EMPopcon report: saturday

okay so all my pictures from friday are still on eric’s computer, and he hasn’t burned me a disc yet. so we are starting with day two, and then later on you’ll get the earlier pix. this is saturday, vol. two of three
just call me memento
earlier pix of what, you say?
EMPopCon 2005!

the convocation of most of the finest music academics, writers, and critics in the country.
the reason none of your fave music blogs posted anything new for four days.
the home of my true nerd homies.
ritchey, this is your future, so you better take notes.

so it’s a music convention where no bands play, it’s just peeps presenting their papers in 3 or 4 person panels, with a question and answer period at the end. the theme this year was:
music as masquerade: poseurs, playas, and beyond

here amy philips talks about getting dissed for being young.

jon caramanica on country and rap with sasha moderating.
“hip hop is everywhere” was one of my two favorite panels of the day

the other was “how to rock like a black feminist critic”. here the top notch kandia crazy horse breaks it down.

julianne shepherd’s knees and greil marcus watching as ned sublette gives the finest paper of all
(that I saw presented, mind you, there were three to four panels going at all times)
“between piety and desire: driving through history in new orleans”
if you email me I’ll send you my notes, but he also had really great photos going on the screen to illustrate his points so I don’t know if my scribbles will do justice.
the three-out-of-four papers I saw at the “fake fans” panel were another highlight, no good photos from that. you needed to be there to see the audacious power of jessica hopper’s tight fitted white/red/black plaid 3 p. suit. and to hear the lyrical words coming out of all of their mouths.
but at the heart of it was the utter awesomeness of getting to see in person all these people who I’ve read, or read about, or check their blogs, in person. to hear them actually talk, or even see them, when up till now my perception has been a mediated, one way experience. or (with 2 or 3 of them) the stilted two way packet-bursts of email, nothing like meeting, like talking to someone in person. all lot of people whose work I admire I never even got the chance to talk to, or take their picture, so much going on and then so much brain fried after a day of yammer and just trying to find dinner.

jay smooth looks great in every photo I took, hella photogenic

franklin bruno and his glass of port.

julianne always rocks the mad style

one of my favorite experiences of the whole weekend was hearing tavia (left), a performance studies theorist, and drew daniels of matmos talk about civil war, queer theory and the constructs of the cut-up. drew always kept his academic life and music life separate, but they came together at the con. more on that in the friday report.

the nerdfest was amazing but after two straight days of listening to people yammer about authenticity, subtext and the sprezzuratura of whatevs.com, from 9am until 7pm, taking notes all the while
we HAD TO GO DANCE OR DIE TRYING
luckily we found a good spot and shook it so hard for 45 minutes straight, no breaks, five of us dancing around jshep’s big bag on the floor, to ever more stupid tunes but it didn’t matter it felt so good, till the club fillled up too much and we had refound our centers. reattached our heads to our bodies and tested all quadrants.
the hungry pony dance.
the policewoman dance
my sandwich special
the booty swoop

here jessica hopper shows you the armpit hair dance, designed to make gross mundane dudes stop freaking you.
the arm goes high, then you turn your torso so it’s right at eye level and very close to him. ..

but drew liked it.
friday report sometime soon.