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A year or two ago a friend of mine was comparing her younger days in the late 70s and early 80s traveling up and down the east coast going to sci-fi cons to some of our friend’s experiences at about the same time, traveling around following the Grateful Dead. She noted several similarities, but did allow for one major difference. As she put it, they “had better music.”

Now, at the end of not only my first Potter conference, but my first con of any sort, I’m not sure that the new generation of fandom will end up suffering from the same fate.

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Random thought that keeps popping up in my head after seeing the Wizard Rockumentary;

“Wizard Rock kids are the brats of fandom. They are undoubtedly the future of fandom, but they aren’t willing to just sit around and talk about it. They also want to sing and dance. They aren’t just happy with being who they are, they want to celebrate it.”

The average age of any event at Portus dropped 5 - 10 years (may be more) when the event was WRock.

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Young fans have no history of festivals, but they do know cons.

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And now, the idea that prompted this garble of thought:

What if we jettisoned the festival model and instead used cons as the driving model? A weekend. A hotel. A crap load of music. Workshops and classes on recording, distributing, doing shows, booking tours, song writing, using software tools, all kinds of other stuff. Not just let people dance and sing, but show them the tools and then teach them how to use those tools, so that they can take part instead of just watching.

Big events for the “stars”, but also smaller events for up and coming artists. Open mic sessions.

Let folks rent out conference rooms for shows. The FL kids, as an example, could pool money to rent one room for their performances. Boss Fight or Nerdy South could rent another room to showcase their artists.

Maybe even expand outside of just music. A theater running vids and fan movies. Fan fic workshops.

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It is a thought, you have to give me that.

Credit for my ah ha moment needs to go to The Blibbering Humdingers, Fred Lives, and House of Black, who were responsible for this scene that I found when I showed up at the Post-Portus Dance Party

Blibbering Humdingers

Fred Lives and House of Black

The weekend was… interesting. Apparently at some point I pissed off Eris again and she decided that this week would be her revenge. I came down with a cold on Tuesday which resulted in me missing the Mickey Hart Band show on Wednesday night. The cold, combined with my terminal case of shyness in real life, left me in a weird state for most of the weekend. All of this seemed to come to a head Friday night when I spent most of the night with my hearing out of whack because of the pressure build up.

Things began to turn around on Saturday. At the last minute I made the decision to go see the Wizard Rockumentary, instead of seeing Oliver Boyd, The Blibbering Humdingers, and Owl Post. I’m still bummed at missing those sets, but the movie was in many ways a revelation. I picked up the DVD after the screening and watched it again last night. I’m sure I will at least be watching it on the flight back tomorrow. I’ll try to get a review together at some point, but right now it is a bundle of half formed ideas.

Which kind of sums up where my head is at about this whole experience. A jumble of half formed ideas which may or may not ever fully gestate. I’m not sure if I’ll be coming to one of these symposiums again or not. I think, given why I came here, something like WRockstock would probably serve me better. I am glad I came though. It wasn’t what I had expected, though in many ways my expectations were unfair and unrealistic. It was real though.

Whether or not a real review of this weekend ever surfaces, video of many of the performances will be popping up over the next several weeks. So far I have almost 4 gigs of videos and the dance party still to go. I’ll throw up a note as they begin to pop up. I think I’m going to look into actually learning how use iMovie before posting these.

The reason that I bring this up is that in one of his books, Fulghum talks about advice for taking a trip. His first bit of advice is to spend the first night close to home. This way you can ease into the trip and if you realize that you forgot something important, it isn’t to much of a hassle to go back for it.

This weekend was the first night on my little WRock trip. For this first excursion into the Wizarding world, my hosts were the Monsters of WRock; Justin Finch-Fletchley, The Whomping Willows, Draco and the Malfoys, and The Remus Lupins. The situation was ripe for comparisons to my first WRock show back in August, since that show also featured the Lupins and the Willows, and the show occurred at the same venue.

While the show in August was a really fun show which opened my eyes to the possibilities inherent in the WRock scene. The show last Saturday extended these lessons and served as a reminder that, even with the series over, this scene doesn’t seem to be slowing down in the least. While the energy at the Aug show took awhile to ramp up, not really gelling until near the end of the night, Saturday’s show started off strong and built from there.

