Punk Aesthetics and New Folk: Way Down the Old Plank Road

299 Pages·2013·1.47 MB·English

by  John Encarnacao

Punk Aesthetics And new Folk
For Stephanie Meder
(90 years strong!)
and
Deolindo Augusto da Encarnação
(missed since 1980),
heroes in my tribe
who brought their families to Australia during and after WWII
– a time when ‘refugee’ was not a dirty word.
Punk Aesthetics and new Folk
way down the old Plank Road
John encARnAcAo
University of Western Sydney, Australia
© John encarnacao 2013
All rights reserved. no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
John encarnacao has asserted his right under the copyright, designs and Patents Act, 1988,
to be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing limited Ashgate Publishing company
wey court east 110 cherry street
union Road suite 3-1
Farnham Burlington, Vt 05401-3818
surrey, Gu9 7Pt usA
england
www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British library
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
encarnacao, John.
Punk aesthetics and new folk : way down the old plank road / by John encarnacao.
pages cm.—(Ashgate Popular and folk music series)
includes bibliographical references and index.
isBn 978-1-4094-3399-6 (hardcover)—isBn 978-1-4094-3400-9 (ebook) —isBn 978-
1-4094-7418-0 (epub) 1. Folk music—History and criticism. 2. Punk rock music—Influ-
ence. i. title.
Ml3545.e53 2013
781.62’13026—dc22
2013009008
isBn 9781409433996 (hbk)
isBn 9781409434009 (ebk – PdF)
isBn 9781409474180 (ebk – ePuB)
Bach musicological font developed by © Yo tomita.
V
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
General Editor’s Preface ix
Acknowledgements xi
Notes on the Text xv
Introduction 1
Part One Frames
1 New Folk and Analysis 7
2 Institutional Factors and the Writing of History 25
3 Genre: Folk and Punk 41
Part twO the Old Plank rOad
4 Folk Antecedents: the Anthology of American Folk Music 59
5 Folk and Rock Antecedents: the 1960s 75
6 Punk Aesthetics 1: Outsider Music 103
7 Punk Aesthetics 2: Lo-Fi 133
Part three new FOlk
8 First Stirrings 163
9 ‘Freak Folk’ 191
10 Free Folk 217
Conclusion 243
vi PuNk AEsThETics ANd NEw FoLk
Bibliography 249
discography 261
index 269
List of Figures and Tables
Figures
4.1 Phrase/bar structure, ‘House Carpenter’, stanza 1 as recorded by
Clarence Ashley (1930). 65
5.1 Structure in ‘Matilda Mother’, as recorded by Pink Floyd (1967). 100
Tables
3.1 Perception of album structure in Swell Maps – A Trip To
Marineville (1979). 54
4.1 Shifting phrase/bar structure, ‘House Carpenter’ as recorded by
Clarence Ashley (1930). 66
4.2 Comparison of harmonic structure (instrumental and vocal
stanzas), ‘A Lazy Farmer Boy’, as recorded by Buster Carter
and Preston Young (1931). 67
4.3 Two layers of phrasing in vocal stanzas, ‘A Lazy Farmer Boy’,
as recorded by Buster Carter and Preston Young (1931). 67
4.4 Two layers of organisation in vocal stanzas, ‘A Lazy Farmer Boy’,
as recorded by Buster Carter and Preston Young (1931). 67
4.5 Rhythmic organisation and phrase structure in ‘Minglewood Blues’
as recorded by Cannon’s Jug Stompers (1928). 69
5.1 Elements of John Fahey’s The Voice of the Turtle (1968; black
label/reissue version). 88
5.2 Some elements of long-scale structure, ‘The Great San Bernadino
Birthday Party’, as recorded by John Fahey (1966). 96
5.3 Form and temporal phenomena, ‘Koeeaddi There’, as recorded by
The Incredible String Band (1968). 98
5.4 Structural divisions in ‘Goodbye and Hello’ as recorded by
Tim Buckley (1967). 100
6.1 Phrase lengths in ‘A Fraying Space’, as recorded by Pip Proud
(1969). 115
viii Punk AesTheTics And new Folk
8.1 Album structure: Julius caesar, by Smog (1993). 176
9.1 Montage forms in Devendra Banhart’s oh Me oh My … (2002). 205
9.2 Formal plan – ‘In The Ditch’, as recorded by Kes (2005). 209
9.3 Formal plan – ‘Who Knows’, as recorded by Kes (2005). 210
9.4 Formal plan – ‘Hela’ as recorded by Faun Fables (2001). 211
9.5 Large scale structure in ‘Only Skin’, as recorded by
Joanna Newsom (2006). 213
9.6 Formal plan – ‘Sleepwalker’ as recorded by Faun Fables (2001). 214
10.1 Breakdown of structures for two songs from the Animal Collective
album sung Tongs (2004). 235
General Editor’s Preface
The upheaval that occurred in musicology during the last two decades of the
twentieth century has created a new urgency for the study of popular music
alongside the development of new critical and theoretical models. A relativistic
outlook has replaced the universal perspective of modernism (the international
ambitions of the 12-note style); the grand narrative of the evolution and dissolution
of tonality has been challenged, and emphasis has shifted to cultural context,
reception and subject position. Together, these have conspired to eat away at the
status of canonical composers and categories of high and low in music. A need has
arisen, also, to recognize and address the emergence of crossovers, mixed and new
genres, to engage in debates concerning the vexed problem of what constitutes
authenticity in music and to offer a critique of musical practice as the product of
free, individual expression.
Popular musicology is now a vital and exciting area of scholarship, and the
Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series presents some of the best research in the
field. Authors are concerned with locating musical practices, values and meanings
in cultural context, and may draw upon methodologies and theories developed
in cultural studies, semiotics, poststructuralism, psychology and sociology. The
series focuses on popular musics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It
is designed to embrace the world’s popular musics from Acid Jazz to Zydeco,
whether high tech or low tech, commercial or non-commercial, contemporary or
traditional.
Professor Derek B. Scott,
Professor of Critical Musicology,
University of Leeds, UK