Final Thoughts

It’s been awhile since my last post but I’ve been thinking a lot about my final musings on this genre and why such a small group are so keen to distance themselves from one another based on their location.
Just to give an example that shows the desire for distinction between the British and American antifolk scenes.

“There are countless similarities between our city and its transatlantic cousin, but the best thing London and New York have in common is that they are home to a legion of misfits and outsiders who manage to find each other in their city’s myriad music scenes. Antifolk is just one of these, and it’s been bubbling away across the pond and in our own backyard for the last few years” (Parkin np).

Another way I have noticed the separate scenes set up boundaries is the way they write the word ANTIFOLK. As stupid as this might seem, antifolk, AntiFolk and Anti-Folk are all apparently very different (though the subtleties are lost on me). The three antifolk web rings also seem to set themselves up against one another and frequently acknowledge the differences in their work.

www.antifolk.org
http://www.antifolk.net/
http://www.antifolkonline.com/

So I’ve been trying to figure out why such a “micro-genre” wouldn’t want to band together and all be friends. How human beings think of themselves remains one of the foundational questions of human existence and the concept of personal identity is fundamental to human ease and subsistence. Separating antifolk by region into “neotribes” has become a way for artists and fans to participate and forge a sense of individual and cultural identity… so it doesn’t really matter that the music is similar (and artists do still relate to one another) but the regional identity is also a very important part of the scene.

Bennett, Andy 1999, ‘Subcultures or neo-tribes? Rethinking the relationship between youth, style, and musical taste’ in Sociology, vol.33, no.3, pp.599-617.’

Parkin, C., “Secret scenes: Antifolk”, Time Out London 12 Sep. 2006. http://www.timeout.com/london/features/1971.html (accessed 14 Apr. 2008)

EXAMPLES OF THIS STYLE - Difference between original FOLK music and ANTI-FOLK music

First example BOB DYLAN the grandfather of folk music. The early style encapsulates the counterculture of the 1960s when folk music was adapted to variations of the pop and rock structure. The music and relies heavily on the artist’s voice and lyrics.



Another example is JONI MITCHELL




Folk music today exists in two streams – traditional folk and anti-folk. My personal observation is that contemporary traditional folk music is less political and focused more on relationships and the personal while anti-folk is more opinionated and socially focused however both overlap and it gets a bit confusing. Current traditional folk artists include Missy Higgins, Sarah Blasko, Ani Difranco, Ben Kweller, Jack Johnson, John Mayer. Some artists start as what I would classify anti-folk but as the artist achieves popular success their music becomes more mainstream and the music is littered with extra instruments and effects that detract from the integrity of the song.

ANTI-FOLK - Katie



FOLK (more mainstream) - Round the Bends




Xavier Rudd and Regina Spector are two artists whose music has not changed a great deal despite mainstream attention.

Croce and Juno – Anti-folk and Mass culture

The film Juno which was released last year (2007) received overwhelming popular and critical acclaim including an Academy Award for best screenplay. Personally I believe much of the popularity of the film came from the likeability of Juno, the protagonist played by Ellen Page. People (particularly younger people) are frequently influenced by representations they see in the media; and when a character is deemed ‘cool’ or desirable consumers strive to emulate their effortlessness, just as much as they would a celebrity or musician.

In The fragmentation of America: the erosion of mass culture Paul Croce discusses the significance of mass communication in understanding cultural change and the generation of distinct cultural styles. His argument is that by its very definition, mass culture reaches a large audience and produces large communities of fans “the ability of mass culture to produce these communities at a distance [allows] more and more distinct flowering of cultural styles.” His article examines the concept of clustering and the propensity for whole clusters of people to split off from mass culture and identify with people who share their distinct value systems but want nothing to do with other clusters. His belief is that this ‘clustering’ increases division between music scenes. I would argue that mass communication of cultural artefacts like music and films does the opposite. In the case of Juno mass communication of the film presents thousands of people with the same entity at the same time and they can choose to consume it how they like.