The night began with a set from JFF. Prior to the show the only thing I’d heard from Justin was his EP in this year’s Wizard Rock EP of the Month Club. The CD had gotten a couple of listens, but hadn’t really clicked with me. The tracks were fun, but not amazing. While I would love to say that Justin live was a revelation, it wasn’t. It was a lot of fun though. His songs have a strong sense of beat that leaves me with a slight after taste of early rock and roll, back when it hadn’t fully shed its rhythm and blues roots. His set began with just him on acoustic guitar. While he was later joined by Brain from the Malfoys (bass) and Matt from the Willows (drums), the full band set up wasn’t really a requirement, more a fun flourish that freed him to push things into a few other areas. The first couple of acoustic numbers showed that he was more then capable of handling his set with no help at all. It also pushed him into the circle of artists that I’m curious to see where they go from here.

After JFF, we were treated by the first of our two returning sets, The Whomping Willows. Recently Matt seems to have started playing more electric shows. I’m not sure if this is just a passing fancy or if it marks a change in his live sound. His albums have always featured generous use of electric guitars and full band arrangements, but his solo touring has necessitated an acoustic approach.

This hasn’t necessarily been a bad thing on his part, but it does limit him somewhat. His style of strumming folk pop comes across best when he is given an audience that is familiar with his work and willing to sing along. Minus this crucial piece, the shows run the risk of dragging. Matt’s banter from the stage and dry wit are strong tools to win the crowd over, but he is basically working with out a net with just him and his acoustic.

The electric though suited him really well. Accompanied by JFF on bass and a drum machine that has been christened Whompy Jr, Matt was free to deliver his songs with a dynamic that is near impossible to pull off with just an acoustic guitar. It leant an air of energy to his slower moodier songs. And pushed crowd favorites over the edge. I Found A Loop Hole was allowed to really achieve the rock and roll glory that has always been simmering underneath and songs like Draco and Harry and Wizard Rock Heartthrob were given an added bounce that had the entire room moving and dancing along, not to mention singing at the tops of their lungs.

This was my first chance to see Matt playing electric, and I really hope someone is feeding him some early Billy Bragg records so he realizes that there isn’t really a need to go back to the acoustic. Not that there wasn’t a certain sense of charm to the old shows, just that the new style provides him with a much better setting in which to display his talents.

Following Whompy’s set could have been a pretty arduous task for a lot of groups. Luckily, this tour had the Malfoy’s on hand. Making their first appearance in VA, the group decided to open the set up to requests from the audience, except for a couple of new tracks to promote their new CD. This was also my first time seeing the Malfoys in person, but judging by the YouTube videos I’ve seen of the group, we got a pretty typical high energy show that was focused squarely on making sure everyone had as much fun as possible. Of the small group of WRock bands that I’ve seen so far, the Malfoys definitely seem to best represent the idea that at its core, WRock is first and foremost about having fun. While the budding social consciousness of the scene is a wonderful turn of events, the scene would be well served to make sure they hit a Malfoys show now and then and remind themselves of this lesson.

With three bands down, it was left to the Remus Lupins to wring out any last drops of energy that the crowd had in them and the group definitely did not disappoint. Kicking their set off with Snape, Alex and the boys kept things at a fast boil through out their set as they wound their way through a set that was heavy on crowd favorites, while still giving room for new tracks from the new album. It is interesting to see just how quickly new songs work their way into being crowd favorites with the Lupins. Songs like Alone on Valentines Day and The Weasleys, off an album that might be a year old, were greeted by the crowd with the same energy and excitement as older songs like the Ballad of Neville and Luna or Snape.

The only divergence from the groups formula of high energy dance numbers was the obligatory rendition of Remember Cedric. A perfect chance for the crowd to catch their breath and cool down a little bit, Alex still managed to mix things up. Before playing the song he instructed the crowd to sit in a circle in the middle of the room. In the center of the circle Alex played solo with just his acoustic guitar and no amplification. As he played, he coaxed the audience into singing along, not just with the chorus, but the verses as well. The effect was magical. This only marked the second time I have seen the song performed live, but I challenge anyone to point to a more amazing rendition. The raised voices of the crowd perfectly capturing not just the mournful qualities of the song, but the defiant cry to continue to fight in the face of tragedy.

