Punk Aesthetics and New Folk

Way Down the Old Plank Road

John Encarnacao

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317073208
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medien & darstellende Kunst
• Subtopic: Punkmusik

Joanna Newsom, Will Oldham (a.k.a. 'Bonnie Prince Billy'), and Devendra Banhart are perhaps the best known of a generation of independent artists who use elements of folk music in contexts that are far from traditional. These (and other) so called 'new folk' artists challenge our notions of 'finished product' through their recordings, intrinsically guided by practices and rhetoric inherited from punk. This book traces a fractured trajectory that includes Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, Bob Dylan, psych-folk of the sixties (from Vashti Bunyan to John Fahey), lo-fi and outsider recordings (from Captain Beefheart and The Residents to Jandek, Daniel Johnston and Smog), and recent experimental folk (Animal Collective, Six Organs of Admittance, Charalambides) to contextualise the first substantial consideration of new folk. In the process, Encarnacao reviews the literature on folk and punk to argue that tropes of authenticity, though constructions, carry considerable power in the creation and reception of recorded works. New approaches to music require new analytical tools, and through the analysis of some 50 albums, Encarnacao introduces the categories of labyrinth, immersive and montage forms. This book makes a compelling argument for a reconsideration of popular music history that highlights the eternal compulsion for spontaneous, imperfect and performative recorded artefacts.

PART ONE
Frames

Chapter 1
New Folk and Analysis

Central to the undertaking of this book is the search for analytical parameters that suit the music at hand. Despite the efforts of some commentators, perhaps most prominent among them Moore (2001) and Middleton (2000), I feel that the sound of recordings has not been adequately taken into consideration in academic studies. The same is true of the album as a type of structure. These elements have been interrogated by a vast array of artists concerned with spontaneity, rawness and inclusion over several decades, and this book is an attempt to deal with some of them. While the strategies pursued in this book are particularly appropriate to new folk, and more widely to any music with an outsider or oppositional stance, they are applicable to any music for which the recorded artefact is more than a document of an actual performance. As will be borne out by the examples that follow, one assumption made in many readings of popular music is that a recording exists to transmit a kind of meaning that resides in a song. Rarely have commentators noticed that the fidelity and production of a recording not only frames that meaning, but carries much of that meaning itself. Choices made with regard to recording strategies, and the attitudes that they contain towards not only the material recorded, but its position in the context of the music industry, are routinely ignored, often because a certain ‘industry standard’ of production is assumed and implicitly preferred in the analysis of popular music at an academic level. At the risk of falling into the trap of evangelising for supposed underdogs, I believe that the approach to analysis pursued in this book draws attention to influential activity on the fringes of popular music. I hope also to illuminate aspects of some well-known artists in a new way.

Lo-fi, new folk, outsider music, and the other folk and punk inflected musics covered here, play explicitly with assumptions listeners may have internalised about the sound and structure of recordings. Analysis of them reveals the extent to which these assumptions are held in many analyses and discourses surrounding popular music. One of the many things that my teaching of popular music analysis at university level has taught me is that it is all too easy to choose examples that fall into convenient frames and models. This book, in part, asks these questions: what do we discover when we notice the difference between songs and recordings of them? What do we discover once we let go of the assumption that recordings attempt a kind of transparent rendering of song material? How does the articulation and disruption of album forms play into our reception of recordings as texts? A look at these questions affords me the opportunity to also consider the phenomenon of new folk and the various currents in popular music that have made it possible.

However, I believe that any study of popular music that looks at the music itself will benefit from the frames presented here. My approach centres on the consideration of particular recordings as texts. As much as I acknowledge that it is impossible to completely dissociate recorded products with their audiences, (nor is this desirable), in the words of Martin Cloonan (2005: 79-80), my approach is largely textual rather than extra-textual. The notion of subculture essential to the much-cited studies of Hebdige (1979) and Thornton (1995) is not particularly relevant here, nor are studies that are concerned with the politics of consumption such as DeNora (2000) and Grossberg (1987). As worthwhile as these studies obviously are, the social orientation of the people who listen, or dance, or do housework, or shop for potential partners, to the music covered in this study is not my concern. This chapter will serve to introduce the frames for my analysis in some detail, as well as to define the field of new folk and the rationale behind the artists chosen for scrutiny.

The field of new folk is understood, at the broadest level, as part of the discourse of rock music. As well as signifying a particular style or genre, the term ‘rock music’ also functions as something of an umbrella term that embraces many types of popular and not-so-popular music through a number of forms and structures. These forms and structures are fluid and contested, but include certain types of promotion, performance venues, performance practices, distribution, the institutions of albums and singles, and the labels that release these recorded works. Indeed, a notion of subculture that is important to this study is that of independent networks, and particularly independent record labels. While there are applications of the words ‘punk’ and ‘folk’ that exist outside of the discourse of rock music, for the most part these terms are used with the presumption of their situatedness within the field of rock, or in their relation to rock. For the purposes of the present work, I will use the term ‘folk’ to denote acoustic tendencies and the use of traditional, pre-Tin Pan Alley song forms and techniques in rock practice.¹ It is important to note that the use of the term ‘folk’ in this context does not generally equate to the use of traditional material, or of a situatedness within a particular ethnic or indigenous culture. This aspect – the creation and maintenance of the idea of ‘the folk’ and what the term means in a post-Baez/Dylan rock music landscape – will be considered in detail in Chapter 3.

