David Bowie: A Case Study of the Established Artist as Fan

“At another Bowie-organised party in Paris Kraftwerk had put in an appearance, receiving a five-minute standing ovation as they entered
blank-faced and got up in full- blown 1930s retro style, like the musical
equivalents of Gilbert and George. Bowie was enthralled: “Look how they are, they are fantastic!” he kept repeating…”

In his book on David Bowie’s Low, Hugo Wilcken recounts an oft-cited non-meeting of musical minds. What is illuminating here is the shallowness, the dumb enthusiasm of Bowie’s reaction, like a kid unable to contain his enthusiasm before a favourite sports hero. Or indeed pop star. This is because Bowie was, and remains, fundamentally a fan. This paper will use the example of David Bowie in attempting to understand the phenomenon of the established artist as fan, and the contribution that the fandom of these figures can make to the forward momentum of popular music, and it’s development as a form. In particular, it will address the usefulness of artist-fans as filters, isolating key elements of the more radical musical conceptions of their (generally less commercially successful) peers and making them suitable, by dilution or hybridization, for consumption by a mass audience; and their role as the ‘musical conscience’ of the mainstream, ensuring that the obscure but influential artists who provide their inspiration get their due.

John Harries, Recording Artist

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From Fandom to Stardom in Punk: The Female Experience

Perhaps more than any genre of popular music, early punk rock sought to blur the boundaries that separated performers from their fans and to lay claim to an inclusiveness that encouraged fans to make the transition from audience to stage. Early British spectators like Siouxsie Sioux and Sid Vicious were emboldened to take this step because of punk’s “do-it-yourself” ethos, which challenged conventional notions of musicianship and performance. In the early days of the movement, these challenges seemed to extend to existing gender barriers, and many female fans appeared to make an easy transition to the stage (for example, the Slits, the Au Pairs, the Raincoats, and Sioux). However, as punk was absorbed into mainstream popular culture in the late 1970s, the promise of gender equality quickly evaporated and the genre tended to be more strongly identified with its male participants, particularly those who had signed to major record labels (the Sex Pistols and the Clash). Looking at the portrayal of women in fanzines and album covers, and descriptions of female performances in the press, this study will examine what went awry for female fans in their quest to move from fandom to stardom.

Dr Karen Fournier, University of Michigan

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Fan Words: Towards a New Vocabulary of Fan Theory

In 1976 Raymond Williams cemented his position as a central theorist of cultural studies with Keywords, a book that used the format of the glossary as an intellectual device to start rethinking social analysis. Word-by-word musing offered Williams a platform to both summarize the terrain of cultural theory and to extend it. His writing was based on the profound truth that academic thinking primarily takes place through language. While the academic process of ‘keywording’ has continued for pedagogic reasons in subject glossaries and text books, there seems to be precious little space to explore keywords as tools to advance theory. In this paper I will use a small handful of keywords to begin rethinking how we might study popular music fandom. The emphasis will be both on deconstructing existing words and suggesting some which have the potential to take fandom theory in new directions.

Dr Mark Duffett, University of Chester

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With(in) the Band: The Queering of the Female Fan Experience

Everyone knows what a groupie is: she’s That Girl, the fan hanging around after the gig, waiting for the nod, the chance to sleep with her chosen guy in the band. Or maybe she’s more than that: she might be his girlfriend, his wife, a woman working in the music industry. Defined narrowly or broadly, she’s there, a marker of an extreme expression of the heteronormative organization of society. The general critical debate concerns itself with the scope of the definition, not the paradigm itself. But there is another possibility, a community-centric approach to sexual desire for their favourite musicians: narrative slash fiction on the internet. Slash, same-sex relationship stories written primarily by and for women, is created to make explicit the interpersonal relationships of these celebrities. In the case of ‘bandom’ – for this paper, the fannish activity around the group of bands loosely held together by one degree of separation from Pete Wentz and/or Warped Tour in America – women are writing romantic relationships within and between the members of the bands. This essay investigates the queer act this entails. These women are not passively waiting by the stage door; they are (metaphorically) taking the members of these bands into their own queer space and using them to enact their own desires. There is no room for female agency in a woman’s interactions with the music industry – unless she finds herself a queer community.

