But let’s face it, most suburbanites can turn off their lights at 8pm on a Saturday night.  “The CN Tower soon darkened in the city’s skyline,” reports the CBC, “along with highrises, sports arenas such as the Rogers Centre and Air Canada Centre”  Jeez, on a Saturday, aww…thanks big business, for taking an hour out of your weekend to show how much you care! (1)

I’d like to see Toronto participate in an Earth Hour on a Monday, say around 10am.  Let’s see how many takers there would be for that!  Of course, the effect isn’t so dramatic is it - you can’t see all those lights that are always on during the day go out when its still daylight!

My favourite quote from the CBC article comes from a stalwart Albertan, who like many wasn’t about to let Earth Hour get in the way of the Battle of Alberta:  “Not a chance, I’m sorry to say…Let’s celebrate Earth Hour at four in the morning. That will be a lot better time, I think.”

Just as Buy Nothing Day hasn’t caused a massive rethinking of consumerism in the lives of many, Earth Hour isn’t going to all of a sudden make people use less energy.  In fact, because these events are promoted in a such a dramatic fashion, and involve a dramatic action (turning all the lights out, buying nothing) they can actually undermine their stated goals.  They make consuming less seem to be a dramatic thing when in actuality, consuming slightly less over longer periods of time (say, walking to work, taking public transit, turning out lights in rooms that you’re not in, sucking up the hot weather in summer; the cold in winter, etc.) would likely be much more effective.  By casting environmental action as a dramatic, Earth Hour runs the risk of scaring people off because the task of acting responsibly becomes too large, to unobtainable:  “how can we live without the lights on?”

Other things to consider:

• I wonder how many people drove to Earth Hour events like the one described in this article?
• I wonder how many enjoyed a nice hot coffee or tea in a paper cup with a cardboard ring around it and a plastic lid while at the event?
• How many rushed to their computers to frantically check email after one hour of blackout - were computers even part of the items turned off, or was it just lights?
• Were energy saving compact fluorescent lights turned off? By my recollection I think those things use more power when they are turned on than when they are left on.

__________________________

(1)  According to TheStar.com, “the ACC participated in Earth Hour by dimming exterior and corridor lights” - playing on a darkened ice surface would be chatoic, despite the “lights long turned off on the Leafs’ playoff hopes”.  Ha!

Pictures are up at subalternstudies.

Once the construction of a personal webpage required some degree of programming expertise. Today the social networking user merely interacts with, manipulates and fills-in pre-programmed templates and applications.

In an interesting twist, especially with the references to Baudrillard, who often points to the importance of symbolic exchange in pre-industrial society in his work, it seems that the personally designed webpage now takes on the aura of artisanship.  In effect, opportunities for difference and “individuality” are better able to be expressed through the freedom of basic html design than the restricted and similar nature of the Facebook profile page, which looks the same for everyone and the content of which is dictated by that which is made available to Facebook users.

What one hopes will add to one’s distinction only adds to ones depersonalisation: how many images of friends posing with drinks are there already on Facebook? And there is no hope here of resistance. Even the refusal to post a photo, the use of alternative images or attempts at an artistic subversion of the form merely take their place within a pre-coded representational system as part of the normal range of allowed responses.

Indeed, while many view social networking as liberatory, this essay points out some fairly important reasons why it can also been seen as further disconnecting and “depersonalising” the self from the world.

For a while I was thinking that I wouldn’t bother posting my MA online. Really, after the defense, and what with the evolution of my thought since I started the PhD, I figured it old news.  But, I’ve decided to let it out of the dusty confines of my hard drive and give it some air.  After all, what’s this whole academic thing about if it isn’t about sharing ideas, even if doing so risks criticism?  It’s in the criticism that we can alter and adjust our thinking.  So, while I stand by what I’ve written in this document, I’m not promoting it as my final position on these matters and I’m eagerly anticipating changes in my thought, even to the point of disagreeing with myself (which happens more often that not anyway, so what the hell)! Enjoy!

