… Not much can be made in these times of gloom, but what does manage to appear reflects the environment in a way that hits the soul. “Depressive micro-pop” band, Pánico, is no exception. I first listened to this band during a universal time of doom and gloom, quarantine. I was staying up very late one night, letting myself be dragged deep into the youtube algorithm, when I had a realization: I was yet to find Latin music that fit my mood. I began to look for indie artists from my homeland, but their style did not elicit much of a reaction. Many of them had adopted a generic U.S bedroom-pop sound that lacked character. That was until I came across an hour-long video titled “Ecuadorian Doomer Music vol.1.” I was hesitant to listen at first.The Wojak in the thumbnail paired with the unironic use of “Doomer” were immediate red-flags. However, I gave the playlist a chance, and it was honestly one of the best decisions I made during quarantine. Between post-punk, folk and surf rock, it felt as though I had just rediscovered music. As I lay on my bed with eyes closed, I saw myself walking through a worn film of my memory. The melancholy sounds of the playlist put a filter on my thoughts,and at that moment, I felt myself returning to my childhood; going to the historical district with my grandparents, driving up steep inclines that run along clusters of buildings, and of course, staying in on drab, cloudy days. This heightened emotional state made the music so much more intense. And then I heard “Los Muertos” for the first time. “Los Muertos” was everything I was looking for. It was the intersection between the “Pasillos” of my grandparents’ generation and the bitter lyricism of Elliot Smith’s whispery vocals. It was love at first listen. From there, I delved into Pánico’s (Spotify) album discography. Beginning with Axis Mundi (2014), Pánico established their morbid themes but infused them with a variety of other Latin American musical styles like Boleros and Cumbias. The songs are heavily influenced by indigenous Andean culture, featuring instruments not conventionally heard in North American music like tiples, cuatros, and charangos. Additionally, the songs maintain a lo-fi feel that adds to the grit in the words. No. (2014), released later that year, incorporates more bass-driven melodies and post-punk elements than their NF009 | 5
earlier work. The production quality is far better on this album, but it still has that dusty cassette feel. It’s a great album to add to your coming-of-age playlist. I feel like the main character every time I listen to it. Jenösod (2015) is a mainly acoustic album. The nylon guitars provide a warm blanket of sound. Dreamy chords accompany hopelessness in the lyrics but you don’t need to understand the words to experience t. This is a really nice album if you are a fan of Lo-Fi artists like Starry Cat or Loaner(s). Señales (2017) is one of my favorite albums from Pánico. Remember my opening paragraph? That’s what this album sounds like. The reverberating Wurlitzer provides a somber atmosphere while the driving drums provide some of the grooviest rhythms you will ever hear. The most notable change in the sound is the production quality. This album is not as sonically raw and depressing as the previous two but it keeps up with the band’s image. It also contains the band’s most popular song, a re-recording of “Carta a una desconocida” which was first released in Jenösod. AMOR FATI (2018) is a return to slow, folky acoustic songs. They are less muddied than those in Jenösod but the mood remains. This is a perfect album for autumn due to its wistfulness and bittersweet vibes. Animales (2020) has been fighting against Señales for the spot as my favorite Pánico album. The songs are not only good quality recordings but, like in Axis Mundi, the band exhibited their folklore roots. Most of the songs deal with an Animal, which is a nice concept in itself. Last but certainly not least, pánico (2020). This self-titled album relies heavily on double-tracked vocals and music-school chords. It is the most ‘modern singer-songwriter’ album that the band has made. With that being said, these are Pánico’s albums ranked. ◆ Album
Favorite Song
Album Superlative
Señales
“Bordas de hielo”
Catchiest Songs // Best Closer
Animales
“Zarigüeyas”
Coolest Album
No.