Ellen Page suggested that her character Juno would be a fan of the music by Kimya Dawson and The Moldy Peaches. The result was that the films soundtrack contains features several songs performed by Kimya Dawson and her bands Antsy Pants and The Moldy Peaches. To be exact there are 8 of 19 songs performed by Kimya Dawson and the other songs on the soundtrack are stylistically compatible. According to Wikipedia (possibly not the best source) the soundtrack has sold 611,512 copies in the U.S. as of mid-April 2008. I would argue that the popularity of the soundtrack is a direct result of the cool factor of Juno which makes people to want to emulate her, quote her and appreciate her musical taste, the quality of the music itself would play some part too. In response to Croce, instead of dividing people into small musical clusters the mass communication of anti-folk music through Juno had acknowledged the genre and increased it’s acceptability with a larger audience.

Croce PJ 1993, ‘The fragmentation of America: the erosion of mass culture’, Current, no. 357, pp 4-10.

LYRICS... and AntiFolk in Australia

Some people say that the lyrics aren’t an important part of a song because people don’t remember them. I would argue that song lyrics are a very important part of anti-folk music. Folk music is the music of the people. It is indigenous to certain people at a certain time, which means that it is music that comments on politics, social norms and emotions, they are often a reflection of contemporary issues and frequently reference popular culture. Another aspect of the style is the storytelling fable like approach; lyrics regularly form a linear narrative. Because of the importance placed on the songs content and the issues and ‘story’ the music is really there to guide the lyrics and is usually simple. People might not remember folk lyrics word for word (though they often do) but they always remember the message and that is the goal of the songwriter.

Because of the references to world events, politics and pop culture these songs provide a contemporary social commentary that acts as a vehicle to capture contemporary culture. The songs document dominant attitudes, values and beliefs, preserving them for the future so that whenever they are played people can appreciate the time where they were written either through their own experiences of the issues reflected or through places, popular activities and well known brand names.

Anti-folk is a very localised genre and also a relatively unknown genre. It is a very diverse genre but there are distinct similarities in theses and method. The classification for anti-folk is quite vague but it seems to be musicians who are rebelling against mainstream techniques of music construction and telling stories that are meaningful in their lives. The international anti-folk scenes are quite local intimate neo-tribes and as a result other artists who might fit into the group don’t align themselves with the groups. The anti-folk scene in Australia is based in Melbourne but it is even smaller than those in Brighton or New York. Nevertheless I think Australia has some genuine anti-folk artists: people like Clare Bowditch and Josh Pyke, their music styles fit the definition of anti-folk but the nature of the Australian music industry means that they are could be considered mainstream because of the size of their fan base and following. I think the financial support and production quality also has something to do with this.


Examples of some LYRICS:


Zac Lister Band – Launceston Tasmania

Lets kill all of the fish in the sea
I’m gonna poison your family
If you have asthma, you better beware
Of the shit I’m pumping into the air
I hope you like the taste of my nuclear waste
Think you’ve got it bad, oh just you wait
I’m gonna chop it all down
And poison what’s left
You don’t know what’s good for you
But I know best
Protest all you like cause all it will proves that your all misinformed

I’ll offer you jobs but out-source overseas
Cause I don’t care about your family
I’m all for primary industry
Cause value adding is just not for me
I’m gonna salt the earth so that nothing will grow
But if it does you know we’ll plant them in rows
Then I’ll chop it all down
And poison what’s left
You don’t know what’s good for you
But I know best
Protest all you like cause all it will proveIs that your all misinformed

Don’t you know, that we know we’re not misinformed
Yes I know, yes I know we’re not misinformed

After we’ve killed all the fish in the sea
After I’ve poisoned your family
And all those with asthma are good as dead
Cause I’m holding my gun to your head
But what did you know I planted in rows
Then I chopped it all down
And poisoned what’s left
Because I know what’s good for you
I know what’s best
Protest all they like
And all it did prove is that I’m misinformed



Josh Pyke – Middle of the Hill

When I was a kid I grew up in a house on a hill
Not the top, not the bottom, but the middle
And I still remember where I cracked my head In the vacant lot,
there's a row of tiny houses there now
And we used to light fires in the gutters
And I could cool my head on the concrete steps
But the girl down the street hit my sister on the head
With a stick and we hid behind my father
As he knocked on the parents' door
To tell the them what she did
But the parents were drunk so they really didn't give a shit