After such a wonderful performance, the rest of the set could have easily become anti-climatic. Alex quickly got the focus of the audience back though by picking up where he had left off before Cedric, including bringing the room right back to a fit of energy and moving bodies. Finally capping the evening off with a typically boisterous rendition of Looking For Trouble, this one featuring Grace, from Snidget, on backing vocals.

And then the night was over. Autographs were signed. Pictures were taken. Merch was sold. As I headed out to post-show burritos, thanks to an invite from Grace, I was left with a slightly bittersweet feeling. This party was over, but I was only days away from my trip out to Texas where the party would undoubtedly continue. If this was the first night of my trip, where would things go from here?

The day before this show I decided to use up some birthday gift cards and purchased a video camera. The results aren’t great, but I don’t think they’re that bad for my first time. At this moment, I’ve loaded up six videos to my YouTube page, which you can find here. I’ll try to get some more loaded in the coming days, but that should give you a little taste.

One video that I should single out, given the above review, is Remember Cedric. It really was that magical.

First up, this Saturday is the DC (actually Vienna, VA) stop on what I am referring to as the Monsters of WRock tour (if you get the joke, you get the prize, a nice new hearing aide!), featuring Draco and the Malfoys, The Remus Lupins, The Whomping Willows, and Justin Finch-Fletchley. Interestingly enough, the show is at the same place that Church and I saw the Lupins and the Willows last year. Exactly how so much unadulterated WRock is going to fit in such a tiny room, is going to be half the fun of going.

Saturday is only a warm up though, the following Wednesday, the real fun starts. First, I head out to the Birchmere to catch The Mickey Hart Band. For those who don’t know who Mickey Hart is, which I’m assuming is all of you, he was one of the drummers for the Grateful Dead. I’ve seen him half a dozen times, in various groups, and he has never failed to deliver an amazingly fun show. Not to mention, a night hanging out with random deadheads is always recommended.

The day after loosening up with Mickey, I hop on a plane and head out to Dallas to attend Portus for four days of WRock. Groups include, The Mudbloods, The Moaning Myrtles, Owl Post, Oliver Boyd and the Rememberalls, Fred Lives, Ministry of Magic, The House of Black, The Remus Lupins (again), The Whomping Willows (also, again), and probably some folks I’m missing. The kids over at the ‘pedia have put together a handy schedule of WRock related events, which you can see here. Of course, an event this size inevitably leads to conflicts. I’m already looking at missing the second Myrtles set to catch the live AlleyCast recording. It also looks like I’m going to have to miss my chance to see the Wizard Rockumentary so that I can see Owl Post. Luckily, the girls should have DVDs to sell, so I’ll be able to catch it later.

I return from Portus on Monday. Tuesday will be reentry day, followed by a couple days of work. Then the following Sunday, the festivities are book-ended by another Mickey set, this time up in Baltimore.

I’ve got a new laptop that will be making the trek to Portus with me, and I’m really tempted to pick up a video camera for the festivities. Expect something from me. Though, if you don’t hear anything from me before the end of August, don’t worry. I’m either still recovering or have gone on tour.

For those who are not up to date on their Wizard Rock (WRock) knowledge, Lauren Fairweather is one half of the WRock group The Moaning Myrtles. About a year ago Lauren started writing songs outside of the Myrtles and The Devil’s Snare is her first solo album.

The first hint that the listener has that this album isn’t a typical WRock offering is that the works are credited to Lauren herself. It is tradition in the WRock community to come up with a Potter related name for your group, even if the group only has one member.

The second hint comes in the topics that are covered on the album. The typical formula for WRock songs, in fact the very definition of WRock, is songs that are about, or inspired by, the Harry Potter series. This can take the form of songs that describe scenes from the book, songs that are written as if the songwriter were part of the Potter universe, or simply songs that are about the WRock scene in general.

The Devil’s Snare though features only one song that fits squarely with in this formula. Several songs, though not all, reference the Potter series, but do so as a fan of the series, not as a member of the universe. Because of this, I’ve found myself wondering if the album should really be viewed as a WRock album, as some will be inclined to do, or simply as a general geek-centric album, more in line with artists like Jonathan Coulton. Luckily the album stands up well in both camps, but I think it is perhaps more fruitful to view it outside of the WRock scene.