“No te espero”
Bass-Player Inclusion Award
Pánico
“Los Muertos”
Best Opener
AMOR FATI
“Las miradas de los demás”
Pumpkin-Spice Award
Axis Mundi
“Homo Homini Lupus”
Jenösod
“Me Esta Matando esta Quietud”
Some-of-these-songs-make-mefeel-like-Pablo-Escabar Award Crying-under-an-avocado-tree Award NF009 | 6
Kate Bush and the Power of the Feminine Elise Hudson
Above all else, Kate Bush is a storyteller. From three minute vignettes like “There Goes a Tenner” to her epic half-album saga “The Ninth Wave” (the second half of her 1985 Hounds of Love), Bush fleshes out lush worlds filled with strange characters and unusual plots. And she hardly confines herself to one genre of story. Kate Bush sings about everything from the daughter of the inventor of a cloud machine and her ensuing struggles with the government (“Cloudbusting”) to nuclear apocalypse as experienced by a fetus (“Breathing”) to having sex with a snowman (yes, really, listen to “Misty” off of 50 words for Snow.)
But despite the breadth of her subject material, much of Bush’s work is tied together by a focus on the female experience. Through her music, Kate Bush provides unique insight into the way women experience childhood, motherhood, love, sex, grief, and death. Her characters are complex - sometimes good, sometimes bad, often somewhere in between, and fleshed out with the emotional depth that female characters deserve but so rarely are given. Bush’s fixation on the feminine, while at times inwardly directed, is more often focused on capturing a collective female psyche through telling a wide array of individual stories. Some of these center on the historical. In “Army Dreamers”, Bush sings in a fake Irish accent as she recounts the thoughts of a woman who has just lost her son at war. While the content of the song is mournful, the melody is lilting, not monotone. This tone reflects the expectation for women to stay silently strong in the face of adversity rather than sink into the dreaded “hysteria.” When Bush sings about women experiencing loss (“The Wedding List”, “Houdini”, “This Woman’s Work”) she highlights their perseverance by avoiding grim durges and going for something more nuanced. Grief is complex, and Bush illuminates its other aspects, such as wistfulness, guilt, and anger in addition to sadness. Female grief is often reduced solely to hysteria, and Bush paints a more complex picture.
NF009 | 7
Kate Bush is also known for her fascination with literature and folktales. The most iconic example of this is her breakout track “Wuthering Heights” (which is, as you probably guessed, about Emily Bronte’s book of the same name) but she has many other songs sung from the perspective of women in works of literature, such as “The Infant Kiss”, “Hammer Horror” and “Get Out of my House.” Her fascination with folklore manifests in songs such as “Jig of Life”, “The Red Shoes” and “The Kick Inside”, the title track from her first album which retells an old Irish folktale of a woman becoming pregnant through an incestious affair with her brother and subsequently killing herself. The song takes the form of a suicide note. By retelling these stories with a nuanced focus on the female characters, she gives these women of the past another chance to be heard. While she is no stranger to tackling dark subjects, the way Bush communicates joy in her narratives is masterful. Much of her music revolves around love, love for the world, love for a lover, and the love between a mother and child. The way she portrays love is deeply feminine, not in adherence to stereotypes, but in its valuing of raw emotion over conquest. Particularly trailblazing is the way Kate Bush sings about sex. It’s been a focus in her music from the very beginning. On her first album, Bush released songs such as “Feel it”, following them up in her second album with “Symphony in Blue”. Her fixation with sex culminated in 1989 with her album The Sensual World. Bush has always been so straightforward about addressing sex that it would come off as frank if not for her whimsical musical style. She manages to toe the thin line between being overly literal and relying too heavily on euphemisms. The perfect example of this balance is her song “The Sensual World.” The song is about pretty much what you would expect from the title. Kate is singing about sex, pure and simple. This is clear not only through the lyrics but also in how she sings, incorporating sighs and the like into her vocal delivery. Though the song is overtly sexual, it never feels vulgar, because she weaves it together so carefully. Part of this is in how she avoids describing a sexual power imbalance. In media, the masculine over feminine power imbalance in sex is so normalized that an alternative can seem impossible. Kate Bush’s music is a rare counterexample. In all of her songs about sex, Bush sings about how she feels. She isn’t preoccupied with describing the man in the situation, she instead focuses on her own emotions and sensations. She never expresses a desire to please, only her own raw desire. In a world where female sexuality is defined in terms of male pleasure, this type of songwriting is hugely subversive. Bush’s hyperfeminine affect gives her message even more power. Her high voice is quite stereotypically feminine but she falls into none of the tropes one would expect, and this contrast makes her message even more poignant. Though she hasn’t released new music in over a decade, and hasn’t had a true run of records since the 80’s, Kate Bush’s music continues to be relevant and influential. She challenges gender conventions by leaning into her femininity and in turn expressing her womanhood as nuanced and important. Kate Bush’s music is emblematic of the fluid, collective strength of the feminine. You can hear it in her voice: expressive, ethereal, and powerful. ◆
