Decibel Festival Kicks Off!
SEATTLE - THIS WEEK: I am thrilled to announce that I will once again head up to our sister city to participate in this year’s Decibel Festival, Seattle’s premiere, annual electronic music festival. This year the proceedings take place September 25-28 and I will be seated on an interesting panel. The future of music journalism is the topic of discussion and the panel is stacking up to look like a well rounded group of experts in vast cross-pollinated fields. Should make for a rowdy chat. Here’s what the catalogue says:
PANEL 1 : Wasted Words : The Future of Music Journalism
FRIDAY, September 26 @ 12:30 @ NW Film Forum
We will explore music writing - criticism, reviewing and description of performances and recording processes and ask whether or not they still have any relevance today and if they have a use and audience in the future. Our panel includes musicians, writers, and representatives of record companies engaged in an attempt to find answers to these perplexing questions. When Frank Zappa said; ‘…writing about music is like dancing about architecture…”, he was referring to the difficulty, if not futility of interpreting one art form using the methods of another.
Be that as it may, for as long as people have made music, others have been compelled to talk and write about it; in an attempt to describe, understand and share the experience of music. Up to now, writing about music has been important – critical to spread public awareness of and reinforce music cultures. Does music writing in the “internet era” have the same influence that it once did in the “print era”? Is there an identifiable audience for music writing? Is the role and form of music writing changing? And if so, how and why? Is the emergence of the blogosphere a benefit or just a lot of white noise? Are there benchmarks to measure the effectiveness of using the printed word to describe auditory experiences? Join us as we explore the role and relevance of music journalism, criticism, blogging, performance reviews and more!
Panelists include Dale Lloyd (and/OAR and the Phonographers Union), TJ Norris (ARTnews, Signal to Noise and MIT/Leonardo Magazine), Dave Segal (XLR8R and The Stranger), Todd Burns (NA Editor for Resident Advisor), Robert Crouch (co-director and curator of Bleeding Edge Festival and Volume Projects) and Lusine (Ghostly Recording artist). Moderated by Chris DeLaurenti (The Stranger, Wire Magazine).
This year’s Optical, the visual arts portion of the festival, will be held mostly at the Grey Gallery & Lounge. Some acts included later this month are house favorites like Detroit’s Carl Craig, veteran sound art composer William Basinski, and Mexico’s amazing Fax…but there are over 100 performers involved, so if you are a fan of contemporary music head up to SEA-town for your early Fall dose of aural stimulation.
PPS: Thoughts from Energy Flash.
Tags: Carl Craig, Decibel Festival, Fax, Grey Gallery, Wasted Words? The Future of Music Journalism, William Basinksi
October 3rd, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Sooo… What didya think?
October 6th, 2008 at 9:29 am
The Akira Rabelais show was one of the best performances I have seen since the inception of the festival five years ago. There were a few performers like Balun and Tujiko Noriko who were quite good, otherwise I missed a lot of what was going on, mainly because I prefer work that is a bit more experimental than most of what was on this year’s roster. I’m certainly not a big party scene guy and the thump-thump-thump certainly took the streets of Seattle during that weekend. This same tendency would seem at the centerpiece of of most like festivals, however - having to pay their overhead, and then some. I was disappointed that the organizers did not accomodate me either with a hotel, a per diem or even tickets to one of the events I wanted to attend. So, a few feathers were certainly ruffled this year for the first time. There is a great myth about the way Seattle treats its artists, and it’s not a positive story…but I guess slightly South perhaps it’s a bit safer. I did enjoy the panel on ‘Wasted Words’ that we both particupated in - I appreciate when things seem a bit short…keeps you ‘wanting’.
October 6th, 2008 at 9:34 am
Oh, and one other thing…the visual/digital arts aspects of the festival(?). Perhaps I missed that too. There was supposed to be an entire aspect to Decibel called ‘Optical’. There were a few computer monitors at the Grey Gallery/Lounge - but they were in the Will Call room and looked like they were for press only, with information, not actual video. Perhaps I just didn’t get the memo about where that was taking place? That said, my press badge was emblazoned with URB Magazine, however I only write for ARTnews and my own ‘unBlogged’ these days - so some oversight is bound to happen. How was your experience Robert?