| IASPM-U.S. NEWSLETTER |
| International Association for the Study of Popular Music |
| United States Branch -- Summer 1998 |
As we approach the start of the fall semester and our upcoming 1998 conference in Los Angeles, held at UCLA, I approach as well the end of my three-year term as Chair of IASPM/U.S. It has been a whirlwind affair, but a uccessful one, I feel. As much as a nything, I am happy to be able to report that, short of one initiative, I helped to accomplish all the major goals I set for the organization during the course of my tenure. They include the creation of an official set of by-laws, the first democratic ele ction of our officers, the growth of our membership base, the development of outreach to other like-minded organizations, the creation of a IASPM/U.S. book award, and the renewal of our publication, THE JOURNAL OF POPULAR MUSIC STUDIES (copies to be dist ributed in L.A. and mailed thereafer). We are bigger, more visible, and more organized, At the same time, I don't think we've lost the human touch that has made IASPM a cross-disciplinary meeting place for popular music scholars. We may continue to be, as the phrase goes, a "secondary organization," but we've made the most of that position and, I think, may in the not too distant future be a primary organization.
Furthermore, plans are in motion for activities that will take place after my tenure is up. We have site for our next two conferences: Chicago in 1999 (Steve Jones of Univ. Ill. Chicago will host) and as part of the Mega-Music Conference in Toronto in 20 00. Our outreach program will also continue: I will host the first meeting of a music caucus within the American Studies Association this fall in Seattle. We'll need to pick up on the interest expressed by two publishers in our journal. Last, the more we participate in gestures like the annual book award, the more widely we will be known. The set of articles in the CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION on popular music research may have left a good deal to be desired, as was illustrated by comments on our listser v. Nonetheless, the more such publicity is obtained, the more validity and visibility the field of popular music studies will achieve. As a last comment, the increased traffic on the listserv has been gratifying. Of note was the recent flurry of comments on fair use & copyright in academic research. I hope that such exchanges will proliferate in the future. Their publication in the new issue of RPM should promote dialogue & debate.
Our meeting in L.A. should be exciting. The diversity of papers is outstanding, and the number of new participants to the group is cause for celebration. The fact that, over three years, we have doubled the number of papers presented at our annual confe rence is extraordinary. We will, of course, want to think over the benefits and defecits of larger gatherings, but for the moment I see much cause of celebration. Having a keynote address is also cause for a bit grandstanding, and getting George Lipsitz t o address the group is a coup.
I will continue to be a presence in IASPM/U.S. As you'll see on the ballot, I'm running for an office, and I will continue, as will be the case in L.A., to present papers when I can. For the present, I remain at the BMI Archives, although there have been some cracks in the job arena for me this spring. I hope that the possibility of good fortune for me will play out for others seeking possitions in the academic arena. The plenary panel this year in L.A. on the job scene is crucial and long overdue.
Until this October, send your ballots in early, and make sure you renew your membership. It's been a good run, but, like all good things, fresh thinking and another hand will keep IASPM/U.S. moving ahead into the future.
David Sanjek
U.S. Chair 1995-98
Friday, October 16, 1998
8:30-9:00 a.m.: Registration, coffee, and donuts
9:00-9:30 a.m.: Opening remarks (D. Sanjek, R. Walser, etc.)
*Re-wirings: Technologies of Music Chair: David Sanjek
1. Randall Doane, Cultural technologies and gendered pleasures
2. Matthew Malsky, Stretched from Manhattan's back alley to MOMA: a
social history of magnetic tape and recording
3. Steve Waksman, Pure tones and solid bodies: Les Paul, Chet Atkins,
and the electric guitar in American popular music, 1941-1960.
*Globalized Noise: Styles, Economies, (Trans)Nations Chair: tba
1. Ashley Dawson, Drum & space: south asian dance music and the
globalization of consumer culture
2. Lorri Plourde, Sonic and discursive violence in the transnational
circulation of Japanese noise
3. Keir Keightley, Around the world: musical tourism and the
internationalization of the record industry, 1946-65
11:00-12:30: Plenary Session
* Popular Music Studies as a Vocation: Professional Possibilities and Institutional
Dilemmas. Anahid Kassabian, Cindy Fuchs, co-chairs;
Participants: Andrew Herman, Thom Swiss, Timothy Taylor, Robert Walser.
