Popular Music Fandom: Identities, Roles and Practices (Routledge Studies in Popular Music) [1 ed.] 0415506395, 9780415506397

This book explores popular music fandom from a cultural studies perspective that incorporates popular music studies, aud

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Popular Music Fandom: Identities, Roles and Practices (Routledge Studies in Popular Music) [1 ed.]
 0415506395, 9780415506397

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of
Contents
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction
Notes
Bibliography
2.
Back in the Mix: Exploring Intermediary Fandom and Popular Music Production
More Adventures in Modern Recording: Trevor Horn and the Producers
Spanking it:
Tom Lord-Alge and the ‘Magic’ of Mixing
Notes
Bibliography
3.
Beyond Capital, Towards Myth: EDM Fandom and Dance Practice
Beyond Bourdieu
EDM
Fan Communities as Postliberal Aggregates
EDM
Fandom: Practice, Myth and Subjectivity
New
Directions in EDM Fan Research
Notes
Bibliography
4.
Hidden Fans? Fandom and Domestic Musical Activity
Academic Writing on Music Reception
Issues of Access and Opportunity
Inequality of Access and People with Learning Difficulties
Fandom and Everyday Domestic Life
“Brown Girl in the Ring”: Everyday Performing and the Articulation of Fandom
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Discography
5.
Researching Your Favorite Artist: Methodological Observations of a Brazilian Popular Music Scholar
Rethinking Marcos Valle
Barriers to Research
Meeting Marcos
Bibliography
6.
Fantastic Voyeur: Lurking on the Dark Side of Biography
Fantastic Voyeur: Lurking on the Dark Side of Biography
Notes
Bibliography
7.
Song of Praise: Musicians, Myths and the “Cult” of John Coltrane
Religiosity and Fandom
Mediation and the Pathology of the Modern World
Coltrane as Unmediated Artist
Coltrane as Medium
Fandom and Cultural Value
Challenging the Critics
Canonizing Jazz: Neo-Traditionalism
and Coltrane
Conclusion: Rethinking Coltrane Fandom
Notes
Bibliography
8. “I Love
IBIZA”: Music, Place and Belonging
Method
Vibe, Unity and Communitas
Neo-Tribes
Place, Habitus and “The
Spirit of Ibiza”
Attachment, Memory and Belonging
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
9.
Fan Words
Finding Love
Towards A
New Vocabulary
Notes
Bibliography
10.
Record Collecting and Fandom
Fandom
Collecting
A Love of Music
Collectors as
Obsessive-Compulsives
Collection Size, Accumulation and Completism
Selectivity, Discrimination and Cultural Capital
Rarity and Economic Value
Collecting, Identity and the Life Cycle
Taste, Nostalgia and the Collectible
The Beatles
Who is Paying
this Sort of Money?
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
11.
After Jerry’s Death: Achieving Continuity in Deadhead Identity and Community
The Deadhead Community Project
The Status Quo: The Grateful Dead and Deadheads
before Jerry’s Death
The Conservative Impulse to Preserve the Status Quo
AJD
Achieving Continuity: the Preservation of Deadhead Identity and Community
through Incremental Change or Substitution
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
12.
Afterword: Fans and Scholars—A Reassessment
ACA-Fans
and Stereotypes
Fans as Uncredentialed Scholars / Scholars as Credentialed Fans?
Instrumental and Expressive Approaches
Scholars and Fans Reconsidered
Notes
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index

Citation preview

Popular Music Fandom

This book explores popular music fandom from a cultural studies perspective that incorporates popular music studies, audience research, and media fandom. The essays draw together recent work on fandom in popular music studies and begin a dialogue with the wider field of media fan research, raising questions about how popular music fandom can be understood as a cultural phenomenon and how much it has changed in light of recent developments. Exploring the topic in this way broaches questions on how to defi ne, theorize, and empirically research popular music fan culture, and how music fandom relates to other roles, practices, and forms of social identity. Fandom itself has been brought center stage by the rise of the internet and an industrial structure aiming to incorporate, systematize, and legitimate dimensions of it as an emotionally-engaged form of consumerism. Once perceived as the pariah practice of an overly attached audience, media fandom has become a standardized industrial subject-position called upon to shift box sets, gig tickets, new television series, and special editions. Meanwhile, recent scholarship has escaped the legacy of interpretations that framed fans as passive, pathological, or defiantly empowered, taking its object seriously as a complex formation of identities, roles, and practices. While popular music studies has examined some forms of identity and audience practice, such as the way that people use music in daily life and listener participation in subcultures, scenes and, tribes, this volume is the fi rst to examine music fans as a specific object of study. Mark Duffett is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Chester, UK.

Routledge Studies in Popular Music

1 Popular Music Fandom Identities, Roles and Practices Edited by Mark Duffett

Popular Music Fandom Identities, Roles and Practices Edited by Mark Duffett

R

Routledge Tavlor

NEW YORK

Francis GrouD

LONDON LONDON

First published 2014 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2014 Taylor & Francis The right of Mark Duffett to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Popular music fandom : identities, roles and practices / edited by Mark Duffett. p. cm. — (Routledge studies in popular music) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Popular music fans. 2. Groupies—Psychology. 3. Online social networks—Social aspects. I. Duffett, Mark, editor of compilation. ML3918.P67P68 2013 781.64—dc23 2013007915 ISBN13: 978-0-415-50639-7 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-203-79512-5 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by IBT Global.

Contents

List of Tables Acknowledgments 1

Introduction

vii ix 1

MARK DUFFETT

2

Back in the Mix: Exploring Intermediary Fandom and Popular Music Production

16

MATT HILLS

3

Beyond Capital, Towards Myth: EDM Fandom and Dance Practice

37

BEATE PETER

4

Hidden Fans? Fandom and Domestic Musical Activity

55

NEDIM HASSAN

5

Researching Your Favorite Artist: Methodological Observations of a Brazilian Popular Music Scholar

71

ALEXEI MICHAILOWSKY

6

Fantastic Voyeur: Lurking on the Dark Side of Biography

86

FRED VERMOREL

7

Song of Praise: Musicians, Myths and the “Cult” of John Coltrane TONY WHYTON

97

vi Contents 8

“I ♥ IBIZA”: Music, Place and Belonging

115

CORNEL SANDVOSS

9

Fan Words

146

MARK DUFFETT

10 Record Collecting and Fandom

165

ROY SHUKER

11 After Jerry’s Death: Achieving Continuity in Deadhead Identity and Community

186

REBECCA G. ADAMS, AMY M. ERNSTES, AND KELLY M. LUCEY

12 Afterword: Fans and Scholars—A Reassessment

207

JOLI JENSEN

List of Contributors Index

217 221

Tables

8.1 Posts to the Spotlight Forum from July 2011 to July 2012 8.2 A Typology of Visitors to Ibiza

119 120

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Acknowledgments

Popular Music Fandom emerged from an international one-day symposium that took place in June 2010 at the University of Chester. The fi rst person who deserves thanks is Matt Hills, who accepted my invitation to be the keynote speaker and also agreed to contribute to this volume. Many other speakers who supported that day—some of whom have contributed chapters here—also deserve credit. I would like to thank the faculty at Chester —particularly Guy Hodgson and Brendan O’Sullivan—for facilitating the symposium and for also helping me fi nd time in my professional life to edit the volume. On the home front, thanks, too, go to Julie Burns for allowing me to focus. I’d also like to mention my gratitude to the late Dave Sanjek for his inspiration, as well as to other colleagues across the country, such as Richard Phillips, Ian Inglis, Paula Hearsum and David Pattie, for their support. Many thanks go to Routledge, Liz Levine and Emily Ross for accepting and supporting the Popular Music Fandom project. Finally, I would like to express my debt of gratitude to all the chapter contributors who lent their hard work, insights and reputations to this volume. I really enjoyed our correspondence and know the conversation will continue. Mark Duffett

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1

Introduction Mark Duffett Both TV channels now run weekly programmes in which popular records are played to teenagers and judged. While the music is performed, the cameras linger savagely over the faces of the audience. What a bottomless cavern of vacuity they reveal! The huge faces, bloated with cheap confectionary and smeared with chain-store makeup, the open, sagging mouths and glazed eyes, the hands mindlessly drumming in time to the music, the broken stiletto heels, “with it” clothes: here, apparently, is a collective portrait of a generation enslaved by a commercial machine. Paul Johnson (1964 [2006], 53)

It seems a strange place to start a book on popular music fandom by talking about a long-forgotten paradigm. In an age of Twitter and Lady Gaga, Paul Johnson’s tirade against the “Menace of Beatlism” in New Statesman looks more than a little out of place. However, critiques of mass culture have always drastically shaped the way that dedicated music audiences have been understood. Although now we more often oppose such critiques, we are, I think, still haunted by their shadows. By “critiques of mass culture,” of course, I mean deductive and polemical treaties from twentieth-century intellectuals in the Frankfurt School and American Left who questioned the merits of commercial media. Writers from Adorno (1938 [2001]) to Horton and Wohl (1956), Macdonald (1957) and Marcuse (1964) felt decidedly uncomfortable with commodity culture and located media audiences as inadequate groupings deluded by their engagement with its personalities and products.1 After discussing the tone set by mass culture criticism, this chapter will chart the progress of popular music fandom, both as a changing popular construct and also as an emergent research object. My aim is to map the context of the diverse contributions in this volume. Mass culture research reflected its own era of media production, made its own assumptions about the role of the audience, and located its own concerns and contestatory politics. It did more than reflect the vitriol of lofty academics; it shaped a way to understand pop culture that extended from the lecture theatre to the bleachers. The critique positioned fans as exemplars of a mass audience, said that they were alienated by broadcast media, primarily saw them as passive consumers separated from cultural production: a tribe of infantilized, alienated, celebrity-following individuals who could assemble in unstable crowds to pursue their emotional interest in simplistic cultural forms. Supposedly, their enthusiasm represented

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either a clinical obsession, an outpouring of repressed sexual energy, or misguided means of seeking spiritual transcendence. Mass culture theories implied that fans’ lives were based on empty day dreams, delusions and fantasies; that they focused on imagined, one-way relationships to cover up for personal senses loss, longing or social inadequacy. As supposedly vulnerable and unfortunate human subjects, fans could be broken out of their distractions by revealing the material basis of reality, celebrating obscurity, or contesting the value of mass spectacles. Since the heyday of the mass culture paradigm—roughly between the 1930s and 1950s—there has been a creeping change of regime in academic theory, media culture and popular music. Thanks, in part, to growing social radicalism and a revamping of the folk music movement, popular music in the late 1960s became widely seen as a literary and politicized cultural form. Young people could point to artists and say, “There’s something happening here.” That “something” was creative, oppositional and countercultural. As Martin Cloonan (2005, 80) put it, “The era from 1967 and the release of the Beatles’ landmark Sgt. Pepper album saw the development of pop—or more specifically rock—being described as an art form.” The vanguard of popular music then became understood as articulating the political concerns of its time. A shift in understanding audiences had already begun. After all, how could “the masses” like intelligent and playful music? Rather than immediately redeeming audience engagement with popular music, however, initial assessments separated feminized “hysterical” affect (Beatlemania) from intellectually mature, artistic appreciation. The counterculture therefore simultaneously embraced engaged participants and negated their designation as music fans per se. Bands like the Grateful Dead drew political lines that meant it was difficult at the time to simply be a “fan” of their music without being seen to align with a whole political charter. New words were found for dedicated music audiences: they were alternative communities, hippies and flower children, not simply a fan base, but a generation. Anxieties about the power relations of rock fandom were, nevertheless, still there and expressed by framing dedicated female fans as “groupies”—a term that demarcated the vexed and changing gender politics of the permissive society (see Rhodes 2005). Another body blow against mass culture ideas came from a gradual questioning of the tenets of cultural elitism. 2 From the 1970s to the 1990s, the diverse consequences of globalization, economic collapse and emerging multiculturalism meant that the unilateral and patronizing attitude implicit in the project of modernity was called into question. As the 1960s dream dissipated in the face of entrenched warfare, economic crisis, political cynicism and growing individualism, the zeitgeist shifted to a point where Right-wing parties received enough support to pursue stringent economic policies. By the 1980s, notions of consumer sovereignty came to the fore explicitly in service of cultural production. MTV began in the summer of 1981. In an era of music video channels, pop merged even further with its

Introduction

3

own marketing. Critics were—relatively speaking—gradually stripped of their cultural authority. They became more like consumer guides. Within the academy, fans were gradually celebrated as autonomous free individuals. From all directions, the rug was therefore being pulled from beneath the condescending perspective of mass cultural criticism. As use of the Internet grew exponentially in the 1990s and 2000s, the mediascape shifted yet again. By August 2000, 51% of US households had a computer, 42% had the Internet and 4% had broadband. At the end of the fi rst decade of the new millennium, 72% of households now had a computer, 69% had the Internet and 64% had broadband. In other words, as the fi rst decade progressed, a third more households installed the Internet, but broadband uptake rose amongst those who had net from 10% to 93% (Blank and Strickling 2011, 1). With its ability to store a vast accumulation of posted material in an open and accessible form, the net acted as an archive and helped to make fan communities much more visible. Fan clubs migrated online and particular genres and artists acquired vast networks of interested commentators. The net has also helped to shift music from a stockpiled physical commodity (the sound carrier) to a seemingly available and ambient resource that travels down an electronic pipeline (the stream or download). Musical sound has become used as much to facilitate mood as display cultural conviction. Perhaps the most significant early shift of the new era came around the user-controlled, illegal redistribution of MP3s through the peer-to-peer networking application Napster, which ran for two years beginning in the summer of 1999. Metallica’s protest upon fi nding their song “I Disappear” circulating ahead of its release, and beyond their immediate revenue system, precipitated a moment where avid fans were branded as music pirates. In fact, the net simply exposed and augmented the existing practices by which fans redistributed material—whether sold as pirate copies, traded as bootlegs or exchanged as gifts—in the public arena. The evident tension between perceptions of fans as pirates, patrons and promoters has continued into an era where bands have worked with online fi rms such as Web Sherriff to increase control of their intellectual property and distribute songs in advance as free samples (see Lewis 2011). In a process that is akin to the “spoiling” of television plots, fans can act as a scout audience in this context, either pirating or legitimately releasing material in advance (see Bennett 2012). New opportunities for distribution have also somewhat blurred the line between amateur and professional music making. Indeed, many fans have uploaded their creations and remixes on video sites and audio platforms like Soundcloud.com (which started in 2008). If music distribution is now partly in the hands of the audience, in some cases the net has also promoted a limited kind of collaborative democracy of music production: sites like Kickstarter.com (launched in 2009) invite interested audience members to become investors before music products are created. Indeed, the “star performers” of the last decade were as likely to

4

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be designated as social media platforms—YouTube, Facebook, Twitter—as individual musicians. One result of the increasing availability of past music is a feeling of cultural stasis, or “retromania” as Simon Reynolds (2011) recently described it. In Britain, the shift from the BBC television series Top of the Pops (1964–2006) to TOTP2 (1994 onwards) has indicated a move from a perpetual present of the weekly music chart summaries to a nostalgic, out-of-time culture of library footage and re-runs. TOTP2 has been syndicated and repeated on channels like Dave, Yesterday and BBC4; it has become increasingly indistinguishable from the playlists created by some of the users on YouTube. A vast array of recorded music and performance footage has become freely available in the digital mediascape. This immersive environment exposes material previously left—or lost—to generational memory, changing the traditional foundations of cultural capital, and allowing musicians of all ages to explore obscure sounds from far off times and places. The net has, for the most part, transformed fandom. I say “for the most part” because attention to the ways that it has changed the game also means considering what has stayed the same: elements of music fandom that have essentially remained from the pre-Internet era include a fascination with music, various romantic and folk ideologies, an emphasis on the star system, a tendency of fans to form social communities, to pursue shared concerns, and to follow characteristic practices. For many of us fans, the net has offered new and better ways to more easily do what we previously did before. What has changed is that it is hard in the Internet era not to see and therefore to say that fans are, at best, communicative, imaginative, communal, expert, interesting and intelligent. Online social media platforms demonstrate this in a more public and visible way than, say, talking on a mobile phone. They have operated as a forthright challenge to the idea that electronic mediation is an alienating and impersonal process. Uses of the net have visibly brought music listeners together (see, for instance, Hodkinson 2004). In an age of “geek chic,” fandom seems to be at the forefront of an astute, techno-savvy consumer culture. How have all these shifts in the mediascape changed perceptions of popular music fandom? Matt Hills (2012, 113) has recently argued that “fandom has indeed become part of marketing strategies . . . [but] we cannot deduce from this industrial normalization that wider cultures have embraced such fan identities as uncontroversial.” A case in point is the reception of Chris Crocker, whose camp and dramatic “LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE! (Part 2)” video was uploaded on to YouTube in September 2007. In three years the video had 35 million views and 500,000 comments on site. Whether Crocker’s rant was a carefully constructed performance or a genuine emotional outburst is a moot point; its immense popularity demonstrates that mass cultural stereotypes of fandom can still, in sharp contrast to the perspectives offered by cultural studies, strike at the heart of the popular imagination. Another example of this has been the constant

Introduction

5

use of the headline “Fans go Gaga” in reference to the followers of Lady Gaga. If the media write such lines to “normalize” mainstream non-fan audiences, what writers such as Hills (2012) are increasingly showing is that fans themselves can also lever such critiques to degrade and dismiss factions of their own brethren that they consider inferior. Given that broad set of historical co-ordinates, it may now be useful to look at the last two decades of academic responses to media fandom in general and popular music fandom in particular. Two books published twenty years ago became particularly important in cultural studies understandings of media fandom. Henry Jenkins’ influential ethnographic study Textual Poachers (1992) was inspired by both John Fiske’s (1989) notion of the “active audience” and Michel de Certeau’s (1984) book The Practice of Everyday Life. Textual Poachers located telefantasy fans as communities who had tangential concerns to those of the media industry and who were themselves active in creating additional meanings and products.3 The book’s inspirational message was not only a function of its content, however: it also came from the way that Jenkins positioned himself in the face of critical opposition as a fan who was also a researcher, effectively making it possible to collapse those two identities together without losing status for lacking sufficient objectivity and critical distance. While making very occasional forays into popular music culture, Jenkins has tended to focus on communal film and television appreciation, not issues around affect or celebrity.4 From Jenkins’ influential perspective, the focus is not so much on why people become fans, but on how they operate as agents in a moral and political community. In other words, recent fan theory has portrayed fans as public, communal, creative, communitarian and politically active. Along with studies by researchers such as Penley (1991 and 1992) and Bacon-Smith (1992), Jenkins’ approach has inspired an avalanche of research we might conveniently call “fan studies” which has tended to focus on practices such as “vidding,” “filking,” “fan subbing,” slash writing, and, more latterly, spoiling, forum posting, cosplay and political activism.5 As well as prompting ethnographic research on specific fan communities—such as Lancaster (2001)—this exciting new field has also spawned important book length contributions on the nature of media fandom as a specific socio-cultural phenomenon by authors such as Matt Hills (2002) and Cornel Sandvoss (2005).6 While work on television fandom has been both prominent and prolific, research into music fandom has been less visible. With its focus on empirical evidence in the shape of fan letters, Fred and Judy Vermorel’s compilation Starlust (1985)—which was reprinted in 2011—set a benchmark in the field. Another key volume, Lisa Lewis’s edited collection The Adoring Audience (1992), included a chapter by Henry Jenkins and was orientated towards dedicated music audiences. Lewis’s volume offered a series of escape routes from the mass cultural position. Listed under a section called “Production by Fans,” for example, Fred and Judy Vermorel’s chapter, “A Glimpse Inside the Fan Factory,” showed that ordinary fan

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mail could be read as an expression of extra-ordinary creativity.7 Barbara Ehrenreich, Elizabeth Hess and Gloria Jacobs’ chapter reconsidered Beatlemania by seeing it as a collective and provocative transgression of gender norms pursued by large, rowdy groups of girls who publicly contradicted norms of ladylike behavior. John Fiske’s chapter used Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of taste to assert, contrary to popular belief, that fans clearly practiced forms of cultural discrimination. Joli Jensen’s piece—perhaps the volume’s most influential contribution—explained that fans had become stereotyped as loners and victims.8 Jensen also suggested that the cultural pursuits of fans and academics are actually not so different, just valued in different ways by society. In the twenty years since The Adoring Audience, work has continued on popular music fandom, but most of it has been neither prominent nor prolific. From the bobby-soxers onwards, visible, feminized fan phenomena have been connected to obsessional celebrity-following and heightened emotion in the public sphere. Some of the sporadic work on pop fandom— often allied to a feminist perspective—has been associated with reinterpreting or challenging the assumptions of this tradition (see, for example, Ehrenheich, Jacobs and Hess 1992; Lumby 2007; Williams 2010). The late 1990s saw a small but steady stream of studies looking at specific rock fan communities (see, for example, Cavicchi 1998; Doss 1999; Adams and Sardiello 2000). Various related pieces have appeared both before and since, such as Vroomen (2004), Théberge (2006), Baym (2007) and Beer (2007). Some of these were integrated in books on specific performers or genres, such as Nick Stevenson’s David Bowie: Fame, Sound and Vision (2006), Eoin Devereux’s Morrissey: Fandom, Representations and Identities (2012), and Joseph Kartoba’s recent Babyboomer Rock’n’Roll Fans (2013).9 Others have simply appeared in article form.10 Ironically, perhaps the most sustained study of music fandom to date may have come from the less sympathetic science of psychology, a discipline that regularly relies on premises contested by cultural studies. Psychologists have continually explored mass cultural concerns about fandom within their own arena and have experimentally investigated issues such as supposed media effects or parasocial relationships.11 There are a number of reasons for the relatively stunted and sporadic nature of the field. Popular music fandom scholars never had a very strong disciplinary framework within which to place their audience work. Although there have been exceptions, such as Hills (2007), media fandom researchers— many of whom hail from television studies—neither had the training nor the interest to examine music audiences. Popular music scholars, meanwhile, have tended to focus on texts (musicology), or on production and distribution (sociology). Music cultures that were coded as masculine in orientation or portrayed as deviant in the media either became examined as spectacular subcultures (punk, rave, goth), documented as “scenes” or “tribes,” or associated with specific practices (like record collecting)—in other words,

Introduction

7

they have frequently been linked to the older mass culture or youth culture paradigms. Though there has been a sustained attempt to understand the physiological, cognitive or emotion “impact” of particular musical forms on generalized listeners (for example Sloboda 2004), rarely has attention turned to the practices of fans: autograph hunting, photograph-swapping, fanzine writing, counter-performing, heckling, record collecting or filming live concerts. Indeed, celebrity and fandom have been openly contested as research objects. According to Martin Cloonan (2005, 82) “the emphasis has shifted from the superstar to the local musician. In this sense PMS [popular music studies] has become more democratic.” He ends the same piece by saying that “research is rightly moving towards the ordinary and mundane” (90). Fandom is a link between that ordinary, mundane world and somewhere else, yet it contests the idea that an emphasis on stardom is undemocratic. Indeed, pop fandom tends to suggest that music appreciation, music making and stardom can be closely interlinked, and that the mundane and democratic can occur within the world of culture and meaning established by icons and their genres, myths and legends. Even if popular music studies needed to reject the most obviously commercial culture in order to claim its full academic credentials, for many of us, pop’s superstars—from the Beatles to Lady Gaga—remain a lingua franca.12 While some of the chapters in this book—notably the ones by Matt Hills and Cornel Sandvoss—reference the Internet, it is also true that life online is now a prominent dimension of a much more varied and complex phenomenon. The truth is that fandom does not fall neatly into easy processes of generalization: “music fandom” is one term for a wide range of phenomena and identifications occurring in a variety of different times and places, a term that encompasses a range of tastes, roles, identities and practices. It is a cultural conviction (“I love Led Zep!”) that combines a threshold of affective engagement with, variously or in combination, musical appreciation, music practice, celebrity-following, social networking, dancing, collecting, and self-expression. It is also a self-recognized and usually “performed” way to say to a professional musician, “I love what you do [or who you are] and I have discovered my passion through hearing your music [in some form of mediation].” Associated with that is a remnant of from mass cultural thinking: that fandom is a way to declare a social role in relation to popular music that is both alienated from industrial processes of music making and affectively engaged with their result—a way of permitting communality between all those interested in the music. Beyond this, generalizations are harder to make; different phenomena can reflect quite different forms of fandom. Singular phenomena can change significantly over time. As fans get older and their passions also become expressed through nostalgia and memories (see Bennett 2006). Fandom is both personal and collective. The study of it constantly asks us to move between one arena and the other. On the personal side, an individual’s understanding of their own identity can shift depending upon

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whether they are speaking before, during or after their time as a fan. It can also change depending upon the theoretical and discursive resources immediately available to them. The mass culture critique enabled fans to express their passion in certain ways (“Yes, I am obsessed! It’s a religion!”). What we do know about popular music fandom in a new era is that it can center on a number of different practices and a variety of different objects, but the ways that these combine and relate can make it different in each case and therefore such a fascinating object of study. I will end by providing a brief preview of the contributions that follow, starting with Matt Hills’ chapter, Back in the Mix. Since the publication of his carefully considered and critically acclaimed book Fan Cultures (2002), Hills has been a prominent contributor to the changing debate on media fandom. While his work has tended to focus on television fans, he has also written about the Elvis and Michael Jackson phenomena. In this volume, focusing on Trevor Horn and Tom Lord-Alge as case studies, Matt contests the way that existing music fandom research concentrates on specific artists. In contrast, he carefully examines the way that niche communities have actively valorized record production staff —auteur producers and mixers—as objects of their attention. He shows how such cultures can encourage interests that drastically cut across a focus on particular artists, and he explains how these fascinated fan communities have used their collective agency to keep production staff visible. The aim of Hills’ chapter is to put fandom for record producers “back in the mix” as part of music fan research, to remind us that the “black art” of music production is not completely hidden by the industry, but has instead become a focus for fans who raise the profile of its most acclaimed practitioners. Beate Peter’s chapter on electronic dance music (EDM) avoids the frequent tendency to use theories of taste when discussing fan behavior. Contesting the dominance of Bourdieu’s notion of cultural capital, Beate draws on the work of Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos (2008) to argue that EDM communities are “postliberal aggregates”: social groups inadvertently politicized by outside agencies because their practices evade State control. To examine the operation of these aggregates, she extends Kurt Lancaster’s (2001) notion of fan “immersion” by adopting Joseph Campbell’s (2004) concept of personal mythology as a means of mediating collective practice and individual subjectivity. In effect, Beate therefore argues that rather than simply performing shared tastes, fans unconsciously adopt protocols that shape their behavior on the dance floor. Despite calls for fandom to be understood as being part of everyday life, there are few studies that examine how it intersects with domestic activity. Nedim Hassan’s chapter makes a series of theoretical interventions based on observations from his ethnographic research on the role of music in the lives of those with learning difficulties. More specifically, he suggests that our conceptions tend to be shaped by particular displays and representations of fan activity at the expense of everyday listening engagements that

Introduction

9

happen in domestic spaces. Nedim demonstrates how an engagement with popular music can mediate between shared memory, playful performativity and a common sense of belonging. He therefore shows how musical texts can become both personal and social resources. A love for music is integral to the communication and identity-formation processes of many people who are precluded from engaging in many of the practices characteristically associated with fan culture. Paying more attention to people with limited opportunities to engage in public, fan-related activity raises questions about the limits of the concept of fandom itself. There are many advantages to already being part of the fan base and levering “insider” status when analyzing a popular music icon, but to what extent does the research process inevitably transform crucial dimensions of one’s fandom? Alexei Michailowski’s chapter leads us through his experiences as a postgraduate researching the creative agency of his favorite performer, the Brazilian veteran samba maestro Marcos Valle. Using a personal voice, Alexei’s work speaks about power relations of fan and celebrity that can both motivate academic projects and hamper their pursuit. His piece is a reminder that postgraduate work on popular music reflects a journey of scholarship that is frequently associated with its own special set of anxieties. The chapter contains some interesting advice for those who are pursuing the path of investigating their fan objects through personal contact. In that process, the roles of fan and academic—which are, of course, never mutually exclusive—can collide in ways that must constantly be addressed by the researcher. He or she has to negotiate external perceptions of a dual role. For instance, when an avid fan becomes an academic researcher, his or her new role may be dismissed by both the star and by the rest of the fan community as a ruse to get closer. Before Henry Jenkins (1992) launched his sustained critique of fan stereotypes, Fred Vermorel’s early work, in its own way, began to restore imaginative agency to music fans as subjects—albeit it agency channeled by the power relations of stardom. Vermorel’s impact on music fan research primarily dates back to two popular books he completed in the 1980s: Starlust (1985 [2011]), which exposed the fantasies of pop fans who wrote fan mail to their idols, and Fandemonium (1989), a history of media fandom compiled as a series of fads and fashions.13 Both books were controversial, courting popular attention and negotiating a tradition problematic that placed music fandom as the subservient endpoint of an industrial process. Working as a music biographer, Fred initially pursued his controversial exploration of public perceptions of fandom in his unauthorized popular biography, The Secret History of Kate Bush and the Strange Art of Pop (1983). He used the opportunity of a star biography to explore the perceptions of fandom that emerged from tabloid journalism: the fan as perverse, trivia-obsessed and overly intrusive.14 Fred’s “Fantastic Voyeur” essay was originally created for the Village Voice Literary Supplement and later referenced by the Utne Reader (a collection of the

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best of the alternative press). Fred’s chapter is framed by an introduction that historically contextualizes his essay by explaining his own theoretical inspirations and research experiences during the Starlust era. The provocation of “Fantastic Voyeur” is to explore how much the potential roles of fan, biographer and stalker mutually overlap in the popular imagination, and to consider the extent to which each of those roles is viable as a proxy for the others. In other words, Fred’s work plays with the idea that rock biographers are the private detectives of popular music: sanctioned stalkers who stand in for the fans, doing their intrusive dirty work as part of a commercial process. While this incendiary argument may not be entirely true—fans and biographers have their ethical codes and limits—it points toward the gravitational attraction of star performers and the way that fame’s routine industrial production can lead to the commodification of all traces of intimacy in streams of knowledge products. Tony Whyton’s excellent chapter on John Coltrane fandom is a theoretically engaged case study of the difference that music genre can make to fandom. Professor Whyton weaves together a narrative of multiple threads. As a genre, jazz can be somewhat biased against any position that passionately embraces mass culture, including the position of “fandom” itself. Jazz buffs frequently locate themselves not as fans, but as “aficionados” who possess high levels of cultural capital and appreciate difficult music. Coltrane’s musical style—the output of a jazz icon—has been described as transcendent (hard to understand, non-commercial). Although notions of spiritual transcendence have been used by outsiders to mock Elvis fandom, Tony points out that this particular case is different: sacredness is a serious part of Coltrane’s image perpetuated from within his fan base. Furthermore, he reminds us that musicians are also fans, and that their discussions about influences—here as followers of Coltrane—are not just postures or attempts to work within a musical tradition, but can also be read as elitist strategies to relegate other sections of the fan base. In a way, jazz musicians have therefore “poached” Coltrane’s image to create a kind of sanctified version of their icon. His work reminds us that fans can form different communities of interpretation around their heroes, competing factions who struggle to assert the legitimacy of their own particular readings. Cornel Sandvoss’s chapter expresses the crucial role that the Internet can play in contemporary fan cultures. His study of perceptions of Ibiza on the Spotlight forum raises an interesting issue: is it fair to say that one can be a fan of a particular place? What does it mean to say that you love Ibiza, a place that for many clubbers seems to signify a kind of musicbased, hedonistic, utopian space of pleasure and social unity? In contrast to Andy Bennett’s idea that EDM fans can be understood as neo-tribes, Sandvoss’s argument draws together a range of theoretical insights from fan studies. In his view, an accumulation of associated sources of information provides each visitor to the island with means to create different, but meaningfully similar, textual formations. Loving Ibiza is not something

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liminal or separated from daily life, but instead it becomes something that we necessarily integrate as a reflection of our own values. My own contribution emerges from a particular premise. Since fans, almost by defi nition, “love” music, we can say that most of those who use the term are defi ning themselves. Taking “love” as its central theme, the chapter argues that uses of the term in fan talk subsumes a range of positive, engaged identifications. My work therefore draws on a variety of audience accounts to argue that “love” (as a rhetorical construct) is central in the creation of an imagined community (the fan base) which in turn helps to sustain actual social relationships. In an ongoing age of celebrity, carefully borrowing one mechanism from Durkheim’s theory of religion— the idea that paying attention to a totemic figure can give each committed audience member (fan) a thrill—allows me to suggest a new vocabulary for the study of music fandom based on the pleasurable power relations and consented inequalities of musical performance. Roy Shuker’s contribution to this volume draws on the discoveries reported in his excellent book on collecting, Wax Trash and Vinyl Treasures (2010). Why did bidders pay $360,000, USD, in 2011 for some original photographs of the Beatles? By considering their motivations to pay high prices at auction for rare records and memorabilia, Shuker explores the distinctness of collecting as a prominent practice. He also argues that although the identities of “the fan” and “the record collector” overlap in some ways, they can also be understood as distinct. For some collectors, the pursuit can become its own source of pleasure. Other people collect prized cultural items purely as a form of investment. Shuker’s work therefore adds clarity to our understanding of a common, but frequently misrepresented practice that is prominent in many music fan communities. Music fandom mediates between individual subjectivity and community. What happens, though, when a fan community is threatened? Rebecca Adams, Amy Ernstes and Kelly Lucey’s chapter draws on a wealth of communication from Grateful Dead followers in the wake of Jerry Garcia’s tragic demise. For decades, the Dead’s psychedelic rock music drew together a large, strong, mutually supportive fan community that behaved like a subculture in many ways.15 Rather than simply evoking communal values, their songs allowed those values to be actualized in the shared experience at live events. As the band’s leader, Jerry contributed his skills as a singer, songwriter and guitarist. He guaranteed the sonic foundation of the Grateful Dead community. Jerry’s death therefore prompted both sorrow and anxiety amongst a vast collective of fans. Those who discussed Jerry’s passing were not only lamenting the loss of him as a person, but also that his death held the potential to mark the end of their shared experiences that held them together, so they were naturally concerned about their collective prospects. Drawing on Paul Marris’s work on grieving, Adams, Ernstes and Lucey demonstrate that Deadheads used their agency in the wake of their leader’s passing to sustain their community.

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The aim of this volume is to improve our understanding of music fandom by drawing together scholars from popular music studies and media fandom research, in part simply to provide an update in the wake of Lisa Lewis’s influential 1992 volume, The Adoring Audience. In that sense, I am pleased to include not only more material from Fred Vermorel, but also to have secured the participation of another original contributor, Joli Jensen.16 In her afterword, Joli revisits the concerns of her influential Adoring Audience chapter to take stock of perceptions of music fandom and academia. She contends that these two sets of roles, practices and identities that have become artificially polarized in the popular imagination. Standing in stark contrast to Paul Johnson’s dismissal of Beatles fandom, her discussion reflects Michel de Certeau’s assertion that “it is always good to remind ourselves that we mustn’t take people for fools.”17 NOTES 1. It is interesting to note here that after his condemnation of Beatles fans, Paul Johnson’s own political allegiances swung dramatically from New Left to old Right. 2. I note here, as one reviewer of this introduction said, that the mass culture theorists themselves were “snobs for the people” and not elitists per se. 3. The term “telefantasy” means science fiction and fantasy television series. 4. For Henry Jenkins’ music-related work, see the section on “fi lking” in Textual Poachers (1992, 250–276) and the chapter on American Idol in Convergence Culture (2006, 59–94). 5. “Vidding” is the creation of videos by splicing together existing footage and / or redubbing the soundtrack (its results are now widely seen on video uploading sites). “Filking” is a form of folk singing in which television fans create their own lyrics to go with a popular tune. “Fan subbing” happens when fans create and circulate subtitles for their favorite foreign language media products. “Slash” is a fantasy subgenre of fan fiction in which pairs of leading male characters from the fan’s favorite television series have an intimate, same sex encounter. “Spoiling” is the releasing of significant plot details ahead of an episode’s broadcast. Finally, “cosplay” is the practice of dressing up like a famous character. Cosplay is more a loose practice of sartorial imitation than a process of impersonation. For example of some of these practices see Jenkins (1992 and 2006). 6. In Understanding Fandom (Duffett 2013) I aimed to summarize the debates in this research field in a way that included popular music fandom. 7. In a sense, we might now categorize the letters in Starlust (1985) as Real Person Fiction (RPF). 8. Joli’s name was spelled incorrectly as “Jenson” on her original Adoring Audience piece. We have used the correct spelling throughout this volume. 9. Stevenson’s discussion of Bowie fandom is also pursued in his 2009 article for the European Journal of Cultural Studies. 10. My own work to date, for instance, as almost entirely appeared in article form. 11. Psychological research on these topics can be found, for example, in Giles (2009), Stever (2009; 2010; 2011), and Reid Meloy, Sheridan and Hoff man (2008).

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12. Indeed, much of the existing research on music fandom in particular has been object-orientated (see Hills in the current volume). 13. The original, 1985 edition of Starlust was officially credited to both Fred and Judy Vermorel, but only Fred’s name was attached to the book’s 2011 reprint. 14. On the Internet, members of the Kate Bush fan community have claimed that the Secret History book came in the wake of another Kate Bush biography written by Fred (called Kate Bush: Princess of Suburbia) that was pulled after the Bush camp threatened to sue over its publication: http://www.unforumzed.com/showthread.php?193-Kate-Bush-books 15. For work on the Grateful Dead community, see Adams and Sardiello (2000). 16. See note 8 17. Taken from de Certeau (1988 [1984], 176).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Rebecca, and Robert Sardiello. 2000. Deadhead Social Science. Walnut Creek: Altamira. Adorno, Theodor (ed.). 2001. “On The Fetish-Character of Music and the Regression of Listening.” In The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, 29–60. New York: Routledge, 1938. Bacon-Smith, Camille (1992) Enterprizing Women: Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press Baym, Nancy. 2007. “The New Shape of the Online Community: The Example of Swedish Independent Music Fandom.” First Monday 12, 8. http://fi rstmonday. org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1978/1853 Beer, David. 2008. “Making Friends with Javis Cocker: Music Culture in the Context of Web 2.0.” Cultural Sociology 2, 2:222–241. Bennett, Andy. 2006. “Punk’s Not Dead: The Continuing Significance of Punk Rock for An Older Generation of Fans.” Sociology 40, 2:219–235. Bennett, Lucy. 2012. “Music Fandom Online: REM Fans in Pursuit of the Ultimate First Listen.” New Media and Society 14, 5:748–763. Blank, Rebecca, and Lawrence Strickling. 2011. Exploring the Digital Nation: Computer Use and the Internet at Home. Washington: US Department of Commerce. http://www.ntia.doc.gov/fi les/ntia/publications/exploring_the_digital_ nation_computer_and_Internet_use_at_home_11092011.pdf Campbell, Joseph. 2004. Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation. Novato: New World Library. Cavicchi, Daniel. 1998. Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning among Bruce Springsteen Fans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cloonan, Martin. 2005. “What is Popular Music Studies? Some Observations.” British Journal of Music Education 22, 1:77–93. de Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. DeNora, Tia. 2000. Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Devereux, Eoin. 2012. Morrissey: Fans, Representations and Identities. Bristol: Intellect. Doss, Erika. 1999. Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith and Image. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.

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Duffett, Mark. 2003. “False Faith or False Comparison? A Critique of the Religious Intepretation of Elvis Fan Culture.” Popular Music and Society 26, 4:513–522. . 2013. Understanding Fandom. New York: Continuum. Ehrenreich, Barbara, Elizabeth Hess, and Gloria Jabobs. 1992. “Beatlemania: Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, edited by Lisa Lewis, 84–106. London: Routledge. Fiske, John. 1989. “Madonna.” In Reading the Popular, 95–114. London: Routledge. Giles, David. 2009. “Parasocial Interaction: A Review of the Literature and Model for Future Research.” Media Psychology 4, 3:279–305. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. . 2007. “Michael Jackson Fans on Trial? ‘Documenting’ Emotivism and Fandom in Wacko About Jacko.” Social Semiotics 17, 4:459–477. . 2012. “‘Twilight’ Fans Represented in Commercial Paratexts and InterFandoms: Resisting and Repurposing Negative Fan Stereotypes.” In Genre, Reception, and Adaptation in the ‘Twilight’ Series, edited by Anne Morley, 113, 130. Farnham: Ashgate. Horton Donald and Richard Wohl. 1956. “Mass Communication and Parasocial Interaction: Obervations on Intimacy at a Distance.” Psychiatry 19:215–229. Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge. Jenkins, Henry. 2006. “Buying Into American Idol: How We are Being Sold Reality Television.” In Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, 59–94. New York: New York University Press. Jensen, Joli. 1992. “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of a Characterization.” In The Adoring Audience, edited by Lisa Lewis, 9–29. London: Routledge. Johnson, Paul. 2006 [1964] “The Menace of Beatlism.” In Read the Beatles, edited by June Skinner Sawyers, 51–55. London: Penguin. Kartoba, Joseph. 2013. Babyboomer Rock’n’Roll Fans. Plymouth: Scarecrow Press. Lancaster, Kurt. 2001. Interacting with Babylon 5: Fan Performances in a Media Universe. Austin: University of Texas Press. Lewis, Randy. 2011. “Piracy Watchdog’s Mild Bite.” Los Angeles Times June 9. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/09/entertainment/la-et-web-sheriff20110609 Lumby, Catharine. 2007. “Doing It For Themselves? Teenage Girls, Sexuality and Fame.” In Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader, edited by Su Holmes and Sean Redmond, 341–352. London: Sage. Macdonald, Dwight. 1957. “A Theory of Mass Culture.” In Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America, edited by Bernard Rosenberg and David White, 59–73. New York: The Free Press. Marcuse, Herbert. 1964. One Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston: Beacon Press, 1991. Papadopoulos, Dimitris and Niamh Stephenson and Tsianos. 2008. Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the Twenty First Century. London: Pluto Press. Penley, Constance. 1991. “Brownian Motion: Women, Tactics, and Technology.” In Technoculture, edited by Contance Penley and Andrew Ross, 35–161. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Penley, Constance. 1992. “Feminism, Psychoanalysis, and the Study of Popular Culture.” In Cultural Studies, edited by Lawrence Grossberg, Cary Nelson, and Paula A. Treichler, 479–500. New York: Routledge.

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Reid Meloy, J., Lorraine Sherridan and Jens Hoff man. 2008. Stalking, Threatening and Attacking Public Figures. New York: Oxford University Press. Reynolds, Simon. 2012. Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addition to Its Own Past. London: Faber and Faber. Rhodes, Lisa. 2005. Electric Lady Land: Women and Rock Culture, 1965–1975. Philadelpia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Sandvoss, Cornel. 2005. Fans: The Mirror of Consumption. Cambridge: Polity Press. Shuker, Roy. 2010. Wax Trash and Vinyl Treasures: Record Collecting as Social Practice. Ashgate: Farnham. Sloboda, John. 2004. Exploring the Musical Mind: Cognition, Emotion, Ability, Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stevenson, Nick. 2006. David Bowie: Fame, Sound and Vision. Cambridge: Polity. . 2009. “Talking to Bowie: Masculinity, Ambivalence and Cultural Citizenship.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 12, 1:79–98. Stever, Gayle. 2009. “Parasocial and Social Interaction with Celebrities: A Classification of Media Fans.” Journal of Media Psychology 14, 3:1–7. . 2010. “Fan Behavior and Lifespan Development Theory: Explaining Parasocial and Social Attachment to Celebrities.” Journal of Adult Development 18, 1:1–7. . 2011. “Celebrity Worship: Constructing a Critique.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 41, 6:1356–1370. Théberge, Paul. 2005. “Everyday Fandom: Fan Clubs, Blogging, and the Quotidian Rhythms of the Internet.” Canadian Journal of Communication 30, 4. http:// www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/1673/1810 Vermorel, Fred. 1985. Starlust. London: Faber and Faber. 2011. Vroomen, Laura. 2004. “Kate Bush: Teen Pop and Older Female Fans.” In Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual, edited by Andy Bennett and Richard Peterson, 238–254. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Williams, Rebecca. 2010. “‘Anyone Who Calls Muse a Twilight Band Will Be Shot on Sight’: Music, Fandom, and Distinction in the Twilight Franchise.” Popular Music Fandom Symposium, University of Chester, May 25.

2

Back in the Mix Exploring Intermediary Fandom and Popular Music Production Matt Hills

Fan studies has had much to say about the devoted consumption of popular music, often examining case studies of specific artists’ fandoms, eg. the likes of lifelong Bowie fans (Stevenson 2006), Duran Duran fans (Anderson 2012), Led Zeppelin fans (Fast 2001), Madonna fans (Garde-Hansen 2011), REM fans (Bennett 2009), Rush fans (McDonald 2009), Springsteen fans (Cavicchi 1998), or U2 fans (Lizie 2009). However, this focus on artist-centeed fans suggests that popular music fandom works in a particular way, implying the powerfully affective reception of specific musicians’ work. Fans, it is typically assumed, form a relationship of “non-reciprocal intimacy at a distance” with favored pop-rock artists (Thompson 1995). For example, analyzing online essays written by U2 fans, Clive Marsh and Vaughan Roberts suggest: [There] is an intriguing thread running through some of the essays about how Bono’s voice, or Bono himself, is spoken about. Here are four examples: “Bono was there to help me get back on my feet” [9], “Bono’s voice became my medicine” [10], “it seems as though Bono is speaking directly into my ear” [18], “U2 and particularly Bono had changed my life, in some ways saved it” [40]. (2011, 423) Popular music is strongly personalized: fans don’t just have an imaginative, emotional connection to U2’s material, rather they seem to experience this as a connection to Bono himself, with the music acting as a conduit between self and other. Nick Stevenson’s sociological study of David Bowie fans demonstrates a similar phenomenon (2006, 159). Whether it is in relation to Bono, Bowie, or other popular musicians, fans reflexively “anchor a narrative of self” (Stevenson 2006, 183) by drawing on meanings linked to the musical celebrity as well as by articulating a sense of connection “beyond the category of rationality and . . . associated with . . . wonder and mystery” (ibid.). Specifically analyzing popular music celebrity, P. David Marshall argues: The music industry, through its stars, has constructed two sometimes contradictory levels of the “real” and the authentic. The recording has

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become the true representation of the music . . . [and] performer and audience were brought closer together . . . the private and personal activity of listening . . . privileged. (1997, 153–154) For Marshall, recorded pop music offers one level of authenticity, meaning that live performance starts to have to approximate to a produced track. But at the same time, the technological mediation of pop music production (along with its typically individualized and privatized reception context) prioritizes listener-performer connections. What these existing accounts of popular music fandom tend to miss out or downplay, however, is how fans relate to popular music precisely as an industrially produced form. Although they may experience personalized connections with singers or band members, how do fans make sense of the fact that the music they love is produced (eg. by Daniel Lanois, or Tony Visconti), engineered and mixed? The image of pop fandom, which has often been sustained by academia, is one where popular music’s industrial creation supposedly drops out of the equation, exnominated and rendered symbolically invisible. Writing as a pop artist turned cultural theorist, Mike Jones has argued: [It] is in the interests of the pop act and every mediating agency that evidence of an industrial process of mediation is erased. Within the consumerist narrative the pop act is seen as all-powerful—[supposedly] nothing mediates the music and its imaginative and emotional “content.” (2003, 156) I picked up on this scenario in Fan Cultures, arguing that although Madonna’s fan community was very interested in Madonna herself, the music industry appeared to encourage this identification and affective relationship by withholding information about the production of Madonna’s music by, for instance, not crediting session players or technicians (Hills 2002, 179). Pop music’s paratexts have often seemed to work by promoting a sense of personalized fan-artist connection and marginalizing technical/industrial information which could “get in the way” of music being experienced sensually by fans as a conduit between celebrity and self. Of particular relevance is a recent distinction set out by Philip Tagg (2011) between “visible” and “invisible” music. Tagg suggests that certain types of music are made culturally and academically “visible” by virtue of the fact that their performance, and performers, are mediated— sometimes spectacularly—and marketed as artistic sources of meaning/ sound. By strong contrast, Tagg argues that much contemporary popular music is unmarked, passing by almost unperceived as a result of being rendered “invisible,” that is to say, presented without visibly identifi able performers or mediated sources (see also Duffett 2011, 168). In the “invisible” category Tagg primarily focuses on soundtracks. However, Duffett

18 Matt Hills and Hackett (2013) have usefully developed Tagg’s work to include invisible musicians: Although visible musicians may not be seen all the time, their craft— for instance singing or playing guitar—is frequently constructed as an engaging spectacle. In contrast, while invisible musicians can be crucial in the making of musical sounds, we are not conditioned to see their craft as visually spectacular. As a producer whose innovations changed the face of American pop, [Phil] Spector is perhaps the ultimate invisible musician. (Duffett and Hackett 2013, 207) And yet, how popular music is produced and mixed—how it displays industrial creativity—is more significant to many fan cultures than one might think from Jones’s argument above, or from binaries of visible/invisible music and musicians. Fans do not only relate to, desire, or identify with favored artists: in many cases, they also develop an interest in, and highly detailed knowledge of, who has worked on specific tracks, albums, and eras of their beloved popular music. As Joanne Garde-Hansen has observed: There is . . . an intense and intimate relationship between Madonna and her fans’ emotional investment in her, which has existed for decades. Yet, in the . . . years of digital fan culture since Hills’ . . . work we can, in fact, locate detailed memory and archival work where fans do not ignore the production cultures [of Madonna’s music] at all. (2011, 124) Rather than accepting ideological arguments about the pop music industry silencing information about production (Jones 2003), or indeed binaries between culturally objective visible/invisible musicians (Duffett and Hackett 2013), I want to follow Garde-Hansen by highlighting how fandom makes visible a range of production personnel and collaborators, beyond merely focusing on performers. For the relevant fan culture, then, a producer like Phil Spector is far from “invisible” or unidentifiable, and the same is true for many other producers. This approach to fandom as production-oriented shares a focus with Joshua Gamson’s (1994) classic work on celebrity, whereby the industrial production of celebrity can itself be publicized, but typically only in order to recuperate concepts of agency and authorship. In this chapter I seek to reconnect work on fandom with work on music recording (Eisenberg 1988). For, just as fan studies has historically neglected the role and significance of popular music’s mixers and producers—focusing on intensity and intimacy rather than fans’ experiences of industry—then so too has work on music production neglected fandom, even where “the art of record production” has become a significant scholarly topic (Frith 2007). Pioneering studies of pop/rock music production have been carried out by the likes of Keith Negus (1992), Jason Toynbee (2000) and Albin Zak (2001), but without any real consideration of how fan cultures make

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visible processes of music production, and how production techniques and innovations may, in fact, be linked to fan identities. In short, scholarship on fandom (such as Booth 2010) and music production (like Moorefield 2005) has been unhelpfully segregated into discreet areas of investigation. The relative lack of work on music fans and (literal) production is ironic given fan studies’ interest in audience productivity (Fiske 1992; Sandvoss 2011). TV fans have typically been theorized in relation to television’s “producers” (Zubernis and Larsen 2012), but by marked contrast, music fans have usually been set apart from music’s producers to suggest that fan interest lies purely in performers and artists. In what follows, then, I want to bring the fandom surrounding production personnel back into the theoretical mix. I will not focus here on distinct issues of dance or DJ remixes, which really require separate analysis, but instead consider fan cultures interested in the “star” producer Trevor Horn and “big name” rock/pop mixer Tom Lord-Alge. Ultimately, what is at stake here is the reified, restricted model of fandom which has dominated fan studies. Fans are usually defined as fans of one artist / band / performer / genre, reinforcing a one-dimensional notion of fandom. But empirically and experientially, fandom is far more fluid, multiple and dynamic: fans can combine a repertoire of varied fandoms synchronically (Hills 2002), or they can move sequentially through a range of fan objects (Hills 2005). A greater sense of fans’ “contagion of affect” (Hills 2002, 109) is called for, as popular culture’s inherent intertextuality can lead fans from one object to another—not just the new track from a beloved artist, but also the new band championed by the producer of a favorite album; the remix carried out by somebody whose work you’ll start to follow (Everett 2010); the guest duet which fi res up a new fan interest; the producer or mixer whose work is discovered across an array of pop artists, and so on. In Fans, Cornel Sandvoss argues that fandom involves the capacity to “draw specific boundaries around . . . [an] object of fandom” (2005, 131). In terms of popular music, this could mean excluding albums where an artist “sells out,” or viewing a change in line-up as inauthentic. Alternatively, it could mean categorizing an artist’s career into different eras, with some phases being valorized and others devalued. And it might even involve ignoring specific remixes given that “not all that is associated with the object of fandom . . . is recognized by the individual fan as part of their fan text” (Sandvoss 2005, 132). However, Sandvoss’s emphasis on textual boundaries perhaps underplays the extent to which such boundaries can be intertextually extended. Fandom is not just a matter of including and excluding: it also makes new connections, and travels into new networks of knowledge. For example, Tania Zittoun recounts the case of a Manic Street Preachers fan who, over time, became interested in the writings of George Orwell, Albert Camus, read about the Spanish civil war, and ultimately redefi ned her politics as left-wing, all as a result of intertextualities in the

20 Matt Hills Manics’ lyrics and music (Zittoun 136–141). This is not to say that they necessarily became a “fan” of Camus or Orwell, but it nevertheless indicates a multi-dimensional diff usion of fandom’s affect along intertextual lines. Zittoun refers to this as a “generative” use of fandom (2006, 136) whereby the fan moves outwards from an inspiring fan object into a cultural network of elements and (self-transformative) experiences. As well as being outwardly educative, music can also inwardly incite fans’ interest in learning about its own mechanisms of production. Zittoun emphasizes that this is not some sort of “conversion process” or ideological capture: [The] symbolic system created around the band has no coercive power (even allowing for marketing strategies); it is the user that confers on it its closeness or openness . . . [as] an autonomous chooser and user of resources . . . [Such] uses of resources install a generative dynamic and are developmental: they give access to new spheres of experience. (2006, 141) But too often, popular music fandom is treated as a kind of destination—it is where the fan has to end up—rather than as a step on fans’ intertextual, cultural and affective travels, and a pathway towards new knowledge. Via a case study of Trevor Horn’s work, I will now consider how popular music’s production can play a role within fandom’s intertextual development. I will then move on to explore analogous processes surrounding the mixing of pop music, examining the work of Tom Lord-Alge. My argument is that we need to move away from singular, one-dimensional models of artist-based fandom in order to consider how popular music fandoms can incorporate multiple objects and aspects, with an awareness of the production contexts that facilitate intertextual extensions of fandom’s field of relations. It is even possible for some music producers and mixers to have their own fans; listeners who follow them across highly disparate projects and artists, who are motivated to purchase music on the basis of producing or mixing credits. Rather than focusing purely on pop’s performers, these audiences partly reorient their attention towards production staff (treated as celebrities). They represent a mode of “intermediary fandom,” becoming fans of production intermediaries who work in the industrial spaces between performers and audiences.

MORE ADVENTURES IN MODERN RECORDING: TREVOR HORN AND THE PRODUCERS The role of ‘the record producer’ exerts a considerable fascination for sections of music fandom. Indeed, it is common for production to be described as “a kind of black art” (Massey 2000, v; Burgess 2005, 94) and Timothy Warner has observed that:

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In the popular imagination, the recording studio is, somewhat unfortunately, regarded as a mysterious place—a fiercely guarded environment full of expensive, complex technology, arcane processes and riddled with jargon. The record producer . . . is a central figure in this forbidden realm. (Warner 2003, 35) Producers such as Trevor Horn, who are recurrently linked to industrial success (Warner 2003, 36–37), their names aligned with multiple number one hits and huge selling albums or singles, can also take on further mystique via the implication that their hit records have been intentionally fabricated as such. Thus, the sequestered producer is not just shrouded in mysteries of technique and technology: they are also presumed able to judge mass appeal, catering to mainstream audiences and anticipating or manipulating consumer tastes. Both technologically, and culturally, “star” producers therefore take on an aura of creative potency with fans who want to learn their “secrets” by undertaking a process of symbolic de-sequestration: consuming interviews, biographies, discographies and so on (Morley 1997). This de-sequestration of fan experience includes an online fan project dedicated to Horn’s production, the Trevor Charles Horn Worship Hall, as well as the Blueboard of the ZTT Alternate Forum where Horn’s record label, Zang Tuum Tumb, and his work are discussed.1 Horn’s official website as a repository of his latest projects, further evidence of the interest which his work holds for fans, comes in the form of lengthy video interviews that are available online, such as at the Red Bull Music Academy or at the archive of recordproduction.com. 2 A “star” producer like Trevor Horn thus incites fan activity as a result of his sequestration and relative cultural invisibility: the celebrated producer simultaneously represents an alluring absence and a promise of meaning— that it might, fi nally, be possible to understand “how hit music is made.” The “big name,” industrially successful producer hence offers up a hermeneutic space which blends auteurism with “endlessly deferred narrative” (Hills 2002, 134): the fully closed story of Horn’s production decisions, techniques, and skills can never be told, no matter how many interviews, anecdotes, and scholarly studies one consumes. Even Timothy Warner’s (2003) book-length examination of Horn’s work considers only seven musical case studies, having little or nothing to say about Seal’s albums, as well as neglecting the second Buggles album, and requiring an update to tackle later projects such as The Producers, David Jordan, and the “Produced By” Trevor Horn concert in 2004. It could also be argued that Horn partly attracts a fan following due to the “overgrown sonics of . . . what you might call [the] conspicuous production” (Wilson 2007, 69) especially characterizing his 1980’s work. Along with Horn’s status as an industry “name,” this implies that he actually has a degree of cultural visibility as a celebrity, rather than being a shadowy, back-room type. However, to claim that Horn is a “household name”

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(Cunningham 1996, 274) is, I suspect, to exaggerate the ubiquity of his cultural status. It would be fairer to say that Horn is rendered (increasingly) visible as an artist by his fan following: rather than monolithically existing in a category of “visible” (star/performer) or “invisible” musician, Horn’s (in)visibility fluctuates across fan/non-fan listeners. His personal “brand” is intently defended by fans, as in this example from the Blueboard that discusses Horn’s 2011 participation in a Red Bull Music Academy event: The host tried to put Horn on the defensive about t.A.T.u., who the host clearly despised. Kudos to Horn for simply answering the question that should’ve been asked about how that project started. If the host wanted to call out Trevor for an apparent abandonment of the “intelligent pop” brand he’d curated, he needs to grow a pair and ask what he means and stop trying to use the questions to make a statement. 3 Given the alleged “black art” of the producer, it is unsurprising that various theorists, writers, and practitioners have sought to defi ne different types of record production. For instance, producer Jerry Wexler has set out three categories: The fi rst is the documentarian . . . the second category—the producer as servant of the project . . . His job is to . . . do whatever it takes to get the best out of the artist. Phil [Spector] is the prime example of the third category: producer as star, as artist, as unifying force. (Wexler in Zak 2001, 175–176) By contrast, Arif Mardin classifies his fellow producers according to whether they are producer-songwriters, producer-collaborators, or producer-engineers, another tripartite model to which Richard Burgess adds “the arranger producer . . . at the topmost level of the collaborator category” (2005, 14). And Keith Negus has analytically separated out craft, entrepreneurial, and art modes of production, though he goes on to argue that these modes can be combined in particular cases (Negus 1992, 88–89). All of these attempts to pin down the producer’s role share a sense of the multiplicity of record production: producers are called upon to capture sound accurately (the “documentarian” or “craft” aspect of their trade), but at the same time they need a level of musicality in order to work effectively with performers, to collaborate, arrange, or “serve the project.” And some producers will also demonstrate Negus’s “art” mode, which is akin to Wexler’s “producer as artist,” or star/auteur. Horn’s fans tend to place him unproblematically in this “auteur” category, with the Trevor Charles Horn Worship Hall bombastically proclaiming: Trevor Horn—The God of Pop Production. Be Welcomed to His— strictly unofficial—Pleasuredome! Come into His Temple and bow to

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Him—or touch the screen to be immersed in his holy aura fi lled with his eternal 24Bit 192 kHz stereo ProTools (TM) processed spirit!4 And fans typically argue that Horn should receive greater credit than he is usually given by non-fans, as this Guardian music blog comment suggests: Trevor Horn is one of the great geniuses of the studio . . . What comes over . . . is just how much Horn’s successful records came from his own talent and forbearance. Nine months in the studio versus Grace Jones’s nine hours; Seal doesn’t show up; the funk band can’t play an arrangement. This is . . . the studio guy who doesn’t always get the same acknowledgment as the artist. 5 However, despite fan playfulness and celebration, “the idea that a producer should be such an auteur—imposing his or her own sound and vision on diverse projects—is controversial” (Zak 2001, 179) within certain industry quarters since this potentially disrupts the “naturalistic ideology of rock” (Negus 1992, 88) whereby production should capture musicians’ talents rather than radically augmenting, auto-tuning, or otherwise re-constructing actual, real-time performances. This clash between musical ideologies— “rock” naturalism versus a “pop” embrace of technological possibility— has been read as a key part of Trevor Horn’s industrial success and status: Many rock musicians and producers, in particular, were reluctant to embrace the new digital technologies, as their use resulted in sonic characteristics that were radically different from, and uncharacteristic of, the established genre. Producers of pop music records [such as Horn], on the other hand, were among the fi rst to champion the new digital technologies . . . The period 1979–1985 was a particularly important time in this regard. (Warner 2003, 22) In this account, pop music production—especially Horn’s work in the early 1980s—is interpreted as technologically innovative and creative via its use of digital audio, whereas by contrast rock music is positioned as highly suspicious of digital’s brightness, sampling, synthesized sound, and capacity for manipulation. This inverts typical cultural constructions of rock’s valorized “authenticity” versus pop’s “manufacture.” Such a binary has resulted in pop producers often being devalued by the music press—and some scholars—for allegedly lacking in musical talent and for being overly concerned with money-making formulas.6 By contrast, critic Paul Morley stresses the extent to which Horn’s 1980’s work involved “a practical understanding of rapidly developing technology and how it connected with creativity” (Morley 2004). And Warner notes that Trevor Horn’s embrace of “new digital technologies and . . . working methods . . . later became established practice” across the industry (Warner 2003, 36–7), eventually encroaching into

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rock as well as pop production. But in these cultural-historical narratives, pop production represents digital innovation rather than ‘inauthentic’ commerce, further bolstering Horn’s cultural value and appeal for his fans. As Andrew Goodwin has argued of 1980s producers like Arthur Baker, Rick Rubin and Trevor Horn: “aesthetic radicalism takes place in what we once used to call the ‘mainstream’—the charts” (1990, 271). The powerful equation of Horn’s work with radicalism and artistry rather than the blandly commercial is relatively unusual for industrially successful record producers. This art discourse circulates playfully through Horn’s own website—with its “horniculture!” links—as well as through fan and critical discussions.7 For example, the Trevor Charles Horn Worship Hall poses the following question: “Why the heck should someone make a page about a producer and not the more glamorous performers?” It goes on to explain: Throughout the years I realized that, regardless of the differences, all “my” music had something in common that fascinated me. I felt as if the music took me on some sort of journey where I could make out more and more details each time I travelled through the acoustic landscape. . . . I started paying more attention to the credits on each record. I soon found the mysterious link: “Produced by Trevor Horn” seemed to be enough, to give such different kinds of music as Seal’s Soul or Frankie’s Pop a certain connection.8 As an auteur/artist, Horn unifies seemingly disparate performers and styles of music for this devoted fan. And his production artistry involves “more and more details” becoming perceptible over time; far from being disposable or ephemeral pop, the implication is that Horn creates music that can endure, and which is intricately layered via his sonic signature. Other fans similarly focus on “the TCH sound (fairlight samples gallore),” for example evaluating The Producers’ 2012 album as “not a stereotypical TCH sound (if there is such a thing).”9 The interjection here, “if there is such a thing,” serves to protect “the TCH sound” from being perceived merely as stereotypical, something mechanistically repeated rather than creatively expressed. The notion of Horn’s production as an art is shared by critic Paul Morley, who argues that Horn has “a love for the pop song that . . . [is] both fanatical and theoretical” (2004). Likewise, academic Timothy Warner discusses Horn’s “almost obsessive pursuit of extremely high artistic standards” (2003, 140). Fanatical and obsessive: myths of perfectionism circulate around Trevor Horn, indeed his music publishing company is called Perfect Songs. Horn’s reputation for being a perfectionist takes on some persuasiveness given the textual sheen and precise structuring of his audiophile productions. His painstaking obsessiveness is also conveyed through a sense of the excessive time taken to create sounds and shape his tracks: “The hi-hat sound alone on Grace Jones’s intimately spectacular ‘Slave to the Rhythm’ took six weeks to perfect” (Morley 2004). Similarly:

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Trevor Horn spent three months on the Buggles single “Video Killed the Radio Star” (1979) . . . some sort of efficiency must be maintained in the production process, not only for cost control but also to preserve the concentration of creative energies and prevent the project from becoming lost in a maze of endless unfocused possibility. (Zak 2001, 136) Rather than becoming “lost in . . . possibility,” Horn’s dedication to fi nding the right sound and the right arrangement (Lipson in Burgess 2005, 182) has been used to discursively fi x his position as a visionary artist, unconcerned by either cost or efficiency: “He would say that it didn’t matter how much money he spent, how many times he had to re-do the song, . . . how long it took” (Morley 2004). Such hyperbole amounts to self-conscious mythmaking, with Paul Morley as ZTT’s chief mythologist and proclaimer of Horn’s techno-artistic purity: “Other people did the dirty work of selling and performing. He could stay where he was most at home. In the studio. Telling machines what to do” (Morley 2004). Horn’s ‘obsessive genius myth’ has also been reinforced by his embrace of a specifically “branded self” (Hearn 2008, 194). From the cover of Buggles’ first album Age of Plastic—which depicted a stylized image of Horn sporting large horn-rimmed glasses—through the follow-up Adventures in Modern Recording and into the Produced By compilation of 2004, this same pair of spectacles have come to synecdochally stand in for Horn. His contemporary website repeatedly features close-up images of the man himself peering over the frames of his glasses. This self-branding reinforces connotations of the producer as fixated on detail. The glasses themselves are a detail selected out to become a “thoroughly promotional object” (Hearn 2008, 208), but their imagery also conveys a sense of Horn poring over technical detail. Ironically, it is his eyesight that is fetishized rather than his abilities to hear and play music; as a digital technophile, Horn’s mystique is intensified through this sense that he looks carefully and precisely at music on-screen or as he operates an SSL console. Production virtuosity and obsessiveness are therefore captured through a self-branded stress on Horn’s geeky gaze. Although an art discourse is shared by critics, fans and scholars writing about Trevor Horn’s perfectionism (Frith and Horne 1987), there is at least one major difference between typical fan and academic receptions. Fans continue to follow Horn’s career, their interest combined with a multidimensional focus on ZTT as a label, and other ZTT artists and producers, whereas Horn’s career from the 1990s onwards has been largely neglected within scholarship. Warner interprets Horn’s “later work”, after the apogee of Slave to the Rhythm (2003, 139), as “more diverse in character, possibly in order to present the specific musicality and personality of the artist[s]” being produced (2003, 142), implying that Horn has moved away from his “artist” phase and towards “serving the project” instead in a more anonymous manner. Academia has little to say about Horn’s 1990’s work with Seal, let alone his 2010 production of the football anthem “Three Lions,”

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or his recent return to performance with super-group The Producers (made up of Stephen Lipson, Lol Creme, Ash Soan) and the Trevor Horn Orchestra, a moniker previously used on the soundtrack to Mona Lisa Smile. Horn has worked with mainstream pop artists such as Gary Barlow and Robbie Williams, as well as electronic / synth-driven acts like the Pet Shop Boys, and indie bands such as Belle and Sebastian (2003), Captain (2006) and Spector (2012), frequently producing just one or two tracks for an artist rather than tackling entire album-length projects. Unlike academics, fans continue to accumulate knowledge about Horn’s career—rendering him “visible” as a celebrity-musician—with one fan commenting on a 2012 Guardian “Behind the Music” blog entry: “Nothing that hardcore fans like ourselves don’t already know, but worth a read.”10 Horn’s more recent work is perhaps less notable for critics and scholars because the industry as a whole has caught up with his techniques and approaches. What seemed sonically remarkable and state-of-the-art in 1985 (David Foster in Zak 2001, 182) had become an industrial norm by the 1990s, at least for high-end popular music production. As Horn’s ZTT collaborator Paul Morley observed, Horn made his name with acts like Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Seal in the ‘80s and ‘90s: [H]is super adventures in modern recording . . . established Trevor Horn as one of the names in record production, a brand name for a certain type of sound . . . If in the ‘60s, Phil Spector created a wall of sound, by the middle of the ‘80s Horn had already established his sound, a whole room of sound, the walls, floors, ceilings, doors, windows, decorated with absolute flourish. (Morley 1997) Arguably, however, no twenty-fi rst century acts have been synonymous with Horn’s “room of sound.” By the time of the “Produced By” event and CD of 2004, Horn was beginning to look back on his 1980’s incarnation, engaging in nostalgic self-historicization and auto-commemoration. Indeed, record label ZTT is currently engaged in a process of re-commodifying its back catalogue for an ageing generation of fans via the Element series of (re-)releases complete with demos and alternate mixes. This process of self-commemoration even extends to a “hidden,” uncredited track on the 2 CD edition of The Producers’ (2012) album Made In Basing Street: a guitar-oriented performance and (re-)production of Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Two Tribes.” Here, Horn and his collaborators revisit and recontextualize what may well be his most infamous and successful ‘80s work. Furthermore, the 2009 Robbie Williams album produced by Horn was entitled “Reality Killed the Video Star,” intertextually referencing the Buggles’ song that fi rst propelled Horn to fame (“Video Killed the Radio Star”) and also appearing to surpass it by demarcating a new phase of pop history. While the producer had been hired to collaborate on a major album release and industry event aimed at reviving Robbie Williams’ fortunes,

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the resulting 2009 project called up Horn’s own career and simultaneously consigned it to the past. Trevor Horn’s earlier work and the moments at which he established his “brand name” have become recurrent reference points in his latter-day output. Yet Horn’s fans have moved with the times, loyally continuing to follow his new music. Posters on the Blueboard share information about the July 26, 2012 Trevor Horn Orchestra gig, for instance, speculating about why Horn would be using this name rather than The Producers, and offering reviews: “One of the best TCH gigs I’ve been to. Basically it was a warm up for a “best of TCH” mini-tour of Japan next month. Interestingly, no Producers tracks played . . .”11 Other fans post about The Producers’ gigs, as well as sharing links to footage of various performances. Remembering that this is a general forum for ZTT rather than a “TCH”-specific site, Horn’s work is nevertheless picked up on and knowledgeably discussed, without there being a focus on technical production details. Fans who zero in on Horn’s output alongside a range of other artist-oriented fandoms demonstrate how an interest in popular music can expand outwards into an intertextual array or network of fan interests instead of being singularly contained or affectively uni-directional. Likewise, I’ve already quoted the owner of The Trevor Charles Horn Worship Hall testifying to his discovery of the “produced by Trevor Horn” credit, but only after he’d already appreciated a range of popular music worked on by Horn. The discovery of Horn as a unifying principle inspired that fan to develop a transformative new arena of production knowledge (and website design), akin to the Manic Street Preachers fan studied by Zittoun. And although Horn blurs the line between producer and performer (playing with The Buggles, The Producers, THO), fan sites focused on his bands are rare—there is one for The Buggles—whereas there is far more web activity surrounding Horn as a “branded self” and as an object of fan fascination in relation to his producer credits.12 Fans recurrently attempt to de-sequestrate Horn’s production activities by seeking access to behind-the-scenes information and knowledge. The de-sequestration process does not only occur with regard to “brand name” producers, however. Other intermediary fandoms revolve around different personnel involved in the construction of commercially successful popular music, eg. those who mix tracks for release. In the following section I will move on from the role of the producer, and Trevor Horn fandom, to consider a further case study: that of Tom Lord-Alge.