One of the biggest complaints of geek-centric music is its reliance on novelty. Critics cry foul that the songs lack emotional depth or resonance in the traditional way that pop music is supposed to. Whether this criticism is fair or not, it is hard to deny that a certain sense of novelty is prevalent with in the scene. It is hard to avoid a sense of novelty when your song revolves around mad scientists or Mega Man.

Which makes Lauren’s album all the more interesting. While several songs on the album openly revolve around or reference Lauren’s love for the Potter series, they do so in a way that side steps the novelty trap that comes from making such blatant pop culture references. Instead they come off as honest autobiographical songs. The references are touch stones which allow the listener to peek inside the artist’s mind, but do not detract from the overall message. These songs will likely carry more meaning for someone who is part of the same fandoms that Lauren is, but this does not preclude others from developing a meaningful attachment to the songs.

Now this isn’t to say that the album isn’t fun. It opens with the wonderfully irreverent track I Want You To Whomp Me, a parody of the classic Cheap Trick song I Want You To Want Me. There are also songs like the Snog Song, co-written with Lena Gabrielle of the Butterbeer Experience, about the infamous Book 7 kiss between Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley. Engines Make Me Hot (Kaylee’s Song) applies the WRock formula to the Serenity/Firefly franchise to great effect. And Nerdfighterlike is a playful song which comes off as a kind of love letter to the Nerdfighter comunity. In fact it is the sense of playfullness that permeates the album that makes it such an enjoyable listen. There is weight to the songs, but Lauren’s willingness to indulge her geeky impulses keeps the album from becoming bogged down.

Another interesting divergence from typical geek rock fare is the timeliness of the language used in the songs. While most geek music has an almost nostalgic flavor to it with references to old video games or TV shows or movies or books, Lauren’s songs reference elements of the geek community as they exist and evolve today. It is to early to tell if this will result in the songs having a limited life span even though the subject matter of the songs is timeless. Or if the appeal of these songs will be limited because of the language. It is still refreshing to hear songs though that are so current. And if one of the measures of a good songwriter is having other people covering your songs, Lauren is off to a pretty good start.

Over all the album is a little raw in places in the same sense that a lot of debut albums are. There is that feeling that she is still fine tuning her own voice as a songwriter and learning the craft, but the album holds a lot of promise. After a couple of listens one is left with the impression that if she decides to keep working at it, Lauren could one day be an influential talent with in the geek culture movement. Whether you buy the album or not, whether you like the songs or not, I highly recommend keeping an ear out for this artist in the future. Devil’s Snare is only her first tentative step into the world of songwriting. I have a pretty good hunch that her best work is still ahead of her and that it will be amazing.

Lauren performing I’m Going to Hogwarts:

As we have seen across the book, convergence culture is highly generative: some ideas spread top down, starting with commercial media and being adopted and appropriated by a range of different publics as they spread outward across the culture. Others emerge bottom up from various sites of participatory culture and getting pulled into the mainstream if the media industries see some way of profiting from it. The power of the grassroots media is that it diversifies; the power of broadcast media is that it amplifies. That’s why we should be concerned with the flow between the two: expanding the potentials for participation represents the greatest opportunity for cultural diversity. Throw away the powers of broadcasting and one has only cultural fragmentation. The power of participation comes not from destroying commercial culture but from writing over it, modding it, amending it, expanding it, adding greater diversity of perspective, and then recirculating it, feeding it back into the mainstream

The above quote is from the end of Henry Jenkins‘ book Convergence Culture. Earlier in the book he discusses the folk qualities of what he refers to as “convergence culture” in a section where he talks about fan videos. I read this piece and understood it from an abstract point of view and understood the potential for it, but I was unable to connect it with anything concrete in my interactions with geek culture. I’ve always seen the potential there, but I’ve been unable to directly tie that potential with my experiences with the traditional music scene in the mid 90s. Tonight, that changed.

