Abstract
This paper narrates a contemporary image (Penrose 1959/1995) of musical entrepreneurship in Liverpool city centre in the hope of challenging nostalgic reminiscence of previous ones. It takes the almost illegal, dirty, rat infested example of Don't Drop the Dumbells and counterposes the tactic (de Certeau 1984) against a similar unsanitized space of play (Hjorth 2005) and decision (Shackle 1979) known as Eric's Club active in Liverpool during the mid 70s and early 80s. Both 'alternative', 'underground' tactics drew their symbolic presence against local formalised spaces of musical business and touristic commerce that eventually absorbed them. They created space amidst a city often backwards and inwards looking, too conservative to step away from musical entrepreneurs of the past. Though also the spaces were dirty and riddled with health and safety defying issues punters felt some strange, rare inimitable value there unmoderated by the more dominant order. People didn't complain about their clothes getting dirty, instead they tend to insert the spaces into folkloric myth. Yet despite such strong connections neither found the resources nor tactical capacity to fend off more powerful entrepreneurs and departed prematurely. Fast forward to today and the latter is being commoditized by well-resourced 'suited' business people (who perhaps never even went 'back in the day') that hope to sell the repackaged memories to unsuspecting musical tourists. Looking back at the experience of active participation (Holstein & Gubrium 1995; Freire 1990) with Dumbells in 2010 and 2011 it does then become easy to take refuge in the past. One might dream of Dumbells being another Eric's, taking its place within this backwards looking culture, commoditizing the memory when unable to conjure new images. Yet to do so likely provides us musical tourists with only a paradoxical simulation, rather than the new beginnings (Shackle 1979) redescribing history (Ricouer 1990) and inventing new lines of flight from nostalgia centred around things that no longer exist. To add concluding note, the paper disrupts the normative narrative of musical business in one of the world's most musical cities by identifying two original sources of musical memory and their potential commoditization into formalised consumer experience.
Certeau, Michael de. (1984). The Practice of Everyday Life, (Rendall, S. Trans.), University of California Press, Berkeley.
Hjorth, D. (2005). “With de Certeau on Creating Heterotopias (Or spaces for play)”, Journal of Management Inquiry, Vol. 14, No. 4, (pp. 386-398).
Holstein, J.A. & Gubrium, J.F. (1995). The Active Interview, Sage Publications, London.
Freire, P. (1990). Education for Critical Consciousness, (Ramos, M. Trans.), Continuum Publications, New York.
Penrose, E.T. (1959/1995). The Theory of the Growth of The Firm, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Ricouer, P. (1990). Time & Narrative, Vol. 1, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Shackle, G.L.S. (1979). Imagination and the Nature of Choice, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
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a.P.A.t.T. Narrative Rough Intro
Emerging late 1997, a.P.A.t.T is a collective of multimedia artists based in Liverpool whose releases and performances are a melange of musical genres, citations of commonplace musical experience, and often disrupt expectations as to how bands should behave. Difficult to categorise, their songs often juxtapose genres, insert awkward samples that are sometimes difficult to listen to, and their performances seek to disrupt audience expectations of the function and value of music just as much as they desire to create beautiful compositions.
Multiple sessions over a year and a half period were spent with a.P.A.t.T. for research purposes. Beginning late 2009, early encounters remained more formal affairs with unstructured in-depth narrative group interviews being conducted with 4 out of the 5 members. Convened in the relaxed settings of a.P.A.t.T H.Q. (the shared flat of General MIDI and Dorothy Wave- from now on G.M. And D.W. respectively), a friendship then quickly developed as the researcher offered what resources he had (i.e. time, energy and enthusiasm) and as the collective invited him to film a performance in the formal settings of Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery. It then became increasingly feasible to use active participation as a.P.A.t.T. continuously invited the researcher to film other performances and public events staged around Liverpool, an Eastern European styled death metal music video staged in a local church, and as more time was spent with members outside the context of research (most notably G.M. And D.W.), at clubs and performances, in the pub or (alas) in the Krazy House after events. Over time the researcher became a non-musical 'member' of a.P.A.t.T. and was invited to don a moniker for public use (still unconfirmed but currently operating as 'Doctrine')- at a performance in August 2010 then being kidnapped from the audience and trapped in a potato sack for the final song. Field notes were taken continuously, to the point of saturation or anxious obsession, and a.P.A.t.T. repeatedly suggested the year and half long period be documented and incorporated in their ongoing 'archiving' project. In total 26.5 hours of interview and meetings were recorded and transcribed, with much more out of hours contact and participation tempering insight gained via these more formal mediums. Round at a.P.A.t.T. H.Q. members would be busy editing video sections, learning screen printing “in between” pressing performances, drinking cups of tea and coffee, and smoking cigarettes and cannabis late into the night. Interviews and meetings with specific purpose would meld imperceptibly with everyday dialogue as members went about managing a.P.A.t.T. on a day-to-day basis. It seemed there was no option but to allow oneself to be drawn into this space of intensity and reflect on the experience of again becoming 'member' of a group of musical entrepreneurs. Data collection and membership in a.P.A.t.T. continues to develop today.
As historical context to these encounters, contact was made with a.P.A.t.T. a year and a half ago after collecting a free 'zine from FACT in Liverpool- the final issue of 'Slacker Sounds' - that had a short interview and discussed their emergence and early 'manifesto'. Other than hearing of them on the grapevine, the odd (but unacknowledged) encounter in the past, insight is also taken from secondary sources (press clippings, newspaper articles, online and offline reviews, even friend's experiences of performances), as well as from reflection on all releases available (musical: 'e.p.', 'fr(e.p.)', 'l.p.', 'Black and White Mass', and their upcoming album 'Ogidimma', 'Paul the Record', etc., and non-musical such as the a.P.A.t.T. film, their rockumentary, and so on), and regular trawls of the online space that revealed the growing intensity of a.P.A.t.T. online and offered numerous Youtube videos and other free releases and writings by the collective, citations of which pepper the narrative. The first image draws from a series of meetings organised between the researcher and a.P.A.t.T. for the purpose of rewriting the a.P.A.t.T wikipedia entry as the G.M. and D.W. imagined how they might subvert its parameters, as well as from other secondary sources and personal experience. A more structured and concentrated trajectory was recollected from this that coordinated their emergence and release of musical products and performances up to the present day. Conducted over the space of 6 months these meetings eventually culminated in the researcher writing the wikipedia entry and taking charge of its updating, the entry at first being deleted by disgruntled wikipedia users upset with the disrupted conventional format (as D.W. repeatedly inserted disorienting past tenses and as the entry was given the same treatment most things are by a.P.A.t.T.). The second image departs from a.P.A.t.T. to focus more deeply on two of it's members in the settings of 'Don't Drop the Dumbells' as they go about collaborating on organising an alternative 'creative space' in Liverpool city and hence coordinates something of the culmination of 'becoming member' in this milieu of musical entrepreneurs.