Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork |
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Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork
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by Bill Martin and Robert Fripp
Sales Rank: 880198
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List Price: $19.95
$19.95
At Amazon
on 11-27-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 208 pages
Published by: Open Court March 12, 2002
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0812695003
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0812695007
Book Dimensions:
9 x 5.8 x 0.7 inches
Weighs: 4.8 ounces
From Library Journal
Martin (philosophy, DePaul Univ.) is an experienced amateur electric bassist with two previous publications in this field (Listening to the Future and Music of Yes: Structure and Vision in Progressive Rock). Despite such ostensibly solid credentials, he misses a golden opportunity to fill a musicological vacuum with a reasoned survey of experimental rock, instead producing an arrogant, blatantly personal manifesto. His scope is ridiculously narrow, neglecting the vast expanse of his chosen subject and devoting half of the text to only five arguably significant but hardly central proponents of "experimental" rock music: Jim O'Rourke, Bj rk, King Crimson, Sonic Youth ("the 'heroes' of this book"), Yes, and, oddly, nonrocker John Cage. He further belies the scope promised in his title by devoting almost one-third of the book to jazz artists, nonrock aleatory composers, classical pianist Glenn Gould, and rappers. His book is riddled with hyperbole and unsupportable opinion, plus arcane in-jokes alongside allusions to a "rock for dummies" matrix. While Avant Rock should get some credit for reminding us that generally ignored "fringe" artists such as Merzbow and Stereolab are nonetheless vital agents in the evolution of rock music, this can be recommended to only the largest academic collections with a completist's interest in nonmainstream rock music. Jerry Lucky's The Progressive Rock Files (Collector's Guide, 1998) and Bradley Smith's The Billboard Guide to Progressive Music (Watson-Guptill, 1997, while not perfect, are each preferable to this. The second edition of Rock: The Rough Guide (Rough Guides, 1999), although not exclusively devoted to progressive rock, cogently profiles over 1000 bands including most of rock's major and minor "avant-architects" and remains not only the definitive guide to rock as a whole but also the best extant sourcebook treating the primary experimental movements, innovative recordings, and progressive performers within rock music. Bill Piekarski, Angelicus Webdesign, Lackawanna, NY
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Having previously inspected the band Yes (Music of Yes, 1996) and progressive rock (Listening to the Future, 1997), Martin turns to avant-garde rock. His choice of subjects follows the course of rock's experimental spirit well. Early on, he deconstructs the John and Yoko dynamic, considering whether it eventually broke up the Beatles and whether that was a terrible thing. The breakup freed Lennon to pursue his more philosophical side, at the cost of McCartney's more sophisticated music making; meanwhile, Yoko became a considerable force in avant-garde rock, Martin says. No white rock critic afflicted with "overcomprehension," Martin devotes significant space to such progressive black artists as George Clinton, Jimi Hendrix, and John Coltrane. Later he labors to say something good about Brian Eno, and readers must take the good with the pompous. After assessing avant perennial King Crimson, Martin blasts into the present with "Bjork, Jim O'Rourke, and Beyond." Vital and balanced, intellectual but engrossing, this is rock criticism in which to sink one's teeth while shaking one's hips. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Reader Reviews
Sonic Youth. Jim O'Rourke. Yes. Bjork. Get used to these names right now, because Bill Martin is going to repeatedly ram them down your throat until he is certain you've gone out and purchased their entire discographies. Although perhaps I'm being too harsh - I can think of worse artists for Martin to focus on. However I am inclined to agree with what's already been stated - Martin tackles this book with a disturbingly narrow scope. There are two main reasons why Martin's book does not rise above an average rating. 1. Bill Martin himself. While the man clearly knows a great deal about music, I don't think he is necessarily the right man to write a book about such an all-encompassing term as "avant rock" (more on that later). As I said before, Martin's personal bias intrudes on almost every single page on this book. In fact, as soon as I read on the back of the book he had written books both about Yes and about progressive rock, I knew there would be trouble. I have no qualms with the inclusion of progressive rock in this book, as it has obviously made extensive contributions to the avant rock genre. But when the name Yes appears on twenty nine pages and, say, the Boredoms (who are THE band that jump to mind when I think of avant rock) appear on zero, I think there's a bit of a problem. Just leafing through the index will tell you who Martin's favorites are simply based on sheer numbers of pages they occupy; not whether or not they were crucial to the avant rock scene. As he approaches the end of the 90's, it becomes increasingly clear that save for a few of his favorites, Martin has lost touch with whatever avant rock scene might exist. For example, in his list of essential avant rock albums for 1999, Rage Against the Machine's Battle of Los Angeles is included. Perhaps fitting if this were a book about the history of nu-metal or rap-rock, but horrendously out of place in a book such as this. Or how about including bassist Kev Hopper's Spoombung in his 1998 list (which is just one of a meager five albums he feels noteworthy enough to list)? Would it surprise you if I told you that Martin himself is also a bassist? 2. The title. In choosing "Avant Rock" as the title to the book, Martin is basically free to drop the names of whatever musician he feels like without even having to justify their inclusion. Artists like Merzbow, John Cage, Cecil Taylor, Arnold Schoenberg, John Coltrane are discussed at length, and while all are outstanding musicians with obvious contributions to the avant-garde, I don't see how their connections with rock music are so deep as to warrant such extensive discussion at the expense of other musicians (perhaps no one transcends the avant-garde and rock/pop music like Mike Patton, yet he is relegated to a blurb in Martin's rambling making-up-for-lost-ground essay at the end of the book). This book could have been (and still can be) done with someone who is a lot more involved in the avant garde scene. Martin's heart is indeed in the right place (as Robert Fripp's foreword states), but he just doesn't have the knowledge of the genre that this type of book demands. I gave this book three stars because it is a sort of "winner by default" book. There are not too many other comprehensive guides to this kind of music, so Avant Rock would probably be a great place to start if you are just getting into the genre and want to do a little exploring. Experienced fans, however, will find it harder to look past Martin's glaring omissions, blatant idol worship, and awkward topic- and chronology-jumping.
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Avant Rock: Experimental Music from the Beatles to Bjork
Available from Amazon
Price: $19.95
Updated on 11-27-2008.
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