| rss2email.ru |
 Записки опытного ЖЖ-шника о SEO  |  Вкусные кулинарные рецепты с фото  |
 |  Music: Music blog | guardian.co.ukArticles published by guardian.co.uk Music about: Music blog http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog рекомендовать друзьям >> |
- Ask the indie professor: Is food the new indie rock?
Indie fans have much in common with foodies, from seeking out the rarest material to stressing about the means of production
Dear Wendy,
Is food the new indie rock?
Rachel R, via email
As rock has recently been declared dead by Paul Gambaccini, many are wondering what will take its place? The question appears to be answered by new blogs such as Foodisthenewrock, and musicians M Ward and Jim James's site devoted to creme brulee. Perhaps food is the new rock. There are parallels between music consumption and the modern foodie movement, at least in the United States. Both have become sources for documentation. At gigs, a significant portion of the audience watches the show through the lens of a mobile phone. The hit songs that used to produce the most dancing now produce the most illuminated screens held aloft. Foodies are chronicling their eating habits in a similar fashion. At meals, people stop to photograph their food and upload the images to social networking sites before they take their first bite.
Yet, this could be an extension of the overall trend of life tourism, where experiences in the real world provide fodder for our cyberselves. It doesn't really explain why bands and fans seem to be increasingly enthralled by food. Bands are interested in food primarily because what they eat is often out of their control. Food on the road tends to be fast and cheap. It's one of the reasons why you are likely to see bands huddled at a Little Chef off the M1 or at a Denny's in the States. Musicians travel the world and if they don't put in any effort, it will be a long series of diners and trays of processed food accompanied by supermarket dips. For ageing music fans, life circumstances make active participation in music scenes difficult: partners, children, babysitters, early morning commutes. People's passion for new music has apparently turned into an obsession with food.
What I find most fascinating is how the modern foodie movement expresses many of indie values. The indie music scene finds ownership and means of production to be ethical issues, preferring small independent local operations to large corporations. Indie values include DIY aesthetics, simplicity, purity, an antipathy to the synthetic and manufactured, a desire for authenticity, a longing for the past (be it 7in singles or cassette tapes), and the elitist discourse of the art critic.
These concerns are shared by new hip food obsessives who want to know how food is made, where it comes from, how far it travels and how much integrity it has. The more artisanal the food is, the better. If you are paying attention to food production and consumption isn't that similar to paying attention to how your music is made, who owns it, and how it is delivered to you? Foodies are concerned if food producers are exploited or if distribution produces a large carbon footprint. You can look at a label of any artisanal food and see indie values: locally sourced, independently owned, limited quantities, traditional methods, purity, simple ingredients, and most of all organic, uncontaminated by additives. The food artisan produces commodities not widely distributed or easily found. Food entrepreneurs should be small and local, producing food with methods you could do yourself if you chose to. Not food produced by transnational corporations manufacturing synthetic concoctions such as mystery meat in a can. It's about restoring traditional methods in the face of modernity. Chemicals are clearly rejected. Perhaps this is why people are so skeptical about molecular gastronomy. Sure it's creative and distinctive, but it's so tainted by the future and science.
Contemporary foodies search for authenticity. What makes cuisine authentic is how traditional it is, not how expensive. As our cities are awash in menus from all over the globe, experimental foodies seek out the most exotic regional foods and assess them according to how closely the food is reproduced to its original form. If the food is extraordinarily rare, its cultural capital increases. If you go to a Thai restaurant that serves frog legs in tealeaf curry, a dish specific to one highland region of Thailand, isn't that just as good as getting a limited-edition coloured vinyl EP?