Online Music Communities:
Challenging Sexism, Capitalism, and Authority in Popular Music (PDF, 650kb)

Abstract
With its almost exclusive focus on the economics of the music industry, the early-21st century debate over digital music piracy has obscured other vital areas of study in the relationship between popular music and the Internet. This thesis addresses some of these neglected areas, specifically issues of agency, representation, discipline, and authority; it examines each of these in relationship to the formation and maintenance different online music communities. I argue that contemporary online trends related to music promotion, consumption, and criticism are, in fact, part of a much larger socio-cultural re-envisioning of the relationships between artists and audiences, artists and the music industry, and among audience members themselves. The relationship between music and the Internet is not only subversive on the level of economics.

I examine these issues in three key areas. Independent women’s music communities challenge patriarchal authority in the music industry as they use online discussion forums and websites to advance their own careers. The tension that exists between the traditional for-profit music industry and the developing ethic of sharing in the filesharing community creates the conditions whereby we can imagine alternative ways that music can circulate in culture. “Citizen media,” such as blogs and “open source” encyclopædias, allows for those who otherwise had no avenue for presenting their thoughts and ideas to engage in public discourse. Traditional understandings of authority and expertise are subject to revision as new ways of assessing authority develop for online sources. This is also evident in the struggles of “old-media” groups in reconciling their established publishing and editorial practices with emergent online practices.

This thesis foregrounds the work of individuals by drawing extensively from interviews, personal blogs, and online discussion forums. In this way, the monolithic “grand narratives” of the Internet, such as the filesharing “battle” or the democratic potential of online discourse, are shown to be the product of many individual subjectivities, each of whom contribute to authoring the online environment.

EDIT: Holy Crap! For those of you wondering what “Captialism” is, I have no answer. I only just noticed the misspelling on the cover today as I posted the picture! My parents sent me these pictures the day the bound copy arrived in the mail back in Novvember! I guess I never really looked close enough at them!

I successfully defended my MA thesis Online Music Communities: Challenging Sexism, Capitalism, and Authority in Popular Music a week-and-a-half ago. The defence was rigorous and lengthy, but instructive as a result. I think I will take some time away from it before I look at it again and decide whether or not to post it for all to see.

It was a curious feeling, finishing the MA. After all, I spent two years of my life working on it and at times it was to the detriment of my sanity and interpersonal relationships. I felt at once relieved and proud. Throughout the process I had felt the constant nag of ‘work’, even when I was supposed to be ‘relaxing’ or ‘taking time off’. Among the myriad things I learned about my topic, I learned something else, perhaps a little more abstract, but nonetheless something that I feel is important to pursuing my career and life successfully in academia: I have to make sure to structure my time so as to permit some real ‘time off’! I need to learn to make ‘work’ work and ‘play’ play as I pursue my PhD.

My thanks to my advisor Dr. Christina Baade, my second reader Dr. Susan Fast, and the School of the Arts at McMaster University.

Big thanks also to my esteemed editors: Susan Aitken, Claire Blaustein, Basil Chiasson, and Valérie Savard for their input—it would have been a far poorer thesis without you!

Now, onto the PhD, yeesh!  (I don’t know any heavy metal tunes about doctors, anyone?)

In doing so, I find that I come back, time and time again, to Trey Anastasio’s incredible guitar work on Phish’s quirky but epic “Reba” from 1990’s Lawnboy. I have always held the guitar solo from the studio version as an example of a “perfect” guitar solo, if there can be such a thing. I saw Phish a few times live (Concert Hall-Masonic Temple, Toronto 04/06/1994, The Great Went, Limestone, ME 08/16/1997, 08/17/1997 and Van Andel Arena, Grand Rapids, MI 11/11/1998) but I never once saw a live “Reba”. I have been on a bit of a Phish binge recently, and have been focussing on a lot of the Live Phish series, a great many of which come with “Reba’s”, to my delight. After hearing a few, I went on a search for “the best ‘Reba’ ever” and have since been compiling, when time permits, as many as I can get my hands on. I have also spent some time paring them down so I can listen to endless “Reba” “jam sections” (the guitar solo has evolved in the live setting to be oh so much more!) over and over, in a row, without being interrupted by the rest of the tune. These days I find myself returning over and over again to the classic New Year’s eve performance at Madison Square Garden (12/31/1995), this “Reba” solo has all but displaced the studio version as my new idea of what “perfect” might sound like.

