Wooden horse

[imomus]

Yesterday I directed people to a wonderful programme on Resonance FM, a show where Alvin Lucier came into a studio and made a live version of "I Am Sitting In A Room".

Now, there are two basic attitudes you can take to this event, a microworld attitude and a macroworld attitude. In the microworld you could say that the show wasn't particularly difficult or daring. An elderly American music celebrity came into a British radio studio to play a live version of a piece he made in 1969, and plug his music by airing some CD tracks. To those who follow UK music chatter, Lucier is hardly an obscure figure: he appeared on the cover of The Wire magazine last year, and Paul Morley's Words and Music: A History of Pop in the Shape of a City (2003) made a big deal out of finding the missing link between Lucier and Kylie Minogue. The book was widely reviewed, and the Lucier bits at the beginning much quoted. In the process, Lucier became cultural capital not just for Morley, but for a whole section of Britain's intelligentsia. In the Bricklayers Arms and the Foundry people could conceivably already be talking about "Lucier overkill" and rolling their eyes when his name comes up.

But in the macroworld Lucier's name means nothing. My first thought on hearing the Resonance show was "Wow, the controller of BBC Radio 3 must be gnashing his teeth and wailing that his network has been pipped to the post by this pipsqueak station operating out of two rooms on Denmark Street! Why isn't an important figure like Lucier doing this session for the BBC? Heads will roll!" But the sad truth is that the geography of BBC networks has shifted. BBC Radio 3, which I remember as a station which played (and commissioned) astringent, difficult or interesting new music (as well as fabulously intellectually demanding spoken word programmes produced by Piers Plowright, with BBC Radiophonic Workshop scores), has now become a deeply conservative place pumping aural valium alongside the likes of Classic FM, or a retirement home for ex-Radio 1 DJs like the unbearable Andy Kershaw. Even a relatively adventurous Radio 3 show like Mixing It probably wouldn't devote an hour to Alvin Lucier these days. But Resonance can, and does. For someone like me—I've only just become aware of Lucier's work, thanks to endorsements by Anne Laplantine—the timing is perfect. In fact, hearing his "Still Lives" pieces yesterday rekindled my love of adventurous, uncompromising, beautiful music. It's a feeling pop music hasn't given me for a long time.

So thanks to London's first radio art station for invoking the better part of me, for being demanding-yet-rewarding. But if Resonance seems like a strong station in terms of its content and convictions, it's also a weak station. It's weak materially (it depends on subsidy from the Arts Council, the London Musicians Collective, Moose Foundation for the Arts, and others) and it's weak contextually, because it's operating in Britain, and Britain is still an anti-intellectual place, a place where anything aesthetically adventurous and above all difficult will sooner or later get branded "pretentious, elitist, purist, up its own arse"... well, you know the drill. Funds will sooner or later be cut, and the press will, when they deign even to notice, serve bouquets of barbed wire. Management consultants will be brought in to converge the errant format towards more commercial, more mainstream models. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but every time I hit the Resonance page I expect to read that it's closing down. Every time I load the signal into RealPlayer I expect it to have abandoned experimental programming and to feature dull pop shows with personality DJs just like all the other stations.

If convergence doesn't come from the outside, it comes from the inside. Ambitious media types infiltrate the organisation, using it as a stepping stone, a vaulting pole, a wooden horse. After all, it has microphones, it has turntables, it has transmitters and a frequency, all the basic equipment of a radio station. Let's say I'm an ambitious young Turk, someone who might perhaps be happier with the value system and audience of a Capital or a Virgin FM or one of the BBC networks. Well, a little station like Resonance is always going to be a tempting resource. Because Resonance isn't that hard to infiltrate, even if I don't subscribe to its values. It may even be tempted to expand its audience thanks to my populist show, and tolerate me. I can pass off my mainstream values as comedy, or as irony.