SPANKING IT: TOM LORD-ALGE AND THE ‘MAGIC’ OF MIXING Like Horn, Lord-Alge has maintained a career at the top of the music business spanning several decades. Whereas an art discourse tends to circulate around industrially successful ‘name’ producers, mix engineers or mixers are far less frequently linked to concepts of artistry, even—or

28 Matt Hills especially—those who are Grammy-winning, high-end professionals. Instead, mixers like Tom Lord-Alge and his brother Chris are strongly linked to concepts of commerce: when specialist magazine Sound on Sound discusses “the Lord-Alge sound”, it concludes by joking: “Now all we need is the plug-in that automatically invoices record companies for thousands of dollars on our behalf” (Inglis 2011). Seemingly, the taint of filthy lucre is never far from the surface where industry-leading mixers are concerned. Partly, such hyper-commercialism may be a result of industry practices, whereby “name” mixers with established reputations and credentials are likely to be brought in specifically to mix tracks as singles and garner radio play. Keith Negus (1992, 92) notes how “mixing . . . to produce radiofriendly material . . . [and] being able to turn songs into singles” are key attributes for the “star” practitioner. The commercial decision to hire certain mixers on a per-track basis is therefore one way in which major record companies seek to reduce and manage the risk of their “chaotic business . . . a messy world of wild, creative artists and constantly changing tastes” (Farrell 1998, 4). Investing in a “name” like Tom Lord-Alge, with a track record of success stretching back to the 80s, represents a business strategy and an investment in the artist as much as a creative decision. To give just two examples of this process: “Stacy’s Mom” was the lead single off Fountains of Wayne’s album Welcome Interstate Managers. An international hit, this track was mixed by Tom Lord-Alge, and it was markedly different to the rest of the (somewhat lower-fi) album. Unlike other tracks, “Stacy’s Mom” has a very clean, precisely organized mix in which individual instruments can clearly be picked out, and where the song’s dynamics are highly exaggerated, especially in relation to a rhythmic handclap forming part of the chorus and unusually spaced so that it “punches” through the track. “Stacy’s Mom” has a striking sheen and an immediate energy; it is precision-tooled for radio play. Likewise, Vertical Horizon’s “Everything You Want” was mixed by Lord-Alge for single release; the same track exists on the album Everything You Want, but in a variant form (Everett 2010) notably lacking the sharp sonic definition, pacing, and effects of the Lord-Alge version. If mixers are recurrently linked to discourses of commerce rather than art then it is perhaps because their work forms such a central part of “the manipulation of sound [as] . . . a dominant approach to pop music-making in . . . major record companies” (Toynbee 2000, 89). As well as being recurrently linked to the single as a commodity-form, “star” mixers will tend to work across a pronounced range of artists, with this eclecticism also suggesting that a predominant pattern to their work is one of following—or at least being linked to—major label trends and commercial successes over time. Lord-Alge has mixed Hanson (“MMMBop” was one of his tracks) as well as Sum 41, Fallout Boy, Avril Lavigne, Marilyn Manson, and a range of classic rock artists including The Rolling Stones and Steve Winwood. He’s moved across boy-band pop, pop-punk /

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emo, and MOR with apparent ease, working on projects which would be radically unlikely to share fandoms: From Manson to Hanson, it’s a wide spectrum of music, most of it mixed at South Beach Studios in Miami, a commercial studio that is almost Tom’s permanent residence. He comments: “I just love music, and don’t distinguish between categories. I loved mixing Hanson’s album, and really enjoyed the songs. I’m equally proud of the Marilyn Manson album.” (Tingen 2000) Allied to single / radio mixing, this “gun-for-hire” category-crossing reinforces a sense of the mix engineer as a resolutely commercial intermediary in the processes of pop music production. Lord-Alge’s success is also linked to efficiency: [T]he sound of his work closely resembles that of his brother . . . Neither is afraid to use extreme compression in their mixes, and . . . both possess vast collections of compressors (Tom has around 40 . . . ). The brothers also share a love of Sony 3348 digital multitracks, SSL desks, and Yamaha NS10 monitors (as Tom says, “the Yamahas are so unflattering that if I can make my mixes sound good on them, they will sound good everywhere!”). Finally, both Chris and Tom prefer to mix a song a day if possible. (Tingen 2000) The online forum Gearslutz indicates that both Chris and Tom LordAlge (or CLA and TLA as they are dubbed) have fan followings amongst the “creative . . . hobby communities” (Ito 2012, 296) of home-studio mixers as well as among professional pop artists. One thread, ‘Mixing magic with Tom Lord-Alge’, runs to 10 pages and includes 276 posts between 13/9/10 and 15/8/12. Initiated by a musician who’s worked with Lord-Alge, it begins by acknowledging the cultural prevalence of commercial discourses: I’ve always been a huge fan of TLA’s mixes and have heard all the stories that seem to become larger than life about guys like TLA . . . like how much it costs per track (10k???), that they are pissed if a mix takes longer than 6 hours . . . [L]ike a production line . . . everything is behind closed doors and you can’t be part of the mix process. I am so happy to say that all of these myths were totally inaccurate.13 Another hobbyist interested in the techniques of music production/mixing is happy to self-describe as “a really big fan of TLA [a lot more so than CLA]” observing how they “have always gotten bummed when I hear people propagating myths like that. Great to know that its total BS”.14 And other artists who’ve worked with TLA also valorize and defend his expertise:

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Matt Hills My brother and I just fi nished mixing our band’s EP with Tom in April/ May and the experience was phenomenal . . . every seemingly-minute detail and nuance was carefully considered and carved out to enhance the track as a whole. There was no template or formula to the mixing process. Every guitar, vocal and drum track was custom tailored to each specific song. . . . he REALLY gives a shit.15

The thread takes on a celebratory tone, praising TLA but also taking care to reject the otherwise powerful discourse of mixing-as-pure-commerce. For these fans, “I can listen to their records and say that’s a CLA mix or that’s a TLA mix.”16 A characteristically “compressed” (or “spanked”) Lord-Alge sound is hence posited as identifiable and as aesthetically unifying across different pop musicians (Inglis 2011): “SSL compression slammed . . . funny, he’s got “Spank” written on everything. Even his little dog is called Spanky.”17 Art discourse—the mixer-as-unifying-voice—is reintroduced here, with Lord-Alge depicted as an arch “spanker” or user of compression / EQ. This runs contra to the position which Lord-Alge himself has adopted in interviews and public statements, stressing how he aims “to get everything to work in the service of the song . . . I’m really concerned with the artist’s integrity and vision and don’t want to put my own stamp on it” (Tingen 2000). Or again: “I really want the song to shine—that’s the most important thing to me . . . to do whatever it takes to make . . . the song come across better” (Lord-Alge in Zak 2001, 144). Rather than placing producers or mixers into anonymous / collaborator / artist categories, then, what we can instead observe here is a degree of discourse variability. While LordAlge is occasionally at pains to exnominate his own agency (in line with pop’s “consumerist narrative” of performer-centered meaning), his fan following emphasizes and restores this agency. Indeed, Gearslutz posters even indicate that they have purchased music on the basis of TLA’s involvement: “Bought the pre-album EP from iTunes just because of this thread. And will be buying the album.”18 It could be argued, however, that these fans very much do not buy into “the consumerist narrative” of pop acts “as all-powerful [where] nothing mediates the music” (Jones 2003, 156). Instead, they represent a specific mode: the hobbyist or enthusiast engaged in “everyday creativity” (Gauntlett 2011). As a distinct form of pop music fandom, one premised on appreciating its industrial and technological mediation, these TLA fans perhaps cannot be interpreted as a direct challenge to general theories of singular, artist-centered music fandom. Instead, they seemingly constitute an exception to the rule, and a specific discursive formation where mixing is recontextualized as creativity worthy of celebration rather than as mere commercialism. According to this reading, such intermediary fandom is “deeply implicated in discourses and infrastructures that differentiate it from ‘mainstream’ sensibilities” (Ito 2012, 278). And yet this sort of

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interpretation ultimately installs an unsustainable binary between artistcentered and intermediary-centered fandoms. Rather, I would argue that intermediary fandoms draw producers and mixers like Horn and LordAlge into symbolic spaces of “the music celebrity,” thus blurring the lines between intimacy-oriented and industry-oriented experiences of fandom. After all, TLA fans are interested in getting ‘behind-the-scenes’ and learning more about Lord-Alge’s working practices: “Could you tell some more about his gear? . . . Thanks!”19 Far from demonstrating “a breakdown of amateur/professional status in the production process” (Warner 2003, 20), high-end industry figures such as TLA and CLA are validated by hobbyist fans as especially gifted individuals, working “magic” in their mixes. Ideologies of “uniqueness” and “talent,” central to classical models of celebrity, continue to have a purchase here: “Really, he could give you toms exact signal chains and most people couldn’t replicate his mixes.”20 Although fans want to collectively collate as much information as possible about TLA’s mixing tactics and tics (Jenkins 2006, 27; Baym 2010, 86), they simultaneously accord him an elevated and almost ineffable status. This runs significantly counter to the philosophy of digital creativity developed by David Gauntlett in Making is Connecting, since Gauntlett seeks to defi ne creativity without a “verifiable external view” (2011, 74), meaning that if something is subjectively felt to be a creative act then it is. For Gauntlett, the “standard notion of creativity” is “usually defi ned by its outcomes: things or ideas which haven’t been seen before, and which make a difference in the context in which they appear” (2011, 73–4). Instead, and in a democratizing, anti-elitist gesture, “the meaning of everyday craft and creative activities . . . [is] to be found in the process, not so much in its outcomes” (Gauntlett 2011, 76). But the gearslutz posters offer an external verification (or discursive construction) of TLA’s art: outcome, not process, demarcates industrial creativity here. In a sense, Gauntlett’s model of creativity captures only one dynamic of fandom’s productivity in the digital age—that it is increasingly open to all. But intermediary fandom is also necessarily elitist, or at least hierarchical, insofar as it is based on recognizing reputations and industry achievements: As more and more creative and hobby communities become digitally networked, the productive tension between open and populist tendencies and processes of subcultural distinction will be a persistent feature of the cultural landscape . . . [given that] recognizing leadership, and developing status and reputation are . . . central to the scene. (Ito 2012, 296) Tom Lord-Alge’s “leadership” is exemplified when he seemingly posts to the Gearslutz thread as TLAMIX. Nobody challenges whether this actually is Lord-Alge, and all are extremely solicitous, welcoming, and complimentary. Like star producers, the mixer as artist/celebrity incites a desire for symbolic

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closeness: fans want to learn more about TLA’s work, gaining access to the secrets of South Beach Studios, and they revel in information that artists are willing to provide, such as TLA’s set of prep instructions before he can start mixing from artists’ tapes. TLAMIX’s first post seems keenly aware of this appetite for de-sequestration, including a list of studio equipment: The words my artist posted here is what it’s like to mix with the LORDALGE’S. I’m glad he took the time to share his experience with you . . . CLA & TLA drum reverb of choice . . . SONY-DRE-2000 TLA Mixes on a SSL 4000 G+ with Ultimation CLA mixes on a SSL 4000E (CLA thinks my mixes have better bottom end . . . I’ve told him it’s the console) CLA & TLA both use the Sony 3348 for our d/a convertors (Is there such a thing as a Vintage Digital Sound?) . . . If the meter is not pinning, your not SPANKING it enough. TLA & CLA both use NS-10m’s . . . All the best, Tom Lord-Alge. 21 The thread thus allows fans to feel an intensified engagement with TLA, the closed doors of South Beach Studios giving way to a series of mediated insights into the pop music industry. TLAMIX even concludes with an order for his emulative acolytes: “Now, go spank the shit outta your mix.”22 Sociologist Anthony Giddens has pointed out that “frontiers of sequestered experience are fault lines, full of tensions and poorly mastered forces” (1991, 168). And where the sequestration of industrial creativity is concerned—rather than the moral sequestration which Giddens focuses on (1991, 164)—such fault lines can be exploited and exaggerated by fans wishing to close the gap between “routines of ordinary life” and “institutional . . . processes of concealment” (Giddens 1991, 156) which typically characterize high-end music production and its “hit factory” mentality. But, as Ito cautions us to remember, moments where intermediary fandom might challenge pop’s institutional power are also moments where popular music production’s dominant ideologies are recognized and verified. In the end, star producers and ‘name’ mixers do not get in the way of pop’s “consumerist narrative” by exposing industrial processes. Rather, intermediary fandoms extend the artist-centered fan experience outside its archetypal domain, responding to pop music’s producers as artists or celebrities of a kind. And this extension leads to a scenario where fans of producers or mixers want to learn (about) the “black art” of production even while continuing to position its ‘star’ exponents as “associated with . . . wonder and mystery” (Stevenson 2006, 183). What this process can demonstrate, however, is the extent to which popular music fandom is rarely something that’s singularly artist-centered or singularly object-oriented, even if it can (more or less subculturally) transfer art discourses from musicians and performers to mix engineers and record producers. The Trevor Horn fans posting to the Blueboard were also

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fans of ZTT and its roster of artists, just as TLA fans posting to Gearslutz were also interested in a range of other artists and producers (most typically CLA). For fans who pay attention to the “Produced by Trevor Horn” credit, or who can “say that’s a TLA mix,” such unifying artistry can still only be discovered—and discursively constructed—through the musical “details” of performers such as Seal, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Hanson, or Angels and Airwaves. As such, appreciating pop artists is a necessary step towards appreciating those who worked on “their” sound. Intermediary fandoms can emerge intertextually out of experiences of pop’s performers, whilst, in turn, a fandom for Trevor Horn or Tom Lord-Alge might lead listeners to discover new bands or artists via a contagion of affect. Sections of fandom have thus proved adept at rendering popular music’s production highly visible rather than relatively invisible, seeking to de-sequester the working practices of producers and mixers, and producing new (fan-cultural) celebrities in the process (Gamson 1994). Although such fan activity has remained largely unexplored in work on the art of record production, this chapter has sought to bring previously “invisible fans” (Geraghty 2012, 168) to the wider attention of both popular music studies and artist-orientated fan studies. NOTES 1. See http://www.trevor-horn.de/index.html and http://fgthq.de/cgi-bin/yabb2/ YaBB.pl?board=blue1. 2. See http://www.trevorhorn.com/ and http://www.redbullmusicacademy. com/people/trevor-horn plus http://www.recordproduction.com/trevor-hornrecord-producer.html. 3. Posted by mjb on the Blueboard thread, “Re: Trevor Horn 2011 Red Bull Music Academy Madrid,” March 23, 2012. 4. See http://www.trevor-horn.de/. 5. This comment, by poster ClarkSorley was taken from the Guardian music blog, March 30, 2012: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/ mar/29/behind-the-music-studio-performance#start-of-comments. 6. See Wikström (2009, 120–121) on the 1980’s UK production team of Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Also see Mike Stock’s autobiography (for instance Stock 2004, 50). 7. The horniculture links are available here: http://www.trevorhorn.com/ horniculture/. 8. See http://www.trevor-horn.de/index.html. 9. The fi rst comment here was by TW on the thread “re: Trevor Horn Orchestra (?) playing July 26th?” July 27, 2012. The second was by bobkind on the thread, “re: Made In Basing Street (Deluxe)” June 25, 2012. 10. This comment was written by poster hibakusha in response to the piece “Re: Horn Lipson in Guardian,” March 29, 2012. 11. The comment was posted by Blueboard contributor TW on July 27, 2012. 12. The Buggles’ site is http://www.buggles.co.nr/. 13. Posted by ocianic on September 13, 2010. 14. AntillesSound, September 13, 2010. 15. TBF Brent, August 14, 2012.

34 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

Matt Hills slikjmusik, September 13, 2010. ocianic, September 13, 2010. ksm, August 3, 2011. Posted by Living Sounds, September 13, 2010. rickrock305, September 16, 2010. Posted by TLAMIX, May 18, 2012. Ibid.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Tonya. 2012. Still Kissing Their Posters Goodnight: Lifelong Pop Music Fandom. PhD diss., University of Sunderland. Bennett, Lucy. 2009. The Thinking Fan’s Rock Band: R.E.M. Fandom and Negotiations of Normativity in Murmurs.com. PhD diss., Cardiff University. Booth, Paul. 2010. Digital Fandom: New Media Studies. New York: Peter Lang. Baym, Nancy. 2010. Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Cambridge: Polity. Burgess, Richard James. 2005. The Art of Music Production. London: Omnibus Press. Cavicchi, Daniel. 1998. Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning among Springsteen Fans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cunningham, Mark. 1996. Good Vibrations: A History of Record Production. Surrey: Castle Communications. Duffett, Mark. 2011. “Elvis Presley and Susan Boyle: Bodies of Controversy.” Journal of Popular Music Studies 23, 2:166–189. Duffett, Mark and Hackett, Jon. 2013. “Mediating The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector: Documenting Monstrosity?” In The Music Documentary in Film: Acid Rock to Electropop, edited by Benjamin Halligan, Robert Edgar, and Kirsty Fairclough-Isaacs, 206–218 London: Routledge. Eisenberg, Evan. 1988. The Recording Angel: Music, Records and Culture from Aristotle to Zappa. London: Picador. Everett, Walter. 2010. “‘If You’re Gonna Have a Hit’: Intratextual Mixes and Edits of Pop Recordings.” Popular Music 29, 2:229–250. Farrell, Winslow. 1998. How Hits Happen: Forecasting Predictability in a Chaotic Marketplace. London: Orion. Fast, Susan. 2001. In the House of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fiske, John. 1992. “The Cultural Economy of Fandom.” In The Adoring Audience, edited by Lisa A. Lewis, 30–49. London: Routledge. Frith, Simon. 2007. “Editorial: A Journal On The Art Of Record Production.” Journal on the Art of Record Production. 1. http://arpjournal.com/486/ajournal-on-the-art-of-record-production/. Frith, Simon and Horne, Howard. 1987. Art into Pop. London: Methuen. Gamson, Joshua. 1994. Claims to Fame: Celebrity in Contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Garde-Hansen, Joanne. 2011. Media and Memory. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Gauntlett, David. 2011. Making is Connecting: The Social Meaning of Creativity, from DIY and Knitting to YouTube and Web 2.0. Cambridge: Polity. Geraghty, Lincoln. 2010. “Just Who is the Passive Audience Here? Teaching Fan Studies at University.” In Fan Culture: Theory/Practice, edited by Katherine Larsen and Lynn Zubernis, 162–173. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

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Giddens, Anthony.1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity. Goodwin, Andrew. 1990. “Sample and Hold: Pop Music in the Digital Age of Reproduction.” In On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, 258–273. London: Routledge. Hearn, Alison. 2008. “Variations on the Branded Self: Theme, Invention, Improvisation and Inventory.” In The Media and Social Theory, edited by David Hesmondhalgh and Jason Toynbee, 194–210. London: Routledge. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. . 2005. “Patterns of Surprise: The ‘Aleatory Object’ in Psychoanalytic Ethnography and Cyclical Fandom.” American Behavioral Scientist 48, 7:801–821. Inglis, Sam. 2011. “Waves CLA Artist Signature Collection.” Sound on Sound. February 11. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb11/articles/waves-cla.htm. Ito, Mizuko. 2012. “‘As Long as It’s Not Linkin Park Z’: Popularity, Distinction, and Status in the AMV Subculture.” In Fandom Unbound: Otaku Culture in a Connected World, edited by Mizuko Ito, Daisuke Okabe and Izumi Tsuji, 275–298. New Haven: Yale University Press. Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press. Jones, Mike. 2003. “The Music Industry as Workplace: An Approach to Analysis.” In Cultural Work: Understanding the Cultural Industries, edited by Andrew Beck, 147–156. London: Routledge. Lizie, Arthur. 2009. Dreaming the World: U2 Fans, Online Community and Intercultural Communication. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Marsh, Clive, and Vaughan S. Roberts. 2011. “Soundtracks of Acrobatic Selves: Fan-Site Religion in the Reception and Use of the Music of U2.” Journal of Contemporary Religion. 26, 3:419–432. Marshall, P. David. 1997. Celebrity and Power: Fame in Contemporary Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Massey, Howard. 2000. Behind the Glass: Top Record Producers Tell How They Craft The Hits. San Francisco: Backbeat Books. McDonald, Chris. 2009. Rush: Rock Music and the Middle Class. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Moorefield, Virgil. 2005. The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular Music. Cambridge: MIT Press. Morley, Paul. 1997. “Trevor Horn—Biography.” http://www.soundslogic.com/ fisonic/_legacy/tchpmbio.html. . 2004. “Vast cities of sound.” The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph. co.uk/culture/music/rockandjazzmusic/3626953/Vast-cities-of-sound.html. Negus, Keith. 1992. Producing Pop: Culture and Conflict in the Popular Music Industry. London: Arnold. Sandvoss, Cornel. 2005. Fans: The Mirror of Consumption. Cambridge: Polity. . 2011. “Fans Online: Affective Media Consumption and Production in the Age of Convergence.” In Online Territories: Globalization, Mediated Practice and Social Space, edited Miyase Christensen, Andre Jansson and Christian Christensen, 49–74. New York: Peter Lang. Stevenson, Nick. 2006. David Bowie: Fame, Sound and Vision. Cambridge: Polity. Stock, Mike. 2004. The Hit Factory: The Stock Aitken Waterman Story. London: New Holland Publishers. Tagg, Philip. 2011. “Caught on the Back Foot: Epistemic Inertia and Visible Music.” IASPM@Journal: Journal of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music 2,1–2: 3–18.

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Thompson, John B. 1995. Media and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Tingen, Paul. 2000. “Tom Lord-Alge: From Manson to Hanson.” Sound on Sound. April. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr00/articles/tomlord.htm. Toynbee, Jason. 2000. Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions. London: Arnold. Warner, Timothy. 2003. Pop Music—Technology and Creativity: Trevor Horn and the Digital Revolution. Aldershot: Ashgate. Wikström, Patrik. 2009. The Music Industry. Cambridge: Polity. Wilson, Carl. 2007. Let’s Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste. New York: Continuum. Zak III, Albin. 2001. The Poetics of Rock: Cutting Tracks, Making Records. Berkeley: University of California Press. Zittoun, Tania. 2006. Transitions: Development Through Symbolic Resources. Greenwich: Information Age Publishing. Zubernis, Lynn, and Katherine Larsen. 2012. Fandom at the Crossroads: Celebration, Shame and Fan/Producer Relationships. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

3

Beyond Capital, Towards Myth EDM Fandom and Dance Practice Beate Peter

On their 1997 album Homework, Daft Punk included a track called “Revolution 909” which began with a low bass beat, crowd noises and the sound of wailing police sirens. Over a loud hailer, official instructions came telling imagined dance fans to stop the music and go home. Hearing Daft Punk’s sonic skit on the outlawing of rave offers a nostalgic reminder about the way that electronic dance music (EDM) became politicized. It raises questions: Is the practice of EDM about social inclusivity or escaping control mechanisms? Should clubbing be seen as an intrinsically meaningful activity—perhaps one geared to resist domination—or does it simply signify a particular practice? How does that practice happen? Focusing largely on EDM fans as dance enthusiasts, in this chapter I aim to fi ll this gap in a number of ways by reconsidering EDM theory.1 First, I will show that the internal logic and structure of fan communities can elude formulations based on capital and class. Second, drawing on the work of Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos (2008), I suggest that EDM fan cultures can be seen as “postliberal aggregates” with their own internal hierarchies. While these social formations are not intrinsically resistant, sometimes they have operated beyond State control. Third, I suggest that Joseph Campbell’s (1976) work on myth may help us understand how dance itself becomes internalized as a shared subjective experience. I conclude by contextualizing this idea in relation to existing research on club cultures.

BEYOND BOURDIEU For a long time in popular music studies the analysis of audiences was based on a Marxist interpretation of cultural processes. In the UK, for example, the work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) offered Marxist frameworks that dominated the analysis of youth cultures, subcultures, music and style. Comparative aspects of identity formation, belonging, societal relevance and fandom have been classified by dichotomous ways of thinking—as either dominant or subordinate, serious or popular— rather than placed along a continuum. For example, the CCCS was largely

38 Beate Peter inspired by Gramsci’s (2008) concept of “hegemony” which said that ruling alliances (historic blocs) could lead ordinary people by a process of securing popular consent. In this view, a dominant class indirectly controls the rest of society. Gramsci was primarily concerned with the lack of obvious class struggles within capitalist society. Although such struggles might still exist, there are, nevertheless, alternative interpretations of the functioning of society and the nation state. In recent years, those researching popular culture have attempted to move away from CCCS-inspired subcultural classifications (Muggleton and Weinzierl, 2003; Bennett and Kahn-Harris 2004). A shift has come about, in part, because some cultural communities have been found to function on principles other than those of capital or taste. The empirical features defi ning such communities as class-bound have become, at least, highly blurred, so new models are required. However, it could be argued that even in recent work no new concepts have been successfully introduced that allow us to analyze popular culture without somehow harking back to capital or class. Bourdieu’s (1984) work on taste extended the notion that capital should be seen as the decisive factor in any productive cultural analysis. Writing about taste, he introduced a new terminology that has become part of the linguistic canon of sociology. “Cultural capital,” “habitus” and “field” became references to social phenomena that Bourdieu identified in his study. 2 Nick Prior (2011) has claimed that in studies of popular culture a “Bourdieu paradigm” developed towards the end of the 1970s based on the establishment of a body of scholarly authority, a canon of key theoretical texts, and the search for empirically applicable theory. Certainly, Bourdieu’s ideas about taste have been applied to the field of popular culture for a number of years.3 Yet because Bourdieu aimed to examine the discriminative processes of legitimate culture, he focused on the visual arts and modern literature at the relative expense of popular music. Popular music fans are often categorized according to genre. Music is, of course, organized into genres which are associated with different sounds, marketing, audiences and forms of social organization. To evaluate the relevance of Bourdieu’s ideas, the concept a genre therefore needs to be addressed. Since genres are audibly different, musicology should be part of any discussion. Yet there is a wider context to consider as “performance situation and listening attitude connected with the sound event being studied” (Tagg 2001, 39). According to Franco Fabbri (1999, 7) concept of genre can be defi ned as “a set of musical events (real or possible) whose course is governed by a defi nite set of socially accepted rules.” In other words, shared sounds operate in relation to social contexts. On one level, these contexts are industrial as genres are product categories. In this model, Fabbri’s “socially accepted rules” therefore include marketing, a cultural form that emerges from the ruling or dominant culture, not some kind of popular opposition. Drawing on Bourdieu’s work, John Fiske (1992) argued that taste discrimination applies to fan cultures. Fiske states that the operation of fan

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communities is based on “cultural forms that the dominant value systems denigrates” (30). Like Bourdieu, Fiske therefore associates a culture and class, at least in terms of a distinction between dominant and oppositional groupings. His idea has some applicability to fan practices in certain genres, such as heavy metal. By embedding allusions to Satanism in the system of theatrical signifiers propagated on t-shirts and recordings, “metalheadz” have been able to access feelings of belonging to an imagined community of social outsiders. Heavy metal culture symbolically reappropriates a figure that is part of Christian society. The association with Satan “expropriate[s] and rework[s] certain values and characteristics of that official culture to which it is opposed” (Fiske 1992, 34). However, if making theatrical allusions to Satanism could be classed as avoiding State control, authorities would strive to punish fans engaged in such practices. Belonging to an imagined community of outsiders but consuming records and live shows does not mean taking a full stance in opposition to official culture. While genre cultures are located within capitalist society, they do not have to be reduced entirely to conceptions of it. Genres are much larger than specific power struggles and social structures. In present times, a notion of flexibility and fluidity has to be introduced to the “defi nite set of socially accepted rules” in order to reflect the contemporary state of social flux (see Bauman, 2003). Bourdieu’s ideas were further updated by Fiske, particularly in his notion of “technostruggles” (1996, 217). Fiske argued that new technologies cannot change society, but they can be used as a means through which to initiate, further or communicate social change. This is interesting because the changing use of technologies in music practice can influence how genres are widely understood. Fiske suggests that technology is directed through “institutional and economic control” (1996, 137). His position assumes a political landscape in which change is difficult, where technology is used by those in power largely to oppress those without access to it. To understand technology only as an extension of the battlefield of capitalist society restricts how we can conceptualize its users. Fiske does not believe, unfortunately, that technology can be reappropriated, subverted or manipulated in ways that escape the domination / resistance dichotomy. In changing times, audiences participate in music genres in different ways. The prospect of lifelong commitment to one subculture has now partially been replaced by the possibility of belonging to various groups. Individuals can explore their identities in more fluid ways. Maffesoli (1996) introduced the idea of “tribes” to help understand cultural groupings in contemporary society. Although his work is not yet popular in fan studies, its focus on affectual micro-groups has been connected to popular music genres. Some sociologists are starting to acknowledge that societal changes demand new models of interpretation. The restrictions exercised on subjects by nation states, for example, are not felt quite as strongly by many in a consumer-orientated postmodern world. Bourdieu’s

40 Beate Peter idea is modernist in that it attempts to trace one grand narrative of social structure. However, society is changing and the genres are constantly transforming. Music cultures have entered a post-Bourdieuan phase. It may be time to move away from a class or capital-based analysis of culture towards an understanding of fan communities as entities with their own internal structures and with logics, entities that cannot easily be framed by traditional theoretical dichotomies.

EDM FAN COMMUNITIES AS POSTLIBERAL AGGREGATES While not intrinsically resistant or rebellious, certain fan cultures have operated outside of State control. In their book Escape Routes, Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos (2008) present an analysis of the political predicament of North Atlantic societies. They argue that the political subjectification of individuals or groups has become such a common practice precisely because it represents a successful strategy of social control. Although neoliberal society is characterized by the development of global networks, according to Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos it has failed to grant rights to the broad spectrum of political subjects. The authors therefore observe the establishment of “postliberal aggregates,” contemporary social groupings with vertical power structures that escape the horizontal power structures of sovereign governance. The identification of such communities of practice has significant implications as it locates a theoretical space in which social groups can operate to escape national or transnational control mechanisms. Interestingly, escaping the control of such authorities does not mean having a total lack of power. Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos instead argue that postliberal aggregates often require new control mechanisms to be established. One example of this might be the way that Internet technology has created a new environment of potential opportunities and risks. It has become apparent that nations are struggling to control the social practice of such technology. This is not to say that consent will not be found and the Internet will never be governed, but rather that such consent, at this moment in time, is not yet fully established. One could argue that any new form of control could pose a threat to the freedom of ordinary individuals. The idea that nations will enact strict control mechanisms seems a dangerous possibility (see MacKinnon 2012).4 As a result, certain ways of using the net can be seen as lending themselves to the formation of postliberal social aggregates. The resonance of Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos’s ideas become clear when they are related to particular music genres and associated fan cultures. Punk and EDM make an interesting comparison here. At its center, punk culture seemed to espouse a rebellious credo. Opposition to capitalist culture was articulated not only in lyrics, but also in the use of anti-capitalist signifiers, public displays of resistance, and cultural practices

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deemed vulgar or immoral by wider society. 5 Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos do not talk in any detail about music genres or fandom, but their ideas suggest that the behavior of most fans and artists nevertheless generally support the structures of a sovereign power.6 As they state: Sovereign power mobilizes representations to organize and contain social confl ict. Representation is nothing other than a means to render the forces partaking in a social confl ict visible to the gaze of power. Moreover, power relations operate by making social actors representable within a regime. (2008, 56) Their schema suggests, then, that any attempt by, say, punk fans to publicly oppose the sovereign power and its dominant culture will facilitate that same power to control them. The nation state can absorb cultural conflict because it can define both the music being consumed (through supporting or censoring) and the identities of the subjects who consume it. One could argue that punk’s promotion of anarchic politics, for example, might present a threat to any government. However, taking the more direct example of refusal to work, Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos (2008) note that at no point the State is truly challenged. Any transformative effect that protest or subversion might have is immediately reintegrated into the power structures by the provision of welfare. Similar processes of diffusion generally operate in relation to fan cultures and their practices. For example, while the collecting of memorabilia may not have been part of the original plan of mass-market capitalism, Matt Hills (2002) has suggested that it cannot be seen as oppositional to official cultural practice; indeed, its focus on the importance of each star recreates and reaffirms one aspect of official culture. Equally, the positioning of punks as bricoleurs and rebels (as in Hebdige 1988) does not oppose interpretations that read its fan community as reaffirming dominant culture: “any attempt at transgression is always and inescapably contextualized and regulated by the very system or structures from which it endeavours to break away” (Gunkle and Gournelos 2012, 5). The music fans participating in club culture offer a stark contrast. This group of music fans can be interpreted as a social formation escaping from wider control mechanisms by articulating “in a positive way, a not-yet represented commonality of the actors participating in a postliberal aggregate” (Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos 2008, 43). The notion of EDM fan communities as “aggregates” enables us to consider dance fandom in a different way. It changes our perspective on different kinds of fandom and also other aspects of music culture such as the reading and production of texts, the place of specific practices, and the way that specialist knowledge is accumulated and used. Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos (2008) suggest that to avoid visibility in terms of a struggle for representation and rights the best escape routes are practices that are, as yet, unidentified as forms of escape. These everyday practices suggest a form of “imperceptible politics”:

42

Beate Peter Imperceptibility is the everyday strategy which allows us to move and to act below the over-coding regime of representation. This everyday strategy is inherently anti-theoretical; that is, it resists any ultimate theorisation, it cannot be reduced to one successful or necessary form of politics (such as state-oriented politics or micro-politics, for example). Rather, imperceptible politics is genuinely empiricist, that is it is always enacted as ad hoc practices which allow the decomposition of events which cannot be left unanswered by the existing regime of control. (Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos 2008, 75–76)

This recognition of the contemporary relevance of everyday practice is part of a shift towards interest in what Maffesoli (1996, 1) identifies as puissance: the inherent energy of ordinary people. Attention to fans’ everyday practices can help us avoid a discussion dominated by Marxist traditions of understanding. Because escape routes can only ever be identified in retrospect, particular music practices can sometimes be considered as such if they have been deemed controversial. The wording of the UK’s Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994) defi ned raves as gatherings at which music is played that “includes sounds wholly or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats.” Such events have not disappeared from the listings of magazines, yet it could be argued that the bill’s terminology primarily refers to a particular moment in history (Till 2006). While the legislative defi nition might explain why raves are increasingly identified as constituting a historical genre, its defi nition poses several problems for understanding such events by locating them as social episodes of emitted sound. First, the link between raving and music is a complex one. A relatively new type of music—“rave” or “house”—became popular in the late 1980s which provided the soundtrack for a whole generation of young people. It has been documented by Rietveld (1998) and others that this music was played predominantly at raves. However, other forms of music could theoretically have been banned from being performed in such a context. In a reaction to legislation which made raves illegal, some acts produced music that could be played at them but did not conform to the defined patterns.7 Rave could not be classed as a conceptual category if defined exclusively by its sounds. Second, therefore, raves must also be defi ned through deviant social practices. The activities most commonly associated with raves were usually classed as negative: drug use and abuse, noise pollution, trespassing, litter disposal, drug dealing, moral panic based on the realization that drug use was not confi ned to the youth of a particular class, and further momentum created by the sheer number of young people participating. Because it was associated with practices that signified a deviant lifestyle, rave music became a scapegoat for the government’s inability to control a new youth movement. Rather than the music itself, it is the perceived deviant cultural practices that the “anti-rave” bill aimed to suppress. The definition of rave

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music in British legislation was flawed because it aimed to outlaw cultural practices that could not be included in a musical definition. Third, the way that raves are controlled, organized, structured, marketed and perceived by the public, has changed considerably since the introduction of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. The Act marked a moment in time when the wider cultural practice related to raves actually changed. It placed raves in a political context—one that had been avoided or ignored until then. Some have argued that rave culture was actually the fi rst youth culture to be hedonistic and apolitical at the same time. However, the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act (1994) made ravers into political subjects. Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos argue that “modern power is cynical and indifferent to morality: it is not concerned with ideological exclusion and ethical purity but with instrumental inclusion” (2008, 8). By framing the tendency to gather and dance as an illegal practice, the Criminal Justice bill positioned ravers as political subjects whose tendency to party, in effect, contested national sovereignty and control. Although at the time it might not be inherently obvious that a raving youth culture were a direct threat to the nation state, the way that it responded to ravers and their cultural practices proved that a legislative change was needed in order invalidate one potential escape route. To borrow words from Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos (2008, 8), the state started including new “unruly potentialities” in its “social reproduction.” Such regulation of personal and communal freedom through legislation is never an arbitrary or undirected act, but rather forms a reaction to the emergence of new social groups who can evade wider control mechanisms. Demonstrations, protests and parties were organized in the run up to the introduction of the Act. Campaigns were started promoting the “right” to party. The Left took on the issue by supporting a new social formation which was characterized by its desire to dance and as such placed in opposition. What is crucial to recognize here, then, is that rave was fi rst politicized by the state, not by the ravers. Rave music and participation in its associated culture can no longer be located within the outdated co-ordinates of mid-1990s legislation. The transition of musical terminology from rave to EDM is indicative that things have moved on since 1994. Today, dance music culture refers to a whole variety of practices that need unpacking in order to distinguish the different stakeholders in the EDM community, explain its internal functioning, and locate various stances towards state power. From a composer’s or producer’s point of view, the genre has become too broad to be useful in describing one particular taste, affiliation or philosophy of life. Any individual components that one can use to defi ne the sound of EDM can be applied to various other types of music and vice versa. Almost any kind of music that provides a steady beat and is within a certain range of tempo (near heartbeat) can be matched by human movement and would qualify under the bill’s outdated description.

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Another way in which rave culture has changed is through shifts within the social structures of its participant communities. Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos’s (2008) notion of “postliberal aggregates” suggests that such groupings can develop their own structures and regulations. In EDM a shift in some of those elements has related to the production of music using synthesizers, drum machines and compositional software. When electronic instruments became cheaper, more individuals were able to obtain them. With the growing availability of instruments, the sounds and aesthetics of music genres have changed. The use of electronic and then digital instruments in genres whose sounds were defi ned by the absence of those instruments (ie. hand-made music, live music, etc) has expanded the genre palate. Some fans have seized the opportunity to become their own music producers, to change the social dynamics in their particular community, and to overturn its existing hierarchies. Furthermore, EDM has become associated with imaginative visions of a cyborgian future world in which a loss of control will mean humanity is subsequently degraded to something below a machine: an instrument or mediator of music. DJ culture forms an important context here, because in the 1980s dance DJs were already spearheading shifts in what electronic music production could do and how it was perceived (see Ferreira 2008). The transformation of DJ culture through “live” events, marketing and media coverage has promoted new cultural, social and compositional practices. Some of these practices have been adapted by artists of other genres. They have, in turn, defi ned new audiences and encouraged music producers to re-brand themselves in order to stay current. DJs such as Mark Ronson have become producers for albums by more traditional artists who wished for wide appeal. Shifts in legislation have also indicated that rave culture has lost some of its attributed oppositional role. Back in the 1980s and 1990s the moral panic fuelled by the UK media focused on practices that were perceived as negative and damaging, not only to individuals but also to society. Such practices resulted in the state legislating that challenged them. By banning unlicensed outdoor raves, the state was able to control the geographic location of such events. It situated them in clearly defined spaces with limited access and exit points. Nightclubs could be raided. Even though a blind eye was sometimes turned to dance parties, after 1994 the state was able to instate control and power if necessary over a social formation of young people that might otherwise have escaped integration into a political structure. After the introduction of the Criminal Justice bill, nightclubs provided the sole opportunity for party-goers to consume alcohol after the 11 p.m. curfew. The introduction of the new Licensing Law in 2005 meant that they lost this unique status and a significant change to night time culture then followed. Because other premises, like pubs, bars and cinema complexes, could apply for an extended license, hybrids emerged to offer new forms of night time entertainment (Mintel 2006). These mixed venues could change their interior layouts according to demand. They could

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provide a dance floor and seating or a cinema screen at the same time. The changing interior landscape of dance culture signifies the changing social place of the phenomenon. As “postliberal aggregates,” EDM fan communities have established their own behavioral patterns, independent modes of functioning and hierarchies. They have, as such, coexisted alongside other forms of community in society.

EDM FANDOM: PRACTICE, MYTH AND SUBJECTIVITY Participation in EDM culture is interesting to scholars partly because it invites us to understand the relationship between collective and subjective experience. Historically, music researchers have often represented dance cultures as forms of social collectivity. Clubbers have been seen as a small but lucrative consumer group and niche market. In order to promote specialist products, the interests of any such group must be represented to various stakeholders, whether to other fan communities, or the market if one considers the economic exploitation of fandom. Music genres have been associated in the mainstream media with particular stereotypes and canons. As the discussion of EDM, punk and heavy metal has shown, certain kinds of music and cultural practice better lend themselves to be officially identified, especially if they appear deviant or otherwise distinct from established cultural norms. However, music phenomena are composed of individual fans who assent to their worth. For many thinkers, to be valuable cultural theory should be able to offer an interpretation of individual subjectivity and the ordinary fan’s production of meaning (see, for instance, McRobbie 1984; Jenkins 1992; Hills 2002). Studying popular music genres, Philip Tagg has refused to have music analysis remain part of a canon shared by a small group of people. He has begun to introduce a strain of musical analysis based on individual experience (2009), an approach that results in the analysis of music perception on a very personal level. Because Tagg’s work does not fi x music appreciation in relation to any particular shared musical or cultural habitus, his elevation of the individual over the social group contests the demarcation lines of Bourdieu’s class-based grid of taste. EDM fans do not act, however, as isolated individuals. Relevant cultural theory needs to fi nd a way to understand both their subjective engagement and collectivity as part of the same process. Dance is the most important practice in EDM fandom. It therefore deserves special attention. The practice of dancing is, of course, a much more widespread pursuit than its occurrence in EDM culture. Judith Becker (2001) interprets it as a form of active listening. Employing her view, it could be argued that as an activity it is similar to other practices of fan consumption. Although EDM scholars have primarily discussed dance in relation to genre and collective experience, the practice of moving one’s body is also part of what it means to be an engaged music fan. The participatory

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aspect of the practice varies according to genre. Although dance is associated with many kinds of music, not all of them encourage full participation. Stadiums, theatres and other concert venues offer seating and tend not to encourage the movement of fans’ whole bodies. The lack of a clearly defi ned dance floor in these places has implications for how they are collectively used. At rock concerts, dancing is often defi ned by moves that can be executed within a limited space like head banging, jumping and stage diving. By defi ning a dance floor, other venues for popular music, such as Northern Soul clubs, discos and rave enclosures have actively encouraged dance. Because the visitors to such places constantly move their whole bodies, they permeate space in a different way. In the absence of staged spectacles, their dance floors can themselves become a focal point.8 A relative lack of spatial focus allows people to interact more with one another. Because particular genres defi ne the dance floor in different ways, their participants follow conventions of movement differently. While they might not be enforced as rigorously as law, these genre conventions form commonalities based on shared practice. At one extreme, some dances are undertaken with a partner and follow a clearly defined sequence of movements. Others celebrate individuality and free style. One way of resolving the issue of genre overlap in popular music could therefore be to include the practice of dance in order to be able to more clearly identify each type of music in terms of its association with a particular social formation. The conventions of EDM dance floors originated in the gay clubs of Chicago and New York, so the early dominance of gay dancers impacted on later understandings of body politics in the context of the genre. Rather than performing according to strictly male / female norms, the dancing body was defi ned through a denial of a heterosexual masculinity. Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos (2008) have claimed that “homosexuality unsettles the hegemonic (but vulnerable) masculine fantasy of a bounded, intact, impermeable body” (111). At early house parties, not only did the openly gay performances educate a wider audience that was drawn to the music; they also opened up opportunities for the dancing body to be used as an object capable of challenging gender norms and aesthetic conventions. In any analysis inspired by Bourdieu’s work, social formations are primarily defined on particular dance floors—as everywhere else—as using their musical tastes to display broadly equivalent levels of cultural capital through dance (see Thornton 1990). There are, however, other ways to understand music hearing and dance. Neuroscientific research into the rhythmic abilities of human beings suggests that supposedly innate responses are not as static as we might have assumed (see Phillips-Silver 2008). Because people are polyrhythmic they are therefore able to relate to a variety of rhythms and musical tastes can develop across cultural borders. Whether musical influences are instrumental, melodic or rhythmic, they can therefore arrive from other cultures and be incorporated in western popular music without necessarily being classified as something foreign to current tastes.

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It has been argued that the EDM dance floor created a space of true social inclusivity. Discussing the Hacienda, for instance, Dave Haslam (1997, 175) claimed nostalgically, “Nobody was excluded: shop assistants, dole-ites, plasterers, thieves, students.” To be inclusive means that all people participating in a nightclub or another EDM event would be encouraged to take part. Neuroscientific research into the activities of motor neurons has shown that participation cannot always be defi ned with regard to physical movement alone (Chen, Zatorre and Penhune, 2006). When watching physical movement, the activation of certain motor regions of the brain suggests that by anticipating and imagining observers already participate in the action of dance. Their urge to join the dancers is not just a desire to be part of what Barbara Ehrenreich has called (2007, 11) “collective excitement,” but also to perform the same physical actions as those being observed. The practice of dance can therefore be seen as a form of imitation. One of the puzzles for those who study shared activities like dance is how people can so evidently experience them as intense subjective passions and can also engage in them as shared social pursuits. In that context defi ning fandom on the basis of music genre has significant limitations. A focus on dance as a fan practice suggests that a more dynamic picture of fans and their cultures can be developed. Wider studies of media fandom have begun to explore how practices draw together collective and subjective experience. Lancaster and Mikotowicz’s (2001) idea of “immersion” offers a way to analyze those fan cultures based on dancing that helps us avoid limitations of the traditional text-reader dichotomy. The researchers suggest that “beneath the surface performance . . . is a deeper desire for the transcendent—[prompting] fans’ heartfelt examination of the limits of everyday life and the need to enter otherworldly environments in order to become more than they are” (2). In the context of dance, immersion into this imaginary world has been described as a form of escape. Lancaster and Mikotowicz are primarily concerned with performance theory since the fans that they examine perform clearly defined roles and take on predetermined characters. However, when they refer to the performance of the text as a pattern of doing that is “inscribed into the performer’s body as modes of behavior,” they imply that the internal guidelines defining how each individual should interpret and enact the text may be universal (2001, 4). Although their notion of immersion is useful, it makes no reference to show how these internal guidelines come into existence. There is something still missing from our understanding of personal fandom’s subjective dimension. If our passions emerge when we dance repeatedly, they do not simply reflect habitus or imply a search for social approval by acting tastefully. On the other hand, we can say that dance is cultivated: it is a repeatedly enacted activity that builds up an internal referential framework, but that framework that does not primarily operate as a memory to aid discrimination. I suggest that the ordering of internal modes of behavior can be addressed by considering Joseph Campbell’s model of myth. The idea of

48 Beate Peter personal myth explains the subjective side of universal behaviour patterns because it shows that our activity is subjectively motivated and interpreted by each of us for a reason: Certain imprints impressed upon the nervous system in the plastic period between birth and maturity are the source of many of the most widely known images of myth. Necessarily the same for all mankind, they have been variously organized in differing traditions, but everywhere function as potent energy releasers and directors. (1986, 61) The living or re-living of mythical content might seem more obvious in parts of the world in which everyday practices include the enactment of irrational psychic content, but the process equally applies to the modern, western world. Campbell makes reference to images that represent universal ideas and how they operate as concepts which function as guides through life. His ideas can be applied to extend fan immersion as a conceptual framework, helping us to understand each fan’s journey as part of both universal and individual experience. From this perspective, the fan practices that facilitate immersion are not simply forms of escape but are rather, in fact, forms of inclusion. What Lancaster and Mikotowicz describe as the fans’ desires to “become more than they are” could also be interpreted as their need to explore other parts of their own minds. In other words, dance culture may allow fans to start incorporating aspects of their own psyches that are, at least in western society, suppressed. The interpretation of dance as a practiced form of shared mythology can be connected to other work on subjectivity. One of the few relevant analyzes of dance here is Angela McRobbie’s (1984) piece on dance and social fantasy. McRobbie acknowledges the effect dance has on individual subjects, but she shies away from suggesting a model that could fully link it to internal processes. Although she writes about dance from a feminist perspective and is predominantly concerned with the representation of female dancers and perspectives from which they are observed, she also makes some interesting points about the social value of dance, suggesting that it is a practice primarily linked to feeling and emotion. Since such processes are generally seen as individual responses, the dance floor becomes a place allowing enchanted dancers to be “there and not there” (144). Victor Turner’s concept of liminality (of being “in between”) is one way to frame this state of simultaneous presence and absence. However, McRobbie’s interpretation can also be used to suggest that dancers share social fantasies allowing them to resist, oppose and escape their subjective colonization. She recognizes the importance of seeing dance as engaging with “private internal processes, that is human psyches and human subjectivities” (1984, 142). Although this argument makes no distinction between escapism and resistance to control, it is clear that dance as a social practice avoids instrumentalization by a sovereign power.

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The relevance of McRobbie’s work becomes clearer compared to Sara Thornton’s (1995) application of Bourdieuan theory to club cultures. Only on occasion does Thornton (1995) make reference to the actual practice of dance. On one hand, she refers to stereotypical moves such as “headbanging, fist-raising, air-guitar solos” (71) associated with particular music genres. On the other, her methodological strategy entails being a participant observer and lets her conclude that dance styles can change on the dance floor according to the music played. Both McRobbie and Thornton refer to rules on the dance floor. Although McRobbie only mentions them when distinguishing between punk discos and mainstream ones, a typology of dance does not necessarily have to be artificially created. I argue that behavioral patterns on the dance floor have long been established and regularly practiced as mythic unspoken traditions. Even though the EDM dance floor that has been praised as the fi rst dance floor to be truly democratic in that it allows for all kinds of dance to be performed, it has also been shown to function within a clearly defined set of norms (Malbon 1999; Peter 2007). When discussing dance in the context of clubbing, Malbon (1999) states that it “is constituted and experienced through the dancing clubbers’ techniques, competencies and spacing” (97). He goes on to say that the dancing techniques are acquired through either “through listening to and understanding the music” or through mimicry (99). By linking practice to both an understanding of the music and a set of social rules, he indicates that the social formation of dancers is one that can decode signals which are not common knowledge. This shared cultural activity is therefore based on discrimination (see Fiske 1992, 35) and points towards the dancing community being understood as a kind of fan base. McRobbie also acknowledges that “dance-as-image can only really be understood within the field of related social phenomenon” (1984, 139). She links dance here to youth culture, style and fashion, suggesting that beyond bodily movement other aspects require inclusion. I agree and suggest that further categories are also important in understanding dance as a social practice. First, behavioral aspects such as eye contact or tactile sensations inevitably inform each dancer’s idea of bodily expression. Second, the social position of the dancing body is itself also important. This aspect includes relative placing on the dance floor (center, edges, outside), the direction of the dance (inwards and self-focused versus outward and focused on others), and the social patterning of the dance style (one partner, many partners, no partner). Taken together, these non-verbal aspects of participation are harder to measure and record some other elements that shape how dance is understood by the dancer.9 Finally, vocal participation must also be considered. Such participation does not necessarily refer to any conversations on the dance floor, but also to acts of support or disapproval. It can range from singing along to booing or cheering. All responses unite to produce the wider social environment of the dancer. A wide-ranging terminology exists here to describe this social

50 Beate Peter environment, from “atmosphere” to “buzz, vibe, mood” (Thornton 1995, 65). St John (2009) defi nes the vibe as “a successful or optimum social dance-music experience, one participants are compelled to relive” (94). I argue that the vibe is created by means of communication between participating individuals and linked to individual mental processes. However, whenever these mental processes on the dance floor are discussed, they are usually criticized for their inability to extend beyond the dance floor and change everyday life (see McRobbie 1984, Malbon 1999). Considering dance as a fan practice, I argue that it does not differ so much from other practices: all of them have an impact on the everyday life of the fan. This can be explained by way of Campbell’s (1976) concept of creative mythology. A mythology that incorporates the individual’s personal experience can include the renewal and personalization of wider traditions. As a result, creative mythology combines both the universality of myth and the personal interpretation of life experience: Traditional mythologies, that is to say, whether of the primitive or of the higher cultures, antecede and control experience; whereas what I am calling Creative Mythology is an effect and expression of experience. Its producers do not claim divine authority for their human, all too human, works. They are not saints or priests but men and women of this world; and their fi rst requirement is that both their works and their lives should unfold from convictions derived from their own experience. (65) Dance is a leisure practice that is present in cultures all around the world, in communities of all ages. Because of its omnipresence in human culture, our modern, western modes of distinction—which focus on class, gender or race—are not necessarily the best things to use to understand the practice’s most immediate defi ning factors. Highlighting Campbell’s focus on the social development of subjective experience, I suggest that EDM research might benefit from a new trajectory. I propose that dance should be understood as a fan practice and best analyzed by incorporating both an internal (individual) and external (communal) approach. A new direction is called for to locate this practice as a crucial part of the identity formation process of each individual, one that shapes his or her belonging to a community of people who share a common pursuit.

NEW DIRECTIONS IN EDM FAN RESEARCH It can be concluded from analyzing different types of dance that the practice promotes joy in human beings (Ehrenreich 2007). As such, it should be celebrated as a festive ritual that is part of societal practice helping to create identities and shared senses of belonging. In this chapter I have shown one

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direction that EDM research could take with regard to music-based fan communities. I demonstrated that Bourdieuan analysis can reduce our understanding of what music culture is and how it functions. To address the social developments of postliberal society, a new interpretation is necessary that departs from a purely Marxist perspective or any other form of analysis based on ahistorical assumptions about cultural struggle. Evidently, cultural hierarchies do exist in most social formations. By applying Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsianos’s (2008) notion of “postliberal aggregates,” I have not denied that such hierarchies are important, but instead placed a focus on the possibility that particular practices and their associated social formations can escape the control of sovereign powers. These aggregates have their own internal hierarchies and power relations, but their structures and positions are no longer based on economic class or cultural capital. After becoming framed as contesting desirable social practice, as fan communities they have sometimes found themselves in political opposition.10 Any strong understanding of fandom, however, must connect macro-level activity with individual motives. Fandom research has not often considered the meaning of fandom for individual fans or how individual subjectivities integrate with wider, shared cultural formations. Lancaster and Mikotowicz’s notion of “immersion” is one of the few attempts to discuss how fan subjectivities can operate in relation to cultural pursuits. Building on their work, I suggest that Joseph Campbell’s idea of the creation of a personal myth through experience might provide a fruitful point of departure. Not only can it frame fan culture as a communal practice, but it also raises questions about how individuals form their identities in a social context of shared, mythic meanings. Although the question of how fans engage with their inner selves can never be fully answered by theory, a model that pays attention to both internal and external processes might help us to better understand their deepest motivations NOTES 1. The term “fan” is defi ned in different places in different ways, some of which align the label with passive spectatorship. Instead, I am following the second Merriam-Webster dictionary defi nition: “an ardent admirer or enthusiast” (emphasis mine). See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ fan?show=0&t=1348058553. 2. In Bourdieu’s schema, “cultural capital” is a stock of knowledge about socially valuable distinctions. The possession of this capital allows individuals to display their social status in the form of individual taste. “Habitus” is the individual’s memory store of these learned predispositions. The “cultural field” is the resultant social space in which individuals assert their own particular (class bound) places. 3. Thornton (1994), Becker (2004) and Bennett (2009) apply Bourdieu’s work. Phil Tagg (2001) has also referred to attitudes of performance and of listening, both of which have been situated and analyzed within a Bourdieuan framework (see Becker 2001 and 2004).

52 Beate Peter 4. A similar skepticism is also articulated in Fiske’s notion of techno struggles, when he points out that the type of media that is employed to communicate struggles can change but the struggles fundamentally remain the same. 5. Punk practice, of course, has at various times included spitting, swearing, heckling, wearing Nazi symbols and sniffi ng glue. 6. Papadopoulos, Stephenson and Tsiano (2008, 94) mention music in Weimar Germany in passing, but refrain from discussing it directly in the rest of their work. 7. Autechre’s “Anti” EP and Orbital’s “Are We Here” EP are good examples of music aimed at side-stepping the “anti-rave” bill. 8. The conceptual centrality of the dance floor is, of course, complicated by the emergence of famous DJs or use of stage shows, go-go dancers or live musicians at EDM events. 9. This reduces the effectiveness of post hoc interviews as a research method. 10. Fan bases for taboo cultural objects may also fit into this category of designated opposition and drives.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Becker, Judith. 2001. “Anthropological Perspectives on Music and Emotion.” In Music and Emotion. Theory and Research, edited by Patrick Juslin and John Sloboda, 135–160. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Becker, Judith. 2004. Deep Listeners. Music, Emotion and Trancing. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bennett, Andy, and Keith Kahn-Harris (eds.). 2004. After Subculture. Critical Studies in Contemporary Youth Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Bennett, Tony. et al. 2009. Culture, Class, Distinction. London: Routledge. Bauman, Zygmunt. 2003. Liquid Love. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Burkitt, Ian. 1991. Social Selves. Theories of the Social Formation of Personality. London: Sage. Campbell, Joseph. 1976. The Masks of God: Creative Mythology Volume 4. London: Souvenir. Campbell, Joseph. 1986. The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology. New York: Penguin Books. Chen, Joyce, Robert Zattore, and Virginia Penhune. 2006. “Interactions Between Auditory and Pre-Motor Cortex During Synchronization to Musical Rhythms.” NeuroImage 32: 1771–81. Clayton, Martin, Rebecca Sager, and Udo Will. 2005. “In Time with the Music: The Concept of Entrainment and its Significance for Ethnomusicology.” European Meetings in Ethnomusicology, 11, pp. 3–142. Colin, Mathew. 1997. Altered State: The Story of Ecstasy Culture and Acid House. London: Serpent’s Tail. Delanty, Gerard. 2003. Community. London: Routledge. Ehrenreich, Barbara. 2007. Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy. London: Granta Books. Fabbri, Franco. 2007. “Browsing Music Spaces: Categories and the Musical Mind.” In Critical Essays in Popular Musicology, edited by Allan F. Moore, 1–14. Farnham: Ashgate. Ferreira, Pedro Peixoto. 2008. “When Sound Meets Movement: Performance in Electronic Dance Music.” Leonardo Music Journal 18:17–20.

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Fiske, John. 1992. “The Cultural Economy of Fandom.” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, edited Lisa A. Lewis, 30–44. London: Routledge. Fiske, John. 1996. Media Matters: Everyday Culture and Political Change. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Fiske, John. 2010 [1989]. Understanding Popular Culture. London: Routledge. Frith, Simon. 1996. Performing Rites: On the Value of Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gramsci, Antonio. 2008 [1971]. “Hegemony, Intellectuals, and the State.” In Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader, edited by John Storey, 75–80. Harlow: Pearson. Gunkle, David, and Ted Gournelos. 2012. Transgression 2.0: Media, Culture and the Politics of a Digital Age. New York: Continuum. Haslam, Dave. 1997. “DJ Culture.” In The Clubcultures Reader: Readings in Popular Cultural Studies, edited by Steve Redhead, Derek Wynn and Justin O’Connor, 168–180. Oxford: Blackwell. Hebdige, Dick. 1988. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. London: Routledge. Lancaster, Kurt. 2001. Fan Performances in a Media Universe: Interacting with Babylon 5. Austin: University of Texas Press. Lancaster, Kurt, and Tom Mikotowicz (eds.). 2001. Performing the Force: Essays in Immersion into Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Environments. Jefferson: McFarland & Company. MacKinnon, Rebecca. 2012. Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom. New York: Basic Books. Maffesoli, Michel. 1996. The Time of Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society. London: Sage. Malbon, Ben. 1999. Clubbing: Dancing, Ecstacy and Vitalit y. London: Routledge. McRobbie, Angela. 1984. “Dance and Social Fantasy.” In Gender and Generation, edited by Angela McRobbie and Mica Nava, 130–161. London: MacMillan. Mintel. 2006. “Nightclubs UK December 2006.” UK Leisure Intelligence. London: Mintel International Group Ltd. Muggleton, David, and Rupert Weinzierl (eds.). 2003. The Post-Subcutures Reader. Oxford: Berg. Papadopoulos, Dimitris, et al. 2008. Escape Routes: Control and Subversion in the 21st Century. London: Pluto Press. Peter, Beate. 2007. “How can we tell the dancer from the DJ? Althusser and Jung on Participant Roles in a Nightclub Setting.” In History of Stardom Reconsidered, edited by Kari Kallioniemi, Kimi Kärki, Janne Mäkelä and Hannu Salmi, 149–152. Turku: International Institute for Popular Culture. Phillips-Silver, Jessica. 2008. “Steal Away, Music.” Science 319, 5862: 413. Prior, Nick. 2011. Critique and Renewal in the Sociology of Music: Bourdieu and Beyond. In Cultural Sociology 5, 1:121–138. Rietveld, Hillegonda. 1998. This is Our House: House Music, Cultural Spaces and Technologies. Aldershot: Ashgate. Sandvoss, Cornel. 2005. Fans: The Mirror of Consumption. Cambridge: Polity Press. Sartore, Richard (ed.). 1994. Joseph Campbell on Myth & Mythology. Lanham (Maryland): University Press of America. Schechner, Richard. 1998. Performance Theory. London: Routledge. Shuker, Roy. 2005. Popular Music: The Key Concepts. London: Routledge.

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St John, Graham. 2009. Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures. London: Equinox. Storey, John. 2008. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction. Harlow: Pearson. Tagg, Philip. 1982. “Analyzing Popular Music: Theory, Method and Practice.” Popular Music 2:37–65. Tagg, Philip. 2001. “Music Analysis for Non-Musos: Popular Perception as a Basis for Understanding Musical Structure and Signification.” Presented paper at Popular Music Analysis Conference, University of Cardiff, November 17. http:// www.tagg.org/xpdfs/Cardiff LBH2.pdf Thornton, Sarah. 1995. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press.

4

Hidden Fans? Fandom and Domestic Musical Activity Nedim Hassan

Writing about the evolution of serious writing on the Western as a film genre, David Lusted notes that prior to the 1950s and 1960s audiences for popular cinema “consisted largely of those who did not write for publication about their experiences and pleasures” (Lusted 2003, 16). Those writing about popular cinema before this period were usually writing from a rather elitist position that was “in ignorance of the regular experience” of cinema-going (ibid.). Lusted argues that this situation was only able to change after postWorld War II developments that broadened access to higher education for members of the lower social classes. This shift established “conditions in which fans of the Western might also become publishable critics of it” (ibid.). While popular music studies and cultural studies have undergone a different historical development, Lusted’s argument also provides an instructive starting point for assessing those academic fields. His writing reminds us that some people are more adequately positioned to reflect upon and articulate their experiences of fandom (or non-fandom) than others. As I will illustrate in this chapter, it is important for scholars to consider issues such as inequality of access because those issues can have a significant impact upon the kinds of fan-related activity that become the focus of academic accounts. By starting with an exploration of the epistemological foundations of popular music studies and cultural studies, this chapter will show that consideration of these foundations serves to highlight how fandom has been researched and written about in the academy. It will also demonstrate that such consideration lays bare several exclusions apparent within the academic study of music reception and fandom. The chapter will then elaborate on these exclusions by exploring a small case study based on a long-term ethnographic research project that focused on the roles of musical activity in the everyday domestic lives of a group of adults with learning difficulties.

ACADEMIC WRITING ON MUSIC RECEPTION As David Hesmondhalgh and Keith Negus (2002) have pointed out, one important strand in the development of the academic fields of popular music studies and cultural studies was a new form of cultural sociology

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(Hesmondhalgh and Negus 2002, 5–6). Sociologists reacting against consensus theories from 1960s’ American functionalism began to pay greater attention to audiences for popular culture and popular music (ibid.). Influenced by writers associated with the Chicago school of sociology in the US such as Herbert Blumer and Howard Becker, and the writing of Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson in the UK, various scholars began to adopt more anthropological defi nitions of the notion of culture (Ruddock 2001, 7). While writers from the immediate post World War II period had positioned culture in moral terms as constituting “great” works of art, it later became associated with a different sense of meaning that had developed historically—as “a particular way of life” (emphasis in original; Williams 1983, 12).1 In a process that involved the examination of activities previously deemed unworthy of study, academics began to interrogate popular cultural practices pursued by people engaged in everyday life (Hall 1980). Accordingly, the ways in which people used popular music became an important area of study within the field of popular music studies. As Nick Couldry (2000, 3) has argued, one of the priorities of cultural studies was to validate popular culture as an area of academic research. In relation to the study of audiences, this involved focusing on those groups and practices that were hitherto ignored and dismissed in academic circles. As well as a range of apparently “corrupting” popular cultural texts, social groups previously defined as “deviant” and “vulnerable” became a central object of study for fledgling cultural theorists and researchers. Particularly during the 1970s, there was considerable research in Britain on youth as an audience. Most notable here were a series of influential studies of youth subcultures which started to assert that young people were not passive and vulnerable, but instead that they engaged with popular cultural texts in complex and active ways (Hall and Jefferson 1976; Willis, 1978; Hebdige 1979). As the 1970s drew to a close, audience researchers expanded their remit and, influenced by feminism in particular, sought to study a wide range of texts and practices. No longer confining themselves to the study of (predominantly male) youth subcultures, these scholars began to examine other previously maligned areas of cultural consumption including soap viewing (Ang 1985), romance novel reading (Radway 1984), domestic radio listening (Hobson 1980) and television viewing (Morley 1986). Such studies emphasized that popular cultural practices were significant, complex, actively pursued and involved conflict, struggle and resistance (Hall 1980, 27). From its outset, research in cultural studies has therefore consistently sought to critically engage with popular cultural practices and stressed that such practices are not inconsequential but bound up with questions of power. Similarly, Hesmondhalgh and Negus argue that popular music studies has a unifying goal within its constitutive disciplines to “rescue popular music from being treated as trivial and unimportant” (Hesmondhalgh and Negus 2002, 6). That goal has accordingly also involved an examination of the musical practices of both musicians and audiences. There is a growing

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literature that has explored the practices involved in music scenes, music making, particular genres and fandom.2 In both popular music studies and cultural studies, therefore, it is clear that epistemological foundations were partly built upon a “rescue operation” (Hesmondhalgh and Negus 2002, 6). A strong motivation to interrogate previously dismissed groups and texts was central to the development of studies of fandom. Moreover, while an increasing number of academics in the post-1970s era have assumed that the consumption of popular culture and popular music are valid research topics, they have still had to assert that what they are studying is worthy of attention. Nowhere has the need to assert the validity of a subject been more apparent than with the study of fans. As Joli Jensen (1992) pointed out in her article in the influential The Adoring Audience collection, much of the prior research literature was characterized by an “elitism and reductionism” that conceptualized fans in pathological terms as obsessive “others” (Jensen 1992, 26). Although a new validation was essential, the rescue of popular culture and music and their audiences has had a number of unhelpful implications for subsequent socio-cultural research. As researchers have striven to validate practices that were previously deemed unworthy, there has been an overemphasis on the emancipatory potential of such practices. Not only were popular texts assumed to be meaningful and audiences discussed as active, but their activity became celebrated in a process that emphasized consumption as a form of resistance. In contrast, more recent research has suggested that it is necessary to be more critical of the notion of the “active” audience and it may be unwise to assume that texts are always innately meaningful (Hermes 1995; Negus 1996; Williams 2001). Furthermore, in seeking to rescue “popular” cultural practices, the fields of popular music studies and cultural studies have paradoxically excluded certain groups and practices. In relation to popular music studies, writers such as Negus (1996) and Hesmondhalgh (2002) have acknowledged that historically there have been some biases in studies of music audiences. The musical activities of young people have often been favored in research, with public activities being prioritized. This situation has gradually begun to change and there is now a growing body of literature that examines music reception in more everyday contexts, paying serious attention to domestic and routine uses of music (Crafts et al. 1993; Cohen, 1995; DeNora, 2000; Bull, 2000; Williams, 2001; Hennion, 2001; Lincoln, 2005). However, as will become clear during the remainder of this chapter, specific exclusions remain entrenched within the study of popular music reception and these have implications for the study of music fandom.