Take a listen to both for yourself (or right-click on the titles to download)!

Reba (Lawnboy, 1990) (MP3, 7mb)

Reba (Madison Square Garden, NYC, NY 1995) (MP3, 15.5mb)

You can also see this being performed here (solo begins around 5′50″).

Some highlights from the Madison Square Garden solo (time indicators are for the above edited MP3):

• It begins ever so quietly with Trey’s simple phrase, based on an alternation between two notes, which bassist Mike Gordon picks up on (0’34”) and is given some space to play around with as Trey eases back a bit.

• A trademark staccato high note to begin Trey’s next phrase (0’43”) which picks up on the descending line established by Mike moments earlier.

• Trey just milks the arpeggio at 1’12”, using it, in the same way as Coltrane would often do, almost as a pedal point, returning to it several times while embellishing it as the solo progresses.

• The tone at 1’32” just “pops” out at you, as my friend Alex would say!

• There is a rapturous pedal-point section at 2’11” and at this point I’m just in awe of the way that these four men could communicate onstage. This precedes a return to a two note pattern that echoes the opening phrase (2’30”).

• 3’03”-3’09” Trey picks up on keyboardist Paige McConnell’s descending line, and Paige responds in kind.

• The phrase that just gets me every time is the little golden nugget we get 3’38”-3’41” where you can here that Trey has switched to the bridge pick-up and has (likely) engaged the first of two Ibanez Tube Screamer overdrive pedals. We’re preparing for lift off here babies!

• 3’49”-4’06” another arpeggio to milk, singing high note “poppin’” out atcha!

• 5’06”, that’s the second Tube Screamer, and anticipates the beautiful legato line from 5’10”-5’15”.

• Classic Trey 05’25”-5’40” (not that the rest of the solo isn’t, mind).

• Triumphant is the only word I’ve ever been able to think of that describes the kind of phrasing he uses between 6’04-6’12”.

• 6’23”-6’27”: How in the hell do you make that crazy bend on a guitar with no whammy bar? It’s so…seamless.

• The phrase that begins at 7’22” is superb, listen to the way he plays the line several times and then speeds up the rhythm, playing the same notes, towards the end (7’26”).

• The upper register face-melting that brings us home from 7’53” onwards is just gold.

I mean really, the whole damn thing is fantastic. The sensitivity of Paige’s piano playing is great to listen to after you’ve got past a few listens to Trey’s solo. Mike and drummer Jon Fishman aren’t slouches either. This performance is a great example of how what in another band would be “just a guitar solo” can turn into a serious bit of group improvisation where the guitar is really just another voice, albeit a prominent one.

Now, if you play, go play.

In other news, I am once again back in Halifax teaching the history of popular music course “The Rock’n'Roll Era and Beyond”.  The first week of classes is almost over and, as I expected, it has already been so much fun.  I just get a huge kick out of teaching.  It also helps that I have the privelege of teaching this particular course, I have been living with this music all my life, the only real difference is I get to talk about it at length with an interested group of students (and get paid for it!).

Today was one of those amazing Halifax days where one wakes up in a literal fog.  I couldn’t see three feet out of my window, such was the thickness of the fog over the penninsula.  And then, as suddenly as it had come late last night, the fog disappeared and I could see straight out of window across to Dartmouth.

Some links to lift the fog off the web a little:

• Claire works for cookthink now, and also has a good article up on blogcritics.
• danah boyd keeps putting out amazing stuff on social networking.
• It appears that Condoleeza Rice was, not surprisingly, involved in some pretty shady dealings with Chevron and Iraq.
• Tony Blair is stepping down, Gordon Brown likely to repalce him.  I don’t know what to think - Bush’s lap-dog is gone, which is good, but Gordon Brown is a pretty scary character too, responsible for many of the “administrative” (er…surveillance) aspects of contemporary British daily life. I also hate the whole “Prime-minister in waiting” bullshit. What does it say about democracy when we start assuming who will lead a country, and when the mainstream media simply fuels the “inevitability” by focussing on this one potential leader?