And the girl down the street said my dog couldn't bark
'Cause a man with an axe cut its voicebox out
But my older sister told me that it prob'ly wasn't true
And I believe what she said 'cause she took me by the hand
One time when a coupla men drove down the hill in a white van
Said there was a phone box filled with money 'round the corner
And I woulda gone along but she took me by the hand
To the house in the middle of the hill In the middle of the hill,
in the middle of the hill

And my mother knew the words to a lot of different songs
And we'd always sing the harmonies, when we'd sing along
She had cold, cold hands when the fever hit
And then the noises that the trains made sounded like people in my head
And the stories that the ceiling told
Through the pictures and the grains in the pine-wood boards
And let me stay outside 'til the sky went red
And I could cool my head on the concrete steps
And you could never really see the top from the bottom
But I don't pay enough attention to the good things when
I got 'em And you could never really see the top from the bottom
I don't pay enough attention to the good things when I got 'em (x 5)







Clare Bowditch And The Feeding Set - Divorcee by 23 Lyrics

Well it seems you've got a baby girl to a man
who will not love you well
and you're walking down Brunswick street
and you're buying the baby's tears with treats.

You look perfect, you look fine
and you hold it together most of the time
but when the baby's crying
and you know, he's lying...

He was the best looking boy you'd known
so you married him and made him home.
Dropped out of university
all because he said "Well Honey, you're pretty."

Yes, you are pretty but you are not fine
'cause you've forgotten you're partly Divine
and if you don't start crying,
you may never shine.

Step on out of line,
Outside the square
I dare you
To just not give a damn.
'Cause people won't understand?
Don't let them scare you.

You play boy games and he plays girl games
and every Saturday, you swap over again,
and you wonder why he "Just don't hear!".
Are you saying it loud, are you making it clear
or are you hiding away,
behind all those perfect things that you say?

You know that you don't wanna be,
You don't wanna be,
You don't wanna be,
You don't wanna be no divorcee by 23.
Well is that your best reason to stay?
You're worried about what your brothers' friends'
mothers' might one day say?

Step on out of line,
Outside the square
I dare you
To just not give a damn.
'Cause people won't understand?
Don't let them scare you.

You really should step on out of line,
Outside the square
I dare you
To go confront your man
Help him understand these subtleties about you.

You don't wanna be,
You don't wanna be,
You don't wanna be,
You don't wanna be no divorcee by 23.
Well is that your best reason to stay?
Think about what your baby girl might one day say.

The Sidewalk Cafe - 94 Avenue A, New York, NY 10009, USA

Scene... New York to London

Anti-folk is a very scene based genre. Within webrings it is frequently described as a secret scene or micro-genre. The foundation of the movement is the Sidewalk Café which is located in the East Village of New York City. The Sidewalk Café was initially the only venue to support anti-folk artists. The café was opened by a performer who couldn’t get gigs anywhere else and the venue became the hub and home of anti-folk. Though some artists have received mainstream recognition internationally, many local artists are unknown outside of the New-York anti-folk scene which is predominantly made up of other artists with similar ideals and sensibilities. The Sidewalk Café really is a café but the backroom - known as The Fort (named for the creator’s first club which was shut down) opens at 7.30pm each night for live music. The venue is small scale fostering a ‘house concerts’ feel and promoting interaction and familiarity between the community of artists and fans. The Sidewalk Café also hosts the annual New York Summer Anti-Folk Festival which is in its 22nd year.

There is also an ‘antifolk’ scene (which apparently differs from ‘anti-folk’) in the UK. This scene appears to be quite a bit larger than the American scene as it is spread more widely across the country. The London scene was initially sparked by the New York scene but has developed differently, and after listening to the two styles I think the differences stem directly from the different cultures. “This urban-bred music is the closest we’ve got to a modern-day folk music: people telling everyday fables, valuing humour over sorrow, storytelling over technique and personality over polish” (http://www.timeout.com/london/features/1971.html). Certainly the American and British day to day existance, priorities and storytelling techniques are different but the musical style, scope and influences are very different too.

Kimya Dawson - Loose Lips

Regina Spektor - That Time