Tonight was the first of two local shows on the Accio Bodyguard tour, featuring Lauren of the Moaning Myrtles and Lena of the Butterbeer Experience. The show was in Reisterstown, MD, at Constellation Books, a small indie bookstore that is set up in an old house. The girls played in a little corner, which would have been the house’s front hall. The audience for the show was small. There were four of us (including a store employee) at the start and may be 15 later in the evening. By the end of the night, we were down to five of us who were actively paying attention to the show. Given the small attendance and the fact that the girls were nearing the end of their first extended tour and were starting to show some wear, the show was played kind of loose. A fact that paradoxically tends to lead to great shows (general rule of thumb. The best shows tend to either be the band’s last show, or when the band is playing for a small, but attentive audience).

Adding to the situation was the fact that the girls had been hired to play for three hours, even though they usually only play about a 90 minute set. The extended show and loose atmosphere resulted in the girls doing a standard set of their own WRock songs and then following it with a set of random songs that the girls decided to play on the spot. The second set ranged from covers of songs from other WRock groups, covers from artists as diverse as The Hold Steady, Kelly Clarkson, The Dixie Chicks, and Pink, to broadway show tunes, to songs that consisted of Lena improvising lyrics while riffing on the keyboard. The latter category resulted in two epic moments, including the night’s finale which snaked through a variety of diverse songs and betrayed more then a little innate talent.

The review of this show is unfortunately brief. This is not because it wasn’t a fun show, but because what made it a fun show is not something that can be readily described in words. It was something that needed to be experienced to be understood. This is because it wasn’t a real “show” in a traditional sense, which brings us back to the opening quote of this essay.

It was near the end of the show, when the girls were playing a song from Rent, with two audience members (Grace from Snidget and another young woman whose name escaped me) not just singing along, but actively doing parts of the arrangement, that I had my little epiphany.

Last August, I attended my first WRock show, featuring Snidget, The Whomping Willows, and The Remus Lupins. That show was a rock show. It was a celebration and embracing of what it means to be young and a fan. It was about dancing and having fun and not worrying about the troubles that awaited us when the show was over. This evening’s performance was not that, though it represented something that is as intrinsically a part of the WRock movement as what the previous show represented. This was an evening where a group of friends got together to play music and laugh and just have fun. It was devoid of the spectacle which defines the modern rock show. Instead it had a certain purity of intent that I have only ever come across in traditional music circles. In short, this was modern traditional music.

I separate the terms “folk music” from “traditional music” for a reason. The term folk music is a marketing term that was invented in the 50s to market a certain type of acoustic music to a given market. Much in the same way that the term “new wave” was invented to market early punk music in the 70s. Traditional music though is simply the expression, in music, of a given culture. Traditional music sometimes intersects with the corporate world, but that is not the primary intent and the majority of traditional musicians have no expectations of ever being able to pay their rent with their music. They perform simply because of the enjoyment that it brings them and out of a love for the music that they perform.

My epiphany this evening was the realization that this definition of traditional music could very well be used to describe the WRock scene. Few, if any, of the people involved in the WRock scene have any expectations of making a living at it. A few do pay their rent with shows, but even these artists give the impression of viewing that fact as a pleasant surprise, not as an expectation that they entered the scene with. They do not play WRock to pay their bills, but instead have made the decision to devote their entire lives to the scene.

I have long seen geeky music less as a genre, then as a new tradition. A modern form of traditional music which expresses itself using the musical vocabulary of today. When I have spoken of this though it has always been an issue of potential, of what the future may bring. Tonight I realized that the future is now. WRock is only a part of this new tradition, but it is possibly the most pure in its intent and expectations.

For this epiphany, I thank Lauren and Lena, but I also thank Grace and the other people who were in attendance this evening. Traditional music is not a form of music that lends itself to the typical artist/audience dichotomy. The audience is as much a part of the equation as the artist. Especially, since the only thing that separates the two is a willingness to perform.

The last 40+ years have been defined, culturally, by the increasing domination of broadcast media. While there has always been a counter movement to this growth, it has increasingly be defined in opposition to broadcast media. Over the last 10 years though we have started to truly see the pendulum shift as a new form of traditional music has begun to reclaim its place in culture. WRock is squarely part of that correction. As the scene grows and evolves, it shows great promise. And with musicians like Lena and Lauren, that promise will surely be realized.

