This is probably the most exciting thing I’ve discovered all year, so bear with me!
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Every week, we invite an artist or a band to play in the streets, in a bar, a park, or even in a flat or in an elevator, and we film the whole session. Of course, what makes the beauty of it is all the little incidents, hesitations, and crazy stuff happening unexpectingly. Besides, we do not edit the videos so they look perfectly flawless, instead we keep the raw sound of the surroundings. Our goal is to try and capture instants, film the music just like it happens, without preparation, without tricks. Spontaneity is the keyword.
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Fans of lo-fi and the more musical side of indie rejoice; it’s Beirut and Bon Iver on the streets of Paris. I can’t remember the last time listening to music felt this good, this real. It’s the closest anything has ever felt to live performance. These events have an implicit connection with our project’s theme: the transportation of music across cultures. My personal favourites from these performances are Andrew Bird and Bon Iver – the first and last videos.
The headings link to the corresponding pages on blogotheque.net, home of The Take Away Shows.
Andrew Bird – Spare-Oh
We’ve seen bands excite young girls, leave onlookers indifferent, embarrass concierges, and rile up crowds. Andrew Bird put the city on pause. His timidity and lightness didn’t make us wait long. It just took a few slides on the violin for him to latch onto the décor, redesign the contours of the space, change time, and sweep into another atmosphere. Andrew Bird passed through the vineyards and we forgot about Paris. Andrew Bird walked down the street and the parked cars seemed not to belong. Andrew Bird passed by clusters of tourists, and it was they who appeared anachronistic. They’re the ones that are walking backwards, right?
Andrew Bird’s songs are small Chinese treasure boxes and little Spanish dressers. Elaborately decorated, embellished with art, rich with a multitude of hidden drawers, and filled with tiny, unexpected boxes and surprises, his songs glide on with episodic advancements. In movements.
múm – Prophecies and Reversed Memories
Lovers stood between each column, gazing out over Paris. Not a single pair turned around, as if being serenaded during their romantic reverie was normal, expected, planned. What wasn’t planned, for us, was seeing Mùm on the return bus, improvising a cover of ‘I’ve Got the Power.’ Icelanders, sometimes, will catch you by surprise.
Beirut – Nantes
Today, Beirut has grown from a solo bedroom project to a band of up to ten people; it’s a band, but not a band. It’s a happy mistake, a mess. A group of noisy, undisciplined, joyful people who took over an entire terrace on Oberkampf, gathering around the tables, spreading their instruments and cases, everyone playing songs in their own world… Such a messy, smiling anarchy that we thought they’d never manage to play the song.
And in the middle, there’s Zach. Frail Zach, with his skinny yet magical arms. These arms that convey his excitement as he communicates to his band through them; a conductor, pointing to instruments as he watches momentum build in the song. This was one of the first times the band had played “Nantes” outside of the studio, and Zach looked as if he was explaining the song to his band as he was singing it, his arms dancing around his body.
Sigur Ros – við spilum endalaust
We don’t go into la Closerie des Lilas. We pass by the front, we see some rich and paunchy people on the terrace meticulously protected by a wall of greenery, we smell the perfume of the oysters, but we don’t go in. Someday, we’ll have the occasion to go in—a family reunion organized by a wealthy old aunt, maybe.
Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
Time does fly: thirty people were already waiting in the courtyard when we returned from our little shopping excursion. We couldn’t let them come up—we weren’t ready: Moon and Bon Iver were still shooting “For Emma” in Ethel’s bedroom. In the end, the band came to them… The three guys just popped in without us expecting them, and started singing this newborn version of “For Emma”. It was a divine surprise. The band had already disappeared into the streets, but we were still flabbergasted. We had to make the audience come up and prepare for the show. But this is another story…
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Thanks Phil, this is really interesting. ‘I can’t remember the last time listening to music felt this good, this real.’ Where do you guys think our need for the ‘real’, for authenticity, comes from? Are we starved of authenticity in our synthetic, media-mediated world? And is transnational music more or less authentic than non-transnational music, or is this an absurd question?