Punk aesthetics² is active in practices that place a premium on independence, domestic activity, rawness and spontaneity, and participation and inclusion. These attributes are often related to displays of amateurism and a disregard for the dimensions and polish of commercial product. Of course, these ideas were not invented by the generation of acts that emerged in the mid-to-late 1970s generally referred to as punk. One must look only as far as the career of Sun Ra (for example) to see many of these ideas made manifest in the context of avant-garde jazz from the 1950s onwards. Independent record labels have existed for as long as the recording industry itself, and punk aesthetics continues to proliferate in many contexts that may or may not have a connection to punk rock or associated independent music practices. Punk was not the starting point of the aesthetic tendencies under discussion here, but had much to do with assembling, codifying, and amplifying them. All of the artists under discussion from the new folk milieu are connected to independent channels of performance, recording and distribution, and many have a history of involvement with, or interest in, punk and hardcore scenes.

Already I have used the terms ‘popular music’ and ‘rock’ as if a distinction should be made between them. I do not wish to contribute to a pop/rock binary that many commentators have rightly marked as unhelpful – that of pop being ephemeral, shallow and commerce-based and rock being artistic, ‘grown-up’ and of lasting value. Rock, however, can be understood as a particular cultural formation beginning in the mid-1960s that relies upon instrumental combinations of (usually electric) guitars, keyboards, drums and singing, is often (but not always) song-oriented, and is stylistically related to American traditions of blues, country music, and jazz. Rock music is also invested in the album as a form. However, rather than see rock as defined against popular music, I think it useful to consider it as part of the much broader formation of popular music, which itself might be loosely defined as any music that is broadly disseminated or enjoyed regardless of musical style or genre.³ At times, I will also use the term ‘pop/rock’ to indicate elements found across a broad spectrum of popular music styles including but not limited to rock.

As vexed as the pop/rock question is that of style/genre. Allan Moore clearly and usefully delineates between the two terms:

It is those common features which are found widely pertinent to a style’s practitioners which are basic to definitions of it. Genres, on the other hand, cut right across styles, such that there will be genres that intersect both rock and other styles of popular music. Any performance of an individual song will necessarily exemplify both. Thus, a list of genres relevant to rock styles might include the ‘uptempo dance number’, the ‘anthem’ and the ‘romantic ballad’. (Moore 2001: 3)

However, I will follow the more vernacular uses. That is to say, ‘genre’ will stand in for Moore’s ‘style’, and ‘style’ for what Moore refers to as ‘idiolect’ – those aspects of performance, interpretation and nuance that are particular to an artist. While this vernacular usage may not be technically correct, people commonly talk about musical genre rather than musical style, perhaps because the word ‘style’ is so easily conflated with ideas about fashion. Considering the connections that are often made between punk and fashion, which I am not concerned with in this project, referring to punk as a genre fixes my meaning more precisely than referring to a punk style.

What is New Folk?

‘Avant-folk’, ‘freak folk’, ‘psychedelic folk’, ‘neu-volk’, ‘free folk’, ‘progressive folk’, ‘the New Weird America’: this is a brief selection of categories created by the music industry (both music press and record labels) since the late 1990s to describe independent artists who utilise acoustic instrumentation and/or elements of ‘folk’ material or techniques. The term ‘new folk’ is perhaps less commonly used than some of those above, but encompasses them all without the connotations, pejorative or otherwise, of qualifiers such as ‘freak’, ‘progressive’, and so on.⁴

For my purposes, the early music of Will Oldham, released under variants of the ‘Palace’ name (Palace Music, Palace Brothers, Palace Songs etc.) is among that which marks the beginning of new folk. In these records we hear punk aesthetics infusing musical practices that we might associate with folk. Though involved with an album by Box Of Chocolates in 1990, Oldham’s recording career began in earnest in February 1993 with the release of Palace Brothers’ 7" single ‘Ohio River Boat Song’,⁵ an adaptation of the traditional Scottish ‘Loch Tay Boat Song’. Together with the debut Palace Brothers album, There Is No-One What Will Take Care Of You (also 1993), the group was established as a ramshackle, home-recorded blend of country, folk and gospel. The single features a standard rock band formation, but the arrangements on the album use banjo and acoustic guitar as a foundation. Oldham’s voice falters repeatedly, even as he generally holds on to the pitch. The harmonic structures are simple and tend to underpin verse-upon-verse ballads, or rambling through-composed forms. Throughout, there is nothing to dissuade the listener from the impression that they are listening to live performances led by a singer-guitarist in the fashion of folk and blues recordings going back to the 1920s; to be specific, only the odd distorted electric guitar timbre might indicate that these recordings took place any time after 1950.⁶ The sole cover version on the album is of a gospel tune by Washington Phillips, ‘I Had A Good Mother and Father’, originally recorded in 1929.

