56: Boogie!

Why We Must BOOGIE!

Mike Mosher, Lindsey Eck
To many activists -- including members of the Bad Subjects Production Team -- all that is wrongheaded in rock, perhaps in all mainstream music under global capitalism, is personified in a beery young white lad pumping his fist in the air, hollering "BOOGIE!"

The Limits of Politics in Avant-Garde Jazz

Micah Holmquist
Attempts to categorize the politics of avant jazz fall into two categories. Both end up saying that the music is inherently connected to leftist politics.

Karaoke and the Utility of the Already Sung

Rob Drew
Karaoke's reception in different cultural contexts reflects differing attitudes toward the potential and power of so scripted a vocal performance.

"I'm really tooth decay": The Paradox of Avant-Garde Resistance in the Case of Negativland's DisPepsi

Elizabeth Rich
Beyond exposing the processes through which Negativland upsets the order of musical ownership, they also, like Duchamp and Warhol, have things to say about their culture.

Becoming the Daydream Boogie of Simultaneous Speed and Stillness: The Truck Road Trip and the Cabcruiser

Baynard Woods
Gilles Deleuze, the French philosopher, says that nomads do not travel because travel blocks becomings. But what Deleuze did not take into account was the trip.

Defining Country Music

Lindsey D. Eck
Country music, I reckon, isn't much like pornography. I mean, even when they hear it people don't know how to define it.

Moshpit Metaphysics: The Politics of Punk in San Francisco 1976

Mark Van Proyen
Marcus's book placed punk within the great tradition of 20th-century revolutionary practices. But it failed to account for punk being the first popular art movement to recognize that said tradition had become ossified.

Prairie Fire: Rock Maoists

Mat Callahan
The brief resurgence of energy that was punk rock simply could not and did not prevail against the larger, global forces at work.

Hotel California: Learning How to Read

Charlie Bertsch
Even on a bad day, I brighten when I hear the words "Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona." And I always turn up the volume when I hear Joe Walsh's squiggly guitar at the beginning of "Life in the Fast Lane."

The Motor City is Blanching: White Rap Gets Paid

Mike Mosher
An essay on white rap music and the Motown legacy in today's metro Detroit.