ISSUES OF ACCESS AND OPPORTUNITY Certain groups of people are still neglected within academic studies of music reception and fandom. For instance, the privileging of youth culture in cultural studies and popular music studies has led to, as Couldry puts

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it, “the silencing of the cultures of the old” (emphasis in original; Couldry 2000, 59). Older audiences for popular music have rarely been subject to serious academic enquiry. In her study of older female fans of Kate Bush, Laura Vroomen suggests some reasons for this relative neglect. She argues that although older fans continue to invest in music “their practices are less visible and spectacular” and researchers tend to assume that participation in fan culture matters more as a youth phenomenon (Vroomen 2004, 243). The issue of who can be included in fan studies and the types of practice that tend to be prioritized in such studies are important and extend beyond the subject of older fans. I will deal with these issues in more depth throughout this chapter. First, the concern that Vroomen raises that fandom is predominantly seen as a youth phenomenon is worthy of further examination because it relates to particular methodological issues. In his interesting discussion of “anti-fans and non-fans” Jonathan Gray writes, “Fans, let us be honest, are easy to fi nd. To begin with, they are often highly socially organized, meaning that one need only tap into existing group networks” (Gray 2003, 76–77). Gray argues that this convenience of accessibility makes audience research on fans appealing to academics—fans are often both part of a broader visible community and adept at articulating their fandom in interviews (ibid.). However, Vroomen’s research work suggests that the older fans in her study are likely to be less visible because the fan scene that she describes “is characterized less by highly visible and extraordinary displays and more by relatively mundane expressions of fandom that agree with the women’s lifestyles” (Vroomen 2004, 243). Therefore, it seems likely that younger fans, perhaps those with fewer constraints imposed on them by family responsibilities and work commitments than many of those in Vroomen’s study, are more accessible to researchers. Of course the previous discussion is not trying to imply that it is generally the case that younger fans are always more accessible to researchers. Rather, I introduced the issue at this point in order to provide one example where access and opportunity to engage in certain fan-related activities and scenes might be a significant factor. Mentioning the concern serves as a reminder that issues of access are of particular importance to studies of audience reception and fandom. Researchers in this area do not only need to consider how they access their sample groups, but they also need to reflect upon who they could not access. In a parallel example, Gray contends that “non-fans”—a group he sees as engaging in texts without the obvious “intense involvement” that is often associated with fans—might be more difficult for researchers to locate and deal with (Gray 2003, 74). However, as I will go on to illustrate shortly, a more significant issue for researchers is not how to access “non-fans” (who Gray concedes often cannot be totally distinguished from fans), but how to access and explore fanrelated experiences that are less obviously interpreted as fan activity. Prior to discussing this, in order to provide further insights into how issues of

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access can limit or exclude people from engaging in fandom, it is useful to consider people who are often socially isolated such as those with certain types of disability.

INEQUALITY OF ACCESS AND PEOPLE WITH LEARNING DIFFICULTIES Clearly, not everyone has equal access to leisure opportunities outside of the home. A considerable amount of research has shown that people with physical or learning difficulties face both physical and social barriers to accessing public musical activities. For instance, the campaign group called Attitude is Everything has shown that many live music venues and festivals are physically inaccessible for wheelchair users (see Leverton 2007). During doctoral research I conducted a long-term ethnographic project that explored the role of music within the everyday lives of a group of adults with learning difficulties who lived in a supported living scheme in Merseyside. Within my thesis I suggested that in the UK domesticbased musical activities were more likely to be important for people with learning difficulties. This is because, as a 2001 government White Paper pointed out, people with learning difficulties often have to face considerable barriers in order to access leisure activities outside of the home (Department of Health 2001, 80). Indeed, it is striking that often the very organizations designed to support people with learning difficulties can actually contribute towards their exclusion from certain musical activity. For example, the “Stay Up Late” campaign organized by the punk rock band Heavy Load—a band which consists of members with learning difficulties—has raised awareness of the fact that many people with learning difficulties cannot stay out late because of the shift working times of the carers who support them. 3 However, physical and social barriers are not the only obstacles that people with learning difficulties may have to contend with when attempting to access leisure activities. Intellectual barriers may also limit the extent to which they can engage in certain fan-related practices. Although writers like Judy Singer (1999) and Marshall Raskind et al. (2006) have shown that resources like online fan forums can be significant for fostering a sense of community among certain people with autism and similar difficulties, in many instances people with other learning difficulties are unable to engage in such practices. Since these forums can, as researchers like José van Dijck (2006) explain, be important resources for the construction of cultural memory, it must also be recognized that certain people will be excluded from wider participation due to intellectual barriers to entry. Rather than singling this out as a “special case,” my aim in discussing how such barriers affect people is to underline that music fandom researchers need to be sensitive during the research process itself to issues of access and opportunity.

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Given the potential obstacles outlined previously, although I’m not trying to generalize that this is always the case, it seems that as a site for certain types of musical activity, the home can sometimes take on added importance for people with learning difficulties. This was certainly the case for the four residents who were the main subjects of my ethnographic study. Since access to leisure pursuits outside the house was limited, for a number of reasons both the residents and the staff members who supported them found that listening to music and other domestic musical activity was important. To use sociologist Tia DeNora’s terms, music functioned as an accessible resource within the household. My research revealed that musical activities were frequently integral to the individuals’ self-presentations, social interactions, development of social bonds and connections, and the facilitation of peoples’ moods (DeNora 2000, 62). Exploration of these significant forms of domestic musical engagement has traditionally been absent from academia due to the issues mentioned earlier. While there has recently been a shift within research on music audiences towards studying everyday musical activity, domestic musical practices are still underplayed and the musical experience of people with learning difficulties virtually remains hidden. As Harrington and Bielby point out, many fan studies have focused upon people who can creatively engage in “public or quasi-public activities” in order to articulate their fandom (Harrington and Bielby 2005, 843). While processes of inclusion and exclusion are inevitable within any social research, it is nonetheless important for scholars to critically reflect on such processes from both an epistemological and methodological standpoint. Academic writing on fandom is, after all, a discourse—it “organizes and gives structure to the manner in which a particular topic, object, process is to be talked about” (Kress 1985, 6–7 cited in Critcher 2002, 531) and as such influences who can be talked about and how researchers act. As theorists like Foucault (1984) and Critcher (2002) have shown, it is crucial to interrogate discourses if we are to gain insights into how cultural practices relate to social power.

FANDOM AND EVERYDAY DOMESTIC LIFE Having highlighted some issues regarding who has been neglected in academic discourse on fandom, I now want to turn attention to what has been neglected. As mentioned previously, less visible domestic engagements with popular culture and music in particular, can become highly significant for a variety of reasons. In the next section of this chapter, I will explore how such domestic musical activities can relate to fandom. As well as neglecting certain groups of people, many previous studies of music reception have tended to marginalize specific types of activities and experiences. Writing in 1950, the sociologist David Riesman grappled with the dilemmas of how

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to limit scholarly bias when studying popular music audiences. He proposed that it was essential to engage in a dialogue with such audiences, but he also envisaged problems concerning how “we can fi nd the vocabulary to talk to people about experiences which are not particularly self-conscious ones” (emphasis mine; see Riesman in Frith and Goodwin 1990, 6). In this discussion, Riesman outlined a methodological issue that has rarely been appreciated in subsequent research on music reception—how does one account for those musical practices that may be taken for granted as mundane and routine? Certainly, within fan studies there has been an appreciation that fandom is often an everyday phenomenon. Joli Jensen (1992) argued that rather than being seen in pathological terms and linked with obsession, fandom as an object should be connected to everyday life. Since the publication of her chapter, certain scholars interested in fans have provided insights into how fandom can be related to daily concerns. For instance, Daniel Cavicchi’s (1998) study of Bruce Springsteen fans indicates that fans’ activities can provide an avenue for family members to bond in various ways. Rather than being “an axis erected in the face of the family around which a secret and immaculate identity can be made to cohere,” as Dick Hebdige would have it, or being characterized as a locus of “anti-domesticity” as Lawrence Grossberg puts it, Cavicchi’s study indicates that rock fandom can facilitate social relationships within the domestic sphere (see Hebdige 1979, 122; Grossberg 1990, 121 and Cavicchi 1998). Despite such work, there remains a dearth of studies that explore how music fandom is integrated with everyday domestic life. This is also despite the increased interest in examining the roles of music in daily life from scholars in popular music studies, sociology and human geography. There are still few explorations of the extent to which music fandom connects with everyday routines and social interactions. Perhaps one of the reasons for the neglect is the methodological issue that Riesman outlined. Musical activities in everyday life are often momentary. Within the contexts of daily life, particularly within urban, industrialized societies, we are not always reflexive during the encounters we have with music. The demands of life in contemporary society can be considerable and musical activities that are central to our routines, social relationships and interactions are not necessarily memorable. Researchers investigating the role of music within peoples’ everyday lives have to tackle these methodological difficulties from the outset. I fi rst became aware of the issue when embarking on a small-scale ethnographic study for a Master’s degree in Popular Music Studies. When interviewing three normally forthright and vocal young men about their daily musical activities, I found that they were surprisingly reticent and played down the significance of music (Hassan 1998). Because a variety of musical activity seemed integral to many of the routines and interactions they had with each other in their household, the response was the antithesis of what

62 Nedim Hassan observational data revealed. It became clear that in some cases interviewing is not a conducive method to provide insight into the mundane and less memorable (but nonetheless pervasive) roles that music can have within peoples’ lives. Reflection on these types of methodological difficulty has informed the approach to the ethnographic research that I’ve conducted in subsequent years. For the material in this chapter, ethnographic methods were used in an attempt to capture and elucidate how music became part of the experiences of people living and working in a single household. My research attempted to explore the manifold activities relating to music reception that occurred during fleeting moments of everyday domestic life, rather than considering these activities solely on the basis of research subjects’ recollections. In order to achieve this, I used participant-observation as my main approach. As a support assistant working at a supported living scheme that I will call “17 Orwell Street,” I was in a very favorable position to conduct participant-observation in many ways. It was an essential requirement of my job to develop friendly relationships with both the residents and the staff in this setting. My job role necessitated interaction with the people from the house on a number of levels, participation in daily routines and the facilitation of leisure activities (both inside and outside of the house). However, there were also a number of factors that complicated the notion that I was straightforwardly conducting participant-observation. Although I gained permission to conduct the research and informed the residents and staff of my aims, the people living and working in the house still viewed me primarily as a support assistant, not a researcher. Second, the demands of my working shifts influenced which activities I engaged in and what I could observe; I could not, for example, stop what I was doing to take notes on something to do with music that I found more interesting. Finally, as I was primarily seen as a support assistant, this placed me in a position of responsibility and power in the setting. I was conducting participant-observation from a particular perspective, that of a member of staff, not as someone who lived at the house. Despite these limitations, I would nevertheless maintain that my role as support assistant still provided me with an advantageous position from which to conduct valuable participant-observation. Support assistants are integral to the everyday lives of the residents living at 17 Orwell Street. Due to my proximity to their regular routines and the considerable length of time I spent with them, I was able to gain some useful insights into their domestic musical practices. The people at the center of my ethnographic study did not display their fandom in the ways that are usually outlined in existing academic accounts. For instance, they did not have links with a “more expansive and inclusive cultural community” like the respondents in Henry Jenkins or Daniel Cavicchi’s accounts (see Jenkins 1992, 508). Nor did they display fan-related knowledge in any clearly obvious way by identifying themselves primarily as fans of an artist, collecting material or by discussing their musical taste

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in any coherent manner with other people, either face-to-face or online. Because my ethnographic subjects often had difficulties with verbally narrating their musical tastes, the value of music in their lives emerged instead within specific domestic situations and interactions. For instance, one major way in which this occurred was through their participation in musical performance. As I’ve discussed elsewhere, everyday musical performing can provide an accessible, flexible mode of communication in many respects (Hassan 2010a). In some instances, as the case study below explores, this performing helped the residents of 17 Orwell Street to articulate a sense of self-identity that was in effect connected to fandom.

“BROWN GIRL IN THE RING”: EVERYDAY PERFORMING AND THE ARTICULATION OF FANDOM John is a man in his late sixties who I fi rst met in late 1999. I officially became a part-time member of staff in John’s home in February 2000 and have stayed in contact with him since I fi nished working there in early 2006. As well as a speech impediment, John has various learning difficulties that inhibit his verbal communication skills. I quickly built a friendly relationship with him, and was struck by both his mischievous sense of humor and his genuine enthusiasm for both listening to and performing music. John had a limited collection of CD albums when we fi rst met, though he added to it considerably over the six years in which I worked with him. My familiarity with John’s routines and personality developed concomitantly with my growing knowledge of his musical tastes. As I have discussed elsewhere, it soon became apparent from John’s routines that he had a strong affection for the country music artist Jim Reeves (Hassan, 2010b). Although he enjoyed listening to a host of other artists such as Tom Jones, Elvis, The Beatles, Glen Campbell, Andy Williams, Dean Martin and Bing Crosby, Reeves was the only specific artist he would request. John’s affection for Reeves was, moreover, conveyed through performance. When he performed a specific Jim Reeves song, “He’ll Have To Go” (1964), John was able to re-enact treasured memories of an exercise routine he had learned as a young man, in a way that articulated the affective power of his past experiences. Singing and dancing afforded him a way to communicate these experiences to other people in a manner that he found difficult to accomplish through verbal means. John’s performing of the song therefore had substantial personal and social value. It enabled him to tell others about aspects of his “past” self, but at the same time it offered insights into his self-identity and strengthened his social relationships in the present (Hassan, 2010b, 12). While John’s performance of “He’ll Have To Go” illustrated the affective power of experiences linked to a music artist in a relatively specific way (he tended to regularly re-enact a distinct exercise when listening to the

64 Nedim Hassan song), other instances of performing were less clearly linked to particular past events. As our social relationship developed, I often learned about songs that John clearly enjoyed and remembered even though he had never mentioned them before. One memorable occasion when this occurred was during the fi rst time I accompanied him on holiday. In the summer of 2000, John and another of his housemates, Andrew, went to stay in a log cabin in North Wales. They were supported by Neil, another support assistant, and me, and we stayed together for five days. When I was joking with John in the cabin, I began singing “Brown Girl in the Ring,” a song that I had heard performed by the pop group Boney M when I was younger. I was surprised when John enthusiastically started singing the song, continuing where I left off and singing the entire chorus. Having discovered John’s knowledge and enthusiasm in relation to the song, we found that it soon became something of a shared song, a way for us to have a social connection. In the months that followed the holiday, John would often sing the chorus of “Brown Girl in the Ring” in a playful manner as I supported him with daily routines such as getting washed. Sometimes I would initiate the singing and John would continue the song, often performing the chorus in a distinctly cheerful manner with a smile stretched across his face. Eventually, I purchased a Boney M The Best Of (1997) album with John when we saw it in a supermarket sale. Owning the CD fostered the enthusiasm that John had developed for certain songs even further. For instance, he would often ask for “Brown Girl in the Ring” while he sat at the dining table eating his breakfast in the morning and would proceed to sing and nod his head to both that song and “Rivers of Babylon” (1978), the other Boney M hit that he knew implicitly. For me, elucidating John’s engagement with the Boney M songs evokes fond personal memories. Hearing them reminds me of the exuberance of his performing and of how his singing was a rich avenue of self expression. As writers like Simon Frith (1987) and Sue Wise (1990) have pointed out, people often have a strong sense of ownership over songs or artists. With Boney M it seemed for a while that certain songs “belonged” to John and me. We had discovered a sense of mutual affi liation to a group that was soon developed within our social and musical interactions. The purchase of an album was then a means of enhancing this process, enabling more performative possibilities. The songs in particular warrant more discussion at this juncture. Perhaps more than any other cultural form, popular songs are potent texts that influence everyday experiences. Since I was a paid support assistant on “holiday” with a man who I did not know very well—a man who had intellectual impairments that made it difficult for him to verbally communicate with me—during a situation that was actually relatively socially awkward, “Brown Girl in the Ring” became effortlessly incorporated into a jovial moment. As Erving Goff man (1959, 236) points out, there is tremendous vulnerability inherent in social projection (whether musical

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or otherwise), yet this song facilitated both a momentary social connection that helped to foster a much longer-term friendship. As a temporal medium that can effectively be replayed in our memories and re-enacted through performing, songs are powerful mnemonic devices that can have significant social resonance (DeNora 2000, 66–67; Hassan 2010b). They seem to traverse past and present experiences with ease when incorporated into social action. By taking a playful instance of musical performing within a social interaction between John and I as its focus, my discussion has highlighted some of the complexities involved in studying music reception. These are complexities that have important implications for the study of music fandom. First, this case illustrates the irreducibility of musical practice. Popular songs can be characterized by what Tony Kirschner calls “textual mobility” in that they change in different contexts and have a multitude of uses (Kirschner 1998, 248–249). Perhaps this characterization does not go far enough, for in the previous example it becomes difficult to delineate a singular “text.” Would the object of study be the short version of the chorus of “Brown Girl in the Ring” that I began playfully singing to John, or would it be the version of the chorus that he was inspired to sing more enthusiastically after listening to my utterance? Maybe it would be the recording by Boney M that facilitated the versions that John and I recalled, the version that we purchased, listened to, and performed to within the home. Could these various interrelated versions be considered different “texts”? In accordance with Ruth Finnegan (2003) and Nicholas Cook (2003), I would argue that such an approach would be inadequate. Rather than a text-centered understanding of the previously-mentioned phenomena, I have illustrated that it is vital to focus on the music’s “experiential potential” within the complex of activities, associations and emotions which crystallize within wider social interactions and acts of self-presentation (Finnegan 2003, 191). Scholars interested in how fandom is articulated within these broader moments of social interaction and self-presentation must contend with this instability in relation to the “text.” De-centering the text reminds us not to approach studies of fandom from the comfortable position of “knowing” a priori what the research subjects are fans of, but from the more epistemologically precarious position of exploring how musical experience can provide insights into self-identity and fandom. Furthermore, examining musical experiences and how they connect to the quotidian activity mentioned poses questions about the types of fan activity that have often been privileged in earlier studies of fans. As Harrington and Bielby point out, because these earlier studies tended to focus on more public activity, emphasis was placed on fans as active creators in a rather narrow sense (Harrington and Bielby 2005, 843). Fans were those who attended conventions and concerts, who produced fanzines and so on. However, they go on to write: “the acceptance and management of a fan identity . . . may or may not be expressed” through those forms of practice (ibid.). Instead

66 Nedim Hassan they propose, influenced by Lawrence Grossberg’s notion of affect, that “fans are different from casual viewers in that they make a significant emotional investment in cultural objects that speaks to central issues of play, creativity and subjectivity” (ibid.). Their theorization of fandom allows for more flexibility in relation to the types of expression that scholars might focus upon when considering how fan identity is articulated. Such flexibility is useful because it enables researchers interested in fandom to consider the kinds of domestic activity and momentary instances of social action discussed here in connection to fan-related identities. As Hills (2002, 2005) and Gray (2003) have illustrated, it is important to recognize that there may be a range of different fandoms within a person’s life and that fandom can be cyclical. Reflection upon my experiences with John suggests that the process of “theoretical amendment and refinement” (Hills 2005, 819) that is taking place within fans studies also needs to encompass a methodological reassessment of the range of people and experiences that should be included.

CONCLUSION This chapter has highlighted several issues in relation to research on fandom that warrant further academic enquiry. Firstly, by concentrating on inequalities of access and restrictions on opportunities for people to participate in fan-related practices, it has reminded scholars that it is important to reflect on the processes of inclusion and exclusion that may underpin their methodologies. Indeed, as Carolyn Stevens (2002) has illustrated in an article on Japanese rock fans, paying attention to restrictions on access to fan-centered events like rock concerts is integral to understanding how fandom changes within different life stages (Stevens, 2002, 100; Hills, 2005). Examining fans of the Japanese rock group, the Alfee, Stevens makes clear that there are various issues of access that can affect fans at different times of their life, for instance she found that older fans with more family responsibilities felt that childcare duties were a severe restriction that limited their attendance at rock concerts (Stevens, 2002, 106). Studies of how such barriers to accessing fan-related activities are negotiated have rarely been undertaken within academic research on popular music and culture. Secondly, this chapter has illustrated that domestic musical practices hitherto marginalized within fan studies have the potential to be incorporated within everyday activities in ways that can reveal much about self-identity. Instances of musical performing have been focused upon here in a way that illustrates how they can become distinctive resources for influencing others. It was also suggested that this type of musical practice can become particularly important for people with learning difficulties who may have problems with verbal articulation as it can be a creative way for them to effectively state “this is me” within their social milieu. Such examples indicate that rather than solely focusing on how fans develop identities within

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wider taste communities, it may be appropriate for scholars to also explore how fans’ activities could form social connections, help people to manage daily life and to develop a sense of identity within domestic contexts. In seeking to address the absences discussed in this chapter, it may be useful to return to Lawrence Grossberg’s (1990, 1992) frequently cited notion of affect. Although it was pointed out earlier that Grossberg rather strangely considers rock fandom in terms of “anti-domesticity” and despite reservations about the difficulties with defining affect, his theory is valuable in that through locating fandom in terms of affective sensibility he stresses that it is bound up with ways of being (Grossberg, 1986 [1990], 121; Shuker, 1994, 243). Thus, fandom features a complex of emotional and embodied strategies that “we use to gain some control over . . . affective life, to find new forms of pleasure and excitement to cope with new forms of pain, frustration and boredom” (Grossberg, 1992, 164). Consequently, the ways in which fandom can become central to such strategies are not always easily translated into words—they’re felt and embodied through human action. As I’ve reflected upon the creative acts involved with John’s performing of “Brown Girl in the Ring” during the writing of this piece, I’ve struggled because as I’ve explored elsewhere words are often not enough when it comes to elucidating musical experiences (Hassan, 2008a). Ultimately, however, I have been able to engage in a reflexive process when considering my experiences of John’s fan-related practices. Yet, as I have suggested, the challenge for researchers exploring how fandom intersects with everyday life lies in the fact that amidst a range of daily experiences subjects may not necessarily engage in such a process. “Fandom,” (and music fandom in particular) then, is a problematic concept with a distinct affective dimension that belies a plethora of texts—interview transcripts, field notes, Internet forums and so on. However, as I’ve suggested, in a paradoxical way, acknowledgement of this may precipitate a more inclusive field of fan studies and further insights into fans’ experiences. NOTES 1. See also Hall (1980). 2. See, for example, Shank (1993) and Cohen (1997) on music scenes; Finnegan (1989) and Cohen (1991) on music making; Walser (1993) and Thornton (1995) on metal and dance music genres; and Cavicchi’s (1998) account of Springsteen fandom. 3. See “About the Campaign” on the Stay Up Late campaign’s official website: http://stayuplate.org/wordpress/?page_id=2

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ang, Ien. 1985. Watching Dallas. London: Routledge. Bull, Michael. 2000. Sounding out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg.

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Cavicchi, Daniel. 1998. Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning Among Springsteen Fans. New York: Oxford University Press. Cohen, Sara. 1991. Rock Culture in Liverpool: Popular Music in the Making. London: Clarendon Press. Cohen, Sara. 1995. “Sounding out the City: Music and the Sensuous Production of Place.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 20, 4:433–446. . 1997. “Men Making a Scene: Rock Music and the Production of Gender.” In Sexing the Groove: Popular Music and Gender, edited by Sheila Whiteley, 17–36. London: Routledge. Cook, Nicholas. 2003. “Music as Performance.” In The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction, edited by Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert and Richard Middleton, 204–214. London: Routledge. Couldry, Nick. 2000. Inside Culture: Re-imagining the Method of Cultural Studies. London: Sage. Crafts, Susan, Daniel Cavicchi, and Charles Keil. 1993. My Music. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Critcher, Chas. 2002. “Media, Government and Moral Panic: The Politics of Paedophilia in Britain 2000–1.” Journalism Studies 3, 4:521–535. DeNora, Tia. 2000. Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Department of Health. 2001. Valuing People: a New Strategy for Learning Disability for the 21st Century. London: Stationary Office. Finnegan, Ruth. 1989. The Hidden Musicians: Music Making in an English Town. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Finnegan, Ruth. 2003. “Music, Experience, and the Anthropology of Emotion.” In The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction, edited by Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert and Richard Middleton, 181–192. London: Routledge. Foucault, Michel. 1984. “The Repressive Hypothesis.” In The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow, 301–329. London: Penguin. Frith, Simon. 1987. “Towards an Aesthetic of Popular Music.” In Music and Society: the Politics of Composition, Performance and Reception, edited by Richard Leppert and Susan McClary, 133–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Goff man, Erving. 1959. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin. Gray, Jonathan. 2003. “New Audiences, New Textualities: Anti-fans and Nonfans.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 6,1:64–81. Grossberg, Lawrence. 1990. “Is There Rock After Punk?” In On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, 111– 139. London: Routledge. Grossberg, Lawrence. 1992. “Rock and Roll in Search of an Audience.” In Popular Music and Communication, edited by James Lull, 152–175. London: Sage. Hall, Stuart. 1980. “Cultural Studies and the Centre: Some Problematics and Problems.” In Culture, Media, Language, edited by Stuart Hall et al., 15–47. London: Hutchinson. Hall, Stuart and Tony Jefferson (eds.). 1975. Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post War Britain. London: Hutchinson. Harrington, C. Lee and Deize D. Bielby. 2005. “Flow, Home, and Media Pleasures.” Journal of Popular Culture 38, 5:834–854. Hassan, Nedim. 1998. Exploring the Signifi cance of Popular Music in Relation to the Everyday Lives of Three Brothers with “Learning Disabilities.” MA Diss., University of Liverpool. . 2008a. “When Words are Not Enough: Exploring Music Reception and Autistic Experience.” Popular Narrative Media 1, 1:67–84.

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. 2008b. Hidden Musical Lives: The Roles and Signifi cance of Music in Everyday Life at a Supported Living Scheme. PhD Diss., University of Liverpool. . 2010a. “Singing to Your Self? Momentary Musical Performing and the Articulation of Identity.” In Sounds of the Overground: Selected Papers from a Postgraduate Colloquium on Ubiquitous Music and Music in Everyday Life, edited by Nedim Hassan and Holly Tessler. Turku, Finland: International Institute for Popular Culture. http://iipc.utu.fi /overground/hassan.pdf . 2010b. “‘He’ll Have to Go’: Popular Music and the Social Performing of Memory.” IASPM@journal Journal of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music 1,1. http://www.iaspmjournal.net/index.php/ IASPM_Journal/article/view/328/553 Hebdige, Dick. 1979. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen. Hennion, Antoine. 2001. “Music Lovers: Taste as Performance.” Theory, Culture & Society 18, 5:1–22. Hermes, Joke. 1995. Reading Women’s Magazines. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hesmondhalgh, David. 2002. “Popular Music Audiences and Everyday Life.” In Popular Music Studies , edited by David Hesmondhalgh and Keith Negus, 117– 129. London: Arnold. Hesmondhalgh David, and Keith Negus. 2002. “Popular Music studies: meaning, power and value. “ In Popular Music Studies, edited by David Hesmondhalgh and Keith Negus, 1–10. London: Arnold. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. . 2005. “Patterns of Surprise: The ‘Aleatory Object’ in Psychoanalytic Ethnography and Cyclical Fandom.” American Behavioral Scientist 48, 7:801–821. Hobson, Dorothy. 1980. “Housewives and the Mass Media.” In Culture, Media, Language, edited by Stuart Hall et al., 105–114. London: Hutchinson. Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Cultures. London: Routledge. Jensen, Joli. 1992. “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization.” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and the Popular Media, edited by Lisa Lewis, 9–29. London: Routledge. Kirschner, Tony. 1998. “‘Studying Rock’: Toward a Materialist Ethnography.” In Mapping the Beat: Popular Music and Contemporary Theory, edited by Thomas Swiss, John Sloop and Andrew Herman, 247–268. Malden and Oxford: Blackwell. Leverton, Marc. 2007. “Access All Areas.” Society Guardian June, 1. http://guardian.co.uk/society/2007/jun/01/disability.socialcare Lincoln, Sian. 2005. “Feeling the Noise: Teenagers, Bedrooms and Music.” Leisure Studies 24, 4:399–414. Lusted, David. 2003. The Western. London: Pearson Langman. Morley, David. 1986. Family Television: Cultural Power and Domestic Leisure. London: Comedia. Negus, Keith. 1996. Popular Music in Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press. Radway, Janice. 1984. Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy and Popular Literature. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Raskind, Marshall, Malka Margalit, and Eleanor L. Higgins. 2006. “‘My LD’: Children’s Voices on the Internet.” Learning Disability Quarterly 29, 4:253–268. Riesman, David. 1990. “Listening to Popular Music.” In On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, 4–13. London: Routledge. Ruddock, Andy. 2001. Understanding Audiences. London: Sage.

70 Nedim Hassan Shank, Barry. 1993. Dissonant Identities: The Rock ‘n’ Roll Scene in Austin Texas. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Shuker, Roy. 1994. Understanding Popular Music. London: Routledge. Singer, Judy. 1999. “‘Why Can’t You Be Normal for Once in Your Life?’: From a ‘Problem with No Name’ to the Emergence of a New Category of Difference.” In Disability Discourse, edited by Mairian Corker and Sally French, 59–67. Buckingham: Open University Press. Stevens, Carolyn S. 2001. “Saved by the Love Song: Japanese Rock Fans, Memory and the Pursuit of Pleasure.” In Japan at Play: The Ludic and the Logic of Power, edited by Joy Hendry and Massimo Raveri, 99–114. London: Routledge. Thornton, Sarah. 1995. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press. van Dijck, José. 2006. “Record and Hold: Popular Music between Personal and Collective Memory.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 23, 5:357–374. Vroomen, Laura. 2004. “Kate Bush: Teen Pop and Older Female Fans.” In Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual, edited by Andy Bennett and Richard A. Peterson, 238–253. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Walser, Robert. 1993. Running with the Devil: Power, Gender and Madness in Heavy Metal Music. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1993. Williams, Christina. 2001. “Does it Really Matter? Young People and Popular Music.” Popular Music 20, 2:223–242. Williams, Raymond. 1983. Keywords. London: Fontana Press. Willis, Paul. 1978. Profane Culture. London: Routledge. Wise, Sue. 1990. “Sexing Elvis.” In On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, edited by Simon Frith, and Andrew Goodwin, 390–399. London: Routledge.

DISCOGRAPHY Boney M, The Best Of (UK and Ireland: Camden, BMG Entertainment, BM830 1997).

5

Researching Your Favorite Artist Methodological Observations of a Brazilian Popular Music Scholar Alexei Michailowsky

Marcos Valle released his first album in 1963. It was based on bossa nova, but from his earliest recording it seemed he had been looking for a chance to add something similar to the African American notion of groove to his music. When his ‘Summer Samba’ song became a worldwide hit three years later, he started to spend long periods in the United States, where soul and funk captured his attention. By 1970 he was recording and playing funk, and he never distanced himself from it completely. During the early 1980s he was a key figure in the Rio Boogie Funk movement—where synthesizers and drum machines were already present—and two decades later he fl irted with house and techno music in some of the tracks that he recorded for London label Far Out Recordings. I am a popular electronic music researcher. The term “popular electronic music” encompasses electronic dance music, experimental non-classical electronic music and DJ culture. It raises issues of production and performance with electronic music devices. My research interest in the subject ranges from history, language, musicology to live and studio practices, ethnomusicological and sociological aspects. As one of the fi rst Brazilian popular electronic music scholars, I am particularly interested in how it arrived in Brazil and how it interacts with more established music and culture. I am also a fan of Marcos Valle. In 2006 I embarked on a study of my favorite artist for a Masters degree at Minas Gerais State Federal University. I was what Henry Jenkins calls an “aca-fan”: in his own words, “a hybrid creature which is part fan and part academic.”1 Analyzing Valle’s work from that perspective raised a number of wider questions: What are the implications of carrying out research on one’s favorite artist? How does the fan inside deal with the researcher, and vice versa? Would a researcher come to the same conclusions if he or she was not a fan? In what follows I will consider methodological strategies while recounting my own experience as a postgraduate researcher. My research took place in the context of my home country. Brazil is a very distinct place in relation to music and fandom. Our national culture is highly diverse. Sometimes the distance between the truly disposable and very sophisticated is surprisingly small. Although the country’s foreign trade laws impose a high level of protectionism, Brazilians consume, digest

72 Alexei Michailowsky and transform the cultural forms that they fi nd inside and outside their borders and make them their own. In a place of contradictions, everyday life and therefore national identity is built upon miscegenation and a kind of cultural cannibalism. 2 The nation’s fan culture can seem complex to foreign visitors. Media fans in Brazil can range from “aficionados”—who differentiate themselves, according to Joli Jensen (2002), from the archetypal fan by having a rational approach to their object and expressing their feelings in a mild way—to people who adore their heroes passionately, intensely and obsessively.3 As Ronaldo Helal (2001) wrote in his study of football that ordinary Brazilians have a strong need to admire heroes and heroines as people with whom they identify, but in their collective low self-esteem, they know they can never actually become. We need heroes to inspire us and offer us a reason to live when we cannot find it in ourselves. The music industry and the media work carefully to incite passions and encourage consumption. Many of their living products—celebrities and wannabes— spend time looking for fame, enjoying their fi fteen minutes or trying to extend it. Only the lucky or gifted survive.4 A considerable number of those people sing, dance, play or pretend to play instruments. It is not difficult to fi nd individuals who appear to fit the negative popular connotations of the term “fan” mentioned by Daniel Cavicchi in Tramps Like Us (1998, 56). “Crazy” and “deranged” fandom are stereotypes supported by the media industry. Walk around a hotel where someone famous is staying, watch a celebrity TV show or open up a magazine, and you may start to wonder whether popularity with a fan base is really an ideal measure of success. When I embarked upon the study, the academy seemed to treat my work as just another research project. When I was selected my lecturers raised the necessary questions about my subject matter but it was part of the process. Everybody knew I was a Marcos Valle fan; other scholars would only tell me to take care with my writing and develop it from a strictly musicological and historical perspective. To them, the danger was that I might sound like a fan attempting to convince readers about my personal preferences and interpretations. I was not there to tell stories or merely to repeat what others had written. Above all, I had to take care with adjectives and avoid being seen to express personal value judgments. Critical engagement was a challenge for me all the time. I had to tame my emotions and constantly remember the fact that my writing was not designed simply to corroborate what had been already written or repeat the information that made me a fan. In the end, sometimes I failed. Thanks to my supervisor I was nevertheless fortunate enough to read some excellent critical texts which raised questions about the idea of purity in relation to Brazilian music. Recent researchers like Carlos Sandroni (2001) and Hermano Vianna (1995) have examined the influence of foreign music on samba, particularly North American music, and have consequently criticized earlier scholars like José Ramos Tinhorão (1966) who proposed defi nitions of a “purely” Brazilian music and tried to isolate it from “evil” imperialist North American

Researching Your Favorite Artist 73 culture. Such ideas helped my work move away from storytelling and fi nd a valid standpoint from which to investigate Marcos Valle.

RETHINKING MARCOS VALLE A number of Brazilian stars like Caetano Veloso, Roberto Carlos and Marcos Valle are associated with several music genres and subcultures. 5 In the world of Brazilian music, the record industry and its audience generally encourages and welcomes crossover.6 Some of the veteran artists who emerged in the early 1960s and have remained active to this day have had different portions of their discographies celebrated by distinct groups of people. In Marcos’s specific case, the early bossa nova period is still very influential everywhere. Recordings have been kept in print and memories of the time well preserved in fi lms, books and articles. The music that Valle actually recorded after 1969 seems to have a secondary role: his albums were out of print for a long time. Some of them would only be released on CD in 2011 when both EMI and independent label Discobertas issued Marcos Valle box sets. Interest picked up again in Marcos’s material because foreign DJs (notably Gilles Peterson) included his old songs in their sets, and new fans in Japan started talking about the early recordings. Thanks to the nature of popular electronic music, fans have taken the opportunity to become active participants in music production and consumption. Marcos’s music has re-entered a global culture and started to receive high rotation in London and Tokyo in the mid-1990s. It came as a total surprise to the artist himself, who said in a 2007 interview with Wax Poetics, “At fi rst, I didn’t know my early work became popular again in Europe . . . DJs started playing my old records in dance clubs and a general interest started to grow” (Sullivan 2007, 108). Given the the way that Marcos’s music has lent itself to so many transformations, it is hard to agree with the tendency in Brazil to describe him solely as a bossa nova artist. Brazilian academies and other cultural agencies have often tried to preserve bossa nova just as it was in the quintessential year of 1958; some people even treat it like classical music. This is rather strange. Starting with its name (which means ‘new rage’), bossa nova is a living tradition that has had an ongoing connection with new artists. Scholars should be discussing its importance to Brazilian popular music in terms of innovation and perpetual motion. Marcos Valle’s career has had three or four incarnations, each presenting a different and somehow independent artist: the bossa nova man; the avant-garde funkster and psychedelic rocker of the 1970s; the boogie-funk artist who scored two huge hits in the early 1980s, and the Far Out Recordings artist who blended his old sound with a new set of influences. For his 2010 album Estática he even recorded a short instrumental track called “1995” which sounded like Detroit techno. Each of his new incarnations came after some years out of the limelight, so it is not

74 Alexei Michailowsky difficult for fans to pick their favorite Marcos Valle or be interested in only one or two of his artistic phases. Although I loved songs from the bossa nova period like “So Nice (Summer Samba),” “If You Go Away,” “Safely in Your Arms,” and “Crickets Sing for Annamaria,” my favorite Marcos is no longer the “young Jobim” heart throb. Bossa nova played a very important role in my musical life, particularly as a child, but I have always been an advocate of innovation and music without national borders. Pure bossa nova started to sound old-fashioned to my ears when I saw some of the key artists, now thirty years older, playing their old songs in the same way. Once African American music arrived, its grooves became the main element attracting me to Marcos’s work. I saw him as a groove specialist who put Brazil and the African American sounds together in his songs and arrangements. My research was an opportunity to explore Marcos Valle’s music from a new perspective. Most books and articles about the history of Brazilian popular electronic music—generally non-scholarly works–have emphasized the contributions of disc jockeys but neglected what musicians have been doing, particularly in the studio.7 Meanwhile, the texts written by commercial writers like Tarik de Souza and Nelson Motta are not the result of systematic research with multiple sources and may not be reliable as scholarly references. Although their authors are veteran music journalists and, particularly in Motta’s case, good friends with key musicians, they are likely to feature highly personal views or reflect only what the artist desires to see published. In addition, their authors sometimes have working relationships with their subjects. In the early 1970s Nelson Motta opened an advertising agency to write jingles in partnership with the brothers Marcos and Paulo Sérgio Valle.8 As a fan, I never enjoyed seeing Marcos playing bossa nova in the midst of musicians who were his age but looked older at nostalgic concerts for audiences mostly in their fi fties and sixties.9 I felt he had a strong appeal to younger people and it would have been inappropriate for him to make history solely as the author of “Summer Samba” or what he did in the 1960s. Therefore, one of my central concerns was to reconsider Valle. Compared to his bossa nova repertoire, very little had been written about Marcos’s other grooves. I felt that if I could register the musical and social significance of Marcos Valle’s music within the academy, where nobody had as yet investigated his music in depth, then I would be able to expose a different Marcos to academic audiences and in consequence to the general public. I would be able to capture the attention of different groups of people—scholars, musicians, DJs and popular electronic music fans—and perhaps change their minds. A link could be forged between a veteran Brazilian performer and the electronic music community. However, as soon as I decided to explore Marcos’s music from a different perspective, I started to wonder how people might react. Some questions frequently came to mind: Would my work give rise to controversy? Would bossa nova preservationists react negatively? Could the electronic music community identify itself with Marcos Valle’s grooves? Would an average Brazilian

Researching Your Favorite Artist 75 popular music fan ever recognize part of the veteran songwriter’s work as popular electronic music? To eliminate guesswork, I needed to interview my famous subject as part of the study.

BARRIERS TO RESEARCH Deciding to research and meet a popular musician is one thing in theory but another in practice. The process is subject to a number of obstacles. Popular music scholarship is still an emergent field in Brazil: as an object of research in our colleges, contemporary urban popular music is a recent addition. Particularly in the Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo states, a small number of institutions have started to accept postgraduate students who work on related themes and have even begun to offer related modules on their undergraduate curricula. Few lecturers have studied contemporary urban popular music and most know little about it. The Brazilian academy is rapidly transforming from a place where the only option for musicologists was to study classical music and ethnomusicologists alone can study popular music (and then in ways that were mostly concerned with folk and native perspectives instead of urban cosmopolitan sounds). In a new era, the increasing convergence of media and music has meant that everything must fit, including “foreign” genres like the blues, soul, pop, rock and jazz. The process of change has not been easy. For a long time, mainstream scholars, critics and journalists treated pop music like a potential threat to national culture. The academy was seen as a place of preservation where one could examine any popular music that was acclaimed as “genuine Brazilian.”10 Only recently have scholars started to question and criticize such ideas and realize that the universities have distanced themselves for a long time from what mattered to ordinary people. Another obstacle for popular music researchers in Brazil is that the scholarly literature is so scarce. So far the national academy has produced very little work on contemporary music. An increasing number of popular books on the subject have emerged and cultivated myths or corroborated marketing plans rather than provided a context or critical insight. Furthermore, their source materials are rather limited. The national record industry only takes care of archives that are on its priority list. In many cases, labels do not have any kind of tape or document archives. Frequently, forgotten piles of ancient recording session sheets, reel-to-reel masters or multi-track tapes are simply dumped, or left somewhere to collect dust or mould and slowly deteriorate. Some record label executives have requested the copying of the content from old analog tapes on to CD-R discs or other digital media, then trashed their analogue masters immediately afterward. According to the music researcher Charles Gavin (personal communication), it happened at Som Livre, the recording branch of the world’s fourthlargest commercial TV network, Globo Organisation.

76 Alexei Michailowsky Beyond these general research issues, arranging to interview a popular artist can be a nightmare for any postgraduate. Commercially successful Brazilian artists tend to be very hard to reach. Masters students are on strict deadlines and the availability or co-operation of working musicians cannot be predicted. No one can wait for the day when the artist wakes up in the right mood and fi nally decides to give that long-awaited interview to a scholar who might have been trying to say hello after the concerts, calling, e-mailing and sending documents for months. In some cases, they have long been living in a social environment characterized by musician Carlos Leoni as containing “children and nannies.” As Leoni explains: Such was the money involved that the artist could act like a pampered and hedonist child because there was always someone—or a lot of “someones”—around to manage careers, problems, money, etc. Who wouldn’t enjoy such a life? Living only of creativity, without having to concern about everyday mundane matters and face reality, was once a possible utopia. (2010, 19) Leoni seems to have found a useful metaphor here to describe the difficulties of the situation: the “children” can be kind-hearted, but it is never easy to reach them. Sometimes, there are too many nannies and they are overprotected. An army of minders—consisting of managers, booking agents, relatives, publicists, wives, husbands, and even bodyguards—is ready to guard their employer or dearest against any form of unsolicited intrusion, whether from scholars, serious journalists, fans, or paparazzi. Neither do most musicians understand the project of the modern academy. Many never attend university and consider themselves a world apart from it. Having somebody describe himself or herself as a music scholar and ask for an interview may come as a surprise. Artists are unaware of the changes that have transformed academic institutions and prompted them to include music on their curricula and accept popular music studies. Like many ordinary people, working musicians can still have an image of university as a restricted place where only art music is admitted or where a stress on rigid, formal, and consequently dull methodologies contrasts with their cherished intuitive approaches. They are usually more open to people who can either help them make money or at least have a known track record researching music. And when they are not interested in a specific business proposal, they never seem to know how to say “no” and delegate the unpleasant task to someone else. When my project was accepted in late 2006, I decided to approach Marcos. His telephone number was listed on his record label’s website for booking contacts. Armed with documents showing that I was an academic researcher, as soon as I knew I had been accepted I tried to call him and let him know what I was doing. He did not know who I was and neither did he remember me as the fan whom he had met and chatted with after a

Researching Your Favorite Artist 77 concert in Belo Horizonte back in May 2001. We did not live in the same town either, so my research contact would necessarily have to depend on the Internet and on expensive, long-distance calls. I had to face my biggest obstacle: all the evidence that I was a postgraduate student coming from a respectable public university was not enough to schedule a phone call, a Skype conference or a meeting.11 Marcos needed time to see who I was with his own eyes. As my deadline approached, the whole process made me feel apprehensive. I was very aware that it is the researcher’s task to reach out to primary sources and no one is forced to talk to anyone because an institution has accepted his or her project. A number of times I considered giving up on Marcos Valle and looking around for another subject. In the end, the fan in me won out and I persevered. When Marcos fi nally replied, he seemed to prefer to communicate through e-mail, possibly to feel safer, have more control and decide with whom he wanted to speak. I never knew, however, if he would reply and when his reply would come. In our earliest exchanges his replies took days to arrive. Now they generally come on the same day, although Marcos can miss one or two important e-mails and does not always read every word in a message. After so many of my phone calls were answered only by his infamous answering machine, I always felt grateful when an e-mail appeared. It meant that I had more material and could keep my project going.

MEETING MARCOS Marcos never had a chance to talk profoundly about his songs in his media interviews. Many of these songs were written during a time of dictatorship and censorship in Brazil; the lyrics were deliberately created to be misleading or confusing. Marcos and his brother Paulo Sérgio wanted to fight the political powers and expose their flaws and stupidity. The Valle brothers’ lyrics often played word games that evoked double meanings and hidden messages. This meant that some authors and reviewers who never interviewed primary sources had drawn conclusions that were far from what the songwriters actually wanted to say.12 Appropriate frames and sources were needed to contextualize the music. One of the advantages of being an aca-fan is that it can be easier to fi nd such sources. While other researchers have to seek out music, videos, articles, photographs, books, magazines and other information, and may not know where to start or if they will actually fi nd anything that is useful, fans often have such sources already at their disposal. With their existing stock of knowledge they may also fi nd it easier to contact record producers, studio engineers, managers, musicians and other fans. In some cases, an artist may wish to spend more time with someone who already knows about their music. While I was waiting for a chance to speak to Marcos, in addition to interviewing other people who were important to the project, I was able to collect documents, texts,

78

Alexei Michailowsky

recordings, videos and pictures with the assistance of others. As well as browsing my own collection and looking for more material in libraries, TV station archives, and newspaper and magazine collections, I started connecting with other Marcos Valle fans who could help me fi nd relevant items and ideas. Marcos is not signed to a professional management company and often seems to run away from business affairs. His Twitter account lay derelict for years until his teenage sons asked him for the password and started to post updates. He has also never had an official website. In consequence, sometimes his fans were the only people who could help join in with my attempts to interpret and contextualize the songs. Marcos has passionate followers all over the world, particularly in Japan and Europe. Social networks made fi nding and interacting with them a lot easier. During 2006–2008 Google’s Orkut was the most popular social network in Brazil and ran two Marcos Valle communities with helpful members. I also found people who blogged about his music and shared their personal articles, pictures, video and record collections with me. One or two had witnessed concerts and festivals back in the sixties and seventies and written about their personal experiences.13 Some were actually book writers and music journalists who used online tools to discuss their favorite music without editorial constraints. Ricardo Schott was a Marcos Valle fan who wrote for the Jornal do Brasil newspaper and for the important pop music magazine Bizz. He had the opportunity of interviewing the music master for a magazine piece and shared the whole unedited transcript with me. Another dedicated fan, Pedro Alexandre Sanches, worked at Folha de São Paulo and had just published a book with a chapter dedicated to Marcos. He interviewed the songwriter a number of times for different purposes and shared his texts with me. Since his chapter was primarily a fan’s interpretation of Marcos’s music during the period that I was investigating (between 1968 and 1974), it worked as a road map for my own research. Many of the points that I investigated and questions I addressed to primary sources, including Marcos himself, had something to do with the thoughts of fans; questions such as: “Marcos, what did you have in mind when you wrote that song? Were you trying to send a particular message to listeners? How were you feeling when you wrote that song? Did that song really want to express that?” By August 2008 my time was really running out. I needed to fi nish my dissertation in November and therefore required a special strategy to meet Marcos and schedule a personal interview. It was then that I secured the help of his two teenage sons, who I met through the Orkut communities related to their father. Daniel and James Valle did not live with Marcos since he had stayed away with his work and divorced their mother some years earlier. No one is a prophet in his own country; at one point his sons had not actually heard many of his recordings. I tried to highlight their father as a musician with a very strong appeal for young audiences in everything that I posted, his sons began to see him in a different light and to feel

Researching Your Favorite Artist 79 more connected with his music. Suddenly the veteran songwriter’s children were eager to listen to his music and raise questions about old recordings. Marcos was going to play in São Paulo, 370 miles from where I lived. I boarded a plane and attended the concert. When it fi nished, I managed to enter the backstage area and introduce myself to him. He was very nice to me and promptly said that we would finally have our interview through Skype in the days that followed. I had a plan: Father’s Day was coming and I produced and hosted a radio show at the college FM station. I asked if we could record a Father’s Day special with him. His son James would build the playlist and take part at the show as well. It happened the next weekend, and also another weekend in Rio where he had a subsequent concert. At last I had two and a half hours of recorded material to edit for my radio show and a lot of information for my project. In his interviews, I quickly noticed that Marcos enjoyed talking about his history and could remember every detail of a recording session from the early 1970s. Like many musicians of his generation, he enjoyed chatting informally. Whenever he felt welcome and comfortable, he would talk for hours and even ask for more. I always tried to make him feel good and enjoy every time we spoke. As memories came to his mind, he would start to sing every arrangement, play air drums and piano, and invariably have a lot of fun. His interviews often revealed his own intentions for the songs.14 However, he often seemed unable to contextualize his own music in time and space. Sometimes he would just take a breath and, looking surprised, say: “You researchers know more about my own music than myself. Everything happened very intuitively. My music just came and happened.” I felt like I had to teach him new perspectives on his own music. I also noticed that he did not care for musicological analysis. Music was like a toy for him. More than once, I heard him saying: “The artist is always a child at heart and spirit.” Theory bored Marcos. With the support of almost everyone around him, he did only what he wanted to do. After all, he remained part of the bossa nova gang: a closed group of people who fostered the magic, soothing sounds which made Brazilian music shine around the world for the very fi rst time, and who are now in their sixties or seventies, but still treated like royalty. It does not matter that most people on the streets of Rio would not recognize Marcos Valle: a small but well-connected and influential group of people recognize him and his fellows. Many of them are hardcore bossa nova fans who have been touched by the “deadly bossa nova curse,” as German journalist Marc Fischer wrote in his book Ho-ba-la-la (2011).15 Back in the 1970s and 1980s bossa nova seemed dead in Brazil. Antonio Carlos Jobim, its biggest name, was interested in Brazilian art music (VillaLobos, Radamés Gnattali) and older traditions like traditional samba and choro. Named by the writer Nelson Rodrigues in the 1960s, the complexo de vira-lata (“stray dog complex”) is a collective belief that Brazilians are by nature inferior to everyone and everything which comes from abroad. In his 2011 book Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to its Own Past,

80 Alexei Michailowsky Simon Reynolds explained how Japan, with its dedication to archiving the annals of Western popular, semi-popular and even unpopular music, helped to bring Brazilian bossa nova back into the spotlight through the Shibuya-kei movement. When news of the genre’s renewed popularity suddenly started to fi lter across from Japan and Europe, the 1958 generation began to perform and record again, collaborating with younger musicians in search of evolution. Just when their music reached the whole planet, the bossanovistas acquired legendary status (see Castro 1990). New fans have been swayed by the “magic sounds” of bossa nova, but in turn they have swayed the artists themselves, making them believe that they can still live and work as stars. Marcos is well aware that legions of ardent followers have surrounded him for many years. As he spoke to me in a low voice and played the guitar, his charming, friendly, polite manner could be seductive, drawing even a critical interviewer into his world. Some of my friends who produced music or organized events also started to send him business proposals. Marcos never responded properly to them. Much to our general disappointment, he missed opportunities such as book interviews, concerts and workshops all over Brazil and even in the United States and the Netherlands. On the other hand, he invited me to write liner notes for his 1980’s CD box sets. I wrote them gladly and was pleased to see that in a TV interview Marcos would refer to the period where he recorded three distinct albums as his “boogie period.” Thanks to my research, as a lecturer I managed to bring his music closer to my electronic music students. Marcos Valle’s electronic music fans see him from a particular perspective: what matters to them are his rhythms, sounds, melodies, and groove: the hard-to-explain vibe that comes from the way his music makes people happy and leads their bodies with his music. In response, Marcos describes himself as open to new things. Yet although electronic popular music is highly participative and collaborative, he has never fully acknowledged the genre. Popular electronic music involves elements of do-it-yourself practice. More than ever, fans understand that supposedly fi nished recordings are not closed works. Like any other kind of musician, the electronic music producer or DJ is motivated by enlarging and enhancing the musical realm. When a producer samples a fragment of someone else’s track, or when a DJ plays someone else’s music—adding and removing elements, mixing it with other musical pieces and changing its tempo or pitch—the original music is being re-composed. Although sympathetic to interventions that might reconfigure his music, whether through sampling, remixing or rearranging, Marcos has remains a long way from fully understanding and participating in the genre. The Brazilian electronic scene is underground and independent for the most part. Some producers like Shape of Broad Minds and DJ Spinna have been sampling the veteran artist’s songs for their own tracks and trying to use the fact as a starting point to collaborate with him. He never seemed very interested in such collaborations and the conversations never developed. If an original artist’s music is recycled,

Researching Your Favorite Artist 81 short of suing, they or their record label or publisher can do little to restrict further alterations. The era of sampling has triumphed and musicians like Marcos Valle will have to learn how to live inside it. Whether the 69-yearold from Rio will do it, only time will tell. He is currently unprepared for electronic music fans who love his music so much that they wish to enter it into a dialogue with other sounds and treat it like an open, unfi nished work.16 Changing times and technologies are now bringing opportunities that are not just musical, but are also social and economic. Particularly because of the global fi nancial crisis, music production and consumption can require more and more collaboration between artists and their audiences. A different form of fandom has begun to emerge: not like the “fanaticus” mentioned by Jenkins, but more equal and interactive. The interactive element can even include different kinds of business partnership between artists and fans. In the Queremos crowd-funding project in Rio de Janeiro, for example, fans pool money together to organize concerts and pay artist’s fees.17 If available budgets run short and artists cannot afford third-party services, empowered fans are given an opportunity to become music entrepreneurs and to keep their favorite music alive. In December 2008, two years after being accepted for the Masters course, I presented my dissertation for public defense. After my methodological adventures, the mission had been accomplished and I was exhausted. Three years have passed since then. A wider change has come to the Brazilian music academy. There are now more scholars working with contemporary urban popular music. I asked a more recent Masters candidate at Rio de Janeiro State Federal University, where I am currently pursuing my PhD, if he had managed to interview Jorge Ben, his project’s key artist. He answered, “Not yet. It has been tough and I only have a couple of months. I do not know what to do—I am going crazy!” I have been there. When I look back on my own Masters study, I experience mixed feelings. Meeting my favorite artist was a joy. Carrying out research on his music was a very enriching experience. Being a fan was also very helpful, most of the time. My passion kept me going in through those difficult moments when I was tempted to give up. I also had to constantly reflect on what I was doing, to confront my own desires and expectations, and to learn to deal with significant disappointment. I frequently questioned my own passion as a fan. The experience made me realize, too, that, as Marcos himself sang back in 1971, everything has changed and we must change too.18 Particularly as a trainee lecturer, one of the most important aspects of researching Marcos Valle has come in realizing how much interest undergraduates and even postgraduate students and professional scholars have in my research. Once my work was over, though, I was not the same. I decided never to carry out formal research on Marcos Valle again. I prefer to keep contact with him for my leisure time now; studying and enjoying his music without external deadlines and pressures. Since I am also a popular electronic music scholar, I have other people and subjects waiting and do not want to spend my life

82 Alexei Michailowsky researching, speaking and writing about just one artist. In addition, Marcos and I have become friends. Suddenly, I have found myself able to tell him exactly what I think and feel about his music, and we listen to each other. I have finally come to think of my favorite artist as an ordinary person, just like me. The most important lesson that I learned from the whole experience is that I must always stay loyal to my best friend, biggest idol and most devoted fan: myself. NOTES 1. See http://www.henryjenkins.org/aboutme.html. 2. This expression, now commonplace in Brazil, has been fi rst mentioned by poet Oswald de Andrade in 1928 based on the native Tupinambá tribe’s practice of anthropophagy where people were killed in revenge for the death of an ancestor and killers ate their flesh, believing that the cannibal would incorporate the spirit of that person. With the metaphor, Andrade wanted to mention the appropriation of foreign cultural elements and criticize cultural xenophobia. 3. See Jensen (2002, 342–54). 4. The infamous Big Brother Brasil TV show is currently on its eleventh season. Every year since 2001 the show has exposed a new set of curvy bikini girls ready to pose for Playboy, young men exhibiting their muscles and assorted bizarre creatures. The script is always the same: under-the-blanket sex, drunk people and quarrels. When they leave the house, they become wannabe celebrities until the time that, except for one or two, they inevitably disappear. 5. Caetano Veloso is a very influential but often somewhat disliked Brazilian artist who fi rst appeared in 1967 with the Tropicália movement. In different periods he then fl irted with concrete music, soul, psychedelic rock, hard rock, post-punk and even bolero and Caribbean sounds. Roberto Carlos, meanwhile, was Brazil’s top-selling singer and songwriter. His debut record was released in 1958 when he was only 17 years old. By 1963, he had switched from bossa nova to rock’n’roll and had quickly become a favorite with young audiences. After winning the San Remo festival in Italy in early 1968, Carlos adopted a more adult sound and recorded several soul and funk tracks. In 1975 he changed again and adopted his ultimate persona as a romantic pop singer. 6. Defi ning “Brazilian” music has been the subject of discussion for decades inside and outside the academy. In a few words, some commentators believe that the term must be applied to every kind of music with Brazilian roots. Others think that nationalism has failed: since there is no music with pure Brazilian roots, all the music created in Brazil or by Brazilians can be included. I am part of the second group. 7. Cláudia Assef wrote a Brazilian DJ historiography called “Every DJ Has Already Danced the Samba” (Todo DJ já Sambou). Assef is one of the most important electronic dance music radio hosts and journalists, but she neglected musicians in her 2003 book. Some years later in a series of articles for the DJ Mag Brazil magazine, she admitted her unawareness of the real importance of musicians and music producers. 8. Paulo Sérgio Valle has been writing lyrics to his little brother Marcos’s melodies since the beginning. He worked closely with his brother in the late sixties and early seventies and even appeared on LP covers and took part at

Researching Your Favorite Artist 83

9.

10.

11. 12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

concerts. When the brothers opened the advertising agency in 1971, the Globo TV network asked for a Christmas jingle. They wrote “Um Novo Tempo”, which has been played massively every December since then. Most Brazilians recognize the song, even though they do not know who has written it. Marcos really stands out on the cover and sleeve pictures of Os Bossa Nova, a CD he had released in 2009 in collaboration with his longtime friends João Donato, Roberto Menescal and Carlos Lyra—musicians between four and nine years older than himself. He looks like a little brother, the prodigy child who was talented enough to join the older guys. The music, although beautiful, now sounds old-fashioned. In his 1995 book The Mystery of Samba (O Mistério do Samba), anthropologist Hermano Vianna questioned the approach of samba as “genuine Brazilian music.” Analyzing historical documents, he found evidence of a media campaign that started in the 1930s and claimed samba as the quintessential popular music of Brazil. According to Vianna, President Getúlio Vargas’s fascist-influenced government (1930–1945) was very supportive in granting official approval to Carnival and showing it off to distinguished visitors like Walt Disney, who spent time in Rio visiting Escolas de Samba in 1941. Skpe is a prominent Internet telephone service. In his book Eu Não Sou Cachorro Não, the historian Paulo Cesar de Araújo discusses Brazilian pop songwriters who were popular among the lower classes in the 1960s and 1970s, and how they dealt with the military dictatorship. De Araújo argues that Valle’s song “Flamengo Até Morrer” supported the government. However, when I interviewed him in 2007 Marcos explained, “That guy has not understood it at all! That song was deeply ironic. We wanted to expose how soccer was a means of alienating people in Brazil and how many of them never realized how hard times were back then!” Unfortunately, although I did manage to talk a lot more with Marcos about song meanings and fan interpretations, it was years after fi nishing my Masters degree. A good example is the blog named Song Contests (Festivais da Canção) which is dedicated to the popular music festivals organized by the Excelsior, Record, Tupi and Globo TV networks between 1965 and 1985. In the blog’s description section it’s author Marcia Weber writes that she decided to create it to preserve her collection in the cloud after book louses and other agents threatened to destroy paper items. See http://festivaisdacancao.blogspot. com. A good example is “Dez Leis (Ten Laws),” released in 1970, which Marcos sings in a fake form of English that actually includes some real words. Censors thought he wanted to say “It’s my lay”, but it was indeed “It’s my lei”. A mixture of English and Brazilian Portuguese, whose true meaning would be “It’s my law.” “Lei” means “law” in Portuguese and sounds exactly like “lay” in English. The real explanation was given to me by Marcos himself. Fischer, an obsessed João Gilberto fan, spent five months wandering in Brazil with the only purpose of meeting the old bossa nova musician, who lives a reclusive life in his apartment playing guitar. Despite all his efforts—which he tells on his book Ho-ba-la-la—Fischer never met Gilberto and ended up committing suicide in Berlin, only a few days prior to his book’s release in Germany. Disc jockeys and electronic musicians are, fi rst and foremost, supposed to be music fans. In a chapter for DJ Spooky’s book Sound Unbound, Jonathan Lethem (2008, 36) subtly describes the effects of electronic music on “old-school” artists who are involuntarily connected through the actions of mix DJs: “Artists and their surrogates who fall into the trap of seeking

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recompense for every possible second use end up attacking their own best audience members for the crime of exalting and enshrining their work.” 17. See http://www.queremos.com.br.Another good example is the Red Bull Music Academy, a global series of music festivals and workshops, which, according to the Red Bull website, has been run by “committed music lovers just like you . . . whose love for music led them to feature-writing instead of navel gazing” (http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com). It was created by three music journalists from Munich who managed to get a long-term sponsorship deal from the Austrian energy drink organization and creative control of the content and line-up. I took part at the 2004 Red Bull Music Academy edition in Rome. The organizers selected me out of thousands of applicants and I spent two weeks attending workshops, late-night parties and studio sessions with important musicians, record producers and disc jockeys. I had been a jazz, pop and rock musician until then but the RBMA experience drew my attention to popular electronic music and to a different regime of production, consumption and music fandom from the one to which I was accustomed. It also influenced me to start my scholarly career: I realized the academy would be an appropriate place to continue investigating those topics. It would also give me a voice to spread the word about electronic music. In March, 2012 Jneiro Jarel, a former colleague of mine from the Red Bull Music Academy managed to acquire sponsorship from Red Bull USA to organize an event in New Orleans. At fi rst Marcos said he would be going so he and I were supposed to attend it. However, weeks passed by and no ultimate answer came from the “old surfer” until the day when he fi nally said it was too late. Red Bull had already given up on him due to his laid back behavior. He could not travel with me because he was preparing a concert tour with jazz singer Stacey Kent. I went to Louisiana by myself. 18. Marcos Valle and Paulo Sérgio Valle, “Jesus, Meu Rei,” featured on the 1971 Garra LP by Marcos Valle (Odeon MOFB 3683, Brazil).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Andrade, Oswald de. 1928. “Manifesto Antropófago”. In Obras completas. São Paulo: Globo. Assef, Claudia. 2003. Todo DJ já sambou: a história do disc-jóquei no Brasil. São Paulo: Conrad. Castro, Ruy. 2008. Chega de saudade: a história e as histórias da bossa nova. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. Cavicchi, Daniel. 1998. Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning Among Springsteen Fans. New York: Oxford University Press. Fischer, Mark. 2011. Ho-ba-la-lá: à procura de João Gilberto. São Paulo: Companhia das Letras. Helal, Ronaldo. 2001. “Mídia, construção da derrota e o mito do herói”. In A invenção do país do futebol: mídia, raça e idolatria, edited by R. Helal, A. J. Soares and H. Lovisolo. Rio de Janeiro: Mauad. Jenkins, Henry. 1992. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. New York: Routledge. .1996. Fans, Bloggers and Gamers. New York: New York University Press. Jensen, Joli. 2002. “Fandom As Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization”. In: McQuail’s Reader in Mass Communication Theory, edited by Dennis McQuail, 342–354. London: Sage.

Researching Your Favorite Artist 85 Leoni, Carlos. 2010. Manual de sobrevivência no mundo digital. Rio de Janeiro: Carlos Leoni. Lethem, Jonathan. 2008. “The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism Mosaic”. In Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture, edited by Paul Miller. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Reynolds, Simon. 2011. Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past. New York: Faber and Faber. Sanches, Pedro Alexandre. 2004. Como dois e dois são cinco. São Paulo: Boitempo. Sandroni, Carlos. 2001. Feitiço decente: transformações do samba no Rio de Janeiro (1917-1933). Rio de Janeiro: Zahar. Sullivan, Paul. 2007. “Soul Bossa: The Perpetually Fresh Fusion of Marcos Valle”. Wax Poetics, 24, August/September: 102–8. Tinhorão, José Ramos. 1997 [1966]. Música popular: um tema em debate. São Paulo: Editora 34. Vianna, Hermano. 1995. O mistério do samba. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar.

6

Fantastic Voyeur Lurking on the Dark Side of Biography Fred Vermorel My vigil was a lovesick chore. I carried it out as honestly as I could and noted the household routines. Perhaps if I started a fi re and surprised them as they hared down the fi re escape? “This way Kate! Down here!” Sweeping her exhausted figure into my arms and safety. Then laying her down in the garden with smoke and sparks flying behind and approaching sirens—none too soon!—as I revived her, smoothing the hair out of her eyes, arranging her dress below her knees . . . Then would gratitude follow? I thought perhaps so. “Dad, this is Fred. You know, that pest of a biographer. But Dad . . . he (gulp) saved my life!” Dr Bush would look me manfully in the eye, take my hand, and shake it fi rmly, with a medical man’s sobriety. “Hmm. Fancy a sherry, Fred?” taking me to one side, man to man. “Now, look here, I understand that Kate has become rather fond of you lately. But what are your intentions?”