NF009 | 8
A Short History and Sample Platter of the “Think” Break Leander Cohen
There is no thirty seconds in music more iconic than the “Think” break. A section of Lyn Collins’ 1972 single “Think (About It)”, it has been sampled over 3,000 times. But how can one sample be so popular? What makes “Think” great? “Think” is a textbook example of a drum break, an instrumental, usually drums-only section of a song. In the late 1970s, DJ Kool Herc revolutionized popular music by taking drum breaks from funk music, particularly James Brown, and looping them to create beats. At block parties in the South Bronx, Kool Herc used this technique to create hip hop. In 1987, well into the so-called “Golden Age” of hip hop, the “Think” break was included on the 16th edition of the break compilation Ultimate Breaks & Beats. After it was sampled in “It Takes Two”, a platinum hit by New York hip hop duo Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock, “Think” was everywhere. By the 1990s, it achieved near-ubiquitous use in hip hop and dance tracks, spawning a brand new style known as breakbeat. Originating in the UK, breakbeat is less of a genre and more of an indication that the artist is sampling a break, often the “Think” break. It encompasses rapid rave bangers, also known as Jungle, mid-tempo, shuffled UK garage beats, and slow, mellow trip hop. Breakbeat began to fade from the mainstream in the 2000s, but the “Think Break” has remained a powerful force, showing up in a wide range of styles and musical contexts. Kanye West, Flume, and Pop Smoke – far from typical breakbeat artists – have all sampled “Think.” “Think” is raw and raucous, with a dusty snare, clattering tambourine, and raspy shouts of “Woo!” and “Yeah!” It’s a perfect balance of rhythmic simplicity and funk bombast. This is why it lends itself so perfectly to sampling. It’s warm and familiar, it adds a sense of rawness and intensity, but it’s moldable: you can speed it up, add reverb, or add other effects to make it something completely new. If we think of hip hop and dance music as two related cuisines - let’s say Chinese and Japanese food - the “Think” break is like soy sauce. It’s a basic, signature flavor; something that feels familiar, but also something that you can build on. Building on our food analogy, I’ve put together a “sample platter” (pun intended) of 10 tracks which make particularly creative use of “Think.” (Note: A playlist containing all 10 tracks in order is available on Lele Beats’ Spotify). 1. “The Burial” (1994) - Leviticus Perhaps the most quintessential jungle track, Leviticus pairs a sped-up “Think” break with brooding synths and NF009 | 9
reggae vocals. The effect is a thumping, surreal club banger in which the break takes center stage. It’s also an example of how jungle seamlessly combines Black genres from all sides of the Atlantic. Its percussion is American hip hop-via-funk, its vocals are Jamaican reggae, but its overall sound is distinctly British. It’s hard to imagine listening to “The Burial” outside of a hardcore rave; but its use of “Think” set the tone for the sample’s near-ubiquity in British dance scenes of the 90s. 2. “Pussyole (Old Skool)” (2007) - Dizzee Rascal Another British track. Four years earlier, Dizzee Rascal brought grime music to the mainstream with his debut album, Boy in da Corner. Grime came out of London in the 2000s and brought rap verses to UK garage, a slower, shuffled derivative of Jungle. Rascal pays homage to this history with “Pussyole (Old Skool),” a synthy grime track built around the “Think” break. Unlike “The Burial,” he doesn’t do much to the samDizzee Rascal ple, which allows his verses to shine. “Pussyole” is slang for someone who’s weak and afraid of confrontation, and the song is rumored to be a diss track against fellow grime rapper Wiley. Rumor or not, I like that Rascal seems less interested in actually dissing his adversary and more in getting his friends to stop hanging out with him. Some of my favorite bars are: “Stop rolling with that bredda you don’t need him / He’s a pussyole, he’s a chief leave him” and “The Sun’s the biggest star in the sky / but naturally it’s gotta make room for the moon every night.” 3. “Gosh” (2015) - Jamie xx This beautiful intro to Jamie xx’s 2015 masterpiece In Colour offers a subtle take on the 90s British dance sound. It chops up “Think” to make it sound hurried and intense rather than funky. With sound bites of “Oh my Gosh!”, “Hold it down!”, and some guy throwing up (not as gross as it sounds), it’s part-tribute, part-parody of British rave culture. But suddenly, we’re awash in a gorgeous palette of synths, and “Gosh” turns into a sentimental march. Jamie xx does so much here with so little, and it’s all built on “Think.” 4. “Lost in the World” (2010) - Kanye West The emotional climax of another masterpiece, Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. What Kanye does with the “Think” break here is a stroke of production genius. The song starts with a full minute of Bon Iver’s autotuned crooning, slowly building and layering harmonies. Then BAM! We hear the intro again, this time as a driving, concise hook. The sound at this point feels huge: we have Kanye, we have, like, six harmonized Bon Ivers, and we have the distorted, pounding “Think” break. It’s almost unrecognizable, rendered to distorted shouts and bangs. But it is so perfect for the moment, adding just the right texture, fullness, and emotional weight to a pivotal point on the album.
