DISSONANT IDENTITIES

by Shank, Barry

• ISBN13: 9780819562760
• ISBN10: 0819562769
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-03-01
• Publisher: Wesleyan Univ Pr

Summary

Music of the bars and clubs of Austin, Texas has long been recognized as defining one of a dozen or more musical "scenes" across the country. In Dissonant Identities, Barry Shank, himself a musician who played and lived in the Texas capital, studies the history of its popular music, its cultural and economic context, and also the broader ramifications of that music as a signifying practice capable of transforming identities. While his focus is primarily on progressive country and rock, Shank also writes about traditional country, blues, rock, disco, ethnic, and folk musics. Using empirical detail and an expansive theoretical framework, he shows how Austin became the site for "a productive contestation between two forces: the fierce desire to remake oneself through musical practice, and the equally powerful struggle to affirm the value of that practice in the complexly structured late-capitalist marketplace."

Author Biography

BARRY SHANK is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of Kansas. He has performed in rock'n'roll bands in Kansas City, Los Angeles, Austin and Philadelphia.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
The Imaginary Tourist: An Introduction to Austin's Rock'n' Roll Scene	1	(19)
Constructing the Musicalized Performance of Texan Identity	20	(18)
Desperados Waiting for a Train: The Development of Progresive Country Music	38	(28)
The Collapse of the Progressive Country Alliance	66	(25)
Punk Rock at Raul's: the Performance of Contradiction	91	(27)
The Performance of Signifying Practice	118	(44)
The Inscription of Identity in the Music Business	162	(29)
The Commodification of Identity	191	(47)
The Continuing Importance of Musicalized Experience	238	(15)
Notes	253	(28)
Selected Bibliography	281	(8)
Index	289