Consumationist

The concept of “Alternative” is so distorted in part due to marketing strategies in the 90s adopted by major labels to coin the classification in reference to anything they could sell in that fashion. This was overused to the point whereby the alternative to what? Other than the obvious very commercial releases most of everything else was presented as such as the media overkill hit full swing. Where do you go if the alternative has been co-opted?
I was struck by the quotes from Stephen Duncombe in the reading on Alternative Media (Chris Atton, 2002). After Atton establishes the blurred lines in regard to commerciality, and independence, social responsibility and change, and the point I express above regarding self-definition for the sake of marketing, he looks at the idea of Advocacy media and Grassroots media. It is in regard to Grassroots media that Atton identifies the idea of the means of production being as significant as content being “citizen-controlled as opposed to state- or corporate controlled”. In that “the culture of consumption can neutralise all dissenting voices” by “assimilating their content”… “the position of the work with respect to the relations of production that gives it its power and enables it to avoid recuperation by the mere duplication of its ideas” and in this sense alternative is about engagement in the creation of their media… agency on behalf of the participants of a social group… or a subculture.

Everyday provides opportunities to engage with music… living here in Brisbane and being in touch with the local is one thing… but there is also a sense of removal from the world and yet this is not the case with access to a radio station like 4ZZZ that has people prepared to play new innovative sounds without limitations due to commercial concerns etc… and then we have the internet where information has the ability to propel itself with the rapidity of NOW. Although this is only possible in that sense that one chooses to engage on that level… to seek out through media access.
So artists that struck me today… as well as days before...

TV on the Radio – from New York and the sounds of a resurgence of the No-Wave vibe… more on this later.
TV on the Radio website
Live review
Album review Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes

!!! (pronounced Chk Chk Chk and taken from the sounds made in The Gods Must be Crazy film) on Warp Records and hanging to hear the upcoming album Louden Up Now - out on June 7 -includes the single "Me and Giuliani Down By The School Yard (A True Story)" noted as one of 2003’s most acclaimed tracks (Warp site). 8 piece somewhere between punk and experimental... and everything in between
Warp Records
!!!

Check this out now and let me know more...
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Today was interesting in that the question was posed regarding future possibilites for emergent subcultures relative to the force and presence that punk had? Got lost in some all consuming spiral of the impact of commodification and savvy producers aiming to capitalise that possibly negates the position of opposition that has to be considered in the light of contemporary global communications ie the internet, freight speed in regard to magazine and CDs... and in general how many artists can financially survive from niche markets operating on a global level due to this accessability without having to pursue aggressive commercial campaigns.

Outside of that I`m just addicted to music so check these out...
MESSER CHUPS from Russia... on this great label Solnze Records plus lots of other cool acts that form a collective of sorts Messer Fur Frau Muller, Oleg Kostrow...
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