2012 EMP Pop Conference

Seth Abramson, a Grammy Award-Winning Producer, is founder of Rabbit Moon Productions, Inc. (RMP) a live music presentation and production company. He also serves as the Creative Artistic Director for the Jazz Standard, the renowned New York City jazz club owned by restaurateur Danny Meyer, and for the past nine years, has been producing events for the annual Madison Square Oval Lawn Music Series. He has held various positions at major record labels and served as agent for such jazz luminaries as Abbey Lincoln, Terence Blanchard, Roy Haynes, Mose Allison, Joe Lovano and others.

Abstract:

"S…

Kemi Adeyemi is currently pursuing her PhD in Northwestern University’s Performance Studies department. Her dissertation centers on the visual and performative production of black hipsters in narratives of gentrification, asking how black hipster bodies have been used to stage debates about race, culture and belonging in the city.

Abstract:

"Hipster Soul: Sonic Blackness and the Gentrifying City"

Scholars such as Fred Moten and Alex Weheliye have interrogated the ways in which "the sonic break" contributes to theoretical and conceptual understandings of race. There has been only limited ac…

David R. Adler is an adjunct lecturer in jazz history at the Aaron Copland School of Music, Queens College. He is a regular contributor to JazzTimes, Stereophile and other publications. As a (former) professional guitarist, David has worked in jazz, pop/rock, cabaret, gospel, musical theater and other settings.

Abstract:

"Ghost Train: Pre-Swing Big Bands and Urban Experience"

Pre-swing big bands of the late 1920s fulfilled unique roles in city life — a fact brought vividly into relief by a CD released in 2011 called Hot House Stomp: The Music of 1920s Chicago and Harlem. This album, by tru…

DJ Red Alert, one of Afrika Bambaataa’s original Zulu Nation DJs, is one of the founding fathers of Hip-Hop music and culture. He was named one of the 50 most influential people in music by Rolling Stone, and is featured in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

Abstract:

"These Are The Breaks: How a few dozen obscure records transformed the world of pop music"

As the legend goes, the children of The Bronx in the 1970s couldn’t afford extravagances like pianos, guitars and drum sets; so they turned their turntables and records themselves into musical instruments. The objective for the new musici…

Zaheer Ali is a Ph.D. candidate in history at Columbia University where he focuses on 20th century African American history, with a focus on religion, politics, and culture. He is interested in the intersections of geography and history, in particular the role of space and place in shaping the past.

Abstract:

"MPLS (Minneapolis): As Site and Sound"

By his 1982 release 1999, Prince had consolidated all the sonic elements that would come to be known as the “Minneapolis sound”—a genre-bending mix of thick layered R&B horn synths, funk bass lines and “chicken scratch” guitar, New Wave electronic …

Rustem Ertug Altinay is a doctoral student at New York University, Department of Performance Studies. His main area of research is gender, sexuality and body politics in Turkey. His article on Turkish transgender diva Bulent Ersoy was published in the Trans- Special Issue of Women’s Studies Quarterly.

Abstract:

"'In Konya she would marry a regular dude, but Serife from Konya is now a Lady': Power, Sexuality and Cities in Gungor Bayrak's Autobiographic Songs"

Evolved from Ottoman institutions and Western establishments in the Empire, the gazino emerged as a distinct type of nightclub in Tur…

Alexandra Apolloni is a doctoral candidate at UCLA, where she is writing a dissertation on British girl singers in the 1960s, and issues of race and femininity. She is also editor of Echo: a music-centered journal, and contributes to Blogging.LA, a group blog about Los Angeles.

Abstract:

"Beat Girls and Dollybirds: Envoicing Swinging London"

In the mid-1960s, London was said to be swinging. A burgeoning youth culture transformed the city into a center of music and fashion, and the moment is remembered as a time of aspiration and renewal that followed a long period of post-war recovery. Thi…

Jake Austen is an independent music writer and the editor of Roctober magazine. He is the author of TV-a-Go-Go: Rock on TV from American Bandstand to American Idol, the editor of Flying Saucers Rock n Roll (Duke, 2011), and a founder and puppeteer of the cult-favorite cable access dance show Chic-a-Go-Go.

Abstract:

"Icons of Obstinacy: The Urban Enablement of Rock 'n' Roll Delusionals"

With its rumbling music industry mechanisms and bohemian enclaves, the big city is a perfect home base for successful commercial pop artists as well as their less-chart conscious cousins in the underground. …

Marlon Bailey is an Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at Indiana University. He earned his PhD in African Diaspora Studies at the University of California-Berkeley. Currently, he is working on a book manuscript that expands his performance ethnographic study of Ballroom Culture, a Black and Latina/o queer culture in North America. Butch Queens up in Pumps: Gender, Performance, and Ballroom Culture in Detroit, is under contract with the University of Michigan Press.

Abstract:

"Sex and the City: Foundation, Eclecticism, and Memory within the Sounds of Detroit"

Panel session with Carleton…

Christine Bacareza Balance is Assistant Professor in Asian American Studies at UC Irvine. Her writing has appeared in Women & Performance, the Journal of Asian American Studies (JAAS), and the Journal of Popular Music Studies (JPMS). A member of the band The Jack Lords Orchestra, she is currently writing a book on popular music and performance in post-World War II Filipino America.

Abstract:

"Pinoise Rock"

In 1998, the first annual piNoise pop (pNp) music festival took place in San Francisco, California. Produced by immigrant Filipino musicians Jesse and Ogie Gonzales, the all-ages festiva…

Simon Balto is a Ph.D. candidate in the Departments of History and Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin, where he studies African American History and the African Diaspora throughout the Americas. His current research interests focus primarily on the relationships between policing, race, and migration in twentieth century urban America.