. . . That was an out-take from the original version of “Voyeur Voyant.” As Simon Reynolds (2003) commented in his blog, “There was actually an earlier version of this [article] that was really far out but probably too outré for the Village Voice.” Reynolds preferred the outré take. His partner, Joy Press, then literary editor of Village Voice, wanted changes. I caved in. The piece was written to contextualize work I’d done in celebrity and fan studies up to 2000.1 Back in the mid 1970s, my starting point had been a fascination with the cultural power of celebrity. There was little to read about it then. The literature was mostly trivial and mostly from hearsay; a notable exception being the work of the American sociologist, Orrin Klapp (1969). He had extensively researched and carefully analyzed the phenomenon. As well as this, the most useful theoretical account of celebrity for my purposes was Daniel Boorstin’s The Image (1962). Boorstin insisted that modern celebrity was congruent with electronic mass media. He also linked celebrity to the proliferation of media pseudo-events. His work was appropriated by the situationists, who gave it an apocalyptic and negative tone. Even so, at that time there was no notion of fan culture. *** From the late 1970s I embarked on the fi rst interviews and primary research for what became Starlust (1985). In tandem with that, I also began the Kate

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Bush project (see below). I also made a multidisciplinary trawl of secondary and background sources. There was suggestive material in studies of Hollywood or the music industry. But this was often from secondary sources, not always substantiated, and sometimes hyperbolic. Nevertheless, Margaret Farrand Thorpe’s America at the Movies (1939) had an intriguing description of Hollywood fan mail (96). In Harpers’s Magazine, Ruth Suckow’s “Hollywood Gods and Goddesses” (1936) gave a vivid account of the content and tone of the earliest fanzines. There was also interesting material in seemingly unrelated literatures. For example, a case study of the “obsessive” fan of a classical pianist by the psychologist, Pierre Janet (1903), and an interview in Margaret Philips’ The Education of the Emotions (1937) reporting the sadomasochistic fantasies of a fan of the Japanese movie star Sessue Hayakawa. These accounts paralleled some of the primary material I was uncovering. All this began to suggest an uncharted phenomenology of fanhood. *** More generally, John L. Caughey’s “Artificial Social Relations in Modern America,” (1978) suggested how celebrities were used in our culture as elements of fantasy and role-playing. His work demystified, as well as de-pathologized, what might otherwise have seemed “weird” preoccupations and behavior. For Caughey, celebrities and the ways they were used in everyday life created a common-sense discourse around “community.” “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity” by Peter Brown (1971) stressed the theatrical reciprocity between saintly figures and their audiences—and the playfulness of spectacles of holiness, possession and exorcism. His formulation of “a duet between the possessed and the non possessed” seemed a more plausible model for what was going on between fans and stars than standard models of charisma, seduction and entrapment. I also came across Jacob Goldstein and Hans Toch’s “An Analysis of a Sample of Eccentric Mail To The United Nations” (1956). This psychoanalytical approach illuminated the carrier bags full of fan mail—around 40,000 items—that I had collected. The tropes and stylistic quirks were similar in both sorts of mail. Thus, the “spatial peculiarities,” use of “mechanical repetition” (as in “please” letters which sometimes ran to hundreds of pages), and fusions of orthography and drawing. The Goldstein and Toch article was also phenomenologically rich and not shy about the ambivalence and “dirty” aspects of such communications. 2 I realized that ambivalence was a key factor in the fan/star relationship, and integral to fan subjectivity. In “Norman Mailer: the Artist as Fantasy Figure,” Robert F Lucid put it well: “ . . . there is a measurable element of hostile feeling involved in our relationship with our public figures . . . [and] some part of us even welcomes the prospect of the death of the hero so that our feelings for him may be consummated” (1974, 581).

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I noted too, episodes like the rumors in late 1969 that Paul McCartney had died and the Beatles were concealing his death, even using a double, and that McCartney’s demise could be read out from the Beatles lyrics and imagery, and so on. One scholarly article about this concluded that “an embarrassed but eerie longing” for the story to be true—for Paul to be really dead—was repeatedly expressed, such expression being invariably accompanied by protestations of admiration or love for the singer (Suczec 1972). *** Up to the late 1980s the most influential idea in celebrity studies had been Weber’s notion of charismatic leadership and attraction.3 Charisma was used to frame celebrity and responses to celebrity. This foregrounded the role of the performer or entertainment industry in activating audiences through somewhat mystical qualities like leadership or star quality. Charisma, used in this way, also sidestepped the issue of agency. It didn’t fit with what I was fi nding out through talking to fans and immersing myself, as far as I could, in their fetishistic subcultures. In the end I ditched charisma as an explanation and focused on what was happening from the fan’s perspective: celebrity considered not from the stage but from the auditorium—and the bedroom. This led to a hypothesis of celebrity as a blank screen, and fanhood as the projection of perceived fantasies and desires. One key issue that emerged was belief. How do you “worship” Beyonce Knowles or Barry Manilow while holding down a job and running a family? Or consecrate your life and fi ll your days and evenings and dreams with thoughts of Justin Bieber, Brad Pitt or Catherine Zeta Jones? How convince or reassure yourself that your passion for Madonna is an onrush, that it attacked you from outside, that the pain of desiring her at this impossible distance is unbearable yet tolerable, even necessary? Merleau-Ponty: “We believe that we believe, but [really] we don’t believe.”4 Researching fanhood was an encounter with an emotionology. It demanded immersion and sympathetic identification. But not so much with fans themselves, as with their situation. It was the things that fans did, the stuff they collected, their fantasies and masturbations, friendships, dreams, fan letters . . . that seemed more telling even than their own justifications— ideology—of their fanhood. All this also suggested I should refuse to play the game of a reasonable commentator in an apparently unreasonable discourse. I therefore decided to present the material for Starlust (1985) without commentary or framing argument. This led to confrontations with publishers and editors uneasy about presenting such material “raw.” At one editorial meeting a marketing executive complained, “Look, I’ve got teenage daughters!” And one of the readers that the typescript was sent to—a well-known broadcaster and commentator on music—sent it back with the injunction that this material should on no account be published, as it might harm “the industry.”

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*** Assembling Starlust took around eight years. During that time I also played games of participant observation. One reason fanhood fascinated me was that I’d never been a fan myself (unless you count a teenage infatuation with Jean Paul Sartre). Looking around in 1978 for a likely blank screen to project my fanhood onto, I lit on Kate Bush. That was how I came to write what Simon Frith called an anti-biography: The Secret History of Kate Bush, and the Strange Art of Pop (1983). I took my role as a Kate Bush fan seriously. I therefore stalked her. I had in mind that this was a kind of performance stalking. I’d noted Sophie Calle’s early performance work. How she constructed the identities of strangers from elements of their absence. The stranger I was constructing was “Kate Bush.” I was also constructing a fetish and an obsession—all this from the cues that I got from the Starlust material. I wanted, however, to write something that would be read by the fans whose fascinations I was exploring. An avant-garde piece could have gone further, but, like that original version of “Voyeur Voyant,” might have vanished into an academic closet. Nevertheless, I went as far into the terrain of documentary absurdism as I could. To my surprise, the result became the best selling Kate Bush biography ever. It was in print for nineteen years. I concluded my enacted Kate Bush fetishism resonated with fantasies around her popular appeal. Someone who agreed was Tony Wilson, the impresario of Factory Records. He (correctly, I think) placed the book in a punk genre: “I think the only truly Situationist act in British pop music was . . . Vermorel’s beautiful glossy book on Kate Bush which can still be found in Virgin shops.”5 *** Another important theoretical source behind this work was the emerging discipline around mass consumer culture. First, Jean Baudrillard’s La societé de consommation: ses mythes, ses structures (1974), and Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood’s The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption (1979). Both these seminal works helped me focus on fan culture and fan artifacts as symbolic constructs. They pushed me towards exploring the artifactuality of fanhood. For example, not only the extent and content of fan memorabilia collections, but also where they were housed, how they were used, how exchanged, how fantasized. Another key text was Colin Campbell’s The Romantic Ethic And The Spirit Of Modern Consumerism, 1987. Especially for his meticulous dissection of the historically unique nature of modern consumerism, and his association of consumerist mentality with day dreaming and fantasy. ***

90 Fred Vermorel The work that resulted in Starlust—and later Fandemonium! (1989)—and was carried out in tandem with the Kate Bush project, developed from two categories of material:

1. Material sourced directly from fans. Thus, interviews with fans, itemizations and descriptions of collections, solicited and unsolicited photos, fan mail, dream reports and journals, questionnaire responses, recorded phone calls, diaries and other personal written material and solicited written texts, fan poetry, unofficial fanzines, unofficial (fan created and distributed) merchandise, and participant observation from fan conventions.

2. Material sourced from professionals and institutions. Thus, interviews with organizers of (official and non-official) fan clubs, music agents and managers, merchandisers, lookalikes, celebrity photographers, record producers (eg. Mickey Most and Trevor Horn), showbiz journalists (eg. the veteran showbiz commentator, Jack Lewis), DJs (eg. Mike Reid), Record Company executives (eg. Tony Wilson, and Mike Andrews, marketing, EMI), security personnel, managers, roadies, concert hall workers, and members of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade. Access was also obtained to private archives like Peter Gabriel’s archive of fan mail, and the archive of letters sent to “Bizarre,” the showbiz column of The Sun . . . The material from this second category is still mostly unpublished. Starlust (1985) was all about category one. Greil Marcus reviewed the book as a “treatise-by-example on culture as perceived not as a comprehensible continuum of works but as a wholly unpredictable series of visitations by magical beings.”6 *** At that time I thought the most relevant theory was that of the fans themselves. While lacking academic vocabulary they were mostly self-aware and reflexive. Their nuanced, playful and ironic performances of fanhood were effectively theorizations that were also, sometimes—even quite often—self-critical. I argued about this in 1990 with David Morley. Morley had commissioned, for Comedia Routledge, a book that looked at TV audiences in the same way that Starlust had looked at music fans. He later queried the lack of analysis. At one point he couched his objection in conversation by saying that a theoretical perspective on fanhood wasn’t “available” to fans. This stance suggested that a theoretical or analytical perspective could only be constructed and applied instrumentally from the outside—from a perspective beyond or superior to the lived situation of fanhood. But I thought fanhood was messier and more problematic than that. Also more embarrassing. I still do. Despite

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the advances made in researching fanhood, there is still sometimes a reluctance to follow the good advice of Robert E Park and avoid what he called “library sociology”—to “get the seats of your pants dirty in real research.”7 This reluctance suits those—in Bourdieu’s sense—cultural gatekeepers, who create sanitized and “appropriate” accounts of popular culture. The Commedia book was never delivered.

FANTASTIC VOYEUR: LURKING ON THE DARK SIDE OF BIOGRAPHY8 There was a metal fire escape up one side of her house. At the top was a black emergency door with a bar, the kind you find in cinemas. Such doors could be jimmied open. But was it alarmed? I often climbed to the landing outside this door and made a nest, camping on the iron slats. Sometimes her cats passed below and looked up at me. Would they tell? Sometimes she passed below, wheeling her bicycle for nocturnal sorties. Squatting there, refreshing myself with sandwiches and tea from a fl ask, I would listen to her dwelling as a lover sprawled over her body, detecting her heart. Like everything else today, biography is about celebrity. Creating it, celebrating it, knocking it. We have little time or taste anymore for that forgotten genre of modest reckoning, where “nonentities” could find publishers and publics for nothing more or less than life lived—a few lessons learned. For example, M. Vivian Hughes’s A London Family, 1870–1900 is so reserved, so populated by the humdrum and homely, that when the one big event happens—the death of her father—we are as devastated as she means us to be. Today, you need a line to fame or power to make you sexy: J. Edgar Hoover’s lieutenant or Diana’s ex-bodyguard or ex-boyfriend. Two things intervened to change the face of biography: the celebrity industry and popularized psychoanalysis. Both are offshoots of the Romantic movement, which, as one American scholar put it, is the big bang of modern culture. The Romantics invented modern celebrity. Byron and Napoleon were exemplary Romantics with a flair for news value and “human interest” stories: revolutionary, volcanic, excessive, restless, sexually voracious with “unusual” tastes, hovering between lunacy and inspiration—the emperor riding to battle with Young Werther in his saddlebag; the poet dead in a quest to liberate Greece (decked out in Michael Jackson generalissimo camp). Byron was a showman and self-publicist who knew how to blend his biography with his art into a seductive mystique in which—and this is crucial to Romanticism and to contemporary celebrity—deeds become synonymous with the “work,” the personality inextricable from the individual, the individual rooted in the legend.

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The foundational Romantic text was Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions. Rousseau began with the assertion that here, for the fi rst time ever, was an autobiography that gave it all away, told it all. The killer ingredient, which sold the book for over two centuries on a whisper and a nod, was Rousseau’s confession of sexual masochism and his recollection of the childhood spankings that provoked it. Aside from this, Confessions is 600 or so pages of dissimulation, self-contradiction, treachery, special pleading, innuendo, raving, revenge, and lies. But what gushes out is the overwhelming “presence” of Rousseau himself: the paranoiac, the plaintiff, the pervert. The scandalous incoherence of precisely this person, no better, after all, than he should be, behaving badly, just like us in fact: real, really here. It wasn’t long before behavior itself became considered an artwork— think of Arthur Rimbaud, Oscar Wilde, the Beats, Kurt Cobain, and innumerable rock stars, or most modern artists since Duchamp. Think of the way van Gogh’s slashed ear has become as much an artifact of his oeuvre as Sunflowers. Such genius-type behavior was a script to follow to whatever bittersweet closure: despairing suicide, or sudden death in pursuit of the ineffable. There’s some debate about which of these INXS singer Michael Hutchence achieved, but, discovered dangling from a hotel door with a stiffie, he was an instructive illustration of that key Romantic invention, the full-time genius, who, as Sartre quipped, is a genius all the time, even in the morning while cracking open a boiled egg. Cue Freud. Psychoanalysis is an intensely Romantic psychology, especially in its crowning fable, the unconscious—code for yet another Romantic sublime that can only, with caution, great delicacy, and $X an hour, be approached by trained and sanctioned specialists with access to privileged knowledge. The record shows that psychoanalysis was eagerly seized on from the start, and became fused with popular culture from around 1915. Hidden motives, repression, fantasy, and catharsis were the hot topics from Eugene O’Neill to Tennessee Williams to Rodgers & Hammerstein, which then transferred to Hollywood and screens worldwide. Psychoanalysis equally became the paradigm for biography, which began to seek out the youthful traumas that haunt adult destinies, courted childhood, dwelt on the novelties of sexual repression and frustration, and narrated itself increasingly as the peeling away of layers of self-deception all the way down to an “inner” truth or self—down to those unconscious desires and dirty secrets even saints entertain. It was Lytton Strachey’s Eminent Victorians which in 1918 started that now ubiquitous trend of dishing the dirt on the great and the good, trashing Florence Nightingale among others, with “a sudden revealing searchlight into obscure recesses, hitherto undivined.” Lytton’s brother, James, was the British translator and editor of Freud. This practice is nowadays de rigueur. Witness Albert Goldman’s Elvis, a nerd’s revenge, or a biography of the sculptor Eric Gill a few years back that “exposed” him as an incestuous sexual monster and drew calls for his

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works to be removed from public places, or recent biographical revelations of Michel Foucault’s gay sadomasochism, which certainly put a new twist on Discipline and Punish. From Rousseau’s buttocks to Freud’s couch to the tumbling chairs of Jerry Springer . . . *** After the war, the explosive growth of mass media accelerated and amplified celebrity, improving on Romantic devices in a number of ways. Take spontaneity, which dissimulates the distance between an artwork and the experiences it provokes. A Romantic artwork is really only there as provocation and ruse to catapult our “selves” out of humdrum states and reach greater heights, or depths, or whatever else seems weird, dizzying, and naughty. Equally with those Romantic artworks we call celebrities: We annihilate distances—geographic, cultural, pecuniary—in a sleight that brings these alien and inaccessible beings “into our lives.” Hence the production techniques (camera closeups, mikes, and F/X that capture every breath and tongue tremor) that “produce” such audiovisual hallucinations as Madonna or Michael Jackson and allow us to gaze into the very eyes, to get right inside: up to the very eyelashes and pores, checking the backs of their hands for sweating as a sign that they might be lying, assessing their trembling buttock cheeks for beads of tumescence. This “persona production” renders every inkling and breath of presence up front, here and now, in your head, in your bed: Madonna’s voice, throat, tits . . . They are so real, these intimate strangers, so unbearably, overwhelmingly familiar. We are inducted into their lives, lured into their houses, enticed by their opinions; we meet their kids, learn all about their sex lives and their ailments and favorite colors and favorite songs. How does celebrity exert such fascination? If you jettison the childish explanation of talent and the mystical one of charisma, and focus, as I did with Judy Vermorel in our 1985 book, Starlust, on the other side of the equation, if you talk in depth to the consumers of celebrity, if you consider music fans, for example, as consumers in a consumer environment consuming products that happen to be music stars, and map their desires in their own terms, you realize that celebrities are blank screens onto which we all project our fantasies. This is what celebrities are really rewarded for. A celebrity’s “act” readily spills from “real life” to “screen life” because there is no distinction to be made here between private and public spheres. In fact, a celebrity’s raison d’être is to erase such distinction. Celebrities are made-up creatures, fictions from the very start and to the very end. We own them. Sometimes I pressed my ear to the door and heard distant comings and goings. The gist of events and conversations, uncertain threads and emissions of her and her brother’s lives. Explosions of hoohas, pounded stairs,

94 Fred Vermorel slammed doors, flushing cisterns, music. It was as if they were putting it on to fascinate and tease me. Listen here, Fred! What is this noise here? And that one? The most interesting bios weave the writer-as-obsessive into the text until the biographer and the obsession become part of the story. Sartre’s psychobiographies took this over the top, from Tintoretto (the most convincing and shortest) to St. Genet. Genet was apparently so stunned by Sartre’s biographical avalanche that he never wrote another word and was ungrateful enough to call his biographer a con (“cunt”). Less flamboyant are Walter Kaufman’s Hegel: A Reinterpretation, which lovingly settles scores and guides us through a labyrinth of receptions and misunderstandings to make Hegel’s project comprehensible, and Greil Marcus on Elvis Presley (Mystery Train and Dead Elvis), which certainly tells us more about Greil than Elvis, but then the writer has more to say than the singer. The irruption of the author into the picture occurs equally with biographical novelizations like In Cold Blood or Norman Mailer’s Marilyn (but Mailer is such an all-male schmuck he loses the plot whenever Monroe needs to become “female” and can’t even understand why, to his chagrin, she’d prefer a Clark Kent like Arthur Miller to a Superman like Mailer), and, more recently, Gary Indiana’s book on Versace-killer Andrew Cunanan, Three Month Fever. Such “factions” force us to confront the artifice of the biographical project and the fragility of its “facts.” There is also a sensuous and fl irtatious aspect to biographical research: breaking seals and confidences, untying ribbons from bundles of documents, raising the dust of strangers’ lives, dealing and unpacking other people’s intimacies, deciphering their photos . . . All games I played while researching The Secret History of Kate Bush, an absurdist experiment to see how far the rock bio could be stretched without snapping. I adopted the persona of a mad professor so obsessed that he traces Kate Bush’s genealogy back to the Vikings. And I also stalked the woman, as a phenomenological acting out of that uneasy and twisted boundary between fascination and obsession. Oddly (or perhaps not), the book became the bestselling bio of that singer. But what most struck me was how straight were the readings people made of this text. I still fi nd discussions on the Internet debating whether “I” was “really” obsessed with Kate Bush, as well as allegations I not only had an affair with her, but that while researching her life I ran over her cat. Far from running over her cat, I seduced both her cats, Zoodle and Pywacket. I’d watch her let them out the door at night and coo them over to my hiding place, where I’d stroke their grumbling fur. Her cats were my Trojan horses to carry the smell of the hand I caressed them with back into her house, into her very lap. Relevant here is the work of performance artists like Sophie Calle. Calle is known for randomly following people in cities, examining the sleeping

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habits of strangers she invites into her bed, or posing as a chambermaid and scrutinizing the property and lives of hotel guests. Calle’s work is interesting, though it may be a cop-out that she protects her intentions behind avantgarde rhetoric and trades in high art rather than commercial discourses— which would be a more dangerous strategy. More suggestive, because more troubling and tentative and unsupervised, are the explorations of Oreet Ashery, a Jewish female performance artist who disguises herself as Marcus Fisher, a male orthodox Jew, and penetrates Orthodox Jewish communities and other milieus in that persona (www.sexmutant.com). The cutting edge of such work today, the agenda that biography needs to address, is the phenomenon of the stalker. This is where the contradictions and fantasies of identity and desire are most tested and exposed. The stalker refuses to be intimidated by the “celebritariat” and its massive security apparatus, disrupting the celebrity economy by voicing the unspeakable and demanding the impossible (the impossible which is, however, promised over and over). There is an accelerating momentum here, from John Lennon, who conspicuously threw every shred of his soul on the market and was duly “consumed” by a fan, to the awesome global presence and mass-produced intimacy of Madonna. Madonna, who had the eff rontery to play the little-woman card while having the stalker Bobby Hoskins jailed, and refused until forced by threat of imprisonment to attend court because she would thereby fulfi ll Hoskins’s fantasy of contact with her. “We have made his fantasies come true,” she complained. “How? By sitting in front of him.” Madonna “felt incredibly violated”: “That day I looked into his eyes he became even more real to me.” What a delicious subversion of celebrity. The morning John Lennon was shot I woke suddenly around 4:15. Numbers were fl ashing through my head: a phone number. I jotted it down on a pad. Turned over but still couldn’t sleep. Around seven I turned on the radio and heard the news. A few days later, out of curiosity I rang the number. Kate Bush answered.

NOTES 1. My 2011 PhD by publication for Kingston University discusses this—and later work—in detail. 2. I analyzed fan mail along similar lines in a paper called “The Soul of a Fan,” given at “It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll: Popular Music and Cultural Theory,” a one day symposium held in February 1992 at Southampton Institute of Higher Education—the other speakers included Simon Frith and Paul Willis. An updated version of the paper was also given at “Sounds of the City,” a fourday conference held at the then University College Salford, September 9–12, 1992, where fellow speakers included Sara Cohen, Jon Savage and Sheila Whiteley. 3. See Thomas Dow Jnr’s 1978 article in the British Journal of Sociology for a general study of Weber’s ideas.

96 Fred Vermorel 4. Reproduced in Stewart (1998, xvii). 5. Taken from “tony wilson, jon king, stewart home and mark e smith discussing situationism at the hacienda, some time in the ’90s.”: http://abandonyourtimidnotion.blogspot.com/2009/04/tony-wilson-jon-king-stewart-home-and. html. 6. Greil Marcus’s review came out in Art Forum (1986, 16–17). 7. Park’s words are reproduced in Lindner et al (2006, 82). 8. This piece originally appeared in Voice Literary Supplement, October-November, 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Baudrillard, Jean. 1974. La societé de consommation: ses mythes, ses structures. Paris: Gallimard. Boorstin, Daniel. 1962. The Image. New York: Atheneum. Brown, Peter. 1971. “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity.” Journal of Roman Studies 61:81–101. Caughey, John. 1978. “Artificial Social Relations in Modern America.” American Quarterly 30, 1:70–89. Douglas, Mary and Baron Isherwood. 1979. The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption. New York: Viking Press. Dow Jnr, Thomas. 1978. “An Analysis of Weber’s Work on Charisma.” British Journal of Sociology 29, 1:83–93. Goldstein, Jacob and Hans Toch. 1956. “An Analysis of a Sample of Eccentric Mail To The United Nations.” American Imago 13:149–187 Janet, Pierre. [1903] 1976. Obsessions and Psychoanasthesia. New York: Arno Press. Klapp, Orrin Edgar. 1969. Collective Search for Identity. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Lindner, Rolf et al. 2006. The Reportage of Urban Culture: Robert Park and the Chicago School. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lucid, Robert F. 1974. “Norman Mailer: the Artist as Fantasy Figure.” Massachusetts Review 15, 4: 581–595. Phillips, Margaret. The Education of the Emotions. London: George Allen & Unwin. Reynolds, Simon. 2003. Blissblog. September 12. http://blissout.blogspot. co.uk/2003_08_24_blissout_archive.html Stewart, Jon. ed. 1998. The Debate between Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Suckow, Ruth. 1936. “Hollywood Gods and Goddesses.” Harper’s Magazine, July:198–200. Suczec, Barbara. 1972. “The Curious Case of the ‘Death’ of Paul McCartney.” Urban Life and Culture, April:61–76 Vermorel, Fred. 1985. Starlust: The Secret Fantasies of Fans. London: Faber and Faber, 2011. Vermorel, Fred. 1983. The Secret History of Kate Bush, and the Strange Art of Pop. London: Omnibus Press.

7

Song of Praise Musicians, Myths and the “Cult” of John Coltrane Tony Whyton

Studies of popular music and fandom have grown into a sophisticated field of enquiry over recent years, as the contributions to this volume demonstrate. Fan communities and interests are widespread, and several popular music scholars have been at pains to stress the need to resist depictions of fans as cultural “others” and to engage instead with fandom as part of our everyday life (Hills 2002; Jensen 1993). Today, studies of music fandom are multidimensional but also contested in many ways, as the nature of fan debates challenges established notions of objectivity, cultural value and authority, as well as ongoing attitudes to modernity and the role of the mass media. When considering the debates that have emerged in popular music research about fan cultures over recent years, several interesting and subtle differences occur when applying insights on fandom to jazz discourse, especially when examining the reverence of an iconic artist such as John Coltrane. Coltrane is arguably the most revered icon in jazz history, inspiring an obsessive following of writers, record collectors and enthusiasts. He has had a profound impact on several generations of musicians and, following his death in 1967, his musical legacy has continued to shape the development of jazz performance practice to the present day. Taking up the challenge of dispelling the mythology of fans as imagined “others” and exploring ways in which fandom permeates a range of personal and professional contexts, I examine the discourse of musicians as fans in jazz. Drawing on the testimony of musicians from different generations, including artists who worked and played alongside Coltrane for several years, I explore the ways in which a jazz icon is revered among musician communities. I identify common narrative themes that dominate Coltrane’s representation and which aim to promote the artist as a spiritual leader and a symbol of African American renewal, as well as strategies which seek to separate him from typical fan–celebrity relationships associated with popular culture. In structuring this study, I therefore focus on three themes which have been a constant source of debate within studies of fan cultures since the early 1990s: (a) religiosity and fandom, (b) mediation and the pathology of the modern world and (c) fandom and cultural value. By focusing on these three themes in relation to Coltrane, I will demonstrate

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how fandom is not readily acknowledged in jazz discourse. However, when musicians’ activities and positions are broken down, we can understand fandom in jazz as multifaceted; it infiltrates different communities of interest. From this it is also possible to show how the changing cultural status of jazz as a genre impacts on wider understandings and representations of fans and their relationships to iconic figures.

RELIGIOSITY AND FANDOM The relationship between popular music fandom and religiosity is a contested topic. In his critique of Erika Doss’s Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith & Image, for example, Mark Duffett argues that Doss’s work, by comparing fandom to religion, is deeply problematic as it casts fans as passive, servile and misguided and misses out on the polysemic nature of fan cultures and activities associated with following Elvis (see Duffett 2003). Duffett correctly questions the tenuous links and imposed narratives that automatically assume that fandom functions as a form of religious behavior and suggests that religious comparison provides a limited understanding of fandom. Duffett advocates a more sophisticated and multilayered reading of fan activities and practices that accounts for changes over time and different levels of fan engagement with artists. When exploring these issues in relation to John Coltrane, however, additional layers of complexity emerge which blur the boundaries between pro and anti perspectives on fandom and religiosity. Unlike Elvis, Coltrane discourse has always actively constructed a relationship between artistic practice and religiosity and fans have not been demeaned for following the artist obsessively or for invoking religious rhetoric upon listening to the artist’s music. Indeed, throughout John Coltrane’s career, his music inspired a dedicated fan base that gained spiritual fulfilment from listening, even when the artist, in his fi nal years, ventured into avant-gardism. Unlike the spoofs and caricatures of Elvis outlined by Duffett, Coltrane’s religiosity was interpreted by fans, poets, writers and musicians as an essential part of the artist’s make-up. From the recording of A Love Supreme in 1964 onwards, Coltrane explored overtly religious and transcendent themes through music, and several of his works contained explicit references to God and a continuing devotion to a spiritual life. Coltrane’s late recordings, from 1965–1967, are often regarded as some of the most experimental and transcendent jazz albums ever produced as they encourage listeners to experience music in a different way: their trance-like qualities enabling both musicians and listeners to explore alternate states of consciousness. Towards the end of his career, Coltrane famously (if not somewhat jokingly) stated in an interview in Japan that he would like to be remembered as a saint, and these words have resonated with subsequent generations of fans, especially after his untimely death in 1967 (Yui et al 2010, 270). The

Song of Praise 99 convergence of spiritual themes, transcendent experiences and Coltrane’s premature death has enhanced the profundity of fans’ experiences, from those who reminisced about the power of hearing Coltrane live to listeners who continued to be overwhelmed by the experience of Coltrane on record. In his book, Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation, for example, Paul Berliner discusses the widespread appeal of Coltrane’s music, the way in which its sound has had an overwhelming impact on peoples’ lives, and how exposure to it has encouraged several listeners to act like disciples. Berliner provides the following anecdote to illustrate the power of Coltrane’s influence, describing the way in which a Japanese musician used Coltrane’s music to cope with the death of his sister. Berliner states that the musician was “[d]isarmed by the performance, he returned alone to his apartment and wept into the night. Rising at dawn from a restless sleep, he interpreted the experience as a sign that he was to become Coltrane’s musical disciple” (Berliner 1994, 32). From the late 1960s onwards, Coltrane was transformed into a spiritual icon who was increasingly followed by devoted fans who desired a spiritual experience. In another example of Coltrane’s influence, Berliner explores the way in which the presence of Coltrane occupies “imagined” spaces in peoples’ lives: After John Coltrane’s death, a musician was once awakened by a vivid dream in which Coltrane’s group presented a sensational and extraordinarily vibrant performance, one that the musician could not recall ever having heard before. He struggled to recall fragments of its sounds as they receded from his memory. Although the experience left him but a small legacy of actual music, the psychological and emotional impressions were lasting ones. (Berliner 1994, 142) This is one of countless stories where the transformative impact of Coltrane’s sound and presence is said to have positively changed peoples’ lives; despite Coltrane being only an imaginary presence, Berliner stresses that the power and influence of the artist remained overwhelming. A visit to any Internet fan forum on John Coltrane would highlight similar stories of transformation and the power of Coltrane’s spiritual quest.1 This power is clearly evidenced by the St John Coltrane African Orthodox Church in San Francisco. Founded in 1971, the church has deified Coltrane and continues to use the artist and his music in weekly services and rituals. The example demonstrates how Coltrane’s following extends beyond simple musical adulation towards forms of symbolic and spiritual reverence. Coltrane’s premature death and the transcendent qualities of his late music served as catalysts for the founding of the church, which claims that Coltrane was received as a messenger “who was chosen to guide souls back to God.”2 Although we can regard the Church of John Coltrane as an extreme form of cultish fan behavior, perhaps surprisingly, the saint-like qualities

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of Coltrane are echoed among different fan communities from general enthusiasts and writers to musicians. Beyond the celebration of these saintlike and transcendent qualities, we should understand that Coltrane exists today as a wider mythic construct. As David Ake has suggested, there is a clear separation in the presentation of Coltrane as a living, breathing artist, and “Trane” the myth who exists as a saint-like transcendent being (Ake 2010, 17–36). Although both of these personas undoubtedly exist, I would argue that there remains little distinction between the two categories among fan communities. Indeed, many writers who have written extensively on the life and music of Coltrane, such as Ashley Kahn, have encouraged associations between the performer and religious figures through the use of biblical analogies: for example, suggesting that there is a symbolic attachment between the initials of John Coltrane and Jesus Christ (Kahn 2002, xix). Religious themes engulf the representation of Coltrane, from Alice Coltrane’s description of her husband—following the completion of A Love Supreme—as being “like Moses coming down from the mountain . . .” (Kahn 2002, xv) to Archie Shepp’s assertion that “John was a Buddha and we were his disciples” (Lovett 2004). To this day, the deeply spiritual themes of Coltrane’s music and his saintly persona continually encourage audiences to feel that they are in the presence of something god-like, mystical and other-worldly. Despite understanding the transformation of Coltrane into the mythic Trane, it is surprising to see how many fans continue to reinforce the romanticized, narrowly controlled and overblown representation of Coltrane. On the fan pages of the Verve Music Group website, for example, Coltrane followers are invited to upload information about how long they have been a fan and why they follow their particular artist. The majority of Coltrane fans promote the idea that the music “speaks for itself” or that the music has a spiritual dimension. One fan responds, “Does someone really have to explain why they’re a fan of Mr. John C? C’mon . . . Two words- greatness personified.” Another simply states, “God.”3 Other web-based fan forums debate the extent to which Coltrane’s late music is more emotionally expressive than that from his earlier period as fans negotiate the boundaries of what works for them and seek agreement on the merits of the Coltrane legacy.4 However, these perspectives appear quite moderate when compared to ways in which musician / fans idolize Coltrane’s life and music from the late 1960s to the present day. Musicians, including artists who worked alongside Coltrane, continue to describe the artist in mythic terms. Indeed, in the majority of instances, there is no discernible difference between the reverential accounts of Coltrane from musicians and the emotional outpourings of other enthusiasts. The following two quotes, both from musicians, demonstrate the full spectrum of Coltrane’s influence: I was sitting there, digging . . . screaming . . . I felt so much of what he was saying, I had so much I wanted to say to the whole world . . . and

Song of Praise 101 I didn’t know how to get it out! He was my God! (Gerald McKeever quoted in Leonard 1988, 42)I never set out to play like Trane, but the influence and inspiration is always there. No one else moves me the way he does . . . He was driven by a spiritual force that most people don’t understand. (Alan Skidmore quoted in Witherden 1991, 41) Gerald McKeever’s passion and belief that Coltrane was somehow tapping into his own inner feelings and Alan Skidmore’s awareness of the Coltrane influence at an emotional level are characteristic responses. Such reactions are typical of musicians who believe that Coltrane is somehow working on a spiritual level. In turn, Coltrane is increasingly represented as a transcendent artist who was in touch with the divine. Although I acknowledge that the relationship between fandom and religiosity is only one aspect of a multitude of themes that circulate within fan cultures, the relationship remains powerful within Coltrane discourse and is one that is not easily side-stepped. Indeed, for musicians working today, a simple acknowledgement of Coltrane as an influence enables artists to represent themselves as spiritually sensitive or as capable of tapping into a deeper level of religious understanding. For example, consider Bono’s description of his encounter with Coltrane’s A Love Supreme (which, interestingly, also humorously evokes Elvis): I was at the top of the Grand Hotel in Chicago listening to A Love Supreme and learning the lesson of a lifetime. Earlier I had been watching televangelists remake God in their own image: tiny, petty, and greedy. Religion has become the enemy of God, I was thinking . . . religion was what had happened when God, like Elvis, has left the building. I knew from my earliest memories that the world was winding in a direction away from love and I too was caught in its drag. There is so much wickedness in the world but beauty is our consolation prize . . . the beauty of John Coltrane’s reedy voice, its whispers, its knowingness, its sly sexuality, its praise of creation. And so Coltrane began to make sense to me. I left the music on repeat and I stayed awake listening to a man facing God with the gift of his music. (Bono quoted in Kahn 2002, xxii) Through this personal account, Bono presents himself as enlightened; Coltrane offers a pathway to sincerity and an alternative to the shallow and corrupting influences of modernity. Overall, Coltrane fandom treads a fine line between actual religiosity (as in the case of the Church of Coltrane) and what Matt Hills describes as “neo-religiosity;” in other words, an appropriated discourse of religion which is used within fan cultures (Hills 2002, 119). Hills suggests that cult fandoms may display a type of religiosity without forming “religions,” and this could explain why accounts of several different Coltrane followers

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clearly adopt the rhetoric of either the spiritual or the religious. Unlike the reading of “cults” or fan cultures within other popular music contexts, however, the evocation of religion in relation to Coltrane is not a pathway to embarrassment or stigmatization as Hills suggests (Hills 2002, 124). On the contrary, claiming a religious (or spiritual) link to Coltrane is a necessary signifier or authenticating statement to demonstrate that one “gets it” and can be accepted as a “true” Coltrane fan.

MEDIATION AND THE PATHOLOGY OF THE MODERN WORLD Joli Jensen’s groundbreaking work on fandom in the early 1990s highlighted the way in which dominant accounts of popular culture had described the behavior of fans in pathological terms. For Jensen, there was little evidence of writings that described fandom as a normal everyday activity and, instead, fans were often differentiated from professionals, aficionados and collectors, by—at the extreme—creating a sense of hysteria and danger around deviant “fanatics.” The most obvious depictions of deviancy and pathological behavior were seen in portrayals of the obsessed loner or the frenzied crowd which, ultimately, fed into elitist positions about the nature of modern society and the influence of mass culture: [T]he fan is seen as being irrational, out of control, and prey to a number of external forces. The influence of the media, a narcissistic society, hypnotic rock music, and crowd contagion are invoked to explain how fans become victims of their fandom, and so act in deviant and destructive ways. (Jensen 1993, 13) The discussion of fan behavior as a type of pathology or deviance has an interesting twist when compared to studies of jazz culture. Indeed, several post-war social science-based writings on jazz cast the scene— including the music, musicians and followers—as a site for deviancy and delinquency; jazz culture, it seemed, was symptomatic of a pathology that was engulfi ng the modern world (Becker 1963; Merriam and Mack 1960). Within this context, there was no separation between fans and musicians. Jazz was a sub-cultural practice where “hipsters” were set up in opposition to “Squares” and the “outsider” qualities of jazz were celebrated or feared depending on one’s cultural position. These perspectives were deeply problematic and often promoted a fetishized view of African American men by essentializing black male subjects through depictions of hyper-masculinity and psychopathic tendencies (Mailer 1957), but right to the present day the structuring of jazz cultures as “outside” of the mainstream has certainly served to blur the boundary between followers, scholarly enthusiasts and musicians. This is not to suggest that jazz cultures are liberated spaces where modernity is embraced and the mass

Song of Praise 103 media is viewed neutrally or without skepticism. On the contrary, as jazz has become more marginalized and perceived as distant from popular culture, in specialist publications elitist and anti-modern sentiments have dominated jazz discourses and the representation of the music. Yet jazz fans are not typically represented as dangerous outsiders or frenzied mobs; the strategies for promoting this particular anti-modern ideology differ from those identified by Jensen. Jazz discourse instead creates a position where the jazz crowd is constructed as “outside” popular culture: jazz fans are presented as special in that they are part of a world which resists the corrupting forces of the commercially-oriented media industry. In relation to John Coltrane, this means the artist is presented as a figure who exists outside the confi nes of the modern world and resists the pathology of commerce and industry. Coltrane functions as a type of savior who can lead fans away from the negativity of modernity towards essential values of the jazz tradition. Within numerous musicians’ accounts and mythological descriptions of Coltrane, two main narrative themes emerge which convey Coltrane as being devoid of the usual mediating factors that surround popular musicians and celebrities working within the entertainment industry. Indeed, from the influence of Coltrane’s record company, Impulse, to the collaborative nature of performance, the discussion of mediation is avoided; Coltrane is instead treated both as the idealized unmediated artist and as a medium in and of himself. To illustrate this further, I will unpack these two narrative themes in more detail below.

COLTRANE AS UNMEDIATED ARTIST I don’t think Trane thinks of anything but music. (Davis quoted in Wilmer 1992, 37)

These words from Art Davis typify the dominant representation of Coltrane: a musician is portrayed as an artist who is obsessed by music in all its forms. Popular biographical accounts of Coltrane serve to promote the idea of the quintessential unmediated artist. By interpreting Coltrane as governed by music alone and of continually improvising “in the moment,” we are encouraged to receive the Coltrane sound as pure and unmediated. Within most biographies, the lack of discussion about Coltrane’s nonmusical interests and personal relationships fuels these interpretations of the artist, while anecdote after anecdote convey stories of Coltrane’s obsessive nature, his total control of his musical destiny, his indifference to commerce and the changing pressures of the music industry, as well as the physical changes he made to his body in order to create his own distinctive sound. The following anecdote, cited by the saxophonist Dave Liebman, typifies the romantic account of Coltrane as an artist divorced from the everyday world:

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Tony Whyton Coltrane had the disposition and certainly the discipline; his practicing is legendary. Jimmy Heath tells a wonderful story. Coltrane was doing a matinee in Philadelphia. Jimmy and Coltrane were running buddies and Coltrane did a matinee and of course there was a break in between sets. He usually played 4 to 6, and he had a break and started again at 9 o’clock. So he had that little three-hour break. Jimmy came and said “Come on home with me and have some dinner. Mom will cook you some dinner.” So Coltrane said, “Okay, let’s go,” and he went and got his horn. So he walked into the house, and said hello to [Heath’s] mom. She said, “Okay John, we’ll have dinner soon.” He said, “Is it okay if I go upstairs and practice a little bit?” And he went upstairs and in this break, which is a two-hour break, and she was yelling down, “You got to eat John. You got to go back to the club.” And he was practicing for two hours up there. And like Reggie Workman said, “If John Coltrane did not have the horn in his hands, he was sleeping.” (Liebman 2008, 116)

Even when Coltrane’s music clearly involves a degree of mediation, the dominant narrative plays down these factors in favor of an idealized view of Coltrane’s performance practice. For example, the role of producer Bob Thiele on Coltrane’s seminal album A Love Supreme is downplayed significantly in accounts of the album’s production, whereas the influential recording engineer Rudy van Gelder is integrated into the liveness of the recording event, being described as the fifth member of the quartet. Equally, members of the Classic Quartet who played alongside Coltrane on A Love Supreme reflect on the recording session as a type of unmediated experience. John said very little about what he wanted. If he had certain specifics that he wanted to add to the music or how he wanted it played, he would say it. I think this is so important, because it was an on-the-spot improvisation, honestly approached music, with nothing pretentious about it at all. That fi rst day, he didn’t have any extra people around . . . We didn’t have any written music, he’d have some notes that he’d refer to, but as far as the rest of us were concerned, we’d just follow what he did. (Kahn 2002, 92–93) These testimonies, from McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones, respectively, present the A Love Supreme session as a spontaneous and intuitive environment. In other words, no mediating factors (including notation or preconceived ideas, or the input of additional people, such as other musicians, producers, engineers, photographers, etc.) clouded the session. Despite the album being a recording, the music is presented as having an honest and unadulterated form. Coltrane’s recordings therefore play an interesting and paradoxical role in the presentation of his music as a form of unmediated expression.

Song of Praise 105 Recordings are mediating artifacts, in that they involve different types of collaborative input at various stages of production. They are also constructions, aiming to create an idealized view of performance that is designed and promoted in parallel with the marketing strategies of record labels. In order to preserve the mythology of Coltrane’s recordings as unmediated forms of personal expression, the live qualities of the music are promoted, encouraging listeners to believe that material has been recorded in a single take. As a product of mediation, sound recording is typically described as the poor relation of live performance, and dilutes the impact and spontaneous qualities of the music. In Coltrane’s case, the quality and power of his sound on record is often noted for its “liveness” and intensity, bringing listeners closer to the power of his music and encouraging an engagement with it in a more intimate way. As musician Frank Lowe states, “Sometimes I would listen to the records that he did and I would just feel part of the group” (Wilmer 1992, 35).

COLTRANE AS MEDIUM Despite Coltrane being perceived as an artist who exists outside the mediating influences of the music industry, the dominant Coltrane narrative also positions him in the role of a medium. Several accounts describe Coltrane as a conduit through whom God speaks or as a spiritual being who is enlightened through transcendent experiences. Pianist McCoy Tyner, for example, suggested that Coltrane was like a spiritual messenger, demonstrating that Coltrane was regarded, even among members of the Classic Quartet, as a type of medium (Wilmer 1992, 44). The highly spiritual nature of Coltrane and his powerful presence are clearly evidenced through the testimony of Marion Brown, an artist associated with The New Thing in the 1960s: I was playing this concert, and when I finished a solo, I backed off-stage. There was Coltrane with the lights behind him, beatified. He held out his arms and took me in and I wept like a child. (Lock 1993, 43) Coltrane’s deification extends to fan communities as many fan / musicians have proclaimed that their lives have been transformed, cleansed or saved through encounters with Coltrane’s art. The description of Coltrane as a type of savior forms parts of several musicians’ accounts, ranging from Steven Feld’s (2012, 13) interaction with the African musician Nii Noi to Dave Liebman’s (2008) personal story of Coltrane as an exemplary role model who helped him to rebuild his life after suffering from polio in childhood, both figures using Coltrane’s life-saving qualities to explore connections between different events in their lives. In addition to narratives that describe Coltrane as a divine messenger, other accounts offer him as a medium through which African ancestors

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speak, alongside the past masters of the jazz tradition. Some biographies of Coltrane go further than the typical discussion of musical and cultural influence to describe the icon as an artist who was directly linked to figures and values of the past. C.O. Simpkins’s (1975, 60) early biography of Coltrane, for example, embellishes a story in which Coltrane was visited in a dream by Charlie Parker. Simpkins suggests that Coltrane continued to receive messages from Parker from beyond the grave. Statements such as these go further than Hampton Hawes’s description of Coltrane as merely continuing the spirit of Bird (Taylor 1993, 180) to present him as being in meaningful dialogue with Charlie Parker. These narratives present a sense of continuity and preserving of standards from one generation to the next— themes taken up in more recent writings where Coltrane is described as a gatekeeper for the African American tradition and figure who embodies essential qualities of a mystical and ancient African past. Leonard Brown’s edited collection John Coltrane & Black America’s Quest for Freedom, for example, presents several articles on Coltrane that explore the artist’s role as a figurehead for the African American community (Brown 2010). The role of Coltrane as a medium through which the essential themes of the past live on is also evidenced in the work of several African American poets working from the late 1960s to the present day. The development of the Coltrane poem as a genre in itself has focused primarily on him as a mythic symbol for struggle and renewal. Although varied in style and approach, Coltrane poems present authenticating narratives where the artist’s untimely death is used as a marker of despair, racial distinction, and, fi nally, as a symbol of renewal for the African American community (Benston 2002, 146). Through such mythic representations, fans are encouraged to regard Coltrane as a medium who links the past to the present and reinforces the mystical and transcendent qualities of jazz. As well as functioning as a symbol for how the jazz life should be led today, he is seen as an artist who carries the flame for the jazz tradition and embodies the eternal qualities of the African American community. Jensen has described the way in which negative accounts can view obsessive fan behavior as dangerous, as if emulating a celebrity or forming an intense relationship with a star is behavior akin to that of a potential stalker. Within a jazz context, however, intimacy of feeling and desire for musical emulation is an accepted practice. I have written elsewhere about the different forms of identification found between jazz icons and their followers, including practices of becoming where aspiring musicians seek to embody both the technique and the spirit of the star that they emulate (see Whyton 2010). The associated phenomenon ranges from play-along CDs—where musicians can be faded out and replaced by one’s own voice—to recording projects where contemporary artists seek to spiritually and emotionally connect to a deceased icon. Within this context, emulating a star or jazz master is not viewed as deviant or obsessive behavior, but a necessary aspect of performing within a tradition.

Song of Praise 107 FANDOM AND CULTURAL VALUE Henry Jenkins’ influential book, Textual Poachers, provides an interesting starting point to explore issues of fandom and cultural value bound up with jazz. Jenkins argues against textual determinism in his work and suggests that media texts are constantly re-read by fans. Within this context, Jenkins proposes that meaning is constantly up for grabs and negotiated within the public space of fan communities. This dynamic and resistant account of fan practices subverts traditional readings of texts as fi xed in meaning and it challenges the notion that recipients are passive consumers. Instead, the act of textual poaching transforms fans from enthusiastic readers into active cultural producers (Jenkins 1992, 162–177). When applied to jazz, Jenkins’ work can prove enlightening in establishing different types of fan activities and the subversive strategies of different communities of interest. Examining the discourse on Coltrane in particular, we can see ways in which the artist’s work is continually re-read by different communities and groups to create interpretations that sometimes ride against official narratives of jazz or authoritative positions on the meaning of the icon’s work. A clear example of fans becoming “productive consumers” in this way can be evidenced in the strategies of fan / musicians who claim exclusive ownership of Coltrane’s late music. Following Coltrane’s death, the common discourse described the seductive nature and overwhelming power of Coltrane’s sound for listeners and, in particular, the transcendent qualities of his late work. The fact that some critics and fans found the late, post-classic quartet, music difficult and hard to understand also galvanized the feeling among musicians that Coltrane’s music was conveying something special, beyond the everyday world. Indeed, to be into late Coltrane became a new marker for insider fandom among musicians, as this quote from Charles Tolliver, in conversation with the musician Arthur Taylor, suggests: Arthur Taylor: Charles Tolliver:

What effect did Coltrane’s music have on you? Tremendous, rhythmically harmonically and melodically. Any musician knows exactly what I’m talking about. If they are not musicians, I’m sorry. (Taylor 1993, 80)

Musicians’ policing of the boundary of fandom ties into the notion that not everybody will “get it.” There is a certain exclusivity of ownership of Coltrane which enables fan / musicians to feel that they are touched by genius in some way, and that, if you are a genuine musician, then Coltrane’s music will speak to you on a number of levels. Several themes recur in testimonies of artists who have experienced Coltrane in live settings, including the perceived ignorance of critics and conservative listeners, and the transformative power that Coltrane exerts on musicians. This is exemplified in

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the following statement from musician Leon Thomas, recounting his fi rst experience of a Coltrane gig: The people were drug because they didn’t know who Trane was. They had never heard of him, and he was a last minute replacement for Sonny [Rollins]. They knew they wouldn’t dig the way he was playing. I was sitting up front, and he just blew me out of the place. Wasn’t nobody else after that, nobody! (Taylor 1993, 103)5 In many ways, Coltrane’s polarized reception increased the transformative potential of his music among musicians, as a new generation of artists found the life-changing qualities of experiencing Coltrane for the fi rst time. Their ownership of Coltrane was heightened in contrast with the reactions of those who simply did not understand.

CHALLENGING THE CRITICS For fans, the mythic construction of Coltrane also enables the artist to be detached from popular culture and notions of celebrity. Coltrane promotes a number of cultural values, based not on gimmickry or the desires of changing audiences, but on the outcomes of a divine quest that is yet to be understood. Several musicians and acquaintances of Coltrane describe his music as beyond what we conceive music to be (see Liebman, 2008).6 At times they use Coltrane to reinforce the separation between musicians and the media, most notably the role of jazz journalists and commentators. Coltrane’s career was punctuated by a mixed reception from critics. Coltrane and Eric Dolphy famously responded to critics in an article with Downbeat editor Don DeMichael in 1962 (DeMichael 1962) where both players urged critics to seek a deeper understanding of what he was trying to do. The artist’s switch to avant-gardism in the late 1960s also seemed to divide the community of jazz writers (see Porter 1998; Kofsky 1998; DeVito 2010). Although not every review of Coltrane’s late music was bad—on the contrary, there were several positive accounts of writers and critics being in awe of Coltrane’s late music—critical readings made their points in both subtle and more extreme ways, ranging from Martin Williams’s indifference to Coltrane’s contribution to his idea of “The Jazz Tradition” (Williams 1983; Izenson 1995) to poet Philip Larkin’s assertion that Coltrane’s music equated to “exercises in gigantic absurdity” and presented “great boring excursions on not-especially-attractive themes during which all possible changes were rung, extended investigations of oriental tedium, long-winded and portentous demonstrations of religiosity” (see Larkin in Palmer 2008, 41). The apparent lack of understanding and sympathy for Coltrane’s cause among some critics led to musicians and politically active writers like

Song of Praise 109 Amiri Baraka and Frank Kofsky taking issue with the mainstream jazz press (Baraka 1998; Kofsky 1998). Their negativity toward white critics suggested that the mainstream jazz media were cast in opposition to Coltrane’s unselfish quest. As Johnny Griffi n stated in conversation with Arthur Taylor: I think the critics messed Trane [John Coltrane] up . . . What are they criticizing, anyway? They don’t know anything about jazz. They’re not musicians. And besides, they’re all white. So what are they going to know about black music? (Griffi n quoted in Taylor 1993, 69) Griffin’s statement combines race and musicianship as markers of authenticity, then uses both counts to discredit the media’s response to Coltrane. Such strategies of resistance by musicians can be interpreted as a subversive form of fan activity; musicians are productive consumers who challenge authority figures and dominant interpretations of Coltrane. The policing of the boundaries of fandom in this way not only highlights the fact that different fan communities can have distinct interpretations of their hero, but also reflects a type of elitism which suggests that only a cultivated minority can understand the “real” Coltrane. Moreover, attitudes of the informed specialist feed into a broader aspect of jazz culture where fandom is rarely acknowledged. This is where the artistic aspirations of jazz and its cultural positioning between perceived high and low culture come to the fore. As a recently canonized artform, jazz has established a sense of cultural capital and, as such, by promoting the music as tailored for a discerning audience of aficionados, collectors, musicians, scholars and critics, it can be positioned as separate from the frenzied world of fan-based popular culture.7

CANONIZING JAZZ: NEO-TRADITIONALISM AND COLTRANE Following his death, Coltrane’s representation has been steadily reified and controlled to the point where certain themes appear in almost every mainstream portrayal of the artist and his music. As neo-traditionalism has come to dominate the jazz mainstream since the 1980s, Coltrane is now firmly established as an iconic figure who reinforces the core values and mythologies of the jazz tradition. The neo-traditionalists’ disdain for popular culture and the promotion of African American exceptionalist readings of jazz past and present are mapped onto the Coltrane story, as the artist’s legacy is absorbed into the dominant canonical narrative. Indeed, Coltrane’s works, up to and including A Love Supreme, are idolized and presented as seminal and canonical. This selective picture of Coltrane’s output has been critiqued by scholarly musicians such as David Ake, who argues that the late recordings are downplayed or excluded in mainstream jazz education as they fail to live up to its established—and supposedly objective—benchmarks (Ake

110 Tony Whyton 2002). The control of Coltrane’s representation includes placing the artist within an essentializing discourse of African American music to deny the influence of the popular in Coltrane’s repertoire. Essentializing narratives that claim Coltrane as a political figurehead of the African American tradition are enhanced by associations with Black Nationalism and the politically-charged context of the 1960s. And yet, neo-traditionalists have played down the radical potential of the late recordings, as Coltrane’s avant-gardism and openness to different cultural and philosophical influences lies beyond the modern construction of blues-oriented African American values. As the writer and critic Stanley Crouch states: What could have led one of the intellectual giants of jazz . . . into an arena so emotionally narrow and so far removed from his roots and his accomplishments? . . . [T]he post-mid-1965 recordings, whether studio or live, are largely one-dimensional and do not vaguely compare to what Coltrane accomplished with his Classic Quartet. (Crouch 2006, 214) Whereas musician fans appreciate the complexity and depth of late-Coltrane recordings, the mainstream agenda, typified by Crouch, has relegated the music to being associated with Coltrane’s own personal quest. The denial of the popular in Coltrane’s repertoire is another neo-traditionalist strategy designed to elevate Coltrane’s cultural status and establish the tradition as something timeless and unchanging, devoid of the supposedly corrupting influences of popular culture. This ranges from criticism of Coltrane’s more overtly commercial recording projects—often blaming Coltrane’s record company for forcing the artist to engage in targeted popular recordings—to suggesting that later versions of his popular repertoire (hits such as “My Favorite Things”) are an attempt by the artist to deconstruct and critique his own popularity (see Kofsky 1998, 302; Ratliff 2007, 79–82). Despite this dominant control of the Coltrane narrative, it is important to consider how the influence of the Coltrane legacy is strongly felt in different cultural contexts and outside the established jazz tradition. The Coltrane legacy has arguably dominated the career trajectories of musicians who worked alongside the icon but, equally, the influence of Coltrane has been felt in the broader spheres of popular culture and experimental music. For example, artists from Carlos Santana to Steve Reich have paid tribute to Coltrane’s musical and spiritual influence and drawn directly on his art, through either overt reference or quotation in their own musical output. In collaboration with John McLaughlin, Santana paid direct homage to Coltrane’s A Love Supreme on his own Love Devotion Surrender album, and has frequently gone on record describing Coltrane’s influence on him as an artist. For instance: I haven’t heard anything higher than “The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost” from the Meditations album. I would often play it at four

Song of Praise 111 in the morning, the traditional time for meditation. I could hear God’s mind in that music, influencing John Coltrane. I heard the Supreme One playing music through John Coltrane’s mind. (Izenson 1995, 231) This account not only provides another example of Coltrane as a kind of medium through which God speaks, but also demonstrates how Coltrane’s music is used by fan / musicians in everyday routines and ritualistic practices.

CONCLUSION: RETHINKING COLTRANE FANDOM Steven Feld’s recent study, Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana (2012), provides a compelling example of the complexity of the Coltrane influence. Feld examines the way in which musicians in Ghana have drawn on Coltrane’s music as a means of resisting a stereotypical and problematic view of Africa as an ancient and mystical world and, instead, use the music of Coltrane in particular to construct a contemporary vision of Africa. These strategies seek to resist the essentializing discourses of the African American mainstream, which promote African influence as something remote and overly romanticized, and replace these representations with an alternative (and, at times, equally essentialist) interpretation of Coltrane’s musical influence. Ghanaian musicians use Coltrane as a universal subject, as innately African, as a spiritual being, and anything in between. Feld’s discussion of intervocality acknowledges the way in which Coltrane has come to mean different things to different people, but is also a study in cosmopolitanism, demonstrating how people can unite and share their experiences through listening. On his first encounter with the Ghanaian artist Nii Noi, Feld states that he was stunned “by the sensation that as complete strangers we could so instantly know each other, by the sensation that we might equally embody closely overlapping genealogies of listening” (Feld 2012, 16). This encounter also thrust Feld into a position where he had to challenge his own assumptions about place and people, and his fundamental attitudes to cultural influence and cosmopolitanism. He continues: I was equally knocked out by the question of whether my amazement was itself the product of unwitting racism. I mean, why should I be surprised that an African musician has spent equally many years listening to what I’ve been listening to? Why should I be surprised by Nii Noi’s similar passion for linking music, culture, politics, by his distinct knowledge of Pan-Africanism, and by the central position he locates there for the legacy of John Coltrane? (Feld 2012, 16). To conclude, these examples highlight the paradoxes at play in relation to Coltrane and fandom. On the one hand, the profound impact on generations

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of musicians in different contexts and locations demonstrates the polysemic nature of Coltrane’s music and legacy. Coltrane has appealed to different groups at different times for different reasons. His spiritual aesthetic has therefore proved to be malleable and adaptable to change over time. On the other hand, within a growing number of canonical readings by artists in particular, Coltrane remains an enigmatic character who is indefinable and mysterious. Even first-hand accounts of encounters with Coltrane clearly serve to mystify rather than clarify understandings of the icon. As Jimmy Garrison’s wife Roberta stated, “People really have no idea of what John was like . . . but that was him” (Wilmer 1992, 44). Within this context, Coltrane provides a fascinating case study for exploring jazz and its relationship to popular music fandom. Musicians have constructed a powerful discourse of ownership which reflects a different type of fan community; whether Coltrane is celebrated as a religious figure, a symbol of African American renewal, a saxophone colossus or a nostalgic emblem of the values of the past, through accounts of transcendence and cultural “othering” the artist has essentially been mythologized and transformed. Although not identifying themselves as fans (for fandom carries associations with faddism and the whimsical nature of the popular), musicians inspired by Coltrane use his legacy to police the boundaries of their own musical practice and to legitimate their own careers. By buying into and perpetuating the romanticized narratives associated with Coltrane, these musicians inadvertently normalize myth-making and transform certain attitudes into everyday occurrences. The notion that Coltrane’s music will never be fully understood is part of musical folklore and welltrodden territory for musicians. Echoing the work of Jensen, this romanticized account feeds into broader political and ideological shifts, where jazz is frequently discussed as a canonical art-form and separated from the supposedly destructive and corrupting world of popular culture. It feeds into mythic representations where Coltrane appears more and more remote from daily life. As musician Frank Lowe stated, “Everybody’s got their image of what people are like . . . I mean who knows whether Coltrane used to sit down on a Saturday and drink beer and watch the football game? He didn’t always be playing the saxophone!” (Wilmer 1992, 44) By understanding the different types of fan practice associated with Coltrane, and acknowledging that “specialist” responses are fan-based activities, it is possible to understand the ways in which his changing representation is negotiated, how it ties into societal needs, reflects values, and operates within the mediating forces of the music industry. NOTES 1. For example, consider the lack of disdain or critique for the Church of John Coltrane on http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?175909-St-JohnColtrane-African-Orthodox-Church-bring-my-sax&highlight=Coltrane. Whether misguided or not, Coltrane fans accept that themes of religiosity and spirituality are the norm within Coltrane discourse.

Song of Praise 113 2. For further information on the Church of John Coltrane, see http://www. coltranechurch.org/. 3. For further examples, see http://www.vervemusicgroup.com/artist/fans/ default.aspx?aid=2660&pg=2. 4. See http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?173939-Coltrane& highlight=Coltrane. 5. The use of the word “drug” in the fi rst sentence is interesting here. In some idioms “drug” is simply a way of saying “dragged,” as in being positively “overwhelmed” or “blown away” by the performer. 6. Also see Bernard Drayton’s liner notes to the reissue CD of Coltrane’s album The Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording. Verve Music Group, Impulse 314 589 120–122. 7. In researching this study, it was quite telling to discover that identifi able fan sites and publications were hard to come by in jazz. Indeed, even the Verve fan pages cited above contained more blank entries under the question of “why I am a fan” than completed sections.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ake, David. 2002. Jazz Cultures. Berkeley: University of California Press. . 2010. Jazz Matters. Berkeley: University of California Press. Baraka, Amiri [Leroi Jones]. 1968. Black Music. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998. Becker, Howard.S. 1963. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press. Benston, Kimberley. 2002. Performing Blackness: Enactments of African-American Modernism. London: Routledge. Berliner, Paul. 2004. Thinking in Jazz: The Infi nite Art of Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Brown, Leonard (ed.). 2010. John Coltrane & Black America’s Quest for Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. Crouch, Stanley. 2006. Considering Genius. New York: Basic Civitas Books. DeMichael, Don. 1962. “John Coltrane and Eric Dolphy Answer the Jazz Critics.” Downbeat, April:20–23. DeVito, Chris (ed.). 2010. Coltrane on Coltrane:The John Coltrane Interviews. Chicago: A Cappella Books. Duffett, Mark. 2003. “False Faith or False Comparison? A Critique of the Religious Interpretation of Elvis Fan Culture.” Popular Music and Society 26, 4: 513–522. Feld, Steven. 2012. Jazz Cosmopolitanism in Accra: Five Musical Years in Ghana. Durham: Duke University Press. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. Izenson, Eric 1995. Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest. New York: Da Capo Press. Jenkins, Henry. 1993. Textual Poachers. New York: Routledge. Jensen, Joli. 1993. “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, edited by Lisa Lewis, 9–29. London: Routledge. Kahn, Ashley. 2002. A Love Supreme: The Creation of John Coltrane’s Classic Album. London: Granta Books. Kofsky, Frank. 1998. John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of the 1960s. London: Pathfi nder Press. Larkin, Philip. 1997. “All What Jazz?” In Reading Jazz: A Gathering of Autobiography, Reportage and Criticism from 1919 to Now, edited by Robert Gottlieb, 803–804. London: Bloomsbury.

114 Tony Whyton Leonard, Neil. 1988. Jazz. Myth and Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Liebman, Dave. 2008. “John Coltrane.” Jazz Research Journal 2, 2:109–118. Lock, Graham. 1991. “‘Trane Talk.” Wire 86, April:42–43. Lovett, Lol, dir. 2004. Saint John Coltrane. Imagine Documentary Series [Broadcast on BBC1]: 16 June 2004. Mailer, Norman. 1957. “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster.” Dissent 4, 3 (Summer): 276–293. Merriam, Alan, and Raymond Mack. 1960. “The Jazz Community.” Social Forces 38, 3:211–222. Palmer, Robert. 2008. Such Deliberate Disguises: The Art of Philip Larkin. London: Continuum. Porter, Lewis. 1998. John Coltrane: His Life and Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Ratliff, Ben. 2007. Coltrane: The Story of a Sound. London: Faber and Faber. Simpkins, Cuthbert O. 1975. Coltrane: A Biography. Perth Amboy NJ: Herndon House. Taylor, Arthur (ed.). 1993. Notes and Tones: Musician to Musician Interviews. New York: Da Capo Press. Watson, Philip. 1991. “‘Out of This World.” Wire 86, April 1991:34. Whyton, Tony. 2010. Jazz Icons: Heroes, Myths and the Jazz Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, Martin. 1983. The Jazz Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wilmer, Val. 1992. As Serious As Your Life: John Coltrane and Beyond. London: Serpent’s Tail. Witherden, Barry. 1991. “Blowin’ into History.” Wire 86, April: 41. Woideck, Carl (ed.). 1998. The John Coltrane Companion: Five Decades of Commentary. London: Omnibus Press. Yui, Shoichi, et al. 2010. “Interviews with John Coltrane.” In Coltrane on Coltrane: The John Coltrane Interviews edited by Chris DeVito, 265–280. Chicago: A Cappella Books.

8

“I ♥ IBIZA” Music, Place and Belonging Cornel Sandvoss

Can one be a fan of Ibiza? This basic question triggers yet two more fundamental questions: What is a fan? And, indeed, what is Ibiza? While I will turn to defi nitions of fandom below, it is worth noting that to many of its visitors Ibiza holds great emotional significance reflected in regular visits, the consumption of a great number of mediated texts surrounding the island, and the formation of social ties and communities—all hallmarks of frequently studied fan cultures surrounding musicians, sports teams and popular TV shows. However, this seems to lead us to the wider question of whether one can be a fan of a place as much of a text. The premise of this question is misleading. Rather than “place” referring to a material, naturally occurring and unmediated reality while texts are symbolic and virtual, both texts and places are socially constructed through symbols, discourses and representations. In this sense places, and in particular places of pleasure and affect, are also always texts. On the surface, the answer to our second question seems obvious: Ibiza is the third largest of the Balearic islands in the Western Mediterranean, seventy miles to the east of the Costa Blanca. These mere topological facts (in themselves expressions of social construction and categorization) only form a small part of all our understandings and perceptions of Ibiza, whether we have visited the island or not. As a site of tourism it is framed and experienced through a plethora of mediated discourses. As Urry argues: Places are chosen to be gazed upon because there is anticipation, especially through daydreaming and fantasy, of intense pleasures, either on a different scale or involving different senses from those customarily encountered. Such anticipation is constructed and sustained through a variety of non-tourists practices such as film, TV, literature, magazines, records and videos, which construct and reinforce that gaze. (2002, 3) Few places illustrate Urry’s description of the tourist gaze as well as Ibiza. The rapid development of Ibicencan tourism over the past three decades coincides with the emergence of the close link between Ibiza, clubbing and Electronic Dance Music (EDM)—a genre that in turn is shaped by the distinct

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landscapes and places of its musical origins: early House music that gained popularity in Chicago–based club The Warehouse (Rietveld 1997), and the industrial, electronic sounds of Kraftwerk, which reflected the often placeless landscapes (Relph 1978) of industrial production and mass transportation of the group’s home state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Yet, EDM soon found its physical and spiritual home on the White Island, which “served as an important nodal point for a transnational community of DJs” and the creation of what Bennett (2004, 129) described as a “musicalized tourist gaze,” which was fueled by the many mediated representations of Ibiza. Both tourism and fandom are thus based on a series of acts of consumption and performances that are framed by, and articulated through, a vast range of different communication platforms from broadcast to social media. Daniel, a 22-year-old from Northamptonshire, describes the mix of music, popular mainstream media and web sources that first stimulated his interest in traveling to Ibiza: “I was first interested in going through several factors really; a growing love of ‘dance’ music, its reviews amongst many travel and research sites, and as silly as it sounds watching the Kevin and Perry film several times.”1 Place and popular culture thus shape and inform each other. Ibiza is thus not just an island but also a text that is constituted through an abundance of compilation albums carrying its name alongside representations of the island, its music scene, related phenomena such as clubbing, and further representation across different media from LWT’s Ibiza Uncovered series (1997) to BBC Radio 1’s annual “Ibiza weekends.”2 These representations illustrate that because place is constructed in and through (mediated) discourses, its meaning is contested between professional media producers and different audience segments. Given the ubiquity of media in contemporary everyday life, most new places we encounter are shaped by a “horizon of expectation” (Jauss 1982) already formed through these mediated discourses. In the words of one user of Ibiza Spotlight, a forum dedicated to Ibiza travel and clubbing, describing his emotions during his fi rst night in Ibiza’s iconic club Amnesia and when watching the sunset at West End bar Mambo “fi nally thinking to myself, ‘I’m here’ [ . . . ] it’s the realisation that you’re actually at this iconic place in the world and [ . . . ] it’s kinda surreal.” Such accounts suggest that places such as Ibiza are not simply the setting for music fandom, but rather form a proportion, and to many a large part, of their fan object. Fan objects that are constituted in and through a series of what Gérard Genette (1997) has described as “paratexts”: numerous textual episodes such as blurbs, book covers, book reviews, and peer to peer discussions, that all shape our anticipation and reading of literary works—and in turn allow us to construct the highly personal readings that mark fandom (Sandvoss 2005a). Jonathan Gray has most usefully adapted Genette’s work to the analysis of our engagements with popular culture through trailers, cross-promotions, spoilers, toys, advertising and, indeed—though Gray does not explicitly discuss this—music, as the paratext “infringes upon

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the text, and invades its meaning making process” (Gray 2006, 36). The notion of paratexts illustrates that in contemporary studies of media audiences we can no longer rely on the clearly defi ned textual boundaries that literary theory takes for granted. As the range of paratexts dramatically expands in a convergent media environment, audience studies have had to reassess their conceptual and methodological foundations as its focus has to shift from the engagement between the reader and a clearly, objectively defi nable text towards audiences’ continuous and multilayered engagement with what I have elsewhere (Sandvoss 2007a) described as “fields of textual gravity.” Therefore not only the act of reading, but the process of selecting between the fields of different texts and paratexts becomes crucial to the formation of meaning among different audience groups. Studies of audiences have increasingly centered on the figure of the fan—the emotionally and affectively engaged media consumer. Put simply, in the textual environment of unprecedented choice, what we like and why we like it is of central significance in our engagement with the world around us. In these conditions, place is both constituted through paratexts and serves as a paratext to our perception of mediated texts. In the case of Ibiza, combined with personal experiences on the island, a range of representations serve as potential paratexts that will allow for a seemingly endless number of different readings of what Ibiza is and means. Place (rather than territory) thus, much like a text, lacks clearly definable boundaries. Ibiza is many different things to different people, precisely because of its many representations that shape and frame our experiences. Hence, this chapter does not attempt an a priori separation between fandom, music and place—and indeed other, related practices such as clubbing, partying, drinking, drug-taking, sex, sightseeing, and sun worshipping or spirituality seeking. These practices intersect in different readings and experiences of Ibiza, varying between different visitors to the island. But what they all have in common, is the enjoyment of, and an affective attachment to, a selection of these varying activities that makes them, in one way or another, fans of Ibiza.

