Dispatch from Seattle: Experience Music Project Conference

I admit that some weeks, I'll drop as much as 75 cents into Rupert Murdoch's coffers. Here's why:


All for Cindy Adams, Our Lady of the Puns, the grande dame of NYC gossip columnists. She often comes with a politics as nasty as the New York Post wants to be. With time, you come to need her patented tag line. In your head it carries the sound of what glitterati hangers-on at Sardi's might have sounded like 30 years ago ("Only in New York Kids, Only in New York"). I'd like to try and approximate her overly baubled, insiderish, yet snappy formal moves to talk about the Experience Music Conference that went down last weekend in Seattle. Before memory fades, here is a litany of fragments and celebrity sightings.



Let me get this out of the way: it was, yet again, a bit of a schlongfest. It is a toxic myth to say that this reflects the demographics behind musical criticism. But thanks to the path of OH! enlightenment, yoga, and leafy greens, I’ve learned a few things over the past four conferences or so. Overall, it helps to not show up to or participate in or provide body for the conference’s…um…swordfights. Instead, score some undercommons action and sustenance at Pho Viet Anh, a mere three blocks away (right next to Asian Breeze). Get your textual healing on with friends in the real world. Go outside, get a cone of soft serve, and watch the Ferris wheel go-round. Write about things that will enliven your project, versus doing the work that others are unwilling to do. Play with some of the interactive machines in the museum. Drink some. Wear a sturdy pair of boots.

One of the things that’s so great about EMP, is that there’s always hope when you think there isn’t any. Like when you catch a glimpse of what I call the Veterana Force, ladies whose mere presence provides backup. Thank you Ann Powers, Daphne Brooks, Gayle Wald, and Kandia Crazy Horse. Panel standouts, a.k.a. the underground rumblings of music criticism, included Garnette Cadogan’s “argument for the sake of meditation,” the entirety of “Racial Ambivalence and the History of Rock” (Tavia Nyong’o, Camara Holloway, Greg Tate, Daphne Brooks, with moderation by Kandia Crazy Horse). Gayle Wald’s elegant work on the “Soul!” TV series, and Abraham Gómez-Delgado’s testimony about the formative power of Boston (more the band, less the location). Processing much of this with Josh “Kunmora” Kun and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro was an absolute joy.

Finally, I'd like to circulate the work of two new friends to the fellowship. I'm delighted to report that our San Antonio ranks have swelled.

If you don’t already know it, acquaint yourself with the work of Jim Mendiola. This San Antonio-proud-but-L.A.-based filmmaker has done some truly lovely work on the ladysupergroup Girl in a Coma (see past post by Oh!'s KT). There were lots of feelings being had during his presentation of their reality show pilot and video of their hit “Clumsy Sky.” Especially touching was the footage with Stephanie’s mother who, very gently, kept reiterating, “They’re good girls.” It is rare to find such intelligent and tender documentation of girlhood. He's also the fuerza behind www.kenburnshatesmexicans.com.

Then there's Oscar "Mambo King" Garza, editor-in-chief of Tu Ciudad Magazine. Thanks to his important efforts, we'll know what's up and look cute too.


Thank you, Gracias, Salamat, Grazie, to the organizers, especially to Eric Weisbard for so generously bringing us all together.

Yours in Sweet Sensation (ATV).