NF009 | 10
5. “Sexy Robotica” (2009) - Don Omar What the hell is “Think” doing in a song by the King of Reggaeton? On first listen, it might be hard to find. But “Think” comes in at an instrumental break around the 1:35 mark, where its “Woo!” and “Yeah!” can be heard over the blaring synths. “Think” isn’t typically associated with Latin music, so its use here is especially creative. It adds a nice bit of flair and rawness to the dance break, and makes the song all the more catchy and exciting. Outside of “Think,” my favorite part is the one-off English adlib: “Straight from Washington Heights!” 6. “Livin’ Loose” (2018) - George Clanton Clanton’s music grows out of vaporwave, an Internet genre mainly consisting of slowed-down mixes of 80s and 90s smooth jazz and R&B. It’s hard to miss the vaporwave influence on “Livin’ Loose,” with its retro synths and sax solo. But Clanton uses “Think” to take the style one step further, turning his atmospheric intro into a funky, genuine dance track. The slightly distorted “Woo!” of the break is a fun touch. 7. “Anasickmodular” (2019) - Floating Points With “Anasickmodular,” Floating Points puts on a clinic in creating an emotional build out of synths and percussion. The track starts with its own drum break, with sketchy snare sounds and synthy bloops. Then the “Think” break comes in, adding depth and movement to the beat. From there, Floating Points adds layer after layer of synths, finally culminating in a glitchy chop up of the “Think” break in the final minute. It’s an impressive balancing act of electronic weirdness and genuine dance-y catchiness, where “Think” is the glue holding everything together. 8. “PTSD” (2019) - Pop Smoke “Think” in Brooklyn drill? Absolutely. Drill is known for its menacing samples and syncopated 808s, which are all over “PTSD.” We don’t hear the percussion from “Think” here; instead, producer Rico Beats distorts the “Woo!” “Yeah!” vocal chops from “Think” to add some texture and intensity. 9. “Talk Down” (2021) - Dijon Dijon strips the “Think” break all the way back. The instrumentation is sparse - we hear bass and a quiet sax, putting the break and Dijon’s raspy voice center stage. The result is an intimate track about a couple bickering on a road trip. Far from the dance or hip hop styles that “Think” gave birth to, “Talk Down” shows that there’s beauty in the original, untouched sound of the break. 10. “Notice I Cried” (2021) - PinkPantheress And now we’re back, full circle. It’s 2022 and breakbeat is back. PinkPantheress is leading the charge, giving breaks like “Think” the 1990s treatment alongside catchy hooks and lush synths. This particular use of “Think” adds a sense of urgency to a song about heartbreak. But more generally, the breakbeat revival raises some interesting questions. Will artists take inspirations primarily from the 90s, or now that they have an entire body of new styles and sounds which use “Think,” will we see new takes on the original breakbeat sound? Will artists strip the break back, like Dijon, or mold it into an entirely new texture, like Kanye and Floating Points? Either way, the future for “Think” is bright. ◆ NF009 | 11
Steely Your Face: Lot Culture Within Steely Dan Will Prim
I have a Steely Dan scar on my right leg. It’s true. When I was 12 years old, I became an avid fan of the Dan through my Dad’s CD choices during our ride to school. After becoming well versed in the band’s world of studio-perfected jazz-rock, my dad took me to see the legendary group in Atlanta. visiting family in the city before the show, I was outside climbing a cement wall with a younger cousin, and somehow ended up with a gnarly cut on my shin. To this day, I’m still not sure how this wound occurred, but if my mother were there with us, it would have resulted in a trip to the hospital. Instead, Dad and I decided to clean it, wrap it, and go see Steely Dan. Although the band hasn’t released an album since 2003, and has toured infrequently since the death of guitarist Walter Becker, Steely Dan has somehow made its way back into relevance (of sorts). Since the beginning of quarantine, when I imagine the hivemind of bored indie-heads began to dig into their parents’ vinyl collections, there has been a resurgence of interest in Steely Dan and all the extensive lore that surrounds the band. The new interest has been spearheaded by Dan-enthusiasts applying Deadhead/lot culture to Steely Dan, as well as viewing the group’s discography as intensively as Dead or Phish Phans view their respective group’s work. Outside of every Grateful Dead or Phish show there is essentially a micro-economy set up in the parking lot. In this marketplace, vendors and artists will set up operations and sell handmade products such clothing, artwork, stickers, glassware, and