I see what you’re getting at, but for me I think it was because I admire these musicians so much anyway that seeing them play intimately was just an amazing experience
There’s a lot of authenticity outside my room now – some annoying men are yelling at a wall and trying to hit something with a football…so I want to escape that with Beirut and Parisian cafés I suppose. I think transnational is a subjective term, and not something I ever look for in music. I don’t want my music to feel ‘other’ in the sense of ‘worldly’ but personal, relevant to me. In other words, I interpret authenticity to mean ‘how real does it make me feel’. That just changes from person to person…and trying to generalize beyond that might be helpful, but whatever. Art / creative practice isn’t supposed to help, it’s supposed to complicate.
We mess around with culture and literature enough as it is – assigning patterns and the like, no better than scientific empiricists… – I’m content to stubbornly refuse to comment on music beyond the personal sense-experience.
So it’s a bit of an absurd question for me, but possibly not for others. Sorry to sound so….self important. I don’t value my interpretation above anyone else’s, in case it looks like that.
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Actually, maybe there is something to say. It is strange that I chose the word ‘real’. Listening to those videos in the middle of the night was transportative, yet it wasn’t a feeling of escapism. Sometimes when listening to music you are taken to places; watching those videos felt like the musicians had come to me.
Perhaps rather than a general need for the ‘real’, what I desired was simply the need for Justin Vernon to stand a few paces away improv-singing one of my favourite albums. The reason for this is that that would be friggin’ awesome!
…sorry once more for not taking your question seriously, but that was my sincere response ^_^
Thanks again! And don’t worry–I think you paid serious attention to my question! It was just to get the ball rolling anyway.
I take your first argument to be the following: ‘Authenticity’ is a vague term, so you yourself define what’s authentic on a personal basis, as that which makes you ‘feel real’. However, what is authentic to people at large may be other than what is authentic to you. Attempting to find general patterns in people’s feelings of ‘authenticity’ is misguided because (a) creative practices are supposed to enrich and complicate, rather than serve utilitarian purposes and (b) pattern-seeking as a whole is rather silly.
However, I believe that there is a non-subjective sense which can be given to the term ‘authenticity’ that could ground a worthwhile investigation into what is and isn’t authentic. In a sense, everything which is is real. (Lol) But excluding this broad meaning of ‘real’, there are some things which are uncontroversially unreal: politicians’ lies, for example. Normal folk can also be straightforwardly inauthentic: e.g. when we don’t act ourselves. This is analogous to the case of tacky, sentimental art. It’s difficult to argue that Clash of the Titans, for example, expresses true emotion, or is anything more than phony money-grabbing. I think many people desire genuineness; and although there is something vague about this desire it is important nonetheless. As John Lennon said, ‘All I want is the truth / Just gimme some truth’.
Whether creative practices are supposed to help or enrich, the fact of the matter is that they have consequences which can be positive or negative. As a result, it seems sensible to analyze and describe and explain them, sociologically and artistically, so that they can be evaluated according to the consequences which they have, with a view to encouraging creative practices which have positive consequences and discouraging creative practices which have negative ones. I tentatively posit that authenticity, genuineness, sincerity etc are qualities which increase the chances of a creative practice having positive consequences.
It would be interesting to look into how transnationalism affected people’s perceptions of authenticity.
What do people think? Is the above remotely reasonable, or is it really rather silly? Speak out!
I just spent ages writing a reply which was lost…so sorry if I sound bitter / incohesive.
The only thing I’d change with your assessment of my argument is that I was rejecting the notion of ‘Authenticity’ rather than avoiding it because it was vague. But maybe that was clear anyway.
Wikipedia helps clear up what I want to say about ‘truth’ / ‘illusion’:
It seems I’m sitting in the “truth is subjective” camp and you in the “truth is objective”. That’s okay, everything else can just be changed slightly to fit either.
I agree that creative practices which correspond best to our own sense of truth (or the objective sense of truth, depending on the above) are seen as successful. Adding subjectivity allows us to say ‘Clash of the Titans sucks, but only for me.’ To go back to John Lennon, he said “just gimme some truth” in protest, because there was such an overwhelming gap between the reality that the people saw and the reality the Government presented.
The relationship between a subjective reality and creative practice becomes more interesting when we take into account how they affect each other. We adopt notions of reality through the creative practice, and the creative practice itself manipulates and brings together differing communities’ reality.