The first sign that you are starting to get somewhere in writing about music is when people start sending you advanced copies of their albums. Well, tonight I had my advance copy cherry popped by my man Z. Z hooked me up with an early copy of his next compilation, Old Nerdy Bastard. The idea behind ONB is to get a bunch of vocal tracks from various geek artists and have them remixed by a bunch of other geek artists. The comp is a pretty good cross section of some of the key players in Geek Rock, WRock, and Nerdcore (sadly, all the Video Game Inspired Music folks that Z approached had to decline or were unable to get their tracks finished).

I’m not sure how much I am allowed to say at this moment, plus I’d like to give the album a few more spins before writing a full review. I can say right this minute though, that this album is destined for must have territory, and is a shoe in for all kinds of end of year album lists. In fact I will be rating end of the year lists this year by where this album ends up placing on them.

Seriously, Z hit up some very talented cats and they responded by bringing their A games to the table. There are some tracks here that are just jaw dropping good. To be completely honest, I knew we were capable of some amazing crap, but this thing is just silly good.

This is it folks. Break out the calendars and make note. This will be the first sign in the pilgrimage that will unite the geek tribes. It starts here. Keep your eyes peeled over at Hipster, please! for the release. You will tell your children about the day this album dropped.

I’m not sure how much of the equation was the narrow focus of the blog, and how much of it was just lucking into meeting up with Z and Church fairly early on, but HS was able to get some legs under it and stick around.

Over the past several months though I’ve begun to feel a little constricted. Music will always be my primary geek passion, but thanks to meeting folks like Jason and through my conversations with Z, Church and Lizz, I began to see what I wanted to write about shift from music to geek culture. At first this wasn’t a huge issue, since my writings on geek culture tended to be coming from a musical point of view. I wrote about WRock and nerdcore and other similar things. I felt a little tinge about the name. A slight longing for something that reflected the geek kink in what I was writing, but it wasn’t major. And I really liked the name Headphone Sacrament.

Then came my Geek Culture Debate with Jason and two interesting links that Jason forwarded to me. (here and here) The short of it is that through Jason my Geek Culture Manifesto had wound its way into the livejournal vidding community and many of them had embraced it. I’ve been seeing a slow trickle of LJ links popping up in my logs since (though, I can’t read any of these posts, so I’m not sure what people are actually saying). This caused me to realize that while I’m thinking of geeky music when I write these things, other elements of geek culture are also appreciating them. In some cases, they appear to even be adopting them. And so, the name Headphone Sacrament started to feel a little more claustrophobic.

Which brings us to today. I haven’t given up the name Headphone Sacrament just yet, it may resurface at a later date, but for now I’m re-christening this site free_geek.

With the new name comes a few new changes to the site, beyond the obvious layout change.

1) I’ve created a page that houses links to all the relevant posts between Jason and I and out little debate. If Jason ever replies to my last post ( :) ), I’ll put up new links.

2) I’ve also added a “Cast of Characters” page. This is a group of short introductions of people whose name pops up here again and again. This way I can avoid constantly having to reintroduce people and constantly link to them again and again. I’ll also be adding to this as time goes on.

3) I also figured this would be a good time to overhaul the About page in the sidebar, which I’ve never been happy with.

4) Finally, it has been decided that Z is, in fact, a crack dealer. It was Z’s peer pressure that convinced me to finally set up a myspace page and now the bastard has gone and gotten me to set up a Twitter account. The link is over on the side bar. I figure it is only a matter of time before either he or Lizz gets me on facebook.

OK, I think that’s enough for tonight. I’ll let these changes sink in. Nighty night.

The questions are as follows,

1. If I read this correctly, the implication here is that geek culture can also represent a viable alternative as long as we don’t embarrass ourselves by trying to look too desperate for mainstream approval. Would this make geek culture part of the overarching group of “underground cultures”? If not, what sets it apart?

2. You write that if geek culture can orient itself such that it represents another viable alternative to mainstream culture, “we will be in a better situation to achieve the goals that Jason outlines in his post.” So, just to consider some hypothetical examples…

a) What might we consider the road to this? Should we reject media producers’ marketing efforts like the “graphic novel”? Or is this just a matter of being aware of how we think about these sorts of things?

b) What’s the practical upshot? In other words, how does whatever gets suggested in response to (a) above translate into being in “a better position”?

Let’s take them in order.