Abstract:

"'Every Decent Citizen': Jazz, Sex, and Policing in Postwar Milwaukee"

This paper explores two distinct but related sectors of the socio-racial landscape of working-class Milwaukee in the late 1940s and early 1950s. First, it explo…

Koushik Banerjea is a lecturer in postcolonial theory in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics. He has written extensively about popular culture, music and film for Postcolonial Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies and Theory, Culture and Society.

Abstract:

"Cities of the Dead: Soundscaping Race, Memory and Desire in a Forgotten London"

In the drab, shabby England of the late 1970s, early 1980s, its popular culture, and in particular the punk/ska musical hybrid of ‘two tone’, to riff on Michael Bracewell, ‘stood out like a sore thumb to be sucked’. The music, and live…

Billy Banks is principal owner and director of Banks Entertainment, a management consulting and production services company, and has worked for more than 30 years as a concert/tour producer, record producer tour manager, and music business management consultant. Since 1982, he has worked closely with trumpeter/band leader Wynton Marsalis on a wide variety of performance and recording projects, and established the role of Director of Production and Touring Operations at Jazz at Lincoln Center from 1994 – 2001.

Abstract:

"Slices of the Apple: Cover Charges & Late-Night Jams New York City and …

Kyle Barnett is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Bellarmine University and a research fellow at Bellarmine\'s Institute for Media, Culture, and Ethics. He studies cultural production and genre formation in the recording industry, and his research on popular music includes publications in the Journal of Popular Music Studies and the Convergence Media History anthology.

Abstract:

"Where is the City? Where is the Scene?"

City music scenes enjoyed attention from the popular media and academics in the 1980s and 1990s, but today, with the popularity of the internet, some urban spaces devo…

Zach Baron is an arts critic for the Daily and the former web editor of The Village Voice. He's written about music for Slate, Pitchfork, SPIN, and elsewhere.

Abstract:

""For Promotional Use Only" Mixtapes and the Making and Unmaking of Musical Consensus"

The 2007 arrest of DJ Drama and affiliate Don Cannon for copyright infringement was, for the hip hop world, a watershed moment. The seizure of 81,000 discs, recording gear, and various vehicles signaled to the rest of the producers, purveyors, and consumers of rap mixtapes in their physical form that this business model – illegal, but her…

Andy Battaglia is a writer in New York, where he contributes to the Wall Street Journal, The Wire, The National, Slate, The Daily Beast, eMusic, Resident Advisor, Bookforum, and several other publications. He also helps organize Unsound Festival New York, a festival of adventurous music made up of concerts and attendant talks, presentations, and so forth. More information can be found at www.andybattaglia.com.

Abstract:

"Circuits in the Grid: The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in Harlem in the '50s, '60s & '70s"

A sonic sanctuary and freewheeling lab for aural work of various k…

Lindsay Bernhagen is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University. Her dissertation, which gestures toward an expanded theory of musical subjectivity, explores the popularity of gendered musical contexts in terms of the shared musical experiences that are had therein.

Abstract:

"'Everyone here is a little weird!': Gender and Musical Intersubjectivity at the Girlz Rhythm 'n' Rock Camp"

Girls’ rock camps, which emerged in the wake of riot grrrl, are increasingly popular with more than thirty annual camps being held in the U.S. each summer. The growi…

Charlie Bertsch is Co-Editor-in-Chief at Souciant. He was Music Editor at Tikkun and ZEEK and has also written about culture and politics for The Oxford American, New Times, and the pioneering internet magazine Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life, which he helped to found back in 1992. He has taught at the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Arizona and Arizona State University.

Abstract:

"Tucson"

In the wake of the horrific shootings on January 8th, 2011 that left Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in extremely critical condition and six others dead, resi…

Andrew Bienen is the co-writer of the Academy Award winning movie, Boys Don’t Cry. He is an Associate Professor of Screenwriting at Columbia University’s Graduate Film Division and has also taught at La Femis (Paris), New York University, and the New School. He has an MFA in Screenwriting from Columbia, and an M.A. in English from the University of Virginia. He has written screenplays for Dreamworks and New Line Cinema, and served as a story consultant at Miramax Films.

Abstract:

""Treme" and the Abstract Truth: Fact and Fiction in New Orleans"

In Sidney Bechet’s memoir, “Treat It Gentle,” the late clarinetist’s real grandfather is supplanted by Omar, a made-up figure based on a folk tale, to convey truths about jazz in New Orleans. David Simon’s HBO series “Treme” is fiction, drawn from fact. That approach best serves the surreality of New Orleans, especially since the 2005 flood. Whereas Simon’s “The Wire” referenced a police wiretap on a drug ring, “Treme” plugs into an indigenous music culture that is a lifeline for a traumatiz…

Jonathan Bogart is a listener and writer from Arizona. His examination of Ke$ha was selected for inclusion in the 2011 edition of Da Capo Best Music Writing, and his writing on music history has been noted in Pitchfork and the Guardian. He blogs at jonathanbogart.tumblr.com.

Abstract:

"The Little Window in My Shanty Streets: Urban Romanticism in Latin Music between the Wars"

Carlos Gardel’s 1934 tango “Mi Buenos Aires Querido” (My Beloved Buenos Aires) was one of the signature Latin hits of the interbellum era: its conflation of the city, romanticized but not idealized, with the paramour is…

David Brackett is Associate Professor and Chair of the Musicology Program at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. His publications include the Pop, Rock, and Soul Reader: Histories and Debates and Interpreting Popular Music. He is currently completing a book on genre and identity in 20th-century U. S. popular music.

