Page 183 - Cultural Studies Volume 11

REVIEWS 177

CD, but gladly played requests from our previous albums and eventually left the
stage drenched, exhausted, and glowing with the satisfaction of a gig well played.
Las Toallitas also put on a stunning show, combining elements of rock, blues,
jazz, gypsy, Klezmer, and zydeco in a wacky yet driving carnival of exotic
sounds and ferocious licks. The cats in Toallitas are wonderfully laid-back, easy-
towork-with types, so the end of the night found our two bands loading-out gear
together, sharing a beer in the once again quiet and empty club while counting
out the night’s pay, and collectively reveling in the transcendent post-gig
sensation that speaks of artistic freedom, musicians’ camaraderie, and a show well
played to appreciative listeners. On nights like these there is no doubt, no fear, no
debt, no MTV, and no question that being an independent musician is the only
worthy calling on the face of the planet.
All of which leads me to Robert Ray’s ‘Tracking’, a series of observations, or
‘tracks’ if you will, concerning the thesis—via deBord’s theory of the
‘spectacle’— that ‘everything that was directly performed has moved away into
a construction, a recording composed of performance’s surviving fragments.’
Hence, according to Ray, ‘where once records hoped only to provide a souvenir
of a live performance, concerts now exist to promote records.’ There is no doubt
that this is the case for those bands whose careers are linked primarily to their status
as commodities. For example, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville, an album featuring
an artist with no history of club dates, no touring, no ‘following’, etc., can none
the less, due to its getting mega-hyped by damn near every industry outlet
imaginable, sell a godzillion units. The ‘over-night’ sensation of Phair’s Exile is
a perfect example then, of Ray’s argument that ‘concerts now exist to promote
records’, for without the commodity/record to push, there would be no reason for
Liz Phair concerts (indeed, Phair is outspoken concerning her distaste for
performing live).
It seems to me that it could be argued just as convincingly, however—by
considering a different set of examples—that performing live is not so much a
thing that musicians do in order to promote their records, as one of the central
and defining moments of what musicians do: we perform live because it is the
ultimate test of our abilities, the source of most of our energies, and—if you can
live through endless van repairs, truck stop coffee, late nights driving through
abandoned lands, and the various trials and tribulations of visiting a different
club in a different town every night—one hell of a lot of fun. Now Ray may
know all of this, as he is a member of The Vulgar Boatmen, a damn good band
that plays more than its share of gigs around America and Europe; however, the
Boatmen are really two bands, one that tours out of Indianapolis, and another
that records out of Florida. Ray is part of the ‘Florida’ contingent and therefore
does not tour with the band, instead choosing his stationary role as Professor of
English, songwriter, and producer when the band is in the studio. Ray is fully
aware of the paradox of this situation, thus commenting that ‘having two bands of
Vulgar Boatmen enacts the performance/recording dichotomy at the heart of so
many debates about contemporary rock & roll.’ The point here is that while