I think I may have tripped some wire in my brain with last week's look into the nature of alt.country. I can't get the current concept of genre out of my head; it's hammering away on my brain like a roofer after a hailstorm, a situation not helped by my recent perusal of a Spin magazine from two months ago ***image2***(Hey, I have a lot of subscriptions. You should see my pile of unread New Yorkers.) in which columnist Chuck Klosterman provides "difficult-to-define musical genres explained in a concise and accessible way." Klosterman begins his column with a little anecdote about how his sister doesn't read Spin anymore because she never understands what the writers are talking about when they talk about "emo." Which is a lot.
This on the heels of my lame attempts to explain to SFR publisher Andy Dudzik just what exactly emo means, attempts that faltered to such levels of frustration that I eventually slinked away in embarrassment. The conversation went like this:
Andy Dudzik:
Wait, so what's emo?
Jonanna Widner:
Well, it's a genre of rock, or punk rock, sort of, which is marked by sort of angsty emotional, um, emotion.
SFR Editor Julia Goldberg:
Like Belle and Sebastian.
JW:
Yeah, except Belle and Sebastian aren't punk rock. They're more Brit-pop. But many people consider them emo…
AD:
What's a Belle and Sebastian?
JW
(ignoring question): That's where, you know, the confusion sets in, because emo began in the '80s punk rock scene in Washington, DC, but it's morphed into something else.
JG:
Wait, Belle and Sebastian isn't emo?
JW:
Well, I don't know…
AD
(obviously already bored by discussion, one eye on budget sheets): I don't understand.
JW:
Me neither. Maybe I should write a column about it.
This on the heels of trying for the second time to read
Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers and Emo
by Andy Greenwald, a comprehensive history of emo which Klosterman discusses in his column (and a book, by the way, that was given to me by an ex-girlfriend who broke up with me rather viciously and caused me great, angsty, teenager-y pain, which adds to the whole, you know, emo-ness of it all).
All this in an attempt to understand the nature of how musical genres are named these days. As far as I'm concerned, if a music writer can't explain what a supposedly definitive term is to her boss, then something's wrong.
Hence, last week's alt.country diatribe in this here column, timely as it coincided with Shannon McNally's El Paseo show, and this week's masochistic investigation into whatever the hell emo is, timely as it coincides with a number of upcoming shows at Warehouse 21 which might or might not feature a few emo bands. Depending on your definition of emo.
Greenwald's book begins with a discussion of the very quandary I find myself in, which is, how do you describe this type of music? The problem is, emo (like alt.country) has such a dense history, full of offshoots and mutations, that its origins in many ways do not match up with its current incarnation. Emo began as a branch of the hard-edged '80s punk scene in Washington, DC, a scene more interested in social/political anger than introspective emotive expression. Somewhere along the way, a section of the scene spun off, retaining the hard side of the music and fusing it with softer, highly personal, emotional lyrics: the original emo. Since then, emo has shape-shifted, branched out and folded in on itself, and the only thing that remains constant is the emotion-charged lyrics.
The specificity of the music surrounding those lyrics, however, is much more difficult to pin down. Some folks, for instance, consider bands like Belle and Sebastian to be emo, due to their pasty, unbearably sensitive white boy lyricism. The music Belle and Sebastian plays, however, has no roots in emo-there's nothing punk about it-it's fey and closer cousins with the Smiths. Others think Dashboard Confessional is the ultimate example of emo, with main Confessional Chris Carrabba's sad stories of heartbreak giving him an emo panache, combined with his punk-street-cred-tattoo-coated arms. Somewhere in between is his music, which, sadly, is fairly Top 40. Does this qualify as emo? How genuine could he be if he's courting the TRL crowd?
Still others cite bands like the Postal Service, who combine plaintive, keyboard-oriented pop ditties with smart, quiet confessional lyrics. Again, it's the lyrics and feelings, not the music, that qualify as emo.
Regardless of which, if any, emo theory you subscribe to, know that for some reason the rock 'n' roll heavens have conspired to bring several bands which are very good, and which could or could not be emo to Warehouse 21 (1614 Paseo de Peralta, 989-4423), and which you should check out for yourself. The top of the heap is Peachcake, an Arizona keyboard duo that has drawn comparisons to the Postal Service. Some folks might find Peachcake to be emo; I think, with their soft, subtle, off-kilter dance beats, they more resemble a movie in which the Big Boo plays the background music to a scene in Berlin.
But I could be wrong. Maybe they are emo. But it doesn't matter-Peachcake is a great band, and only the beginning: Check The Jaded, I Heart Metal, The Kidcrash and Keyboard (check
for details)-all potentially emo, or maybe not at all-all week long, and judge for yourself.