Abstract:

"Fox Trots, Hillbillies, and the Classic Blues: Categorizing the 1920s"

During the 1920s the three main categories for popular music were established that have subsequently dominated the U. S. music industry in one form or another: popular, race, and “ol…

Regina N. Bradley is a PhD candidate in African American Literature at Florida State University. Her dissertation analyzes white hegemonic privilege and race consciousness in 21st century African American literature and culture. She regularly writes for AllHipHop, Sounding Out!, and PopMatters.

Abstract:

"I Pledge Allegiance to the Block: City-scapes, Hegemonic Sound, and Blackness"

Urban social-cultural landscapes serve as an immediate and frequented framework for discussions of blacks in America. Whether a homesite for protest and resistance or, as Alain Locke suggests, an escape from th…

Leah Branstetter is a PhD student at Case Western Reserve University, where she focuses her research on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American popular music, theater music, and opera. She also serves as an editorial assistant for the Journal of the American Musicological Society and volunteers at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s Library and Archives.

Abstract:

"Little Miss Swivel Hips 1957: In Search of the 'Female Elvis'"

In 1957, seventeen-year-old Alice Faye Perkins traveled by bus from the coal mining community in rural West Virginia where she was raised to the urban Midwes…

Tom Breihan is Stereogum's Senior Writer. He was once an associate editor at The Village Voice, where he spent three years writing the “Status Ain't Hood” blog and inciting its toxic comments section. He also put in a few years as a staff writer at Pitchfork. He represents Baltimore.

Abstract:

""For Promotional Use Only" Mixtapes and the Making and Unmaking of Musical Consensus"

The 2007 arrest of DJ Drama and affiliate Don Cannon for copyright infringement was, for the hip hop world, a watershed moment. The seizure of 81,000 discs, recording gear, and various vehicles signaled to the rest of…

Daphne A. Brooks is professor of English and African American Studies at Princeton University. She is the author of Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom (Duke UP, 2006), Jeff Buckley’s Grace (Continuum, 2005), as well as the liner notes for Take A Look: Aretha Franklin Complete on Columbia and Come On and See Me: The Complete Tammi Terrell. She is currently at work on Subterranean Blues: Black Women and Sound Subcultures (Harvard UP, forthcoming).

"'One of these mornings, you're gonna rise up singing': The Secret Black Feminist History of the Gershwins' Porgy and Be…

Lori L. Brooks is assistant professor in the Program in American Culture and the Department of African American Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She has recently completed a book-length manuscript on African American men who wrote ragtime songs for Tin Pan Alley and performed in vaudeville in New York City. She is currently pursuing two projects—a history of black female comediennes during the first half of the 20th century and a study of turn-of-the-century white female “coon-shouters.”

Abstract:

"The Urban Poetics of Ragtime"

This paper theorizes what I refer to as “th…

Adrienne Brown is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Chicago. Her work analyzes the sonic and spatial dimensions of books, buildings, and forms of belonging. She is working on a book recovering the skyscraper’s central role in American social and aesthetic perception in the early 20th century. Her article on music in HBO’s The Wire was published in Criticism this summer.

Abstract:

"Rehearing Hip-Hop Automotivity"

Hip-hop’s obsession with cars can be read as one more sign of its gaudy materialism and apoliticism—its references to rims, Cadillacs, Maybachs, candy-paint,…

Danielle Brown earned a doctorate in Music from New York University with a concentration in ethnomusicology, and a specialization in the music of Latin America and the Caribbean. She is an active vocalist and cuatro player, and composes and performs jazz and Latin American and Caribbean-based musics in New York.

"'Leroy, Where Yuh Mudda Gone': Language, Gender, and the Urbanization of Trinidad Parang Music "

The twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago is well known for its pre-Lenten carnival festivities – particularly its calypso and steelband traditions. Lesser known but equally vibran…

Abstract:

"After the End of the World: Afro Diasporan Feminism and Alternative Dimensio…

Barbara Browning teaches in the Department of Performance Studies at NYU. She is the author of the academic books Samba: Resistance in Motion and Infectious Rhythm: Metaphors of Contagion and the Spread of African Culture. She is also the author of three novels (Who Is Mr. Waxman?, The Correspondence Artist, and I’m Trying to Reach You). Her chamber choreographies can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/ahnethermostfun/, and her ukulele covers can be heard at http://www.soundcloud.com/barbarabrowning/.

Franklin Bruno is the author of Armed Forces, in Continuum’s 33 1/3 series; he is currently writing a book on popular song-form for Wesleyan University Press. His criticism has appeared in The Nation, Oxford American, The Believer, and two editions of Da Capo’s Best Music Writing annual. He has released 14 albums of original songs since 1990, solo and with the bands Nothing Painted Blue and (currently) Human Hearts. His most recent release is the Extra Glenns’ Undercard (Merge).

Abstract:

"Who Put the Arrow in 'Cupid?': Hugo and Luigi's Schlock 'n' Soul"

Never household names on the order …

Ryan Bunch is a musicologist, vocal instructor and adjunct professor of music at Rutgers University-Camden, Holy Family University and the Community College of Philadelphia. His work focuses largely on musical theater with recent research projects exploring uses of multiple subjectivities in Bye Bye Birdie and The Wizard of Oz.