METHOD This positioning of my research in the conceptual tradition of audience studies also informs its methodology. As cultural sociology, fan audiences have frequently resorted to qualitative and ethnographic methods of investigation. Ethnographies in particular, in turn, have in their anthropological tradition initially relied on the notion of a stable, physically defined field. The increasingly phantasmagoric and mediated nature of place described previously makes physically located ethnographies increasingly problematic when studying contemporary phenomena involving mobility. While, on the one hand, increased attention has been paid to the emergent virtual spaces as sites of ethnographic research online (Hine 2000), others have followed flows

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and movements across different territories: Anthony D’Andrea (2007), for example, has accompanied expatriates on their journeys from Ibiza to Goa. However, since the nature of most visits to Ibiza are far more short-lived, a research strategy is required that either includes virtual spaces of interaction between territorially dispersed sets of visitors or allows for extended time in the field to address their high turnover by tracking those entering and exiting the field. While a combination of both would constitute the most advantageous research design and enable more extensive data triangulation, I had to rely primarily on the former for the purposes of this chapter. The following analysis and discussion therefore draws on three sets of data: First, the thematic analysis of conversations and discussions in the forum section of Ibiza Spotlight. The website was launched in 1999 and contains a wide range of news and information on travel planning, resort guides, living in Ibiza and clubbing, including a “party calendar” detailing events at the six remaining mega-clubs (Amnesia, Space, Privilege, Pacha, Eden, Es Paradis) and other larger venues such as hotel clubs Ushuaia and Ibiza Rocks (formerly Bar M, Manumission’s bar outlet) or smaller clubs such as DC-10 and Sankeys Ibiza.3 The forum contains different sections, which in turn are subdivided into threads, containing a mix of news and information about electronic dance music and clubbing, the island and travel to Ibiza in general, as well as discussion, chat and banter between forum members. The forum is moderated and forum rules prohibit discussions about drugs and sex (with the former enforced more strictly).4 In total the forum contains sixteen sections, of which four were disregarded for more systematic analysis because they were dedicated to information and technical questions only (such as “confi rmed Ibiza club line-ups”). I also excluded sections dedicated to those living and working on the island, as well as the less frequented Foro Espanol, in which the distinction between tourists and residents was less clearly determinable. Posts on the forum stretch back to 2003; for the thematic analysis I selected all across the remaining nine sections that had been active in the twelve-month period between July 12, 2011 and July 12, 2012, as volume and content of discussions vary across the year. In total I analyzed 3,685 threads in English and German, featuring 70,535 posts, viewed 5,240,041 times. The contents of posts in English were subdivided into seven sections which were broadly replicated through different threads within the German forum: Taken together, the two sections entitled “Clubbing Open Chat” and “Ibiza Parties and Clubs” accounted for the lion’s share: 78.8% of all posts and 61.5% of all views among the English language sections analyzed. The topics discussed in different sections, however, are not clearly delineated. “Open Clubbing Chat” in particular featured the widest variety of topics. Approximately 80% of discussions in this section were dedicated to clubbing and partying, while the rest covered various aspects of media, cultural, social, economic and political life, ranging from holiday destinations and celebrities to the downfall of Muammar Gadaffi. This intersection of popular and

Music, Place and Belonging Table 8.1

119

Posts to the Spotlight Forum from July 2011 to July 2012

Sections Music Ibiza Clubbing Review Meet Me in Ibiza Clubbing Open Chat Ibiza Open Chat Things to Do in Ibiza Ibiza Cool Season German Forum Ibiza Parties and Clubs

Threads 16.3% 3.1% 5.9% 32.4% 17.7% 0.8% 1.7% 5.9% 16.1%

Posts

View

4.4% 2.0% 2.3% 55.0% 8.7% 0.8% 1.7% 7.0% 18.3%

7.3% 3.5% 4.1% 31.0% 10.6% 3.9% 3.8% 11.5% 24.4%

political discourses among online fan communities replicates findings from studies of fan forums in areas such as sports and of the political relevance of engagements in popular culture as a form of citizenship more generally (cf. van Zoonen 2005; Ruddock 2005; Sandvoss 2007b). The ratio of four Ibiza chat discussions dedicated to clubbing and partying for every one non-clubbing post indicates the centrality of music, partying and clubbing to forum members’ experience. It is consistent with findings of previous survey-based research which identified that discussing the Ibiza music scene was a prime topic amongst British visitors (78%), well ahead of the weather (23.6%), sex (23.6%) and drugs (17.2%) (Bellis et al. 2000). The sections analyzed also replicate a second common finding in studies of audience activity online (Sandvoss 2011a): users divide into a pyramidtype structure in which a relatively small core of users (approximately sixty) account for the majority of posts, followed by a numerically much larger group of occasional contributors, and the majority of users, who frequent the forum but do not post themselves.5 This study therefore shares an important methodological limitation with similar studies of audience online activity. Abercrombie and Longhurst (1997) offer a typology of different audience groups spanning between normal consumers (without specific affective investment in the given text), on one end, and petty producers described as fans, cultists and enthusiasts on the other. While their choice of terminology seems counterintuitive (Hills 2002; Sandvoss 2005a), they accurately identify important lines of distinction among different fan groups who depend on the specificity of the fan object, the quantity and platforms of media use, and the degree of social connectivity arising from their fandom. As I have suggested elsewhere (Sandvoss 2011a), these correlate in turn to the three different types of productivity among fans identified by Fiske (1992): semiotic (the act of creating meaning in the consumption of mediated texts), enunciative (talk or chatter about the fan object) and textual (the creation of paratexts such as fanzines, fan fiction, online reviews, etc.). In our context, they locate the tourist, regular visitor and Ibiza veteran:

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Table 8.2

A Typology of Visitors to Ibiza Fan / Tourist

Object Media Organization Productivity

Star / program Heavy None Semiotic

Cultist / Regular Specialized Star / program Heavy but Specialized Loose Semiotic Enunciative

Enthusiast / Veteran Activity Specialized Tight Semiotic EnunciativeTextual

While fans will fluctuate among these different types of fan engagement, the very act of participation in an online forum is thus a strong indicator of being located towards the high participation and engagement-end of this spectrum. Qualitative research drawing on enunciative activity in online spaces thus focuses on specific fan groups that tend to have a deeper engagement with a given fan culture, are more likely to consume and participate in fan specific niche media, and have greater degrees of subcultural awareness. Many active users had indeed been forum members for ten years or more, indicating that the average age of EDM fans on Spotlight is likely to be higher than the average among Ibicencan clubbers. Similarly, Christenson and Peterson’s (1988) fi nding that males tend to have higher genre-specific investment in music than females suggests that males are likely over-represented among board users. This limitation is also shared by the second data set. During June and July 2012, I conducted thirty semi-structured interviews with active Spotlight users. Interviewees were aged between 20 and 48 years old and all had previously traveled to Ibiza on one or multiple occasions. All interviewees planned to return to the island. With the exception of one interviewee who was temporarily based in Ibiza, all participants were in their home country at the time of interview (whether the US, UK, Germany, Iceland or Australia). Interviews were conducted via Skype or asynchronously via e-mail given the geographically diverse locations of interviewees. They focused on the main themes that had been identified in the thematic analysis of the Spotlight forum and focused on personal histories of engagement with Ibiza in physical and mediated forms. Given that I did not spend extended time in the field with the participants before conducting these interviews, I have omitted direct questions concerning substance abuse and sexual behavior. Interview questions were also informed by a third, if less systematic data set: a visit to Ibiza in July 2011, during which I traveled across the island and visited a number of locations including clubs, bars, beaches and villages in the west, southwest, east and north of the island and some of the island’s superclubs.6 Despite having some insider knowledge of the scene, my visit was coincidental for the purposes of this paper and not motivated by EDM fandom. Nevertheless, it served as a form of unstructured participant observation and provided me with a more detailed knowledge about the places and events discussed in the forum and interviews.

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These unmediated experiences of both place and people defi ning the field of study as part of any sociological enquiry follow the methodological tradition of cultural sociology since the Chicago’s Schools adaptation of anthropological methods and as such understands both empathy towards the research subjects as well as awareness of how social research is itself a practice of representation as the basis of any meaningful ethnographic work.7 This research therefore stands in marked opposition to many of the paratexts which attempt to pathologize young dance fans as tourists in a similar way to fan representations previously observed in mediated and academic representations of fandom (Jensen 1992).8 Media accounts at worst suggesting drug-addled sexual deviants contrast sharply with the ordinary music enthusiasts who supported my research in such a warm and friendly manner.

VIBE, UNITY AND COMMUNITAS Studies foregrounding deviancy and hedonism, whatever their methodological shortcomings, have some grounding in the practices of many visiting the island. Levels of substantive alcohol consumption are reflected in the presence of the over 100 usually well-fi lled bars across the island, and medical studies suggest the prevalence of designer drugs, in particular MDMA, among the young Europeans visiting Ibiza, with further quantitative research suggesting high levels of sexual activity.9 However, these facts—most of which are not different from other holiday resorts—do little to describe Ibiza’s particular attraction and the profound affective attachment that many feel towards the island. A look at some historical research into music cultures is instructive here. In Fred and Judy Vermorel’s (1985) collection of music fans’ fantasies, we fi nd many accounts of astonishing sexual explicitness. What is rather more interesting than such desires and fantasies—which can easily be explained drawing on Freudian psychoanalysis (see Sandvoss 2005a)—is that fans’ affective, lasting attachments, described by Thompson (1995) as forms of “nonreciprocal mediated quasi-interaction,” shape their senses of self and identity. Such desires turn into something more lasting and profound as consumers become fans. Put simply, at least analytically speaking, love is much more interesting than sex. In this sense, many mediated and academic representations fail to capture what many of the respondents perceived as the island’s particular quality—its “vibe”: There is defiantly a vibe over there, just friendliness, I love being able to walk round and feel safe wherever you are, I would happily travel there on my own, and intend to some point in the future. Jack (age 23)

122 Cornel Sandvoss The thing that really stands out about Ibiza is the general feeling/spirit of the Island. It’s really undefi nable and impossible to explain to someone who has not been there. I remember reading about this feeling in various publications before my fi rst trip and I fi nally got what they meant when I experienced it for myself. Bjorn (age 36) The whole island is unique, and that there is nothing like it anywhere else in the World Steve (age 26) This vibe—a special sense of atmosphere—was the outstanding characteristic of the island that was commonly remarked upon by participants. It in turn appears as an articulation of a sense of connectivity felt by fans of the island. As Jack continued, “I do love the sense of community, the fact that you can make friends with anyone, and shape or size.” The notion of community, referred to by a number of participants, is both important and requires some further unpacking. “Community always involves a claim,” as Silverstone (1999, 97) reminds us, it is “a set of claims to be part of something shareable and particular.” The practice that does distinguish Ibiza from other holiday destinations around the Mediterranean, and that offers “something sharable” to most visitors, derives from Ibiza’s position as the global center of EDM culture. Bjorn is a fan from Iceland who first visited Ibiza fouteen years ago, after becoming heavily involved in House and Trance. He became aware of the island by reading dance music magazines like Mixmag and Muzik, and he highlighted the centrality of a sense of community formed through clubbing and EDM fandom: There is a general vibe of friendliness and tolerance between people. I have found most people there to be generally approachable. But it is easy to fi nd the areas where you “belong” so to speak. If you are a clubber like me it’s easy to fi nd likeminded people [ . . . ] In a nutshell if it weren’t for the music, clubs and associated community I’d never go to Ibiza. These interrelated notions of vibe and community are the central theme that spans across most academic accounts of EDM since its proliferation two decades ago (see Redhead 1993 and 1997; Muggleton 1997). Some have interpreted the rise of rave culture as an expression of the triumph of postmodernism, in which an all-encompassing bricolage has eradicated boundaries between youth cultures from EDM to football—a claim not borne out by the strict “no-football shirts” door policy operated by Ibiza superclubs.10 Yet the theme of inclusivity in Redhead’s work is echoed in the notions of community, communality, communitas, unity and solidarity which have dominated the burgeoning literature on clubbing throughout the 1990s and

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early years of the new millennium (see Reynolds 1997; Gilbert and Pearson 1999; Pini 1997 and 2001). Such work has emphasized how sensory experiences of clubbing have often enhanced the use of MDMA to “trigger, prolong or intensify the experience” (Malbon 1999, 109) in which “the vibe is an active exhilarating feeling of ‘now-ness’” (Sommer 2001, 73). This sense of vibe—in Turner’s terms, “existential or spontaneous communitas” as “the direct, immediate, and total confrontation of human identities” (1980, 193)—is reflected in the memories Ibicencan clubbers exchange on Spotlight. A male clubber from the Channel Islands recalled a night at Privilege in 1998 featuring artists such as: Jules, Lisa Loud, John Kelly just as the trance scene exploded and hearing Faithless’ “Insomnia,” Lucid’s “I Can’t Help Myself,” Cafe Del Mar, and then unbelievably 15000 people singing in unison to Delerium “Silence” with the sun belting through the back of the club. Probably one of my defi ning moments of a fi fteen-year clubbing career and one that I will never ever forget as long as I live. The pleasures of clubbing are assumed to be rooted in what Malbon (1999) describes as “oceanic experience”—a shared feeling of connectedness with others and the environment—which in turn translates into the dominant ethos of unity, harmony and lack of aggression. Such a vibe is frequently identified as the island’s outstanding feature. D’Andrea (2007), for example, cites a paramedic working at Privilege who mentioned glass cuts and alcohol intoxication as the only frequent causes for treatment. As the following words of an Austrian respondent suggest, these themes of peace and harmony shape the island far beyond its clubs: There are many thousands of people who party here, sometimes in the most confi ned spaces. And hardly anything ever happens—that is unique to Ibiza. [ . . . ] I have been to the island far more than twenty times, and until today I have not seen a single fight there. In the beginning I even stayed in San Antonio [ . . . ] and even there, if you unintentionally pushed some wasted English guy, he would just smile at you and give you his Fosters [beer]. [ . . . ] This is why I love Ibiza. Regardless of where you’re from, of who you are, what you are wearing, you can just be. Everyone just wants to have fun and be happy. Similarly, a Spotlight user from Yorkshire recalled: “That is one thing I’ve always loved about Ibiza, the atmosphere is just so much more relaxed. I think, in the four years I’ve been going, I’ve seen three fights, two of which were due to the Guarda Civil.” While those accounts confi rm the shared perception of a special vibe and sense of communality, they also acutely highlight the limitation of any approach that emphasizes “immediate sensory experience as part of a broader understanding of subcultures”

124 Cornel Sandvoss discussed by Hodkinson (2012, 568). None of the overwhelming sensations of light, rhythm and beat we fi nd in the super-clubs are present in the bars and disco-clubs of San Antonio’s sunset strip, yet they still offer an unparalleled sense of communitas to some respondents. As “Jack” stated “I love the sunset strip, bit cheesy but the atmosphere is like nowhere else in the world, truly magical!” We could of course assume, to quote Rill (2006, 655), that the “transformation of acceptance/inner peace is a lasting effect that carries from the rave communitas back to the external social world” and “has the potential to reshape the world view of participants,” but this does little to explain why such outlook-transforming effects of EDM and clubbing are supposedly more evident in Ibiza than anywhere else.11 While approaches focusing on the sensory experiences of clubbing and drug-taking decontextualize Ibiza enthusiasts’ experiences, it is precisely that particular social context which is most significant in understanding Ibiza’s “vibe.” In other words, the shift is from ecstasy, in both senses of the word, to fandom.

NEO-TRIBES An alternative approach to explain Ibiza’s appeal draws on a more sociological contribution of Weberian leanings (cf Shields 1996; Blackman 2004): French sociologist Michel Maffesoli’s notion of “neo-tribalism.” Today, according to Maffesoli, the outlines [of social groupings] are ill-defi ned: sex, appearance, lifestyles—even ideology—are increasingly qualified in terms (‘trans’, ‘meta’) that go beyond the logic of identity and/or binary logic. Briefly, in taking the terms in their most accepted sense, we can say that we are witnessing the tendency for a rationalized ‘social’ to be replaced by an empathetic ‘sociality’, which is expressed by a succession of ambiences, feelings and emotions. (1996, 11) Echoing the notion of empathetic sociality often observed in EDM cultures, Maffesoli has thus become the theorist-of-choice for many in the field (see Gailott 1999; Gore 1997 and Malbon 1999). In one such study, of EDM in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Bennett argues that the groupings “which have traditionally been theorised as coherent subculture are better understood as a series of temporal gatherings characterized by fluid boundaries and floating memberships” (Bennett 1999, 600). This temporality, on the surface, was evident in some of my respondents’ accounts. Jay, a 48-year-old from the American East Coast, reported: Sometimes you meet people out there, and I called them “best friends for the night.” You meet somebody and they say “Let’s go here,” and

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you are like “Okay, let’s do it,” and you go with them to whatever night they have planned. This notion of fluidity and temporality is also taken up in Bennett’s considerations of the “affective community” of Ibiza, which according to Bennett (2004, 132) is driven by “the possibility of travel facilitates new levels of new tribal collectivity,” creates spaces in which “young people are free to experiment with their identities [ . . . ] in full knowledge that they can easily disengage.” This application of Maffesoli’s work to the study of music cultures has attracted a substantive body of controversy and critique that has been extensively documented elsewhere.12 My concerns regarding the more narrow application of concept of neotribalism to Ibiza are both of a conceptual and empirical/methodological nature. The fi rst, if least important, is the terminology itself. For a term aiming to describe the transience of contemporary social associations, both the French la tribu and its English translation “neo-tribe”—or as Shields (1996) suggests “postmodern” or “pseudo tribe”—carries curiously essentialist connotations. More importantly, the analytic benefit of applying the notion of neo-tribes to Ibicencan travelers is unclear. To Bennett (2004, 132) it offers an “easy” explanation of Ibiza’s appeal: Immersed in preformed images and perceptions of the island’s club scene [ . . . ] young people arrive on Ibiza with the expectation that this is the place to let go, to overindulge themselves in fun and pleasure. Given the proscribed temporality of the Ibiza experience, there are no ready barriers to the gratification of such expectations and wishes. Indeed, the pursuit of fun and pleasure in a setting where key elements of youth culture—such as music, dancing, partying and sexual adventure and so on—are very much the norm, becomes the very essence of personal commitment to the dance tourist gathering. Bennett makes two claims here. The fi rst is uncontroversial: young people pursue fun and pleasure through practices and activities in an environment that is perceived to be fun and pleasurable. While this will be obvious to most and is somewhat tautological, it, crucially, does not necessitate an interpretation of Ibicencan tourism as a form of neo-tribalism. The second claim is that the fluidity, temporality and relative anonymity of visits to the island, combined with a shared youth culture ethos, allow an extension of the neo-tribal experience in which “the whole Ibiza experience become[s] in effect a new tribal space” (2004, 133). Consequently, Bennett suggests that dance tourists’ “fascination with Ibiza appears inherently tied to their particular stage of life [ . . . ] usually late teens and early twenties, and thus one they ‘grow out of with maturity.’” (2004, 133) It remains unclear on which evidence such assertions are based. Bennett appears to rely on secondary sources, none of which specifically explore Ibiza, its clubs or its

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visitors.13 My data suggests that the two assumptions on the basis of which he classifies Ibiza as a neo-tribal place—fluidity and an inherent link to youth culture—are likely incorrect. While new and emergent genres commonly attract younger fans, the theoretical making of an automatic association between youth cultures and popular music warrants more critical examination (see Hesmondhalgh 2005). Assumptions about strong links between, for example, punk and its music in the 1970s, goth and new wave in the 1980s, and EDM and rave in the late 1980s are likely to have been correct at their time of writing. As both Bennett (2006) and Hodkinson (2011) document, however, genre preference and membership of fan or subcultural communities frequently continues far beyond adolescence; the evidence therefore indicates a link between particular genres and certain generations, rather than merely indicating a link between such genres and youth. There is undoubtedly a strong presence of enthusiastic party-goers in their late teens in Ibiza’s clubs and bars. However, EDM has come of age: the vast majority of DJs headlining at Ibiza superclubs today were born in the 1960s or 1970s, mirroring the diverse age range of clubbers on the island.14 Many online conversations suggest that this mix of ages is an important part of the island’s vibe. A frequent worry among older, prospective fi rst-time visitors is whether they will be too old. Regardless of their age they are swiftly assured by fellow forum members that age does not matter. A concerned Spotlight poster describing himself as a veteran clubber from Brooklyn, for example, attracted univocal encouragement, from “don’t worry about it . . . many of the regulars on this forum are in their 30s and you’ll fi nd plenty of people our age (and older) in any of the bars and clubs” to “party people on IBIZA . . . nobody is too old for this island.” The following two responses highlight the degree to which the Ibicencan experience has extended beyond narrow notions of youth: What blew me away about Pacha the fi rst time I was there, was how age did not matter at all. There [are] people from 17–65 there, all getting down! I saw grandparent-looking couples dressed to impress and dancing cheek to cheek in the mainroom, and then I saw a dad trying to convince the doorman to let his 17-year-old son in . . . lol! Age is just a number in Ibiza, it is all about how young your heart and soul is! There is no “right” age for Ibiza, just a right state of mind. I’ll be 43 next month and I only started going to Ibiza in my early 30s and became hooked. Now I go to Ibiza three to four times a year during the season, even staying three weeks during the dreadful August overload. [ . . . ] I usually [am] with a group that ranges in age from 18–65! And we are all out till the wee hours of the morning. Some not every night, others every night and day.

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The varied composition of party-oriented visitors to Ibiza suggests that Bennett (2004) overstates the fluidity and ephemerality of Ibicencan tourist culture. A number of my respondents who are now in their late twenties, thirties or forties have returned to the island frequently since the 1990s or early 2000s. Others are planning to return this summer, sometimes after a long hiatus. In many online conversations, participants reminisced about Ibiza experiences dating back ten or twenty years, reflecting longstanding, continuous involvement. If transience was an inescapable condition of visits to Ibiza, for most respondents it was not an element that appeared to foster neo-tribal, fleeting belonging. Rather it was experienced as a hindrance to the greater sense of community that many visitors desired, often reflected in the wish to spend more extended periods of time on the island. Tony, a 31-year-old from Cheshire, described a visit in 2006 when he started what became a year-long relationship with a seasonal worker on the island. He considered working on the island for a season: [A] sense of community and being able to spot island “faces” has always been there with me when I go. I think being involved with those workers those years ago and keeping in touch with them on Facebook means I still yearn for it a bit, and I suppose being a frequent visitor, and being recognised by workers and some locals sort of helps me satisfy a minute part of being part of that community! For example when a cab driver recognised me from ten years ago when we stayed in his family hotel, the people I was travelling with couldn’t believe it! The sense of community extends here well beyond what Bennett would describe as the “neo-tribe” of clubbers to others such as the cab driver. This was echoed in other respondents’ memories. Jordan, a UK based Australian music writer, worked in Ibiza for a season: Another standout [memory] was one time, I was feeling a bit upset and went to sit by myself on the rocks and brood, when I was joined by an old scraggly hippy-looking Spanish dude who ended up skinny dipping, then coming back out and having a lovely old chat with me about life, love and nature (still naked, of course). His English was rubbish and I could have found it really creepy but the more we talked the more I realized we thought the same way about loads of stuff and could probably be friends. The existence of a much-frequented forum like Spotlight documents the desire of many Ibiza fans to fi nd a more lasting and continuous engagement with what is, to them, a very meaningful place. Steve’s account is typical of many: “As soon as I return from my last visit, I am already dreaming about the next visit—in some cases, I am already booking it! I visit Ibiza Spotlight regularly, particularly the forum section. As they say, it really is the most fun you can have without actually being there!”

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Interview accounts document that conceptualizing affective attachments to Ibiza and its shared sense of community cannot be adequately pursued solely by drawing on research focused on the sensory experience of clubbing or by using accounts of music cultures as neo-tribes.15 To understand the emotive attachments of many visitors to Ibiza, and to start exploring their social and cultural consequences, what is needed is not so much the study of the narrow interplay between musical styles and particular groups or subcultures of importance to musicology and popular music studies, but an approach that considers the wider affective bonds constructed through a series of different experiences, texts and paratexts that include music, clubbing, social networking, mass media representations, interaction between friendship groups and indeed place itself.

PLACE, HABITUS AND “THE SPIRIT OF IBIZA” I propose that a comprehensive framework for understanding such affective attachments to Ibiza can be found in theorizations of fandom, which I defi ne as the “regular, emotionally, involved consumption of a given popular narrative or text” (Sandvoss 2005a, 8)—though, in light of much recent research, it is more accurate to say “engagement” than “consumption.” Bennett is, of course, right to observe that music cultures always reflect an element of choice. Traveling to Ibiza is an elective act, and, on the face of it, the choice of whether one likes, for example, EDM is as idiosyncratic as, say, the choice of a football team, or favorite film. In the context of football fandom, I have described groups of supporters of club teams as “voluntary communities” (Sandvoss 2003, 93) which, just as the prestructured communities Anderson (1991) describes, are imagined in form as well as content: we will never meet all fellow members and as individuals claim membership by drawing on our own individual readings of the values and attributes we imagine that these members share in common. Here lies the important difference between neo-tribes and what I describe as voluntary (fan) communities. Bennett argues that “youth cultural practices in which issues of class, gender and background are no longer the restrictive element they once were and young people creatively use leisure and consumption in the construction of lifestyles” (2004, 131)16 However, I have suggested, not only based on the study of what genres or other objects we are fans of (the form of the imagined community) but also how—in which places, through which practices—our fandom is exercised (as the content of the imagined community), that such voluntary fan communities are, in Bourdieu’s (1984) terms, both structured and structuring. Ample evidence supports this suggestion in the study of Ibiza enthusiasts. While my research design for this study does not allow me to reach exhaustive conclusions about class per se, particular clusters of types of capital indicative of class—as described by Bourdieu (1984)—could easily

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be identified. While studies of youth cultures have often suggested a window of relative economic freedom for young adolescents and it may also be true that economic capital is no barrier of access to regional EDM clubs, access to clubbing in Ibiza is more clearly correlated to economic capital. Visitors from economically strong northwest European countries such as the Benelux states, Scandinavian countries, and fi rst and foremost Britain and Germany are by far the most sizeable groups, not least at a time when visitor numbers from Mediterranean countries such as mainland Spain and Italy have markedly fallen in the wake of the fi nancial crisis (Real 2012). Despite the frequent portrayal of “lager louts” and workingclass youths from Britain descending on San Antonio (see D’Andrea 2007), with superclubs commonly charging entrance fees between €30 and €70, drinks prices far in excess of €10, the economics of such travel suggest that fans are unlikely to come from Britain’s most deprived backgrounds.17 Crucially, the vibe experienced by visitors often extended only to those of comparable economic capital. One group that appeared universally excluded from any sense of community were African migrants working the streets of Ibiza as hawkers, prostitutes or pocket thieves. While some Spotlight users expressed their annoyance with these groups, others stated that if treated respectfully, they presented no problem. In both cases, however, they were perceived as outsiders. Beyond the markers of wider social hierarchies such as economic and educational capital, I observed a degree of stratification in the Ibiza fan community evolving around degrees of “subcultural capital” as outlined by Thornton (1995) in her study of Acid House culture in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Subcultural capital replicates forms of social stratification within subcultures and thus operates in parallel to cultural capital. However, it evolves around a different leitmotif vis-à-vis the relative capital of different taste positions and consumption practices—and their congruence with the wider subcultural ethos–and how it is assessed. In Thornton’s study subcultural capital, drawing on social capital, was an expression of “hipness”—wearing the right clothes, taking the right drugs, owning and listening to white label bootlegs, attending underground raves and clubs. The theme that therefore unites official cultural capital and its subcultural variant is the search for “originality” and “authenticity” as opposed to the false and inauthentic mass culture and commercialism associated with the mainstream. Similar discourses can be observed among Ibiza regulars: frequent clubbers shared a broad consensus about the hierarchy of superclubs with San Antonio-based clubs Es Paradis and Eden18, whose now defunct party Clubland featured DJs associated with mainstream chart success such as Basshunter, Tinie Tempah or N-Dubz, being portrayed as attracting clubbers lacking in subcultural capital, while parties at promotion-light DC-10 were frequently cited fan favorites. Much like the imaginary figures of Sharon and Tracey, as Essex-based “respectable working-class” girls, represented subcultural inadequacy in the early rave scene (Thornton 1995,

130 Cornel Sandvoss 101), so themes of class, gender and age also informed these judgments. In one thread people discussed the shortest time that they had spent in a club. One user reported that he had been begged to go along to Clubland at Eden by his friend who wanted to follow a “a larger lady” he had “met in the West End”, but then decided to leave after five minutes. Other users chipped in confi rming that “the thing that baffled” them was the “higher than average number of overweight people in there.” In the ensuing forum discussion, users speculated somewhat playfully about causes about this perceived correlation between a high Body-Mass Index and Clubland attendance, pointing towards, for example, the number of fast food outlets in the Eden’s vicinity. While the discussion quickly turned from females to “people” a correlation between subcultural capital and gender, age (the Clubland crowd was perceived to be younger than at other clubs) and class was evident, with obesity now frequently regarded as an indicator of social deprivation (see El-Sayed 2012). Further highlighting the paradoxical value system that has informed EDM culture since its beginning—the claims of equality, tolerance and inclusivity which are achieved through forms of exclusion and judgment— another discussion focused on what one user described as “negative vibes towards the vest wearing population.” Some users felt wearing vests (or back-worn caps) was indicative of being a “chav,” a term with clear class connotations (Hayward and Yar 2006). By supposedly promoting aggression and uniformity, vest wearers were seen as failing to recognize the spirit of the island. As one user noted: “Everyone in San An looks exactly the same at the moment. It’s actually ridiculous.” Such comments drew a strong reaction from others. One user said: What happened to that Ibiza where you could be (or in this case wear) whatever you wanted to be without worrying about being judged? It doesn’t matter what you wear but the person under those clothes always does. Another added, “Go and have a good time wearing what you want and not worrying about what others are doing! Surely that’s the spirit of Ibiza!” Tensions between perceived uniformity and subcultural diversity were less easily resolved for others: I must confess all this talk of “People should be free to wear what they want, it’s Ibiza, etc, etc” is lost on me with regard to the vest and baseball hat wearing brigade. The hippy free spirit has surely been shot to pieces when 50% of the crowd are all dressed the same. We would be mistaken to interpret such discourses as forms of cultural hypocrisy—it should be added that many users are equally critical of what they perceived as a growing ‘VIP culture’ on the island driven by

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footballers, celebrities and lesser-known representatives of what Sklair (2000) has described as “transnational capitalist class”. Instead these discourses document how users negotiate and reflect on the inescapable framing of cultural practices whose value systems confl ict with the ubiquitous regimes of (consumer) capitalism. This is not to argue that the non-reductive methodologies of globalization theory overestimate the relative autonomy of cultural spheres. In fact, Ibiza appears to be a case in point. What these extracts demonstrate, is that in every (subcultural) field, hierarchies and value systems, and by extension (sub)cultural capital, are structured through a history of cultural practices and their socio-political contexts. The reference to a “hippy free spirit” is instructive here. In the Thatcherite Britain of Thornton’s (1995) study, ‘hipness’, or ‘being cool’, embodied the neoliberal, individualistic competitiveness that on its surface EDM culture sought to evade. In Ibiza, EDM’s ethos of unity and diversity has found a more conducive cultural framing. Thornton’s (1995) work is part of a body of critical examinations of music subcultures which have illustrated that Birmingham School-inspired approaches overstated the oppositional potential of working class youth cultures as vectors of social change. Similarly, D’Andrea (2007) suggests that it is not working class subcultures, but bourgeois, transnational countercultural formations instantiated in places such as Goa and Ibiza “whose practices foster metamorphic and post-national forms of subjectivity, identity and sociality, as instantiated in semi-peripheral sites of aesthetic-erotic experimentation” (2007, 39). D’Andrea concludes that “the charisma of Ibiza stems from the significant presence of expressive expatriates who have been arriving on the island since the 1930s: artists, naturalists, beatniks, hippies, gays, sannyasins, clubbers and freaks” (2007, 107). He argues that the overt nationalism and ethnocentrism of many young British visitors excludes them from Ibicencan spiritual counterculture and exceptional parties such as La Troya (which over the years has been hosted at Privilege, Space and Amnesia) and Space’s We Love Space “which were able to break through the nationalism that underlies mainstream clubbing [ . . . by] evoking queerness and cosmopolitanism” (ibid.). My research suggests that D’Andrea underestimates the degree to which such values and “Ibiza’s charisma” penetrate more mainstream experiences from the bars of San Antonio to the island’s superdiscos. Space’s We Love Space, for example, remains a favorite of many Spotlight users. Some interviewees also described how they become more immersed over time and developed a greater appreciation of the island’s spirit and music scene beyond San Antonio: I fi rst went to Ibiza in 2003 aged 18 with ten of my friends. None of us were into clubbing at the time with being so young. All we cared about was drinking and women. Fast forward one year and I changed my reason for going back, I still went there for the drink and the women,

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Cornel Sandvoss but now I was starting to get into the club scene in a big way [ . . . ] My second time defi nitely opened my eyes as I went to places like Bora Bora beach and Space when it had the old terrace [ . . . ] This was when I knew I was hooked. Michael I fi rst went in 1997. I didn’t know much about the place [ . . . ] I had just fi nished fi rst year of uni, and it was a typical lads holiday with friends. [ . . . ] Two weeks later I was hooked. Tony

Other participants described how they had listened to other genres of music such as hip-hop or R&B before first traveling to the island and developing their love of EDM and the Ibiza club scene’s more subversive aspects, and how that experience in turn became the starting point of a much broader Ibiza fandom. Standing near a source of light, it is hard to estimate how far it radiates out into the dark: D’Andrea’s underestimation of the reach of Ibiza’s countercultural ethos is possibly inevitable given his focus on global nomads at the heart of this counterculture. However, there remains an important conceptual difference between D’Andrea’s understanding of a sense of home and belonging reflected in countercultures, and the way that I propose to conceptualize these categories in relation to the experience of Ibiza.

ATTACHMENT, MEMORY AND BELONGING To D’Andrea (2007, 107) the seeming insularity of many (young British) tourists prevents an engagement with the Other: “they will only go to British-promoted nightclubs and hang out with ‘mates’ who, as they find out, live in nearby towns back in the UK” and for many “Spain is little more than home-plus-sun.” By drawing on recent conceptual developments in fan and audience studies, I argue that fandom, while based on the engagement with the familiar, inevitably positions the fans’ agency within wider macro structures. As a result many visitors to the island indeed describe having “a sense of home” in Ibiza—but the consequences of this in terms of belonging, and attachment and community membership are more nuanced than D’Andrea suggests. Over the past decade, a number of studies in the field of audience research have shifted the focus from the interpersonal aspects of fandom, such as community, subversion and structuration, to the examination and theorization of the relationships between fans and their objects. My own work on how and why we become fans has suggested that these fan attachments are based on forms of self-reflective reading (Sandvoss 2005a). When discussing their favorite team football fans will commonly, albeit inadvertently, talk about themselves—their values, their life histories, the socio-

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spatial markers of their upbringing and their aspirations (Sandvoss 2003 and 2012a). Their team serves as a form of self-reflection in which they, like Narcissus in the myth carrying his name, are inherently fascinated with an external object that reflects their own image. Furthermore, such fascination is grounded in an inability to see one’s own’s reflection in and through the external object. It is important to note, therefore, that this is not an entropic state of self-love, but, as Marcuse (1967) points out, a process that facilitates empathetic engagement with the object world. The same self-reflective engagement can be observed in areas such as television or film fandom, or even in contemporary political activism (see Sandvoss 2005a; 2007; 2012b) and, not least in their amalgamation, music and place are no exception to this process. The textuality of fan objects is important in this context. Football fans are able to construct readings of their favorite team matching their unrecognized self-reflection because the amorphous textual nature of football clubs allows them to select from a wide range of texts and paratexts. Ibiza is a similarly multilayered textual field informed by mediated representation, peer-to-peer commutation, social interactions, music and topography.19 To the island’s various enthusiasts there are thus many different “Ibizas” and it is precisely because of this quality that many interviewees and Spotlight users—like Narcissus, fascinated by his own image in the water—describe a feeling of discovery followed by an intense emotional reaction to having found something that reverberates with an essence of their selves. One Spotlight user described the “fi rst time I went to Space back in 1997 [ . . . ] They played Ultra Nate’s ‘I’m Free’ and it just brought tears to my eyes. It was a truly beautiful moment.”20 Another user called Russ described his emotions upon hearing a particular song during his fi rst time at Space in 2001: “I knew I had found somewhere I really like.” If meaning in the reading of texts is constructed on the spectrum between text and reader (Sandvoss 2005b), these situations offer a condition in which fans construct meanings from the “text”—the experience of the club, the location, the music being played—that are so closely towards the end of the reader, that their horizons of expectation are fully met, allowing for the narcissistic pleasures of self reflection to arise. Place, music and context feel as if they were made for them. As another user recalled: “my best Ibiza memory is my fi rst time at Amnesia, 12th July 07, and thinking ‘oh my god, is this real?!’” and thinking that my night couldn’t get any better: seconds later Underworld’s ‘Born Slippy’ was played. It was just surreal!” While clubbing played an important role in fans’ memories, they typically constructed their fan object out of the plethora of texts, place and paratexts just described. When Ibiza enthusiasts reflect on their favorite memories, they commonly speak of a blend of different experiences that include clubbing, being in places of natural beauty, forming new connections or relationships, and spending time with friends. Russ complemented memories of his visit to Space with other most memorable events on the island:

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Cornel Sandvoss Sitting on the veranda at Can Marti Agrotourismo listening to the frogs and chickens and ducks. Spending a Sunday eve with loads of folks from off here whilst Danny played a set of a lifetime, including a spectacular version of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”!! Swimming sans speedo at Aguas Blancas with Mrs Russ.

Occasionally, other texts, such as a novel read on the island, even enter the textual field from which these particular, emotively charged readings of Ibiza are constructed. Jordan, for instance, recalled one of her standout memories: [L]ying on a sunbed with my friends nearby, perfect day, perfect view and I was crying behind my sunglasses, ‘cause I’d just got to the end of Grapes of Wrath. I mean I was laughing at myself at the same time, sipping on my mojito and all that . . . it was a crazy juxtaposition that has stuck with me! In the fi rst instance, Ibiza thus offers its enthusiasts a space in which their tastes, beliefs and sense of self are confi rmed: a place that feels intensely personal. The bond between fan and fan object is thus, at its heart, intrapersonal and its affective qualities derive from the fact that the fan object symbolizes an unrecognized projection of self. Part of the pleasures are, as these memories illustrate, of the instant, enthusiastic, and ecstatic kind that Malbon (1999) describes as “oceanic experiences”—indeed, as Marcuse (1956/1998) reminds us, Narcissus, through the act of self reflection, eventually melted into his environment and in death overcame the barrier between the self and object world. However, another part of the emotional quality of the Ibiza experience lies away from the orgiastic, the immediacy of the thrill of party, drug or alcohol consumption, or sex, and is far less ephemeral. It is rooted in the more continuous emotions of affect and belonging, through which Ibiza offers a sense of home and resource to construct and narrate our selves. These memories thus serve a twofold function. First, they are important bookmarks—in fans’ reflexive construction of personal narratives, histories and, by extension, senses of self— that mark a means through which Ibiza enthusiasm becomes a narrative resource in fans’ lifecourses, and marks their identity in the condition of modernity (see Harrington and Bielby 2011; Giddens 1991). Second, the memories foster a sense of attachment and security. Ibiza is experienced as a place where fans’ belong—a form of emotional home, or of Heimat. 21 The notion of Heimat, as “a projective term, describing an imagined relationship between the self and the external world” is thus useful here in highlighting how belonging is constructed through the spaces and places we experience as home. These places are symbolic and textual rather than territorially manifest as they offer a place that “is experienced as inherently related to and constituted through the self; it is one’s place in the

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world, in which place and community become an extension of one’s self, and the self a reflection of place and community” (Sandvoss 2005a, 65). This sense of belonging is well illustrated by an item of clothing frequently worn by visitors to the island: “I LOVE IBIZA” t-shirts (and bags, caps and other memorabilia) which state affection for the island in bold letters and thereby, on closer examination, simultaneously echoes both Fiske’s (1989) analysis and the logic of macro systems of capitalist production. The message of these t-shirts here is unequivocal, albeit possibly rarely reflected upon by their wearers. Syntactically the statement “I love x” is always a projective statement, one about ourselves, rather than the object of love (see Sandvoss 2005a). These T-shirts do not say “We love Ibiza,” or “We are Ibiza,” instead they are an expression of individual affection. Sold in many shops across the island, they are a fi rm fi xture of the tourism souvenir industry which sells commodified memories of place, often cheaply produced in Southeast-Asia. The degree to which the t-shirts express forms of attachment and enthusiasm that are utilized by transnational corporations is probably best reflected by sportswear manufacturer adidias (who has long sought to reach its target markets by associating itself with youth cultures beyond sport through sponsorship deals with musicians from Run DMC to Katy Perry), launching its own “I love Ibiza” range of shirts and trainers in 2007. Subculturally, the “I LOVE IBIZA” t-shirts struggle for approval. As part of Spotlight’s editorial top five fashion tips, males are advised to wear “nothing that says ‘I Love Ibiza,’ because it doesn’t love you back.” However, these mass produced t-shirts are appropriated to express a genuine from of affection that spans beyond place and its commodified form: often worn in groups, they hint at the “other community” that is just as important in the affective attachments that visitors’ form to their fan object. They are a symbol of shared journeys and shared memories facilitated through visits to the island. They serve as an affi rmation of interpersonal bonds formed both outside and within Ibiza, but performed and celebrated on the island. These t-shirts are thus visual markers of the dominant theme in the memories of many frequent visitors: the forming and affirming friendships and relationships. To some, wearing them is about forming new friendships. Jay, for instance, described how he met many people of different backgrounds and developed friendships of various durations. Among his most significant memories he recounted the following: I’ve met people in Ibiza I am still friends with now. I will give you an example. They are a couple now, we all met the same night, and erm, [ . . . ] they are both from Worthing, but they met in Ibiza. Paul and I were in the same hotel and Karen was in the hotel next door and we went to Bora Bora and we met up. They couldn’t believe they were both from Worthing and had never met. Two years later they got engaged, and so I was there when they got engaged, [laughs] so they

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Cornel Sandvoss said “you have to come to our wedding” which was another two years further on [ . . . ] So they got married, now they have kids and we are still friends. They have been married now for eight or nine years.

Similarly, Tony recalls a series of events on the island including the beginning of two relationships, highlighting Ibiza’s indexical function in narrating life over the past thirteen years. In all my trips I’ve ran a whole gamut of emotions and experiences; Been bottled by one of my best (!) mates (‘99); Fell from a motorbike (‘99, same day as above); fell in love and entered into a relationship (2006); exited from said relationship (2007); met a girl (2002) who eight years later I got together with and now live with. That’s aside of all the shenanigans, banter, mickey taking, jokes, scrapes, club nights, drunken laughter, camaraderie with my traveling companions, which frankly I could fi ll a whole book with. Making lasting, close friendships or entering into long-term relationships on the island is not uncommon, but limited to a relatively small group of visitors. Abercrombie and Longhurst’s (1998) fan typology, discussed in Table 8.2, is instructive in explaining such differences. It was notable that those most engaged with their object of fandom tended to build new social ties as part of their fan activities. The “Meet me in Ibiza” section on Spotlight facilitates such meet ups and many regulars on the forum have met while on the island. Among more casual fans communality is instead situated within existing friendship groups. Such groups wish to share their experience of place with those closest to them precisely because of the particular significance that Ibiza holds to them. As one Spotlight user recalled, “I wish I could take everyone there! All of my friends who haven’t been. I often thought that while I was there, the second year ‘oh if only so-and-so was here, they would frickin love this.’” In response, another fan on the forum highlighted the interplay of place, music and memory when discussing motivations to spend one of the most meaningful days of his life on the island: We got married in Ibiza, flying twenty of our closest friends out with us (no family) to experience the Ibiza that we’d been telling them about for years. [ . . . ] On the actual wedding day we ended with a sunset cruise on a luxury yacht—the soundtrack was mixed by us (cd in advance!) of all the tunes which have been special to us and our mates for the last 10 years. At sunset the boat was moored off Cafe del Mar and when the sun dropped like a penny into the ocean it brought a tear to everyone’s eye. As I write this the hairs are standing up on the back of my neck. Taking friends or (new) partners was often described as a particularly significant experience, with users frequently reporting they were excited to

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take their current boyfriend or girlfriend for the fi rst-time. Even more frequently, visiting and revisiting Ibiza with the same friendship group served as reaffi rmation of these friendships. In particular, during times in the life course when shared friendship territories are lost—after leaving school, during university years or following migration in later life due to work or relationships—Ibiza serves as a space in which through place and the rituals of music, party and clubbing, social bonds that otherwise become largely mediated are reterritorialized. Place, friendships and music thus combine into a a space perceived as Heimat. As Jack, after organizing a day trip to Ibiza to share his love of the islands with friends who had not yet been able to visit, recalls: It gave me my most important memory of the island so far to me. We were driving in the car [ . . . ] with three of my best mates, window open, listening to Tiesto—‘I will be here’ full blast, and as we went over the hill and I saw San Antonio I started fi lling up, tears fell from my face. It just hit me there and then, that I won’t ever be truly happy until I live on the island. The relevance of these shared memories of friendship within the spatial frame of Ibiza upon which the experience of Heimat is based, is further underlined by the importance that photography plays to many Ibiza fans. Holiday pictures were often seen as a most prized possession, with the following user being typical in voicing her distress: “I had my money/cash cards and camera stolen last week too . . . money you can earn more of, but all those pictures!!” Illustrating the degree to which fandom is constituted through simultaneous acts of consumption and performance (Abercrombie and Longhurst 1997), the tourist gaze here is not “directed to features of landscapes and townscapes which separate them off from everyday experience” (Urry 2002, 3), but instead centered on documenting the performance of friendship: (group) photos on nights out, at the beach, in town, etc., which are subsequently shared via social networking sites as tokens of memories and signifiers of belonging. Such performances are, of course, tied to the dominance of spectacle in capitalist modernity (cf. Abercrombie and Longhurst 1998; Berger 1972; Debord 1994). However, I believe the Pavlovian reflex of resorting to Baudrillardian rhetoric in describing the significance of photo sharing to many Ibiza enthusiasts, as in Briggs and Turner’s (2012, 84) positively apocalyptic account of young British tourists in Ibiza, who suggest that the image eclipses experience as “the world is captured in the immediacy of the digital camera image more than through actual memory” encouraging excessive behavior with “sinister and brutal consequences”, is based on simplistic effects models lacking empirical grounding. Instead, the data presented here suggests that these virtual social spaces from Facebook to Spotlight are of particular relevance because visits to Ibiza, as I discussed in relation to neo-tribes, do not primarily derive their

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affective significance from constituting a temporary departure (with all its Bakhtinian possibilities) from everyday life, identities and friendships, but instead precisely work by being fi rmly anchored in everyday life in terms of our friendships, identities, communities and musical tastes.

CONCLUSION It remains hard to argue with D’Andrea’s (2007, 78) assertion that “the leisure capital juggernaut of Ibiza” has undercut many of the island’s countercultural roots through “a logic of predatory profiteering.” In such a hypercommercialized environment, the question of whether Ibiza enthusiasm can still facilitate a countercultural engagement with utopian spaces is important but lies beyond the scope of this paper. 22 Nevertheless, however imperfectly exercised in light of the exclusion of the subaltern, the reaffi rmations of friendship and relationship documented here—be they transnational or with those who “live in nearby towns back in the UK”—are an important cultural practice that is informed and shaped by the island’s (partially countercultural) spirit of unity, tolerance and diversity., which evades the complete commodification of place through tourism, entertainment and media industries alike. The “Ibiza experience” is multifaceted, consisting of acts of media consumption, participation, and performance; it is about music as much as about place, about intrapersonal as much as about interpersonal connections. Hence, in contrast to past work on the relationship between music and place, I have not attempted to make any a priori distinction between these two factors. Rather, I have suggested that music and place are both part of the same textual field out of which subjective fan objects are formed. To some fans of Ibiza, EDM constitutes a larger share of the fan object, to others it is less important, rendering attempts to assess their relative importance of music or place in Ibiza fandom of little analytical value. It is in the interplay of the different fields of music and place within which, to many of its visitors, the affective relevance of Ibiza is grounded. By conceptualizing this field of affect as a form of fandom, this chapter has proposed a broader understanding of why Ibiza enthusiasm matters. It is not solely based in the narrow sensory pleasures of clubbing that many past studies EDM cultures have emphasized. Similarly, while there are aspects of resistance and subversion in Ibiza’s EDM culture, these are reflective of transnational countercultures rather than national subcultures and, in any case, offer no exhaustive explanation of its emotional appeal. Furthermore, while it is certainly true that economic, cultural and subcultural capital all shape enthusiasts’ access to the field, recognizing these hierarchies does little to advance our understanding of the emotive rewards of Ibiza enthusiasm. In its focus on fandom, this paper does not seek to make any claims about music or place in and for themselves, but only about the individuals

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for whom they come to matter. In this sense, conceptualizing the interplay between place and music through fandom avoids the misleading discourses of authenticity and autonomy that underscore dominant theorizations of music, emotion and identity, and instead moves towards a socio-historically situated understanding of when music, like other cultural forms—such as place—“provides opportunities for people to make connections with others, to enrich their inner lives, and even in some cases, to enhance a sense of community” (Hesmondhalgh 2008, 341). In the absence of expansive fieldwork on the island, my fi ndings are more reliable towards the most active end of the Ibiza fan spectrum (such as enthusiasts). With this caveat in mind, I propose that the interplay of place and music within the context of Ibiza derives its affective qualities from two interrelated processes: fi rst the fostering of a sense of attachment based on a self-reflective bond of fan and fan object, in which the latter becomes both an articulation of selfidentity and an important temporal structure in the reflexive organization of our biographical narratives; and second, through the creation of a space in which such self-identities are contextualized in a broader social context facilitating a sense of belonging through friendship and community that extend beyond the island. Common to the various approaches to the study of spaces of the consumption of popular music reviewed here, is a recognition of music as a medium that positions acts of consumption as forms of agency within the context of macrostructures and their transformations. Many of these forces are, I think, accurately captured in Zygmunt Bauman’s (2005) notion of “liquid life” that implicitly, via his earlier writing (1992), also informs Bennett’s work on neo-tribes. There is little disagreement over the centrality of consumption within this liquid world—in Bauman’s (2005, 9) words “liquid life [ . . . ] casts all the world and all its animate and inanimate fragments as objects of consumption.” What this study questions is whether Bauman, and by extension Bennett, correctly assume that the increasing liquidity of our lifeworlds—from employment (see Harvey 1990, 2010) and relationships (see Giddens 1993; Beck-Gernsheim and Beck 1995) to geographical mobility and collective identities (Tomlinson 1999)—is reflected in equally ephemeral regimes of consumption. As Bauman suggests: “objects of consumption have a limited expectation of useful life [ . . . ] in the liquid modern world, loyalty is a cause of shame, not pride” (ibid.). The sustained affective engagements with seemingly transient tourist sites documented here indicate a rather different role of emotionally invested forms of consumption. Rooted in feelings of attachment and belonging to place and the communities it accommodates, affect creates a meaningful and lasting bond between self and (fan) object; it is the “love” that connects the “I” to “Ibiza.” While fi rmly driven by a liquid and globalizing world in which the territorial focus of social life is declining, fan love for Ibiza is not an extension of, but reaction to liquid life. Rather than being rooted in the ephemerality of subcultural

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immersion, the pleasures and attractions of the island and its music are located in the permanence and continuity of connections with place and people that fans create in their acts of consumption and performances. To them, Ibiza is, quite literally, an island in a liquid world. NOTES 1. Kevin & Perry Go Large was released in 2000 and directed by Ed Bye. 2. These representations range from radio, via broadsheet and tabloid newspapers, to fi lm and television. Tabloid newspapers across Europe fill their pages with Ibiza-related stories, from those easily fitting Stanley Cohen’s (1973) description of moral panics—such as the particularly sensationalist coverage of The Sun and the Daily Mail surrounding the now defunct Manumission party at Ibiza’s (and the world’s) largest nightclub Privilege, focusing on the party’s liberal inclusion of sex shows, or tourists’ deaths on the island associated with substance abuse (Bryant 2011), to the latest spotting of Reality TV starlets or footballers (Redfern 2012; Moriarty 2012) and consumer tips for cheap accommodation and hotels for the annual opening parties (Bild, 2012); broadsheet papers such as The Guardian offer its readers advice on “how to do Ibiza on a budget” (Claughton 2012) including tips such as “bargain sushi”–a stark contrast to many of the televisual representations of Ibiza in the wake of LWT’s fly-on-the-wall documentary series Ibiza Uncovered (1997), which became the blueprint for the voyeuristic genre of holiday Reality TV (such as the spin-off Greece Uncovered, Club Reps or a decade later BBC3’s Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents) and transformed the tourist from the subject into the object of the gaze. Causing outrage for its depiction of sex and deviance among some British audiences, Ibicencans and expatriates were appalled by what they perceived as the gross misrepresentation of their island in a show that focused primarily on English tourists (d’Andrea 2007). 3. El Divino, the focus of much of d’Andrea’s (2007) research, shut at the end of the 2009 season following its takeover by the Pacha Group. 4. As all posts are in the public domain, throughout the chapter I have included citations illustrating particular themes. However, I have omitted usernames and URLs since no explicit permission for their reproduction was sought from individual users. 5. Overall, 2,260 out of the 17,098 users that registered since October 2004 visited the forum during the year-long period of my study. The forum is also openly available to “lurkers” who are likely to account for a substantive share of visits, given the forum’s total number of views from July 2011 to July 2012 (5.2 million). 6. A superclub is a large, high capacity club associated with its own specific dance entertainment brand. In Ibiza such clubs have included Space, Pacha and Amnesia. 7. See Hammersley and Atkinson (1983), Marcus and Fischer (1986), Clifford and Marcus (1986), Marcus (1994), and Denzin (1989 and 1995). 8. The Daily Mail’s description of teenagers holidaying in the Cretian resort of Malia as “out of their minds on ecstasy (the drug of choice) or cocaine or heroin [ . . . ]. When they’re in this state, many of the tourists grab someone to have sex with. No one bothers with chat-up lines; there’s no need” (Clarke 2008; also see Diken and Laustsen 2004). This focus on substance abuse and sexuality, depicted in almost interchangeable fashion, also occurs in criminologist Briggs and Turner’s (2012) study of British youth in Ibiza.

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9.

10. 11.

12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

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Constructed as an exoticized Other, young tourists are therefore both controlled and used as a space for the projection of thinly veiled repressed drives and desires (see Elliott 1998 and Sandvoss 2005a). Their representation thus offers an implicit critique of modernity and modern life (Jensen 1992). Bellis et al (2000) found no correlation between sexual behavior and substance use in 1999, but reported that 54 % of British holidaymakers aged between 15 and 35 had sex while visiting the island, and 43% of these visitors had more than one sexual partner. Also see Lora-Tamayo et al (2003). See Blackman (2005) for an extended critique of Redhead’s work. While of course the very logic of the focus on sensory experience disregards geographical and social context, comparative studies of Ibiza with, for example, Philadelphia or London confi rm the similarities of EDM events in all three places (Kavanaugh and Anderson 2008). See Muggleton and Weinzierl (2003), Hesmondhalgh (2005), Blackman (2005) and Bennett (2005) for a discussion of Maffesoli’s ideas. Minor inaccuracies, such as highlighting the role of the club Amnesia in the growing attraction of the town of Eivissa, when it is actually located near San Rafael, also indicate a possible lack of fi rst-hand knowledge of the island. David Guetta, Sven Väth, Roger Sanchez, Tiesto and Pete Tong were born in the 1960s; Eric Prydz, Ferry Corsten, Annie Mac, Armin van Buuren and Paul van Dyk, in the 1970s. Nor does the focus on genre and articulation postulated by Hesmondhalgh (2005) provide a meaningful path forward for our purposes, though Hesmondhalgh himself points out that his work is not to be read as another “master concept.” Also see Bennett (1999). Similarly, like the users who frequented the forum, the overwhelming majority of respondents I interviewed and interacted with while on the island appeared to have higher than average educational capital attainment. At the end of the 2012 season it was rumored that at least one of these clubs faced closure and would not reopen the following year. See note 2. The actual title of Ultra Nate’s record is simply “Free.” As I have argued in reference to Rathzel (1994) and Morley (2000), Heimat is less a physical place, and more a construct that links self, life history, place and community and hence is based on imagination and identification alike. Graham St. John (2006) and Bryan Rill (2006) discuss EDM and community, while Roger Aden (1999) has examined fan pilgrimages.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abercrombie, Nicholas, and Brian Longhurst. 1998. Audiences: A Sociological Theory of Performance and Imagination, London: Sage. Aden, Roger. 1999. Popular Stories and Promised Lands: Fan Cultures and Symbolic Pilgrimages. Tucaloosa: University of Alabama Press. Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities, London: Verso. Bauman, Zygmunt. 1992. Intimations of Postmodernity. London: Routledge. . 2005. Liquid Life. Cambridge: Polity Press. Beck-Gernsheim, Elisabeth, and Ulrich Beck. 1995. The Normal Chaos of Love, Cambridge: Polity Press. Bellis, Mark et al. 2000. “Ibiza Uncovered: Changes in Substance Use and Sexual Behaviour Among Young People Visiting an International Night-life Resort.” International Journal of Drug Policy 11: 235–244.

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. 1999. “Subcultures of Neo-Tribes: rethinking the relationship between youth, style and musical taste.” Sociology 33, 3:599–617. . 2004. “Chilled Ibiza: Dance Tourism and the Neo-Tribal Island Community.” In Island Musics, edited by Kevin Dawe, 123–136. Oxford: Berg. . 2005. “In Defence of Neo-Tribes: A Response to Blackman and Hesmondhalgh.” Journal of Youth Studies 8, 2:255–259. Bennett, Andy. 2006. “Punk’s Not Dead: The Significance of Punk Rock for an Older Generation of Fans.” Sociology 40, 1:219–235. Berger, John. 1972. Ways of Seeing. London: Penguin. Blackman, Shane. 2005. “Youth Subcultural Theory: A Critical Engagement with the Concept, Its Origins and Politics, from the Chicago School to Postmodernism.” Journal of Youth Studies 8,1:1–20. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge. Briggs, Daniel, and Tim Turner. 2012. “Understanding British Youth Behaviours on Holiday in Ibiza.” The International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 6, 1:81–90. Bryant, Miranda. 2011. “UK Party Girl Dies of Suspected Ecstasy Overdose in Ibiza Club.” London Evening Standard. July 13. http://www.standard.co.uk/ news/uk-party-girl-dies-of-suspected-ecstasy-overdose-in-ibiza-club-6421655. html Christenson, Peter, and Jon Peterson. 1988. “Genre and Gender in the Structure of Music Preferences.” Communication Research 15:282–301. Clarke, Natalie. 2008. “Sex, Drugs, Booze and Violence: Welcome to Malia, The “Party” Resort Serving Up a Lethal Holiday Cocktail for Young Brits.” Daily Mail, August 1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1040733/Sex-drugsbooze-violence-Welcome-Malia-party-resort-serving-lethal-holiday-cocktailyoung-Brits.html#ixzz27X1Mo6z7 Claughton, Maya. 2012. “How to Do Ibiza on a Budget.” The Guardian. June 22. http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/jun/22/ibiza-budget-formenterabeach-holiday Clifford, James, and George Marcus (eds.). 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cohen, Stanley. 1973. Folk Devils and Moral Panics. St Albans: Paladin. D’Andrea, Anthony. 2007. Global Nomads: Techno and New Age as Transnational Countercultures in Ibiza and Goa. Abingdon: Routledge. Debord, Guy. 1994. The Society of Spectacle. New York: Zone Books. Denzin, Norman K. 1996. Interpretive Ethnography: Ethnographic Practices for the 21st Century. Thousand Oakes: Sage. Dicken, Bülent, and Carsten Bagge Laustsen, “Sea, Sun, Sex . . . and Biopolitics”, published by the Department of Sociology, Lancaster University at http://www. comp.lancs.ac.uk/sociology/papers/diken-laustsen-sea-sun-sex-biopolitics.pdf Elliott, Anthony. 1999. The Mourning of John Lennon. Berkley: University of California Press. El-Sayed, Abduhlrahman, Peter Scarborough, and Sandro Galea. 2012. “Unevenly Distributed: A Systematic Review of the Literature about Socioeconomic Inequalities in Adult Obesity in the United Kingdom.” BMC Public Health: 12:18. Fiske, John. 1989. Understanding Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 1991. . 1992. “The Cultural Economy of Fandom.” In The Adoring Audience, edited by Lisa Lewis, 30–49. London: Routledge. Gaillot, Michel 1999. Multiple Meaning Techno: An Artistic and Political Laboratory of the Present. Paris: Editions des Voir.

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Genette, Gérard. 1997. Paratexts: The Thresholds of Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. . 1993. The Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love, and Eroticism in Modern Societies. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gilbert, Jeremy, and Ewan Pearson. 1999. Discographies. Dance Music, Culture and the Politics of Sound. London: Routledge. Gore, Georgiana. 1997. “Trance, Dance and Tribalism in Rave Culture.” In Dance in the City, edited by Helen Thomas, 73–83. London: MacMillan Press. Gray, Jonathan. 2003. “New Audiences, New Textualities: Anti-fans and Nonfans.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 6, 1:64–81. . 2006. Watching with The Simpsons: Television, Parody, and Intertextuality. London: Routledge. . 2010. Show Sold Separately: Promos Spoilers and Other Media Paratexts. New York: New York University Press. Hammersley, Martyn. 1992. What’s Wrong with Ethnography? London: Routledge. Hammersley, Martyn and Atkinson, Paul. 1983. Ethnography: Principles in Practice. London: Tavistock. Harrington, C. Lee, Denise Bielby, and Anthony Bardo. 2011. “Life Course Transitions and the Future of Fandom.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 14,6:567–590. Harvey, David. 1990. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. . 2010. The Enigma of Capital. London: Profi le Books. Hayward, Keith, and Majid Yar. 2006 “The ‘Chav’ Phenomenon: Consumption, Media and the Construction of a New Underclass.” Crime, Media, Culture 2, 1:9–28. Hesmondhalgh, David. 2005. “Subcultures, Scenes or Tribes? None of the Above.” Journal of Youth Studies 8, 1:21–40. . 2008. “Towards a Critical Understanding of Music, Emotion and SelfIdentity.” Consumption, Markets and Culture 11, 4:329–343. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures, London Routledge. Hine, Chistine. 2000. Virtual Ethnography. London: Sage. Hodkinson, Paul. 2011. “Ageing in a Spectacular ‘Youth Culture’: Continuity, Change and Community Amongst Older Goths.” The British Journal of Sociology 62, 2:262–282. . 2012. “Beyond Spectacular Specifics in the Study of Youth (Sub)cultures.” Journal of Youth Studies 15, 5:557–572. “Hotel-Schnäppchen für die Club-Openings auf Ibiza.” Bild Zeitung. http://www. bild.de/reise/europa/partyurlaub/club-openings-ibiza-24415616.bild.html Jauss, Hans Robert. 1982. Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Jensen, Joli. 1992. “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization.” In The Adoring Audience, edited by Lisa Lewis, 9–29. London: Routledge. Kavanaugh, Philip and Tammy Anderson. 2008. “Solidarity and Drug Use in the Electronic Dance Music Scene.” Sociological Quarterly 49: 181–208. Lora-Tamayo, C. et al. 2004. “The Designer Drug Situation in Ibiza.” Forensic Science International, 140, 2–3:195–206. Maffesoli, Michel. 1996. The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in mass society. London: Sage. Malbon, Ben. 1999. Clubbing: Dancing, Ecstasy and Vitality. London: Routledge

144 Cornel Sandvoss Marcus, George and Michael Fischer (eds.). 1986. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Marcus, George. 1994. “What comes (just) After ‘Post’? The Case of Ethnography.” In Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln, 563–574. London: Sage. Marcuse, Herbert. 1987. [1956]. Eros and Civilization: A Philosophical Inquiry into Freud. London: Routledge. Moriarty, Richard. 2012. “And Carroll Must Score: Andy and England Pals at Ibiza bash”. The Sun, June 30. http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ news/4402688/Andy-Carroll-and-his-England-pals-have-a-ball-at-Ibiza-barbash.html#ixzz26wuFFFa Morley, David. 2000. Home Territories: Media, Mobility and Modernity. London: Routledge. Muggleton, David. 1997. “The Post-Subculturalists.” In The Club Cultures Reader, edited by Steven Redhead, 185–203. Blackwell: Oxford. Muggleton, David, and Rupert Weinzier. 2004. “What is ‘Post-Subcultural Studies’ Anyway?” In Post-Subculturalist Reader, edited by David Muggleton and Rupert Weinzier, 3–23. Berg: London. Pini, Maria 1997. “Cyborgs, Nomads and the Raving Feminine.” In Dance in the City, edited by Helen Thomas, 111–129. London: Palgrave Macmillan. . 2001. Club Cultures and Female Subjectivity: The Move from Home to House. Hampshire: Palgrave. Rathzel, Nora. 1994. “Harmonious Heimat and Disturbing Ausländer.” In Shifting Identities and Shifting Racism, edited by Kum-Kum Bhavani and Ann Phoenix, 81–98. London: Sage. Real, María José. 2012. “Las Pitiüses perdieron sólo en el mes de mayo casi 25.000 turistas españoles e italianos.” Ultima Hora, June 27. http://ultimahora.es/ibiza/ noticia/noticias/local/pitiuses-perdieron-solo-mes-mayo-casi-000-turistasespanoles-italianos.html Redfern, Corinne. 2012. “Millie Looks Amazing in Ibiza with Pro Green, Wearing Nothing but a Hair Bobble Around her Body.” The Mirror, July 13. http:// www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/millie-mackintosh-half-naked-in-tiny1141845 Redhead, Steve (ed.). 1993. Rave Off : Politics and Deviance in Contemporary Youth Culture. Avebury Press: Aldershot. . 1997 “Introduction: Reading Popular Cultural Studies.” In The Club Cultures Reader, edited by Steven Redhead, 1–4. Blackwell, Oxford. Relph, Edward. 1976. Place and Placelessness. London: Pion Limited. Reynolds, Simon. 1997. “Rave Culture: Living Dream or Living Death?” In The Club Cultures Reader, edited by Steve Redhead, 102–11. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. Rietveld, Hillegonda C. 1997. “The House Sound of Chicago.” In The Clubcultures Reader: Readings in Popular Cultural, edited by Steve Redhead, Derek Wynne and Justin O’Connor, 106–118. Oxford: Blackwell. Rill, Bryan. 2006. “Rave, Communitas, and Embodied Idealism.” Music Therapy Today 8, 3:648–661. Ruddock, Andy. 2005. “Let’s Kick Racism Out of Football—and the Lefties Too!” Journal of Sport and Social Issues 29, 4:369–385. Sandvoss, Cornel. 2005a. Fans: The Mirror of Consumption. Cambridge: Polity Press. . 2005b. “One Dimensional Fan: Toward an Aesthetic of Fan Texts.” American Behavioural Scientist 49, 3:822–839.

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. 2007a. “The Death of the Reader? Literary Theory and the Study of Texts in Popular Culture.” In Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, edited by Jonathan Gray, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington, 19–32. New York: New York University Press. . 2007b. “Public and Publicness: Media Sport in the Public Sphere.” In Media and Public Spheres, edited by Richard Butsch, 58–70. Houndmills: Palgrave. . 2011a. “Fans Online: Affective Media Consumption and Production in the Age of Convergence.” In Online Territories, edited by Miayse Christensen, Andre Jansson and Christian Christensen, 49–74. New York: Peter Lang. . 2011b. “Reception.” In Handbook of Media Audiences, edited by Virginia Nightingale, 230–250. Oxford: Blackwell. . 2012a. “From National Hero to Liquid Star: Identity and Discourse in Transnational Sports Consumption.” In Bodies of Discourse: Sports Stars, Media and the Global Public, edited by Cornel Sandvoss, Alina Bernstein and Michael Real, 171–192. New York: Peter Lang. . 2012b. “Jeux Sans Frontières: Europeanisation and the Erosion of National Categories in European Club Football Competition.” Politique Européenne 36:76–101. . 2012c. “Enthusiasm, Trust, and its Erosion in Mediated Politics: On Fans of Obama and the Liberal Democrats.” European Journal of Communication 27, 1:68–81. Saunders, Nicholas. ed. 1995. Ecstasy and the Dance Culture. London: Neal’s Yard Press. Shields, Rob. 1996. “Foreword: Masses or Tribes?” In The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society, edited by Michel Maffesoli, ix–xii. London: Sage. Silverstone, Roger. 1999. Why Study the Media? London: Sage. Sommer, Sally R. 2001. “C’mon to My House: Underground-House Dancing.” Dance Research Journal 33, 2:72–86. St. John, Graham. 2006. “Electronic Dance Music Culture and Religion: An Overview.” Culture and Religion 7, 1:1–25. Thompson, John. 1995. The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press. Thornton, Sarah. 1995. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity Press. Tomlinson, John. 1999. Globalization and Culture. Cambridge: Polity Press. Turner, Victor. 1973. “The Center out There: Pilgrim’s Goal.” History of Religions 12, 3:191–230. Urry, John. 2002. The Tourist Gaze. London: Sage. van Zoonen, Liesbet. 2005. Entertaining the Citizen, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Vermorel, Fred and Judy Vermorel. 1985. Starlust: The Secret Fantasies of Fans. London: Comet.

