To mistake style for pose or trendiness is not exactly adequate in
criticism...but I'm aware and conscious that the notions are very fuzzy in
criticism here and I remember exactly the same debate in a big essay I had
written in film class eons ago about noir films and the biting argument it
started between one of the prof in film dptmnt and one of the profs in the
Romance Languages dpmnt and the nasty little bar fight (!) they had about
the grade...hey, hey!!...and to concur with you we can easily say that posé
or trendy cliques are as cliché and politically dangerous as the best
populist ones...
Don't know Déjà Voodoo: are they around now?...
Anyway, time to move on...Cjunkies (junkies they are not & cowboys/girls not
the ones I read or see in film) were in A2 several times in the past and I
saw them there twice...nice, gentle, sometimes cute, sometimes
etheral...innofensive to my ears generally ...but PJ Harvey or Marianne
Faithfull...and in the context of crime/noir stories...and the tales told in
the songs and, at the same time, the style of the artist (both being
intrinsic part of the picture)...hmmm...??
Montois
On 7/19/09 4:05 PM, "Kevin Burton Smith" <kvnsmith@thrillingdetective.com>
wrote:
> Steve wrote:
>
>> I think I¹m much more attached to Œstyle¹, than you are in your
>> taste, since
>> I would never touch, listen, go, near the likes of Cowboy Junkies,
>> Springsteen, Earle, Westerberg, any MOR, Billy Gentry, the Band...
>
> Your musical blinders are your loss. You're missing some great tunes.
>
> What can I say? I'm not as fascinated by pose and trendiness as I am
> by the actual music. Which is probably why I enjoy the hopelessly
> square meat-and-potatoes of hard-boiled more than the pseudo-cool
> nouvelle cuisine pretensions of some noir these days. And probably why
> I poke fun at some of the bios and photos and pretensions of some
> authors so much. They take themselves so seriously I don't have to.
>
> And while I could easily have included some Lou Reed, VU or even a
> couple of cool songs by Gene Vincent, I always thought the Cramps were
> a little too obvious, and never quite as funny as they thought they
> were. Now, Deja Voodoo -- there was a band that pulled off the cheapo
> pulp horror thing. But their profile is so low they make The Cramps
> look mainstream.
>
> By the way, those acts I mentioned aren't exactly mainstream in Jonas
> Brothers' North America. Maybe among aging rock'n'rollers like me who
> get bored by what's been stamped as "classic rock" they'd be
> considered mainstream, but most of these acts are considered pretty
> much left of center (or slagged off as old farts' music) these days,
> except (arguably) for maybe Springsteen.
>
> But anyway, for those of you keeping score, last night's PALMDALE NOIR
> was a blast. The songs ranged from Townes Van Zandt to Neil Young (an
> amazing take on "Down by the River" as an Appalachian murder ballad),
> with enough originals and obscurities (and solid musicianship) to
> exceed even my wildest expectations. I'm still buzzing!
>
> We're definitely going to do it again some day...
>
>
>
>
> Kevin Burton Smith
> Editor/Founder
> The Thrilling Detective Web Site
> "Wasting your time on the web since 1998."
>
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> RARA-AVIS home page: http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
Steve Novak
Cinefrog@comcast.net
734 429 4997 - off
313 300 0770 - cell
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