truly anything else that you can think of. This small-scale economy has cultivated an incredibly creative and thriving community of enthusiasts who travel from venue to venue to showcase their work and commemorate the band they follow. The term “lot culture” stems from this environment and the love and downright oddity that encapsulates it. However, one of the most iconic aspects of the lot is the shirts sold by diverse artists. The term “lot-shirt” was invented to describe the unique and intriguing shirts that various vendors sell outside of events to memorialize the band.. There is a drastic difference between a shirt purchased “on the lot” versus a shirt bought from officials inside the venue, thus a culture around lot shirts is born. The shirts often include artistic depictions of songs or band members in different forms (a popular one is the members of Phish portrayed as Simpsons Characters). Overall, lot shirts take unique approaches to commemorating a band and their music and vary from official band merchandise. While one may view the Grateful Dead/Phish/jam-band scene as diametrically opposed to Steely Dan and its glitz and glamor , a closer examination shows that Steely Dan is ripe for a devout following of weirdos and artists. Donald Fagen peppered Steely Dan songs with obscure references to sci-fi authors and ironic observations about the futility of popular culture; he also foreswore touring in the height of their popularity. Although the group NF0079| 12
subscribes to a different cultural niche than The Grateful Dead or other unforgettable jam-bands, these different aspects of Steely Dan seem to directly appeal to the intellectual weirdos that participate in lot culture. For example, a large quantity of the Jam-band Phish’s songs revolve around guitarist Trey Anastasio’s sci-fi epic college thesis titled “The Man who Stepped into Yesterday.” Because of this, lovers of Phish can find comfort when Fagen sings about the “boom on mizar five” in “Sign in Stranger,” or the “celluloid bikers” in “Glamor profession.” Musically, Steely Dan’s complex and adventurous compositions, like “Aja” or “Everything Must Go,” seem to match Phish’s layered composition “You Enjoy Myself ” and the Grateful Dead’s “Terrapin Station.” It is easy to notice each song’s dedication to intricate and fine-tuned instrumentals. Although Steely Dan has never committed to improvisation in the same way jam-bands have, the group takes their music further in a live setting compared to a recording studio. All this is to say that this cultural cross-pollination isn’t totally out of the blue. After all, Steely Dan is simply a jam-band for people who like to read. Leading the pack in this Steely Dan/lot Culture crossover are instagram accounts such as @Double.Wonderful and @HeyitsmeNate. Similar to the lot shirts discussed earlier, their products often include colorful depictions of Steely Dan songs, comedic portrayals of the stereotype and cultural features of the group, or Steely Dan images mixed with Grateful Dead insignia (such as the Steal Your Face Skull or Roses). A favorite of mine that relates directly to my thesis on the issue is a shirt created by @Double.Wonderful that portrays the “Steely Dan to Grateful Dead conversion chart” (pictured below). Some other favorites of mine include a rug made that pictures a Grateful Dead Steal Your Face skull with a picture of Donald Fagen placed inside. These accounts and the products they’ve made truly portray this newfound interest in Steely Dan has cross-pollinated with hippie-band lot culture in a crossover that no one would have expected, but which makes sense now that it’s been done. ◆
NF009 | 13
Meditations on Dad Rock Anna Halladay
I’ve always been the first to admit that I’m a bit of a music snob, and anyone who knows me would definitely agree. But three recent events — along with a self-improvement kick — have me thinking about the very foundations of this snobbery. These events are: • my friends told me that they were scared for me • I declared a GWSS major and subsequently got into a fight with my brother • I started dating someone who loves prog rock For a long time, I was very happy to have my opinions without thinking too hard about why I had them. It’s a lot easier that way. I listen to my music because I think it’s good and I don’t listen to other music because I think it’s bad. I make arbitrary snap judgments about songs or artists. Lots of music that I don’t like is dismissed to the catch-all category of “dad rock,” whatever that even means. It’s a simple system that has always served me well. I’m not hurting anyone, I’m just listening to my music (which is good and which I enjoy listening to). Nothing wrong with that, right? And there isn’t anything wrong with that, in theory; but that