Then there is the connoisseurship. Foodies aren't just fans, they use the discourse of critics to suggest they have the aesthetic acumen to proclaim the absolute "best" of some cuisine and vigourously debate the relative merits of each dish or inventive food truck. If an establishment becomes popular, many will declare it's not as good as it used to be. The indie values of the foodie movement may explain the cult of In and Out Burger, the first stop for people in the know when they arrive on the west coast. It's beloved not only because it tastes good, but also because it feels good as well. In and Out Burger is independently owned. Its marketing is primarily word of mouth so fans have their own sense of discovery and personal investment once they have eaten there. In and Out controls its means of production and distribution. Everything is fresh, never frozen. They have complete transparency, even allowing you to watch the food being prepared. Their governing principles are quality and simplicity. They serve burgers, fries, and drinks done exactly to the customers liking. The fabled secret menu is just a short cut to genuinely having it your way as opposed to being told you'll have it your way, but actually getting exactly the same thing as everyone else.
So foodie values are akin to the philosophy of indie music, but the topic is different. Instead of arguing about the merits of, say, the Vaccines, foodie discourse provides endless opportunities to argue the relative merits of various creme brulees or express your connoisseurship for tapas. So if food is the new indie rock, which band would Heston Blumenthal be in?
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Radiohead release The King Of Limbs – Live coverage
Radiohead's new album, The King Of Limbs, has been released 24 hours earlier than expected. Here's how it happened
Tim Jonze's review of The Kings of Limbs is now online, which brings us to the end of this liveblog. There will also be an album review from Kitty Empire in this Sunday's Observer and Alexis Petridis will be reviewing the album for the Guardian on Monday. Thanks for all your comments. See you next time Radiohead decide to release an album at the drop of a hat!
Radiohead fansite ateaseweb.com published this new press shot of the band earlier today, and don't they look nice! The site also correctly guessed that the new album would be eight tracks long. An uber-fansite might be a better description.
Tim Jonze's first review of The King of Limbs will be up in the next half an hour.
An amendment to my earlier post: Everett True's review was based only on Lotus Flower and not on the entire album. Judging by his one-track analysis, I'm guessing we're in for a 5-star verdict of the whole thing
Just to clarify some confusion earlier about actual events in Tokyo. I received an email from Time Out Tokyo's Jon Wilks saying: "Plenty of disappointed folk around" after the scheduled but secretive announcement that something Radiohead related would be happening in Hachiko Square in Shibuya failed to happen. The Guardian's Tokyo correspondent Justin McCurry has just filed his story on what happened. Or, rather, what failed to happen. The story will be up soon.
Now back to the album in question: The Telegraph's Neil McCormick is trundling through a track-by-track review of The King of Limbs as I write and the outcome so far is favourable.
Here's a round-up of readers' analysis so far of The King of Limbs:
Tiresias42 says:
This album is beautiful, it is however much further removed from guitar rock than even Kid A, all The Bends fans will come out the closet to whinge, and I have no idea why those fans are still interested, the band they loved died in those cold copenhagen sessions when Thom played everything in it's right place on piano for the first time
TokenGesture says:
Its a glitchy, trippy, laid back groove of a record
Mikeydoollee, however, disagrees:
Wow, what a pile of crap. I hate Radio Head. Weren't they just a Nirvana covers band back in the day? Did a song that sounded like Teen Spirit? Also that singer, yech, one eye lookin at ya, one eye lookin for ya.
One suspects a spot of trolling from our friend Mikeydoollee, no?
Meanwhile, Curtley2 asked about the album's artwork and voddy1 replied:
The artwork is by Stanley Donwood who along with Nigel Giodrich the producer is considered an honory member by most fans. he tends to set up art studio along with the band during recording sessions and uses the music to inspire his art. He has a mysterious sidekick called Dr Thock who I think makes the tea.
The first lot of reviews are online, as well as 140-character round-ups on twitter. Technically, Gavin Haynes got there first with his pre-release "review" on Vice (oh, you guys). But this actual review of The King of Limbs comes in the form of a short and far from sweet analysis by Everett True on Collapse Board:
Sorry. I succumbed. It's like Bono, minus the 'charisma'. It's rock music, minus any of those pesky dynamics you usually associate with the form. It's like those irritating buzzing flies that always come into our kitchen around 5.30pm and buzz around the trails of blood until I get the electric badminton racket out. It's drum'n'bass, watered down and made putrid for popular consumption. It's rock music as mime: all the posturing and none of the substance. Or humour. It's rock music as midlife crisis: premature and unwanted. It's rock music as mud: grey, formless, useless. It's Radiohead. And I do not like it.