Is rhodri a Resonance listener? It's hard to believe. He really doesn't fit the profile. Not a beard-stroker, if you know what I mean. But, weirdly, Rhodri is a Resonance broadcaster. Listen to this trailer for Rhodri Marsden's new Sunday show on Resonance. "Timewasting" starts November 13th and runs for seven 90-minute episodes, ending with a Christmas Day broadcast. The trailer features Starship's "We Built This City on Rock'n'Roll". Like Rhodri's love of Toto and Hall and Oates, it's "ironic" and yet sincere at the same time. Readers of Rhodri's blog (some of whom had to ask for Resonance's frequency; they don't fit the profile either) were stunned by the trailer: "It's a brand... You sound like a real DJ... You sound like a proper radio DJ... Blimey, the authority... Blimey you sound dead professional..." My own comment provided the only note of disharmony (and some hilarity): "DON'T TURN MY BELOVED RESONANCE FM INTO SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS LIKE EVERY OTHER RADIO STATION IN LONDON, PLEASE!" Which, of course, is exactly the same comment as "It's a brand... you sound like a real DJ... blimey, the authority!" But instead of "blimey, you sound dead professional" I prefer the phrasing "blimey, you sound professional, dead."

Because I'm "indie" I've seen the process a million times: Personal ambition => criticism of marginal 'elitist' forms => irony as expression of ambivalence (but mostly attraction) towards mainstream => indie media as wooden horse => insurgents converge indie media towards mainstream models => insurgents eventually gain place for themselves in mainstream media, but leave the vehicle of their entryism weakened and in identity crisis => indie media eventually acquired, predated, closed.

Resonance too is a brand, one which "ironic-sincere embrace of mainstream values" can only weaken. The Resonance brand contains ideas like "arty, difficult, unconventional, different, experimental, daring, avant garde." That's what it's been given its frequency for, and that's what it's funded by the Arts Council for. These are not values we see endorsed day in, day out on Rhodri's blog (although I know he harbours a love of Sudden Sway, whose "Let's Evolve!" session was one of the most adventurous John Peel ever broadcast). Call me an indie purist if you like, but, unless the Sudden Sway Rhodri is going to prevail over the Toto Rhodri, I can't see any good coming from a "Rhodrization" of Resonance. The Rhodri brand will profit from his new "Sunday roast" show, but the Resonance brand won't. If an army of Rhodris arrives in a whole carpark full of wooden horses, what'll eventually happen is that Resonance will become a two-tier station, with "populists" rather than the Arts Council subsidizing the risk-takers (and yes, I know, I know, in the microworld of Resonance Rhodri could well portray himself as the "risk-taker" and "mold-breaker" who's not "preaching to the choir", but in the macroworld outside it's a completely different story, and those "transgressions" are capitulations). And after that, if the process continues, Resonance will lose, well, all resonance, and a new station will come along eventually—after decades, and only if Britain is very lucky—to do the work Resonance is now doing, a station pretentious, elitist, purist, completely up its own arse... and wonderful.

Comments

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

The Rhodri brand will profit from his new "Sunday roast" show, but the Resonance brand won't.

That's a somewhat unfair assertion. Or has he already show you his playlist?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

If this polemic succeeds in making him take one Toto track off that playlist and putting one Jandek track on it, it'll have been worth it.

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

Man alive, Nick, leave me alone. I wrote a lengthy response to this but just deleted it, because frankly, who gives a shit.

[charleston.livejournal.com]

irony as expression of ambivalence (but mostly attraction) towards mainstream

What makes you so sure that a love of "We Built This City" is ironic?

I've always loved that song - on the whole I hate Starship, & I hated EVERYTHING "mainstream" in the late 80s, but that song sounded nothing like Starship, it just excited me. To dismiss it for being mainstream would have been snobbish. To suggest it's being used ironically is a bit patronising.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I said "ironic-sincere" and I described love of this kind of thing as an "expression of ambivalence (but mostly attraction)". You know, I'm a pop musician, I've dealt with this kind of ambivalence all my working life, as I'm sure Rhodri has. I like to compare it to Toad in "The Wind in the Willows"; a shiny major automobile knocks our canary-coloured indie horse and cart into the ditch, and instead of cursing it we stand there in a besotted daze, murmuring "Poop poop!"