wasn’t quite what was happening. This brings us to point 1: my friends and I were hanging out at some point last year, and they were talking about how there are some people that they’re scared to play their music in front of for fear of being judged for their tastes. I agreed, because I have shit self-confidence and feel like I’m being judged all the time, to the point where I don’t let people listen to my KRLX show. I was shocked when my roommate stared at me and said that I was one of those people. I think I laughed it off in the moment, but this comment really did stick with me. It honestly sent me spiraling a bit, because I really didn’t want to be one of those people. I know some of those people (e.g., my brother) and they make me angry — which brings us to point 2. I’m a GWSS major, which means I think about a lot of things. I think about how we know what we know and why we like what we like, and I think about how we judge and quantify things, and I think about when a personal distinction of “good” or “bad” becomes a moral distinction of “good” or “evil.” Those were the things I was thinking about when I got in an argument with my brother at some point last year. My brother is a film major and a major film elitist, and he likes to categorize movies as either good or bad. Mutually exclusive, no nuance. By his logic, “good” movies are worth watching (in silence! with reverence!) and “bad” movies reflect some sort of personal failing in anyone who enjoys them. This is obviously a frustrating and problematic point of view, and all of my attempts to make him understand why were completely ineffectual. (It was not a fun conversation. We both cried.) So I freaked a little when I realized that my friends might view me in a similar way. I hated being judged by my brother for watching a romcom, and I didn’t want other people to feel judged by me for listening to music that they derived pleasure from. NF009 | 14
I honestly think that I learned quickly from these events. As I continued on my journey to non-snobdom, it wasn’t long before I could genuinely respect other people’s music tastes and shut down any judgments that subconsciously arose. Still, that didn’t mean that I wanted to expand my own listening, because I knew what I liked and I definitely knew what I didn’t like. But then we get to point 3: I started dating someone who loves prog rock — the epitome of dad rock — and when she plays it for me, I don’t mind. I enjoy it. Of course, music is situational. It’s experienced and enjoyed differently depending on the situation. Live music is very different from a studio recording. Townhouse parties are for mosh pits and scream-singing, not a chord-bychord breakdown of the latest indie chart-topper. The point of music is to enjoy it, or to critique it, or to process emotions, or to get something out of it — and at that point, exactly what you’re listening to is kind of irrelevant. Still, when it comes to dad rock, there’s a lot for me to overcome before reaching the point of enjoyment. Music is situational, and they’re not always positive situations. I use the term “dad rock” for a reason; to me, it’s the music that my dad and his friends have always tried to convince me to listen to. It’s the music that I’ve been told that I should respect and appreciate. It’s the music whose sexist or other harmful messages I should overlook because that’s not the point, and aren’t these men geniuses? I hated hearing these comments, and when my shiny new GWSS major “intimidated” my dad and his friends, we all knew it was because there was plenty to criticize — and now I had the language to follow through on it. I’ve talked about these experiences with friends, and it turns out that “Bruce Springsteen trauma” is surprisingly common. (Nothing against Springsteen himself, only the role that his music has played in my life.) And while I don’t fault others for listening to dad rock, I’ve always been pretty sure that I never would. But music is situational. And somehow, I’ve recently been able to replace some of these negative memories with more positive experiences. I’ve learned that listening to music with someone who makes you feel safe and supported is a much better experience. Trying to find your own beauty and sensation in music is a lot more fun than having it forced on you. And now listening to dad rock doesn’t always feel so bad anymore. ◆
Interview: Eduardo Pávez Alberto Leon