The CBC appropriated a disappointing Associated Press article on the matter and ends with the following:

“It’s not the first time YouTube has been banned. The Australian state of Victoria recently banned it from government schools in a crackdown on cyber-bullying after a gang of male students videotaped their assault on a 17-year-old girl on the outskirts of Melbourne.”

It is already troublesome to see that schools are banning YouTube access, danah boyd writes on similar problematic practices involving the Deleting Online Predators Act in the United States. It is always unfortunate that, as my grandmother would say “one bad apple has to spoil the lot”.

However, I think the linking the particular instance of assault to the large-scale restriction of communication technologies because a video was taken badly by a government that sends people to prison for “Insulting Turkishness”. I recoil at the notion of the assault on the 17 year old, and certainly would want the perpetrators to come to justice. But I certainly don’t equate posting a video of someone hurling an insult at a historical figure in the category of a crime, and certainly it doesn’t warrant restricting the freedoms of the Turkish citizenry to free access to the Internet – but unfortunately the Turkish government does.

This illustrates the very slippery slope that comes with considering too heavy-handed regulation of communications technologies.  At points it may be useful to monitor activity (such as porn in schools, or bullying) but not to the point of shutting down access to these sites.  In the case of the Turksih, it’s just another excercise in exerting control over the population, a common practice inTurkey, where the events of early 20th C Armenian Genocide are not even taught in Turkish schools (not even without the term genocide) thus prohibiting informed debate.  If governments shut down access to the opinions of those with whom they disagree, then effective debate is nullified - which, of course, would be a reasonable goal if you were into controlling your citezenry.  Of course internet restriction is nothing new at the level of the nation-state, remember Google China’s capitulation? See the difference?

Todayszaman, an English-language Turkish newspaper had the following headline in their online version: “YouTube broadcasts Greek marches full of hatred toward Turks”. This reads like it lays the blame for the videos at the feet of YouTube, as if they had a content meeting and decided “Yes, yes, we’ll lead with the Greek anti-Turk marches today.” The article goes on to translate the lyrics of a song reportedly videotaped as sung by a Greek military unit:

There was a ship, a tank-carrying ship. It left from Volos to plant fear. It goes to the shores of Little Asia (Turkey). To spread fire and ashes all over Turkey. It was full of sea marines. They blew the heads of any Turks they could find into the air. The heroes died opening the road to Hagia Sophia. I will march to Hagia Sophia, take off the Turkish caliphate sign and plant a cross there. Only then will God shed light on İstanbul and the Greek national march will ring from every corner.

I don’t really know what much of that actually means, but it certainly sounds like a little religious nationalism to me!

The Guardian indicates that there were other insults, including accusations that Ataturk was homosexual, and that so are the Turks themselves. So not only is the Turkish government against insults in general, they also have a deep-seeded homophobia, which of course doesn’t surprise me since they are willing to enact bans on communications technology, deny genocide, and imprison dissenters.

So after reading all of that, I found this blog, a pro-Turkish tourism site where the writer has used links to YouTube videos in order to promote tourism in Turkey.

I guess the YouTube execs should have led with those.

Or this. (and read the comments, they’re priceless)

Warwick, Jacqueline.  Girl Groups, Girl Culture:  Popular Music and Identity in the 1960s.  London, New York:  Routledge, 2007.

I agree mostly with these statements, preferring Stefani’s music to Twain’s. But damn if this past Sunday’s performance by Prince wasn’t the most refreshing halftime show I’ve ever seen!

[EDIT] I had links to the videos on youtube here for a couple of weeks, with the warning to “get ‘em soon”, suspecting that they would be pulled for whatever idiotic copyright reason.  Well, it turns out they were!  I’m sure you can find them if you go here.  

It was almost disconcerting watch Prince rock out, doing something so loose, when in recent years Superbowl halftimes have been as boring as the games they were interrupting.  CCR, a Foo Fighters cover, All Along the Watchtower, and some killer guitar playing…Now that’s sexy!