Abstract:

"Ease On Down the Road: Black Music and the Urban American Fairy Tale of The Wiz"

The musical The Wiz occupies an unassumingly pivotal place in the history of musical theater, cinema, and popular music in the late 1970s. Its successful run on Broadway ma…

Mark Burford is Assistant Professor of Music at Reed College. His work on European art music and popular music of the Americas has been published in various journals and edited collections. His current research focuses on the circulation and reception of black gospel singing within U.S. popular culture during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Abstract:

"Swing Low: The Rise and Fall of the Sweet Chariot"

In June 1963, Mahalia Jackson, “Queen of the Gospel Singers,” threw down the gauntlet in what some observers dubbed a “Holy War.” Dedicated efforts by the music industries to market black gospel…

Timothy Anne Burnside is a Project Researcher at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. She works closely with artists to build collections that offer accurate and rich representations of African American cultural expression. Timothy studied History, English, and Music Performance at Lawrence University.

Abstract:

"Musical Crossroads: Framing the Story of African American Music in a National Museum"

In 2015, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture will open on the National Mall in Washington, DC. One of the museum’s pe…

Justin Burton is a lecturer in music history at Rider, Rutgers, and Montclair State Universities. He specializes in posthuman hybridity in popular music, especially as it relates to black identity construction. Justin currently serves as the web editor for IASPM-US.

Abstract:

"Trillin in Harlem: The Unmistakable Crunkness of New York's A$AP Rocky"

In mid-2011, the internet, as it sometimes does, blew up—this time with buzz over a new rapper out of Harlem, A$AP Rocky. What distinguishes Rocky from previous New York rappers is the extent to which his music is permeated with the sounds and…

David Cantwell is a writer and college English professor from Kansas City, where he teaches "Literature of American Popular Music." He is co-author of Heartaches by the Number: Country Music's 500 Greatest Singles and his critical biography of Merle Haggard will be published in 2013.

"Tired of this Dirty Old City: Country Music's Freedom Problem, and Ours…"

Country music’s most frequently, fiercely expressed value since at least as far back as Merle Haggard’s “Okie from Muskogee” and right on up to your favorite Montgomery Gentry single, has been nothing less than… Freedom! Or maybe it’…

Jon Caramanica is a pop critic at the New York Times.

Abstract:

"'Rhyme Thoughts Travel At A Tremendous Speed': GZA/The Genius Discusses Liquid Swords"

In 1995 GZA released LIQUID SWORDS, the first of the solo Wu Tang Clan efforts. The album is constantly referenced among artists in the indie, electronic, and of course hip hop world as an inspiration for its eclecticism and challenge to standard ways of writing music. Pitchfork media, for example, invited GZA to perform the classic album in full at their summer festival. The GZA will discuss the album within the framework of a discus…

Paula Carino is a Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter and author. In the 1990s, she led the power-pop band Regular Einstein, and she has been performing solo since the early 2000s. Her album “Open on Sunday” was named best album of 2010 by Lucid Culture. She is the author of the book Yoga to Go (Sterling, 2004)

Abstract:

"Where is the City? Where is the Scene?"

City music scenes enjoyed attention from the popular media and academics in the 1980s and 1990s, but today, with the popularity of the internet, some urban spaces devoted to interaction around music are changing, and sometimes disappea…

Daphne Carr is the Series Editor of Best Music Writing (Da Capo 2007-present) and author of Nine Inch Nails Pretty Hate Machine (Continuum 2011). She co-founded and runs Girl Group, a listserv for and about women music journalists, the IASPM-US Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, and the EMP Feminist Working Group, and is currently a fellow at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender a Columbia University.

Abstract:

"Feminist Musicking and Educational Activism in Urban Spaces"

This roundtable discussion will explore different ways that women of and in the city promote, preserve an…

East Los Angeles native Sean Carrillo was a member of the legendary art group Asco. Together with Warhol superstar wife Bibbe Hansen, he owned and operated the respected multicultural performance space Troy Cafe. He now lives in New York City where he creates visual art writes on art and culture.

Abstract:

"Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage, A Chicana Punk Story -- a D.I.Y. "Archiverista" Conversation"

This roundtable highlights Violence Girl: East L.A. Rage to Hollywood Stage (Feral House, 2011), Alice Bag's new memoir. Violence Girl seizes the opportunity to explore within…

Matthew Carrillo-Vincent is a Doctoral Candidate in English and Gender Studies at the University of Southern California. He is completing his dissertation on the politics of male sentimentality in US popular cultures, from abolitionist literature to emo music.

Abstract:

"Ears to the Streets, Peripheral Beats: The New Social Map of Backpack Rap"

The myth of sentimentality is that it’s a white man’s game; the myth of the urban is that it isn’t. With hoodies up and headphones on, the rise of the backpack rapper at the end of the 20th century represented something of a dilemma: Listening to…

Joshua Takano Chambers-Letson is Assistant Professor in the Department of Performance at Northwestern University. He has published articles in JPMS, MELUS, TDR, Women & Performance, and Criticism. His book project, A Race So Different: The Making of Asian Americans in Performance and Law, is under contract with NYU Press.

"Mare Liberum (The Free Sea) in Karen O's Native Korean Rock"

Karen O is a rock musician of Polish-American and Korean descent, most famous as the front woman for the art-rock band The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. In the summer of 2008, she took to the stage of Brooklyn’s Union Po…

Dan Charnas, author of The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop (Penguin), is also the co-author of Def Jam: The First 25 Years of the Last Great Record Label (Rizzoli). He was VP of A&R for Rick Rubin’s American Recordings and wrote for The Source magazine.