Tenemos Explosivos is a Chilean rock band. It was formed in 2009, and its members include veterans from Chile’s punk scene. They have been first-hand witnesses of Chile’s complicated social situation, from before and after Pinochet’s dictatorship. Their music offers a more complex approach to post-hardcore, both musically and lyrically. I had the opportunity to interview their frontman, Eduardo Pávez, who is currently a Ph.D. student in Theater & Performance at Columbia University. Eduardo’s interest in theater is one of the reasons for the band’s richer lyrical content, including influences from Greek tragedies and myths. This interview was translated from the original Spanish. Alberto León: Eduardo, a great pleasure. I have known your music since I was in ninth grade, put on in 2018. Your music was crucial in my intellectual formation… A great honor to be able to interview you and be face to face. Eduardo Pávez: My pleasure. AL: I wanted to start by asking you, where did the idea of forming “Tenemos Explosivos” come from and what does that name mean? EP: Tenemos Explosivos was formed when the guitarists, who are brothers, Juan José and René Sánchez, had a band called “Cría cuervos.” When “Cría cuervos” ended, they were left wanting to continue playing and making songs. I knew René, because René was part of the family of my wife at the time. I knew that he played the guitar; NF009 | 15
he knew that I sang. Sometimes we got together to play for a while, it was entertaining, but we had never done any project together. In 2009 he calls me one day and tells me: “Hey, I was in a band, the band is over, my brother was on tour in Europe, now he’s back”, his brother played at the “Asamblea Internacional del Fuego” and they had finished the tour of Europe. So they tell me: “We want to form a band, would you be interested in singing?” and I said “Yeah, sure. Let’s get together.” And that’s how it started. The name “Tenemos Explosivos” emerged because we were going to have our first show and we said to ourselves: “Ok, what are we going to call ourselves?”. We had been rehearsing for three months without a name and Juan José said: “Hey, I’ve always liked the idea of putting a band with ‘Tenemos Explosivos’ and we all said: ‘Yes, it’s good, but I don’t know if we like it. Let’s see and think about it.’” About two weeks went by and we couldn’t think of anything better, and Juan José said: “Now, do you like it or don’t you like it? Shall we name the band that or not? “Yes, ok, yes, Tenemos Explosivos”. So, “Tenemos Explosivos” as a name came from chance and it is a name that we have learned to love. Also, we hope that the name has learned to love us; we have a relationship with the name as if it were a person, it has become something we carry and everything is fine.
AL: It is a name that attracts a lot of attention. How would you categorize the music of “Tenemos Explosivos”? What label would you put on genre or style? EP: Rock… Post-hardcore and Chilean rock would probably be my labels. I’m also not very good at etiquette because it’s as if I asked you what Radiohead is, it depends on the album. “Kid A” is not rock and “Amnesiac” is not rock either, but they are Radiohead. What I am going for with the idea of the label is not to say that we are Radiohead in any case, it is to establish that there is a difference between the relationship with the label from the NF009 | 16
position of the creator. AL: So, what were you trying to convey with the band? What did you try to convey from the beginning and what are you trying to convey now? EP: It is the same, it has remained. I think that from very early on we realized that we all felt a very deep dissatisfaction with what was happening in Chile. In 2009, there had not yet been a University Revolution, the Penguin Revolution had been a few years ago. There was a very dark feeling in 2009, when Piñera was about to become president for the first time, we were all kind of tired. AL: A very heavy atmosphere, I would say. EP: Yes, and it is also important. All of us who play in the band were born during the dictatorship, our childhood memories are memories of the dictatorship. Therefore, the image of the military, the massacres, the rivers with bodies, all of this is part of our childhood, in one way or another. When we got together, we said: “OK, we don’t like what is happening in Chile, we have a history regarding the violence of the State against the citizens, of the de facto powers of the State that use violence as the element that determines the categorical contradictions of society. So, what are we going to do about it? Ok, we’re going to make a band, and in this band, we’re going to talk about it.” The attempt is an exercise in making music, and at the same time, with that music, rescuing the historical memory of the country, and if possible, the historical memories of other places. Much of the historical memory of Chile appears, but there are nods to the Spanish Civil War, to the assassinations of certain politicians in Mexico, to certain revolutions elsewhere, in Honduras or Vietnam. There are other details that appear on the album, but the basis