Many of the features of There Is No-One – a lack of conspicuous studio craft or prodigious musical technique; home recording,⁷ with its associations of music making as a domestic activity, and a do-it-yourself rejection of industry standards; the ad hoc borrowing of elements from pre-rock American musical traditions – point the way to new folk as a distinct channel of activity in the independent sphere in the 1990s and 2000s. Two other albums released in 1993 are arguably formative of the genre: Julius Caesar, by Smog, and Our Bed Is Green, by Charalambides. Smog was the name used by singer-songwriter Bill Callahan from 1988 to 2005. Julius Caesar showed a marked turn to song-like structures in contrast to earlier Smog releases, though like them it was (largely) recorded to 4-track cassette.⁸ There is nothing to indicate folk elements on the record, but along with the work of Oldham, Elliott Smith and, a little later, Cat Power (singer-songwriter Chan Marshall), Julius Caesar helped to establish a legitimate place for singer-songwriters in the independent sphere, up until this point very much the preserve of groups. Our Bed Is Green was also recorded at home, and initially released as a C-100 cassette in an edition of about 30.⁹ After another self-released cassette album called Historic 6th Ward (1994), the Siltbreeze label released Union (1994) and Market Square (1995), affording Charalambides some exposure in independent circles. As with Julius Caesar, these albums could not be considered folk music in any sense except their origin in domestic musical activity. However, the group’s use of drone, and the sometimes incantatory approach of Christina Carter’s singing, carry connotations of applications of folk music for some listeners.

The ‘lo-fi’¹⁰ recording of these releases, together with experiments with form and vocal approach, and a lack of regard for standard rock band instrumentation (even while the records are obviously steeped in rock’s vocabulary) set them apart. Smog and Cat Power were for a time in the mid-1990s grouped by some writers under the banner of ‘slowcore’, and even ‘sadcore’, in an attempt to at once indicate the intimacy of their work and a lineage continued from hardcore.¹¹ It is only retrospectively that they and Oldham might be considered to be a part of the ‘new folk’ formation, particularly in light of their later recordings. In many ways, these artists follow on from post-punk and indie musics in a way that was impossible for rock bands that followed Nirvana. In the wake of Nirvana, ‘alternative’ became a category through which rock artists could find purchase in the mainstream music industry. As Matthew Bannister (2006: xxiii) recognises, ‘the depressed economic climate of the late 1980s, the increasing incorporation of indie labels into the industry … the crossover success of Nirvana and grunge’ all mark 1991-92 as ‘the end of a chapter in the indie story’. This demarcation of rock music history is pertinent; just as Nirvana was making its mark upon the mainstream, Smog and Will Oldham were releasing their first records; just as indie rock was largely co-opted by major labels, another underground emerged with an even more back-to basics approach. A less sympathetic view might hold that the success of Nirvana made rock somewhat passé in independent circles, giving any music that stood in relief to ‘grunge’ the potential to be the next cool thing. If one major slice of underground taste went towards the lo-fi folk and country of Oldham and others, another went to what was then called ‘intelligent dance music’ – The Orb, Aphex Twin and the like.

By the turn of the century, some writers were beginning to group some of these lo-fi, home-recorded artists inspired by pre-rock traditions together. Journalist Ben Thompson (1998: 89-93) borrows a phrase from the credits of a Lambchop album to christen the Woodchuck Nation, including Smog, Palace, Vic Chesnutt, Lambchop, Beck and Freakwater. This prompted academic writer John Street (2000: 301) to suggest that ‘Sparklehorse, Smog, Freakwater and Lambchop … play music that is a ramshackle, stumbling amalgam of country and rock, in which eerie voices whisper about lost souls and dark secrets’. Quite definitive in the perception of a genre, or movement, was what I will call the ‘freak-folk’ moment of approximately 2002-04. During this time, Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom emerged, receiving exposure that was to some extent the result of a decade of activity of the likes of Oldham, Callahan and Marshall. These years also saw the debuts of Akron/Family, and Iron and Wine, and new levels of recognition for Six Organs of Admittance, Faun Fables, Animal Collective and Charalambides, all of whom had been releasing material for some time.

This brings me to the matter of inclusions and exclusions. It is impossible to cover any movement exhaustively, particularly if the intention is to look at particular texts in some detail. For those immersed in this music, it may seem as if for the most part I am covering the best-known artists from the genre. While this is true, I feel there is no other way to go considering that this is the first in-depth study of the milieu. For those not as interested in independent music, or the lo-fi aesthetic, it may seem as though the entire generation of artists under discussion is of little import.¹² I am encouraged by the writing of Simon Frith (1996: 12-20), who rejects the ‘assumption that the “popular” is defined by the market’ (15). Instead, he professes an interest in ‘culture as transformation’, which ‘must challenge experience, must be difficult, must be unpopular’ (20). I am reminded of Barthes (1975: 6-7) and his concept of two ‘edges’, one in whi...