Empire of Dirt (Music Culture) - Tapa dura

"This book taught me a lot about the business I thought I knew inside out. I loved the 'audience zones' and 'trickster' sections, and I'm looking forward to the next book--on lead singer syndrome!"--Peter Hook, bass player, Joy Division and New Order "(A) cogent and often perceptive look at the scene that yielded Radiohead, Portishead and the Futureheads. ...(Fonarow's) extensive observations of performance rituals are surprisingly insightful."--New York Times Book Review Seattle Weekly" The Guardian" "What's best about Empire of Dirt is that Fonarow's equally a thinker's thinker and a fan's fan. ... And Fonarow's analysis of a typical indie concert is one of the most brilliant things anyone has written about the live music experience."-- "Seattle Weekly" (8/16/2006 12:00:00 AM) (T)he book turns out to be great fun, with excellent and recognizable analyses of the three different audience zones, the semiotics of where you put your backstage pass, the different rhetorical strategies used by people trying to get past the guestlist doorman, and the gender-stereotype-inverting role of groupies, or 'ritual practitioners.'-- "The Guardian" (7/22/2006 12:00:00 AM) "(T)he book turns out to be great fun, with excellent and recognizable analyses of the three different audience zones, the semiotics of where you put your backstage pass, the different rhetorical strategies used by people trying to get past the guestlist doorman, and the gender-stereotype-inverting role of groupies, or 'ritual practitioners.'"--The Guardian What's best about Empire of Dirt is that Fonarow's equally a thinker's thinker and a fan's fan. And Fonarow's analysis of a typical indie concert is one of the most brilliant things anyone has written about the live music experience. Seattle Weekly"

Britain is widely considered the cradle of independent music culture. Bands like Radiohead and Belle and Sebastian, which epitomize indie music's sounds and attitudes, have spawned worldwide fanbases. This in-depth study of the British independent music scene explores how the behavior of fans, artists, and music industry professionals produce a community with a specific aesthetic based on moral values. Author Wendy Fonarow, a scholar with years of experience in the various sectors of the indie music scene, examines the indie music "gig" as a ritual in which all participants are actively involved. This ritual allows participants to play with cultural norms regarding appropriate behavior, especially in the domains of sex and creativity. Her investigation uncovers the motivations of audience members when they first enter the community and how their positions change over time so that the gig functions for most members as a rite of passage. Empire of Dirt sheds new light on music, gender roles, emotion, subjectivity, embodiment, and authenticity.