1) I’ve actually been chewing on this question for awhile. There are several loose threads here that I’m still trying to tie up. In short, though, I see geek culture as a “third way”.

Wow, I just did a quick search on that phrase and realized how widely it has been used. I guess I’ll have to be a little more verbose in my response.

Let’s back up a bit. American culture, at the very least, has largely been defined, in modern times, by a yin yang type relationship between various cultures which can be lumped into one of two larger cultures, the mainstream and the underground. The two cultures can be looked at as two points connected by a line. Things are defined by where on that line they exist. The closer something is to one point, the more likely it is to be associated with that culture. Similarly, as things move on the line, they move farther from one pole at the same time that they move closer to the other pole. In layman’s terms, the more associated something becomes with the mainstream, the less likely it is to be associated with the underground.

This example has become some what muddled over the last 10 years or so, but not quite as bad as some would believe. We are now seeing the underground associate with elements of popular mainstream culture, but it is usually done so in a way that is different then the way these things are associated with the mainstream proper. Hipsters, as much as they can still be associated with the underground, may associate themselves with something in an ironic manner or with a post-modern sense of self awareness (liking pop music, but viewing it in a way that is fully cognizant of its marketing angle, for instance).

As an example, over the past couple of years, my friend Courtney, a member of the indiepop underground, has begun to rekindle her teenage love for the New Kids On The Block. She’s related to me on a couple of occasions her frustration when people automatically assume that she is doing this in some kind of ironic way. That there is no way that her appreciation of the group is something that she is serious about.

I see this as a significant departure with the way that geeks tend to relate to mainstream culture. One would be unlikely to find underground equivalents to Jason’s story of handing out “comics you should read” fliers at his college. One of the main factors that defines underground culture is that it is not mainstream culture. Geek culture does not have this limitation and actually tends to synthesize elements from both the mainstream and the underground. Given this tendency to freely associate with elements of both cultures, I do not see how one can associate the geek culture with the underground exclusively. There are, and will continue to be, overlaps between the two cultures, but I don’t see these as requiring geek culture to identify with the underground. Especially since these overlaps do, and will continue to, exist with the mainstream.

I realize that there are significant issues with this theory, as I said, it is still something that I’m working on, but I feel that the issues will likely be dealt with through a refining of my definitions, and not lead to a rejection of the concept.

2) To be honest, the real answer to this questions is *shurg*. I threw that out there as a carrot to try and entice people to stop playing that game (the only way to win the game, is to not play). I do see validity in the statement though. So, I’ll try to respond to your hypothetical examples.

a) Personally, I’m of the opinion that any plans that involve the phrase “don’t do this” are best avoided on principle alone. I would like to see a focus on developing our own mechanisms to support our culture. The best example of this would be the systems that the underground have developed to support themselves. Independent labels, publishers, promoters, media, etc. A lot of this work has been done, and even more of it is currently going on, but there can always be room for healthy growth and refinement. My basic idea though is to focus on developing a system that will allow artists to create art as they see fit. Remove the argument that an artist can not support themselves if they do not cater to either the mainstream or underground cultures. Once that argument is removed (note that I said support themselves, I did not say make a shit load of money) then the choice is best left up to the individual artist.

I think once we are able to support our artists we will be likely to see more of our artists catering to us. You can see an example of this in the indie comic book scene. In the past comics were dominated by super hero books because it was only through super hero books that you could pay your rent. Aspiring comic book artists and writers either had to work with super hero titles, or had to find jobs doing something else. As the indie comic book market has expanded it has been better able to allow aspiring comic book artists and writers to pay their rent telling the types of stories that they want to tell. Because of this the breadth of the medium has expanded and the medium has grown in acceptance outside of just the geek world. If we can support other geek artists in a similar manner, then I believe we will see a similar growth in the breadth of the types of art that are created. Geeks are a diverse bunch and it only stands to reason that if given the chance, we will create diverse types of art (we already do).

b) The central issue here is the diversity with in the actual geek culture, as opposed to the perceived geek culture.

Geeks are largely perceived by both the underground and the mainstream to be social misfits who are unable to properly interact with either of the two dominant cultures. We both know that this is in fact a false statement. The issue here is not that we are all social misfits who are unable to interact with other cultures, but instead that those of us who are able to interact with other cultures either do not have any cultural signifiers to identify ourselves as geeks or are unwilling to allow ourselves to be identified as geeks, lest we be assumed to be social misfits who are unable to interact with other cultures.