12:30-2 p.m.: Lunch
2-3:30: Panels
*States and Boundaries: Interrogating Institutions Chair: Paul Fischer
1. Ivan Raykoff, Eurovision: the politics of kitsch
2. Chris Scoates, For what it's worth: institutions and popular
music/ institutionalizing popular music
3. Bernie Gendron, Rock criticism is dead, or so says Gina Arnold: some
issues
*Crossing Over: Artists, Styles, Formats Chair: Reebee Garofalo (pending)
1. David Ake, Jazz history and the problem of Louis Jordan
2. Bill Barlow, Voice-over: the making of black radio
3. Steve Pond, Crossing over: Bob James, the record industry, and the
question of genre
3:30-5 p.m.: Panels
*Composition and Production: Changing Process Chair: tba
1. Michael Jarrett, The Inaudible
Style: Jazz Production
2. Daniel Newsome, Lab notes: sessionography and the anatomy of popular
music composition
3. Steve Lindeman, Fix it in the mix: compositional process as seen in
changes to master recordings in the transfer from analog to digital in
the reissue process
*Beyond the Noise: Moving Hip Hop Studies Into the Future Chair: tba
1. Kyra Gaunt, A Beat of Reality: Re-covering the Revolutions of
Blackness with Two Turntables and a Mic.
2. Joe Schloss and Oliver Wang, Stuck on Channel Zero: Public Enemy
Among the Hip Hop Discourses
3. Jon Caramanica, Keeping It Real: The Lyric as a Site of (In)authenticity
5-6 p.m.: Keynote address: George Lipsitz
6-7:30: Reception
Saturday, October 17, 1998
7-9 a.m.: Executive Committee meeting
9-10:30: Panels
*Urban Mappings: LA & Montreal
Chair: Paul Friedlander
1. Bernardo Alexander Attias, Let them eat wax, or urban struggle and
commodity form: refiguring the Los Angeles riots in popular music
2. Deepak Narang Sawhney, The geology of slavery in L.A. gangsta rap
3. Lilian Radovac, And the machine is bleeding to death: images of post
urban Montreal in the music of godspeed you black emperor
*Watching Music: Issues in music video Chair: Steve Elworth
1. Gil Bettman, The decline of narrative in rock videos
2. Gary Burns, Pop-up video: the rerun as spinoff
3. Belinda Morrow, But Beavis, everything does suck: watching
Beavis and Butt-head watch videos
*Performing, Marketing, Theorizing Sexualities Chair: Josh Kun
1. Kathleen Iudicello, Sexed-up bodies: a hardcore look at the performed
sexualities of lLil Kim and Foxy Brown
2. Cynthia Fuchs, Promote that ass: sex, kids, and markets
3. Gayle Wald, Women in rock: a girl issue?
10:30-noon: Panels
*Making Music, Movies, and Money Chair: Andrew Herman
1. Tim Anderson, No, but i heard the soundtrack: popular music and film
studies
2. Rebecca Leydon, The soft focus sound
3. Daniel Goldmark, Swing wedding: image and commodification of jazz in
the early Hollywood cartoon
*Producing Masculinities: Ethnicity, Funk, Camp Chair: Robert Walser
1. Glenn Pillsbury, Ethnicity
roaming: self/other construction in heavy metal
2. Geoffrey Whittall, Makin it funky: the construction of funk grooves
in the music of James Brown
3. Mitchell Morris, Camping masculinity in (the)
disco: the case of the Village People
*Independent Performance,
Aesthetics, and the Question of the Avant-Garde
Chair: Bernard Gendron
1. Christopher Robe, Pop avant-garde:
a critical inquiry into the
various performances of Sonic Youth
2. Arnold Pan, Daydream nation: a critique of indie rock's everyday life
3. Roger Beebe, Race and Post-
modern Rock: Troubling the
Discourse on Postmodernism in Popular Music
Noon-1:30: lunch
1:30-3:30: Panels
*That Business of Music Chair: tba
1. Dick Weissman, Cultural studies
and the music business
2. Robert Fink, Orchestral corporate, music and institutional identity
in american = business culture
3. Paul Fischer, Eerie bedfellows on
the lake: a fiscal and financial
analysis of the rock and roll hall of fame and museum
4. Paul Friedlander, You say you have a revolution: the internet and
music delivery
*What Label Is It On?: Producing a "Sound" Chair: tba
1. Durrell Bowman, We'll sail the big dominion...: independents day and
Canada's Rheostatics
2. Erik Lindgren, The Barclay rock story (1961-71)
3. David Shumway, The label: soul's definitive institution
4. Rob Bowman, Stax, Motown, and the sonic manifestation of institutional
difference
*Keeping It Real? Representational Politics After Authenticity
Chair: Kyra Gaunt
1. Brian Dolinor, Verbal Battles to Win a Hip-Hop Hegemony and a
Redefinition of Black Masculinity
2. Robert D. DeChaine, Queercore is Dead: Reflections on the Politics of
an Anti-Genre
3. Jennifer C. Waits, Is There Room for the Kids in Rock Music?:
Ideological or Authentic Youth in Rock.
