Page 182 - Cultural Studies Volume 11

176 CULTURAL STUDIES

course, is that such psychotic consumption-at-all-cost is precisely the kind of
deranged energy necessary to launch the culture industry’s would-be superstars
into the stratospheric sales patterns required to sustain global culture-capitalism.
One of the many eccentric and oddball quotations cited by Marcus says as much,
as the authors of Starlust: The Secret Fantasies of Fans quip that: ‘It is hardly
surprising, when stars offer themselves so lavishly for consumption, that some
fans will take the invitation literally.’ The point being, of course, that the various
steaming corpses in the voracious mouths of the consuming public have been
spoon-fed to them with the tacit approval of the very performers who constitute
this season’s main course.
This is all quite amusing, as far as ironic culture critique metaphors go; the
essay thus cannot help but remind the reader of the towering sneer of Adorno,
the Marcuse of One-Dimensional Man, deBord’s theory of the ‘spectacle’, or
even, at its most extreme, the rantings and ravings of late Baudrillard. The
problem, however, with both this entire critical tradition and Marcus’ essay, is
that the dynamics of cultural production (from the artist’s standpoint) and
consumption (from the fan’s standpoint) are much too complex to be reduced to
the tired old charge of commodity fetishism gone wild. Indeed, there is a world of
particularity that gets lost beneath the knowing laughter of this approach; while
the metaphor is unquestionably hilarious and powerfully indicative of the
insanity that lies at the heart of mass-market rock & roll, it none the less tells us
nothing of how or why this insanity is produced, how critics and fans can engage
in popular culture without falling into its trap, or how artists can avoid becoming
next season’s chosen chow-for-the-masses.

Friday, November 3rd
We got word by mid-morning that the van would be road-ready by 3:00, so, after
a morning of re-stringing guitars, xeroxing flyers, making phone calls trying to
drum-up promo support for next week’s shows, and plowing through a few more
essays in Present Tense, we were off for the Beat Kitchen. The transmission cost
us a cool $1,138—which no self-respecting independent rock band in the world
has lying around—so the drive to Chicago was tainted by the paralyzing
realization that we were now in debt for the rest of the imaginable future not only
to all of our friends and a handful of lefty arts supporters, but also to one of our
lead singers’ financially stable sisters. The Beat Kitchen is a wonderful club in
Chicago, with an excellent stage, lights, and PA; the management treats
musicians like human beings (which is rare), and the kitchen actually has a few
vegetarian choices (which is even more rare), so gigs there are always a treat. We
shared the stage with Las Toallitas, a remarkable band featuring two
percussionists, bass, keys, dueling gypsy/bebop horns, vocals that invariably end
up in Greek or Yiddish, and an awesome xylophone player. Our set went
extremely well, with the band feeding off of the crowd’s dancing and in turn
cranking things up to a frenzied pitch; we featured mostly songs from our latest