Abstract:

"These Are The Breaks: How a few dozen obscure records transformed the world of pop music"

As the legend goes, the children of The Bronx in the 1970s couldn’t afford extravagances like pianos, guitars and drum sets; so they turned their turntables and records themselves into musical instruments. The objectiv…

Nate Chinen writes about music for the New York Times and JazzTimes. For each of the last six years, he has received the Helen Dance-Robert Palmer Award for Excellence in Newspaper, Magazine or Online Feature or Review Writing.

Abstract:

"Nice Work: Jazz Agency and the New York City Cabaret Card, 1943-1967"

When you live in New York City
You know that times are usually hard
When you live in New York City
You know that times are usually hard

To make a bad situation awful
I had to go lose my cabaret card.

Mose Allison, always a chap to cut the heart of the matter when singing the blues, o…

Erin Cho is an Associate Professor at Parsons New School, New York. Erin’s main research interests include Design marketing and Strategic management of Cultural products.

Abstract:

"Fashioning the Wave of K-Pop beyond Asia through Transnational Communities"

This paper explores the rise of Korean creative industries, notably K-Pop, and how K-Pop have been in fashion, first across, and then beyond, Asian markets into Western European and North American markets at least partly from psychological perspectives. Korea has driven a surprise emergence of creative industries in Asia. Major crea…

Robert Christgau's msn.com record blog is called Expert Witness. His Rock & Roll & column appears at The Barnes & Noble Review. He is a critic at NPR's All Things Considered. He teaches in NYU's Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music. He has published five books based on his journalism. He keynoted the first EMP and has spoken at every subsequent edition.

Abstract:

"The Original Sound of the City: How Charlie Gillett Named This Conference"

To dub this conference "The Sound of the City" is above all to pay tribute to EMP's long-awaited sojourn in Gotham. But it should also serve to remi…

Andreana Clay is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at San Francisco State University. Her recent article, “Working Day and Night: Black Masculinity and the King of Pop,” was published in the Journal of Popular Music in March and her book, The Hip-Hop Generation Fights Back: Youth, Activism, and Post-Civil Rights Politics will be released in 2012 from NYU Press.

Abstract:

"Feelin' Mighty Real: Race, Space, and Identity in the Castro"

It was once said, “if Harvey Milk was the mayor of Castro Street, Sylvester was the undisputed first lady.” Milk, the city’s first openly …

DJ Rupture/Jace Clayton is a New York based DJ, producer and multimedia sound artist. As DJ Rupture, Jace works with three turntables, on which he creates complicated mixes. He is involved in projects with artists across the European, African and Arab worlds. He has a popular blog site, and also writes for publications such as The Wire. Rupture deejays a show called "Mudd Up!" on Mondays, 7-8p.m. on WFMU.

Abstract:

""Do You Want More?" The Time and Space of Alternative Sonic Blackness"

In 1961’s “Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz,” Langston Hughes sprawled and stretched his blues across space …

Amber R. Clifford-Napoleone is an anthropologist and scholar of cultural studies, specializing in gender, sexuality and queerness in the spaces of music scenes. She is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Curator of Collections at University of Central Missouri. Dr. Clifford-Napoleone is also a member of the IASPM-US Diversity Committee.

Abstract:

"Hell Bent for Metal: A Study of Queer Fans of Heavy Metal"

Much of the theoretical and academic understanding of heavy metal relies on masculinity and heterosexuality as though they are static and immutable. Consequently, scholarship in he…

John Cline is completing his Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of Texas; his dissertation covers the development of experimental music collectives in the 1970s and 1980s, parallel to but separate from both punk and more traditional avant-garde institutions like the Kitchen in NYC. His work has appeared in The Oxford American and the Grove Dictionary of American Music, among others.

Abstract:

"The Other Side of the Garage: The Los Angeles Free Music Society and Suburbia"

The Los Angeles Free Music Society was established in the early 1970s, and consisted of a loose federation of …

Esther Clinton received her PhD in folklore from Indiana University in 2005. She has been employed in the Popular Culture department at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio, since 2006. Her wide research interests include narrative theory, gothic literature, heavy metal music, and the works of J.R.R. Tolkien.

Abstract:

"The Gothic Menace, Then and Now: Gothic Literature, Heavy Metal Music, and Moral Panics"

Early 19th-century Gothic literature and heavy metal music from the 1980s created moral panics. These genres share an aesthetic sense that includes a focus on the unc…

Mark Coleman is the author of Playback: From the Victrola to MP3, 100 Years of Music Machines and Money (Da Capo). A former senior editor at Rolling Stone, he moved to New York City in 1981 and began writing for New York Rocker and The Village Voice not long after. He still lives in New York, thirty years later.

Abstract:

"These Are The Breaks: How a few dozen obscure records transformed the world of pop music"

As the legend goes, the children of The Bronx in the 1970s couldn’t afford extravagances like pianos, guitars and drum sets; so they turned their turntables and records themselves…

Brian Coleman is the author of Check the Technique: Liner Notes for Hip-Hop Junkies (Random House/Villard). He has written for Scratch, URB, Wax Poetics, CMJ, Complex, Boston Herald, Boston Phoenix, XXL, The Source, and NY Press, among others.

Abstract:

"These Are The Breaks: How a few dozen obscure records transformed the world of pop music"

As the legend goes, the children of The Bronx in the 1970s couldn’t afford extravagances like pianos, guitars and drum sets; so they turned their turntables and records themselves into musical instruments. The objective for the new musician – The…

J.D. Considine is a critic, musician and recovering otaku. He is jazz critic at The Globe and Mail, and writes for Revolver, Bass Player and Downbeat.

