Cosmopolitan Intimacy
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COSMOPOLITAN INTIMACY: ANTIFOLK IN BERLIN AND NEW YORK by © Mathias Kom 2017 A dissertation submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Ethnomusicology Memorial University of Newfoundland St. John’s Newfoundland and Labrador Abstract In the early 2000s, New York’s insular and relatively unknown antifolk music scene gained a significant number of new fans in Germany, thanks to the overseas success of antifolk exports The Moldy Peaches. In Berlin, a small antifolk scene began to form, with local songwriters connecting and collaborating both virtually and face to face with New York artists. This dissertation explores these connections, and suggests that the translocal antifolk community joins the distinct scenes in New York and Berlin through a cosmopolitan intimacy that emphasizes friendship and mutual support, but also makes room for differing interpretations of what it means to make music on the margins. I demonstrate that although the antifolk community is in some ways defined by movement, it is also fixed in local affinities, and cosmopolitan intimacy is a productive means to understand this tense simultaneity. Tension also emerges in differing readings of the political economy of antifolk, especially as it plays out in multiplex understandings of the ethos of “do-it-yourself” (DIY). I argue that, in antifolk, DIY is both an anticapitalist political stance, and a strategy of bootstrap capitalism and economic survival. Likewise, antifolk can be read as a queer space of radical, productive failure, and as a community that encourages consumers to become producers, in collaborative, participatory performances and relationships. However, I also suggest that antifolk is never truly outside the mainstream it seems to oppose, but is inevitably imbricated in it. These simultaneities emerge in the songs, performances, practices and discourse of the antifolk community, characterized as often by disagreement as cohesion. Ultimately, I argue that theories of intimacy and cosmopolitanism can help to understand antifolk as a space of fragmented unity and productive disjuncture. ii Acknowledgements This project would never have been completed without the continued encouragement, constructive criticism, and sharp-eyed editing of my supervisor, Dr. Kati Szego. Her kindness and patience with my endless questions and anxieties helped me in immesurable ways, and I count myself extremely lucky to have worked with her. I am also grateful to my committee members Dr. Beverley Diamond and Dr. Jillian Gould for their invaluable feedback and support, and I extend my thanks to my examination committee, Dr. Holly Everett, Dr. Ian Sutherland and Dr. Matt Brennan, for their engaging questions and suggestions that added strength and clarity to my work. Thank you also to Dr. Ellen Waterman and the students and staff of the School of Music and the Research Centre for the Study of Music, Media, and Place at Memorial University. I owe a practical but essential thank you to the financial support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which allowed me sustained time in the field to complete this research. None of this would have been possible without the support of my participants in New York and Berlin, who have enriched my life with their stories, friendship, and music. Extra special thanks to Ariel Sharratt for putting up with me, and to Sebastian “Sibsi” Hoffmann for being a relentless critic and an understanding friend. iii Table of Contents Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii List of Figures ................................................................................................................................ vi List of Appendices ........................................................................................................................ vii Chapter One: What is Antifolk? ......................................................................................................1 1.1 Scope of the Project ...............................................................................................................4 1.2 Chapter Outlines ....................................................................................................................9 Chapter Two: Introducing Antifolk ...............................................................................................15 2.1 Who’s Who: An Introduction to Central Participants .........................................................41 Sebastian “Sibsi” Hoffmann .................................................................................................44 Josepha Conrad .....................................................................................................................48 Heiko Gabriel ........................................................................................................................52 Jeffrey Lewis .........................................................................................................................55 Phoebe Kreutz .......................................................................................................................58 Schwervon! ...........................................................................................................................62 2.2 Antifolk Demographics .......................................................................................................65 2.3 Methodology .......................................................................................................................67 What’s at Stake for Me? Interrogating My Position ..............................................................73 Generating Knowledge Together: Strategies and Challenges ...............................................77 Toward a Collaborative Autoethnography .............................................................................83 2.4 Central Themes ....................................................................................................................90 Antifolk in the Literature .......................................................................................................91 Towards a Framework for Antifolk .......................................................................................97 The Political Economy of Antifolk: DIY and Attali’s “Composition” ................................110 Locality and Translocality ...................................................................................................121 Friendship, Intimacy, Cosmopolitanism ..............................................................................126 Chapter Three: Making a Scene, Building a Community ............................................................132 3.1. Antifolk Encounters: The Emergence of a Translocal Community ..................................133 3.2. Letting the Right Ones In: Antifolk and Inclusive Exclusivity ........................................156 3.3 Antifolk Venues: Schokoladen and The Sidewalk Café ....................................................168 3.4. Touring: Networks of Place .............................................................................................179 Chapter Four: Friendship and Labour ..........................................................................................193 4.1 The Booking Agent ............................................................................................................195 4.2 The Musician .....................................................................................................................198 4.3 The Promoter .....................................................................................................................204 4.4 The Fan ..............................................................................................................................207 4.5 “Dependent Touring”: Friendship and Labour in Antifolk ................................................214 4.6 Key Players ........................................................................................................................226 Chapter Five: The Political Economy of Antifolk ......................................................................234 5.1 What Would Pussy Riot Do? DIY as a Political Ethos .....................................................235 5.2 Success as Selling Out: DIY and the Politics of “Making It” ............................................242 iv 5.3 The Problem with Profit ....................................................................................................258 5.4 Don’t Let the Record Label Take you Out to Lunch: DIY as an Economic Strategy .......253 Raising the Money ..............................................................................................................255 Recording .............................................................................................................................258 Manufacturing and Distribution ..........................................................................................260 Touring ................................................................................................................................266