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So, I'm not convinced this is the proper format for a pedagogical question, but it seems pretty wide-open here. So here goes.

I teach the History of Rock 'n' Roll at a community college. A pretty popular class, and I always get some nice punk rock kids with germs t-shirts and stuff in there. It's enjoyable, as far as work goes!

It's a holistic look at the history of rock and popular music, from 1860 and Tin Pan Alley on up to today (what I like to called the Entropy Period).

My question is thus: What type of sub-division or context does one bring to a discussion about a record or a band like, say, Slint or A Minor Forest? This does not fit into the easily categorizable "punk rock" (where a Squirrel Bait does, for instance), and in my opinion it sort of escapes the "regionalism" lecture as well. This "type" of music didn't simply come from one place in particular, it's much more scattered than that.

My confusion/trepidation lies with selling anything short of its proper 'due' here. I.e., I don't feel comfortable or even truthful lumping this in with the 90's rock section of the class (while this may seem reductivist to many, it's the only way for me to teach this course now--subdividing by genre, time frame, and region--it's a community college, friends!), that covers your nirvanas and your pearl jams and whatever band was making some sort of larger cultural wave.

It's my contention that this 'post rock' stuff (terrible term; refuse to say it outloud) falls under another cultural umbrella, outside of the A) framework the students can easily digest and B) our book's parameters.

So, then, what to do?

Any suggestions would be helpful and appreciated!

Take care and have a good day, y'all
Ike in Kazoo

I don't know....


If you're already in the mindset of intellectualizing and compartmentalizing aspects of music culture, I would just call it postmodernism.


I think if you were to ask these current musicians what they thought their music represented in a larger cultural sense, you would get an answer about how they really didn't think of their music that way...in most cases.

But I do think that regionalism still has validity. Louisville, DC, Chicago, Austin...there are specific musics from those areas, that were formed on their own microcosms.

At the risk of sounding too simple, I would just lump those types of bands under post-rock and indie rock.

Russ,
I don't think that's too simplistic at all. My only concern is giving some of these not-easily-categorizable records and bands their proper due and context.

I could go the Azzerad route and lump them into an "indie-rock" context, but that, too, means very little to me.

To them, though, it may be sufficient.

Thanks!
Ike

Post Rock...

that's your answer. simple

one thing i might mention if i was the teacher is that something relevant about this music is the very difficulty we have in categorizing it. that makes it special, to me anyways. it seems like in the 90's there was a phenomonon that happened where first of all "Alternative" became mainstream, which i think is ultimately significant if you're looking at pop culture. and then there was the whole movement with the "indie underground" becoming an object of mainstream exploitation, something like that? i know nothing about the business or anything, but it seems like that was a recognized event, post-Seattle, it became a "pop-culture" thing to do, to criticize the music business for looking for the next big thing and leaving bands in ruin in its wake. slint ties in nicely with pop culture and this entire phenom with its being brought to the "indie mainstream" through the soundtrack for the movie Kids. that seems like one of the more defining movements in the 90's, the coopting of "indie" culture after "alternative" had run its course, everybody and their brother wearing the hip-hop clothes and the skate shoes... that all seems to tie together for me. and slint, i'd pigeonhole them in as (for me at least) the grand-daddy of "Southeast US to indie mainstream via Chicago" indie rock. i know that i'm wrong about all of this, because it seems painfully obvious to me that the whole "mainstream indie" movement only appears to have had its launching thrust in the 90's because that's when i remember everybody and their brother getting into it. now it seems like the lines are obscured beyond recognition, with the shins selling out shows like mad, or the multitude of "the" bands that came out of new york, or the white stripes having been the most popular thing on the planet a year ago or whenever that was... i still have a hard time with the word "indie", because it means so many things to so many people. to me, slint is one archetype of a sound that is the "indie rock sound", and i think a lot of that sound has to do with a relatively small handful of players, maybe what a hundred people, two hundred, one of which is mr albini. for me, that is the "indie sound", the sound of slint or polvo or trans am or whoever it is. not the shins. the "indie" bands back right before "indie" was so widely recognized and coopted and commercialized and etc etc. back when it still seemed to indicate something. other than "independent", which is what, 98 or 99% of bands?

okay, lotsa crap in there, hopefully you'll find at least one thing that's useful.

Ike-
as we can both attest, regionalism can't really be the answer. Think Antenna Lodge from Tulsa/ California Girls from Minneapolis/Ham from Winnipeg. I would say A Minor Forest is the key...how did they happen? what context? or was it, as Tom Kipp would say, 'Created from whole cloth' You might want to email Andee directly and get an answer...
-chris

Challenge your students. Let them come to their own conclusion about this question. I would say towards the end of the semester i would have a discussion with the class. See what they would say about how to categorize these bands or how they fit into the history and culture. Don't be afraid to admit to them that you can't easily do it. This will make it a challenge for them to try and out do the teacher. The logistics of how to do this is definitely affected by the class size. You may have to break them into several groups. If this is the case then you could give each group different bands.

Shouldn't Slint ripofffs just be it's own category, enough bands have bitten off them to make a whole genre.

hey, mr. too many helicopters....
i always welcome your posts and comments, but can i please ask you to consider....

paragraphs

it would help us all. ta. johnny.