Abstract:

"Tokyo Style Wars: Death metal, Shibuya-kei and Social Status in Detroit Metal City"

Kiminori Wakasugi’s manga Detroit Rock City is in many ways a standard fish-out-of-water story. Soichi Negishi, a hapless naif from rural Japan, moves to Tokyo to pursue a career in music. But instead of making poppy, fashionable music like the Shibuya-kei acts he adores, Negishi winds up performing as Krauser II, the demonic frontman for the …

Kathleen Costello is Associate Professor of Modern Languages & Cultures at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, NY. Her publications have focused on the relationship between twentieth-century Caribbean literature and Caribbean popular music, and her recent conference presentations have focused on topics such as notions of hip-hop authenticity in connection to the Cuban ex-pat group Orishas and the role of an Afro-Caribbean musical aesthetic in current music being made in Spain.

Abstract:

"Manu Chao's Sonic Embodiment of the Border: A Musical Ethics of the In-Between"

Through his use of mu…

Benjamin Court is a current graduate student in musicology at UCLA. His primary musical interests lie in the 20th century, especially popular music since the 1960s. Benjamin is also working toward his certification in Experimental Critical Theory at UCLA focusing on utopian theories and the philosophy of Alain Badiou.

Abstract:

"Feeling the Political in 'Can You Feel It?'"

Sociological readings of electronic dance music often draw political conclusions from the identity categories most closely associated with the cultures surrounding genres. In particular, scholars frequently link the b…

Del F. Cowie is a music journalist and online editor based in Toronto, Canada. He has been a member of the Polaris Music Prize jury since its 2006 inception, serving on its grand jury in 2010. He has written for CBC Music, AV Club Toronto, Vibe and XXL. He is currently an assistant editor at Canadian monthly music magazine Exclaim!

Abstract:

"Hardly Home, But Always Reppin': The Evolution of Toronto's Hip-hop Sound"
To many, the music produced and engineered by Boi-1da and Noah '40' Shebib, architects of Drake's atmospheric sound, among other associates represents the current sound of Tor…

Denise Dalphond is a doctoral candidate in Ethnomusicology at Indiana University. She conducted ethnographic research on electronic music culture in Detroit from 2008-2010. Her dissertation, titled “Detroit Players: Wax, Tracks, and Soul in Electronic Music,” documents the thriving techno, house, and electro scenes in southeast Michigan, including the African American history of electronic music in Detroit and the Midwest.

Abstract:

"Eclecticism in Detroit: Diverse Dance Party Scenes in Electronic Music"

Electronic music emerged among African Americans in Detroit during the 1970s and 1980…

Kyle Dargan is the founder and editor of Post No Ills magazine and former managing editor of Callaloo. He is a co-editor, along with Deep Cotton\'s Chuck Lighting, of the forthcoming I Have a Scream anthology. He teaches literature and creative writing at American University in Washington, D.C.

Abstract:

""Do You Want More?" The Time and Space of Alternative Sonic Blackness"

In 1961’s “Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz,” Langston Hughes sprawled and stretched his blues across space and time, using the poem as a portal to move from “the quarter of the Negroes” to Leontyne Price on the concert …

J. Martin Daughtry is an ethnomusicologist in the NYU music department. Co-editor of Music in the Post-9/11 World (Routledge 2007) and author of articles on Russian musical nationalism, intermedial adaptation, and underground dissemination of music in the USSR, he is currently finishing a monograph on the sonic dimension of the Iraq war.

Abstract:

"Evocative Objects and Provocative Actions on the Acoustic Territory of War"

A new combat helmet, designed to enhance the wearer's hearing;
A sectarian fighter tosses a homemade bomb into a Baghdad music store;
A cell phone with the Hussein-era a…

Joshua Clark Davis is a Fellow at the German Historical Institute researching how hip hop came to Europe in the 1980s. His recent article, "For the Records: How African American Consumers and Music Retailers Created Commercial Public Space in the 1960s and 1970s South," appears in the winter 2011 issue of Southern Cultures.

Abstract:

"G.I. Rap and Euro-Dance: How American Soldiers and Germans Created a Hybrid Hip Hop Culture in Cold-War Frankfurt "

This paper will examine the little-known history of how African American military personnel stationed in Frankfurt not only brought hip h…

LaRonda Davis is President of the Black Rock Coalition, a national organization founded in 1985 by guitarist Vernon Reid, journalist Greg Tate and producer Konda Mason to maximize exposure and provide resources for Black artists who defy convention. Ms. Davis is also Vice President / Associate Creative Director at Publicis.

Abstract:

"Feminist Musicking and Educational Activism in Urban Spaces"

This roundtable discussion will explore different ways that women of and in the city promote, preserve and produce radical sound(s). How do female musicians and their allies create and use mus…

Laina Dawes is the author of What Are You Doing Here? Black Women in Metal, Hardcore and Punk (Bazillion Points Books, May 2012). A music journalist, critic, and concert photographer, she writes for metal publications Exclaim! and Hellbound.ca, and is a contributing editor in the Race & Ethnicity section for Blogher.com. She resides in Toronto, Canada.

Abstract:

"'Black Metal is not for n@#$s, stupid b@#h!': Black Female Metal Fans' Inter/External Culture Clash"

Within the past three decades, thanks to the advent of music video stations and the relative ease of online technology, a cultur…

Adrienne Day is a writer, editor and proud Greenwich Village native. Day worked as an editor at Entertainment Weekly and Spin magazines, and has written for the New York Times, New York magazine, Wired, the Village Voice and City Limits, among other outlets.

