Applications are invited for the Dave Laing PhD Scholarship funded by the Margaret Wethered Bequest

The scholarship is attached to the Institute of Popular Music, homed in the Department of Music at the University of Liverpool. It is established in honour of Dave Laing, who was closely associated with the institute, from its foundation in 1988 until his death in 2019.

Dave was a prolific writer and editor, with a wide range of interests and abilities, and his work spanned the history and breadth of British popular music studies. He was a central contributor to the leading journals and encyclopaedias in the field, and authored numerous publications, including the first work of British popular music studies The Sound of Our Time (1969), the pioneering book on punk One Chord Wonders, and two monographs on Buddy Holly. First and foremost, however, Dave was a music journalist and in this role he also broke new ground. He was a contributor to the rock magazine Cream before becoming a founding editor of Let it Rock, but he also had a strong interest in the music business. He became an early leader in the detailed and rigorous study of the music industries, authoring numerous industry reports while also acting as press officer for IFPI, deputy editor of Music Week, and founding editor of Music Business International.

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Rethinking Participatory Processes Through Music

‘Rethinking Participatory Processes Through Music’
14-15 January 2022, online event
https://musicdemocracystudydays.wordpress.com

Convened by Igor Contreras Zubillaga (British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Huddersfield) and Robert Adlington (University of Huddersfield)

Keynote speakers: Hélène Landemore (Yale University), Anna Bull (University of York), Raymond MacDonald (University of Edinburgh)

In recent times, the UK’s Brexit vote, the 2016 US presidential election, and other elections worldwide have made democratic processes the subject of unprecedented public debate. This has led to widespread questioning of the mechanisms for people’s participation in the democratic system and in political decision-making. One of the most ground-breaking inquiries into what public participation ought to look like within democracy has recently been carried out by political scientist Hélène Landemore (Yale University). In her book Open Democracy (2020), Landemore favours the ideal of ‘representing and being represented in turn’ over direct-democracy approaches. Drawing on recent experiments with citizens’ assemblies, Landemore offers a different concept of nonelectoral democratic representation.

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Working as a Musician Transnationally

Special Issue of Rock Music Studies

Guest-edited by Pierre Bataille (U. of Grenoble-Alpes), Marie Buscatto (U. of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne), Martin Cloonan (U. of Turku), and Marc Perrenoud (U. of Lausanne)

Submissions are invited for a special issue of Rock Music Studies on the topic of Working as a Musician Transnationally.

This issue addresses the question of rock and popular musicians working across borders. We would like to focus on the careers of those rock and popular musicians who have become transnational when they regularly tour in another country or tour recurrently around the world. It can be routine for musicians to play in a foreign country or region where they have an audience. In some cases, the international market may even be more important for them than their audience at home. The scope of such activities can range from a big world tour of stadiums by a megastar to a humble tour in some countries in underground venues by an alternative independent artist. Musicians may also operate transnationally via active local music networks and venues.

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Progressive Rock: Geography, Culture, Discourse

The 5th Biennial International Conference of the Progect Network for the Study of Progressive Rock
Sr Peter’s College, University of Oxford, August 27-29, 2022 (Oxford, UK)

General enquiries about the conference can be sent by email to: [email protected]

In the late 1960s, the term ‘progressive’ was used to define music that transcended the commercial ‘pop’ product, and audiences that sought the wide range of hybridized forms that emerged from that time. This blurring of boundaries was enacted by musicians who had experience performing in rock, pop, folk, blues, and soul bands, as well as those with experience or training in orchestral music, jazz, electronic and other genres. Over the past half-century numerous hybrid sub-genres have subsequently emerged; progressive rock is now a global phenomenon with significant bodies of work found on every continent.

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The Chiptune Studies Reader

We are excited to announce that we are seeking contributions for The Chiptune Studies Reader, an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed and edited volume on chiptune – or ‘chipmusic’ and ‘micromusic’ as it is also known – which we intend to publish through Oxford University Press. Rooted in the emergence of video game audio technology, and subsequently re-routed through the subversive musicality of an underground participatory culture, chiptune is a form of electronic music that has blossomed into a global phenomenon over the course of nearly four decades. Today, the umbrella term ‘chiptune’ subsumes an ever-growing plethora of (sub)genres, practices, and a heterogeneous worldwide following, whose musical output is as creatively playful and diverse as it is distinct by way of its mediation. Chiptune’s technologies, timbral palettes, and associated iconography have grown rapidly in their accessibility, playability, and ubiquity, and have become woven into pop-cultural imaginaries far beyond their own humble beginnings in the music of video games’ past.

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Progressive Rock, Metal, and the Literary Imagination

Chris Anderton and Lori Burns, editors
https://www.progectnetwork.com/call-for-papers

Progressive Rock, Metal, and the Literary Imagination will present analyses of progressive rock and metal music that reveals a striking engagement with literary texts and themes – from classic literature, mythology and poetry to science fiction, horror, and other genres. While many of the extant publications on progressive rock and metal have focused on the history of progressive rock, few have examined the ways that it intersects with the literary imagination, whether drawing on myths, legends, and stories as source material, or using storytelling modes to create new stories and worlds. Progressive rock musicians have often created concept albums based around these source materials and worlds, and they offer more than simply fantasy and escapism, with narratives and themes that comment on the social, cultural, and political milieux in which they are made.

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1st International Music Livelihoods Symposium

The Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre and/of the Creative Arts Research Institute will be holding the 1st International Music Livelihoods Symposium (online), December 6&7, 2021. Keynote speakers include Dr Nicole Canham (Monash University) author of recently-released Preparing Musicians for Precarious Work (Routledge).

The core theme of the symposium is “Educating for the Sustainable Musician in Post-Normal Times.” Postnormal times (PNT) is a concept developed by Ziauddin Sardar as a development of post-normal science. Sardar and Sweeney (2016; 2020) describe the present as “postnormal times”, “an in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have yet to be born, and very few things seem to make sense” (n.p). The term “music livelihoods” further acknowledges the complex lives of musicians involving their changing musical identities, diverse career journeys, and an external environment impacting their values and opportunities.

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Call for Proposals: Riffs Vol 6 Issue 1 (July 2022)

Guest Editor: Jenny Ann Cubin
otobiographies
a posthumous collaboration
with jacques derrida

the ear is uncanny
(large or small)
it is the most open organ.
i tell my life to my self
(i recite and recount)
but become what i am
through the ear i borrow
(through the ear you lend).
we proceed
seeking out the edges
(the inner walls, the passages).
these labyrinths come down
to the ear you hear me with
(to the ear I hear you with).
we recite and recount
and become what we are.

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Popular Music, Populism and Nationalism in Contemporary Europe

University of Oldenburg (Germany), 07–09 April 2022

Organisation: Prof. Dr. Mario Dunkel, Reinhard Kopanski, Simon Wehber (University of Oldenburg; Faculty III; Department of Music).

Deadline for submitting proposals: 15th November 2021

It is undisputed that the recent rise of populist-nationalist and far-right parties poses a challenge to democracies, not exclusively, but also in the European Union. However, “populism’s toxic embrace of nationalism,” as Lawrence Rosenthal calls it, is more than a party-political or economic phenomenon. It also has a cultural dimension, which remains largely unexplored. Regarding music as a ubiquitous cultural practice, this conference addresses this cultural dimension from three music-oriented perspectives:

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