9

Fan Words Mark Duffett We can all remember our fi rst love, though some have to think back further than others, and the frenzied mixture of excitement, anxiety and pure adrenalin we will never forget. For most, our fi rst love was a crush on an unobtainable individual. For those of us whose fi rst love was Elvis Presley, or any other hopeless object, we know well the longing, the desire to be ever closer to the bee in our bonnet. Like our fi rst love, Elvis was unobtainable yet accessible. Sharon Urquhart (1994, 12)

In her travel guide Placing Elvis (1994), under a section headed “Your Relationship with Elvis,” Sharon Urquhart encourages readers to compare their fandom to a fi rst love. In Urquhart’s prose, Elvis is more than a musician; he is a sweet seducer, someone whose music is a vehicle for intimacy. Expressing her concerns through the discursive framework of parasocial interaction, Urquhart suggests that fans should focus on their hero as a “hopeless object” who is “unobtainable, yet accessible” to those who feel a “frenzied mixture of excitement, anxiety and pure adrenalin” when they think of him (12). In effect, Urquhart asks us to work with the word “love,” to ponder its different meanings and explore how well they fit our experience. When Lynn Zubernis and Katherine Larsen (2012) examined shame—a very different emotion in fans’ personal and collective lives—they understood it as something unspoken and socially repressed. In contrast, “love” is an emotion that is often mentioned in fan conversations. The circulation of the word nevertheless points to something that seems unclear. What does it mean to say you “love” your favorite musician? Can you actually “love” anyone that you have never met? A word as slippery as “love” asks us to think about what we know for sure. In 2003 US Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld famously engaged in what Slavoj Žižek (2006, 52) described as “a brief bout of amateur philosophizing” about the relationship between the known and the unknown. Rumsfeld announced, “There are . . . the things that we know. There are . . . things that we know we don’t know. But there are also . . . things we don’t know we don’t know.” Žižek added a crucial fourth term to this list: the unknown knowns. In other words “the disavowed beliefs and suppositions we are not even aware of adhering to ourselves, but which nonetheless determine our own acts and feelings” (2006, 52). How might those unknown knowns that guide our fannish feelings and behavior be brought to light? One strategy is to consider how particular words are being used.

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In 1976 Raymond Williams strengthened his position as a central theorist in cultural studies with Keywords, a book that used the format of the glossary as an intellectual device to start thinking about society. Word-by-word discussion offered Williams a platform to both summarize the terrain of cultural theory and to extend it. His writing was based on the profound truth that academic thinking primarily takes place through language. The Welsh Marxist began his collection of essays by highlighting how people can sometimes use the same words but not speak the same language (1976 [1983], 11). He meant that speakers not only had different value systems, but also that determining the exact meaning of their words could be very tricky. Keywords are characterized by their duality, in so far that they have a multiplicity of associations and meanings that can become resonant in different fields of speech. Each is important in at least two distinct fields. For our purposes, these fields include everyday usage, fan talk and cultural theory. The vagaries of a word’s meaning are inextricably bound up with the issues that it is used to discuss (1976 [1983], 14–15). Following Theodor Adorno, we might call this the fish-in-water problem: speakers become immersed in particular vocabularies so much that they forget how their keywords can guide and limit their thinking. As an ideological problem, the fish-in-water issue relates directly to the question of how to investigate popular music fan talk: If someone tried to verify the fetish character of music by investigating the reactions of listeners with interviews and questionnaires, he might meet with unexpected puzzles . . . every answer one receives in advance conforms to the surface of that music business which is being attacked by the theory being “verified.” (Adorno 1938 [1978], 285) It could be argued that the fish-in-water problem also applies to the words that we use in the field of academic speech. Previous vocabularies of fan theory have used words that painted research subjects, variously, as intoxicated children, social isolates, pathological out-patients, dreamers, creative rebels, textual poachers, neo-religious cultists and psychological ideal types.1 Each new wave of deductive vocabulary ascribed a very different motive and degree of agency to fans. In some cases, it said as much about the social agenda of its particular paradigm as about the human subjects studied. There are several keywords that have interesting roles in relation to discussions about fandom. One is the term “fan” itself, another is “obsession”; for the sake of brevity here I will focus on a different keyword, “love.” In the thirty-six years since Keywords was fi rst published, academic work in the fields of linguistics and discourse analysis has advanced considerably. My aim here is not to track or get bogged down in the developments, but to simply focus attention on some keywords that might help us rethink fan studies. Using examples drawn from the social phenomena for performers such as Elvis, the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen and others, this chapter will

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use keywording as a heuristic device to consider how we might understand popular music fandom. The emphasis will fi rst be on deconstructing “love” as a prominent fan word, then on suggesting a range of critical terms which may prove more productive.

FINDING LOVE “Love” is a keyword because it gets used so often within fan talk. Academic theory, in contrast, has stopped short of talking about it, despite terms like “affect” and “projection” gaining currency in cultural studies. 2 Inspired by the critical psychology of Blackman and Walkerdine (2001), for example, Matt Hills (2002, 92), has greeted common sense terms like “love” with suspicion, preferring to explore fan activity as “affective play” instead. While I agree with Hills that an uncritical and wholesale translation of fan talk into academic speech is unwise, it may still be useful to remain attentive to fan words in order to shed light on why music lovers adopt particular ways of talking. In everyday speech “love” is a complex and magical term used by everyone from lyric poets to psychologists to describe a felt conviction that reflects the deepest joys of human existence. It is a weasel word that demarcates a whole palette of associated but subtly different emotions that emerge from romantic, parental and platonic motivations. The Oxford Dictionary defi nes “love” in both its noun and verb forms: noun: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

an intense feeling of deep affection. a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone. a great interest and pleasure in something. a person or thing that one loves. (in tennis, squash, etc.) a score of zero. apparently from the phrase play for love (i.e. the love of the game, not for money).

verb: 1. feel love for. 2. like very much. 3. loving showing love or great care. To what extent does fannish use of the term “love” take on a meaning distinct from those outside of fan talk? From the dictionary defi nition we can see that the third noun form and second verb form—having great interest and liking very much—might apply to some fan attachments, yet the other meanings seem relevant too. What happens if we take the fans’ meaning of the word “love” to be deep romantic attachment? In the mid-1950s, Elvis

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himself responded to what was quite likely a marriage proposal in one particularly touching reply to a fan: “Please try to understand that I cannot do what you ask . . . I don’t love you and I doubt if I ever could so please let’s be friends and let it drop there” (Jorgensen 2012, 321). His answer might seem a little naïve in retrospect, but it opens up the question of whether fans have ever actually understood their interests as “real” romance. Beatles fan Carolyn Mitchell (1999, 1), recalled, for instance: We all had one thing in common—we all loved the Beatles. No, I don’t mean we had schoolgirl crushes on them. I mean we loved them. I know I did that. And I was no different from any other fan. That was the thing about The Beatles. They were a bunch of really personable guys who just begged to be loved. It is evident that Mitchell is emphasizing something that is deeply felt and yet remains in question, in so far that even as its intensity is clarified its meaning needs to be explained. Would all fans go as far as Mitchell? Fan passion often seems an exceptional form of love, collectively expressed but open to change and revision. It seems to be a love that is frequently unrequited; perhaps premised on loss; primarily serviced through the partial promises and piecemeal satisfactions of the commodity form. It is a love emergent without traditional intimacy and one that can be transformed by new awareness of the reality of its own object. Yet sometimes it is not really love for a person at all. It is a love for a performance and for the continued pleasure that each performance can bring to the life of the fan. In other words, a conditional love; enthusiasts, after all, can be displeased by their heroes. One example comes from Daniel Cavicchi’s description of how Bruce Springsteen fans booed their hero at a 1993 charity concert. According to Cavicchi (1998, 104), Springsteen was rumored to be reuniting with the E Street Band. When the New Jersey rocker brought out the soul pop singer Terence Trent D’Arby instead, his fans booed him to the point where he cut short his own show. Later a member of the disappointed contingent explained in Backstreets magazine, “Yes, I booed and would boo again. If I wanted to hear D’Arby sing a song I’d go to see one of his concerts.”3 While this moment of critical reception did not entirely ruin the career of the star concerned, other incidents and scandals have cost artists large sections of their fan base. Sometimes stars have lost “love” from audiences as quickly as it was gained. To fall in love means to experience an overwhelming emotional state, but any attempt to rationally engineer a clear and authoritative defi nition of the term is doomed to fail. Rather than a linguistic designation we can only discover the word’s real meaning through a process of emotional knowing. The sign itself cannot, therefore, quite describe what it is supposed to mean. Depending on the perspective from which we see the word, its core of linguistic indeterminacy can either be seen as a problem or something more productive. Vocabularies of passion and bliss become resources to describe

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pleasures that are almost ineffable for many music enthusiasts. Describing musical cognition, Phil Tagg recently commented, “words can act as a sometimes round-about, usually unsatisfactory and often highly metaphorical and acutely connotative yet useful metalanguage.”4 We can apply this idea to the way that fans use words to locate and label their affective states and convictions. Their words become like fig leaves or perhaps even masks, never quite doing justice to their source of inspiration. Fan “love” is comfortably located here as something collective (shared conviction, group passion, energy), but often seems to melt away when its individual dimension is specified as a romantic one-to-one feeling. Rather than a full-blown, personal romance, it becomes framed as a different form of identification (admiration, lust) or an expression of dedication (“a life long love affair,” a sacrifice). After all, how can you truly love someone that you have never actually met? Does it mean that what you are really loving is your idea of them? This dilemma was encapsulated by a fan called Joanne as she proclaimed her love for Barry Manilow in Fred Vermorel’s book Starlust: I always say: “If I could spend one night with Barry I would happily die tomorrow.” . . . That’s how deep I love him. I don’t know whether it is love. It feels like love. But then I’ve never met him. So how can you love someone you’ve never met? It’s incredible, really. It’s something I don’t really understand. But then I wonder if we ever really know what love is. I mean, there’s so many different kinds of love. There’s the love I have for Barry, the love I have for my husband, the love I have for my children. But this, what I feel for Barry, feels like the biggest love affair ever. I don’t know whether it is or whether it isn’t, but it certainly feels like this is what love should be. It’s quite hard to cope with sometimes, this passionate feeling of ultimate love. Some people might fall in love, but I wonder if they feel what I feel. Do they feel the type of love that I feel? I don’t know. I think there’s different degrees of love in different people. (Joanne, in Vermorel 2011 [1985], 20). Joanne’s apparent love for Barry is measured in quantities of time: one night together in exchange for her whole lifetime. In other words, rather than being an ordinary expression of love—where someone might say that they want to spend their whole life with a loved one—Joanne’s declaration is her way of explaining Barry’s importance to her. Combined with her own knowledge of her feelings, Joanne’s estimation of her star’s social importance becomes the defi nitive measure of her love for him.

TOWARDS A NEW VOCABULARY The word “love” points to a deep state of emotional conviction that emerges within, and perpetuates, a specific field of power relations. The

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challenge for fan research is how to analyze assumptions behind such keywords in order to illuminate their role in the affective and ideological world of fandom. Since we cannot not translate “love” seamlessly into theory, our aim should be to fi nd alternative words that recognize and demystify the relevant power relations without reducing the humanity of those occupying any place in the phenomenon. A new vocabulary of critical keywords is needed to help us consider the directed agency of fans within the structures that enable their loving pleasures. Popular music fandom is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that can include social networking, record collecting, dancing, genre appreciation, music making and lending support to famous performers. Each different kind of fandom centers on one or more of these forms of enjoyment. My focus here is on the music lovers who follow star musicians. In this section I will discuss six such words that might help us to further understand this kind of fandom: “symbolic economy,” “knowing field,” “pull,” “collusion,” “counter-performance” and “imagined memories.” Symbolic economy: the perceived movement of power between individuals that can be seen only in its manifestations—for example, at rock concerts. The symbolic economy is really a shared, unspoken understanding, carried around in each fan’s head. It reflects his or her recognition of the artist’s social power and emerges from related assumptions, such as the idea that the star’s talent has “won over” their audience and their success can be measured directly in sales figures. The symbolic economy is rendered visible by its most obvious manifestations: fans’ displays of high emotion as part of the live audience and the high prices they pay for concert tickets. One of the crucial popular keywords here is “energy,” since it references the shared experience of individuals who believe that the star has a high social value. An example of this comes from Take That fan Claire Blake, who wrote about the time she saw the boy band at the NEC in Birmingham in 1994: I cannot imagine nor have I experienced a crowd more excited than a Take That audience before, during and after a concert. The atmosphere is electric . . . By the time the lights fi nally go down for show time the noise is almost deafening. This is it: those five guys you dream about are actually about to walk on stage and you’re going to see them in the flesh! . . . By the time we got home we were still buzzing and we wanted more, but, with all the remaining concerts on the tour sold out, we had to resign ourselves to the fact that for now it was all over. (Blake 2008, 2–3; emphasis mine) Recalling a concert that involved a different music genre, one Led Zeppelin fan described the experience of seeing his favorite band to researcher Susan

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Fast: “Very electric energy bouncing back and forth between the band and the audience. It was a wild feeling. You could almost see the energy, that strong. It was a rushing, goose bumping experience” (Fast 2001, 41). This vocabulary is very common to fans and has on occasion been adopted by academics. Describing “musicking” Christopher Small (1998, 7) explained, “Listeners . . . have an important and acknowledged creative role to play in performance through the energy they feed (or fail to feed), selectively and with discrimination, back to the performers” (emphasis mine). Our duty as researchers is to expose the assumptions behind popular words like “energy” and “electric” since they guide and demarcate the power relations of fan love. One way to get a perspective on some of those words is to consider French sociologist Émile Durkheim’s notion of totemism. In his classic 1912 book Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim examined the social ecology of various Australian clans who practiced totemic religion. He found that those highly religious societies were based on a fundamental division between the secular and the sacred. In a Durkheimian vocabulary, “totems” are special material objects or people that embody the contagious essence of the sacred. Each totem holds the attention of the group and can rouse feelings in constituent members by returning this attention. In more detail, this means, fi rst, that clan members collectively pay attention to the totem which makes him or her feel energized as a center of attention: This unusual surplus of forces is quite real, it comes to him from the very group he is addressing. The feelings provoked by his speech return to him inflated and amplified, reinforcing his own. The passionate energies he arouses echo back to him and increase his vitality. He is no longer a simple individual speaking, he is a group incarnate and personified. (2008 [1912], 158) Second, the totem’s connection to the whole of the congregation can then be used as means of empowering ordinary individuals. In a key moment that Durkheim calls “effervescence,” each emotionally heightened crowd member is given attention by the totem and experiences a life-changing jolt of electricity as they subconsciously recognize a one-to-one connection with such a valued individual. Third, this energy boosts their strength and confidence, in turn; the totem enables individual clan members, in effect, to plug in to the social body on a primal and mysterious level. We should be aware that if a Durkheimian vocabulary is indiscriminately applied to fans, it might cast them in a particular light. Most commercial music is not “sacred” and fans are not a clan of “worshippers.”5 This does not mean, however, that we should ignore the star system and how it works to distribute attention in very particular ways that create specific configurations of human chemistry. Stripping Durkheim’s schema down to a singular mechanism allows us to create as a hypothesis that has little to do with

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religiosity or sacredness, and everything to do with the emotional intensities (affect) experienced in a specific cultural field. What evidence is there for this process? It goes without saying that music stars are centers of attention and that notions of the audience as a measurable collective help us to establish that fact. Industry hype from chart placings to Twitter followings acts as a regular reminder that performers attract vast audiences, and many commentators interpret audience sizes as indications of the artist’s talent or charisma. The symbolic economy is then expressed in the feelings experienced and words used by ordinary music enthusiasts. A fan letter to 1980s pop star Nick Heyward neatly summarizes the immense buzz of a live concert from a fan’s perspective: There you were right in front of us. I couldn’t stop screaming and calling your name. I went all hot and cold and I felt completely drained. The moment I had been waiting for two years had finally arrived. I screamed your name. You looked at me and smiled. (I know you smiled because you looked straight at me.) Well, at that point I went crazy. It was like a dream. (quoted in Vermorel 1985 [2011], 132) The passage is not so much about Nick Heyward’s music as his momentary presence in geographic proximity to this fan.6 Her screams can be read as an attempt to gain her hero’s attention. When it was fi nally gained, she felt overwhelmed with the thrill of receiving something even as momentary as a glance. From this perspective, we can say that fan “love” is a way to describe the shared sense of pleasure and consequent motivation to remain dedicated that arises from the wonderful thrill of totemic attention. Knowing field: an inner space of intense emotional conviction that fans collectively enter into when they notice engrossing aspects of a performance or persuasive elements in its context. Fans do not simply follow the actions of the collective. To be dedicated, each of us has to be convinced of our own personal connection to the performance. When that happens, we enter the “knowing field.” The term orginates from Bert Hellinger’s work in family constellations therapy. Hellinger’s career included a long spell as a Catholic priest and missionary to tribes in Africa. During his work with tribal rituals, Hellinger began to devise a workshop-based form of therapy that allowed individuals or couples to see their family-of-origin traumas embodied by fellow participants: Representatives are chosen for essential family members and are placed in physical relationships to one another . . . The representatives are not asked to “play a role” or to participate in a psychodrama. They are only required to note carefully and precisely what they feel during movements in the constellation. One of the phenomena that occurs is

154 Mark Duffett that the representatives begin to feel movements, feelings and reactions that seem foreign to their own personal lives. These reactions may not be an objective truth about real family members, but they allow hidden dynamics to come out into the open and provide enough information to help the therapist fi nd movements that facilitate healing. (Hellinger 2001, 8) Hellinger himself does not use the term “knowing field,” but it has been widely used to describe the representative’s emotional experience of participating in a constellation. Entry into this field primarily occurs when the participant is asked to become a representative for the duration of the activity. Once he or she agrees to being placed somewhere in the room, it seems that the representative comes to partially embody and incarnate the feelings of the family member for whom they stand. This embodiment is a mysterious and mystical process, an experiential leap that reflects a change of heart and temporarily reconfigures aspects of the representative’s personal identity. Entry into the “knowing field” is not a case of pretending for the sake of others (performing) or losing your mind by being taken over (total possession). Instead it reflects participation in a process that prompts each participant to redefi ne his or her subjectivity upon discovering something that he or she is already about. In the case of family constellations therapy, the representative feels moved by their role in the drama because it resonates with their own family trauma. They are asked to participate, but they are not “acting” in the theatrical sense; they are emotionally moved by their placement as a substitute in someone else’s story. In the case of following popular music stars: the assumptions contained in the symbolic economy, when coupled with the appeal of a star’s stage performance for us as individuals, prompts our entry into the knowing field. We become fans. We fall in love. In other words, there are two dimensions to the process: the star must convince us that they are both popular and that we might feasibly have a special connection with them as individuals. For this reason, popular music performance is often about charisma, style, sex appeal, emotional vulnerability, virtuosity, affinity and intimacy. While fandom is not a tribal ritual, fans are not in need of therapeutic “healing,” and fandom has no obvious relationship to family dynamics, I think that a loose borrowing of the “knowing field” idea helps us capture one of the most important aspects of popular music fandom: that it is not just a performed role, but rather a means of entry into a space of affect (emotional conviction) where one’s experience of something strong and positive seems highly personal and yet more than individual, since it has a direction and intensity that is shared many others. In this formulation, fandom is partially the product of individual suggestion: a reaction to hidden, and not so hidden, ontological assumptions, social dynamics and cultural resonances. Different forms of fandom entail different modalities of emotion. The “knowing field” is a terrain of affect, in each case bounded by a

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threshold of passion. Once that threshold has been exceeded, one realizes that one has come to know and love the artist. If adapting Durkheim’s mechanism of totemism can help explain some of the emotional rewards of following celebrities, then, in several ways, the notion of a shared “knowing field” can also help to further explain personal fandom. First, the idea allows us to see that fannish emotions are both produced and in turn productive. In other words, they emerge from assumptions adopted and fulfilled, but which can also go on in turn to shape a variety of other things, from individual behavior to fandom’s collective “moral economy.” Second, the idea helps us to recognize that our personal passion for a particular object can involve both a process of emotional change and a residency on a territory of affect. By a process of emotional change, I mean the feeling of making an affective shift: traversing a threshold that separates casual interest from fan engagement. This change can be thought of as the would-be fan surpassing an emotional base line, but also by understanding that individuals can (and may well) later cross back in the other direction as their fannish interests begin to wane. Fandom thus becomes a shared but internal territory of affect across which individuals can traverse or in which they can settle. Many people enter this field, some depart and others come back. A number just linger on the border and remain casual fans. Whether it happens quickly or gradually, entrance into the knowing field combines a feeling of being both overwhelmed and empowered. Here, for example, is Safraz Manzoor’s account: Having stumbled in the dark for so long, on that September night I was blinded by the light. Everything significant that I did or achieved in my life in the years that followed had its roots in the emotions that I experienced that evening. That night Bruce Springsteen changed my life. (2008, 93) Manzoor’s declaration is interesting in so far that it reports an emotional shift that is associated with a revelation of knowledge. Phrases like “blinded by the light” have become associated with religion, but if we can find ways to describe fan experience as a secular activity, then we can remove the problematic assumptions that come with such terminology (see Duffett 2003a). Although fans like Manzoor enter the knowing field in private, they do so through engagement with mass commodities. Since live events are manifestations of collective residency in the knowing field, they can also help to affirm the social value of the performer by visibly manifesting it. Pull / Proximity / Propinquity: the way in which getting closer to an icon intensifies feelings of pleasure. In their role as celebrity followers, music fans frequently seek greater intimacy with their heroes. A desire to know more and get closer is evoked by

156 Mark Duffett the process. If we are to really understand fan love, such desire needs to be recognized in theory. Echoing the letter to Nick Heyward in Vermorel’s book, Beatles devotee Carolyn Mitchell (1999, 18) reported: For most fans going to a concert was not so much a case of going to hear the songs—you heard very little music anyway above the din—but to get as close as they could to the four boys they loved. Talking about proximity rather than, say, pilgrimage, helps us to steer away from the connotations of servility and misguided religiosity that can come along as its accompanying baggage. It may also be true that gravitational pull can begin with an urge to get the star’s attention and discover what they are really like, but—if the wish is fulfi lled—ensuing encounters can sometimes end in moments of hyper-real disbelief. Throughout this process, the fan is constantly growing in their understanding and recalibrating their estimation of their object; if their relationship with a star becomes equal for any extended length of time, they may also experience a shift in the power relation and change their estimation once again. When fans stay within the bounds of their role, however, a brief contact with their star can be an immensely thrilling experience. In his book Fanclub (1998), Barry Divola describes the experiences of an Australian Michael Jackson fan invited up on stage during a rendition of “You Are Not Alone,” following a prior request she made on camera. After she danced with her hero, Loretta Tornay recalled: I was just standing there and he kneeled at my feet. I looked over to my left and there were 50,000 people, and there’s Michael Jackson kneeling at my feet. I couldn’t take not touching him when I knew I could, so I leaned down and grabbed him and pulled him up . . . I was talking in his ear going, “I love you. Thank you very much.” And he said, “I love you.” (quoted in Divola 1998, 189–190; emphasis mine) Loretta achieved more than her goal of meeting Michael. She framed her encounter with him in terms of a temptation to touch. Her desire for closeness did not arise magically from the celebrity himself, however. Instead, the act of getting closer was pre-meditated and emerged from an estimation of Michael Jackson’s social worth—verified here by the mention of 50,000 other people who watched their encounter. Loretta’s encounter with Michael may have been perceived as a utopian moment by anyone in the crowd who was convinced by Michael’s aura. She therefore functioned as a token figure, someone who represented all of the fans by doing something that they wished they could have done. Collusion: the process by which fans take action in order to maximize their pleasures by fulfi lling roles or interacting with other agents.

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Loretta’s encounter with Michael suggests that performers and fans can collude in a process of interaction that reinforces each of their respective social positions and heightens their mutual pleasure. Her stage encounter with him on stage did not diminish the audience’s attention to him, even though—for a moment—he gave that attention symbolically to her, by kneeling at her feet. Thinking about fan activity as collusion avoids the twin traps of being blind to the agency of fans and uncritically celebrating participatory culture. Indeed, it allows us to see how people use their agency to maximize the rewards of their structural position. One example happened in January 1976 when two female Elvis fans shipped themselves to Graceland in a wooden gift box that supposedly contained Russian Wolfhounds (Yancy 1977, 285). The students involved were colluding with their invited role as fans, even if they were doing so in an unusual and perhaps unwelcome way. Collusion is not collaboration: it suggests neither equal partnership nor any other form of equality in the cultural realm. Instead, it implies a certain degree of complicity and co-operation on a terrain of unequal power relationships. This becomes especially interesting when fans interact with external agencies, such as the State or media, in pursuit of their goals. Music fans can be supporters, consumers, marketers, producers, curators, experts, networkers and tourists. They collude with external agencies in all of those roles in order to facilitate and extend their own pleasures. Thinking about this activity allows us to break away from simplistic dichotomies which see fandom only as either seeming inactivity or resistance—in Fiskean terms “mass” or “popular” culture—because collusion focuses attention instead on the ways in which fans participate in various hegemonic activities and moments. A focus on collusion allows us to see how important cultural activity can sometimes take place, for example, within a context of commercial interaction. Without unduly celebrating capitalist production or consumer sovereignty, it lets us jettison the questionable idea that says fans are only worth considering if they contest the culture industry. Counter-performance: helps us to consider how fans interact with the performative templates set by their favorite texts or performers (and vice versa) so that they unlock the pleasures associated with the roles that they have assumed. Daniel Cavicchi (1998, 188) once described fandom as a “role born in rock music performance” and it is interesting to explore what this means in relation to fan love. Key figures in the media acquire their reputations through performance and their fans often counter-perform in response. They listen to the anthems, sing along, play air guitar and dance to the music. These lively practices can be suggested by performers, discovered by fans, or mutually reached for by the performers and their audiences alike. The crucial thing is not how they arise, but that they can give fans a way to amplify the emotional rewards of their pre-existing participation

158 Mark Duffett in the performance. As well as responding to music or spoken invitations, counter-performing can also mean supporting a performer as one might do a loved one. Describing the moment when the “quiet” Beatle, George Harrison, turned 21, Tim Hill recounted: George’s birthday was marked by thousands of fans whose cards and presents filled 52 mail sacks, keeping the local postman busy. For the most part, fans sent him jelly babies—which he had confessed were his favorite sweets but all sorts of gifts were sent including guitars, cakes, cigarettes and toys; one fan even sent him a full sized door to put his 21st birthday key in. (2012, 22) Fans’ gifts to George were not simply ways of telling him that he was loved; by responding to his personal preference for jelly babies, his admirers were following the lead set by George himself. There are many other examples of this process, such as the way in which Lady Gaga’s fans lift their “paws up” and demonstrate their status as “Little Monsters.” By making such gestures, fans are able to socially perform their passion and establish a public association with a celebrity in a way that shows their solidarity with the rest of the fan base. Imagined memories: are spaces of imagination and desire constructed from fan estimations of the pleasure of experiencing key moments in popular music history. One way of getting closer to a famous musician is to imagine the thrill of attending their earliest performances. Discussing the way that fans watched the webcast of Paul McCartney’s return to the famous Cavern Club in 1999, I adopted the term “imagined memories” to describe socially prized moments which take the shape of past experiences enjoyed by early listeners or fans (see Duffett 2003b). Being there when the Beatles played the Cavern is a good example of an imagined memory. By 1999 only a miniscule fraction of the Beatles’ fan base had directly experienced those early performances in Liverpool, yet most fans strongly desired the pleasure of such legendary experiences. Logically, their “imagined memories” reflected a contradiction: it was primarily what the Beatles later became that made the early performances matter so much. In effect, original audience recollections had created a feeling in contemporary audiences that combined envy, desire and “nostalgia.”7 This resonance does not represent a total fantasy, because it was actually experienced by members of the original audience at the Cavern. Not everyone, however, possesses this “real” memory. Because it specifies an experience that later fans can only wish they had, it has a rarity value and can prompt “imagined memories.” These “memories” are really therefore desires for a past experience that draw upon recollections of an early career performance to authenticate itself. The term points to the

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paucity of phrases like “cultural memory” in describing popular music’s past: for a few people, those early memories are real enough, though even their memories have been inflected by the subsequent understandings that are shaped by wider acclaim for the artist. Imagined memories are spaces of emotional investment that consequently function as commodity templates. They become starting points for further heritage commodities such as media documentaries, anniversaries, tours and re-enactments. Fan love therefore has the capacity to shape social and historical understanding.

“NOT SOMETHING YOU CAN BUY” A keywords approach helps us think about the meanings of “love” as a prominent term in fan talk. Since we cannot, by adopting a word, translate the structure of feeling that it represents, I have suggested additional terms to help us discuss loving fandom and its world of shared experience. Finally, I will return to “love” in order to explore its efficacy as a word in fan discussions. If the meaning of the term is so ambiguous, why do fans use it? Is it because they have no other labels for their feelings? What characteristics of the word make it so useful? My fi nal assertion is that attention to “love,” in the context of music fandom that relates to celebrity, inevitably returns us to totemic social systems. One answer to the question of why fans use the term can be drawn from how they use it. It is crucial to note here that holding a state of emotional conviction is not the same as displaying a level of cultural capital. Indeed, the fannish pleasure of “sitting too close to the text” has itself been seen as offending refined sensibilities (see Jenkins 1992, 60–61). Fan love can make people shift from cool to uncool objects. As Caroline Sullivan (1999, 20) put it in her memoir about loving a 1970s boy group, the Bay City Rollers: “My entire Rollermaniac career was a struggle between knowing that they were no Led Zep and loving them anyway.” If one remains focused on the semiotic meanings of “love,” it becomes hard to separate fans from ordinary audience members. In his ethnographic study of Bruce Springsteen, Daniel Cavicchi observed, “This distinction, from the point of view of fans, is clear enough, fans have a connection to Bruce Springsteen that non-fans do not. However, in reality, the distinction is far more ambiguous and difficult to pin down” (1998, 87). While fandom is associated with a range of objects and types of attachment, as something that indicates an intensity of connection, love’s meaning is much more specific. The word encourages us to think about a depth of shared emotion: it means intense feeling, deep attachment, great interest. Its usage therefore facilitates the construction of a communal social body—the fan base—that conceptually unifies a diverse range of interests, attachments and readings. Love becomes collectivized as a central element in the bonding of an imagined community. The existence of this community then has further import, for example as a premise for totemism. Associated with the

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idea of love as a premise for community membership is the notion that love can be protective or redemptive, about caring, ownership or possession (see Ahmed 2004, 123–128 and 135). Here Elvis, Springsteen or Lady Gaga become “ours” as fans confer a kind of ambassadorial or serving function upon them. We love our heroes. The word marks a depth of devotion that identifies the boundary of passion through which fandom is recognized. Love is therefore a boundary word. It defi nes the edge of the knowing field through which fans self-identify: if you quite like a recording artist then you are not a fan, but if you love them you are one. 8 Since stars are complex semiotic constellations, the hooks and objects of fan love can almost be as varied as the fans themselves. Yet by using the term “love,” fans avoid having to specify a particular meaning, reading, or mode of identification. The category subsumes all manner of positive identifications that can include admiration, affection, affinity, lust, appreciation or a recognition of creativity. Indeed, rather than star-crossed lovers, fans often imagine themselves as the friends of their heroes.9 In a social context, “love” can simultaneously encompass both deep subjective convictions—from sexual passion to spiritual sanctity—and a shared sense of community. To discuss this process, I will return to Elvis Presley and his remarkable fan phenomenon. There is evidence that Elvis relished the thrill of the live encounter. Jerry Schilling (2006, 29) once described his friend’s live show in Memphis by saying, “there was a buzz and an energy.” In the documentary Elvis: His Best Friend Remembers (Moloney, 2002), Joe Esposito, who was the star’s road manager for many years, explained that Elvis would request to go on tour because he so enjoyed the adulation of his fans.10 The use of “love” by fans therefore reflects both the attention they gave to Elvis and what they received from him. Its verb form implies the doing of an action of loving. Loving reflects a process of exposing and of giving, its role being to create a closer bond. On a personal level, love can imply a moment of vulnerability or, to put it another way, an evasion of responsibility. It is a state that is not earned, achieved or calculatedly entered. One falls, is overwhelmed, besotted, intoxicated: lovesick. While it implies something more natural and less debilitating than an addiction—in love one is still responsible for what one does with one’s feelings—it still suggests a shift of emotional state and change in personal autonomy. All emotions are energies in motion within the individual; they function as personal guidance mechanisms. Fans want to get near to their favorite performers, in part, because those individuals have high social status (see Ferris and Harris 2011). A bit like Prince Charming in the Cinderella story, famous musicians can confer value and privilege on those whom they personally favor. A dedicated fan summarized his understanding of Elvis’ love on the DVD documentary Elvis: True Stories (Barton, 2004): Elvis will always be part of my life because there was something that he gave me that no one else really could give me. You can’t really put your

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finger on it, but you know there’s a love that he had for you, even though he may not really know who you were, or anything of that order. But yet you have a closeness with him . . . Elvis is love in all ways. In a similar vein, according to another of the star’s friends, Marty Lacker, “love” was the emotional currency through which Elvis realized his magical brand of entertainment: He just cared for people. He said, “If it wasn’t for my fans, man, I just wouldn’t be where I am today and have the things that I have, so I thank them.” The best way he thanked them was to entertain them and make them feel loved, and that’s what he did with his music. He made them feel that somebody in this world loved them.11 Lacker’s assumption that fans felt otherwise unloved by others is questionable. Many of them had happy relationships—some with partners they met through the Elvis community—so his claim seems open to debate. Nevertheless, since Lacker’s statement registers that fans often perceive Elvis’s music as a form of love, it begins to convey the “power of Elvis” with some clarity. Even in the lives of more ardent devotees, personal meetings with iconic musicians are rare.12 There are always many more followers than a star has time to encounter. In this sense, fan love has a beseeching function. As the journalist Lesley Gardner once put it, “Love begins by giving and ends by asking” (2007, 239). Much loved stars are requested to somehow be loving in return, hopefully on an individual basis. From Elvis Presley’s early concerts at the Eagle’s Nest club in Memphis, August 1954, the singer was marketed as a seductive lady’s man. The thrill of potential intimacy with him was amplified by his growing celebrity on one side, and his shy, humble, working class persona on the other. Fans who found the combination hard to resist were likely to dream about meeting him. Many sent correspondence. Perhaps we should understand their posted marriage proposals, however, as examples of audition: one of many methods used in attempts to secure the star’s attention. As one of Elvis’s aides, Alan Fortas, noticed about the females waiting outside Graceland, “Every one of ‘em was convinced that if she only got a few minutes with him, he’d know she was the one for him” (Hopkins 1971, 190). In her editorial introduction to the book Theorizing Fandom, Cheryl Harris said, “In the past much of the literature has tended to examine fan practices closely but has not successfully integrated existing or new theoretical models into explanations of why fans do what they do” (1998, 4). In this chapter, I have suggested that such integration might depend upon a renewed attention to vocabulary. A keywords perspective allows us see that “love” gives fans a way to self-identify, to naturalize their passion, and to feel united as part of a fan base. Ultimately, talking about it marks out a social relationship that is beyond commerce. Morrissey, a singer who has

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always taken the most jaundiced view of love, explained to one interviewer in November 1984, “Communication with an audience is not something you can buy” (Morrissey in Robertson 1988, 15; emphasis mine). Morrissey’s words recall the Beatles’ hit, “Can’t Buy Me Love.” Talk of love therefore allows fans to establish a collective social body based on shared passions that elevates their relationship with performers to something beyond the level of a commercial transaction. Rather than uncritically transferring the term “love” into the realm of fan theory, I have suggested several new keywords, from “symbolic economy” to “imagined memories,” which might help us to illuminate the suppositions behind some types of pleasure. NOTES 1. See Horton and Wohl (1956), Adorno (1938 [1978]), Vermorel (1985 [2011]), Jenkins (1992), Hills (2002) and Sandvoss (2005). 2. For a discussion of “affect” in relation to fandom see Grossberg (1992). Sandvoss (2005, 79) also explores the relationship between fandom and projection. The emphasis of such studies is on transferring universal processes to the analysis of a distinct cultural phenomenon. 3. The Backstreets quotation is reproduced from Cavicchi (1998, 105). 4. Tagg’s comment was made in an email to the IASPM newsgroup list in 2010. 5. There are exceptions to the idea that popular music is sacred such as the gospel tradition and Christian music. These need more investigation in relation to totemism. What I am suggesting here is really that even if the term “sacred” registers the affective charge of fan objects, it has been too readily and loosely adopted by some theorists (see Duffett 2003). 6. That is not to lament, however—as many do—that commercial performance relegates “real” music. Rather, music is widely understood as the premier vehicle for performed intimacy, so the choice is not between “real music” and “stardom.” Indeed, defi ning the choice in that way is a way to dismiss fans as a manipulated, unappreciative audience. 7. Like “memory,” in its strictest meaning the term “nostalgia” is inaccurate when describing imagined memories: nostalgia means a yearning after a life once led that is now lost. Imagined memory suggests “return” to a moment that one has not actually experienced. I draw attention to this not to suggest that fans cannot distinguish fantasy and reality (of course they can) but to show how an affective realm is created and shared between fans. 8. Shared “Love” can quickly become a socially performed motivation (“I did it for love,” “In the name of love”) or an injunction (“If you really loved the Beatles, you would . . .”). 9. See Mitchell (1999, 76 and 84) and Sandvoss (2005, 58) for examples of fans talking about object identification as a form of friendship. 10. Common counter-arguments to the idea that Elvis toured because he loved his fans suggest that he was treated as a commodity by his manager and increasingly exploited. Certainly, Elvis’s total number of days that he devoted each year to performing live increased just before his death, but whether he was over-worked or compensating is hard to say. 11. From the DVD documentary, Elvis: True Stories (Barton, 2004). 12. Ferris and Harris (2011) remind us that fans seek out actual encounters with stars and very carefully stage them. Nevertheless, star performers are still

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defi ned by their mediation; most fans do not meet them for personal conversation face to face on a regular basis.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adorno, T. 1938. “On the Fetish Character in Music and the Regression of Listening.” In The Essential Frankfurt School Reader, edited by Andrew Aranto and Eike Gebhardt, 270–299. Oxford: Blackwell, 1978. Ahmed, Sara. 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. New York: Routledge. Blackman, Lisa, and Valerie Walkerdine. 2001. Mass Hysteria. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Blake, Claire. 2008. Mad About the Boys: My Life as Take That’s Biggest Fan. London: John Blake. Cavicchi, Daniel. 1998. Tramps Like Us: Music and Meaning Among Springsteen Fans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Divola, Barry. 1999. Fanclub. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin. Duffett, Mark. 2003a. “False Faith or False Comparison: A Critique of the Religious Interpretation of Elvis Fan Culture.” Popular Music and Society 26, 4:513–522. . 2003b. “Imagined Memories: Webcasting as ‘Live’ Technology and the Case of Little Big Gig.” Information, Communication and Society 6, 3:307–325. Durkheim, Émile. 2008. [1912] The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fast, Susan. 2001. Houses of the Holy: Led Zeppelin and the Power of Rock Music. New York: Oxford University Press. Ferris, Kerry, and Scott Harris. 2011. Stargazing: Celebrity, Fame and Social Interaction. New York: Routledge. Gardner, Lesley. 2007. Everything I’ve Ever Learned About Love. London: Hay House. Grossberg, Lawrence. 1992. “Is There a Fan in the House? The Affective Sensibility of Fandom.” In The Adoring Audience, edited by Lisa Lewis, 50–68. London: Routledge. Guralnick, Peter. 2000. Careless Love. London: Abacus Books. Harris, Cheryl, and A. Alexander. 1998. Theorizing Fandom: Fans, Subcultures and Identity. Cresskill: Hampton Press. Hellinger, Bert. 2001. Supporting Love—Bert Hellinger’s Work with Couples: How Love Works in Couple Relationships. Phoenix: Zeig, Tucker & Theisen Hill, Tim. 2012. The Beatles: Beatlemania 1963–1964. Transatlantic Press: Croxley Green. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures. London: Routledge. Hopkins, Jerry. 1971. Elvis: A Biography. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Horton, Richard and Donald Wohl. 1956. “Mass Communication and Para-social Interaction: Observations on Memory at a Distance. Reproduced in Participations 3, 1. http://www.participations.org/volume%203/issue%201/3_01_ hortonwohl.htm Jorgensen, Ernst. 2012. Elvis: A Boy from Tupelo. Memphis: Sony Music / FTD Books. Manzoor, Safraz. 2008. Greetings from Bury Park: Race, Religion, Rock’n’Roll. London: Bloomsbury. Mitchell, Carolyn. 1999. All Our Loving: A Beatles Fan’s Memoire. London: Robson Books. Robertson, John. 1988. Morrissey in His Own Words. London: Omnibus Press. Sandvoss, Cornel. 2005. Fans: The Mirror of Consumption. Cambridge: Polity.

164 Mark Duffett Schilling, Jerry. 2006. Me and A Guy Named Elvis. London: Gotham Books Small, Christopher. 1998. Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening. Hanover: Wesleyan University Press. Sullivan, Caroline. 1999. Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair with the Bay City Rollers. London: Bloomsbury. Vermorel, Fred. 1985. Starlust: Secret Lives of Fans. London: Faber and Faber.2011. Williams, Raymond. 1976. Keywords. London: Fontana, 1983. Yancey, Becky. 1977. My Life with Elvis. New York: Warner Books. Žižek, Slavoj. 2006. How to Read Lacan. London: Granta.

10 Record Collecting and Fandom Roy Shuker

In July 2011, a collection of photographs of the Beatles sold for $360,000, USD, at a prestigious auction at Christies in New York.1 These never-before seen photographs were of the group’s first US concert at the Washington Coliseum, on February 11, 1964, two days after the group’s famous debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. Washington teenager Mike Mitchell took the photos just meters away from the band, and the sale consisted of fifty silver gelatine prints he made from the negatives. The prints were sold individually at Christie’s auction house, with the top price of over $68,000, USD, paid for a backlit photo that Mitchell took while standing directly behind the Fab Four. Cathy Elkies, Director of Iconic Collections at Christies, commented: The auction was an outstanding success. Christie’s clients sat shoulder to shoulder in the packed saleroom as each of these beautiful and once unknown images were auctioned off, becoming part of the iconic Beatles history. We were honored to present Mike Mitchell’s works and to witness the excitement that the Beatles still inspire all these years later. The auction was widely reported in the media, and illustrated the continued intense interest in the sixties pop group. Currently, in July 2012, there are over a thousand Beatles items for sale on eBay in the ‘records’ category alone. While most listings are for recordings—including various box sets— there are also promotional items, signed memorabilia, and dedicated magazines. The top starting price ($1,700, USD) is for the display-top image of the group from a mid-1960s retail promotional stand for Beatles records. A good many of the items have bids, with a few showing fierce competition among a number of keen bidders. Are those making such purchases “fans” of the group? In some cases, yes, although most tend to rather describe themselves as “collectors,” or “music lovers.” What distinguishes the record / music collector from the fan? Is the collector simply an aging fan, recollecting youthful passions? Are the two social categories in practice conflated, or are there clear distinctions to be made between them? Drawing on a fuller study of record collecting as a social practice (Shuker 2010), this chapter seeks to address these questions. Unless otherwise indicated,

166 Roy Shuker all quotes from collectors in the chapter are taken from interviews (usually via email) conducted by the author. Essentially, I consider the “record collector” and the collecting process as distinct forms of fandom. My argument is that, while the two groups—fans and record collectors—have a good deal in common, collecting is, by and large, a more focused and intellectually rationalized activity than fandom. Further, the money outlaid on collecting purchases, suggests an underpinning or additional investment motivation on the part of the buyers, moving them beyond most fans. I begin with a brief discussion of fandom, and, with some reference to this, consider record collecting. I will then turn to the illustrative case of The Beatles.

FANDOM Popular music fans are usually defi ned as those who avidly follow the music, and lives, of particular performers, and specifi c genres, with various degrees of enthusiasm and commitment. Fandom is the collective term for the phenomenon of fans and their practices: attending concerts, collecting recordings, putting together scrapbooks, fi lling bedroom walls with posters, and discussing the star with other fans. In 1991, Lewis could correctly observe that although fans are the most visible and identifi able of audiences, they “have been overlooked or not taken seriously as research subjects by critics and scholars” and “maligned and sensationalized by the popular press, mistrusted by the public” (Lewis 1992, 1). Fan behavior was often described as a form of pathology, and the terms applied to it had clear connotations of condemnation and undesirability, as in the use of “Beatlemania” to refer to teenage fans of the Beatles in the 1960s. Since Lewis wrote, studies of fandom have been a growth point in popular music studies. However, while academic discussions emphasize a less stereotyped image, the popular view of fans has arguably not changed much. This continues to reflect the traditional view of fandom, situating it in terms of pathology and deviance, and using the term “fans” primarily for teenagers who avidly and uncritically follow the latest pop sensation. As Nick Hornby’s novel High Fidelity (1995) suggests, a similar labeling process can be seen in the tendency to associate record collecting with paradigms of obsession and addiction, arrested adolescence, and social awkwardness. Current academic studies of popular fans and fandom reflect the increased theoretical and conceptual diversity of fan studies more generally (see, for example, the contributions to the edited volume by Gray, Sandvoss, Harrington 2007). Fandom is now regarded as an active process and complex phenomenon related to the formation of social identities, especially sexuality, and offering its participants membership of a community not defi ned in traditional terms of status:

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[In fandom] moods and feelings become organized and particular objects or personas take on significance. By participating in fandom, fans construct coherent identities for themselves. In the process, they enter a domain of cultural activity of their own making which is, potentially, a source of empowerment in struggles against oppressive ideologies and the unsatisfactory circumstance of everyday life. (Lewis 1992, 3) Most fans see themselves as part of a wider community, even if their own practices are “private” individual activities, undertaken alone. Hills distinguishes “cult fandom” as a form of cultural identity, partially distinct from that of the “fan” in general, related to the duration of the fandom concerned, especially in the absence of new or “official” material in the originating medium or persona (Hills 2002, x). Such a conception can be usefully applied to the concept of the “record collector,” whose affective (and economic) investment in the collecting process is often maintained over a considerable period: many record collectors were originally youthful fans of the performers and styles of music they now collect. Beyond possible empowerment, popular music fandom as a form of cultural activity has a number of pleasurable dimensions often common to both fans and record collectors: dance and its associated rituals of display and restraint; the anticipatory pleasure of attending a concert or playing a new purchase; the sheer physical pleasure of handling records / tapes / CDs; the pleasure of fi nding that rare item in a second hand store bin; and the intellectual and emotional pleasures associated with “knowing” about particular artists and genres valued by one’s peers and associates.

COLLECTING James Clifford observes that “collecting has long been the strategy for the deployment of a possessive self, culture, and authenticity” (1988, 218). Historical studies show the development of a collecting sensibility, linked to possessive individualism, historically present since the Greeks, but more fully realized under contemporary capitalism. Today, “the gathering together of chosen objects for purposes regarded as special is of great importance, as a social phenomenon, as a focus of personal emotion, and as an economic force” (Pearce 1995, vii). The extensive literature on collecting embraces a now fairly standard set of motifs and an associated vocabulary. Collectors and the collecting process are variously associated with longing, desire, and pleasure; ritualistic, near-sacred and repetitive acquisition; passionate and selective consumption; stewardship and cultural preservation; and obsession and linked pathologies such as completism, accumulation and a preoccupation with collection size. The collection exhibits a series of attributes: it is a source of pleasure, an economic investment; an exhibition of logic, unity and control; an indicator of cultural and social capital; and a socially

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sanctioned form of materialist and competitive consumption, consumer culture taken to excess. These characteristics can all be seen, to varying extents, among record collectors. “Record collecting” can be considered shorthand for a variety of distinct but related practices. Foremost is the collection of sound recordings, in various formats, by individuals. Such recordings include various official releases, in a variety of formats; bootleg recordings (largely of concerts); radio broadcasts, and sound with visuals—the music video or DVD. Individual collecting also frequently includes the collection of related literature (music books and magazines) and music memorabilia (such as concert tickets and programs, tour posters). The history of record collecting since the 1960s is one of steady expansion of the overarching infrastructure within which the hobby was already embedded: the rise of record fairs, independent record shops, increased major label interest in reissues and their back catalogue, specialist reissue labels, and a collector press. This history has been extensively documented in the United Kingdom and the United States, while such developments are also evident internationally. Today, record collecting is a major form of collecting, with its own set of collecting practices. It includes an associated literature (the music press generally, but especially the specialist collector magazines, fanzines, discographies, and general guidebooks); the recording industry targeting of collectors (reissue labels; promotional releases, remixes, box sets); and dedicated sites of acquisition (record fairs, secondhand and specialist shops, eBay, and high-profile auctions). There is a central distinction between (simply) liking the music—in the usual sense of a fan, or music lover—and methodically seeking out and acquiring it. While fans will acquire recordings by the stars they avidly follow, their preoccupation is more with the persona and public life of the star. In comparison, record collectors are more often characterized by what can be termed “secondary involvement” in music, activities beyond “simply” listening to the music: the seeking out of rare releases, such as the picture discs and bootlegs; the reading of fanzines and specialized discographies in addition to the commercial music press; and an interest in record labels and producers as well as performers. As such, record collecting can be regarded as an accentuated and distinctive form of popular music fandom. Possessing an abundance of records is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the self-recognition of a “collector.” The central factor is the systematic approach to acquiring new material for the collection, a characteristic commonly seen as distinguishing collecting: “In the collecting form of consumption, acquisition is a key process. Someone who possesses a collection is not necessarily a collector unless they continue to acquire additional things for the collection” (Belk 1996, 66). Susan Pearce distinguishes three co-existing modes of the relationship of collectors to the collected object: souvenir, fetishistic, and systematic. In souvenir collecting, “the individual creates a romantic life-history by

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selecting and arranging personal memorial material to create what . . . might be called an object autobiography, where the objects are at the service of the autobiographer.” In contrast, in fetishistic collecting “the objects are dominant and . . . are allowed to create the self of the collector, who responds by obsessively collecting as many items as possible.” Thirdly, systematic collecting is characterized by an “intellectual rationale,” with the emphasis placed on the completeness of the collection (Pearce 1995, 32). She stresses that the three approaches are not exclusive, and can coexist in each collection. Each of these collecting modes are represented among record collectors, broadly corresponding to varying emphases: on recordings as part of identity formation and life history (souvenir collecting); accumulation and completism (fetishistic collecting); and discrimination and connoisseurship (systematic collecting). To these modes can be added investment collecting: the increasing recognition by collectors, and the wider commodities market, of the economic value of rare records and music memorabilia. In addition to the academic literature and popular journalism, the representation of record collectors and collecting in various popular culture texts has been important in establishing a stereotypical view. Popular discourse around record collectors and collecting, in common with discussions of collecting generally, constructs a representation of record collectors as males who obsessively develop their knowledge of records and use their interest a replacement for “real” relationships, and who exhibit a “train spotting” mentality toward popular music and a concern with the details of recordings. This is very much the case in the best-known representation of record collectors, the novel High Fidelity (Hornby 1995), and the subsequent film of the same name (Frears 2000). Both the book and film portray record collectors as obsessive males, whose passion for collecting is often a substitute for “real” social relationships, and who exhibit a “train spotting” mentality toward popular music. This image of the record collector as anti- or a-social has been reinforced by the manner in which the phenomenon is treated in other popular texts, including the film Ghost World (Zwigoff 2001), and the cartoons by Robert Crumb and Harvey Pekar featuring record collectors. While this image has much in common with some academic discussions of collectors and collecting, it represents only a partial account of record collectors. My own study of some eighty self-identified record collectors, conducted over a decade, showed them to have considerable awareness of the High Fidelity stereotype, along with a concern to distance their personal practice from this. In sum, as a social practice, record collecting presents itself as a core component of individual social identity and a central part of the life cycle. Collectors themselves refer to an interwoven and overlapping set of characteristics and behaviors associated with record collectors and record collecting. A major characteristic is a love of music, with attention also paid to questions of obsessive-compulsive behavior; accumulation, completism, and collection size; rarity and value; and selectivity, discrimination, and cultural capital. These themes structure the discussion that follows.

170 Roy Shuker A LOVE OF MUSIC The sheer appeal of the cultural artifact is sometimes overlooked in popular perceptions of collecting, with their emphasis on the often negative or socially suspect behaviors associated with collecting. The term “passion” is at the heart of most accounts of collecting, both (auto-) biographical and critical, and is exemplified in the very titles of some studies: for example, To Have and to Hold (Blom 2002) and Collecting: An Unruly Passion (Muesterberger 1994). Collecting is “highly involved passionate consumption” (Belk 2001, 66), rather than a “standard” form of consumption such as buying household food staples. Such passion includes the collecting process—the thrill of the chase, and the find—and the pleasure of simply having the desired artifact. An emphasis on ownership characterizes some variants of collecting, for example, bibliomania: the book collector who simply collects books as objects; shelved and catalogued; they are collected not read (Blom 2002, 200). But passion also embraces the pleasures of use. A fundamental distinction can be made between the collector who “loved music,” and the collector who was preoccupied with collection size, rarity and economic value. However, use value and exchange value are commonly held in tension. Further, they can be conflated, in that some collectors will own a “use copy” to play, alongside their rare unplayed (mint) copy of a valuable recording, a practice shared by book collectors with their’ reading copies’. Those who claimed a love of music as central to their collecting, are also proud of items they had paid high prices for, or are very valuable. Nevertheless, love of the music itself is at the heart of the passion of many record collectors. Many of my respondents used the word “passion” to explain their love of record collecting. The lived experience of music variously provides enjoyment and satisfaction—physical, emotional, and aesthetic/intellectual—as well as catharsis and emotional support. Yet the use value of recorded music can provide a rationalization for ownership, since the love of music is compromised by the ability of the collector to play only a fraction of the quantity of recordings which make up the collection. The realization that there is a limit to how many records you can possibly listen to, is one that represents a critical point in a collector’s life. This does raise some questions about the psychological mechanisms at work in the collecting process, and suggests use can function as a defensive screen for less socially sanctioned reasons for collecting.

COLLECTORS AS OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVES The view of collectors as individuals characterized by obsessive-compulsive behavior is a major component of popular conceptions, which can draw on a fair amount of support from academic studies. The literature on collecting abounds with metaphors of disease and individual pathology. Baudrillard

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(1994), for example, regarded the collector as an infantile and inadequate personality, while Freud—himself a collector—saw collecting as a by-product of childhood trauma. Other writers depict collectors as obsessive compulsives, with their objects of desire providing a central organizing focus in their lives. For instance, Muesterberger (1994) argues that collecting is a way of overcoming childhood anxiety by creating a sense of order and completion, a process that can easily become obsessional and/or compulsive. In such cases, the maintenance and expansion of their collections are frequently regarded as overshadowing the individual’s social relationships. Obsessive compulsive behavior among collectors is often related to emphases on the thrill of the chase. The metaphors of desire and the hunt are present in many biographical accounts of collecting (for instance, those in Blom 2002) and in numerous “guidebooks” for collecting. Compulsive collecting practices include the compulsive, regular and repetitive search for and purchase of items for the collection. Many record collectors carry around lists of recordings they are looking for, “to fi ll gaps in the collection.” Other key obsessive behaviors are accumulation, a preoccupation with collection size, and completism. For example, Eisenberg (1988, 1–3) describes the case of “Clarence,” a New York record collector crippled with arthritis and on welfare, living in an unlit, unheated fourteen-room house “so crammed with trash that the door wouldn’t open—and with threequarters of a million (vinyl) records.” “Clarence” had inherited the house from his parents, along with a considerable inheritance, now gone, which enabled him to pursue his dream of owning a complete collection of jazz, pop, and rock recordings, along with ethnolological field recordings and various recorded ephemera. Campbell (2001, online) describes his “nine of the heaviest” collectors as comprising “one of the most interesting groups of driven, obsessive-compulsive loonies imaginable.” For Joe Bussard, selfproclaimed King of the record collectors, it was his life; as his wife put it: “he was always so busy with his music . . . he hardly had time for anything else” (Dean 2001, 185). Elements of obsessive compulsive behavior were present in the collecting practices of a number of the collectors I interviewed, and in their defi nitions of record collectors (both themselves and others), with the frequent use of various terms indicating individual pathology: “my own sickness of record collecting,” as Greg referred to it. In this respect, they were following a common practice among collectors: the self “use of the medical vocabulary of disease to justify the self-indulgence of collecting” (Belk 2001, 80). At the same time, however, there was frequently a deliberate attempt to distance oneself from this High Fidelity stereotype of the train spotting obsessive. Two strategies were present here. First, there was an internalizing of this conception of collecting, in a knowing, self-mocking fashion: “[record collectors are] disturbed, deeply I suspect.” Second, there was the “I’m not like everybody else” approach, separating out one’s own collecting from the stereotyped caricature.

172 Roy Shuker COLLECTION SIZE, ACCUMULATION AND COMPLETISM There is a common perception that collection size—the number of items owned—is a major determinant of “the collector,” as well as a significant indicator of the relative status of collectors. Yet this is applicable to relatively few collecting fields, and even within those to only a small segment of their collectors. In the collecting of books, art, and stamps, for example, the emphasis is rather on discrimination and associated qualities such as historical significance and aesthetic merit, authenticity and condition. Certainly, published pieces on record collectors support this perception by focusing on those with large collections. Indeed, Milano suggests that 8,000 records is an ideal size: “a reasonable amount to absorb in one lifetime, and a small enough collection to keep in one room” (Milano 2003, 72). Of Campbell’s nine collectors, five had collections of 25–30,000 items, and one had 80,000 albums and 45,000 singles (Campbell 2001). Iconic American collector Joe Bussard owns over 25,000 78s, and many of the exotica collectors profi led in the two volumes of Incredibly Strange Music had considerable collections (see Vale and Juno 1993, and 1994). The collectors featured in the British Record Collector magazine series “The Collector,” especially the older ones, have considerable numbers of recordings, while the magazine’s readers when surveyed in 2008 each owned an average of 2,144 vinyl albums and 1,046 CDs. On the other hand, roughly half of the collectors I interviewed owned fewer than 1,000 items, and collection size was not as important to them as the focused nature of their collecting. Discussions of collecting are frequently at pains to distinguish accumulation and completism from collecting, stressing discrimination as a defi ning element of the collecting process. Collecting, as Belk puts it, requires “a unifying principle” (2001, 66). However, it is also conceded that there is often an element of accumulation involved, and that this characteristic includes elements of compulsion/obsession. This pattern was present among collectors during the earlier 78 era (Shuker 2010, 13–32) and remains very much the case with contemporary record collectors. It is a tendency at times reflected in an unwillingness to part with any items from the collection, even when “old” formats were no longer played, or, with vinyl, the collector no longer owned a working turntable. Yet many collectors reject the accumulator label, are prepared to sell off “redundant” material, actively trade via the Internet, or trade in unwanted recordings at second-hand record shops (although usually for credit to make purchases at them). The collecting process is both open and closed. The desire to complete a collection is in tension with the fear of doing so, since once this has been achieved the purpose of the enterprise is gone. The consequence is for a “clear tendency, once a collector has to admit that a particular line has come to its natural term, to start immediately upon another” (Pearce 1995, 185), or for collections to meander on, without closure. The latter is usually

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associated with a choice of collectible with no clearly defi ned limits, a “set of things” without boundaries (Belk 2001, 66). Completism in record collecting can be defined as the need to own all of a particular category, usually one artists’ output, and was mentioned as part of their collecting practices by a quarter of my interviewees. Collecting the work of one recording artist or band is a common approach, which can assume increasing sophistication over time. It is fairly straightforward to acquire the official recorded output of contemporary artists, and collectors will rapidly move past this to seek out overseas pressings, promos, and unusual pressings (different mixes, colored vinyl, picture discs, etc). This latter stage can become both challenging and expensive, and cultural capital (knowing the artists’ work and the market) becomes central to the quest for elusive items. Such an approach admits the possibility of closure, but this can be indefinitely postponed by a constant extension of the boundaries of the collection. This can occur, for example, by collecting the ongoing output of a living artist, in all its formats and national pressings. Even an artist with a relatively small back catalogue can generate a fair number of collectible releases. Gary Shuker owns some eighty records by New Zealand’s premier singer songwriter Bic Runga, with her dozen or so official recordings collected in every international pressing, as promos, and on compilations. This is a form of completism, although it certainly does not pre-empt collecting other material, usually in a similar style. Or closure can be avoided by simply choosing a goal that is essentially unattainable, given the scope of the subject and the fierce competition for rarer items such as 1960s soul singles, and early Jamaican reggae. Many collectors have a strong interest in particular artists or genres of music, often combining these with a general collection, but taking a more completist approach: I collect old punk, post-punk and goth records—things usually no longer available (although it looks a lot more impressive owning the original vinyl regardless). I trawl record fairs and 2nd hand stores. I’m especially interested in releases from The Cure. There I’m quite happy to collect bootleg albums, special editions, 12 inches . . . and I’m always on the hunt for picture sleeve singles. One of my other female friends has a similar devotion to collecting David Bowie stuff. The boyfriend is like this for the Smiths. (Michelle Wauchope) Completism is related to an emphasis on the “hunt” aspect of collecting. As with other collectibles, at its most extreme it can be seen in record collectors selling off a completed collection in order to start a new one. This was a practice commented on by several collectors, in addition to four who had done so themselves. More modest completists are those who attempt to collect all one artists’ output, including related literature and memorabilia, the output of a label (such as Apple), or the work of one producer, an ambition very evident among reggae collectors.

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SELECTIVITY, DISCRIMINATION AND CULTURAL CAPITAL Stressing the aesthetic qualities of recordings in the collection, rather than the quantity of recordings, turns compulsive accumulation and hoarding into meaningful desire and socially sanctioned consumption: “The good collector is tasteful and reflective. Accumulation unfolds in a pedagogical, edifying manner. The collection itself—its taxonomic, aesthetic structure—is valued, and any private fi xation on single objects is negatively marked as fetishism” (Clifford 1988, 54). Approximately one-third of my collectors distanced their own collecting practices from accumulation and completism, instead stressing selectivity and taste as more defi ning of their collecting. This valorized collecting as involving discrimination and the acquisition of cultural capital and consequent status, especially within one’s peer group. It includes buying only the “best” or selected examples, or collecting material regarded as more “on the cutting edge” of music. Notions of the canon were important here, along with the associated role of the music press. One aspect of discrimination is the use people make of their collections in relation to self-education and scholarship. For such collectors, the collection becomes an archive, a resource: “I always think that I will one day write wonderful books on (a) record labels, (b) soul albums/singles, (c) reggae singles/albums—drawing on my thirty years of listening to and collecting the stuff” (Hasse Huss). Such views follow the historical tradition of collectors playing a significant role as cultural preservers. Several record collectors have left their collections to institutions, to keep the collection intact and provide a publicly available educational resource. A further cultural capital aspect of collecting is its role for musicians and other musical workers who are frequently keen record collectors. For example, indie musicians are often keen collectors, since the records provide cultural capital and a resource to draw on for musical inspiration: the old adage about “bands being only as good as their record collections” (see Milano 2003; Bannister 2006). This is also historically evident with DJs who also recorded, such as Afrika Bambaataa, a fervent collector of vinyl from an early age. There are prominent examples of record collectors who have founded their own recording companies in order to re-release old/rare material, or become closely involved with reissue labels. Discrimination, cultural preservation, and self-education are linked through the conception of collecting as a form of cultural capital. As such, it provides knowledge, intellectual/aesthetic nourishment and resources, and social identity and status. This is, of course, similar to the role played by membership in fan communities. Acquiring popular music cultural capital involves developing knowledge of selected musical traditions, their history, and their associated performers. With this background, an individual can knowledgably discuss such details as styles, trends, record companies, and the biographies of artists, and even nuances such as record producers

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and session musicians used on recordings. Acquiring, utilizing and demonstrating such knowledge is an integral part of record collecting, which often accompanies an interest in details surrounding the music: who performed the song? Who wrote it? Who produced it? When was it released, and on what label? Steve Waksman told me: As much as collecting may ultimately be about the music, it does also represent a form of collecting knowledge as well. I’d put myself in this category of collectors, since I know my own record buying / collecting is driven by a concern with historicizing music that transcends the specific pleasure I take in many of the albums that I own. Similarly, for Liz Guiffre: I think it [record collecting] has to do with wanting to have a kind of set of resources. Because I’m writing about music a lot at the moment (both academically and non-academically), I like to have certain ‘classics’ at home. That way it’s easy to reference things. If you own or have easy access to a lot of resources on the one topic, then you get to be a bit of a resource yourself.

RARITY AND ECONOMIC VALUE Popular discussion of collecting often focuses on the monetary value of collectibles, and collectors are frequently asked questions such as “What is the value of your collection?” and/or “What is the most valuable item (stamp, art work, fi rst edition book) you own?” Speculation in sound recordings is not as evident as in other popular culture collectibles (such as comic books), but it is there and appears to be increasing—in terms of both quantity and prices. There is an established market, closely associated with second hand record stores, prestige auctions of music memorabilia (including recordings), and, increasingly, eBay. Both Record Collector and Goldmine regularly feature stories of the sale of rare and high priced records, in addition to advertisements with items priced over $1,000, USD. This interest can be encouraged by collectors who like to tell about how they bought a rare/expensive recording at a bargain basement price, and accounts of frenzied bidding to a high level which become part of eBay’s folk lore. Campbell (2001) found that a concern for economic value was a major factor among his “serious,” largescale collectors, (although their “biggest buzz” was obtaining something of value cheaply). The issues of what is rare, and how value is constituted, and just who are spending this sort of money, and why, are taken up later in this chapter through a consideration of the most collectible’ artists: The Beatles.

176 Roy Shuker The tendency to develop specialized collections, including rarer, more exotic, or unavailable items, “provides a chance to excel and distinguish the serious collector from the more general or causal dabbling collectors” (Belk 2001, 8). Many of my respondents were aware of the economic/rarity value of some recordings, and regarded acquisition of these as part of their collecting: “I don’t think any of us collect solely for rarity, although the albums that are [rare] do get pride of place” (Michelle Wauchope). This is often related to status among a particular group of collectors, specializing in a genre. While few of my collectors attached much significance to the monetary value of their collections, several had quite valuable items in their collections, including signed editions of recordings, rare releases, and scarce recordings they had paid a significant amount for. However, while these collectors follow the market (via auctions; the collector press), I got the distinct impression (subsequently confi rmed in two cases) that they will never sell, because these items are regarded as an essential part of their collections. A concern with value, and more “serious” levels of spending, are evident among those profiled in Record Collector magazine’s “The Collector” series. Responding to a standard question, “What is it (the collection) worth?” many identify high value items and take pride in owning these. At the same time, they frequently distinguish this from their primary love, the use value of the music.