Abstract:

"Occupy Greenwich Village"

As the fight over Zuccotti Park rages on, the idea of who "occupies" urban space hasn't been so hotly contested since the publication of Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities. In my presentation, I will document the evolution of a handful of vital musical spaces in NYC's Green…

Patrick Deer teaches twentieth century literature and culture in the English department at NYU. He is the author of Culture in Camouflage: War, Empire and Modern British Literature (Oxford, 2009) and a member of the Social Text editorial collective.

Abstract:

"'The Cassette Played Poptones': Punk's Pop Embrace of the City in Ruins"

The embrace of the city in ruins was a familiar rallying cry of punk music. From raucous calls for “a riot of our own” (Notting Hill Riots/The Clash, 1977), dub influenced declarations of provincial alienation “Babylon’s Burning with anxiety” (Hayes, Middlese…

Nick deKreshewo is the founder of Downstairs Records in Manhattan. A specialist in rare 45-rpm records, DeKreshewo transformed Downstairs Records in the 1970s and 1980s into the unofficial home of breakbeats, and continues operating Downstairs Records as an Internet and mail-order business.

Abstract:

"These Are The Breaks: How a few dozen obscure records transformed the world of pop music"

As the legend goes, the children of The Bronx in the 1970s couldn’t afford extravagances like pianos, guitars and drum sets; so they turned their turntables and records themselves into musical instrume…

Julia DeLeon is a PhD student in Performance Studies at NYU. Research interests include belief, self-indulgence, and queer aesthetics.

"Dance Through the Dark Night: Distance, Dissonance and Queer Belonging"

Choreographer and sound designer Trajal Harrell’s recent work, Antigone Jr., is a fictive encounter between genres, subcultures and strangers. The performance is an answer to his hypothetical provocation: “What would have happened in 1963 if someone from the Voguing dance tradition in Harlem had come downtown to Judson Church in Greenwich Village to perform alongside the early postm…

Rachel Devitt is a writer and editor who currently writes and edits predominantly in the digital media world for outlets like Rhapsody and Google Music. She also has a PhD in ethnomusicology and is working on a book about pop music in queer performance art. She plays the flute in Chicago\'s LGBT marching band (and realizes the futility of said endeavor).

Abstract:

"I Love a (Pride) Parade: Queer Community-Building, Temporary Spaces and Politicized Kitsch among LGBT Marching Bands"

Sandwiched between a flashy, Absolut Vodka-sponsored bar float and the local grocery store chain’s giant para…

Ryan Dombal is the Senior Editor at Pitchfork and lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. He once met Dipset member and mid-00s mixtape mainstay Hell Rell in person.

Abstract:

""For Promotional Use Only" Mixtapes and the Making and Unmaking of Musical Consensus"

The 2007 arrest of DJ Drama and affiliate Don Cannon for copyright infringement was, for the hip hop world, a watershed moment. The seizure of 81,000 discs, recording gear, and various vehicles signaled to the rest of the producers, purveyors, and consumers of rap mixtapes in their physical form that this business model – illegal, but …

Kirstie Dorr received her Ph.D. in Comparative Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley in 2006. Prior to her appointment at UCSD in 2009, Dr. Dorr held a postdoctoral fellowship in African American Studies at the University of Illinois and a subsequent tenure-track appointment in the departments of African American, Latina/Latino and Gender and Women’s Studies.

Abstract:

"Feminist and Queer Studies of Race in Sound"

This roundtable convenes two fields of scholarly inquiry—critical race studies and feminist theory/queer studies—to explore the following interrelated ques…

Oyebade Dosunmu holds a PhD in ethnomusicology and a certificate in African studies from the University of Pittsburgh. He has delivered papers at international conferences, and is currently editing two anthologies of African music. His research interests include music and politics, and transnationalism in music. Oyebade teaches at the University of Pittsburgh.

Abstract:

"Lagos, New York City and Transnational Afrobeat Culture"

Afrobeat emerged in the late 1960s in Lagos, Nigeria. The genre was created by Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (1938-1997), who described it as a new sound with an African per…

Sarah Dougher is an educator and musician living in Portland Oregon. She teaches courses on gender, music, poetry and women’s history at Portland State University. She also volunteers at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for girls, writes choral music, and is working on a book about tweens and music.

Abstract:

"Making Noise in the Safe Space: How Girls' Rock Camps Make Place in the City"

Girls’ rock camps were founded initially in Portland, Oregon on a rock-ist model where girls were conceptualized as generally “unsafe,” on the streets and in the mainstream music business. With a combination of Ri…

Stephen Duncombe is a professor at New York University and author and editor of six books, including Notes From Underground: Zines and the Politics of Underground Culture, Dream: Re-Imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy and, most recently, White Riot: Punk Rock and the Politics of Race. Duncombe is a life-long political activist, and presently co-director of the Center for Artistic Activism.

Jasen Emmons is the director of curatorial affairs at EMP Museum in Seattle. He has curated several exhibits, including Bob Dylan’s American Journey, 1956-1966 and Taking Aim: Unforgettable Rock ‘n’ Roll Photographs.

Abstract:

"Dim Lights, Thick Smoke, and Loud, Loud Music: How the Bakersfield Sound Saved Country Music from Itself "

In the late 1950s, country music went uptown. After years of fan unity, younger listeners had started to stray, listening to rockabilly and rock ‘n’ roll and alarming their elders. Nashville responded with a new, softer sound—sometimes called the “Chet Atki…

Zarah Ersoff is a PhD candidate in Musicology at UCLA. Her dissertation examines the relationship between musicality, aestheticism and Orientalism in Erik Satie, Maurice Ravel and Reynaldo Hahn. Her broader research interests include nineteenth- and twentieth-century opera, queer and feminist theories, and film and television music. She has given past talks on topics as diverse as glam rock movie-musicals, the politics and aesthetics of transgender vocality, and homoerotic Orientalism in Ravel’s music.