By creating a self sustaining culture of our own we are better able to address these two issues. First, by providing the cultural signifiers that we need to identify ourselves (this is already happening). And second by demonstrating the diversity among geeks. In this second situation, focus moves to those artists (because cultures tend to be defined by the art that it creates) who exist on the fringes between geek culture and the other two cultures. These artists are capable to creating art (literature, music, painting, video games, whatever) which explains the geek mindset in a manner that can be understood by other cultures, while not becoming separated from the geek mindset that they are trying to capture. In other words, these artists become the ambassadors of geek culture.

Geek culture is not something that needs to be created. It is something that already exists. It does need to be nurtured though. Allowing it to be nurtured in an environment where it is allowed to grow organically into something that properly reflects us, will allow us an opportunity to better express ourselves and communicate who and what we are. Trying to force it though into a place that is currently acceptable by either of the dominant cultures, will stunt it and will leave us with something that neither properly represents who and what we are, nor something that allows us to explain who and what we are to the other cultures. To organically create a culture that properly expresses who and what we are, we must first accept who and what we are.

Hopefully, all of this better explains what I’m getting at. Jason, or anyone else for that matter, should feel free to ask for any other explanations that they need.

Wrock Fans by ~lizzilicious on deviantART

The above picture is one Lizz took at a Harry and the Potters concert. Props have to be given to Lizz for taking a great picture, but that’s not why I’m posting this.

Someone, for the love of god, back me up when I say that this picture really reminds me of the work of Glenn E. Friedman, especially his punk concert pictures. I mean it isn’t just me, right? Someone else out there has to see what’s happening here.

For those who are wondering who the hell Friedman is, he is a photographer. He’s primarily known for the fact that he always seemed to be in the right place at the right time in the late 70s and 80s. He was in LA in the mid to late 70s, when the local skaters there were redefining the sport. He was there for the early days of hardcore and punk rock, both on the west coast and the east coast (his pictures of the DC punk scene are some of the best known). He was also there in NY as hip hop came into its own. In each case, he was one of the first people to take serious photographs of scenes that would shape the future of the US underground.

That isn’t why I’m posting this picture though. The Friedman connection with this picture underlined something that I’ve felt for awhile now. If punk has any real life in it, it is definitely on its last legs. What life was left in it after the rise of Nirvana and Green Day, is currently be beaten to a pulp by the current hipster scene. While punk itself is gasping its last breaths, the ideals and inspirations of punk, especially hardcore, are popping up in some of the strangest of places.

In my mind, Wizard Rock is definitely one of those places. Its youth focus. Its use of alternate venues. Its empowerment of people who typically feel left out of their own culture. Its unwillingness to compromise its values for “respectability.” Its whole hearted embracing of the importance of expression over talent. I’m sorry, this is hands down more punk rock then anything Pitchfork has even written about.

The Whomping Willows are probably the most obvious example that people would point to of the punk in WRock. With all due respect to Matt for being unwilling to compromise his vision though, in this regard I tend to find him the least interesting. This shouldn’t be taken as a slight against Matt in the least. If you’ve spent any serious time in the punk underground though, a lot of the message that comes from him is kind of old news. Not that it isn’t important, especially since so many of the kids involved in WRock have never had any contact with the punk underground, but I’ve heard it.

What really interests me in this regard are the kids in the scene. The ones who aren’t making artistic statements. Who aren’t attempting to subvert any dominant paradigms or change the world. The ones who came across WRock and thought, “that looks like fun, I want to form a band.” That, right there is the most punk rock thing in the world. And that it comes from a place that has no ulterior motives beyond having fun, makes it that much more powerful.

When people talk about the good that the WRock scene has done, they tend to talk about promoting literacy or the HPA or something like that. All good things, but the most important thing is those 300+ bands out there that formed for no other reason then to have fun and enjoy themselves.

Revolutions are messy affairs. They’re loud and and overwhelming. And when they are done and the dust has settled, then the real change begins. The change that happens when no one is looking and that no one notices until it is to late. Punk made for a grand revolution, but it’s done. Now it is time for us to get to work.