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

That doesn't seem to be the point. That specific song is just being used (perhaps unfairly, but again: not the point) as an example of "mainstream" taste that starts off as being appreciated by those self-consciously outside the mainstream at first ironically and then unironically.

The merchandise at Urban Outfitters seems to be the place where I've witnessed this happen most clearly. It seems like 5 - 6 years ago they stocked a few "bad taste" items with intentionally shoddy looking transfers, groan worthy slogans, etc. It seems that this style of merchandise has expanded to fill most of the store, gradually being elaborated into its own aesthetic that is appreciated unironically by the people who wear it.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, Rhodri, I've told the world exactly when and where they can hear your new show, I've made them listen to the trailer, and I've set up opposition to it as "pretentious, elitist, purist, completely up its own arse". What more do you want?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Irony is a slippery slope, an insurance policy, a safety net, and other mixed metaphors.

[charleston.livejournal.com]

But what makes you so sure it's ironic at all? why not just sincere? To be ironic suggests there's that "well I know it's a bit crap and 80s and all that..." knowingness about it, when maybe it's just "forget whether this is supposed to be good or not - it's a brilliant song!"

[imomus.livejournal.com]

What's more, what I'm really saying in this piece is that in Britain Resonances are bound to fail and Rhodris to succeed. I predict that you will be still riding the airwaves long after Resonance has sunk to the broadcasting equivalent of Davy Jones's locker. Do I think this is a good thing? Well, do I live in Britain now?

[charleshatcher.livejournal.com]

Oh for fuck: don't you know that disparaging Rhodri on LiveJournal is like attacking Jesus in America, or dissing a brotha's bitch in Philly? Abscond to Blogger, Mom's, before this gets ugly. o.O

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I know, it's like North Korea on his blog, it really is. "I was just saying Kim Jong-il's haircut could be a little tidier at the back..."

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

I don't yearn for a rosy future in broadcasting. I was asked to put together a show. "Whatever you like within OFCOM guidelines" was the brief. Ed Baxter, like you, reads my blog from time to time and is probably very aware of the kind of thing I'm likely to do. As head of the station he's constantly striving for variety, putting together different schedules etc etc. He probably thinks I'll provide something a bit different. If I don't, well, I'm only on for 7 weeks, aren't I.

The slot I'm taking over is was occupied until last week by Stewart Lee, well known British comedian, playing "left-field rock". It's currently occupied by someone playing "music culled from the scotological DJs own collection... interspersed with with stupid poetry, sometimes stupid guests and live performances." I doubt if either of these shows would particularly interest you. If you enjoyed every single show on Resonance, that would be weird, wouldn't it?

And what is it that you're objecting to, exactly? That I might play an track by Kenny Loggins? Is there anything inherently wrong in that? If I like the Doobie Brothers, and also like – I dunno, Stars In Battledress, or Kev Hopper, or Desalvo, or, god forbid, Momus – what's wrong with playing The Doobie Brothers too? Is that actually devaluing Resonance FM? If I followed up the Doobie Brothers with an intense discussion of the sonorous frequencies of the voice of Michael McDonald, would that make it OK? Am I allowed to enjoy myself? Are people allowed to laugh with the programme? Come on, Nick, I need a brief from you. Help me. I don't want to displease Resonance listeners. I want everyone to like me. Everyone. Help.

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, it's refreshing to come here, on the other side of the 38th parallel, away from the suppression of human rights, violent torture etc.

[neil-scott.livejournal.com]

I've got a playlist for you. Here: http://www.last.fm/user/freefrench/

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Obviously I haven't heard your forthcoming show, or even the show it's replacing, or even the show you did before on Resonance (I shamefacedly admit). So this entry is based on the trailer, and reading your blog, and also, as I admit, paranoia about Resonance being undermined from without or within, because I sort of feel that a Resonance, as originally framed, is more than a Britain, as now experienced, can sustain, and that therefore watching the fortunes of Resonance is a bit like renting one of those "Now watch 'em die" thrillers — it's not if the knife will be planted between the shoulders of the beautiful victim, but when and by whom. So I'm now at that point in the plot where I'm thinking... "Oh no, surely it can't be that nice Rhodri who's the killer?"