Abstract:

"Treme's Aural Verisimilitude"

Emmy-award-winning writer, director and produce…

Banning Eyre is an author, guitarist, radio producer, journalist, and Senior Editor at afropop.org. His work with the public radio series Afropop Worldwide has taken him to over a dozen African countries to research local music, especially guitar styles. He comments on world music for NPR’s All Things Considered. He is now editing a cultural biography about Thomas Mapfumo and the history of Zimbabwe.

Abstract:

"Cairo Soundscape: Revolution and Cultural Renaissance"

By the mid-20th century, Cairo was one of the world’s most productive and fervent cultural melting pots. Its cosmopolitan, mu…

Rebekah Farrugia is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism at Oakland University. Her book Beyond the Dance Floor: Female DJs, Technology and Electronic Dance Music will be published by Intellect Books in spring 2012.

Abstract:

"'The Foundation' in Detroit: Challenging Conventional Ideologies about Sex and Gender in Hip Hop"

Informed by ethnographic methods we examine a specific weekly hip hop event called “The Foundation” that has taken place every Tuesday night for nearly three years in Detroit’s midtown district. Advocating for alternate, progressive…

Kevin Fellezs is assistant professor of Music with an appointment in the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University. He earned his PhD in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz in 2004. He is the author of Birds of Fire: Jazz, Rock, Funk and the Creation of Fusion Music (Duke, 2011) and of several articles on black-Asian musical exchanges.

Abstract:

"Another Song: Contemplating Karen Carpenter's Suburban Soul Music and An Aesthetics of Mainstream Pop"

Listening to Karen Carpenter as a drummer – to take her seriously as a musician, in other words – is my…

Sean Fennessey is the editor of GQ.com and has written about music for The Village Voice, SPIN, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, The Washington Post, and others.

Abstract:

""For Promotional Use Only" Mixtapes and the Making and Unmaking of Musical Consensus"

The 2007 arrest of DJ Drama and affiliate Don Cannon for copyright infringement was, for the hip hop world, a watershed moment. The seizure of 81,000 discs, recording gear, and various vehicles signaled to the rest of the producers, purveyors, and consumers of rap mixtapes in their physical form that this business model – illegal, but hereto…

Alison Fensterstock is a music writer at the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the program director for the Ponderosa Stomp Foundation. Recent projects include co-curating the “Where They At” exhibition and oral history archive on New Orleans bounce music and the Louisiana State Museum’s “Unsung Heroes” exhibit on Louisiana R&B, rock, garage and blues.

Abstract:

"Fallen Angels: The Persistent Plotline of Woman's Ruin in Hip-Hop, Hair Metal and Beyond"

This paper will take a look at some of the popular music that, in a seemingly contradictory way, continued to embrace the depressing cautiona…

Sujatha Fernandes is associate professor of Sociology at Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY. She is the author of Cuba Represent! (Duke University Press, 2006) and Who Can Stop the Drums? (Duke University Press, 2010). Her most recent book is Close to the Edge: In Search of the Global Hip Hop Generation (Verso, 2011). She has lived, performed and done field research on hip hop in Sydney, Havana, Chicago, and Caracas.

Abstract:

"The The ? Remains: Toward a Culture-Emergent Hip-Hop Studies"

Of all forms of popular music, hip-hop is arguably the most explicit in its claims to const…

Robert Fink is Professor and Chair of Musicology at UCLA. He focuses on music after 1965, with special interests in minimalism, popular music, post-modernism, and music in Los Angeles. Ongoing projects include a study of the politics of classical music after the canon, tentatively titled DeClassified; and an edited collection on tone and timbre in popular music.

Abstract:

"'This Is Los Angeles': Sampling the Urban Jungle with Tom Brokaw (and Friends)"

Viewers who tuned in to a special NBC Nightly News report on August 15, 1989 would have seen anchor Tom Brokaw gesture at the deceptively …

Dawn-Elissa Fischer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Africana Studies at SFSU, where she teaches courses on black popular culture, information technology and visual ethnography. As a Woodrow Wilson Fellow, she is completing two manuscripts entitled Blackness, Race and Gender Politics in Japanese Hiphop and Methods to Floss, Theories to Flow: Hiphop Research, Aesthetics and Activism. She co-directs the award-winning project BAHHRS (Bay Area Hip Hop Research and Scholarship) with Dave “Davey D” Cook.

Abstract:

"Bay Area Hiphop Politics and Police"

From “Sound of Da Police” to “…

Reed Fischer is the music editor at City Pages in Minneapolis. Previously, he spent two years as the New Times Broward-Palm Beach music editor in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and he has written for Rolling Stone, Village Voice, Alternative Press, CMJ, among others.

Abstract:

"All Internet Is Local? The Meaning Of "Local Music Coverage" In The Pageview Era"

The media world's ever-speedier shift toward online content—particularly the accompanying encroachment of increasingly precise measurement tools that can give a snapshot of how many people are and aren't looking at a particular web page …

Mako Fitts is a Faculty Associate in the Department of Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University. She is the co-founder of Women Who Rock: Making Scenes Building Communities, an annual Seattle-based conference of activists, scholars, musicians and artists that promote dialogue about women, music and social justice.

Abstract:

""Third World Wide": Transnational Narratives of Resistance Amidst Seattle's Growth Machine"

“Third World Wide” is a track on Seattle hip-hop artist Gabriel Teodros’ 2007 album Lovework. It represents Seattle as a global city at the epicenter of transnatio…