Peter Shapiro: Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco

Peter Shapiro is a regular Wire magazine contributor, particularly on US House and Techno and this book had long appealed, but I borrowed it from the library on a whim after enjoying Simon Reynold's Retromania so much and wanting to return to music writing. Turn the Beat Around doesn't disappoint either, offering a fascinating 'secret' history of what the publishers describe as a much maligned genre, but from where I sit nowadays that's hardly the current perception.

Interesting was Shapiro's analyses of disco's early beginnings in German youth rebelling against the conformity of Nazi Youth, then through Parisian post-war underground clubs then onto gay New York. The image of Bette Midler singing while a semi-clad Barry Manilow tickled the ivories in an underground spa was wonderful, and hedonistic anecdotes of crazed activities in clubs, discos and makeshift venues of all stripes abound. Shapiro too is great on the music, and I'll xerox the extensive discography before I return it to the library, falling apart and missing pages.

I've started listening to the Disco Discharge series of compilations through Strut and they're wonderful. There's around 25 hours of material on the three sets of series so a lot to wade through.

Witold Gombrowicz: Ferdydurke

Considered a neglected modernist masterpiece Witold Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke is rapidly becoming less neglected, with particularly vocal support having come from Susan Sontag among others. Like Kafka written by a frustrated schoolboy with a strong satirical agenda, Ferdydurke tells of the narrator's transformation from thirty year old write to 16 year old child/adolescent, and follows the trials and tribulations associated with these stages of life in modern society.

Kotecki: 'But I don't understand, sir. I don't understand how I can be sent into transports of delight if I am not sent into transports of delight.'
The master: 'But Kotecki, how can you not be sent into transports of delight if I have already explained to you a thousand times that you are sent into transports of delight?'

Like Kafka and other early twentieth century European modernists Canetti, Walser and Svevo, events change rapidly and drastically throughout Ferdydurke. Once in school 'backsides' become a central focus of both the masters, who lust after them, and the students, who value the power they hold. The protagonist himself stops resisting the pangs of adolescence upon viewing the daughter of his minders, becoming obsessed with her 'irresistible thighs'. He later escapes with a schoolfriend to the country, following his chum's desire to 'fra... ternise with stableboys', but finding the peasants reverted to barking dogs, is rescued by well-to-do relatives. There the customs of the upper class are ridiculed, as are those of their servants, before the entire novel collapses in chaos, all values, structures, and meaning rendered absurd, especially education

Operation pedagogue continued relentlessly, and innumerable specialists worked on the masses, teaching and instructing, influencing and developing, awakening and civilizing them, with simplified grimaces ad hoc.

... and culture

When a concert pianist plays Chopin, for instance, you say: The audience was roused and carried away by a brilliant interpretation of the master's music. But it is possible that not a single member of the audience was carried away; it is perfectly possible that, if they had not known that Chopin was a great master and the virtuoso a great pianist, they might have received the performance with less enthusiasm... For, gentleman, there exist in the world human groups which are some less, some more, disgraceful, shameful, and humiliating than others - and stupidity is not spread equally everywhere. At first sight for instance, the world of hairdressers has always seemed to me to be more liable to stupidity than that of shoemakers. But the thigns that happen int he world's artistic circles beat all records ins tupidity and ignominy - to such an extent that it is impossible for a normally constituted person not sweat with shame in the presence of their childish and pretentious orgies!

Wesley Stace: Charles Jessold Considered As A Murderer

I can't recall where I'd read a recommendation for Wesley Stace's Charles Jessold Considered As A Murderer but it was from some reputable blog, with the line that it was ideally suited to music lovers. Well I'm one of those I thought, but alas, not quite. Stace's protagonist is Charles Jessold, a young up and coming English composer interested in English music, especially traditional folk forms, and furthering English music on the world stage. Stace creates an eloquent and convincing voice in critic Shepherd (his name a rather obvious pun) but the narrative is too straightforward and nationalistic (albeit satirically - reminded of too many unpleasant Harold Moores customers and Radio 3 programs), the links with Gesualdo too obvious, and the terrain too familiar and conventionally explored. It remains unfinished.

Simon Reynolds: Retromania

I'm fascinated by the current state of music and how its production and reception have changed since the internet came and fucked everything over. Sure, there have been benefits, but try finding me one person as excited by music now as they were ten years ago. Or, as Reynolds puts it - play me one piece of music from the 2000s that doesn't sound like it could have come from the 1990s.

Retromania explores all the obvious issues affecting music and popular culture - the interweb, file sharing, Youtube, sampling, pastiche, irony, etc etc etc. but many beyond these, and points to a widespread rejection of the new and the exciting that dates back to the late sixties. Despite Reynolds' final note of optimism, his declaration that he remains a committed modernist futurist and holds out hope for change, Retromania paints a bleak, largely hopeless picture. I'd not expected anything else, but just how much we're locked into the past hadn't completely registered. The book's real message is that the West's time has past, that we're in the midst of the decline and fall, that 'It's time for the West to rest'. Reynolds looks instead to the prospect of other powers taking charge - China and India - and developing new forward thinking approaches to art and cultural production. But even this is merely glanced at, and anyone even slightly aware of the way these two countries are pursuing capitalist greed will not see much hope in the future being in their hands.

Unlike the society he critiques, Retromania keeps expanding and updating itself, of sorts. Reynold's essay in the Wire some months back kicked it off, and his final post for Bruce Davison's Wired blog looks at hyperstasis and contemporary classical composition (and other genres - heck, aren't they they all interchangeable in this polystylistic world?).