Pretty scathing. Typical True.
So now we find ourselves in possession of the new Radiohead album! And like the rest of you, the Guardian music staff have donned their headphones ready for their inaugural listen. Tim Jonze will be filing the first Guardian review of the album later today, in the meantime we look forward to reading your thoughts and bringing in analysis of The King of Limbs from across the web.
Tracklisting for The King of Limbs:
1) Bloom
2) Morning Mr Magpie
3) Little By Little
4) Feral
5) Lotus Flower
6) Codex
7) Give Up The Ghost
8) SeparatorOk, my personal copy of The King of Limbs is currently downloading. Go to http://www.thekingoflimbs.com/OrderTracking/ to see if yours is ready. More information coming soon...
Ok, getting various reports that certain people have received an email confirming their order of The King of Limbs will be delivered tomorrow (Saturday 19 February). Did anyone here get such an email?
Lots of discussion about the quality of Thom York's dancing in the video for Lotus Flower. Marcel Marceau has been thrown around as a reference point in the office, while themoon says:
there's a moment in the Lotus Flower, i think around 2.32, when he distinctly looks like Steptoe.
Also, in lieu of actually having the Radiohead album to listen to yet, I stuck ferreiragusmorais's comment (10.48 am) into Google translate and this is what I'm told he or she said:
Write to cos do not do a Radiohead album since OK Computer way, oh shit, man
I hear you, buddy
I put a call out on twitter to see if anyone has their copy of the album yet but no one replies in the affirmative. John Murphy says:
On the tracking status for my order, it's still saying 'available 19 Feb' (probably best, as I'm at work)
Meanwhile, Guardian writer Louis Pattison has his own take on the Lotus Flower video (which was directed by Garth Jennings, by the way)
No sign of the album in the inboxes of anyone at the Guardian. We're assured by XL that all pre-ordered albums will be arriving today so keep us informed as and when you get your copy.
A representative from XL records has just sent this email out:
Radiohead have brought forward the digital release of their new album "The King Of Limbs" by 24 hours with the album now being sent to those who pre-ordered it earlier this week. It is also available for new orders through www.radiohead.com at a fixed price of £6. A special edition is also available.
With everything ready on their website, the band decided to bring forward the release by a day rather than wait until the planned date of Saturday, Feb 19 to deliver the music.A song has been placed on Radiohead's Twitter feed, entitled Lotus Flower
Justin also send confirmation that a video is now being shown with this picture of the crowd at Hachiko Square
The Guardian's Tokyo correspondent Justin McCurry has sent this email:
Definitely more ppl hanging around Hachiko square than usual; the possibility of RH promo video on big screens a topic of conversation. 10 mins before we find out."Thank you for waiting," was the polite, brief message Radiohead tweeted on Monday to confirm that their new album would be released this coming weekend. We've come to expect the short notice from a band whose last album, In Rainbows, was released equally suddenly as part of their "honesty box" trial.
Given their fondness for shock (and often cryptic) announcements, nobody should be surprised that the band further teased us with another ambiguous tweet (since deleted) comprising of nothing but an address in Tokyo: "Hachiko Square Shibuya, 59 minutes at 18 Friday"
Does this mean the album will be previewed today? Are Radiohead playing a secret gig? We don't know exactly, but we'll be here providing all the build-up and (hopefully) rounding up some of the best reviews, reactions and snarky Tweets.
Here's what Japanese Time Out have to say from their live blog:
..
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
 | Замечательный молочник для деток и их родителей. Блог Подарки с улыбкой. |
| rss2email.ru | отписаться: http://www.rss2email.ru/unsubscribe.asp?c=90855&u=756462&r=477547156 управление подпиской: http://www.rss2email.ru/manage.asp |