4. Delaney, Rebekah, Girl Power, Consumer Power?
3:30-5: Panels
*Genre: Constitutions and Confusions Chair: David Brackett
1. Norma Coates, Rocking the wasteland: rock music on television in the early
1960s
2. Trent Hill, a distinctive country voice: the Nashville sound and the genre crisis
in country music in the late 1950s
3. Theo Cateforis, Alternative to what? Issues of style and genre in
popular music studies
*Reissuing Records: Perspectives of Record Label Presidents and A&R
Managers Moderator: Gary Burns
Participants: Bob Irwin, Lee Joseph,
Erik Lindgren, Ted Myers, Rob Santos.
*People's Music: Approaching the Vernacular Chair: Bill Barlow
1. Austin B Caswell and Christopher Smith, Into the ivory tower:
vernacular music and the American academy
2. David Sanjek, All folked up:
critiquing old weird America
3. Thomas Swiss, That's me in the corner: rock autobiographies and
vernacular theory
5-6:30 p.m.: Gen. Business Meeting
Sunday, October 18, 1998
9-10:30 a.m: Panels
*Music-based Communities: Local
and Beyond Chair: Thom Swiss
1. Gage Averill, Male barbershop harmony
2. Marj Kibby, Yackety yak, don't talk back: music companies and music
communities, conferencing and conflict
3. Tracy Duvall, A new tradition: integrating and juxtaposing genres in
three Mexican concerts;
*Tunings: Radio Theories Chair: tba
1. Mark Percival, XFM: London's first and last alternative music
station?
2. Susan Key, A simple business proposition: early radio and popular
music
3. Geoffrey Hull, Radio airplay and record sales: the story from the
charts
10:30-Noon: Panels
*Subcultures Chair: tba
1. Derek Kompare, Post-rocking the canon: the challenges of easy
listening and the cocktail nation
2. Jason Middleton, Teaching subcultures
3. Jacqueline Warwick, Next stop squaresville: camp aesthetics in L.A..'s
swing revival
*Rebels Chair: tba
1. Barbara Ching, Honky Tonk Heroes in *Rolling Stone*: How the Country
Music Outlaws Got In
2. Lisa Soccio, Shock tactics and suburban scumbags: oppositionality
and counter-identification in the rhetoric of punk
3. Greg Wahl, Very very easy to be true: Johnny Cash, John Langford,
and populist insurgency
Official Registration Form
IASPM-US Conference '98
Los Angeles Oct. 16-18
Student/Unwaged - IASPM members $25
Non-members Reg. only. $35
Non-members Reg./membership $47.50
Individual - $50
Non-members Reg. only $65
Non-members Reg./membership $95
If mailed after Sept. 30, add $10 to all fees. (checks payable to IASPM-US)
Name___________________________
Address_________________________
________________________________
________________________________
Institutional Affiliation_______________________
________________________________
Phone #'s________________________
E-mail__________________________
Send to:
David Brackett
IASPM-US
% Dept. of Music
Binghamton University
Binghamton, NY 13902-6000
IASPM Global Links
IASPM-US Website
http://info.comt.uic.edu/usiaspm
IASPM International Website
http://www.gl.shuttle.de/rpm/iaspm
RPM (Newsletter) Website
Calls For Papers
Music and Communication
A set of papers and hopefully also an issue of the New Jersey Journal of Communication are contemplated, focusing specifically on the expanding and increasingly wide range of intersections between the disciplines of music and communication. Music as medium, text or "language," technology and digital media, broad social/cultural,cross-cultural and identity issues, perception/reception questions, issues in performance, music as part of other electronic and digital texts, institutional or educational approaches, various methodological and analytical strategies, and certainly more would all be welcomed. We need to know what is happening and where, what patterns have been emerging, where and how various institutions or constituencies are seeking to expand. It is also important to examine the music, media and entertainment industries and the impact of rapid changes in digital media and technology on production, distribution, use, reception, cultural/ social functions and meanings, intellectual property and commerce. Send me any descriptions, abstracts, papers, suggestions, questions or other materials of your own and names of others whose work you think may be relevant to this project.