I’m not sure it’s helpful to distinguish between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ consequences of creative practice, and I’m almost certain this has nothing directly to do with authenticity. Perhaps we could say that the Twilight saga has had negative consequences on attitudes towards sexuality and gender. Yet, their success must point to a certain authenticity with their readership.
“You’re so soft and fragile. I have to mind my actions every moment that we’re together so that I don’t hurt you. I could kill you quite easily, Bella, simply by accident. I could reach out meaning to touch your face and crush your skull.”
Well, I don’t understand it. How is that endearing or sexy? I wish I were a girl, so that some lover of the series couldn’t use that excuse…
But the character of Edward Cullen must resonate strongly with many people’s conception of absolute truth. Edward is for many the perfect boyfriend, a godlike platonic ideal of manhood. Crazy! Wrong! This is an entirely negative consequence for me, because it doesn’t correspond with my own ideas regarding masculinity.
So when we speak of creative practices doing ‘good’, we mean they fit best with extrapolations of our own moral values.
What about transnationalism?
If this was all only about reaffirming our own expectations, there would never be anything new, there would be no desire to attend West African drumming workshops or learn Icelandic to better appreciate Sigur Ros. IMO, this course has been about moving from a position where transnationalism less the icing on the cake and more the cakeboard itself – the foundations of creative inspiration.
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I’m not a fan of evaluation, but clearly some part of my mind is else I wouldn’t have spent so long thinking about all this. Perhaps I can leave my own question:
For you which is stronger, the desire to experience art or the desire to comprehend it?
It’s that dynamic which always pervades my ability to write essays; my level of emotional and rational engagement with the text dictates the nature of analysis.
Another interesting and stimulating comment!
I’ve just accidentally deleted my response twice now… How hilarious is that? And don’t worry, you don’t sound ‘bitter / incohesive!’ Ok. As before, I’ll attempt a rough summery of your argument. It is the following:
‘Truthful’ creative practices are generally seen as more successful than inauthentic creative practices. However, moral assessment of creative practices is not helpful, and authenticity has only a loose relation to moral utility, if that. For example, Twilight seems unauthentic and potentially unhelpful from your perspective, but it gives joy to many readers, who can presumably relate to its characters. Therefore, assessment of creative practices is subjective. Moreover, if all we look for in life is affirmation of our own world view we’ll never search out anything new, and miss out on valuable experiences (including some transnational music). Is this a silly or a sensible summery?
Actually, I agree that truth and art are ‘subjective’ in some sense. However, I also adhere to Simon Blackburn’s rather funky theory of ‘quasi-moral realism’. This is the snazzy idea that, although there are no objective moral truths bouncing around bizarrely in some kind of Platonic heaven, the non-relativistic assertion of particular values is legitimate. This is because, to my mind, relativistic morality doesn’t work in real life. Imagine the case of two politicians trying to decide whether to invade some country or not. They have all the facts on the matter at their disposal. However, politician X wants to invade and politician Y doesn’t. The politicians’ disagreement issues from the fact that they hold different values. Ok. So they bring in two moral philosophers to help them reach a decision. Relativistic Rachel says,
‘You’re both right: it’s all subjective, and just a matter of taste.’ The politicians just look at each other: Well that was pretty useless, they think.
Consequentialist Connie is up next. She argues that war would lead to a net gain of suffering and a net loss of happiness, so it would be a bad plan. This enables the politicians to reach a decision.
It’s difficult to avoid making realist value judgements. In the case of torture, for example, it’s difficult to say – ‘You have your truth, I have mine. I respect your torturing!’ So I’m prepared to lay my cards on the table, and assert that a roughly utilitarian morality applies to art and life. Moreover, I think there is a subtle but significant relation between the authenticity of a creative practice and its moral utility. I’m afraid I’m quite a fan of all that ‘opium-of-the-people-the-truth-will-set-you-free-search-for-enlightenment’ racket. And actually, there are times in everyday life when illusions produced by creative practices detrimentally affect our lives, e.g. girls who think they’re ugly because of objectifying pop music.
Also, a quasi-realist moral framework is compatible with searching out anything new things. Personally, my moral framework is based around the following quote from ol’ Albert:
A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Someone who holds this view is constantly led to new discoveries, through the exciting medium of sympathy.
