Reed S. Alexander - Assimilate : a critical history of industrial music

ASSIMILATE

A Critical History of Industrial Music

S. ALEXANDER REED

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S. Alexander Reed 2013

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Reed, S. Alexander.

Assimilate : a critical history of industrial music / S. Alexander Reed.

pages cm

ISBN 978-0-19-983258-3 (hardcover : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-19-983260-6 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Industrial musicHistory and criticism. I. Title.

ML3528.7.R44 2013

781.64809dc23 2012042281

1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

Publication for this book was supported by the AMS 75 PAYS Endowment of the American Musicological Society, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

PART I
TECHNOLOGY AND THE PRECONDITIONS OF INDUSTRIAL MUSIC

PART II
INDUSTRIAL GEOGRAPHY

PART III
INDUSTRIAL MUSICAL STYLE

PART IV
INDUSTRIAL POLITICS

PART V
PEOPLE AND INDUSTRIAL MUSIC

Invaluable commentary, questions, and suggestions throughout this project came from several anonymous readers and also from my fellow scholars Ian Reyes, Marsha Bryant, Daphne Carr, Robert Fink, Mary Lewis, Andrew Weintraub, Rebekah Ahrendt, Philip Tagg, Zarah Ersoff, and Galen Brown. Helpful discussions and opinions were offered by attendees at conferences where earlier versions of this books chapters were presented. Amy Gorelick, Lee Hendricks, and Phil Sandifer also inspired, advised, and cooked good food. Vital early manuscript guidance came courtesy of Jane Behnken. Thomas Finnegan provided detailed and witty copy editing. Suzanne Ryan is to thank for believing in this book enough to bring it to Oxford University Press.

Thanks to all of those who granted interviews or whose incidental conversations made their way into this book; whether youre quoted directly or not in these pages, you helped to shape them. Im also grateful to those who helped me with archival research and with helping me find some obscure sources: James Ned Kirby, Kelly Litzenberger, and Walt Miller deserve mention here by name. Thanks also to my army of volunteer transcribers: Daniel Siepmann, Amber Braun, Leslie McCluskey-Eissing, John Aho, Stefanie Acevedo, James Young, Donovan Howe, Andria Poiarkoff, Amanda Swenson, Morgan Rich, Sarah Bushey, Adam Scott Neal, Lindsey OBrien, and Holly Ray.

My colleagues at the University of Florida and New York University have been immensely supportive throughout the writing of this book. Especially vital has been the trusting encouragement of John Duff, Paul Richards, Paul Koonce, James Paul Sain, Leslie Odom, Jennifer Thomas, Silvio Dos Santos, Margaret Butler, Mutlu itim-Kepic, and Amanda Mayberry. The University of Florida Fine Arts Scholarship Enhancement Fund assistance in my 2011 research travel. Penelope Collins, Aiva Veinberga, Sarah Manvel, and Koen, Annette, and Jaap Brand were wonderfully hospitable during these expeditions. Further funding for this book was provided by the AMS 75 PAYS Endowment of the American Musicological Society.

Thanks to the countless people around the world who have made, written about, and contextualized this music. Those who personally helped me know, enjoy, and think critically about it are too many to name, but they include my sisters, Robyn and Karen, Kurt Thorn, Doug Morse, Chris Boone, Ian Struckhoff, Rosemary Ledesma, Jacob Racusin, Brian Ales, Rik Millhouse, Aaron Fuleki, and Jeremy Long. I am particularly grateful to my parents for tolerating my lifelong immersion in this music. Finally, I owe special thanks to my wife, Meredith Collins, whose love, patience, proofreading, academic camaraderie, encouragement, and smart conversation make writing, thinking, and music better every day.

A brief word of warning. I have to confess to a level of discomfort when the term industrial is put to me. As a musician and producer who, it would seem, had more than a passing flirtation with what the media and music consumers broadly label industrial music, or industrial beats, I tend to bristle a little. As a founding member of Cabaret Voltaire, a group who hail from a northern British industrial city, it seems I can offer little defense, though. We made music that was often sonically brutal, we challenged ideas of authority and control, we toyed with moody and often taboo imagery, we were simultaneously intellectual and anti-intellectual, we thought ourselves iconoclastic, and we wore raincoats sometimes; in our defense it was the north and it did rain occasionally.

Perhaps the initial reaction is justifiable, as industrial was never a term we applied to ourselves. Wary of being burdened with a media definition, we felt a natural fear of having a spectrum of work reduced to a single classification. There was also an issue of courtesy. Throbbing Gristle, with a commensurate serving of gravitas and mischievousness, tagged their record label Industrial Music for Industrial People. As friends and peers, we were honored to have releases on the label, but understandably we avoided any identity conflict out of respect.

In truth it has to be said that the muted response to being called industrial is much more complex. Fearful of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, we did not find the idea that we would become a short-lived sonic reification of our citys monocultural identity appealing. Similarly, we felt under no obligation to answer for a whole subsequent genre as the media began to box it up. Like all artists, we felt responsible for ourselves alone, and as the industrial banner unfurled to incorporate disparate protagonists, some too singular in ideology for our tastes, a diplomatic distance was put in place. But perhaps for many who are invested in the meaning of the I-word, particularly in the context of the dominant rock modality, this arms-length riposte has put industrial outside the general music discourse or academic reflection for too long. Many of the implications, connections, and consequences of the music made in its name have been overlooked, denied proper scrutiny.