Roger Johnson
through August:
PO Box 581
Cranberry Lake, NY 12927
(315) 848-2689
rojohnso@idt.net
after 9/1:
38 W. 106 St.
New York, NY 10025
(212) 662-3686
rojohnso@idt.net
rojohnso@ramapo.edu
International Broadcasting Symposium In Manchester, U K 24-25 March 1999
Theme Of Symposium: Is Regulation Still An Option?
Format: abstracts should be typed on one side 8.5 x 11 sheet and should include the following:
Title of paper, Author(s), Name of presenter, affiliation and postal address.
Abstract:150 words Audio-visual requirements state you're an IASPM member Final paper SHOULD NOT be more than 3000 words in length.Presentation:
Acceptance/Rejection:
You will ne notified in writing whether or not your paper has been accepted for an oral prsentation. Papers not accepted for oral presentation may be accepted as posters or round table contribution.
Deadlines: 1st January 1999 for abstract, papers to be submitted by 1st February 1999
Selected papers will be published in the conference book, financed by Channel 4 and published by John Libbey Media.
Send your abstracts to:
Lida Hujic Media and Communications Goldsmiths' College Lewisham Way London SE14 6NW.BOOK SERIES SOUND MATTERS TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Because it articulates our values, beliefs, and dreams, music provides an ideal entry point for cultural analysis. Like film, it is enjoyed by many, if not most, people. Music gives us pleasure; it expresses ideology. In our age, it's a product of our global electronic culture, and while it readily yields to musicological analysis to those methods practiced to great effect in university music departments it also lends itself to broader, more interdisciplinary approaches. This series calls for books that practice these approaches with innovative, provocative, and accessible results. It continues contemporary efforts to include music studies under the rubric of cultural studies. But it also poses a couple of questions: What if we adopt a position of ignorance, play the role of student, and apply music-related strategies to problems of textual production? Can music teach scholars? Can it show a mass audience how to make cultural studies popular? This series encourages books that take up this challenge.
Sound Matters will address a broad audience interested in reading books about music and music-related subjects. Its readers while open to the terminology of critical theory (once terms are explained) are not necessarily experts in the field of cultural studies. They (music fans) enjoy thinking about music in new ways.
Topics might include:
**Investigations of the various and changing roles of record
producers in the creation of music
(What does film theory stand to teach
music studies? What about
biographies of Ralph Peer, Tom Wilson, Milt Gabler, and other producers?).
**Aesthetics and representations of music (How has opera been
represented to various audiences over time? What sorts of aesthetic
discourses vied for the attention of music fans during the 1950s?).
**Genealogies of and guides to particular styles of music (e.g., The
Crooners, Antecedents of the Tango, and Ambient: A User's Manual).
**Studies that examine how performing spaces, media, and drugs have
determined aesthetics (both at the level of performance and the level of
reception).
**Histories of music that trace music's function as a vector communicating changing fashions, e.g., in clothing or hair (e.g., A Sartorial History of African-American Music).
**Studies that focus on reception, theorizing the experience of fans
and critics; record store and concert culture.
**How does music or, better, in what ways do particular types of music contribute to the construction of identity: race, gender,ethnicity, and nationality?
Chances are, these topics will prompt a measure of recognition. ("Aren't there already books on music and national identity?") More importantly, they're calculated to prompt other topics and to indicate a range of possible subjects for the series. Compared to, say, film studies, music studies is a vastly under-developed, untheorized field.
To inquire further about the Sound Matters series, contact its editor:
Michael Jarrett Penn State York 1031 Edgecomb Ave. York, PA 17403 (717) 771-4157 (office) (717) 741-3427 (home) (717) 771-8404 (office fax) jmj3@psu.edu