where dead media meets sono-archaeology

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/106713

via this NPR blog essay

(which also directs you to this Smithsonian Folkways time-capsule of office sounds you'd have heard in a 1964 workplace

introducing a sister-concept to retromania -- xenomania

i.e. the new exoticism / loving the alien, a.k.a net-enabled music tourism

it's at MTVIgggy.com (part of MTV World)

there's stuff on the early-adopter beat-geek syndrome of chasing the latest global ghetto grooves (kudoro, coupe-decale, etc) but also a lot on retro-exotica: all the reissue labels and blogs that are digging in the crates globally, excavating the pasts of other countries

retromania-related interviews and piece-appearances-by-me

interview at Blurt online

http://blurt-online.com/features/view/1020/

NZ Herald piece on retromania in fashion

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/viva-magazine/news/article.cfm?c_id=533&objectid=10769820&ref=rss

Q/A with Rock Town Hall

http://www.rocktownhall.com/blogs/index.php/simon-says-simon-reynolds-answers-rock-town-hall-questions/

Wired.TV (Italia) with video interview in which I'm confronted by Oblique Strategies cards and then have to connect them to Retromania

http://tv.wired.it/guru/2011/11/28/simon-reynolds-oggi-alle-persone-piacciono-molto-cose-ma-non-amano-piu-nulla.html

plus only slightly about retro (glimpse the obsession dawning towards the end) - a resurrected interview for David Ensminger's blog i did around Rip It Up that he's now dug up for Pop Matters

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/151683-simon-reynolds-redux-a-conversation-from-the-past-about-post-punk/

via Mateus Potumati: Retro is such a huge phenomenon in Brazil it gets a cover story in the Sunday supplement of a big mainstream newspaper in Sao Paulo: the Agora, which I'm told is roughly equivalent to the New York Post, and is mainly read by inhabitants of the outskirts of that vast city, i.e. the lower middle class to poor


here are some images (apologies for some of them being sideways) from the Revista da Hora (Sunday color mag supplement of Agora)














apparently the retroism isn't based around Brazilian's own popular culture of the Fifties and Sixties, but North American

Mateus explains that "retro has been in the mainstream here for a good while – especially if you consider it in the broader sense, ie TV reruns, fashion and stuff.
This sort of “full impersonation of an era” kinda thing also used to be somewhat of a fad in the 90’s and over the last decade (hipsterdom!). What is truly fascinating for me is for it to be on a cover of an openly blue-collar/working class tabloid that’s famous for its violence-related headlines."

He reckons the Fifties Americana mania is connected to the (color me flabbergasted)
"the psychobilly scene, which is really strong in Brazil, especially in the South.
Curitiba even holds a parallel psychobilly Carnaval that happens as an alternative to the original samba one (Brazilian rockers generally hate Carnaval btw). This scene has always been there for as long as I remember, and it’s all about nostalgia"

Not just Ukrabilly, but Brazillabilly!?!

"Baudelaire imagined the fully contemporary artist of his own day—someone drifting through the city, bombarded with stimuli—as 'a kaleidoscope endowed with consciousness'. Today, the internet being the new city, a teeming cosmopolis of myriad precincts and neighbourhoods, you would have to update the metaphor and argue for the fully contemporary artist as a search engine endowed with consciousness."
-- Jary W. Keithmann, The Glissades of DataScape Mastery (2003)

as discussed in Retromania

"The Martinellis Bring Home A Desire System"

derived from this infomercial













what i wanna know is, is it Martinellis or Martinettis?!? Cos I put one of them in Retromania (forget which) and i hope it was the right one!

the thing Dan's put up at Soundcloud is "a stereo redux" of "a 4-channel sound installation commissioned by Anne Hilde Neset for the SONIC TANK exhibition". So much shorter than the full-length work discussed in Retromania, which was about 30 minutes long and was titled the same as the original infomercial as i recall

(re)creativity part 1089

polska retromania!

http://ivanmariavele.blogspot.com/2011/11/polska-retromania.html

bit like with Drive, chagrined that this lady hit the scene too late to be incorporated into Retromania







exquisite-looking cobblers, isn't it, Drive?

very very pretty. and completely silly

bit like Super 8, except that Super 8 is exquisite-looking cobblers, minus the exquisiteness, plus horrid CGI-excess, plus grating "dead media" referencing

rave culture meets archive fever

"retrofy your hi-fi system"



"AirCassette is a cassette player application for iPhone and iPod Touch. Choose your favourite cassette from a variety of nostalgic cassette models. The playing song information is written on the cassette label and you can also share your cassette view with friends on Facebook or via email."

more info http://aircassette.com/

since when have iPhone or iPod Touch or i-Anything been construable as "a hi-fi system" ?!


(cheers to rob cotter for tip off)

one thing you can say about them hipsters, they sure do their research...

Jason Schwartzman, in GQ Style: "The best book I read recently is Retromania by Simon Reynolds. It's fantastic. Reading Simon Reynolds is like getting in a warm bath."

http://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/style/articles/2011-11/01/gq-style-jason-schwartzman-bored-to-death-fashion-interview