words about music

Over the past few weeks I've been going through select chapters at a time of Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984 by Simon Reynolds. This has to be the ultimate Bible of music nerdery, and I'm loving every second of it. With its 608 pages it is far from a quick read, and I admit to skipping around to some of the particular bands I like best, first - but hey, it's non-fiction, so that's allowed, right? (And a big thank you to Rob Theakston for letting me borrow it.)

The passages on The Human League and Joy Division have been particular favorites, both confirming and adding meat to much of what I was already familiar with, and adding a ton more to chapters I wasn't very aware of in detail. A definite must read for anyone who makes music or plays other people's tracks, especially artists today who are really drawing from that era. ;) I'm really enjoying learning more of the regional aesthetic and political values that helped shape the music, as well as the artists' own politics and particular obsessions. It's voyeuristic yet unsensationalized, which for me rings as quite a good combination.

Probably the best chapter so far - Chapter 12 - Industrial Devolution: Throbbing Gristle and Music from the Death Factory. (Throbbing Gristle, Whitehouse, Nurse With Wound Clock DVA, 23 Skidoo.) One of the most sincere, insighful, unbiased, shocking and exacting passages ever written on this genre of music. Not only does he aptly describe the brutal unlistenability of much of it, but he explains its roots in Fluxus happenings that predated COUM Transmissions, and how it was taken quite seriously in performance art circles.