is in the maintenance of memory, using music and rock as a political element that has to do with the recovery of that memory; in an advanced capitalism, the usual exercise is forgetting. This being so, our attempt is the opposite exercise to that. That would be. AL: From that, what you showed me with political ideas, your last album was “Victoria”, right? In 2017? EP: Yes. AL: OK, that was before the protests in Chile. EP: Yes. AL: Did you think that they were going to happen, were you predicting it in your music?... Is that moment in Chile going to be fundamental in your new material? EP: What happens is that the band has never been a band of ephemeris. For example, we released the first demo in 2010... “Intervención enérgica en los asuntos de la nación” and there are six songs, half of “Derrumbe y Celebración” is part of that demo. while we were recording it in August 2011, every day there were marches; and I went to take photos of the marches, the police beat me, my head split open, I helped people; It was a terrible street fight. While this was happening, I was taking photos of these marches, we were recording the album, and it happened that there were sessions in which we were recording, because what do I know… “Today I am not NF009 | 17
going to go to the march, I am going to record, I have to record a song”, and in the studio we couldn’t record because the smell of the tear gas came in and we couldn’t continue. So we’d stop recording, put on our hoods and go out on the march... The album was recorded in that logic, if you look at the cover of Derrumbe, it’s a drawing of a fox and the photo on the back is a march, the photo on the back of the album is a march, all the photos of the interior art are marches, they are photos that I took at that time, that I took with a film camera and revealed them in my bathroom. They are pure photos of that moment; it’s an album very much from that moment, but the album doesn’t talk about that. There is a separation between form and substance, in the work of the records, which has been maintained in a stable way... The form of the record does not depend on this political background, but is connected to it. AL: Let’s switch to another question. I find it curious how Greek myths are incorporated, there are many references to Greek and Roman mythology. Where do all those classic references on the album come from? EP: What happens is that, more than the classic, what interests me are the myths. In short, I am interested in myths as a social operation. On the one hand, myths as a value maintenance operation; That is to say, myths exist to generate values in society, so we value something and create a myth for it, right? Like the myth of Holiness is the value of letting go, or the myth of the Collective is the value of life in community. But they are myths, we generate myths that acquire a life of their own within the intersubjective circulation in society, so I am very interested in myths, and just as I am interested in myths and I am interested in theater. I decided for the first album to work with Greek myths that were related to the theater, also because I know them very well. In fact, I have written many works on myths, or rewritten many myths, and in “Derrumbe y celebración” there are some references to classical myths such as Prometheus in between; there is Antigone; there is the Mosaic of Pella, which is where the first centaurs are; it’s like certain references, it’s Thyestes. On the second album, there is a story, the central story is this character who leaves home, travels the world and sends messages to his father on the radio while he travels, that character for me is inspired by the myth of Iphigenia; Ifigenia in Áulide, before going to war, so that the winds blow, she has to sacrifice her daughter. So, like Abraham who has to kill his son, Agamemnon has to kill his daughter. AL: Is there any possibility of a special tour or concert? In other words, do you want to take the pandemic factor into account, yes or no, what is the situation? EP: What happens is that our project is a project that has the size of friends, when we travel to Mexico, we travel because we have friends there who know people who can find a place, we get financing with friends and we travel to play. When we go to Argentina it is the same movement. The same in Colombia, like everything is between friends. So, every trip depends on having friends. We have always wanted to tour in the United States, but the problem in the United States is travel. It is very expensive to move a band because it is not only us, it is also all the teams. Eduardo, aside from recording new material and working towards his Ph.D., is also currently running a YouTube channel about photography. NF009 | 18
NF008. 3.11.22. Everywhere.