Nancy Bruseker, University of Liverpool

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Triskaidekaphobics: R.E.M. Fans in Pursuit of the Ultimate First Listen

In this paper I discuss how the Triskaidekaphobics (Trobes), a social sub-group within Murmurs.com, an online community for fans of rock band R.E.M., assume a non-normative status, due to their temporary spoiler evading activities concerning the then forthcoming R.E.M. album. Driven by a nostalgic aim to recapture the experience of buying a new album without prior knowledge of its contents during the first listen other than officially released information, these fans endeavor to resist the new technology and instead aim to restore the pre-Internet experience of listening to and purchasing a new album as a singular event. I demonstrate how this pursuit of pleasure (pursuing the “first listen”) worked to disrupt the exchange of knowledge with other members and resulted in their precise cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the Murmurs community. Drawing on Fiske (1992), I show how this allowed Trobes to create a temporary form of inverted fan cultural capital that was distinct from the rest of the community and argue that this process places Trobes in a position between non-Trobes and “casual” fans, subsequently operating as a different, albeit temporary, interpretive community.

Dr Lucy Bennett, Cardiff University

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FAQs - Popular Music Fandom: A One Day Symposium

Which airport should I use in the UK?

If you intend to fly straight into the region, use Manchester or Liverpool airport.

Where do I find accomodation?
I'm sure you are concerned to book accomodation as soon as possible as Chester is not a huge place and I don't think there is anything available on campus. Looking for bed and breakfast rather than a hotel might increase your options. Try here or here for a range of accomodation.

If you can't find anything in Chester, you might try looking for accomodation elsewhere in the region. I'll be commuting in by train from Manchester that morning, which takes about an hour, so it is possible if you are willing to face a really early start! It might also be possible to commute in from Liverpool, or a station even nearer to Chester. You would simply have to catch a short cab ride across town once you got to Chester station. Check here or here for train times and tickets.

How do I find the campus?
Click here for directions to the main Chester campus and scroll down for a campus map to find the Binks building. It's right in the middle of the campus.

Do we speakers have to apply officially to the Symposium and pay any fees?
No - this is a little less formal than a paid conference event: there is no registration fee or forms to complete. The reason for this is that we avoid fees for facilities and red tape within our own institution. Hence we are calling it a symposium rather than a conference, but we shall be expecting you to sign in on the day so that we know that you are here to present your paper.

When must I arrive at Binks Building on the Symposium day?
We will be starting in room 013/2 at about 9.30am and running through until late afternoon.

Are we reading our papers in some order? Chronological by alphabetical order, perhaps? Or are there paper sessions that you've devised for us?
To accomodate everyone on the day we'll have to do two streams of papers (except the keynote). I'm aiming to group similar subjects and avoid putting two sessions on the same subject head-to-head. Unfortunately I probably won't be able to supply a schedule until the day itself, as I will have to arrange session chairs, etc. It will probably be just a page in length without any abstracts, so you should have a good look at the abstracts online now and decide on an ideal list of papers you especially want to see. If you miss people on the day, there is no harm in asking them for a printed version of their paper.

How long is each presentation?
Each paper will be twenty minutes long with a further ten minutes for questions from the audience. Please rehearse your paper so that we stay strictly to length as the schedule will be so tight there will not be room for over-running.

What about the audio-visual requirements for my paper?
Binks is quite well equipped and I hope we can meet them. It would be useful for you to put any powerpoints, etc, on a USB stick as this is quicker than booting up and hooking up you laptop. It also avoids connectivity issues.

Will there be any social activities on Friday night?
My own inclination with Friday night activities is to encourage them, but also to let them happen informally and spontaneously. While people from the region might be going home to see their families, there are bound to be some national and international attendees ready for a night out in Chester. If I try to organize restaurant reservations it creates work, people drop out, etc. It is very likely that we will be retiring to a local ale house after the event and probably going on for a meal. I always find that the most fun part of these events as people are no longer under the stress of presenting their papers.

Return to main page.

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The passing of Malcolm McLaren

Most of us will remember Malcolm as the provocative svengali who (mis)managed the Sex Pistols, but history will remember him as the man who catalysed a marriage between rebellion and commerce so deep that we are still feeling its shock waves. After all, putting punk aside for a moment, where would hip-hop be without Malcolm? Or the fashion world? Would Damian Hurst or the rest of the Brit art crowd even exist? He was a garrulous, effusive man of ideas - a style terrorist who understood that mutiny and exploitation could go hand in hand.

His running for Mayor of London was more a statement of provocation that a tactical moment of political pragmatism. After all, he would have been terrible in the role. In an era where Simon Cowell and Steve Jobs seem to be the biggest remaining forces in the music industry, we will remember Malcolm as the archetypal bohemian and ultimate English eccentric. Mayor of London? I'd much rather have seen Malcolm where he rightfully belonged: as Dr Who!

... Finally, check this link sent in by my Canadian friend Carol.

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