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

For you to imagine that I can undermine a glorious institution like Resonance through 10 hours of Sunday lunchtime broadcasting is most flattering.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I knew you would see it that way in the end.

But the question won't go away: must we throw Arts Council money at Toto?

[rhodri.livejournal.com]

If you prefer, I'll hold a telephone vote every week where people can choose between hearing a song by Toto, and a song by Momus.

Scared?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Just as long as you don't give out the phone number. There's nothing worse than radio stations that spend all their on-air time reading out long strings of numbers when they could be playing the pure resonant frequencies of earthed electrical circuits.

[pressurised.livejournal.com]

In every milieu there are the Dalis and then there are the Bretons, the public faces and the true hearts, or is it the talented and the wannabes, or perhaps the free spirited innovators and the conservative priest-cops? The process you are describing is inevitable but also something of a half-empty argument. Perhaps it is your mistake to imagine that the avant garde may appear twenty four hours a day, every day. By its nature what resists the general character of production does not have the infrastructure to back up or sustain its vision, the avant garde is a mirage, it is irruptive and transitory. We can’t flick a switch and have it appear where we say, we are provided with only what is channelled, and the products of this channelling are defined by their capacity to be channelled. But we can also be certain that the whirling spirit is appearing elsewhere, anywhere, even occasionally on Radio 1, occasionally on X Factor, but usually not. There is something going on, and we don’t know what it is.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. You can't have 24 hour extraordinariness, and you can put magic on tap.

[(Anonymous)]

I agree. In a way, what Nick wants to do is to "normalise" the avant garde, place its own pen in the zoo, and turn it into a lifestyle. But that's ultimately a conservative, non avant garde idea. It's in the nature of the avant garde not to be institutionalised. It's also in the nature of every community-based enterprise to eventually become institutionalised, at which point the avant garde spirit flies and turns up somewhere else. Of course it's inevitable that some alternative radio station will eventually either die or turn into something less alternative. At which point, the interest moves on to somewhere else and someone else. Nick's "apres nous le deluge" mentality here is misplaced.

Down the Pan

[(Anonymous)]

Well as you know thing are always better right at the start; and then... Does anyone remember X FM when it was still a pirate? It wasn't breathtakingly good but it played decent enough stuff, listen too it now and its the epitome of capitalist alternative culture. Resonance has a long long way to go before becoming anything like that, but I too have noticed that the new schedules seem safer and more professional than before. Fumbling bumbling incompetence isn't a guarantee of artistic success but the dreaded professionalisation of culture with its goals and outcomes has a habit of smoothing out the rough (and usually more interesting edges). Arts organisations are encouraged by funders to build risk taking into their strategic plans but risk taking in this context becomes like reform something that ends up with conservative connotations. Risk taking often means being entrepreneurial, but then the question is asked why should the taxpayer fund what is available in the commercial mainstream anyway?

There is nothing wrong with parody and irony just as long a you remember that that is what it is. People have a habit of forgetting. Look at early Roxy built on a loving send up of the crooner and all thing suave. Somewhere after ENO departed Bryan began to believe he was that crooner and the whole thing began to stink.

As for TOTO there is no reason ironic or otherwise to play carp like that bring back the unlistenable poetry now.
http://stormbugblog.blogspot.com/

[muffledsqueak.livejournal.com]

If I'd realised it was going to be used as ammunition I'd have put more thought into my rather lazy comment, I must say; although I wasn't being sarcastic, I didn't intend it as a ringing endorsement of Rhodri's faithfulness to the Hairy Cornflake ideal of radio DJing either. Oh well, I should think before I type I suppose.