COLLECTING, IDENTITY AND THE LIFE CYCLE What fosters the progression from the occasional purchase of records, a practice present with most popular music fans, to the status of collector? Aspects of personal identity formation, often mentioned by my respondents, are important here, most notably the desire to turn chaos into order, and the role of nostalgia. Several mentioned Benjamin’s characterization of a collector as one who turns chaos into order (Benjamin, 2007 [1931]). The collecting process can take on different emphases over time, relating to various combinations of increasing age, changing study/employment, income, the availability of sought-after recordings, and domestic responsibilities. Collecting is a significant part of identity construction, and an important dimension of collectors’ lives. Indeed, at its most extreme, it is their life. This in part reflects the strong connection between collecting and display and memory, with the associations evoked by the collected objects. In common with other forms of collecting, record collecting “is an attempt to preserve both the past and memories of the past” and “a practice driven by nostalgia” (Montano 2003, 1). It is a fuller expression of the general tendency for sound recordings to act as prompts to memory, given that they are material artifacts located in time and place, with an ascribed meaning for many listeners (De Nora 2001, 62). Keith described this in impressive detail:

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The CD as object and the music reminds me of where I was (geographically and personally) when I purchased the object. This in turn is influenced by what I was listening to at the time. The song “American Pie,” for example, has a deep resonance for me (school days in England), America’s “Ventura Highway” (undergraduate days in Canberra), Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (living in a hall of residence studying for my PhD). Similarly, I can go directly to certain CDs in my collection and the CD itself (not the music) will tell a memory story: this one was purchased in Greenwich Village, this one from Berkeley, this one from Ashwood’s in Pitt Street, this one from Real Groovy in Auckland, and each has an accompanying narrative related to what I was doing at the time, and why I was in each locale. (Keith Beattie)

TASTE, NOSTALGIA AND THE COLLECTIBLE Thus far, I have shown how contemporary record collectors have a shared interest in sound recordings as significant cultural artifacts, with associated notions of discrimination, musical canons, and rarity. They also shared the dominant characteristics of collectors more generally, albeit with particular inflections of these: the thrill of the chase; obsession, linked to accumulation and completism; at times a preoccupation with rarity and economic value; and a concern for cultural preservation. The last often involved selfeducation and public/vernacular scholarship, drawing on the collection as a resource. These traits are subsumed into collecting as a significant aspect of social identity, involving the acquisition of and cultural capital, overlaid with a patina of nostalgia. The discussion that follows considers the related issues of taste, nostalgia, and the canon, and the question of who or what is “collectible”? At one level, you can collect whatever you like, with personal taste in music a basic starting point for individual collectors’ decisions as to which genres, artists, periods, labels and so forth to collect. Intersecting with such choices is the key notion of “collectible,” with the collecting process and what is collectible shaped by considerations of demand and availability; condition and cost; aura and authenticity; and rarity and value. Taste and what is collectible are historically contingent, reflecting generational and demographic trends in collecting, and representing varying forms of cultural and economic capital. Record collectors frequently demonstrate that nostalgia, in the sense of the influence of their adolescence, is a factor informing their collecting. At the same time, most collectors do not limit their collecting to objects issued during their youth, which makes problematic any straightforward association between this period of their lives and their genre and artist preferences. The preference for vinyl among younger collectors who had grown up with the CD, and, more recently, the digital download, suggest that identification can operate in more complex fashion.

178 Roy Shuker The urge to collect is part of the drive to express individual distinctiveness; as Baudrillard observes: “It is inevitably oneself that one collects” (1994, 12). Identity is a mobile concept, a self-in-process, rather than a fi xed entity. Shifts in collecting interests are indicative of changing musical tastes, which in turn are shaped by changes in collectors’ lives. The formative influence of adolescence and early adulthood on musical taste, and who and what becomes collected, are common. There is an obvious link here to youthful fandom, and its subsequent maintenance through collecting the early “object of desire.” Related to this is the role of nostalgia and popular memory in the collecting process, concepts which are central to the general literature on collecting. Muesterberger (1994, 165), for example, considered “the fundamental motive” for collecting as “based on the individual’s history and essential events, the type and style of selecting and collecting and collecting is effectively guided by the prevailing culture pattern, the mood and values of the time.” The collecting process involves a negotiation of the relationship of the individual and their past. At times, this will take the form of a fairly straightforward identification with the music of one’s youth, especially when this is also indentified in canonical terms. Andy Davis, then editor of the Record Collector, in 2001 suggested that rock and pop records had become so collectible because “they are the antiques of the post-war generations. Such artifacts root you in your own history on one level, while on another allow the collector to get that much closer to the artist in whose name those objects were originally created” (Montano 2003, 9). As previously mentioned, what is collectible can also be informed by a strong sense of discrimination, in part based on views of which artists and recordings, and genres have musical / aesthetic value: a canon (see Von Appen and Doehring 2006). Counter to this, some highly sought after records may not be considered musically significant (in relation to the dominant canon), but are valorized because of their very scarcity (rarity). Further, there can be an inverse approach to collecting, whereby “crap records” are valued for their (generally perceived) lack of musical merit, with aspects such as their cover art often valued over the music they contain. Individual genres, artists, and recordings are the primary orientation of most record collectors, and the main forms of their collecting. There are also collectible fields that are informed by different organizing principles, and are underpinned by different inflections of taste and collectability. Examples of these are the collecting of chart number 1 hits, compilations, bootlegs, memorabilia and music magazines (see Shuker 2010, 99–106. The British-based magazine Record Collector provides an instructive example of the manner in which the music press, in conjunction with its readers, construct a collectible canon. A glance through the index to back issues gives a clear picture of the artists most regularly accorded features (often along with discographies, which include indications as to value): The Beatles, (and features on each of the group members, particularly Lennon

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and McCartney), David Bowie, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Queen and Pink Floyd have received the greatest coverage. Among more contemporary performers (in the sense that their careers are largely post 1970) to have been featured in issues of Record Collector are Kate Bush, U2, Genesis, REM, Marc Bolan and T Rex, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna. The publication’s polls of readers top collectible artists have regularly seen The Beatles emerge at the top, followed by (with slightly changing popularity over the past fifteen years) The Rolling Stones, Queen, Elvis Presley, Pink Floyd, The Who, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix. The obvious point here is the clear privileging of sixties artists (and the absence of women performers). In addition to those who have died, and groups who have lost key members, most are no longer performing/recording on a regular basis. If anything, by removing them from the public arena (but not, of course, from the ongoing public fi xation with celebrity), this consolidates their iconic status. The covers of recent issues of Record Collector indicate the on-going importance and collectability of these groups and their members. Reflecting this level of interest among collectors, many of the highest price values in price guides, and auction sales realizations, are for records by these artists. Of course, there is an element of circularity at work here: value encourages interest and demand, which impacts on value, and so forth. I now want to look further at why these artists remain so popular among record collectors, exemplified by the case of The Beatles.

THE BEATLES In addition to their being privileged in the collector press, the collectability of these artists is underpinned by the interaction of several additional factors: (a) the strength of their original fan base; (b) their inclusion in a popular music canon; (c) their original releases being produced in various formats, and marketed internationally, along with considerable memorabilia; (d) their extensive back catalogue, which has enabled on-going repackaging, with box sets and anniversary issues; and (e) their value as investments. These are evident in the case of The Beatles, who remain clearly the most collectible artists, with their popularity among collectors reflected in their records and associated memorabilia fetching many of the highest prices. Yet this has not always been the case. Neely observed (in Goldmine 1999, 70) that in the 1970s the Beatles did not yet have the collecting cachet they have subsequently acquired, arguing that they were too fresh in the memory of most collectors to yet be collectible. This changed as their original fans began collecting, and as the dominant place of the group in twentieth-century popular music became increasingly recognized. The

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substantial post war baby boomer generation represented a very significant consumer group. As part of the youth culture of the 1960s, they had lived through historical moments such as the impact of The Beatles and Woodstock, and have retained an affinity for the music of the period when “rock culture” emerged. Not all became record collectors, but those who did helped reshape the collecting environment, especially through their demand for the recordings of sixties artists such as The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. At the same time, younger collectors were attracted by the romance of the sixties and its music, sharing the view that it formed a central part of a rock canon (Hayes 2006). The development of the album as a holistic and creative artistic statement assisted its subsequent elevation to collectability. Also significant was the role of the music press in canonizing the music of the period between 1964 and 1972 (spanned by the Beatles), and its subsequent exploitation by recording companies with an ongoing stream of reissues, new compilations, and box sets. The Beatles were hugely successful in the commercial music mainstream of the music industry in the 1960s, and plenty of copies of their main recordings remain available to collectors (although fi nding copies in mint condition is more difficult). At the same time, there are a large number of variants of these releases, a situation presenting a major challenge to collectors. For instance, a big part of Graeme Dickenson’s extensive record collection (around 10,000 discs and about 20,000 CDs) consists of his Beatles recordings; he refers to several collectible Australian pressings of their records: There are two altered Beatles covers: Beatles For Sale has photos of the Australian tour [in 1964] on the front and With The Beatles has the rather weird floating heads cover. There are also several unique Beatles best of complilations, such as The Essential Beatles, and several of the EPs have different covers. The covers of Australian pressings were always done on the cheap. You bet if it was gatefold in the UK or USA, then it was a single sleeve here. (Dickenson quoted in Shuker 2010, 94)2 Acquiring and utilizing such knowledge of the group’s recordings represents a form of cultural capital comparable to that demonstrated by many fans extensive knowledge of the lives of the performers they follow. The Beatles’ recordings also include unique releases such as the numbered White Album, the famous “Butcher” cover, and some early American recordings on small labels which sold in very small numbers and are consequently quite rare (see below). The hunt for all of these has been aided by an increasing number of extensive price guides to The Beatles recordings and memorabilia. Not only are the band the most collectible group, they have the largest body of writing accorded to them of any popular musicians. In addition to the usual biographies (and autobiographies)

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of the group and its individual members, there are specialist discographies and numerous articles in the music press generally and the collector magazines. This is particularly evident with those commemorating the anniversaries of the Beatles’ recordings, as with the 40th anniversary of the release of Sgt. Pepper. 3 The Beatles effectively broke up in 1970, but the group has remained big business (see Blancey 2008). There has been a steady flow of “product,” including previously unreleased recordings such as The BBC sessions and documentary fi lms. This helps maintain interest in the group, along with continued high profi le sales of rare Beatles records and memorabilia. For many collectors, especially older fans of the group, such as Dickenson, The Beatles are the focus of their collection, and, as indicated in my introduction, the group dominate the best-selling music-related items on eBay and at auction, and in the record collecting market more widely. Aside from a few exotic export items, and early acetates, the most collectible Beatles’ recording is the “classic” black/gold label pressing of their 1963 debut album Please, Please Me (Parlophone PCS 3042). This has steadily appreciated in value over the past few years, with the Rare Record Price Guide (Shirley 2008a) valuing it at 3,500 pounds. Mint copies have since sold for two or three times that on eBay, and there were several eBay sales of the album during 2011 (prices in GBP): December 2011: £2,295 (The price was lower as it was a third pressing of the stereo edition). August 2011: £4,000 March 2011: £5,200 May 2011: £8,300 The last had forty-two bids, with the high price reflecting the record’s condition: “Save for a scuffed corner, it was in pristine, ‘vault’ condition.” Also highly collectible are the double album The Beatles (more commonly referred to as The White Album), with its plain white embossed sleeve. Ian Shirley notes: What made this double album unique was that every copy was numbered, making each one a unique mass-produced piece of art. Forty-odd years later, the hunger to collect low numbers remains undiminished amongst Beatles fans. While pristine records and inserts are vital to securing a top price, the numbered sleeve is the main attraction. (2011, 85; note his equation of collectors and fans) His latest price guide, the bible in the field, has copies 1–10 stereo or mono valued at £7,000, GBP, although a Mono version of No 5 sold for £19,000, GBP, in 2008 (ibid.). Even a copy numbered 783 attracted 34 bids on eBay in June 2011, selling for £2,050.99, GBP. Other highly collectible—and

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highly priced—recordings by The Beatles are the so-called “Butcher” cover of the withdrawn US release of Yesterday and Today in 1966 (Capitol ST 2553), early acetates of their fi rst recordings, and signed recordings: a 7” of the single “Please Please Me,” signed by the group and with clear provenance, sold for £8,000, GBP, in December 2011. In addition, there is Beatles memorabilia: “Beatlemania left in its wake an avalanche of merchandise, film posters, concert tickets, signatures and personal effects. So even in a market that is continually rising, there is plenty to buy” (Miller 2008, 306). For example, at Christie’s Pop Memorabilia auction in London on May 25, 2006, lot 203, a copy of A Hard Day’s Night, signed by all four Beatles and with clear provenance, sold for £22,800, GBP. An autograph book with all four Beatles signatures, from the Hammersmith Odeon (London) concerts of January 1965, sold on eBay for £2,050, GBP, in December 2011.4 And then, as mentioned earlier, there are the photographs recently sold by Christies.

WHO IS PAYING THIS SORT OF MONEY? Some sales are to dealers, looking to secure records with assured commodity status for eventual resale at a profit. At times, bidders are representatives of the rock museums, and the Hard Rock Café, looking to expand their displays. However, most of these sales are to individual buyers, both collectors and investors—with the two categories often conflated. They are understandably reluctant to reveal personal details, but are usually “baby boomers” who acknowledge the appeal of The Beatles as not just the greatest ‘pop’ group ever but as cultural icons of the sixties. Many identify themselves as teenage fans of the group, with attendance at a Beatles concert during the 1960s a formative and pivotal event in their lives. Having been financially successful in their careers, these buyers also now have the disposable income to afford such high-end purchases, recognizing the Beatles as “the blue chip of record collecting,” providing an economic rationale for their continued fandom. This economic dimension of record collecting has been reinforced by market commentators. Simon Read, the Personal Finance Editor of The Independent (UK), regards records as an investment as “the perfect solution for at least part of your portfolio. Vinyl inflation has rocketed as collectors snap up elusive treasures . . . as a generation fi nds the cash and the means to buy back their memories” (Shirley 2011a, 70). Gary Shrum, the consignment director and rock’n’roll specialist for the US auction house, Heritage Auctions, states: The sales in vinyl last year [2010] were the best for over ten years. That’s because a new generation has discovered that vinyl sounds great and comes with attractive artwork. Original copies of albums by King Crimson, Gene Vincent, Jethro Tull . . . They’re becoming impossible to find

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in good condition because they’re being brought by collectors. Hence, supply and demand has increased the prices. (Shirley 2011a, 68) The interest from the ‘rock museums’ (notably the Experience Music Project in Seattle, and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland), and the Hard Rock Cafe chain, has stimulated interest—and prices—in the collecting of popular music recordings and memorabilia. Several major auction houses now conduct regular sales, primarily in London and New York (Phillips, Christies, Bonhams), and the lavishly illustrated catalogues from these have themselves become quite collectible. The collector press has regular columns reporting on these auctions, along with high profi le advertisements for them. The appeal of memorabilia is based on the romantic aura of musical artifacts, especially when these offer the owner a tangible connection with the original artist. Some objects also have considerable historical significance. Collectors will supplement their recordings with related memorabilia, which at times becomes a significant part of their collection.

CONCLUSION Record collectors represent a distinct form of fandom. They are “fans” in the sense of the word’s origins in “fanatic,” but their fanaticism is usually at a more of an intellectual level and focused on the music per se rather than the persona of the performer(s). Adopting such a distinction between fans and record collectors is not to perpetuate a discriminatory view of fans in the traditional sense. Both groups engage in fandom as an active process, with both often displaying impressive knowledge of their preferred genres and performers, My argument is that their emotional and physical investments are different, as are the processes of consumption in which their fandom operates. In common with fandom more generally, record collectors demonstrate a combination of desire, pleasure, and obsession, manifested through the acquisition and display of cultural capital. A key difference, however, is the increasing role played by the investment value of the rare record, and many items of memorabilia, as tradable commodities. NOTES 1. The Christies auction was called The Beatles Illuminated: The Discovered Works of Mike Mitchell. 2. The Beatles toured New Zealand and Australia in 1964, prompting many local releases; several New Zealand pressings of their records are also very collectible. 3. See, for instance, the cover stories in Record Collector, July 2007; MOJO March 2007. 4. This was item number 290628313420: The Beatles, Autograph Book, with thirty-seven bids.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Bannister, Matthew. 2006. White Boys, White Noise: Masculinities and 1980s Indie Guitar Rock, Aldershot: Ashgate. Baudrillard, Jean. 1994. “The System of Collecting.” In The Cultures of Collecting, edited by John Elsner and Rodger Cardinal, 7–24. London: Reaktion Books. Becker, Howard. 1982. Art Worlds, Berkeley: University of California Press. Belk, Russell. 2001. Collecting in a Consumer Society. London: Routledge. Benjamin, Walter. 2007. [1931] “Unpacking My Library: A Talk About Book Collecting.” In Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt, 59–68. New York: Schocken Books. Blancey, John. 2008. Beatles for Sale: Everything They Touched, London: Jawbone Press. Blom, Philipp. 2002. To Have and to Hold: An Intimate History of Collectors and Collecting. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Campbell, Bob. 2001. “Turn, Baby Turn: Obsessions, Compulsions, Redemption and Satori in the World of Record Collecting.” Colorado Springs Independent. June 14. http://www.csindy.com/coloradosprings/turn-baby-turn/ Content?oid=1111841 Clifford, James. 1988. The Predicament of Culture. Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. DeNora, Tia. 2000. Music in Everyday Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Dean, Eddie. 2001. “Desperate Man Blues.” In Da Capo Best Music Writing 2000, edited by Peter Guralnick and Douglas Wolk, 176–197. Boston: Da Capo. Dickenson, Graeme. 2007. “The Collector. No.43: Graeme Dickenson.” Record Collector, June. Doggett, Peter, and Sarah Hodgson. 2003. Christie’s Rock & Pop Memorabilia. New York: Billboard Books. Dougan, John. 2006. “Objects of Desire: Canon Formation and Blues Record Collecting.” Journal of Popular Music 18, 1:40–65. Eisenberg, Evan. 1988. The Recording Angel: Music, Records and Culture from Aristotle to Zappa, London: Pan Books. Elsner, John, and Roger Cardinal (eds.). 1994. The Cultures of Collecting. London: Reaktion Books. Goldmine 25th Anniversary Issue, 1999, 70. Gray, Jonathan, Cornel Sandvoss, and C. Lee Harrington. 2007. Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, New York: New York University Press. Hayes, David. 2006. “Take Those Old Records off the Shelf: Youth and Music Consumption in the Postmodern Age.” Popular Music & Society 29, 1:51–68. Hills, Matt. 2002. Fan Cultures, London: Routledge. Hornby, Nick. 1995. High Fidelity, London: Random House. Hoskins, Janet. 1998. Biographical Objects: How Things Tell the Stories of People’s Lives. New York: Routledge. Lewis, Lisa (ed.). 1992. The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and the Popular Media. London: Routledge. Milano, Brett. 2003. Vinyl Junkies: Adventures in Record Collecting, New York: St. Martin’s Press. Miller, Judith. 2008. “The Beatles.” In The Antiques Roadshow A-Z of Antiques and Collectibles. London: Dorling Kindersley. Montano, Ed. 2003. “Collecting the Past for a Material Present: Record Collecting in Contemporary Practice.” MA Diss., Institute of Popular Music, University of Liverpool.

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Muesterberger, Werner. 1994. Collecting. An Unruly Passion: Psychological Perspectives. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pearce, Susan. 1995. On Collecting: An Investigation into Collecting in the European Tradition, London: Routledge. Shirley, Ian (ed.). 2008a. Record Collector Magazine: Rare Record Price Guide. London: Diamond Publishing. . 2008b. “200 Rarest U K Albums.” Record Collector, November. 355:46–71. . 2010. “The Top 200 Rarest Records. The Ultimate UK Collectibles.” Record Collector, December. 382:44–61. . 2011a. “The 51 Best Investments in Vinyl.” Record Collector, May. 356:64–73. . 2011b. “The Rarest Album Sleeves Ever!” Record Collector, December. 395:78–85. Shuker, Roy. 2010. Wax Trash and Vinyl Treasures. Record Collecting as a Social Practice, Fanham: Ashgate. Straw, Will. 1997. “Sizing Up Record Collections: Gender and Connoisseurship in Rock Music Culture.” In Sexing the Groove, edited by Sheila Whiteley, 3–16. London: Routledge. Vale, Vivian and Andrea Juno (eds.) 1993. Incredibly Strange Music, Volume 1. San Francisco: Re/Search Publications. (eds.). 1994. Incredibly Strange Music, Volume 2. San Francisco: Re/Search Publications. Von Appen, Ralf, André Doehring. 2006. “Nevermind the Beatles, Here’s Exile 61 and Nico: ‘The Top 100 Records of All Time’—A Canon of Pop and Rock Albums from a Sociological and Aesthetic Perspective.” Popular Music, 25, 1:21–40.

11 After Jerry’s Death Achieving Continuity in Deadhead Identity and Community1 Rebecca G. Adams, Amy M. Ernstes, and Kelly M. Lucey

The broader depiction of fans beginning in the early 1990’s as not only consumers, but producers (Fiske 1992, Jensen 1992), and not only individual fanatics, but members of communities with shared norms, values, and interpretations of texts (Brower 1992, Jenkins 1992), marked a turning point in research on fans. This more comprehensive perspective on fans raises important sociological questions about how these communities address collective issues and, especially in the case of music communities and others focused on performers, whether and how they survive beyond the death or retirement of an individual or group that is the focus of their attention and initial reason for their existence. Fan bases are often national or even global in scope with individual members separated by great distances. In the past, it would have been challenging for fans to form communities including people who did not live in the same geographic location, but recent improvements in communications and transportation technology have facilitated their development (Adams 1998). One such community surrounds the Grateful Dead, a North American rock band that had played together for thirty years when its lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia, died of a heart attack early in the morning of August 9, 1995 during his stay at a rehabilitation clinic in Forest Knolls, California (Wilgoren 1999). Today, more than fifteen years After Jerry’s Death (AJD), Deadheads still identify themselves as members of a community and are still loyal to the remaining original members of the band, attending performances of the bands they comprise such as Furthur, Phil and Friends, Ratdog, the 7 Walkers, and the Mickey Hart Band. From the vantage point of almost two decades AJD, it is clear that both the remaining members of the band and Deadheads have contributed to the persistence of this community, but that not all Deadheads participate in it actively and not all Deadheads who do participate in it do so in the same ways. The ways in which Deadheads contributed to the persistence of their community after Jerry’s death thus provides the focus of this case study of how fan communities deal with such a change. The theory used to frame this case study is Peter Marris’ (1974) theory of loss and change. Establishing connections between the realms of

After Jerry’s Death 187 psychology and sociology, he describes the experience of change as one analogously shared by individual and society. Writing at a time when functionalist theory was being criticized as excluding the possibility of change, Marris (1974, 2) boldly asked: “How can we account for the stability of social institutions in ways which do not seem to deny the likelihood of change; or explain change without discounting the resilience of patterns?” From Marris’ perspective, all changes involve a degree of loss, thus reactions to change inevitably involve grieving. Understanding the processing of grief as the key to reconciliation between change and stability underlies the theoretical relevance of the current study. Activating and shaping the entire grieving process is what Marris refers to as the conservative impulse, defi ned as that instinct that seeks consistency or continuity to make sense of the world and everyday life. Jerry’s death, which in Marris’ terms represented a crisis of discontinuity for Deadheads, opened a window of access to accounts of the initial stages of the grieving process. Marris’ theory of loss and change depicts this process with four main components: (1) the beginning state of status quo, (2) the disturbance represented by change, (3) the perception of change, and (4) the effort towards reintegration. We use the term “status quo” here to refer to the situation that existed before change occurred—called “thesis” or “equilibrium” by some theorists. In this case study, the status quo is Deadhead identity and community before Jerry’s death. The term “change” can refer to a range of disruptions to the status quo, from minor ones such as relocation or graduation from school to major ones such as war or environmental disaster. In this case study, the change considered is Jerry’s death. Any change, no matter how trivial or serious, can be perceived in one of three ways: as one that can be addressed as an incremental or substitutional change, as an opportunity for growth, or as an irreconcilable loss. As Marris (1974, 25) explains, these labels as perceptual lenses are not intended to provide clear-cut and steadfast parameters; he details that “in reality, we are likely to perceive the changes we encounter as all these at once—part substitution, part growth, part loss—in varying degrees.” It is, however, the initial response to grief and the associated perspective on change that dictates the ultimate resolution or lack of resolution of grief and determines the path of reintegration into society. Throughout this process, the conservative impulse, the instinctive drive to preserve continuity, favors interpretations of change as incremental or possible to address through substitution. So although some Deadheads perceived Jerry’s death as an irreconcilable loss that led them to withdraw from the community or as an opportunity for growth that led them to focus on other aspects of their lives, some Deadheads demonstrated the conservative impulse and sought ways to preserve continuity in their Deadhead identity and community. Describing the mechanisms they used to preserve continuity in their lives is the focus of this chapter. Understanding how the Deadhead community survived Jerry’s death will contribute to an understanding

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of how other geographically dispersed fan communities might persist in the face of similar changes.

THE DEADHEAD COMMUNITY PROJECT The data on how Deadheads reacted to Jerry’s death presented here were collected as part of the Deadhead Community project which began in summer 1987 when independent study students at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro conducted a survey of Deadheads in the parking lots at shows (N=286). This project continued as Rebecca Adams, the fi rst author of this chapter, took a class of students on tour in summer 1989 (Adams 1991b). Since that time, she observed ninety-one Grateful Dead shows and nine Jerry Band concerts (1989–1995) and at least as many other performances by Grateful Dead survivors, performances of jam bands, and other Deadhead gatherings (1995-present). She monitored on-line conversations on rec.music.gdead beginning in 1989, oversaw eighty-four observations of shows and seventy-seven open-ended interviews by twenty-one students in that same year, collected 177 responses to three mailed questionnaires with open-ended questions (1990–1996), conducted interviews with important Deadheads and key members of the Grateful Dead organization, and has corresponded extensively with Deadheads. In 1998, the Grateful Dead organization collected responses to a self-administered questionnaire during their twenty-two-venue national Furthur Festival Tour and hired Adams to analyze the data (N=6020) (Adams 2010). Throughout this research process, she has also collected artifacts, photos, videos, recordings of performances, and Deadhead and mainstream media. The analyzes included here are informed by all of these data, but letters and e-mail messages Adams received from Deadheads when they were in mourning are central to the analyzes presented here. The initial letters were sent to her spontaneously due to her visibility as a Grateful Dead researcher; the fi rst was written on August 21, 1995. Subsequent letters and email messages were sent to her in response to articles she wrote for the Deadhead press AJD. The fi rst of these articles (Adams 1995a) included her email address and the last two (Adams 1995b, 1996) also included invitations to Deadheads to write to her. Although six additional letters or email messages arrived after May 20, 1997, this is the last date of the 150 analyzed in this chapter. The email messages and letters were analyzed using The Ethnograph v5.0 for Windows (Seidel 1998), a program for the analysis of text-based data. Codes included the concepts discussed by Marris as well as those resulting from a grounded-theoretical analysis of the letters and email messages. While the available data focus on responses within two years of Jerry’s death, thus limiting observations, it is the progression from these initial stages of grief that set the stage for the entire process and outcome. Observations made and media published since these letters were

After Jerry’s Death 189 received do provide some insight into ongoing Deadhead efforts to preserve continuity in their identities and community. In the following sections, we organize this information on Deadheads and their responses to Jerry’s death in terms of Marris’ model. First we describe the status quo—the Deadhead community in 1995 before Jerry’s death. Then we discuss the ways in which Deadheads expressed the conservative impulse as a response to grief. Finally we describe the ways in which some Deadheads achieved continuity and preserved the community through making incremental changes to their lives and by fi nding substitutes for touring with the Grateful Dead. Throughout these sections, unless cross-references are explicitly included, each quotation from the letters and email messages sent to Adams was written by a different Deadhead. We have included demographic information on the correspondents when they spontaneously included it, which forty-six of them did. Return addresses and signatures were stripped from the files to preserve the anonymity of the correspondents: we knew little about most of them, not even their genders unless they were revealed in what they wrote. We conclude with a summary of the ways in which one fan community adapted to the death of a performer and persisted beyond this death. We also describe what was revealed about this community by taking the lead from the authors in Lewis’s (1992) volume and viewing the members as producers as well as consumers, and as members of communities rather than as individual fanatics. Finally, although these fi ndings suggest how other fan communities might deal with the death of a performer or other types of loss and change, we discuss how the data limit generalizations.

THE STATUS QUO: THE GRATEFUL DEAD AND DEADHEADS BEFORE JERRY’S DEATH Deadheads, as Grateful Dead fans are called, traveled from venue to venue to hear the band play, sometimes staying “on tour” with them for extended periods of time. The roots of this migrating community are in the hippie culture that grew up in the Western United States during the 1960s. The Dead were the “house band” for the Acid Tests, public psychedelic celebrations held in 1965 and 1966 before LSD (lyserg saure diethylamid) was illegal. By late 1966, the Grateful Dead were headquartered in San Francisco, California, at 710 Ashbury, near its intersection with the Haight, the symbolic heart of the hippie community. From this address, it was a short walk to the Golden Gate Park where the Grateful Dead often gave free concerts for their increasing crowd of fans (Adams and Rosen-Grandon 2002; for more detailed histories of the Grateful Dead, see Jackson 1983; Perry 1984; Gans and Simon 1985; Gans 1991; Troy 1991). The community continued to grow in size after its inception in the 1960s and by the 1990s, the Grateful Dead was considered the most successful touring band in concert

190 Rebecca G. Adams, Amy M. Ernstes, and Kelly M. Lucey history. It was the top-grossing touring act in 1991 and 1993 and fi nished in third place in 1995, despite having completed only two of their typical three tours. They played 2,314 shows during their career, often to sellout crowds of more than 50,000 people (Scott, Dolgushkin, and Nixon 1997; Simon 1999). When Jerry died, in addition to a large concentration of Deadheads in the San Francisco Bay Area, Deadheads lived everywhere in the United States and in many foreign countries as well. This is not surprising: during its career the band played at least once in forty-five states and thirteen foreign countries (Scott, Dolgushkin, and Nixon 1997; Adams 2010). In 1998, approximately 290,000 Deadheads were included on the Grateful Dead organization’s mail distribution list (Cameron Sears, personal communication).2 This list was far from complete. Not only have these fans been involved in the community over a long period of time, but they have been intensely involved. On average the fans who the Grateful Dead surveyed in 1998 had seen their fi rst show in 1984 or 1985, had traveled 1,223 miles to attend a show, and had seen sixty-one shows (Adams 2010). Deadheads did not attend shows merely for entertainment or to socialize with like-minded people. Many of them reported having spiritual experiences at shows, which provided them with an additional motivation to attend (Sutton 2000). Although the spiritual experiences of Deadheads varied widely and included feelings of déjà vu, out-of-body experiences, connecting with a higher power, and living through the cycle of death and rebirth, the most commonly mentioned experiences were inner and outer connectedness— self-revelation and unity with others (Adams 1991a). Although dancing and drugs surely contributed to these experiences for some Deadheads, others attributed their occurrences, at least in part, to the power and trajectory of the music (Goodenough 1999; Hartley 2000). “Getting it” is an expression Deadheads use to describe the process of learning to perceive shows as spiritual experiences and to understand “these spiritual experiences as inseparable from the music, the scene, and a cooperative mode of everyday existence” (Adams quoted in Shenk and Silberman 1994, 106). Thus by having spiritual experiences at many shows over a long period of time, Deadheads developed feelings of closeness, a high level of commitment to the band and a high level of identification with the community.

THE CONSERVATIVE IMPULSE TO PRESERVE THE STATUS QUO AJD Almost one year AJD, an astute Deadhead wrote, “I still miss Jerry Garcia very much and have come to realize that his dying will have as great an effect on the rest of my life as becoming a Deadhead has had.” Although Deadheads who spoke immediately AJD almost all lamented his passing and celebrated his inherent value as a human being, many of them, even in

After Jerry’s Death 191 the early stages of mourning, also expressed their concerns about how his death would affect their own way of life, identity, and community. In the language of the Marris model, they were worried about how Jerry’s passing would disrupt the status quo. As one Deadhead wrote: “ . . . as sad as I was about Jerry, my most urgent thoughts when I heard the news were about us, the Deadheads. What was going to happen to this wonderful community Jerry had built?” Or as another said, “What I will miss the most is certainly the gathering itself. I truly felt more at home at a show than I do at home. An intense calm always fi lled my soul at shows because I was around thousands of people I could trust and love unconditionally. And for the most part that’s exactly what I could expect in return. I don’t know where I’ll get that from anymore, and I don’t know how to really explain it to anyone who didn’t really *live* it.” A seminary graduate expressed the sentiments of many: “We must continue—for he was not the only one called. We are all called to allow that inspiration at the center of our being to manifest.” Some focused specifically on what it was about the community they would miss, such as connections with friends: “During those fi rst painful days of mourning I thought a lot about the friends we had made loving connection with at shows, parting each time with hugs and smiles but not exchanging addresses—often not even last names. I wonder if we will ever meet again. I think we all subconsciously took Jerry and the Dead for granted, believing that they would always be there to keep us together and to provide the musical, spiritual and emotional balance of our lives.” Another Deadhead said it more succinctly: “What now? . . . I miss everyone.” Others focused on how the shows made them feel: “Any time I left for a show I would tell my mom that I was going to a group therapy session. I was going to be with 20,000 of my closest friends. I was going to THE SHOW!! Now where will I get my therapy?” Still others noted the importance of spirituality, described shows as providing “spiritual health insurance,” or lamented that “there are fewer and fewer places to ‘experience’ it.” When questioned about “the meaning of it all” when Jerry died, one Deadhead said he responded by asking people “to imagine being very religiously inclined and then imagine what it would be like if suddenly they woke up one day and there were no more churches.” Many were aware that it would be harder to cope during certain times of the year than others, depending on when they usually went to shows. Whether it was a seasonal tour or special shows that always occurred at the same time of the year such as “the Chinese New Year’s shows at the Oakland Coliseum,” Deadheads were worried about missing the structure and rhythm attending shows provided for their lives: “As the spring approaches, my friends and I are mentally prepared for a tour to begin, but it’s not coming. And when it gets closer and closer still, it gets more difficult . . .” “This spring was to be my 15th Spring Tour . . . I keep preparing . . . and like a ton of bricks the ugly truth is realized—NO MORE SPRING TOUR! Even when I couldn’t catch at least one show in the fall, I knew anticipation of

192 Rebecca G. Adams, Amy M. Ernstes, and Kelly M. Lucey a spring tour would get me through. Now there’s this big empty hole and I sit and flounder and wonder what to do.” Or as another commented: “I’m sure, once the summer hits, and there is no tour, I’ll miss him more.” Deadheads’ perspectives on the future of their community varied. Some were positive about it: “I always say that as long as there are Deadheads and concert tapes, Jerry will live on. We are a strong community and I think it will live on. It has to.” Others were worried: “I’ve mourned Jerry but I also mourn what this seems to be doing to the community. I get depressed reading r.m.gd sometimes.” A 35-year-old woman who had seen hundreds of shows wrote: “I hope that it won’t end, but the threads that bind the rope together are loosening. Friends, very close friends, that we literally grew up with, got married with, and raised our children together with, are distancing themselves. . . . [T]he loosening of the friendships that spanned two decades is disheartening.” Another Deadhead lamented: “What are we supposed to do now? With no Jerry it’s hard. It’s even hard to face the day. Where will all my sisters and brothers go, that have no homes? How will we earn our money now? But the most important question of all is how will I stay connected to my family? G.D. shows connected us; it was like a big family reunion at every show. Hopefully we’ll all be joined, together soon, I’m not sure how, but hopefully!” A 17-year- old who had been to eighteen shows offered a proposal: “WE NEED A PLACE FOR HEADS TO GO. I mean something like this Memorial Day weekend. I think having it twice for each season -spring, summer, and fall—would be great. We need it to be regionalized though. So everyone can go. In order to keep the family alive we need new offspring. New blood.”

ACHIEVING CONTINUITY: THE PRESERVATION OF DEADHEAD IDENTITY AND COMMUNITY THROUGH INCREMENTAL CHANGE OR SUBSTITUTION Given the conservative impulse and the tendency to want to preserve the status quo, the question is how did Deadheads preserve continuity in their identities and community? Responses to any loss are complex and multifaceted and Deadhead reactions to Jerry’s death were no exception. Although some Deadheads viewed Jerry’s death as an opportunity for growth or an irreconcilable loss and left the community AJD, others remained actively engaged and found ways to preserve their identities and their way of life as Deadheads. Although those who remained in the community inevitably also viewed Jerry’s death as a loss and perhaps also as an opportunity for growth, here we have artificially treated the reactions of those Deadheads quoted here as if their only concern was continuity. Some of the mechanisms Deadheads employed to preserve continuity in their identity and community were already in place, but since Jerry’s death they have either increased in importance or the emphasis on them

After Jerry’s Death 193 has increased. For example, thanks to technology, Jerry left a rich musical legacy in the form of recordings of most of his live performances with the Grateful Dead and others. Before Jerry’s death, these tapes had allowed Deadheads to keep in touch with the experience between shows (Adams 1992). AJD, they helped preserve continuity for Deadheads by allowing them to continue to listen to Jerry’s music, not just to remember it, but also to continue to experience specific shows for the fi rst time. As a Deadhead who worried about what would happen to the community that Jerry built wrote, “The magic is still there—[the music] still transports to some higher level of consciousness and makes me feel good. This has always been a deeply religious and spiritual touchstone for me and it still is! As somebody said in one of the tributes, ‘we will never forget this music—it is woven in our bones.’” Other Deadheads wrote that “[a]ll I have now is the music;” “[e]ven today I sometimes fi nd myself crying while going down the road listening to a tasty tape—but now they are happy tears;” “rather than feel sad I was glad there was thirty-years-worth of music;” “I know Jerry’s dead, and I know I’ll never get to go to a real show, but I do know that I can listen to the music and I can feel the spirit of the Dead;” “[d]espite not being the happiest guy in the world, and being treated like shit my whole life, I still have a chance to smile when I’m listening to the music;” “I listen to the music and give thanks again;” “the music makes me incredibly happy by zapping me back to some special show, song, back road highway on the way to a show, etc.;” “[i]t’s the only way I can let them go—by playing their music;” and “I feel his presence often and believe that he is still around—we just need to know how to listen.” Deadheads of all ages expressed similar sentiments about the importance of the music. A Deadhead who had been seeing shows since 1967 wrote, “I still love listening to the music . . . and still feel loads of joy.” A 37-year-old who described herself as a college-degreed designer for an appliance company said, “the music means more to me now than ever—an hour or two, sometimes several hours a day to help, to remember, to press on.” Similarly, a 35-year-old who “should have been a child of the sixties” said, “[S]ince August, I’ve bought four Dead CDs and will continue to listen to their music.” Another Deadhead born in 1975 who commented that his “parents were hippies” and “the Grateful Dead were just a small part of the soundtrack of my life” said of Jerry, “[E]ven just listening to him sing on a tape moves me, creates the magic.” As one Deadhead astutely noted: With the tapes, the Music Never Stops! I am especially partial to 1st gen from FOB DAT tapes, where the music is really crispy, but u can still hear the roar of the crowd at the appropriate times. When I listen to those tapes, I relive the joy and it warms my soul to know I experienced such wonderful highs, and they will always be with me—the “Help>Slip>Frank”

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Rebecca G. Adams, Amy M. Ernstes, and Kelly M. Lucey from 7/21/94 Deer Creek, the “Casey Jones” from 12/16/92 Oakland, the “Promised Land” from 9/4/91 Richfield, the “Scarlet Fires” from 5/21/92 Cal-Expo, 8/25/93 Shoreline, 12/19/93 Oakland, the “Bertha” with Branford from 12/10/93, the “Blow Away” in Albany 3/26/90, the saint of Circ 7/29/94 Buckeye Lake, “Midnite Hour” 7/31/94 Palace, I could go on and on. So I would encourage you to try and look at it that way. That’s why Jerry left us the tapes I think.

One young man who had never been to a show discussed his love of the Grateful Dead’s music and made it clear that it was by listening that he had begun to identify as a Deadhead, suggesting that the legacy of recorded music might not only keep old members engaged but also entice new members to join the community even AJD: “I myself never made it to an actual Grateful Dead show . . . Yea sometimes I get chills hearing or even thinking about the Dead and I’ve never even been to a show. Since the band died I’ve started my boot collection, to hear what I missed all of those short thirty years. So never let the music die or you might yourself. I know I was nuts without it in jail . . . ” He signed his letter, from “a forever-time Deadhead.” Some of those who wrote recognized that not only would they continue to enjoy and benefit from the music as individuals, but that its existence ensured the preservation of the community as well: “We are all going to run into each other again, we can never get out of this exclusive club because within us the music will always ring.” “I’ve found reassurance and guidance through the music and comfort through the community. Just because he’s gone, doesn’t mean we are.” Another explained: “As millions of us continue on the bus . . . we must remember that though the man is dead, his music and art will never be. No matter how many years pass from now till eternity the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, and the legions of Deadheads will always and forever, NOT FADE AWAY.” Deadheads celebrate the size and diversity of their community by proclaiming, “We are everywhere!” Their distinctive fashion and symbols had always had made it possible for Deadheads to identify each other outside of shows and other community gatherings, and the large size of the community had contributed to the frequency of such unplanned encounters (Adams 1999). In the aftermath of Jerry’s death, however, Deadheads increased their conscious efforts to seek out and construct opportunities for interaction with other members of their community, whether as individuals or in groups. In some cases Deadheads had already been involved in one of the many Deadhead subgroups or sub-networks and merely had to continue this involvement to stay engaged. Tape-traders were one such network (Harvey 2009). A woman who had left the scene for a corporate life many years before wrote: “I’m building my tape collection again . . . and connecting with kind souls.” Similarly, a man who was grateful for 30 years of music said: “Trading tapes . . . has created friendships with people I would

After Jerry’s Death 195 otherwise not have met.” Another said: “I’ve been getting on by doing more tape trading (especially with younger, newer Deadheads).” Another such subgroup is the Wharf Rats (Epstein and Sardiello 1990), a group of Deadheads who strived not to use drugs and alcohol. A Deadhead who had been clean and sober for two years wrote: “One of the things I do to stay connected is going to Wharf Rat meetings. Me and another guy, Rich, started a meeting every Friday night in Garden City NY for clean and sober Deadheads. It has been very helpful for me—and fun!” Another mechanism that was already in place in some parts of the United States was local annual Deadhead gatherings, often held in rural areas. Some of these annual gatherings continue and have been supplemented by other annual events; many of the newer events are held on what is now known as “Jerry Day.” Jerry Day was established in response to a suggestion by Jerry’s second wife, Caroline “Mountain Girl” Garcia, who is viewed by most Deadheads as his widow, even though the two were no longer married at the time of his passing. In an article in the same tribute magazine where Adams published one of her solicitations for letters, Mountain Girl wrote, “Perhaps it would be a good idea to set aside a day to remember Jerry each year. His birthday, August 1, is a possibility. Good summer weather to go to the park with kids and dogs, share a picnic, walk by a lake, be with friends. Love one another. Play together. If we were a big circle, we can be many small circles and pass that good feeling around again and again” (Garcia 1995, 14). As the Deadhead who considered shows to be therapy sessions wrote after reading Mountain Girl’s article: “My friends and I have chosen August 1st of every year to get together to talk about past shows and memories and to light a candle for Jerry. We have all marked out our calendars for ‘Jerry Day.’” Although Jerry Day is now celebrated in many places and by many “small circles” of fans, often the event does not take place on August 1, but sometime between that date and the date of his death, August 9. As one reporter noted, “In San Francisco, ‘Days Between’ refers to more than just a title of a Grateful Dead song. They are the days each year between Aug. 1 and Aug. 9 in which San Francisco celebrates iconic musician Jerry Garcia” (Aldax 2010). In 2011, the ninth annual Jerry Day was held at the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater in McLaren Park, near his childhood home on Harrington Street. The venue was named after him after his death and it was where the fi rst unofficial Jerry Day celebration was held in 2002 (Aldax 2010; Bay City News 2011). In the aftermath of Jerry’s death Deadhead gatherings were held more frequently than once a year in some local areas, sometimes in large venues and other times in smaller ones: “In Santa Cruz we’ve been having dances almost every other weekend so that we all can still get together and celebrate the tremendous experience we have all cherished . . . As Bobby said at the memorial—it is now up to us to keep the spirit alive.” Similarly a Deadhead who resided in Pittsburg mentioned: “Also there is one bar in town that has a weekly Grateful Dead night with a DJ. (They also book the Dead cover

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bands and related groups). And I’ve been feeding killer soundboards to the DJ and bar manager for years—I’m kind of their tape god and frankly it’s a lot of fun.” The same Deadhead who shed happy tears while listening to a “tasty tape” wrote: “A local radio station (Z-93) picked up the Grateful Dead Hour soon after Jerry’s death in August and has sponsored a monthly Grateful Dead Listening Party @ various locations around Atlanta. These parties are getting bigger (and more organized).” One of the mechanisms that was already in place for ensuring continuity of the Deadhead community was the Internet. The large number of Deadheads in cyberspace was immediately obvious when Jerry’s death was announced: “[They] consoled each other electronically—no surprise given the Dead’s reputation for connecting with its fans on the Internet. Shortly after word spread of Garcia’s death, dozens of chat lines on several on-line services were fi lled to capacity. (Caro and Carlozo 1995, 20) Similarly Piccoli (1995 A10) noted, “Computer on-line services ballooned with messages expressing shock and sorrow; one California-based Deadhead computer network, the Well, shut down when overloaded. . . . On America Online, the Grateful Dead space swelled with notices of candlelight vigils to be held in cities across the country . . .” Deadheads continued to use the Internet as they mourned, developing tribute websites (Gans 1995) and supporting each other across distances. Even in the immediate aftermath of Jerry’s death, Deadheads already realized how important the Internet would be to the continuation of their community. A TV news anchorman in a mid-sized city noted: “We stay connected thanks in large part to the net—email and websites.” A 15-year-old who was introduced to the Grateful Dead when he was 12 years old but “didn’t really get it until 2, 2 ½ years ago” commented, “How am I getting by and keeping in touch with other heads now that there’s no shows and no Jerry? Well, I am one of the many who frequents America Online for the sole purpose of communicating with and meeting other Heads. That really boosts me when I need it.” A 37-year-old married college graduate who owns his own forestry consulting business observed: “But by being able to go online and keep up with the rumor mill and by sharing my own thoughts and feelings, I began to realize that this in itself was life after the Dead—it was keeping the spirit alive.” A 26 year-old graduate of Cornell University commented, “I’ve never been on the Internet, or done e-mail or any of that, but I’m hearing so much about the resources and support available out there, that I think I’m pretty close to investigating it. I’ve fought to keep computers out of my life as much as possible, but I must admit that they’re probably the most direct route to some of the info I want to access.” The Deadhead quoted earlier who asked “What now?” wrote simply, “Online works for me.” The overwhelming response of Deadheads to Jerry’s death was, however, that “the music must not stop . . .” and “ . . . in one form or another the tribal gathering must continue.” Some Deadheads found comfort wherever

After Jerry’s Death 197 music was played: “I can’t recall a show I’ve attended where I didn’t see someone who was at least dressed as a Deadhead.” As the same Cornell University graduate quoted above indicated, others chose specific genres of music as a replacement for the Grateful Dead: “And one really positive, tangible thing that has been a direct result of all of this—Mike and I have gotten more into BLUEGRASS and so have several of our Deadhead friends. We needed new music, with no memories or associations, that would be uplifting and challenging and psychedelic, and Bluegrass does it for us.” Some listened to cover bands. A Deadhead who had recently relocated wrote: “I have been filling the void by going to see a very good Dead tribute band. They play almost monthly at the University of Iowa. There is always a good turnout and everybody dances . . .” Similarly a college student from Washington, D.C. noted, “There is a local Dead cover band called THE NEXT STEP that plays in Georgetown.” The same Deadhead who proposed Deadheads need a place to go commented, “I made it a point to follow Solar Circus (the band) everywhere after August. That helped a little too.” The Wharf Rat quoted earlier wrote: “Another thing I do is to go out and see Dead-related concerts and Dead cover bands. . . . The Zen Tricksters have been around for years also. . . . They are excellent. They actually tour all over . . . but they play the New York area all the time. We are very lucky to have them around here.” To substantiate this Deadhead’s claim that they were lucky to have the Zen Tricksters in their area, it is worth noting that two of their members eventually played with members of the Grateful Dead and subsequently joined Dark Star Orchestra, the most successful cover band AJD though none of the Deadheads who wrote to Adams mentioned it at all. Three of the members of Dark Star Orchestra had played in New York area cover bands in the 1970s: Jeff Matson played with the Volunteers which became the Zen Tricksters in the late 80s, Rob Barraco played with Timberwolf and then the Zen Tricksters, and Rob Eaton played with Border Legion (Jeff Matson, pers. comm.). Others focused their attention on other jam bands. A self-described “Deadhead in disguise” commented, “To be truthful, I fi nd that right now, the only other band that does connect me in the same way Jerry did is the Allman Brothers.” Although the Allman Brothers’ audience, at least in the South, has overlapped historically with the Grateful Dead’s, most observers agree with Parke Puterbaugh (2009, 151) who wrote, “In the Dead’s wake, the jam-band field largely and logically fell to Phish . . .” Later in his book he comments, “[t]he year 1995 ended with what many fans consider Phish’s greatest tour (fall ‘95), greatest month of touring (December ‘95), and one of their greatest single shows (New Year’s Eve).” It was at this New Year’s Eve show that one Deadhead was reminded of the Grateful Dead: My mind was ready for anything that night. At the end of Set II during “Mike’s Song” all of the band’s members left the stage except for Trey. Before I knew it there was a single spotlight on him as he stood there

198

Rebecca G. Adams, Amy M. Ernstes, and Kelly M. Lucey hunched over, almost motionless. Trey was fiddling around with the MIDI; he was playing “Space!!” This was the last thing I ever expected to hear again. If you closed your eyes you would think you were at a Dead show. So many thoughts, images, and memories raced through my mind at that point there is no way I could explain it.

Still other fans remained focused on the members of the Grateful Dead, catching performances by bands with one or more members of the Grateful Dead in them, or speculating about whether the remaining members of the Grateful Dead would play together again. A 30 year-old male who had attended 150 Dead shows and described himself as “single, very single” observed, “I’d love to see them regroup and go on without Jerry.” The Deadhead quoted earlier who fondly missed the “gathering itself” was “looking forward to the Dead playing again,” and concluded, “They will someday. And while Jerry may not be there, the resounding bass, perfect drums, and the fullness of Bobby’s chords will bring the memories back to real life. And I’ll fi nally get to see all my friends again in the only setting that will ever be truly appropriate to be with them: a show. Another Deadhead asked, “So, any suggestions as to how to go about reuniting us with our loved ones or any information about if the Dead (minus Jerry) will tour again? I’ve heard countless rumors about touring (or the end of it), as I’m sure we all have.” Perhaps to prevent a “Deadhead diaspora,” as the woman who said Dead shows provided spiritual health insurance called it, within a year of Jerry’s death, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart announced that the fi rst Furthur Festival would take place during summer 1996. As Gilbert (1996, N1) wrote in an article in the Boston Globe, “Furthur Festival, a gathering of Grateful Dead-related bands including Bob Weir and Ratdog, Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box, Hot Tuna, Los Lobos and Bruce Hornsby, offered Deadheads the fi rst opportunity to commune since the death of Jerry Garcia a year ago this Friday.” As soon as the Furthur Festival was announced, some Deadheads began to speculate on what it would mean for the Deadhead community. A 28 year-old female who worked for a publishing company commented, “I often wonder, now that our loveable dancing bear brother Jerry is gone, how the scene will stay together. Is the Furthur Festival the wave of the future for us Dead Freaks? Will it be Rainbow gatherings? Local gatherings? Pagan festivals? I’m not sure where to begin, other than at Furthur Fest, for which I just received my mail order tickets today.” Others began to make plans to meet others there, including one Deadhead who hoped to meet Adams: “p.s. Don’t I recall you saying you were going to Shoreline Furthur? See you there? 202 N 11–15 is where I’ll be. I’d love to say hello to you. Enjoy!” Some Deadheads were worried about how attending Furthur Festival would affect them, skeptical about whether it would be an adequate substitute for hearing the Grateful Dead, or convinced that it offered only a

After Jerry’s Death 199 temporary solution to the challenge of reintegration facing Deadheads: “I am still adjusting to Jerry’s death . . . I can’t decide whether or not to go to the Further Fest, I am afraid it might just make me sad.” As the Deadhead who said Jerry would live on as long as there are concert tapes said: “At least we have the Further Festival to look forward to but it’s not the same.” The same 35 year-old woman who had been to hundreds of shows who was quoted earlier concluded, “No, the Dead will not continue. I don’t think the Furthur Festival will be a continuing thing. I honestly think it is a one-time deal, for this summer.” Others were optimistic: “Thus, the way I have coped with 8/9/95 is to look to the future—the Furthur Festival for instance has been a motivating factor and has kept me focused on the group endeavor we Deadheads have come to enjoy and thrive on. I miss going to shows; I miss the sights, smells, sounds, and the collective energy and joy I have experienced at each show.” The same appliance designer quoted earlier said: “Looking forward to Bobby, Mickey and Vince playing this summer. At least that’s the plan, so I’ve read.” The forestry consultant quoted earlier was also excited: “When Furthur Festival was officially announced, my emotions soared. The name itself conjures up various images of our collective past and what possibilities the future may bring!” The Deadhead who was determined to do a better job of staying in touch with people she knew from shows made plans to do so: “This summer I will see my brothers and sisters not only at the Furthur Festival, which I will attend at Deer Creek, Tinley Park (IL) and Alpine Valley . . . With the new version of summer tour, the Further Festival, just over the horizon, we are reminded how fragile some of those precious friendships really are.” Even “newbies,” as Deadheads call people attending their fi rst show, made plans to attend: “I’m always going to have that feeling because I missed the original Grateful Dead but there ain’t nothing that’s going to keep me from FURTHUR and whatever else the boys decide to do together.” Furthur Festival was healing for some Deadheads. A Deadhead attending Indiana University at Bloomington wrote, “Looking for somewhere to feel the love and some music some friends and I decided to take in some shows on the Furthur Festival tour. We traveled to Alpine Valley, Wisconsin on June 29 and had an experience. Bobby joined Bruce Hornsby onstage for a ‘Jack Straw’ that filled the place with wonder. I cried, looking over at Jerry’s place on a Grateful Dead stage and I felt him there, watching all of us.” The Furthur Festival tour gave hope that the community would survive Jerry’s death. As the forestry consultant quoted in the previous paragraph wrote: Well, Furthur has come and gone from the Deep South . . . I saw The Guys and heard The Music, I saw old friends that I only see at shows and I saw people I’ve never met yet I always see and feel like I’ve known for years as we nodded appreciatively. I bone danced, I laughed, I rejoiced and partook in the fellowship and celebration of life—life after Jerry— and I was not alone! By night’s end, it was very clear to me—we’re

200 Rebecca G. Adams, Amy M. Ernstes, and Kelly M. Lucey gonna be OK! . . . We’re still intact. We’ve got the spirit inside us, we’ve got each other for support, we’ve got the music to guide us . . . and I’m thankful that we at least have a pulse! The press did not, however, describe the tour as a success: “There were all of those diehard Deadheads who looked forward to gathering together every year with their community of friends,” said Lee Crumpton, president of the Homegrown Music Network. He continued, “That was gone when Jerry departed, so the Dead organization put together the Furthur tour. But it wasn’t the same thing. Mickey Hart had his band, Bob Weir had his band and Bruce Hornsby had his band, but the music of the Dead wasn’t the focus” (Carlozo and Eng 1998, 2). Attendance at Furthur Festival, at least during the initial year, was not impressive. Dennis McNally, Grateful Dead publicist noted: At the recent Furthur Festival, a Grateful Dead-style revival featuring Bob Weir’s band, Ratdog, and Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box, the parking lot Deadheads numbered only a couple of hundred at the Shoreline Amphitheatre and 30 other venues across the country. The Furthur tour, which attracted about 400,000, did best in the Northeast, where the Grateful Dead was most popular. (Stack 1996, E1) At this early stage in the mourning process, possibly because they were not yet ready to let go of Jerry and to view his death as one possible to address through substitution, Deadhead reactions to Phish and Furthur Festival were not positive. The subsequent growth of these audiences supports this interpretation of this initially lukewarm reception of these experiences. Although Phish’s audiences grew much larger during the year AJD, at least partially due to migration from the Grateful Dead to Phish, none of the Deadheads who wrote letters to Adams during the immediate aftermath of Jerry’s death found Phish an acceptable substitute. Even the Deadhead who was reminded of the Grateful Dead when Phish played on New Year’s Eve 1995 went on to write that what he had heard was “not equal” to what he “felt with the Dead.” As another, very young Deadhead wrote, “So now what? Phish?!*? There’s nothing like a Grateful Dead Concert . . . God I feel torn. It was all Jerry before. Now? I just want us all back together, somehow somewhere onetime—young and old alike. That was the best part of the experience—that strong, loving attachment to all facets of our family.” Another Deadhead recalled, “After that I just traveled around the West Coast and in late October I came out east and did Phish tour. I ended up going to 36 Phish shows in all. I had fun, but there is no way I can do it anymore. It was like I was catching bad vibes the whole time, but I felt like there wasn’t anything else to do.” The man who had been trading tapes with younger Deadheads wrote, “After Jerry passed and I got a lot of my grief out at a Ratdog show, I went and saw Phish . . .

After Jerry’s Death 201 While the show itself was great, it didn’t have the range of emotions of a Dead show. After that, went to another and began to collect Phish tapes. Don’t get me wrong. Phish is no substitute. But by going to their show . . . gives me a familiar feeling, though I’m not truly whole and satisfied after the experience. I guess it’s like withdrawal. It also is like a reunion with the community.” The 17 year-old quoted earlier who lamented that Deadheads needed a place to go said: “Phish shows don’t do [it] for me. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been to nine Phish shows and like ‘em a lot, but Phisheads are not Deadheads.” Finally, a Deadhead admitted, “I went to a Phish show a few weeks ago and got to see a lot of friends and people that I used to at Dead Shows. But I must admit I felt kind of like a shithead because I wasn’t really at the show to see Phish, but instead to catch a glimpse of how I used to feel at shows. But in reality, I felt like a lot of people felt the same way I did, so it was a little sad. Not as much spirit, ya know.” Similarly, Furthur Festival audiences were much larger in 1997 and 1998 than in the initial year in 1996, but in the early stages of mourning during which these letters were written, very few of the Deadhead correspondents reacted as positively as the Deadhead quoted above. As the 42-year-old lawyer quoted previously commented, “The two Furthur Festivals I went to were great—the next best thing to being there—but it wasn’t the same and nothing can be or ever will be. It’s a sad realization.” After Jerry died the “forever-time Deadhead” quoted earlier relocated from jail to drug rehab: “Since then I’ve made it to a couple of the Furthur shows, it’s a cool scene but not the Dead.” The Cornell University graduate added to what he had said earlier, “By the way—went to Further Festival—it defi nitely felt positive, but paled so in the inevitable comparison, it was sad.” While most Deadheads found it relatively lacking, one found it depressing: “I went to a few Furthur shows hoping that these would somehow help. Although seeing everyone was wonderful (Bob, Bruce, Mickey, Heads, etc.), the shows were gut-wrenching. I feel stupid and selfish to be acting this way; but it isn’t that I want to be sad; I just can’t seem to get my head up. To have experienced the idyllic joy that accompanies touring and the Dead’s music is a wonderful, precious gift; but now I feel like nothing can compare to this experience.” Since the fi rst Furthur Festival many other combinations and permutations of band members have played together for larger crowds. Each of them have played with one or more of their own bands, and sometimes two or more of them have played together. For example, in 1998 the Other Ones was formed and included Phil Lesh and others in addition to Bob Weir and Mickey Hart. Then in 2000 Bill Kreutzmann joined Weir and Hart, but Lesh sat out. Then fi nally in 2002, all of the remaining members of the Grateful Dead and others played together as the Other Ones, and in 2003, 2004, and 2008–2009, the “core four” played with others calling themselves “The Dead,” as opposed to “The Grateful Dead.” The list of bands including at least one member of the Grateful Dead is far from

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complete. During this time period, the distinction between “The Dead” and Dead cover bands began to blur, most notably when Rob Barraco, formerly of the Zen Tricksters, played with the Other Ones in 2002 and The Dead in 2003, and when the former lead guitarist from Dark Star Orchestra, John Kadlecik, joined a band called “Furthur” formed by Phil Lesh and Bob Weir in 2009. Another development during this time period was the beginning of the growth of annual festivals, which are now fairly common and often feature members of the Grateful Dead, other jam bands, or Dead cover bands. The Deadheads who wrote about attending festivals were foreshadowing the future: “Our friend who is good acquaintance w/ Wavy Gravy is helping run ‘The Kind Gathering’ . . . [It] is a creation and dream to get as many Deadheads together to share peace, love, unity, [and] 4 days of killer music (Robert Hunter, Bonnie Raitt, NRPS, Zero, Widespread Panic, etc., etc.), camping, and of course vending! We want to do it right!” Another Deadhead reported on similar efforts: “We have already started making plans to fi ll this void—perhaps a visit from Rat Dog or the Ship of Fools festival—but this will only satisfy part of the void.” The Deadhead who proposed that Deadheads need a place to go said Phish was not an adequate replacement, and going to hear Solar Circus helped summarize his feelings: “The bottom line is that I need to hook up w/ other heads. . . . I just bought 2 tickets for the ‘Deadhead Heaven: A Gathering of the Tribe.’” “Then, when ‘Deadallapalooza’ started being tossed around in earnest,” the forestry consultant quoted several times earlier, “we knew that we as a community might have a touring, musical future as well.”

CONCLUSION The letters and e-mail messages analyzed in this chapter illustrate the extent to which Deadheads demonstrated a conservative impulse and the ways that they worked together, sometimes in collaboration with remaining members of the Grateful Dead, to achieve continuity in their identities and community. Although on one level most Deadheads would probably still agree today that no one can really replace Jerry, to achieve continuity, they have still developed or found substitutes for touring with the Grateful Dead, or made incremental changes to their lives. They listened to recordings of Jerry’s music; organized and participated in Deadhead subgroups and networks; planned and attended local annual celebrations; established and participated in sometimes more frequent local gatherings; connected with other Deadheads on the Internet; attended performances by or played in cover bands, other jam bands, or bands including one or more of the remaining members of the Grateful Dead; helped establish annual festivals by attracting national audiences or traveled to annual festivals outside of their local areas.

After Jerry’s Death 203 This data thus not only illustrates the resilience of Deadheads, but make it clear that far from being passive consumers, such fans actively participated in the creation of opportunities to enjoy music and other community activities. Deadheads did not have to start from scratch in developing mechanisms to achieve continuity of their community and identity, however. Many mechanisms were already in place, having been developed by the band and its fans over the years, perhaps not consciously to achieve continuity between shows, but with that effect. One consequence of Jerry’s death was the strengthening of this infrastructure in all of its contexts—locally, community-wide, and virtually. This infrastructure afforded opportunities for Deadheads to come together “in small circles,” whether local or virtual, immediately AJD when some Deadheads were fearful that they would never have a reason to unite again in a “large circle.” Although annual festivals were already becoming popular and some Deadheads already followed bands in addition to the Grateful Dead, these options became more important than before Jerry had died, as ways of preserving Deadhead identity and the Deadhead community. It is thus through dependence on and further development of an already existing infrastructure and renewed efforts to achieve continuity by both the band and their fans that the Deadhead community has survived Jerry’s death. By the time these Deadheads corresponded with Adams, a new status quo was already forming and the continued existence of the community seemed highly likely. From the current vantage point more than a decade and a half AJD, given the continuous addition of new players to bands (both those that include members of the Grateful Dead and those that do not) plus the recruitment of young fans to the community, it even seems possible that this community will outlive the deaths of all of the original fans and members of the band. From discussions of the aftermath of Jerry’s death in the popular media and the words of Deadheads themselves, it is clear that they are not only a quintessential example of fans who produce as well as consume, but also a prototypical example of fans who comprise a community with shared norms, values, and interpretations. Their connection shows itself through all the letters and email messages that they wrote, and the great sense of fear within them for the loss of connection with the greater community, as well as their resulting efforts to address that loss. The connection among Deadheads shows itself even more subtly in the expression of a shared language (Dollar 1999) and similar reactions to Jerry’s death. Although the data analyzed here were adequate to reach these conclusions, they did have limitations. First, because the letters and email messages were spontaneous expressions of grief, they were not consistent across correspondents. It was therefore impossible to consider how the individuals’ characteristics might have shaped opportunities to achieve continuity. Second, the spontaneous unstructured nature of the data also meant that not all Deadheads, by the time they wrote, provided a complete account

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of the grief process that they had undertaken. Third, it is possible that the self-selection of correspondents and timing of their responses relative to the grief process led to an emphasis on the preservation of continuity in their correspondence and that some Deadheads who initially strived to maintain their identities and community ended up moving on after grief had run its course. Together the short time period during which correspondence was received and this incompleteness of their accounts meant it was not possible to illustrate the entire trajectory of the grieving process, the reintegration of Deadheads into the community, or the development of a new status quo. This data does illustrate, however, the range of ways in which Deadheads initially met the challenge to achieve continuity posed by Jerry’s death. The time period during which Jerry passed and the characteristics of the Deadhead community itself also affected the conclusions here. When the difference between the level of development of the Internet in the mid-90s and in the present is considered, the importance of the period of history in shaping efforts to preserve continuity is clear. Although Deadheads were early adopters of the Internet, the virtual context is clearly different now, and the fi ndings are thus more relevant now than if the community had not already started using the Internet extensively before Jerry died. Similarly, had Jerry died more recently and the festival scene already been more developed, it is possible Deadheads would not have had to work so hard to fi nd opportunities for interactions with other members of their community. Finally, the Deadhead community is rather famous for its longevity, size, geographic dispersion, and intensity. Another less developed community might not have fared so well. For these reasons, the case study should be viewed as a description of what can happen in fan communities, not of what will happen in all cases.

NOTES 1. This chapter is dedicated to Brant Burleson, professor of Communication and affi liate professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University, who passed away on December 10, 2010. When Jerry Garcia died in 1995 and Rebecca Adams was trying to make sociological sense of the impact his death was having on the Deadhead community, he recommended that she read Peter Marris’ book, Loss and Change, which forms the theoretical foundation for this chapter. Without this recommendation, this chapter would have never been written. 2. This communication came in fall, 1998 when Cameron Sears was president of Grateful Dead Productions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Rebecca G. 1991a. “Experiential Consumption: The Meaning of Expenditures in a Music Subculture.” Presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Cincinnati, Ohio, August 23–27.

After Jerry’s Death 205 . 1991b. “On the Bus: Teaching About Deadhead Subculture.” Vues of Undergraduate Education in Sociology 20:1–5. . 1992. The Persistence of Deadhead Subculture. Presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 20–24. . 1995a. “The Sociology of Jerry Garcia.” Garcia: Refl ections 1:16–18. . 1995b. “We Haven’t Left the Planet Yet.” In Garcia: A Grateful Celebration, edited by Dupree’s Diamond News, 32–37. New York: DDN, Inc. . 1996. “We are on Our Own Together.” Dupree’s Diamond News 33:50–51. . 1998. “The Demise of Territorial Determinism: Online Friendships.” In Placing Friendship in Context, edited by Rebecca G. Adams and Graham Allan, 153–182, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. . 1999. “A Portable Community: Facilitating Repeated Interactions at Grateful Dead Shows.” Presentation at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Chicago, IL, August 6–10. . 2010. “Terrapin Station Demographics and ‘Deadication’: The Furthur Festival ‘98 Data.” Dead Letters IV:51–62. Adams, Rebecca G., and Jane Rosen-Grandon. 2002. “Mixed Marriage: Music Community Membership as a Source of Marital Strain.” In Inappropriate Relationships, edited by Robin Goodwin and Duncan Cramer, 79–100. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Aldax, Mike. 2010. “Jerry Garcia’s Legacy Still Lives on in SF.” The San Francisco Examiner, August 1. Accessed May 28, 2012. http://www.sfexaminer.com/ local/jerry-garcia-s-legacy-still-lives-sf#ixzz1te1lu39H. Bay City News. 2011. “Thousands Keep Truckin’ in Memory of Grateful Dead Guitarist at Jerry Day.” The San Francisco Examiner, August 7. Accessed May 28, 2012. http://www.sfexaminer.com/local/2011/08/thousands-keep-trunkinmemory-grateful-dead-guitarist-jerry-day Brower, Sue. 1992. “Fans as Tastemakers: Viewers for Quality Television.” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, edited by Lisa A. Lewis, 163–184. New York: Routledge. Carlozo, Lou, and Monica Eng. 1998. “Jam Yesterday, Jam Tomorrow—The Mellow Music that Won Legions of Fans for the Grateful Dead has only Become More Popular Since Jerry Garcia’s Death.” Chicago Tribune, July 15, 2. Caro, Mark, and Lou Carlozo. 1995. “On Computer, at Lakefront, Garcia Mourned.” Chicago Tribune. August 10, 20. Dollar, Natalie. 1999. “Understanding “Show” as a Deadhead Speech Situation.” In Perspectives on the Grateful Dead: Critical Writings, edited by Robert G. Weiner, 89–100. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Epstein, Jonathan, and Robert Sardiello. 1990. “The Wharf Rats: A Preliminary Examination of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Grateful Dead Head Phenomenon.” Deviant Behavior 11:245–257. Fiske, John. 1992. “Is There a Fan in the House?: The Affective Sensibility of Fandom.” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, edited by Lisa A. Lewis, 30–49. New York: Routledge. Gans, David. 1991. Conversations with the Dead: The Grateful Dead Interview Book. New York: Citadel. Gans, David (ed.). 1995. Not Fade Away: The On-line World Remembers Jerry Garcia. Berkeley, CA: Thunder’s Mouth. Gans, David, and Peter Simon. 1985. Playing in the Band: An Oral and Visual Portrait of the Grateful Dead. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Garcia, Caroline “Mountain Girl.” 1995. “Many Small Circles.” In Garcia: A Grateful Celebration, edited by Dupree’s Diamond News, 14–15. New York: DDN, Inc.

