emo's austin
Music: Siouxsie & the Banshees: Superstition (1991)
This summer is the last time I will teach the "Rhetoric and Popular Music" class for a smaller number of students. I developed the course one summer for intersession while a graduate student at the University of Minnesota (circa 2001), and I've taught it at least once a year every year since. Five years is not a bad run for a course, although, I would be lying if I say that I was putting it to rest: the class is simply becoming a large lecture course, with some significant assignment modification.
One of the assignments of the course that I will not modify is a group ethnography: five or six students descend on some unsuspecting venue foreign to them and observe and participate in the "scene." The project does not focus on music as much as it does the "space" in which music occurs. The students are supposed to think about how the space of a musical venue helps to force a particular musical experience. To help them get ready for this project, I have a class field trip (which I stress is optional for them) to a local music venue. Since I've been in Austin, I've taken my classes to Emo's, a local "alterna" music venue that runs along 6th street and Red River.
Emo's is a great little music place for a number of reasons, if only because of their somewhat off-putting booking policy:
WE DO NOT book modern rock, alternative rock, rap metal, etc, etc...if this is your first time hearing of us, you probably don't play the type of music we're working with. We have a strict policy of the type of stuff that we do here...mostly underground stuff: punk/indie/emo/electronica/DIY hip hop/garage/etc/etc....They do sometimes book, however, utter shite, such as the opening act on the late show last night . . . .
In any event, I cannot write too much about the experience last night because I don't want to "spoil" the exercise discussion with the students on Monday. There were two shows, one that started at 6 p.m., and another that started at 11:30 (I could only manage it until midnight, when I simply had to jet home to sleep). I can say that I've never felt so "old" at a show before: this was an all ages event, and the major draw, the novelty-bubble-punk band Bowling for Soup (whose charm wore off by the third three-chord song-n-lyrical "ya ya ya ya la la la la" genius even Weird Al would tire of). Mothers and fathers milled about watching over their middle-schoolers. Earplugs firmly in place (thereby marking me as a geezer) I moseyed up to the stage to see the uber-slick The Vanished finish up their set, when two young girls next to me, visibly distraught by my stage-rushing agressivity screamed to each other: "God, look at all the old people here!" "Yeah, what's the big deal?"
Of the six bands I saw last night, The Vanished were the most "radio friendly." They were also the prettiest to look at. I predict if they can come up with a single that's a little more gothy, they may do well. But, what's with the freakin' weird-ass mouth contortion? You must have to go to punk school to learn how to make your face look like you're having an orgasm with every three chords of your repertoire! I mean seriously: the lead guitarist's facial contortions were out of control( I fantasized of some fanatical high school girl running up on stage and stuffing a banana or something in it).
Regardless, last night was one riffy cliché after the next . . . a sure sign of my dotage: musical cynicism in a sea of pubescence. A gallery of the evening is here.