‘For you which is stronger, the desire to experience art or the desire to comprehend it?’
I think my desire to experience and understand art are interlinked very much. I mainly like art which give you lots of opportunities for rationalizing, e.g. Stravinsky, Bach, Joyce. How about you? Can you expand more on this issue, your views on it sound very interesting!!!
Thanks very much,
Dan.
EDIT: I haven’t slept properly in four days…I know for certain that one or two sentences make no sense, and I have a feeling this whole spear / glass / sand thing is equally unexplained…*sigh* sorry!
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There’s almost too much to say, so I’ll just simplify my response to ‘relativism vs realism’ if that’s okay.
I don’t feel lost at that empty pronouncement of “it’s just a matter of taste…”
Because Rachel is right isn’t she? Sure, it looks like a hopeless case if only she talks, but that doesn’t invalidate her sentence. I think we should embrace the humility that subjectivism entails.
In other words, I don’t think relativism needs to leave us floundering.
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[...]Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
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Does the above quote have to be terrible and nihilistic? I think my own response to the death of the author, the death of God and all the rest is to look elsewhere. They all died – not coming back!
I don’t know a lot of history, but maybe it won’t be controversial to state that before the enlightenment we didn’t have so much faith in our own intellect.
“Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” (1 Corinthians 13:8)
I don’t feel comfortable hacking away at realism, because there are so many different opinions and none of them seem any more right or wrong to me. You can see disunity or you can see patterns, it’s all a matter of choice…
“[...]if you examine it closely there is no-when else than now. And if you want to make hell of it, you can make hell of it – if you want to make a heaven of it, you can make a heaven of it.” (Alan Watts).
Anyway, I don’t think I’ve actually done this yet, not even implicitly; my definitions of these two terms…
Realism: Believes that there is something ‘there’; is physicalistic. Attributes different opinions to different interpretations of reality. I think of this a little like a basic straight line graph: Sense experience gives us billions and billions of points on a scatter graph, and if you look closely they correlate in quite specific ways. Although we will never be able to actually see the line, the correlation makes it stupid not to! There must be a line there – why else would the points arrange themself in that pattern!? It’s no mere chance…[interesting how both science and religion are guilty of this: the world is beautiful; there must be a designer. Carbon is an indirect by-product of hydrogen fusion, the sun is full of hydrogen; we are all made of stars. (nb my science is fuzzy….).
Subsuming the dots into a line is extraordinarily liberating. The dots move through our hands like sand, but the line can be transformed and grappled with, thrown like a spear at human suffering and inequality.
And it’s difficult, when all you have is handfuls of sand, to say anything in response to that power.
Relativism: Can’t help but be reminded that nothing is ‘there’ at all. We can condition ourselves to believe without question in all kinds of things – that I have two hands, that access to clean drinking water is a fundamental human right, that Jesus really was the son of God…but no amount of certainty can ever change the impossible unknowable-ness of the world around.
It doesn’t matter how strong the glass spear is, and to how many planets it takes our civilization…it’s still only made of sand.
I really like your argument here. Obviously, my ideas are slightly different, but I think your ideas are also highly funky. It’s exciting to go from the Son of Man in the desert of incomprehensibility, to mathematical diagrams, to sci-fi ‘children’s children’ jumping planets on the back of a figurative sand-spear. Don’t sweat about writing mistakes: I’m also rather sleep-deprived, and have made loads of ridiculously shameful typos… I replied to your post on the ROS comment thread before looking at this one. I think what I wrote there applies equally to these arguments, so I won’t reply to this comment any more than by writing: I really hope we get good marks for all this philosophising…
This is such an awesome article! I think what makes the performances so special is the fact that, as you say, they are so ‘real’, so raw, so intimate. It’s as if you’re there watching the musicians perform right in front of your eyes, and there’s something incredibly moving about that. The harmonies in the Bon Iver video actually gave me goosebumps! Thanks for sharing something that sheds light on genuine musical talent.
Yeah, I sat here singing along to Bon Iver and it was so magical…he just, he just completes me somehow
It’s amazing to think they can create that just with their voices, such an awesome skill!