206 Rebecca G. Adams, Amy M. Ernstes, and Kelly M. Lucey Gilbert, Matthew. 1995. “Garcia’s Legacy A Counterculture Idol Without the Pretensions, He Remained in Love With His Music and its Power to Free Us.” Boston Globe. August 10, 61. Goodenough, Mary. 1999. “Grateful Dead: Manifestations from the Collective Unconscious.” In Perspectives on the Grateful Dead: Critical Writings, edited by Robert G. Weiner, 175–182. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Hartley, Jennifer A. 2000. “‘We Were Given this Dance’: Music and Meaning in the Early Unlimited Devotion Family.” In Deadhead Social Science: You Ain’t Gonna Learn What you Don’t Want to Know, edited by Rebecca G. Adams and Robert Sardiello, 129–154. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Harvey, Katie. 2009. “Embalming the Dead: Taping, Trading, and Collecting the Aura of the Grateful Dead.” MA Thesis, Tufts University. Jackson, Blair. 1983. Grateful Dead: The Music Never Stopped. New York: Delilah Books. Jenkins, Henry. 1992. “‘Strangers No More, We Sing’: Filking and the Social Construction of the Science Fiction.” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, edited by Lisa A. Lewis, 208–236. New York: Routledge. Jensen, Joli. 1992. “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization.” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, edited by Lisa A. Lewis, 9–29. New York: Routledge. Lewis, Lisa A. (ed.). 1992. The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media. New York: Routledge. Marris, Peter. 1974. Loss and Change. New York: Pantheon Books. Perry, Charles. 1984. The Haight Ashbury: A History. New York: Random House. Piccoli, Sean. 1995. “Jerry Garcia Dies of Heart Attack at 53—Grateful Dead Guitarist was Rock Icon.” The Washington Times, August 10, A10. Puterbaugh, Parke. 2009. Phish: The Biography. Philadelphia: De Capo Press. Scott, John W., Mike Dolgushkin, and Stu Nixon. 1997. Deadbase X: The Complete Guide to Grateful Dead Song Lists. Cornish, NH: Deadbase. Seidel, John. 1998. The Ethnograph v5.0: A User’s Guide. Thousands Oaks, CA: Scolari, Sage Publications Software, Inc. Shenk, David, and Stephen L. Silberman. 1994. Skeleton Key: A Dictionary for Deadheads. New York: Doubleday. Simon, Eric. Useless Deadstats. Available from [email protected], 1999. Stack, Peter. 1996. “For Deadheads, the Spirit Lives—But Year of Grieving Leaves ‘Big Emptiness’.” The San Francisco Chronicle, August 8, E1. Sutton, Shan C. 2000. “The Deadhead Community: Popular Religion in Contemporary American Culture.” In Deadhead Social Science: You Ain’t Gonna Learn What You Don’t Want to Know, edited by Rebecca G. Adams, and Robert Sardiello, 109–127. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Troy, Sandy. 1991. One More Saturday Night: Refl ections with the Grateful Dead, Dead Family, and Dead Heads. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Wilgoren, Rachel. 1999. “The Grateful Dead as a Community.” In Perspectives on the GratefulDead: Critical Writings, edited by Robert G. Weiner, 191–202. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

12 Afterword Fans and Scholars—A Reassessment Joli Jensen

In the late 1980s I wrote an academic essay (“Fandom as pathology: the consequences of characterization”) arguing that fans deserve interest and respect, rather than mistrust and contempt.1 I described fans as deeply knowledgeable and engaged by their object of expertise. My main argument was that unlike their caricatures, fans are not desperate, hysterical, lonely, and pathetic figures, trying to compensate for their inadequacies through fandom. I claimed instead—mostly in order to support my “fans aren’t pathological” argument— that scholars and fans are different versions of the same thing. To my delight, scholarly research on fans and fandom has developed and flourished in the decades since I wrote that essay. I am pleased to have this chance to rejoin the conversation, and to reflect more deeply on my decades-old claim about scholars and fans. The question I ask here is, “Are fans and scholars really different versions of the same thing, and if so, what are we scholars up to when we engage in fan research?”

ACA-FANS AND STEREOTYPES The telling term “aca-fan” has been popularized by media scholar Henry Jenkins.2 It is an obvious starting place for an assessment of fans as scholars and scholars as fans. What is going on with that hyphen? Jenkins uses it to reference his simultaneous but still separate identities as an MIT professor and as a media fan. The hyphen highlights his and our awareness of unresolved distinctions in academic and fan identity. Why make and maintain a distinction between academic and fan? I believe we are still struggling with a presumed reason / emotion divide, based on often unacknowledged stereotypes. And we are also still struggling with a mass culture / high culture discourse that fuels ambivalences about both media influence and the life of the mind. Just as the fan has been caricatured as being either a pathologically hysterical female or a pathologically obsessed male (immersed in mass culture), the scholar has been characterized as being a pathologically abstract, rationalized bookworm (immersed in high culture). Scholars are imagined as eggheads and brainiacs, all head, no heart, baffled by emotions, unable to survive in the “real world.”

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Scholarly work, in this stereotype, is an arid and lonely landscape, dry as dust. It attracts people who aren’t able to feel or express their emotions. So for scholars to study fans is (in caricature) to imagine a hyper-rational bookworm overwhelmed by—but oddly drawn to—the outpourings of hyper-emotional others. The classic 1941 screwball comedy Ball of Fire, directed by Howard Hawks with a script by Billy Wilder, engages—delightfully—these stereotypes. A gaggle of lexicography professors (all men, of course) are entranced by Barbara Stanwyck’s slang-spouting nightclub singer Sugarpuss O’Shea. She’s a “ball of fi re” and (thanks to her) the ivory tower eggheads (including a bedazzled Gary Cooper) learn how to let go of their bookish isolation, and discover the joys of conga-dancing. When we study fans and fandom, we trigger two academically suspect areas: popular culture and emotional response. This double punch makes our work seem “unscholarly” only if we assume that scholarship should be emotionally suppressed and about high culture. While postmodernist theory has of course challenged both the high / low culture divides and the reason / emotion divide, these dichotomies haven’t yet been fully erased in our own academic cultural practices. I think they still shape what we are up to, as scholars, when we study fans and fandom. Most of us, when talking about our research, have experienced some version of the dismissive glance from colleagues, or the “they actually pay you for that?” incredulousness of non-academic friends. During my own academic career, it has been much more comfortable for me to tell people I study “beliefs about the arts” rather than “country music” or “popular culture.” And my guess is that many of us who study fans and fandom are tempted to use extra footnotes and especially formal language to insure we are taken seriously as scholars. But we need to rethink the ways that we insist that intellectual work is rational not emotional. These may not be mutually exclusive categories. Academic work is not necessarily—and need not pretend to be—arid or dispassionate. And most of us are not socially clueless eggheads, mystified by the real world. Perhaps the ideal fan scholar is a Sugarpuss O’Shea with graduate training, or a lexicographer who knows how to use slang and conga. Engaged by both popular culture and scholarship, we can and should understand (and enact) passionate minds and mindful passions. But we are still in the process of creating, it seems to me, language and methods that can confidently be applied both to fans and to ourselves. We are still holding on to that hyphen to hold onto distinctions between academic and fan.

FANS AS UNCREDENTIALED SCHOLARS / SCHOLARS AS CREDENTIALED FANS? Since the 1980s the Internet has transformed both how fans enact their fandom, as well as how scholars document fan practice. Online gathering,

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sharing, evaluating and displaying of individual and collective affection offers new evidence to support my article’s claim that fans can be understood as uncredentialed scholars. The Internet makes it much easier for fans to publicly demonstrate deep and detailed mastery of his or her object of interest. It also makes it possible for fans to correct and critique those who claim mastery but don’t really have it. The Internet makes it even more obvious than it was in 1992 that many fans have extraordinarily detailed knowledge, gathered with the zeal and precision of the best academic scholars. The dedicated search for information connected to a performer, style, genre or related objects, as well as arguments about evidence and interpretation, seems to me—still—to be remarkably similar in fans and scholars. Let me illustrate this through my research on country music singer Patsy Cline. In the early 1980s I went to Nashville to fi nd out whatever I could about her (then) obscure life and recording career, searching archives, interviewing people who knew her, trying to sort out her recording contracts and biographical details. This is how I became the fi rst “Patsy Cline scholar.” I was greatly helped by staff members at the Country Music Hall of Fame Library & Media Center, including Don Roy, a then hourly employee but also—on his own time—a zealous music fan and record collector. He offered to create the fi rst Patsy Cline discography for my fi rst scholarly article on her career (see Jensen 1982) and his detailed knowledge of 1950s music educated me about performers and sounds I knew very little about. His understanding of the Nashville Sound period gave much-needed substance to my outsider impressions. But I was the one getting a PhD, who ended up writing a dissertation on country music in the 1950s and 60s, and thereby becoming credentialed as a media studies scholar.3 The last I heard, Don was working fulltime for J.C. Penneys in the Nashville area, but I am sure he still knows far more about the music of the period than I do. Don Roy was my fi rst experience with how a fan/collector can be a vernacular scholar. He immersed himself in a self-created quest to know more and more, for its own sake. But in the 1970s and 80s he didn’t have easy ways to publish his vast knowledge. I was positioned to get his work “out there”; I could legitimate his fan’s expertise with my scholarly credentials. I went on to other research interests, but every so often I am given a chance to return to Patsy Cline. An essay I wrote on her posthumous reputation turned into a co-edited book (with Steve Jones) on how dead music stars are commemorated, and it included some references to the then-emerging phenomenon of web shrines and other Internet-based forms of fandom (see Jensen and Jones 2005). A few years later I was invited to present a paper at a Patsy Cline conference.4 This was my re-entry into what had happened with Patsy Cline fandom—to all fandom—thanks to the Internet. It had never occurred to me, until then, to do an online Patsy Cline search. Late one afternoon, alone in my office, I typed “Patsy Cline” into Google, and there it all was—an unbeknownst-to-me electronic archive of

210 Joli Jensen Patsy Cline arcana, lovingly curated, available at the touch of a few keys. Like so many other figures, Patsy now has a rich and detailed Internet presence. For years, dedicated fans had been posting information I didn’t know and images I had never seen. It is blindingly obvious—curators and followers of Internet fan sites are far more Patsy Cline experts than I am. So fans and scholars are doing very similar things, and the Internet helps us see this more fully. We and they fi nd subjects that interest us, devote time and energy to becoming expert in them, and demonstrate that expertise publicly. Fans do their scholarship on the Internet, without academic credentials, but certified by the opinion of other fans who figure out who knows or doesn’t know “their” field. Academics do scholarship in books and journals and classrooms, with degrees and publications and institutional affiliations, but are still subject to the judgment of others who share our interests. The reason I wrote my essay so many years ago was to counteract the pathological image that then dominated both popular and scholarly accounts of fandom. I noted that from both perspectives fans were not only being generally disparaged, but they were also assumed to be compensating for some lack in their lives. Fans became fans (according to then unexamined assumptions) because they were social misfits. Fandom was evidence of efforts to make up for something going wrong in their psyche or in society. But if fans and scholars are up to the same kind of thing, I asked, then are we social misfits, too? Is our intellectual work just compensation for various social or psychological absences? I didn’t think so then, and I don’t think so now. Unless we want to argue that all inquiry is compensatory, making up for some psychic or social lack, we need to fi nd better ways to understand fans and fandom as well as our own participation in academic life. But is detailed expertise, on the Internet, really the same as academic scholarship? Good scholarship depends upon a fan-like engaged, accurate, detailed, accumulation of information. But it also involves doing interpretive work, based in broader and deeper historical, social and cultural knowledge. This is a key distinction we make to distinguish ourselves as scholars, and it remains a tension in fan scholarship, as well as in media studies. Is it enough to document and detail what fans or cultural forms are up to, or is there something else that we as scholars should be doing when we study fans? The way that we, as scholars, distinguish ourselves from “mere fans” is that we do something with a particular figure, genre or era—we theorize. We don’t just celebrate something for its own sake. This ability to do interpretive, contextualizing, theorizing is what graduate education trains us to do. Armed with the approved interpretive tools of our trade, and the right credentials, we can be defined as respectable scholars, not mere fans. We are allowed to do academic teaching and research, professing our fan-

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expertise in scholarly language, performing it in classrooms, conferences, academic books and journals. But does this mean that scholars are simply fans with theoretical acumen, academic presentation skills, and institutional credentials? I think so and I hope so. My favorite moments in academic life are when we drop protective posturing and just start talking about what we care about. I love the energy of enthusiasts wherever and whenever it appears, and I think academic life has obscured and deflected that energy for too long.

INSTRUMENTAL AND EXPRESSIVE APPROACHES Fan scholarship, as evidenced in this volume, is an arena where academic practices relocate and legitimate the passions that fans and scholars share. But the studies in this volume also show how we still struggle with assumed differences between scholarship and fandom. Our work in this area seems to have two general styles—mostly exploring fans as performers of fandom, or mostly exploring fandom as a social, cultural or political process. These two styles can be categorized as “performance” versus “theory” perspectives, but I think that may not be the best way to think about the different purposes in our efforts When scholars explore fans as performers, they focus on fans as a social or cultural group, describing and analyzing beliefs and behavior. Many of the chapters in this volume center on descriptions of what fans are up to, with obligatory and cursory gestures toward what fandom is up to. When scholars explore fandom as a cultural, social or political process, they are seeing fans as instantiations of other forces. This means that fans aren’t just performing fandom—they are also showing us how identity, connection, tribalism, consumerism and other aspects of power/meaning are created and maintained. This approach is referenced in passing in several of the chapters—it often appears as a scholarly frame, to begin or end the piece. In another context, I’ve used the terms “expressive” and “instrumental” to distinguish between perspectives that treat art as experience and those that treat art as a social / cultural / political tool (see Jensen 2002). I prefer these less loaded terms. Applied here, it means that in some cases we study fans to understand fans’ own experiences (expressive), and in other cases we use fans to understand related social/cultural/political processes (instrumental). My sense is that our current academic values pull us away from expressive analysis, and push us toward the instrumental use of fans to make claims about fandom. This is because analyzing the supposed social, cultural and political work of fandom sounds more scholarly than interpreting fan practice. The farther away we get from actual fans, the more scholarly we seem. Just as the prestige of an academic job is enhanced by increasing our distance from actual teaching, the prestige of our field is enhanced by

212 Joli Jensen increasing our distance from actual fans. It’s bad enough that in media studies we spend our time on the contemporary, the commercial, and the widely popular. In fan scholarship we spend time with actual people who actually like contemporary, commercial and popular culture. I want us to recognize and resist the ways that academic prestige anxiety can deform our scholarly work by pushing us away from actual fan practices, toward facile theorizing about fandom. I think we are asking interesting and valuable questions in both approaches. In the expressive case, fans are used to illuminate fandom; in the instrumental case, fandom is used to illuminate some other aspect of social, cultural or political life. The kinds of questions we ask, from an expressive perspective, are questions of meaning and practice—what are fans doing and how are they doing it? What can they tell us about themselves? The kind of questions we ask from an instrumental perspective are about cultural, social and political processes—what can fandom tell us about how meaning is made, how identity is formed, how groups maintain boundaries, how power works? A healthy field will insist that these two perspectives work together dialectically. That is my hope for where we are headed with scholarship on fans and fandom. It is too easy, and unhelpful, to imagine expressive and instrumental styles as performance versus theory, or description versus explanation, or to argue that we have “outgrown” an early fan behavior focus and can now engage in more theoretical or critical analyzes. And because the instrumental perspective always “sounds more scholarly” we can too easily use it as camouflage, festooning our expressive work with theory-derived jargon and vague claims about what fandom is “really” up to. The danger in an expressive-only focus is that we limit ourselves to descriptions of fan practice as exotic “others.” The field could end up as a collection of ethnographic accounts that describe but don’t interpret or explain. But the danger of the instrumental-only approach is that we dismiss what fans themselves know and do, in our rush to get to the “more real” forces that allegedly determine their practices. Instead of illuminating what fandom means to fans themselves, we use fans and fandom to tell the stories “real” scholars are supposed to tell about hegemony, the cultural apparatus or the social formation. Which brings us to longstanding debates in cultural studies and the interpretive turn in academic life. Is our job to interpret interpretations or reveal underlying processes? My teacher James W. Carey traces this dilemma back to the Enlightenment, but most of us encounter it through debates between cultural and critical orientations in media studies. 5 Is it really just stories “all the way down,” or is there something more real and determining that we can locate, with the right analytical tools? In other words—do we just interpret interpretations (fans as experience; expressive) or do we critique and connect (fandom as condition; instrumental)? Obviously, expressive scholarship looks more like fanwork—about

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the experience itself; instrumental scholarship looks more like “real” scholarship—contextualizing through the application of theory.

SCHOLARS AND FANS RECONSIDERED So what are we up to when we study fans and fandom? I am personally interested in understanding cultural experience, wherever it appears. I am most drawn to studies that focus on, and respect, fans’ understanding of their own experiences. I think that is where we can and should always start. I am restive with work that uses fans “in general” to make statements about abstract categories like hegemony or postmodern life. But as scholars, we can’t help but use fans for something—scholarship is about using something as a vehicle for understanding. Few studies are purely expressive because as scholars it is almost impossible for us not to connect description with explanation. We have been trained to explain. So if we connect fandom to the “more real” processes of identity formation, consumerism, hegemony, or postmodern fragmentation, we are just doing what we’ve been trained to do. But are these terms, concepts or conditions actually any “more real” than fan practices? I don’t think so, but that’s what keeps me on the cultural side of the cultural / critical divide in media studies. I came to fan studies through popular culture scholarship via American cultural studies in the 1970s, and remain shaped by concerns of that era. One of the strengths of this collection is that current scholars are drawing from so many different disciplines. This incorporation of musicology, sociology, history, anthropology, communication and cognate disciplines is heartening to me. Scholarly work on fans and fandom is still, thankfully, too diverse to have a canon to be overthrown, a dominant method to be deplored, or a unifying paradigm to be re-conceptualized. It probably will, someday soon, since that is how academic life works. But for now, a loose alliance of interests across disciplines, around a particular kind of figure— the fan—offers us (as scholars) the chance to use our various disciplinary heritages to explore fan practice both for its own sake, and as an instance of something else. But scholarly work is still not fan work, and that is part of the reason for the hyphen in aca-fan. Those of us who study fans and fandom are part of an academic system that is still not particularly comfortable with emotional engagement or popular culture. The safest scholarly route, when exploring fans and fandom, is to theorize about what fans are “really” up to—identity, community, oppression, liberation or whatever. But my suggestion here is that we recognize and work against this temptation. I want us to try, instead, to dialectically connect expressive and instrumental perspectives. When we study fans and fandom, I want us to acknowledge that both scholars and fans can reflect on how and why we enact our cultural choices. As a media scholar I am still working out my own ways of thinking and

214 Joli Jensen feeling about my own cultural tastes and practices. Yes, I want to challenge the caricatures of both fans and scholars, but I also fi nd myself uncomfortable with “anecdotal” examples of fan scholarship. Whenever an essay is unpolished, rambles, or seems too casual I cringe. “This isn’t an argument,” I mutter, “this is just a bunch of notes thrown together! Our work will never get taken seriously if it doesn’t do better than this!” But I am also uncomfortable when someone tries to “over-academicize” fan study. There is no need to be so distanced, arcane, reserved or stiff in our academic writing. We don’t need to “add in” theory or use pretentious language, just to prove that we are really doing difficult scholarly work “even though” we are studying fans. In Ball of Fire there is a nightclub scene where a stone-faced Gary Cooper is dutifully taking notes on Barbara Stanwyck’s fl irtatious performance of “Drum Boogie.” As Cooper takes notes, his fi ngers start tapping to the boogie beat. He realizes this, and stops abruptly, embarrassed by this breakdown in scholarly decorum. We’ve all experienced those moments—I want us to acknowledge and explore them, and let ourselves fi nd ways to tap our fi ngers while taking notes. I want fan studies to do interesting valuable work and I want it to be taken seriously as a “real” academic field. But in calling for that, I find myself deploying elements of the pesky and pointless reason/emotion dichotomy. I want us to be respected as rational, organized, informed scholars, not mistaken for emotional, disorganized, reactive fans. I’m replaying the stereotypes I hope to challenge. If fans and scholars are up to the same thing, why should it matter if fan studies scholars sometimes sound more like fans than scholars? So I have some unresolved questions in response to this moment in the field, as evidenced in this collection. Do we need to turn fan practices into “something else” in order for our study of them to be respected as an academic field? Can we use fan scholarship to reclaim academic research as an enthusiastic, passionate, sometimes disorderly activity? Could fan scholarship be inspired by what fans themselves are up to, and thereby reclaim some of the energy that is so refreshing in fans, and so often absent—or suppressed—in academic life? NOTES 1. The piece was called “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization,” credited to Joli Jenson (a mis-spelling of Jensen) in Lisa Lewis’s book The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media. It was also reprinted in edited volumes by Harrington and Bielby (2000, 301–314) and McQuail (2002, 342–354). 2. See Confessions of an Aca-Fan: The Offi cial Weblog of Henry Jenkins: http// henryjenkins.org. 3. My 1984 PhD dissertation was published as The Nashville Sound (1998). 4. The conference has become a book edited by Warren Hofstra (2013). My chapter is “Becoming a Postage Stamp: Patsy Cline, Visual Image and the Celebrity Process.”

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5. See Carey (1989), particularly Chapter 2: “Mass Communication and Cultural Studies” (29–52).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Carey, James W. 1989. Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society. Boston: Unwin-Hyman. Harrington, C. Lee, amd Deize D. Bielby (eds.). 2000. Popular Culture: Production and Consumption. Oxford: Blackwell. Hofstra, Warren. 2013. Sweet Dreams: The Life and Times of Patsy Cline. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Jensen, Joli. 1982. “Patsy Cline’s Recording Career: The Search for a Sound.” Journal of Country Music 4, 2:34–46. . 1992. “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization.” In The Adoring Audience: Fan Culture and Popular Media, edited by Lisa Lewis, 9–29. London: Routledge. . 1998. The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization and Country Music. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. . 2002. Is Art Good For Us? Beliefs about High Culture in American Life. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Jensen, Joli, and Steve Jones. 2005. Afterlife as AfterImage: Posthumous Reputation in Popular Music. New York: Peter Lang. McQuail, Denis (ed.). 2002. Reader in Mass Communication Theory. Sage: London.

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Contributors

Rebecca G. Adams is Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has published more than fi fty scholarly articles and book chapters, and co-authored several books including Deadhead Social Science (2000). Professor Adams also narrated and co-produced the 1995 PBS fi lm, Deadheads: An American Subculture. She is currently completing a monograph, Deadheads: Community, Spirituality, and Friendship. Mark Duffett is a Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at the University of Chester. After earning a PhD in 1999 on the relationship between Elvis and his fans, Mark has worked full-time teaching and researching media, fi lm and music fandom at Chester. In 2010 he organized an international symposium on popular music fandom. He was also keynote speaker at the MARS conference in Finland in 2012. Mark’s other books include the media fandom textbook titled Understanding Fandom (Bloomsbury, 2013). Amy M. Ernstes is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a research interest in the idea of “quality time.” She has also been a research assistant to Professor Rebecca Adams. Nedim Hassan is a full time Lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University with a research interest in the musical lives of adults with learning disabilities. After earning a PhD from the University of Liverpool’s Institute for Popular Music (IPM), Nedim co-organized the IPM’s Sounds of the Overground colloquium and he has also written for the journal Popular Narrative Media. Matt Hills is Professor of Film and TV Studies at Aberystwyth University. He is the author of a number of books including Fan Cultures (Routledge, 2002) and has published widely on cult media and fandom. Matt’s recent publications include a book on Doctor Who (2010) for IB Tauris (which featured a chapter on Murray Gold’s music) and chapters for

218 Contributors edited collections from publishers such as Ashgate, Duke, NYU Press, and University of Texas Press. Joli Jensen is the Hazel Rogers endowed Professor in Arts and Sciences at the University of Tulsa, where she teaches in communications. Her previous books include The Nashville Sound: Authenticity, Commercialization and Country Music (1998) and the edited volume Afterlife as AfterImage: Posthumous Reputation in Popular Music (2005). In fan studies she is most known for her chapter in Lisa Lewis’s 1992 book The Adoring Audience. Professor Jensen’s “Fandom as Pathology” essay remains one of the most cited pieces of academic writing on the media representation of popular music fans. Kelly M. Lucey is a researcher who has worked as assistant to Professor Rebecca Adams at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Alexei Michailowsky is currently completing a PhD for UniRio in Brazil on the music of the legendary Blue Note recording artist Marcos Valle, his hero in the world of Bossa Nova. Beate Peter is a full time Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her PhD for the University of Salford explored the consumption of electronic dance music and phenomenology of clubbing. Beate has a research interest in Jung and popular music. Cornel Sandvoss is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Surrey. His 2005 book Fans: The Mirror of Consumption was described by Henry Jenkins as “a magisterial book which expands the range of examples in the discussion, opens up a range of new questions and poses some provocative new conceptual models.” Cornel has previously taught at the University of Cambridge and is chair of Popular Communication at the International Communication Association (ICA). Roy Shuker is an Associate Professor at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. His popular textbook, Understanding Popular Music, has frequently been updated and reprinted since its fi rst edition in 1994. Roy’s recent book Wax Trash and Vinyl Treasures (2010) examines record collecting as a social practice. Fred Vermorel is the author of a series of music biographies spanning across four decades. He created two books in the 1980s that became seminal in fan studies: Starlust (1985), a comparison of fan mail, and Fandemonium (1990), a historical survey of fads and fashions. His 1983 book A Secret History of Kate Bush (dubbed an “anti-biography” by Simon Frith) highlighted the controversial notion of the biographer-as-fan,

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a subject he pursued in a 2007 television documentary for the Dutch public broadcaster NPS called Come Back Kate. Fred’s early writing on music fandom has been reproduced in several classic volumes (Frith and Goodwin 1990; Lewis 1992; Savage and Kureshi 1990). He has also worked at Southampton Solent University and Richmond University, where he has taught as Associate Professor of Communication. Tony Whyton is a Professor at the University of Salford’s School of Media, Music and Performance. He currently leads Rhythm Changes, a threeyear international research project exploring European jazz cultures. Tony has organized several jazz research conferences and is the author of the Cambridge University Press book, Jazz Icons (2010).

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Index

‘1995’ 73 7 Walkers (group) 186

A A Hard Day’s Night 182 Abercrombie, Nicholas 119, 136–7 Aca-fan 71, 77, 207, 213, 214 Acetates 181–2 Acid (LSD) 129, 189 Acid Tests 189 Adams, Rebecca 6, 11, 13, 186, 188–90, 193–5, 197–8, 200, 203–4 Aden, Roger 141 adidas 135 Adolescent 126, 129, 166, 177–8 Adoring Audience, The 5, 6, 12, 57, 214 Adorno, Theodor 1, 147, 162 Adventures in Modern Recording album 25 Advertisement 74, 83, 116, 175, 183 Aesthetics 24, 44, 46, 112, 131, 170, 172, 174, 178 Affect 19–20 Aficionado 10, 82, 102, 109 African American 71, 74, 97, 102, 106, 109–112 Age of Plastic 25 Ahmed, Sarah 160 Aitken, Matt 33 AJD (After Jerry’s Death) 186, 188, 190, 192–4, 197, 200, 203 Ake, David 110, 119 Aldax, Mike 195 Alfee, The 66 Allman Brothers, The 197 America at the Movies 87 Amnesia (club) 116, 118, 131, 133, 140, 141, 140

Anderson, Benedict 128 Anderson, Tammy 141 Anderson, Tonya 16 Andrade, Oswald de 82 Ang, Ien 56 Angels & Airwaves (group) 33 ‘Anti’ EP 52 Apple 173 Araújo, Paulo Cesar de 83 Ashery, Oreet 95 Assef, Cláudia 82 Atkinson, Paul 140 Aura 21, 23, 156, 177, 183 Autechre 52 Auteurs 8, 21–4 Authenticity 16, 17, 19, 23–4, 102, 106, 129, 139, 158, 167, 172, 177 Autobiography 33, 92 Autograph 7, 182, 183

B Babyboomer Rock’n’Roll Fans 6 Backstreets magazine 149, 162 Bacon-Smith, Camille 5 Baker, Arthur 24 Ball of Fire 214 Bambaataa, Afrika 174 Bannister, Matthew 174 Bar M (bar) 118 Baraka, Amiri 109 Barlow, Gary 26 Barraco, Rob 197, 202 Basshunter 129 Baudrillard, Jean 89, 137, 170, 178 Bauman, Zygmunt 39, 139 Bay City News 195 Bay City Rollers 159 Baym, Nancy 6, 31

222

Index

Beatles, The 2, 7, 10, 11–12, 63, 88, 147, 149, 156, 158, 162, 165–6, 175, 178–83 Beatles Illuminated: The Discovered Works of Mike Mitchell 183 Beatlemania 1–2, 166, 182 ‘Butcher’ cover 180, 182 Sgt. Pepper album 2, 181 Yesterday and Today 182 White Album, The 180–1 Beatniks 92, 131 Beattie, Keith 177 Beck-Gernsheim, Elizabeth 139 Beck, Ulrich 139 Becker, Howard 56, 102 Becker, Judith 45, 51 Beer, David 6 Belk, Russell 168, 170–3, 176 Belle and Sebastian 26 Bellis, Mark 119, 141 Ben, Jorge 81 Benjamin, Walter 176 Bennett, Andy 7, 10 38, 116, 124–8, 139, 141 Bennett, Lucy 3, 16 Bennett, Tony 51 Berger, John 137 Berliner, Paul 99 Beyoncé (Knowles) 88 Bibliomania 170 Bieber, Justin 88 Bielby, Denise 60, 65, 134 Big Brother 82 Biography 9–10, 13, 89, 91, 95, 106, 169 Birmingham School (see Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies) Bizz magazine 78 Blackman, Lisa 148 Blackman, Shane 124, 141 Blake, Claire 151 Blank, Rebecca 3 Blueboard forum 21, 22, 27, 32–3 Blumer, Herbert 56 Bolan, Marc 197 Boney M 64–5 Boney M, The Best of 64 Bono 16, 101 Boorstin, Daniel 86 Booth, Paul 19 ‘Born Slippy’ 133 Bossa nova 71, 73–4, 83, 79–80, 82–3 Boston Globe 198 Bourdieu, Pierre 6, 8, 37–40, 45–6, 49, 51, 91, 128

Bowie, David 6, 12, 16, 179 Box set 73, 80, 165, 168, 179, 180 Branding 25, 27 Bricolage 122 Briggs, Daniel 137, 140 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 4, 116, 141, 180 British Journal of Sociology 95 Brower, Sue 186 ‘Brown Girl In the Ring’ 63–5, 67 Brown, Leonard, 106 Brown, Marion 105 Brown, Peter 87 Bryant, Miranda 140 Buggles 25, 27, 33 Bull, Michael 57 Buren, Armin van 141 Burgess, Richard 20, 22, 25 Burleson, Brant 204 Bush, Kate 13, 58, 86, 89–90, 94–5, 179 Bussard, Joe 171–2 Byron, George 91

C Calle, Sophie 89, 94–5 Camp 4 Campbell, Bob 171–2, 175 Campbell, Colin 89 Campbell, Glen 63 Campbell, Joseph 8, 37, 47–8, 50–1 Camus, Albert 19–20 Capitol 182 Captain (group) 26 Carey, James 212 Carlos, Roberto 73, 82 Carlozo, Lou 196, 200 Caro, Mark 196 Caughey, John 87 Cavern, The 158 Cavicchi, Daniel 6, 61, 67, 72, 149, 157, 159, 162 Tramps Like Us 72 Celebrity 1, 5–7, 9, 11, 16–18, 21, 26, 31–3, 72, 82, 86, 88, 90–1, 93, 95, 97, 103, 106, 108, 118, 131, 155–6, 158, 159, 161, 179, 214 Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) 37–8, 131 Certeau, Michel de 5, 12, 13 Charisma 87–8, 93, 131, 153–4 Chen, Joyce 47 Chicago School 56, 121 Christenson, Peter 120

Index Christies (auctioneers) 165, 182–3 Clarke, Natalie 140 Claughton, Maya 140 Clifford, James 140, 167, 174 Cline, Patsy 209–10, 214 Cloonan, Martin 2, 7 Club Reps 140 Clubbers 10, 45, 49, 120, 122–3, 126–7, 129, 131 Clubbing 37, 49, 115–9, 118–9, 122–4, 129–30, 133, 140 Clubland (club night) 129–30 Cobain, Kurt 92 Cohen, Sara 57, 67, 95 Cohen, Stanley 140 Collecting 5–6, 7, 9, 11, 29, 41, 62, 57, 63, 78, 83, 89–90, 96–7, 121, 147, 151, 161–177, 175–83, 194 Collusion 156 Coltrane, Alice 100 Coltrane, John 10, 97–113 Communitas 121–4 Confessions 92 Consumption 1–4, 17, 21, 30, 39, 41, 45, 89, 93, 95, 107, 109, 117, 130, 157, 168, 180, 186, 203 Convergence 75 Cook, Nicholas 65 Cooper, Gary 208, 214 Corsten, Ferry 141 Cosmopolitanism 111, 121 Cosplay 5, 12 Couldry, Nick 56–58 Counter-performance 157 Countercultures 2, 131–2, 138 Country Music Hall of Fame 209 Crafts, Susan 57 Creativity 2, 5, 9, 21, 23, 24, 28, 31, 50, 60, 66–7, 128, 147, 152, 180 Crème, Lol 26 ‘Crickets Sing for Annamaria’ 74 Criminal Justice Bill 42–44 Critcher, Chas 60 Crocker, Chris 4 Crosby, Bing 63 Crouch, Stanley 110 Crowdfunding 81 Crumb, Robert 169 Crumpton, Lee 200 Cult 2, 10, 39, 58, 63–5, 72, 74, 81, 97, 101–2, 107–8, 159, 167, 180, 191 Cultural capital 10, 38, 46, 51, 109, 129, 131, 159, 169, 173–4, 177,

223

180, 183 (see also Bourdieu, habitus) Cultural studies 4–6, 12, 37, 55–7, 147, 212–3 Cunanan, Andrew 94 Cunningham, Mark 22

D D’Andrea, Anthony 118, 123, 129, 131–2, 138, 140 D’Arby, Terence Trent 149 Daft Punk 37 Daily Mail 140 Dark Star Orchestra 197, 202 Dave TV channel 4 Davis, Andy 178 Davis, Art 103 DC-10 (club) 118, 129 Dead Elvis 94 Deadheads 11, 186–204 Dean, Eddie 171 Debord, Guy 137 DeMichael, Don 108 DeNora, Tia 57, 60, 65 Denzin, Norman 140 ‘Des Leis (Ten Laws)’ 82 Devereux, Eoin 6 DeVito, Chris 108 Diana (Princess of Wales) 91 Dickenson, Graeme 180 Dijck, José van 59 Diken, Bülent 140 Disco 46, 49, 124 Discobertas label 73 Discourse 24–5, 27, 30, 32, 60, 87–8, 95, 97–8, 101, 103, 107, 110–2, 115–6, 119, 129–31, 139, 147, 169 Disney, Walt 83 Divola, Barry 156 Fanclub 156 DJ (disc jockey) 19, 44, 71, 73–4, 80, 82–3, 90, 116, 126, 129, 194–6 DJ Spinna 80 DJ Spooky 83 Doehring, André 178 Dolgushkin, Mike 190 Dollar, Natalie 203 Dolphy, Eric 108 Donato, João 83 Doss, Erika 6, 98 Douglas, Mary 89 Dow Jnr, Thomas 95 Downbeat 108

224

Index

‘Drum Boogie’ 214 Duchamp, Marcel 92 Duffett, Mark 12, 17–8, 98, 155, 158, 162 Duran Duran 16 Durkheim, Emile 11, 152, 155 (see also totemism) Dyke, Paul van 141 Dylan, Bob 179–80

E Eagle’s Nest (club) 161 Eaton, Rob 197 eBay 165, 168, 175, 181–2 Ecstacy (MDMA) 121, 123 Ed Sullivan Show, The 165 Eden club 118, 129–30 EDM (electronic dance music) 8, 10, 37, 41, 43–7, 49–52, 115–6, 120, 122, 124, 126, 128–32, 138, 141 Education of Emotions, The 87 Ehrenreich, Barbara 5 Eisenberg, Evan 18 El Divino (club) 140 El-Sayed, Abduhlrahman 130 Electronic dance music (see EDM) Element series 26 Elitism 2, 10, 12, 31, 55, 57, 102–3, 109 Elkies, Cathy 165 Elliot, Anthony 141 Elvis (Presley) 8, 1, 63, 92, 94, 98, 101, 146–8, 157, 160–2, 179 Elvis: True Stories 160, 162 Empathy 121, 124, 133 EMI 73, 90 Emo genre 29 Emotion 1, 4, 16–7, 65–7, 72, 87, 88, 99–101, 11, 115–7, 124, 128, 133–4, 136, 138–9, 148–50, 152–5, 157, 159–61, 167, 170, 183, 191, 199, 201 English 83, 118, 123, 125, 127, 140 Enthusiast 30, 120 Epstein, Jonathan 195 Ernstes, Amy 11 Es Paradis club 118, 129 Escolas de Samba 83 Esposito, Joe 160 Essentialism 102, 110–1 Estatica 73 Ethnography 5, 8, 59–60, 62–3, 117, 121, 159, 188, 212

Ethnomusciology 71, 75 Eu Não Sou Cachorro Não 83 Everett, Walter 19, 28 Every DJ Has Already Danced The Samba 82 Everyday life 8, 32, 50, 56, 61, 65, 67, 72, 87, 97, 138, 165 ‘Everything You Want’ 28 Excelsior TV channel 83 Experience Music Project 183

F Fabbri, Franco 38 Facebook 4, 127, 137 Factory Records 89 Fallout Boy 28 Fame 10, 12, 26, 52, 72, 75, 91, 98, 108, 146, 151, 158, 160, 165, 180, 183, 204, 209 Fandom and ‘compulsion’ 169–72, 174 and ‘contagion’ 19, 33, 102 defi nition (music) 7–8, 11 ‘deranged’ 72 intermediary 20, 27, 29, 31, 33 and ‘obsession’ 2, 6, 8–9, 24–5, 57, 61, 83, 87, 89, 94, 97, 102–3, 106, 147, 166, 169–72, 177, 183 and pathology 57, 61, 87, 97, 102–3, 121, 147, 166–7, 170–1 and religiosity 21–2, 24, 27, 88, 97, 98, 101, 112, 117, 152–3, 156 and stalking 10, 89, 94–5, 106 Fan base 9, 52, 72, 98, 158–9, 161, 179, 186 Fan mail 5–6, 9, 87, 90, 95 Fan subbing 5, 12 Fanaticism 24, 81, 102, 183, 186, 189 Fantasy 2, 9, 12, 46, 48, 87–9, 92–3, 95, 115, 121, 158, 162 Fanzines 7, 65, 87, 90, 119, 168 Far Out Recordings 71, 73 Farrand Thorpe, Margaret 87 Farrell, Winslow 28 Fast, Susan 16 Feld, Steven 105, 111 Ferreira, Pedro Peixoto 44 Ferris, Kerry 160, 162 Festivais da Canção 82 Festivals 59, 78, 82, 84, 188, 198–202, 204 Fetishism 25, 88–9, 102, 147, 168–9, 174

Index Filking 5, 12 Finnegan, Ruth 65, 67 Fischer, Marc 79, 83 Fischer, Michael 140 Fisher, Marcus 95 Fiske, John 5–6, 19, 38–9, 49, 52, 119, 135, 157, 186 ‘Flamengo Até Morrer’ 83 Folha de São Paulo 78 Fortas, Alan 161 Foster, David 26 Foucault, Michel 60, 93 Fountains of Wayne 28 Frankie Goes To Hollywood 26, 33 Frears, Stephen 169 ‘Free’ 133, 141 Freud, Sigmund 92–3, 121, 171 Frith, Simon 18, 25, 61, 64, 89, 95, 218–9 Furthur (group) 186, 202 Furthur Festival 188, 198–201

G Gabriel, Peter 90 Gaddafi , Muammar 118 Gailott, Michel 124 Gamson, Joshua 18, 33 Gans, David 189, 196 Garcia, Caroline 195 Garcia, Jerry 11, 186–204 Garde-Hansen, Joanne 16, 18 Gardner, Lesley 161 Garra album 84 Garrison, Jimmy 112 Garrison, Roberta 112 Gauntlett, David 30–1 Gavin, Charles 75 Gaze 25, 41, 93, 115–6, 137, 140 Gearslutz forum 29–1, 33 Gelder, Rudy van 104 Gender 2, 6, 46, 50, 128, 130, 189 Genette, Gérard 116 Genre 3, 6–7, 10, 12, 19, 38–47, 49, 55, 57, 67, 73, 75, 80, 89, 91, 98, 106, 115, 120, 126, 128, 132, 140, 141, 151, 166–7, 173, 176–8, 183, 197, 209–10 Gerghaty, Lincoln 33 Ghost World 169 Giddens, Anthony 32, 134, 139 Gilbert, Jeremy 123 Gilbert, Matthew 198 Gilberto, João 83 Giles, David 12

225

Gill, Eric 92 Globalization 40, 73, 81, 95, 122, 131–2, 139, 186 Globo Organisation 75 Gnattali, Radamés 79 Goff man, Erving 64 Goldman, Albert 92 Goldmine magazine 175, 179 Goldstein, Jacob 87 Goodenough, Mary 190 Goodwin, Andrew 24, 61 Google 78, 209 Google Orkut 78 Gore, Georgiana 124 Gournelos, Ted 41 Graceland 157, 161 Gramsci, Antonio 38 Grateful Dead 2, 11, 13, 186–90, 193–204 Gray, Johnathan 56, 66, 116–7, 166 Greece Uncovered 140 Grief 11, 187–9, 191, 200–1, 203–4 Griffi n, Johnny 109 Grossberg, Lawrence 61, 66–7, 161 Guardian, The 23, 26 Guetta, David 141 Guiff re, Liz 175 Gunkle, David 41

H Habitus 38, 45, 47, 51, 128 Hacienda (club) 47 Hackett, Jon 18 Haight Ashbury 189 Hall, Stuart 56, 67 Hammersley, Martyn 140 Hammersmith Odeon 182 Hammerstein, Oscar 92 Hanson 28, 33 Hard Rock Café 183 Harper’s magazine 87 Harrington, C. Lee 60, 65, 134, 166, 214 Harris, Cheryl 161 Theorizing Fandom 161 Harris, Scott 160, 162 Harrison, George 158 Hart, Mickey 186, 198, 200–1 Hartley, Jennifer 190 Harvey, David 139 Harvey, Katie 194 Haslam, Dave 47 Hassan, Nedim 8–9, 61, 63, 65, 67 Hawes, Hampton 106

226

Index

Hawkes, Hampton 106 Hawkes, Howard 208 Hayakawa, Sessue 87 Hayes, David 180 Hayward, Keith 130 ‘He’ll Have to Go’ 63 Hearn, Alison 25 Heath, Jimmy 104 Hebdige, Dick 41, 56, 61 Heckling 7 Hegel, Georg 94 Hegel: A Reinterpretation 94 Hegemony 38, 46, 157, 212–3 Heimat 134, 137 Helal, Ronaldo 72 Hellinger, Bert 153–4 (see also Knowing Field) Hendrix, Jimi 179 Hennion, Antoine 57 Hermes, Joke 57 Hesmondhalgh, David 55–7, 126, 139, 141 Hess, Elizabeth 6 Heyward, Nick 153, 156 High Fidelity (fi lm) 169, 171 High Fidelity (novel) 166 Hill, Tim 158 Hills, Matt 4–8, 13, 17, 19, 21, 41, 45, 66, 97, 101–2, 119, 148, 162, 167 Fan Cultures 8, 17 Hine, Christine 117 Hippies 2, 127, 130–1, 189, 193 Ho-ba-la-la 79, 83 Hobbyists 30 Hobson, Dorothy 56 Hodkinson, Paul 124, 126 Hoff man, Jens 12 Hoffstra, Warren 214 Hoggart, Richard 56 Hollywood 87, 92 Homegrown Music Network 200 Homework album 37 Homosexuality 46, 92, 131 Hoover, J. Edgar 91 Hopkins, Jerry 161 Horn, Trevor 8, 19–27, 31–2 Hornby, Nick 166, 169 Horne, Howard 25 Hornsby, Bruce 198–200 Horton, Donald 1, 162 Hoskins, Bobby 95 Hot Tuna 198 House music 44, 71, 116, 122, 129

Hughes, M. Vivian 91 Huss, Hasse 174 Hutchence, Michael 92

I Ibiza 10, 115, 120, 123, 125–8, 131, 133, 135, 140 Ibiza Rocks bar 118 Ibiza Uncovered 116, 140 Icon 7, 9–10, 97–9, 106–7, 109–10, 112, 116, 155, 161, 165, 172, 179, 182, 195 Ideal types 147 Ideology 20, 23, 31 ‘If You Go Away’ 74 Immersion 8, 47–8, 51, 88, 139 In Cold Blood 94 Incredibly Strange Music 172 Independent music 73, 80, 168 Independent, The 182 Indiana, Gary 94 Inglis, Sam 28, 30 Internet 3–4, 7, 16, 21, 29, 59, 63, 78, 117, 119–20, 126–7, 171, 196 Interview 21, 24–5, 27, 62, 67–70, 73, 75–6, 78–9, 80–1, 83, 86–7, 90, 98, 100, 118, 120, 128, 131, 147, 162, 166, 171–3, 188 Intimacy 10, 12, 16, 18, 31, 93, 95, 105–6, 146, 149, 154, 161–2 INXS 92 Isherwood, Baron 89 Ito, Mizuko 29–32 iTunes 30 Izenson, Eric 108, 111

J ‘Jack Straw’ 199 Jackson, Blair 189 Jackson, Michael 8, 91, 93, 156 Jacobs, Gloria 5 Jacobs, Gloria 6 Janet, Pierre 87 Jarel, Jneiro 84 Jauss, Hans 116 Jazz 10 Jefferson, Tony 56 Jenkins, Henry 5, 9–10, 12, 31, 45, 62, 71, 81–2, 107, 159, 162, 186, 207, 214 Confessions of an aca-fan (blog) 214 Textual Poachers 5, 12

Index Jenson, Joli 6, 12, 57, 61, 72, 82, 97, 102–3, 106, 112, 121, 141, 141, 186, 209, 211, 214 Nashville Sound, The 214 Jerry Day 195 Jerry Garcia Amphitheatre 195 (for Jerry Garcia see Garcia, Jerry) Jesus Christ 100 ‘Jesus, Meu Rei’ 84 Jobim, Antonio Carlos 79 Johnson, Paul 1, 12 Jones, Catharine Zeta 88 Jones, Elvin 113 Jones, Grace 24 Jones, Mike 17–8, 30 Jones, Steve 209 Jones, Tom 63 Jordan, David 21 Jorgensen, Ernst 149 Jornal de Brasil 78

K Kadlecik, John 202 Kahn-Harris, Keith 38 Kahn, Ashley 100–1, 104 Kartoba, Joseph 6 Kaufman, Walter 94 Kavanaugh, Philip 141 Kent, Clark 94 Kent, Stacy 84 Kevin & Perry Go Large 140 Keywords 147 Kickstarter (website) 3 Kirschner, Tony 65 Klapp, Orrin 86 Knowing Field 153–4 Kofsky, Frank 108–110 Kraftwerk 116 Kreutzmann, Bill 201

L La societé de consommation: ses mythes, ses structures 89 La Troya club night 131 Lacker, Marty 161 Lady Gaga 1, 5, 7, 158, 160 Lancaster, Kurt 8 Lanois, Daniel 17 Larkin, Philip 108 Larsen, Katherine 19 Laustsen, Bagge 140 Lavigne, Avril 28 ‘Leave Britney Alone!’ video 4 Led Zeppelin 7, 16, 151, 159, 179

227

Legend (see myth) Leibman, Dave 103–5, 108 Lennon, John 95, 178 Leoni, Carlos 76 Lesh, Bill 201–2 Lethem, Jonathan 83 Leverton, Marc 59 Lewis, Jack 90 Lewis, Lisa 5, 12, 189, 214 Lewis, Randy 3 Lincoln, Sian 57 Lindner, Rolf 96 Lipson, Stephen 25–6 Listening 4, 7–8, 17, 20, 22, 30, 33, 45, 49, 51, 56, 60, 63, 65, 78–9, 82, 91, 94, 98–9, 101, 105, 107, 111, 129, 132, 134, 137, 147, 152, 157–8, 168, 170, 174, 176–7, 193–4, 196–7, 202 Lizie, Arthur 16 Lock, Graham 105 London Family 1870–1900, A 91 London Weekend Television (LWT) 116, 140 Longhurst, Brian 119, 136–7 Lord-Alge, Chris (CLA) 28–33 Lord-Alge, Tom (TLA) 8, 19–20, 27–33 Lorra-Tamayo, C. 141 Los Lobos 198 Loss and Change 204 Love 7, 9–11, 17, 24, 29, 81, 86, 88, 91, 94, 100–1, 104, 109–10, 116, 121–4, 127, 131–3, 135–7, 139, 146–57, 159–62, 165, 169–70, 176, 191, 193–5 Love Devotion Surrender album 110 Love Supreme, A album 98, 100–1, 104, 109–10 Lowe, Frank 105, 112 Lucey, Kelly 11 Lucid, Robert 87 Lumby, Catharine 6 Lusted, David 55 Lyra, Carlos 83

M Mac, Annie 141 Macdonald, Dwight 1 Mack, Raymond 102 MacKinnon, Rebecca 40 Made in Basing Street album 26 Madonna 16–8, 88, 93, 95, 179 Maffesoli, Michel 39, 42, 124, 125

228

Index

Mailer, Norman 87, 94, 102 Malbon, Ben 49–50, 123–4, 134 Mambo bar 116 Manic Street Preachers 19–20, 27 Manilow, Barry 88, 150 Manson, Marilyn 28 Manumission club night 118, 140 Manzoor, Safraz 155 Marcus, George 140 Marcus, Greil 90, 94, 96 Marcuse, Herbert 1, 133 Mardin, Arif 22 Marris, Peter 11, 186–9, 191, 204 Marsh, Clive 16 Marshall, P. David 16–17 Martin, Dean 63 Marxist approaches 37, 42, 51, 147 Mass culture 1–2, 4–8, 10, 12, 86, 89, 102, 129, 157, 207, 215 Massey, Howard 20 Matson, Jeff 197 McCartney, Paul 158, 179 McDonald, Chris 16 McKeever, Gerald 101 McLaughlin, John 110 McNally, Dennis 200 McRobbie, Angela 45, 48–50 MDMA (see ecstacy) Media 1–6, 8–9, 22, 44–5, 47, 72, 75, 87, 83, 86, 93, 97, 102–3, 107–9, 116–20, 128, 138, 157, 159, 165, 188, 203 Media Studies 209, 213 Memorabilia 11, 41, 89, 135, 165, 168–9, 173, 175, 178–83 Memory 4, 7, 9, 18, 27, 47, 51, 59, 62–5, 73, 79, 92, 98–9, 101, 123, 127, 132–5, 136–7, 151, 158–60, 162, 165, 169, 176–9, 182, 195, 197–8 ‘Imagined’ memories 158–9 Menescal, Roberto 83 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 88 Merriam, Alan 102 Metallica 3 Methodology 49, 58, 60–2, 66, 71, 76, 81, 117, 119, 121, 125, 131 Michailowski, Alexei 8 Mickey Hart’s Mystery Box group 90, 186, 198–201 Mikotowitz, Tom 47–8, 51 Milano, Brett 172, 174 Miller, Arthur 94 Miller, Judith 182

Mintel market research provider 44 Mitchell, Carolyn 149, 156, 162 Mitchell, Mike 165, 183 Mixing 20, 27, 29, 30–2, 80 Mixmag magazine 122 Modernity 2, 40, 97, 101–3, 134, 137 Mojo magazine 183 Monroe, Marilyn 94 Montano, Ed 176, 178 Moorefield, Virgil 19 Moral Panic 42, 44, 140 Morality 5, 32, 42–4, 56, 140, 155 Moriarty, Richard 140 Morley, David 90 Morley, Paul 23–6 Morrissey 6, 161–2 Motta, Nelson 74 ‘Mountain Girl’ (see Garcia, Caroline) MTV channel 2 Muesterberger, Werner 170–1, 178 Muggleton, David 38, 122, 141 Museums 182–3 Musicking 152 Musicology 6, 38, 71–2, 75, 79, 128 Mystery Train 94 Myth 7–8, 24–5, 9, 45, 48–51, 75, 80, 89, 91, 97, 100, 103, 104–6, 108–9, 112, 133, 158

N N-Dubz 129 Napoleon (Bonaparte) 91 Napster 3 Narcississm 92, 133–4 Narrative 10, 16–7, 21, 24, 30, 32, 40, 92, 97–8, 103–7, 109–10, 122, 128, 134, 136, 139, 177 Nation 38–9, 40–1, 43, 71–2, 74–5, 82, 87, 101, 131, 138, 173, 189, 188, 202 Nazi symbols 52 Negus, Keith 18, 22–3, 28, 55–7 Neo-tribes 10, 124–5, 127–8, 137, 139 (see also Maffesoli) Neo-liberalism 131 Network 3, 19–20, 27, 31, 40, 58, 75, 78, 83, 157, 194, 196, 200, 202 Neuroscience 46–7 New Statesman magazine 1 New Thing, The (jazz movement) 105 Nightingale, Florence 92 Nixon, Stu 190 Noi, Nii 105

Index Nostalgia 4, 7, 26, 37, 47, 74, 79, 112, 158, 162, 176–8

O O Mistériodo Samba 83 O’Neill, Eugene 92 Odeon label 84 Olatunji Concert: The Last Live Recording 113 Orwell, George 19–20 Os Bossa Nova 83 Other Ones, The (group) 202

P Pacha 118, 136, 140 Palmer, Robert 108 Paparazzi 76 Parasocial Interaction 6, 146 Paratexts 17, 116–7, 119, 121, 128, 133 Park, Robert 91, 96 Parker, Charlie 106 Parlophone 181 Passion 7–8, 78, 81, 88, 101, 111, 149–50, 152, 155, 158, 160–2, 165, 167, 169–70 Pavlovian reflex 137 Pearce, Susan 167–9, 172 Pearson, Ewan 123 Pekar, Harvey 169 Penhune, Virginia 47 Penley, Constance 5 Performance 1, 8, 6–7, 9–10, 17–20, 22, 24, 26–7, 30, 32–3, 42, 46–7, 49, 63–7, 74, 88, 100, 106, 135, 147, 151–5, 157–8, 160, 162, 175, 166–8, 174–5, 179–80, 183, 186, 189 Perry, Katy 135 Peterson, Gilles 73 Peterson, Jon 120 Phenomenology 87, 94 Phil and Friends (group) 186 Philips, Margaret 87 Phillips-Silver, Jessica 46 Phillips, Margaret 87 Phish 197, 200–2 Photography 7, 77, 90, 94, 137, 165, 180, 182, 188 Pilgrimage 141, 156 Pini, Maria 123 Pink Floyd 179 Piracy 3 Pitt, Brad 88

229

Place 10, 46, 48, 51, 71, 75, 93, 111, 115–7, 121, 126–7, 131–141, 191, 192, 195–7, 199, 201–2 Playboy magazine 82 ‘Please Please Me’ 181–2 Pleasure 10–1, 67, 115, 125, 148–9, 153, 155, 157–9, 162, 167, 170, 175, 183 Pop music 6, 7, 9, 17–8, 19, 20, 23–4, 26, 28–30, 33, 64, 78, 84, 149, 153, 171, 178, 182, Popular culture 1, 38, 56–7, 60, 92, 102, 108, 110, 116, 119, 169, 175, 208, 213 Popular music studies 7 Porter, Lewis 108 Postliberal aggregates 8, 37, 40–1, 44–5, 51 Postmodern 39, 122, 125, 208, 213 Practice of Everyday Life, The 5 Prior, Nick 38 Privilege club 118, 123, 131, 140 Produced By Trevor Horn album 25–6 Producers (of music) 8, 18, 20–2 (see also Horn, Trevor) Shape of Broad Minds 80 Producers, The (group) 21, 24, 26–7 Prydz, Eric 141 Psychoanalysis 2, 87, 91–3, 121, 146, 153–4, 191, 195 Psychology 6, 12, 48, 87, 92, 94, 99, 102, 147–8, 170, 187, 204 Public sphere 6, 93 Punk 6, 28, 37, 40–1, 45, 49, 59, 82, 89, 126, 173 Puterbaugh, Parke 197

Q Queen (group) 179 Queremos project 81 Questionnaires 90, 147, 188

R Race 50, 106, 109, 111 Radio 25–6, 28–9, 56, 79, 82, 95, 116, 140, 168, 196 Radway, Janice 56 Rare Record Price Guide 181 Raskind, Marshall 59 Ratdog 186, 198, 200 Rathzel, Nora 141 Ratliff, Ben 110 Rave 6, 37, 42–4, 46, 92, 123, 124, 126, 129

230 Index Read, Simon 182 Real Person Fiction (RPF) 12 ‘Reality Killed the Video Star’ 26 Reception 4, 16–7, 25, 55, 57–8, 60–2, 65, 108, 149 200 Record Collector magazine 172, 175–6, 178, 183 Record TV channel 83 Red Bull Music Academy 21–2, 33, 84 Redfern, Corrine 140 Redhead, Steve 122, 141 Reeves, Jim 63 Reich, Steve 110 Reid Meloy, J. 11 Reid-Meloy, J 12 Reid, Mike 90 Religious 8, 11, 97–8, 101–2, 108, 112, 152–3, 155, 191, 193 Relph, Edward 116 REM 16 Remixing 3, 19, 80, 168 Representation 6, 17, 41–2, 48, 97–8, 100, 103, 106, 109–12, 115–7, 121, 128, 140. 143, 169, 177 ‘Revolution 909’ 37 Reynolds, Simon 4, 18, 80, 86, 123 Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past 79 Rhodes, Lisa 2 Rhythm 24–5, 28, 46, 80, 107, 124, 191 Riesman, David 60–1 Rietveld, Hillegonda 42, 106 Rill, Bryan 124, 141 Rimbaud, Arthur 92 Rio Boogie Funk movement 71 ‘Rivers of Babylon’ 64 Roberto, Carlos 73 Roberts, Vaughan 16 Robertson, John 162 Rock music 2, 6, 10, 11, 23, 28, 23–4, 28, 46, 59, 61, 66, 67, 73, 75, 82, 84, 92, 94, 95, 149, 151, 171, 178, 180, 182–3, 186 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 183 Rodgers, Richard 92 Rodrigues, Nelson 79 Rolling Stones, The 28 Romantic 4, 56, 82, 89, 91–3, 103, 112, 148–50, 168, 180, 183 Romantic Ethic and Spirit of Modern Consumerism, The 89 Ronson, Mark 44 Rosen-Gradon, Jane 189 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 92–3

RPF (Real Person Fiction) 12 Rubin, Rick 24 Ruddock, Andy 56, 119 Rumsfeld, Donald 146 Run DMC 135 Runga, Bic 183 Rush 16

S ‘Safely in Your Arms’ 74 Saint Genet: Actor and Martyr 94 Samba 9, 71–2, 74, 79, 82–3 San Remo Festival 82 Sanches, Pedro Alexandre 78 Sanchez, Roger 141 Sandroni, Carlos 72 Sandvoss, Cornel 5, 10, 19, 117, 119, 121, 128, 132, 133, 135, 141, 162, 166 Sankeys Ibiza (club) 118 Santana, Carlos 110 Sardiello, Robert 6, 13, 195 Sartre, Jean Paul 89, 92, 94 Satanism 39 Savage, Jon 95 Scenes 6 Schilling, Jerry 160 Schott, Richardo 78 Scott, John 190 Seal 21, 23–6, 33 Sears, Cameron 190, 204 Seidel, John 188 Sex 2, 12, 82, 91–3, 101, 117–9, 120–1, 124–5, 134, 140, 148, 154, 160, 166 Shank, Barry 67 Shenk, David 190 Shepp, Archie 100 Sheridan, Lorraine 12 Shibuya-kei movement 80 Shields, Rob 124–4 Ship of Fools festival 202 Shirley, Ian 181–183 Shrum, Gary 182 Shuker, Gary 173 Shuker, Roy 11, 67, 165, 178, 180 Silberman, Stephen 190 Silverstone, Roger 122 Simon, Peter 189–90 Simpkins, Cuthbert 106 Singer, Judy 59 Singing 11–2, 17–8, 49, 59, 63–5, 72, 79, 82, 88, 92, 94, 123, 149, 157, 161, 173, 193

Index Situationism 986, 89 Skidmore, Alan 101 Slash fiction 5, 12 Slave to the Rhythm 25 Sloboda, John 7 Small, Christopher 152 ‘So Nice (Summer Samba)’ 71, 74 Soan, Ash 26 Sociology 6, 16, 32, 38–9, 56, 60–1, 71, 86, 91, 95, 117, 121, 124, 152, 186–7, 204 Solar Circus (group) 197, 202 Som Livre 85 Sommer, Sally 123 Songwriting 11, 22, 75, 77–9, 82–3, 173 Sound 3, 6, 17, 22–6, 28–30, 32–3, 37–8, 42–3, 72–4, 82, 83, 99, 103, 105, 107, 168, 106, 175–7 Sound on Sound magazine 28 Sounds of the City conference 95 Sounds Unbound 83 South Beach Studios 32 Souvenirs 168–9 Souza, Tarik de 74 Space club 131, 133, 140 Spanish civil war 19 ‘Spanking’ (compression in record mixing) 27, 30, 32 Spectacle 6, 18, 24, 51, 58, 134, 137 Spector (group) 26 Spirituality 2, 10, 97–102, 105, 110–112, 106, 116–7, 131, 160, 190–1, 193, 198 Spoiling 3, 5 Spotlight forum 10, 116, 118–20, 123, 126–7, 129, 131, 133, 135–7 Springer, Jerry 93 Springsteen, Bruce 16, 61, 67, 147, 149, 155, 159–60, 179 ‘Squares’ 102 St John Coltrane African Orthodox Church 99, 113 St John, Graham 141 St John’s Ambulance Brigade 100 ‘Stacy’s Mom’ 28 Stack, Peter 200 Stanwyk, Barbara 208 Stardom 7, 19, 28, 31–2 Stay Up Late campaign 59, 67 Stephenson, Niamh 8, 37, 40–4, 46, 51–2 Stereotypes 4, 6, 24, 45, 49, 111, 166, 169, 171

231

Stevens, Carolyn 66 Stevenson, Nick 6, 12, 16, 32 David Bowie: Fame, Sound and Vision 6 Stever, Gayle 12 Stewart, Jon 95 Stock Aitken Waterman 33 Stock, Mike 33 Stones, Rolling 28, 179–80 Stories 21, 29, 72–3, 88, 91, 94, 99, 103–6, 109, 140, 154, 160, 162, 175, 177, 183 Strachey, James 92 Strachey, Lytton 92 Strickling, Lawrence 3 Subcultures 6, 11, 31–2, 37–9, 56, 73, 88, 120, 123–4, 126, 128–31, 135, 138–9, 204 Subjectivity 8, 11, 45, 48, 51, 66, 87, 131, 154 Suckow, Ruth 87 Suczec, Barbara 88 Sullivan, Caroline 159 Sullivan, Ed 165 Sullivan, Paul 73 Sum 41 (group) 28 Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents 140 Sun, The 90, 140 Superman 94 Symbolic Economy 151 Synthesizers 44, 71

T T-shirt 39, 122, 135 Tabloids 9, 140 Tagg, Philip 17–8, 38, 45, 51, 150, 162 Take That 151 Taste 6–8, 21, 38, 43, 45–7, 51, 62, 63, 67, 91, 129, 134, 138, 174, 177–8, 214 Taylor, Arthur 106–9 Technology 20, 23, 39, 40, 186, 193 Teenagers 1, 78, 88–9, 125–6, 140, 166, 177 Telefantasy 5, 12 Text 6, 9–10, 17, 19, 20, 24, 26, 27, 33, 38, 41, 47, 56–8, 645, 67, 72, 74, 77–8, 89–90, 92, 94, 107, 115–7, 119–20, 121, 128, 133–4, 138, 147, 157, 159, 169, 186, 188 Textuality enunciative 119–20 intertextuality 19–20, 26–7, 33

232 Index The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption 89 Théberge, Paul 6 Thinking In Jazz: The Infi nite Art of Improvisation 99 Thomas, Leon 108 Thompson, E. P. 56 Thompson, John 16, 121 Thornton, Sara 46, 49–51, 67, 129, 131 ‘Three Lions’ 25 Three Month Fever 94 Tiesto 137 Timberwolf 197 Tingen, Paul 29–30 Tinhorão, José Ramos 72 Tinie Tempah 129 Tintoretto 94 Toch, Hans 97 Todo DJ já Sambou (see Every DJ Has Already Danced The Samba) Tolliver, Charles 107 Tomlinson, John 139 Tong, Pete 141 Top of the Pops 4 TOTP2 4 Tornay, Loretta 156–7 Totemism 11, 152–3, 155, 159, 162 Tourism 115–6, 118–21, 125, 127, 132, 135, 137–40, 157 Toynbee, Jason 18, 28 Trane (see Coltrane) Trevor Charles Horn Worship Hall 21–2, 24, 27 Trevor Horn Orchestra 26–7 (see also Horn, Trevor) Tribes 6, 39, 202 (see also Neo-tribes) Tributes 110, 193, 195–9 Trickers 197, 202 Tropicália movement 82 Troy, Sandy 189 Tsianos, Vassilis 8, 37, 40–4, 46, 51–2 Tup TV channel 83 Turner, Tim 137, 140 Turner, Victor 123 Twitter 1, 4, 78, 153 ‘Two Tribes’ 26 Tyner, McCoy 104–5

U U2 16, 179 Ultra Naté 133, 141 Um Novo Tempo’ 82

Understanding Fandom 12 Underworld 133 Urquhart, Sharon 148 Urry, John 115, 137 Ushuaia hotel 118 Utne Reader magazine 9

V Valle, Daniel 78 Valle, James 78–9 Valle, Marcos 9, 71–4, 76–84 Valle, Paulo Sérgio 74, 77, 82, 84 Van Gogh, Vincent 92 Sunfl owers 92 Vargas, Getúlio 83 Väth, Sven 141 Veloso, Cataneo 73, 82 ‘Ventura Highway’ 167 Vermorel, Fred 5, 9–10, 12–3, 121, 150, 153, 156, 162 Kate Bush: Princess of Suburbia 13 Secret History of Kate Bush and the Strange Art of Pop, The 9, 13, 89 Starlust 5, 9–10, 12, 86, 88–90, 93, 150 Fandemonium 9, 90 Vermorel, Judy 5, 13, 93, 121 Versace, Gianni 94 Vertical Horizon (group) 28 Verve Music Group 100, 113 Vianna, Hermano 72, 83 Vidding 5, 12 Video 2–4, 12, 21, 25–6, 77–8, 115, 168, 188 ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ 26 Villa-Lobos, Heitor 79 Village Voice magazine 9, 86 Vinyl 11, 171–4, 177, 182 Visconti, Tony 17 Visibility 17–8, 21, 26, 33 Volunteers, The (group) 197 Von Appen, Ralf 178 Voyeurism 9–10, 86–7, 89, 91, 93, 95, 140 Vroomen, Laura 6, 58

W Waksman, Steve 175 Walkerdine, Valerie 148 Walser, Robert 67 Warehouse, The (club) 116 Warner, Timothy 20–1, 23–4, 25, 31 Waterman, Pete 33

Index Wauchope, Michelle 173, 176 Wax Poetics magazine 73 Wax Trash and Vinyl Treasures 11 We Love Space club night 131 Web Sherrif company 3 Weber, Marcia 83 Weber, Max 88, 95, 124 Weinzierl, Rupert 38, 53, 141 Weir, Bob 198, 200–2 Welcome Interstate Managers 28 Well, the (computer network) 199 Wexler, Jerry 22 Wharf Rats 195, 197 Whiteley, Sheila 95 Who, The 179 Whyton, Tony 10, 106 Wikström, Patrik 33 Wilde, Oscar 92 Wilder, Billy 208 Wilgoren, Rachel 186 Williams, Andy 63 Williams, Christina 57 Williams, Martin 108 Williams, Raymond 56, 147 Williams, Rebecca 6 Williams, Robbie 26 Williams, Tennessee 92 Willis, Paul 56, 95 Willis, Paul 95 Wilmer, Val 103, 105, 112 Wilson, 21 Wilson, Carl 36 Wilson, Tony 89, 90, 96 Winwood, Steve 28

233

Wise, Sue 64 Witherden, Barry 101 Wohl, Richard 1, 162 Woodstock festival 180 World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption, The 89

X Xenophobia 82

Y Yancey, Becky 156 Yar, Majid 130 Yesterday TV channel 4 Young Werther 97 Youth 7, 37, 42–3, 49, 56–8, 92, 122, 125–6, 128–9, 131, 135, 140, 165, 167, 177–8, 180 YouTube 4 Yui, Shoichi 98

Z Zak, Albin 18, 23, 26, 30 Zang Tuum Tumb (ZTT) record label 21, 25–7 Zattore, Robert 47 Zeitgeist 2 Zen Tricksters 197, 202 Zittoun, Tania 19–20, 27 Žižek, Slavoj 146 Zoonen, Liesbet van 119 Zubernis, Lynn 19, 34, 146 Zwigoff, Terry 169